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Palladius of Helenopolis Demetrios S. Katos Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199696963 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696963.001.0001
Title Pages Source: Palladius of HelenopolisThe Origenist Advocate General Editors Gillian Clark Andrew Louth (p. ii ) THE OXFORD EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES series includes scholarly volumes on the thought and history of the early Christian centuries. Covering a wide range of Greek, Latin, and Oriental sources, the books are of interest to theologians, ancient historians, and specialists in the classical and Jewish worlds. Titles in the series include: Ambrosiaster's Political Theology Sophie Lunn‐Rockliffe (2007) Coptic Christology in Practice Incarnation and Divine Participation in Late Antique and Medieval Egypt Stephen Davis (2008) Possidius of Calama A Study of the North African Episcopate in the Age of Augustine Erica T. Hermanowicz (2008) Justinian and the Making of the Syrian Orthodox Church Volker L. Menze (2008) The Christocentric Cosmology of St Maximus the Confessor Torstein Theodor Tollefsen (2008) Augustine's Text of John 22.1.2012 19:58
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Patristic Citations and Latin Gospel Manuscripts H. A. G. Houghton (2008) Hilary of Poitiers on the Trinity From De Fide to De Trinitate Carl L. Beckwith (2008) The Easter Computus and the Origins of the Christian Era Alden A. Mosshammer (2008) The Letters of Jerome Asceticism, Biblical Exegesis, and the Construction of Christian Authority in Late Antiquity Andrew Cain (2009) Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and the Transformation of Divine Simplicity Andrew Radde‐Gallwitz (2009) The Asceticism of Isaac of Nineveh Patrik Hagman (2010)
(p. iv ) Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Demetrios S. Katos 2011 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker)
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First published 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Library of Congress Control Number: 2011941291 Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid‐free paper by MPG Books Group, Bodmin and King’s Lynn ISBN 978–0–19–969696–3 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2011. All Rights Reserved. Under the te PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/page/privacy-polic
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Preface Source: Palladius of HelenopolisThe Origenist Advocate This book offers a comprehensive assessment of the life and thought of Palladius of Helenopolis (c.363–430). Palladius' two works, the Dialogue on the Life of St John Chrysostom and the Lausiac History, have long been mined for their wealth of information concerning the controversy leading to the demise of John Chrysostom and the burgeoning movement of Christian asceticism. These sources are also key witnesses to the lives and activities of notable late antique Christian personalities such as John Chrysostom, Theophilus of Alexandria, Evagrius of Pontus, Melania the Elder, Isidore the Presbyter, and the Tall Brothers. Despite the extensive research conducted in recent years on these topics and individuals, Palladius has largely been ignored by contemporary scholarship. His role in the Johnite controversy is not fully understood, and the full extent of his indebtedness to his ascetic colleagues and their common spiritual tradition has not been explored. This book examines his role as an advocate on behalf of John Chrysostom, and as a promoter of his ascetic colleagues to the imperial court. It also explores his theological dependence upon his mentor Evagrius of Pontus, and upon the broader theological legacy of Origen. What emerges from these pages is a self‐portrait, rather than a polemicist's caricature, of an Origenist at the turn of the fifth century who has profoundly influenced Christian history, hagiography, and piety for nearly 1,600 years. PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2011. All Rights Reserved. Under the te PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/page/privacy-polic
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Acknowledgements Source: Palladius of HelenopolisThe Origenist Advocate It is a happy occasion when one has the opportunity to thank those who have helped in the completion of such an undertaking. My happiest memories of this project are associated with the individuals who took the time to listen, read, and reflect upon the material presented here, and it is both an obligation and honor to acknowledge them by name. The roots of this book lie in a dissertation completed at the Catholic University of America, the topic having been recommended to me by Robin Darling Young, now of the University of Notre Dame. Her interests in Evagrius of Pontus spurred her curiosity in the work of his main biographer, and she has championed the importance of Palladius for years. I am pleased finally to present her with this book, which I hope in some measure will satisfy her interests and vindicate her convictions. Her bright example of rigorous scholarship and Christian conviction has been an inspiration to me for many years, and her sage counsel has been my constant companion from our first seminar on early Christian asceticism to the final stages of preparing this book for production. Thanks are also due to William E. Klingshirn and David W. Johnson, SJ, who served as readers on my committee and helped shape my thinking in the earliest stages of this project. This book, however, is different in scope and purpose from the original dissertation from which it sprang, and its transformation would not have been possible without the institutional support I received from various sources. I am indebted to the Association of Theological Schools and The Henry Luce Foundation, Inc., which granted me a year as a Henry Luce III Fellow in Theology. For their dedication to the nurturing of theological scholarship, many thanks are due to Daniel O. Aleshire, Stephen R. Graham, Carol E. Lytch, Frances Pacienza at ATS, to Michael F. Gilligan and Lynn Szwaja at the Luce Foundation, to the members of the Luce Fellows Advisory Committee, and to my Luce Fellows classmates. Funding was also awarded by the S. Gregory Taylor Fund, administered by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, and I thank His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of America and His Grace Bishop Savas of Troas for their support. Hellenic College and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology has been my institutional home now for many years, and I am especially grateful to President Revd Nicholas C. Triantafilou, Revd Dr Thomas FitzGerald, and Dr Lily Macrakis for their encouragement and assistance in securing the Luce fellowship
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and granting a leave of absence. Holy Cross had also awarded me a year as a Fellow‐in‐Residence when I was writing the dissertation that served as the impetus for (p. x ) this book. My part‐time association with Boston College proved particularly fortunate in helping me obtain research and library privileges. In this regard, special thanks are due to Kenneth Himes, OFM, Francis P. Kilcoyne, Robert Daly, SJ, Richard J. Clifford, SJ, and the wonderful library staff of the School of Theology and Ministry, led by Esther Griswold, that welcomed me as one of their own for a year. Happiest of all the new associations that resulted from working on this book are those with Norman Russell and Wendy Mayer. Their interest in John Chrysostom, the Origenist controversy, and Theophilus of Alexandria helped me in remarkable ways, sustained my own interest in the topic, and spurred me to explore it in new ways. They have supported this project by reading proposals, listening to papers, reading drafts, and writing recommendations, and I value greatly their time, ideas, comments, and encouragement. Their enthusiasm and eagerness for the project drove me on to completion. Their generosity and kindness have been inspiring and I hope to emulate them. I am also grateful to all who fielded questions related to this book on topics ranging from the technical to the general, among whom were the Very Revd John Behr, Daniel F. Caner, A. M. Casiday, Brian E. Daley, SJ, George Demacopoulos, Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Malcolm Heath, Caroline Humfress, Margaret M. Mitchell, Revd Chrysostomos (John) Nassis, Aristotle Papanikolaou, Timothy Patitsas, Revd Eugen J. Pentiuc, James C. Skedros, and Tim Vivian. I also thank the many members of the Boston Patristics Society, too many to mention here by name, who not only sat through my presentations, but also gave me their time before, after, and between meetings. As I searched in vain for a cover image, I was rescued by the Very Revd Dr Joachim Costonis, Director of the Archbishop Iakovos Library at Hellenic College and Holy Cross. He suggested and located a rarely reproduced image of St John Chrysostom being led into exile, found in the Menologion of Basil II (Vaticanus Graecus 1613, fol. 178, reprinted here with permission); it is a particularly appropriate image not only because the event was central to Palladius' narration in his Dialogue, but because it was the incident that prompted his advocacy on John's behalf. Special thanks are due to editors Andrew Louth and Gillian Clark for accepting this book for publication in their series, to Tom Perridge, commissioning editor, and to the external reader whose eagle eye for all matters Evagriana saved me from errors of both fact and judgment. I would also like to acknowledge the permission granted by the respective publishers to include material in these pages revised from the following articles: ‘Socratic Dialogue or Forensic Debate? Judicial Rhetoric and Stasis Theory in the Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom’, Vigiliae Christianae 61 (2007): 42–69; ‘Humility as the Harbinger of Imageless Prayer in the Lausiac History’, St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly (2007): 107–21; and ‘Origenists in the Desert: Palladius of Helenopolis and the Alexandrian Theological Tradition’, American Benedictine Review, 56:2 (June 2005): 167–93. (p. xi ) My extended family has been a support and inspiration towards the completion of this book, and I thank them all, though I mention here by name only my parents, Stephen and Anna Katos, and my wife's parents, Anthony and Efthemia Zervoglos. Above all, I thank my wife Christina who has been my own advocate for years, and whose patience and encouragement made this possible. I am most indebted to her and our children, who provided me with many happy diversions from this project, and I thank them from my heart. This book is dedicated to the memory of our first daughter, Anna. Brookline, Massachusetts 27 January 2011 Translation of the Relics of St John Chrysostom PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2011. All Rights Reserved. Under the te PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/page/privacy-polic
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Abbreviations Source: Palladius of HelenopolisThe Origenist Advocate AB Analecta Bollandiana (Brussels, 1882–) ACO Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, ed. E. Schwartz and J. Straub (Berlin, 1914–) ANF The Ante‐Nicene Fathers, ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (Buffalo: Christian Literature, 1885–96; repr. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951–6; repr. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994) ASE Annali di storia dell'esegesi (Bologna, 1984–) Aug Augustinianum (Rome, 1961) BLE Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique (Toulouse, 1877–) Byzantion Byzantion. Revue internationale des Etudes byzantines (Brussels, 1924–) CCL Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina (Turnhout, 1953–) CCG Corpus Christianorum. Series Graeca (Turnhout, 1977–) CF Classical Folia (New York, 1959–79) CM Classica et Mediaevalia (Copenhagen, 1938–) CPh Classical Philology (Chicago, 1906–) CQ 22.1.2012 20:00
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Classical Quarterly (Oxford, 1907–45; 1951–) CSCO Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium (Paris and Louvain, 1903–) CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (Vienna, 1865–) CT Codex Theodosianus, ed. P. Krueger, P. M. Meyer, T. Mommsen (Berlin, 1923–6) DACL Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie (Paris, 1907–53) DHGE Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastique (Paris, 1909–) Dial. Dialogus de vita S. Joannis Chrysostomi, ed. Anne‐Marie Malingrey, Palladios: Dialogue sur la vie de Jean Chrysostome, SC 341–2 (Paris: Cerf, 1988). Citations include chapter and line numbers; the English translations provided are by Robert T. Meyer, Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom, Ancient Christian Writers 45 (New York: Newman Press, 1985), often modified. DOP Dumbarton Oaks Papers (Washington, D.C., 1941–) DSp Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique (Paris, 1933–) DTC Dictionnaire de théologie catholique (Paris, 1903–70) EEC Encyclopedia of the Early Church (New York, 1992) FC Fathers of the Church (New York, 1947–) GCS Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller (Leipzig, 1897–) (p. xvi ) GRBS Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies (Durham, NC, 1959–) HL Historia Lausiaca. Ed. Cuthbert Butler, The Lausiac History of Palladius: A Critical Discussion Together with Notes on Early Egyptian Monachism, Text and Studies VI, 1–2, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898, 1904; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1967). Citations include page and line numbers in Butler's edition; the English translations provided are by Robert T. Meyer, Palladius: The Lausiac History, Ancient Christian Writers 34 (Westminster, MD and London: Newman Press, 1965), often modified. HThR Harvard Theological Review (Cambridge, MA, 1908–) JECS Journal of Early Christian Studies (Baltimore, 1993–) JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies (London, 1880–) JThS Journal of Theological Studies (Oxford, 1899–1949; 1950–) Lampe G. W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961) LSJ Henry George Liddell et al., A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1996) MSR Mélanges de Science Religieuse (Lille, 1944–) Muséon Le Muséon Revue d'Etudes Orientales (Louvain 1882 1915; 1921 ) 22.1.2012 20:00
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NPNF A Select Library of Nicene and Post‐Nicene Father of the Christian Church, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (Buffalo: Christian Literature, 1887–94; repr. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952–6; repr. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994). OCA Orientalia Christiana Analecta (Rome, 1935–) OCP Orientalia Christiana Periodica (Rome, 1935–) PO Patrologia Orientalis (Paris, 1903–) PG Patrologiae cursus completus, series Graeca PL Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina PW Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, ed. G. Wissowa et al. (Stuttgart, 1893–) RAM Revue d'ascétique et de mystique (Toulouse, 1920) RBen Revue Bénedictine (Abbaye de Maredsous, 1890–) REAug Revue des Etudes Augustiniennes (Paris, 1955–) RecAug Recherches Augustiniennes, Supplément à Revue de Etudes Augustiniennes (Paris, 1958–) RecSR Recherches de science religieuse (Paris, 1910–40; 1946–) RHE Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique (Louvain, 1900–) SC Sources Chrétiennes (Paris, 1941–) SP Studia Patristica, in Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur (Berlin, 1957–) (p. xvii ) StudMon Studia Monastica (Barcelona, 1959–) SVTQ St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly (Crestwood, NY, 1969–) TU Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur (Leipzig and Berlin, 1882–) VChr Vigiliae Christianae: A Review of Early Christian Life and Language (Amsterdam, 1947–) ZKG Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte (Stuttgart, 1877–) ZKTh Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie (Vienna, 1877–43; 1947–) ZNTW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche (Berlin, 1900–42; 1949–) Abbreviations of titles for works by Greek authors follow Lampe or LSJ; those of Latin authors follow SBL Handbook of Style. (p. xviii ) PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2011. All Rights Reserved. Under the te PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/page/privacy-polic
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Introduction Chapter: (p. 1 ) IntroductionPalladius of HelenopolisThe Origenist AdvocateDemetrios S. Katos Source: Author(s): DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696963.003.0001
Abstract and Keywords The introduction states the premise for this study, noting the irony that Palladius' works have been increasingly mined for historical information concerning late fourth and early fifth century Christian controversies and personalities, yet he has been largely ignored as a subject of study per se. This chapter discusses briefly Palladius' contribution to Christian literature and history, the significance of his work for contemporary scholarship, the relation of this book to contemporary scholarship, and it concludes with a summary of each chapter of the book. It also clarifies the use of the terms Origenist and Origenism in this study. Keywords: Palladius, scholarship, summary, Origenist, Origenism
It is one of the many ironies of history that when the works of Origen of Alexandria were being hurled into the flames, Palladius' Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom remained unperturbed in the cool of monastery libraries, even though it recounted the unjust persecution of Origenist ascetics at the turn of the fifth century. Similarly, while the works of Evagrius of Pontus were being destroyed or attributed to other authors, Palladius’ Lausiac History continued to be eagerly copied, translated, and disseminated, even though it fondly narrated Evagrius' life and promulgated many of his ideas. Despite the significance of the Dialogue and the popularity of the History, its author never enjoyed a very good reputation in the church. In his own day, he was accused at a council of being an Origenist, and his support for John Chrysostom cost him his position as bishop of Helenopolis in Bithynia and eventually led to his banishment and imprisonment. For centuries Palladius' contributions went unacknowledged in both church and academy. Only two manuscripts of his Dialogue have survived, which suggests that it was soon forgotten by subsequent generations, even though his
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account of John as an innocent victim of ecclesial machinations was incorporated into a hagiography that later became the basis of John's veneration in the eastern tradition. For most of the twentieth century, historians considered the Dialogue too partial to be trustworthy. On the other hand, the Lausiac History, which recorded the deeds and maxims of ascetics, proved to be very popular with audiences. It was soon translated into Latin and Syriac, and eventually helped spawn a new genre of apophthegmatic literature. Palladius, however, probably died too soon to see its success, and subsequent recensions of the work obscured his original contribution. To this day the Lausiac History remains prescribed reading in the matins service on the first day of Lent in the Eastern Orthodox Churches, and many of its subjects have been incorporated into the liturgical calendar. The church, however, never canonized Palladius. In fact, a suspicion of heresy hung over his head like a dark cloud through the middle ages and into the early modern period. Adding insult to injury, modern scholars dismissed the History as plagiarized fantasy. (p. 2 ) Worse still, they rarely attributed either the Dialogue or the History to a single author, let alone to Palladius. In recent decades, however, Palladius' reputation has improved, particularly in the academy. The seeds for his rehabilitation were sown in the beginning of the twentieth century with the publication of a critical edition of the History, and this was soon followed by one of the Dialogue.1 Since the 1960s, few have doubted that the bishop of Helenopolis was their common author.2 Both the Dialogue and the History have become valued sources in the study of the history and culture of the late antique Mediterranean world, particularly in the areas of biography, asceticism, and pilgrimage. A revival of interest in Origen and later Origenists also served to further interest in Palladius as an author and thinker. His association with Evagrius of Pontus, Rufinus of Aquileia, John Cassian, Melania the Elder, and the Tall Brothers has become a badge of honor, not of shame. Yet despite this rediscovery of his significance, Palladius remains an elusive figure. There has been no comprehensive study of him, even though scholars have increasingly relied upon his work.3 There has been a surge of scholarly and popular interest in Evagrius and John Chrysostom, but since the 1980s relatively little has been written about Palladius who informs us about both.4 There have been many constructions, both ancient and modern, of ‘Origenism’, but none of Palladius' theology, even though he is the sole surviving voice (p. 3 ) from among those accused as Origenists in 403 at the Synod of Oak.5 As such, he is an important witness to the Origenist controversy of the early fifth century who has been largely ignored. This book demonstrates that Palladius was profoundly influenced by his association with other Origenist ascetics, and that he devoted his literary career to advocating on behalf of his colleagues and to promoting their theology. This book offers a new reading of the Dialogue's genre and purpose by demonstrating that it was shaped and formed by the principles of judicial rhetoric similar to those used in courtrooms. It argues that the History, which rather broke conventional literary rules and helped spawn a new Christian genre, was also intended to advance the reputations of his colleagues before the imperial court. In both of these works, Palladius was a forceful voice speaking on behalf of his clients or their theology. In this regard, this book also demonstrates that Palladius borrowed much from Origen and Evagrius, even if his theology bears little resemblance to the Origenism of polemicists such as Theophilus, Epiphanius, or Jerome. Whereas much of the contemporary literature on Origenism has focused on Origen's notions of the subordination of the Son to the Father, the origin of creation, and the pre‐existence of souls, such ideas bespeak the preoccupations of anti‐Origenist polemicists and they obscure from our view the main concerns of fifth‐ century Origenists such as Palladius, whose attention was directed toward the training of the mind through physical asceticism and the reading of Scripture, the direct contemplation of God in prayer, and a vigorous defense of both God's providence and human freedom. Although he was not unique in this regard, Palladius promoted Origen's legacy in such a way that was easily accommodated to subsequent doctrinal orthodoxies, and as a result he has had an influence on Christian historiography and spirituality for many centuries. He deserves at least some of our attention if for no other reason than this last point. The first half of the book is devoted to Palladius' ascetic and episcopal career, particularly to his role as John Chrysostom's advocate. Chapter 1 chronicles his life from his early days as a monk in Palestine, through the (p. 4 ) years he spent in Egypt, to his labors as bishop of Helenopolis on behalf of John. Throughout this period Palladius moved among the most eminent ascetics and bishops of his day—Evagrius of Pontus, Macarius of Alexandria, Melania the Elder, Rufinus of Aquileia, John Chrysostom, Didymus the Blind, John Cassian, Theophilus of Alexandria, Olympias, Melania the Younger, Jerome, and probably even Nilus of Ancyra—most of whom have been the subject of monographs on late antique Christianity. This chapter, however, turns the reader's attention to
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Palladius himself, who begins to emerge from the shadows not as some mere peripatetic monk, his own preferred self‐portrait, but as a pugnacious ecclesiastical statesman who passionately supported the causes of his network in the controversies of his day, and who sacrificed much for his ideals and associates. This chapter also lays the groundwork for the second half of the book, which is devoted to Palladius' thought, by demonstrating that his career was forged and shaped by Origenist ascetics and clerics. The chapter concludes with an account of Palladius' banishment and imprisonment in Syene, near the first cataracts of the Nile, and a discussion on the provenance and date of the Dialogue. The second chapter demonstrates that Palladius wrote his Dialogue as an advocate pleading a case on behalf of his client. Whereas scholarship has generally treated the Dialogue as either history or biography, this chapter examines its numerous forensic elements and its overall structure and organization, to demonstrate that it is better understood as a legal argument and defense of John that was written in accordance with the principles of late antique judicial rhetoric. This chapter also offers a detailed rhetorical analysis of the most endearing part of the Dialogue, the narration of John's life, which has shaped the image of John Chrysostom in both church and academy. Although the Dialogue discussed at great length the early Origenist (or Anthropomorphite) controversy, this analysis reveals that Palladius had never intended for this controversy to be understood as the cause of John's demise. Most importantly, this chapter reveals that the author subordinated all narrative elements of the Dialogue to the argumentation that is at the very heart of the Dialogue, even though the significance of this argumentation has been ignored or even dismissed by most scholarship. This chapter extends the work of Florent van Ommeslaeghe who first challenged our reading of the Dialogue on the basis of the funeral oration of Ps.‐Martyrius, as well as the work of Jill Harries, Malcolm Heath, and Carolyn Humfress in reclaiming the significance of forensic culture for the literature and thought of late antiquity and early Christianity.6 (p. 5 ) Chapter 3 analyses the rhetoric of the arguments used by Palladius to defend John by applying the principles of late antique stasis, or issue, theory. Stasis theory comprises tactics and strategies of argumentation, and it was a keystone of late antique rhetorical training. Stasis theory reveals that Palladius fully recognized the gravity of John's numerous violations of episcopal protocol, and that he even admitted some of John's character flaws. Despite his partiality to John, Palladius did not paint an ideal portrait of him as some have claimed. This chapter builds upon the recent recovery of issue theory in late antique rhetoric by Malcolm Heath, upon Wendy Mayer's challenge to Palladius' portrait of John as an innocent victim of ecclesiastical machinations, and upon Norman Russell's rehabilitation of Theophilus of Alexandria as a bishop sincerely committed to canonical order in the church.7 This chapter, however, also reclaims the historical value of the Dialogue, which has been challenged by many on account of its bias towards John, by arguing that in some respects Palladius was right to argue that John was not deposed on account of any particular administrative error or doctrinal deviance. Such routes of prosecution were rigorously pursued, but they failed. The case against John was one in which the sum was truly greater than its parts. John's actions, character, and demeanour had generated implacable resentment among the elite and clergy of Constantinople. They found him intolerable and sought to remove him, even if there was no legally compelling charge that merited such action. The remainder of the book is devoted to Palladius' Lausiac History (henceforth HL) and his theology. Chapter 4 posits that Palladius did not write his HL to wax nostalgic about a monastic golden age, but to construct a model asceticism that promoted many of his deceased Origenist associates as exemplars of the spiritual life to Lausus and the imperial court. Although many have believed that the HL was written in a conciliatory tone, and indeed it does appear on the surface to be free of the Dialogue's rancour, this chapter argues that the simmering, longstanding animosity between Jerome and Palladius had boiled over once again just before the composition of the HL, particularly when Jerome criticized him and other Origenists in his anti‐Pelagian tracts, and that consequently Palladius struck back at his opponent in the HL.8 He (p. 6 ) openly insulted Jerome, and also praised as paradigms of the spiritual life many of the ascetics whom Jerome had accused of being Origenists. Many modern scholars have been interested in seeing how the HL muted its Origenist inheritance, whereas I argue that it served as an apologia on behalf of Origenists and their ascetic program. It is plausible that the court would have been receptive to such a strategy, because Origen still had many admirers in the early fifth century and he had not been universally censured. Chapter 5 explores the dynamics of Palladius' model asceticism and its indebtedness to Origen and especially Evagrius.9 What we find is an adaptation of Evagrius' system, which posited that the spiritual journey began with
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physical asceticism and progressed to the contemplation of God in prayer. Palladius relied upon Evagrius for his understanding of the struggle against evil thoughts and the attainment of apatheia, but he also possessed a detailed knowledge of Origen's biblical commentaries and interpretation. This chapter concludes by examining Palladius' attention to contemplation and ecstatic prayer, and suggests that the practice of imageless prayer was an expression of complete human receptivity to divine life.10 Butler's groundbreaking work from the early twentieth century provides the foundation for both chapters 4 and 5, but as modified by the textual and source‐critical insights of Gabriel Bunge and Adalbert de Vogüé, who have argued that the HL was in fact a revision of a previous, lost work of Palladius.11 In the ongoing debate about how Evagrius should be interpreted, this book corroborates some of the interpretations of Bunge and others who consider many of Evagrius' spiritual practices as part of a broader Catholic and apostolic tradition.12 (p. 7 ) Human freedom and divine omnipotence were two hallmarks of Origen's legacy, and Chapter 6 demonstrates Palladius' conceptual and linguistic affinities with this ancient tradition.13 Palladius borrowed from Origen many key ideas concerning free will, the cause of evil and suffering, and the value of providential abandonment. In these respects, Palladius differed sharply from Jerome, but he closely resembled his contemporaries Evagrius, Rufinus, and Cassian. Whereas Jerome believed that this theodicy presupposed pre‐existent souls and multiple creations, this chapter argues that it did not. It posits that Palladius based his ideas upon an anthropological and cosmological foundation that was indeed developed by Evagrius, but which was amenable to the orthodoxy of his day. Are these tenets truly Origenist? This immediately raises the question of what is meant by the term. Similarly Origenism is as problematic a term for describing theology of the third and fourth centuries as ‘Gnosticism’ is for theology of the first and second centuries. Some explanation, therefore, of my own usage is required here. In the fifth century, many of the individuals studied in this book were labeled Origenists to accuse them of doctrinal heterodoxy. I have already noted that was the case with Palladius no later than 403. While fifth‐century usage partly justifies my adoption of the term to designate many of these same individuals, especially Palladius and his immediate circle of mentors and friends, my primary reason for using the term is that it has become a useful convention in the contemporary scholarly literature to signify those who openly cherished Origen's theological legacy, or who borrowed significantly from him, even as accusations for doing so started being leveled against them. This does not imply a uniform ‘Origenism’ among them (more on that in a moment), but it does signal some common traits that differentiated them from their peers. Needless to say, the epithet no longer carries any pejorative connotation among the presumed audience of this book. Although I freely use the term Origenist throughout this book, I am far more reserved in my use of the term Origenism for several reasons. To my knowledge, it is not used in the primary sources examined in this study, and in much (but not all) of the modern literature it is very closely identified with the theology reflected in the condemnations of Origen and Evagrius. It is unfortunate that the term has become so narrowly defined, because there is clearly a need for a broader term signifying a more general dependence upon Origen, a term that could encompass various theological traits and themes derived from Origen and found in the works of the various Origenists, and which were not the object of condemnation in later centuries. The newly minted ‘Origenian’ is (p. 8 ) increasingly used to this end in some of the scholarly literature. In any event, both terms signify a diffuse and variegated phenomenon; they are not rigid categories in a Linnean taxonomy, but a useful shorthand to help distinguish between ideas that were characteristic of Origen and those that were not. The context should suffice to differentiate whether Origenism is being used in a narrow sense connoting a charge of heresy or ideas of Origen that were deemed heretical, or whether it is being used in the more general sense to connote Origen's influence or inspiration, both broadly conceived. Nevertheless, I generally avoid the term, and throughout the main body of the book, in which most of the narrative is anchored in the ancient literature, I have restricted the term to denote heresy, appearing as it does mostly in instances where individuals were accusing others of, or were accused of, doctrinal heresy associated (rightly or wrongly) with the teachings of Origen. That said, there have been many studies demonstrating the variety of ‘Origenisms’ in the fourth century, and perhaps this book suggests yet one more example. Clearly by now this must be understood in the broadest sense of a theology inspired by that seminal, third‐century Christian thinker, and not in the narrow sense of doctrines associated with the sixth‐century condemnations. There is no evidence in Palladius of an Origenism that subordinated the Son to the Father, or which posited pre‐existent souls, or which denigrated human nature and material creation. What we find
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is a Christian tradition that cherished the capacity of individuals to cultivate virtue and strive toward a contemplation of God. It was a tradition that rested upon a robust optimism concerning human self‐determination and free will. Palladius borrowed freely from Origen and from other devotees of Origen. He may not have been original or creative to the same degree, but he broadens our understanding of Origenists and, yes, of Origenism in the late fourth and early fifth century by demonstrating that the more problematic dimensions of Origen's thought (that is, problematic for subsequent orthodox Christian theology) were not sine qua non elements of that tradition. To argue from silence and suggest that these ideas lay beneath the surface of his works is disingenuous. It is far more plausible to argue that Palladius had no need for pre‐existent souls or universal restoration. His work and thought are coherent and integral without them, and as we shall see in the discussion on theodicy and human freedom, it might also be plausible to argue that he rejected them. Palladius was among the last of his era to express openly his admiration for Origen, which he did even after having been charged as an Origenist at a council. In this regard, he appears exceptional and so it behoves us to read him. It might be misguided, however, to overemphasize this point, because his literary career was primarily devoted to advocating on behalf of his friends. I do believe, however, that he would have been very gratified to know that his own theology sheds light today on the thought of his close associates who have been silenced by the passage of time. With this final inducement, let us begin. Notes: (1) Cuthbert Butler, ed., The Lausiac History of Palladius: A Critical Discussion Together with Notes on Early Egyptian Monachism, Text and Studies VI, 1–2, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898, 1904; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1967); P. R. Coleman‐Norton, ed., Dialogus de vita S. Joannis Chrysostomi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928). Both of these were later revised, although not significantly: G. J. M. Bartelink, Palladio: La Storia Lausiaca, Vite dei Santi 2 (n.p.: Lorenzo Valla, 1974); Anne‐Marie Malingrey, ed., Palladios: Dialogue sur la vie de Jean Chrysostome, Sources Chrétiennes 341–2 (Paris: Cerf, 1988). (2) With the very vocal exception of René Draguet, Les formes syriaques de la matière de l'Histoire Lausiaque, 2 vols., CSCO 390, 398 (Secrétariat du CorpusSCO: Louvain, 1978). (3) See for example, Gillian Cloke, ‘This Female Man of God’: Women and Spiritual Power in the Patristic Age, AD 350–450 (London: Routledge, 1995); Georgia Frank, The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000); Daniel Caner, Wandering Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); David Brakke, Demons and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006). (4) Robert E. Sinkewicz, Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Jeremy Driscoll, Evagrius Ponticus: Ad monachos, Ancient Christian Writers 59 (New York: Newman Press, 2003); Antoine Guillaumont, Un philosophe au désert: Evagre le Pontique (Paris: Vrin, 2004); Rudolf Brändle, Johannes Chrysostomus: Bischof, Reformer, Märtyrer (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1999); Aideen M. Hartney, John Chrysostom and the Transformation of the City (London: Duckworth, 2004); J. N. D. Kelly, Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom—Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop (London: Duckworth, 1995); Wendy Mayer and Pauline Allen, John Chrysostom (New York: Routledge, 2000); Andrea Sterk, Renouncing the World Yet Leading the Church: The Monk-Bishop in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 2004). (5) Antoine Guillaumont, Les ‘Kephalaia gnostica’ d'Évagre le Pontique et l'histoire de l'origénisme chez les grecs et chez les syriens, Patristica Sorboniensia 5 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1962); Jon F. Dechow, Dogma and Mysticism in Early Christianity: Epiphanius of Cyprus and the Legacy of Origen, North American Patristic Society Patristic Monograph Series 13 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1988); Elizabeth E. Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992); Brian Daley, ‘What Did “Origenism” Mean in the Sixth Century?,’ in Origeniana sexta: Origène et la Bible/Origen and the Bible: Actes du Colloquium Origenianum Sextum Chantilly, 30 août–3 septembre 1993, ed. Gilles Dorival and Alain Le Boulluec (Louvain: Leuven University Press, 1995), 627–38; Daniël Hombergen, The Second Origenist Controversy: A New Perspective on Cyril of Scythopolis' Monastic Biographies as Historical Sources for Sixth-Century Origenism
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(Rome: Pontificio Ateneo S. Anselmo, 2001); Richard A. Layton, Didymus the Blind and His Circle in Late-Antique Alexandria (Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2004). (6) Florent van Ommeslaeghe, ‘Que vaut le témoignage de Pallade sur le procès de s. Jean Chrysostome?’, AB 95 (1977): 389–413, is one of several studies that arose from his work, ‘De lijkrede voor Johannes Chrysostomus toegeschreven aan Martyrius van Antiochie: Tekstuitgave met comentaar’ (PhD diss., Catholic University of Louvain (Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven), 1974); Jill Harries, Law and Empire in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Malcolm Heath, Menander: A Rhetor in Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Caroline Humfress, Orthodoxy and the Courts in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). (7) Malcolm Heath, Hermogenes, On Issues: Strategies of Argument in Later Greek Rhetoric (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995); Wendy Mayer, ‘John Chrysostom as Bishop: The View from Antioch’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 55 (2004): 455–66; eadem, John, Priest of Antioch, Bishop of Constantinople: Looking beyond ‘St John Chrysostom’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming); Norman Russell, Theophilus of Alexandria (New York: Routledge, 2007). (8) Robert T. Meyer, trans., Palladius: The Lausiac History, Ancient Christian Writers 34 (Westminster, MD and London: Newman Press, 1965); E. D. Hunt, ‘Palladius of Helenopolis: A Party and its Supporters in the Church of the Late Fourth Century,’ JThS, n.s., 24 (1973): 456–80; Claudia Rapp, ‘Palladius, Lausus, and the Historia Lausiaca’, in Novum Millennium: Studies on Byzantine History and Culture Dedicated to Paul Speck, ed. Claudia Sode and Sarolta Takács (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), 279–89. (9) In this regard, I go further than René Draguet, ‘L'Histoire Lausiaque, une oeuvre écrite dans l'esprit d'Évagre’, RHE 41 (1946): 321–64; 42 (1947): 5–49. (10) On imageless prayer, I take my cue from Columba Stewart, ‘Imageless Prayer and the Theological Vision of Evagrius Ponticus,’ JECS 9 (2001): 173–204, and argue against interpretations that suggest it was a rejection of the goodness of physical creation, such as that of Georges Florovsky, ‘The Anthropomorphites in the Egyptian Desert’, in Akten des XI. internationalen Byzantinistenkongresses, München, 1958, ed. F. Dölger and H.‐G. Beck (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1960), 154–9. (11) Gabriel Bunge and Adalbert de Vogüé, Quatre ermites égyptiens d'après les fragments coptes de l'Histoire Lausiaque, Spiritualité Orientale 60 (Bégrolles‐en‐Mauges: Abbaye de Bellefontaine, 1994); see also Tim Vivian, Four Desert Fathers: Pambo, Evagrius, Macarius of Egypt, and Macarius of Alexandria, Coptic Texts Relating to the Lausiac History of Palladius (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2004). (12) Jeremy Driscoll, Steps to Spiritual Perfection: Studies on Spiritual Progress in Evagrius Ponticus (New York: Newman Press, 2005); Luke Dysinger, Psalmody and Prayer in the Writings of Evagrius Ponticus (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); Augustine M. Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus (New York: Routledge, 2006). (13) Nicolas Molinier, Ascèse, contemplation et ministère: d'après l'Histoire Lausiaque de Pallade d'Hélénopolis (Bégrolles‐en‐Mauges: Abbaye de Bellefontaine, 1995) ignored the influences of Evagrius and Origen upon Palladius (as though to acknowledge these would still harm the reputation of his subject), and proposed instead greater and more direct influence upon Palladius by John Chrysostom. This is a tenuous claim and to my knowledge, this book has not had any discernible influence on studies of Palladius, Evagrius, or John Chrysostom. PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2011. All Rights Reserved. Under the te PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/page/privacy-polic
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Palladius of Helenopolis Demetrios S. Katos Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199696963 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696963.001.0001
The Origenist monk and bishop Chapter: (p. 9 ) 1 The Origenist monk and bishopPalladius of HelenopolisThe Origenist AdvocateDemetrios Source: S. Katos Author(s): DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696963.003.0002
Abstract and Keywords This chapter surveys Palladius' life from the beginning of his ascetic career to his composition of the Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom. It narrates his career among a social network of Origenists, such as Melania the Elder, Rufinus of Aquilea, Isidore the Presbyter, the Tall Brothers, and especially Evagrius of Pontus. It follows his peregrinations through Palestine, Alexandria, Nitria, and Cells, observes his work as a bishop in Asia Minor and as a defender of John Chrysostom that was banished to a frontier garrison. The chapter concludes with an examination of the date, provenance, and audience of the Dialogue. Palladius' emerges from this chapter not merely as a peripatetic monk, his own preferred self‐portrait, but as an ecclesiastical statesman who passionately supported the causes of his network in the most pressing controversies of his day. Keywords: Origenists, Melania the Elder, Evagrius of Pontus, Nitria, cells, Asia Minor, John Chrysostom, Johnite controversy, Dialogue of St. John Chrysostom
In the summer of 394, while living in the ascetic colony of Cells in the desert of Lower Egypt, Palladius made a pilgrimage to the renowned ascetic John of Lycopolis in Upper Egypt. His teacher Evagrius had expressed a desire to learn more about John, but he could not make the trip himself, so Palladius decided to visit him and return with a full report. It was an arduous journey of two hundred miles, made more difficult by the Nile's flooding, which obstructed travel and spread waterborne diseases. After eighteen days of travel, illness, and recuperation, Palladius finally reached his destination of Lycopolis, but when he climbed to the top of Mount Lycos and saw John's cell, he discovered what many pilgrims must have been chagrined to learn upon arriving at their destination: no visitors were permitted that day.
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Palladius dutifully waited until Saturday, the day on which John typically received guests. When they met, John immediately recognized Palladius as belonging to Evagrius' company and he eagerly began to converse with him, but whatever satisfaction or gratification Palladius might have felt at that moment for undertaking the trip was quickly dispelled and replaced by disappointment and frustration. No sooner had they begun speaking than they were interrupted by the arrival of a local official named Alypius. John abruptly turned to receive his new guest and left Palladius waiting for such a long time that he grew irritated and began muttering under his breath that the elder had shown him disrespect and kowtowed to the official. He continued to wait, but he finally became so vexed that he decided to leave and not waste his time. Just then John sent him a word through his interpreter, reprimanding him for his impatience and promising him that he would dismiss the official presently. When they resumed their meeting, John rebuked Palladius for his behaviour and he explained his reasons for receiving Alypius. Palladius apologized and asked for John's prayers, but beneath the surface he must still have been disenchanted, because when he was asked whether he desired to become a bishop, he impertinently joked that he was already a bishop of kitchens and dining rooms, where he lorded over the desires of his belly. John reproved Palladius once more. (p. 10 ) The conversation then turned to more serious matters, and John warned him to resist the urge to leave the desert to visit his family or to become involved in church administration. He prophesied that a great tribulation awaited him if he were to be raised to the rank of bishop, but that he could be spared that sorrow by remaining in the desert. Palladius departed greatly fortified and returned to report to his colleagues the details of his trip. With a touch of wryness he added that two months later Evagrius and his colleagues went to visit John after all. More poignantly, he wrote that he fell seriously ill three years after his visit, and that as a result of his illness he left the desert. He later became a bishop—although he never explains how or why—and became embroiled in the controversy leading to John Chrysostom's exile and death, for which he was handed a sentence of banishment to the empire's Egyptian frontier. As he languished in a prison cell, he remembered this encounter with John and recognized that the predicted hardships had come to pass. This brief encounter with John reveals much about Palladius. He identified himself as a disciple of Evagrius and he was very devoted to him. Although he wanted to prove himself as a desert monk, he does not appear to have been cut from the right cloth—he was too restless to remain in one place for very long, and too argumentative to stay out of the controversies that arose around him. These qualities served him better as a bishop, and he used his position and authority to undertake many labours on behalf of his friends and their supporters. As a writer, he was a remarkable storyteller, possessed of wit, irony, and an honesty that bordered on irreverence. This chapter offers a biography of Palladius that begins with an examination of his career as monk among the great ascetics who had a profound influence upon his later writings. It then reviews his activity as a bishop who worked on behalf of John Chrysostom, which culminated in the writing of the Dialogue on the Life of St John Chrysostom. Although Palladius preferred to remain silent with regard to himself and his own views, his career and accomplishments reward our close attention.
The Peripatetic Monk Palladius was born in Galatia of Asia Minor around 363–4.1 Nothing is known of his family and early life except for the few details provided by this encounter with John of Lycopolis recorded in HL 35. John warned Palladius against the temptation of abandoning the desert out of his desire to see his father again, or to instruct his brother and sister in the solitary life.2 He assured Palladius that (p. 11 ) his siblings had already converted to the monastic life, and he prophesied that his father had many years of life ahead of him. From this notice it can be deduced that Palladius had at least one sister and a brother, both of whom were probably younger. There is no other mention of his sister, but it is known that his brother Brisson later became a bishop, and that as a supporter of John he voluntarily abdicated his position rather than enter into communion with John's opponents.3 The prophecy that Palladius' father would live for many more years suggests that Palladius feared his father was ageing and might die before his return home. There is no mention of his mother, so it is likely that she had already died by 394, the approximate date of Palladius' visit to John. Considering that he and two of his siblings embraced religious vocations, and that he and his brother were ordained bishops, Palladius' family was probably raised Christian. Although they could afford an education, they were not very wealthy. Palladius' modest economic situation is indicated by the Dialogue's notice that Brisson retired to a small farm that he himself cultivated. Moreover, Palladius' writing does not exhibit the profound or wide‐ranging knowledge of secular literature that would be expected of an aristocrat weaned on the classics.4 It will also be demonstrated in the next two chapters that he was trained as an advocate; typically only the wealthiest of students in the fourth century proceeded to advanced studies in philology and philosophy, whereas those of
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moderate wealth usually advanced only as far as the forensic training that offered them opportunities to work on behalf of wealthy clients or in the municipal or provincial administrations. Sometime around 386 Palladius either renounced or abandoned a secular career and became a monk, and departed for Palestine where he lived for three years under the guidance of the ascetic Innocent on the Mount of Olives.5 These were formative years for Palladius, because nearby on the same hill were located the monastic establishments of Melania the Elder and Rufinus of Aquileia. Years later, in his Lausiac History, he would praise their erudition, asceticism, and benefactions to the church. Melania is one of the most (p. 12 ) prominent figures in the HL, and she appears in it as either the subject or source of numerous chapters.6 It is plausible that the ascetic travelogue written by a monk from Rufinus' monastery, known as the History of the Monks of Egypt, inspired Palladius to write his HL, and just as Rufinus' Latin translation of the History of Monks emphasized the intellectual dimensions of the ascetic life, so also Palladius' HL did much the same.7 More importantly, however, both Melania and Rufinus had spent time in the deserts of Egypt, where they had toured the monastic establishments and forged friendships with other monks who shared their admiration for Origen. In turn they either inspired Palladius to follow in their footsteps or expressly encouraged him to go, perhaps as Melania had also encouraged Evagrius, because from the moment he arrived in Egypt until the day he departed, he moved among their ascetic associates. He was quickly accepted by them, and in later years he proved to be their staunchest supporter and most outspoken advocate. In 388 Palladius arrived in Alexandria where he was received by Isidore, the guestmaster of the Alexandrian church and the subject of the first chapter of the HL. What he appreciated about Isidore was his capacity for ecstatic prayer, and the discretion with which he practised physical self‐denial, such that one hardly suspected that he lived as an ascetic—he was, after all, a very wealthy ecclesiastical statesman. Palladius spent the next few years in Alexandria under Isidore's guidance. During this time, he also met Didymus the Blind, whom he greatly admired on account of his knowledge of scripture and whom he visited on various occasions.8 Quite plausibly, he also became acquainted with bishop Theophilus, who at the time was on excellent terms with Isidore.9 It was also during this time that he stayed for a brief period outside the city under the tutelage of a strict ascetic named Dorotheus. Isidore had recommended that Dorotheus train him in the rigours of physical asceticism, but Palladius proved to be terribly ill‐suited for it and what followed verges on the comic.10 He quickly came to despise Dorotheus' excessive practices, and he went so far as to question Dorotheus on the wisdom of some of his practices, such as working in the heat of the day, and he urged him to moderate his practice of sleep deprivation by resting instead on a comfortable mat. He confessed that he even suspected Dorotheus of feigning such harsh discipline for his sake. When he inquired of his other disciples whether it was sincere or affected, they assured him that Dorotheus had always lived in this manner. (p. 13 ) One can only imagine Palladius' horror, bewilderment, and exasperation when panic-stricken he reported to Dorotheus that he had found a poisonous snake in their drinking well, upon which Dorotheus dismissed his concerns, reproved his lack of faith, and drank freely from the water. Palladius broke under the emotional and physical strain of this intolerable apprenticeship. He fell ill and returned before the appointed time to Isidore and his more congenial form of asceticism. After his stay in Alexandria, Palladius departed for the deserts of Lower Egypt. He went first to Nitria, a bustling community of semi‐eremitic monks, where he was received by Ammonius, an acquaintance of both Isidore and Melania.11 Ammonius and his three brothers, Dioscorus, Eusebius, and Euthymius, were known as the Tall Brothers, and they had been students of the ascetic Pambo, who was yet another close acquaintance of Melania.12 Palladius admired Ammonius for his remarkable knowledge of the Bible and Origen's scriptural commentaries.13 From Nitria he departed further into the desert to the smaller, more remote ascetic colony of Cells where he remained for nine years as a disciple of Evagrius of Pontus, and where he became a close acquaintance of Macarius the Alexandrian. On several occasions he travelled from there to the inner desert of Scetis, which was famed for its harsh environment.14 All the while he accumulated material for his future Lausiac History, either first‐hand or from others. Quite likely during his stay in Lower Egypt, he was ordained to the priesthood by the Tall Brother Dioscorus, who served as bishop of Hermopolis Parva.15 While Palladius resided at Cells, a storm began to brew in Palestine that would come to overshadow much of the rest of his life. In September 393 Epiphanius of Salamis was visiting Jerusalem, where he spoke publicly against the errors of Origen in hopes of compelling the local bishop, John, to do the same.16 John, however, was not inclined and battle lines were soon drawn (p 14 ) Epiphanius' most notable conscript was Jerome whose volte‐face was 22.1.2012 20:01
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particularly dramatic because he had an established reputation as an enthusiastic translator of Origen's commentaries. His monastic community in Bethlehem allied itself with Epiphanius, whereas those of Melania and Rufinus on the Mount of Olives sided with Bishop John.17 The following summer Epiphanius ordained to the priesthood Jerome's brother, Paulinianus, so that he might celebrate the Eucharist for his Bethlehem community. The ordination implied a breach in liturgical communion with the Palestinian church at large. John was outraged that Epiphanius had conducted the ordination without his permission in his own jurisdiction, and he retaliated by formally excommunicating Jerome's monastic community and by prohibiting entry of its members to the nearby Church of the Nativity.18 Jerome responded angrily by accusing John and his ally Rufinus of heresy.19 By 395, John had become so enraged with Jerome and his community that he secured from the praetorian prefect Flavius Rufinus an order for their banishment, but they were spared by an unexpected turn of events.20 The Hunnic incursions just north of the region in Syria distracted the local authorities from immediately executing the order, and by the end of the year Flavius Rufinus had been toppled by the Gothic Roman general Gainas, thereby depriving the decree of its force of law.21 It could not have been long before Palladius learned of this portentous dispute. His friends Rufinus and Melania were directly involved, and the news would have quickly circulated among their many friends in Lower Egypt and Alexandria.22 Before long his former mentor Isidore was sent by Theophilus of Alexandria to Jerusalem in a failed attempt to mediate between John and Epiphanius.23 Palladius himself may have become directly involved in the affair by 394, because in that year Epiphanius warned John of Jerusalem to ‘beware of Palladius of Galatia—a man once dear to me, but who now sorely (p. 15 ) needs God's pity—for he preaches and teaches the heresy of Origen; and see to it that he does not seduce any of those who are entrusted to your keeping into the perverse ways of his erroneous doctrine.’24 Although there is no conclusive evidence that this is a reference to our Palladius, he could have easily visited Jerusalem during this time.25 By his own testimony, he made many trips to Alexandria, Palestine, and throughout Egypt and the Thebaid.26 We also know that he made one trip from Jerusalem to Egypt together with Melania, in which they were escorting Silvania, probably the virgin sister‐in‐law of Flavius Rufinus.27 We have evidence that he brought at least one letter from John of Jerusalem to Evagrius at Cells.28 Plausibly it was at this early date that he first developed his dislike of Jerome, which with time developed into a bitter enmity. In many ways, Palladius was an unlikely monk. Compared to Nathaniel, a monk who stayed confined to his cell for thirty‐seven years, he was possessed of a wanderlust that precluded complete seclusion and which prompted him to travel throughout Egypt and make many trips to Alexandria and Palestine.29 Nevertheless, his preferred ascetic home was in a remote desert location. He admitted several times that he was tempted on many occasions to abandon his ascetic isolation and resume secular life, but he lived in or near the company of monks for most of his life.30 He confessed on multiple occasions that he was sorely tempted by sexual desires and that he fantasized about women, but he also avowed that by the grace of God he never succumbed to this temptation even once, despite having travelled hundreds of miles and having visited more than 106 cities, towns, and villages, each of which would have provided him with ample inducements and opportunities for sexual encounters.31 He was squeamish, contentious, and sharp in speech (p. 16 ) to the point of being caustic, and he was highly critical of insincere or excessive forms of asceticism wherever he found them.32 Yet he was not proud and he rarely spoke of himself, and he was very fond of heartfelt prayer and associated primarily with other monks committed to it.33 He was not destined to live the remainder of his life as a monk, and eventually he left Cells. We have no record of when he did so, but most likely it was shortly after Evagrius' death, for which the consensus is no later than January 399; we know that Palladius spent a year in Bethlehem with Posidonius before the onset of the Johnite controversy, and such a date is congruous with these events.34 Considering his ambivalence towards the life of a desert monk, it seems reasonable that the death of his spiritual guide would have prompted his departure. He returned to Palestine ostensibly on account of his health, but one cannot help but wonder whether he finally submitted to his temptation to leave the desert and play a role in the church, because soon after he is found in the company of John Chrysostom as a bishop.
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became bishop or acquainted with John is not known. In Antioch, Palladius met John's aunt, Sabiniana the deaconess, who could have recommended him if he had travelled through Antioch en route to Asia Minor, but this is only a speculation.35 In any case, John had ordained several other disciples of Evagrius to various ranks of the priesthood, such as Heraclides from Cyprus to the see of Ephesus, and John Cassian to the rank of deacon. It is possible that Evagrius had friends in the capital or that John was aware of his reputation as a great spiritual teacher. John had also ordained a bishop to Basinopolis of Bithynia Prima, a town that lay further away from Constantinople than Helenopolis, so it is plausible that (p. 17 ) he would have ordained Palladius, too.36 Considering how quickly Palladius had come to earn John's trust as bishop, it is an attractive possibility. Helenopolis was a small town located at the entrance of the gulf of Nicomedia, located on a sickle‐shaped cape, for which reason it was also known as Drepana or Drepanon, but when Constantine built a martyrion in honour of Lucian of Antioch, who is mentioned in Palladius' story of John's death, he renamed the town Helenopolis in honour of his mother.37 John's concern for the city of Helenopolis could have stemmed from a particular devotion to the cult of Lucian, who was especially venerated in Antioch and in whose honour he once preached a panegyric homily.38 Palladius is the first known bishop of Helenopolis. We are certain of the date because he was present in April 400, when Eusebius of Valentinopolis presented charges of corruption against Antoninus the bishop of Ephesus before John Chrysostom and other regional bishops.39 At the time that the corruption charges were made, John was unable to leave Constantinople to investigate the charges because the populace was in an uproar against Gainas, the magister utriusque militiae who had recently asserted his authority within the city's limits. John therefore delegated the task to a delegation of three bishops, namely, Palladius, Syncleticus of Traianopolis, and Hesychius of Parius, although Hesychius discreetly refrained from accompanying the other two by feigning an illness, because he was a friend of the accused Antoninus.40 Palladius and Syncleticus set out for Hypoepi of Asia, where they waited through three months of intolerable summer heat for witnesses who never appeared. Unbeknown to them, Antoninus had bribed Eusebius to drop the charges. They patiently endured the delays and dissembling of both the accuser and the accused, and even granted Eusebius a forty‐day extension to bring forth the witnesses. By August, when he had failed to appear they realized that they had been duped, and subsequently excommunicated Eusebius for raising charges without cause, and they (p. 18 ) departed for Constantinople to report the outcome of their trip to John and the other bishops who had commissioned them.41 It was just as Palladius was setting out for Asia, or perhaps while he was still in that province, that trouble erupted for his former ascetic colleagues. For reasons that are too complicated to discuss here, Isidore and the Tall Brothers had fallen out of Theophilus' favour, and by the spring or summer of 400 they were evicted from their monastic establishments. Presumably Palladius would have learned that trouble was afoot when he returned to Constantinople in late summer or early fall 400. Over the course of the next year (401) Isidore and the others made their way out of Egypt and into Palestine, but as Theophilus continued to pursue them, they departed for Constantinople. Perhaps one of Evagrius' former disciples—either Palladius, Heraclides, or Cassian—had invited them to the capital and helped them gain the confidence of Bishop John. This is suggested by a letter of Theophilus to Epiphanius, in which he wrote that the Tall Brothers had ‘taken ship for Constantinople…to confer anew with the old companions of their impiety.’42 The beleaguered monks arrived in Constantinople in late autumn of 401.43 They appealed to John, who wrote a circumspect and deferential letter on their behalf to Theophilus. If Palladius was in Helenopolis at the time, he would have been only a short distance from the capital, and news of their arrival could have travelled to him before the end of that year. Although there is no record that Palladius visited them while they were sheltered in the Anastasia church in Constantinople, such a trip could help explain why he was asked by John to accompany him on a trip that he was to make to Ephesus later that winter. Bishop Antoninus had recently died, and in late 401 the bishops of the province of Asia had appealed to John, requesting he come and ordain a new bishop for Ephesus.44 John arranged to go with Palladius, Cyrinus of Chalcedon, and Paul of Heraclea. They set a date to leave just after Epiphany, which would have allowed Palladius ample time to return to Helenopolis before setting out from there in January.45 From early January to early April 402, Palladius was with John on his mission to Ephesus. Meanwhile, the evicted monks were growing impatient with John, whose intervention had not softened Theophilus' position at all. By June of that same year (402), they petitioned the empress directly and unwittingly set in motion a
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series of events that would result in the deposition of both John and their (p. 19 ) friend Palladius.46 The imperial court embraced their cause, and ordered that Theophilus be tried by John. John was alarmed by their decision, and had neither agreed nor been privy to it. Theophilus was outraged by what he deemed was a subversion of ecclesiastical protocol. He stalled and plotted, and in the time that intervened John's relations with the imperial court cooled considerably. Meanwhile, Theophilus began turning public opinion against John, in part by courting the assistance of Epiphanius of Salamis.47 In April or May 403, Epiphanius arrived in Constantinople and tried to rally the local bishops to condemn Origen and rebuke John, but he failed and left shortly thereafter.48 Palladius passed over this episode in silence, so he may have been absent from Constantinople at the time, but he had probably returned there by August 403 when Theophilus arrived with his entourage and pledged supporters, an event that he described with the detail and emotion of an eyewitness. At the very latest, he was in Constantinople by September 403, seated among the forty other bishops who were with John when the proceedings began at Oak in Chalcedon, across the Bosporus from Constantinople, because that council raised charges against him.49 At the council of Oak, John's opponents gave free expression to their accumulated resentment of his personality, his popular appeal, and his particular mode of church administration. Matters went badly for John, who was denounced on many counts, as well as for his supporters, such as Palladius and Heracleides, who were denounced as Origenists in an attempt to implicate them in heresy. Although the council does not appear to have succeeded in condemning John on any of the charges that had been presented (see Chapter 3), it succeeded nevertheless in deposing him because he failed to appear as summoned. John was forced into exile, but his supporters contested the legality of his banishment. Much to their surprise and joy, John was summarily recalled from exile by the emperor after ‘a calamity occurred in the royal bedroom’, an event that the frightened court interpreted as divine punishment for their involvement in the affair.50 The local clergy were determined to rid themselves of John, but he commanded such popular support that further action against him was temporarily forestalled and he was able to remain in Constantinople through that autumn and winter. By spring 404, however, he had lost the support of the imperial court and his situation had become precarious.51 His enemies quickly regrouped and clamoured for his removal, charging that he had wrongfully resumed his position without the formal reinstatement demanded by (p. 20 ) ecclesiastical custom.52 Their argument eventually prevailed. John was prohibited from officiating at the Easter vigil and was placed under house arrest, while the military disbanded by force the baptisms that were being conducted by clergy that were still in communion with him.53 The ensuing riots delayed any action against John, who in May 404 appealed to three western bishops for support, namely, Innocent of Rome, Venerius of Milan, and Chromatius of Aquileia.54 Although he remained unmolested for two months, he came to realize that the crisis had reached an impasse and he allowed himself to be taken into exile five days after Pentecost, on 20 June 404.55 Over the course of the next nine months more pressure was brought to bear upon the clergy who remained in communion with John.56 A series of edicts was issued that attempted to force them into communion with Theophilus, Porphyry, and Arsacius, and later, with Atticus.57 John's partisans resisted and left Constantinople to avoid prosecution. Most returned to their cities in resignation, but a courageous few travelled abroad petitioning that John be restored to his post.58 It was under these circumstances, in September 404, that Palladius fled to Rome ‘to escape the fury of the rulers’, and to canvass support for John.59 A coterie of John's supporters had already congregated there by the time he arrived, and others were still to follow. Rome had first received its news regarding John from an Alexandrian reader who had delivered documents from Theophilus explaining his reasons for John's deposition.60 According to Palladius, Innocent was troubled by the news and considered Theophilus' (p. 21 ) actions as rash, and he was not inclined to respond or even acknowledge receipt of the documents. A deacon of Constantinople named Eusebius, who happened to be in Rome at the time on other business, took advantage of Innocent's hesitation and submitted petitions to forestall any decision by the Roman church concerning John's status as bishop.61 Shortly thereafter a delegation from Constantinople arrived in Rome consisting of Pansophius of Pisidia, Pappus of Syria, Demetrius of Second Galatia, and Eugenius of Phrygia, which carried John's appeal of May 404 as well as other letters of support that had been written by bishops and clergy loyal to John.62 They were followed by Theotecnus the priest, Cyriacus of Synnadi, and Eulysius of Apameia in Bithynia, the latter of whom had secured the support of the bishop of Thessalonica en route to Rome. Then came Palladius carrying copies of the edict forcing John's supporters into communion with Arsacius, and later followed several of
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John's lower clergy, most notably Germanus the priest and Cassian, who had brought with them an inventory (βρέβιον) of the church items that survived the fire in order to clear John of the accusations of embezzlement. Palladius informs us that some of John's supporters returned east to canvass additional support for their cause. Demetrius made a trip back across the Mediterranean and later returned to Rome with letters of support for John from the bishops of Caria in Asia Minor and from the priests of Antioch; Theotecnus travelled to Constantinople to deliver Innocent's letters of encouragement to John and his loyal communicants.63 By the end of 405, support for John in the West began to crystallize. Innocent had been decisively won over to the Johnite cause, as he annulled the findings of Oak and ordered that the matter be reviewed by a synod of both eastern and western bishops and at which John would appear as bishop. The eastern court and bishops ignored his request, and they remained undeterred even after the western emperor Honorius intervened on John's behalf.64 Innocent, however, persisted and he won a minor victory when Honorius granted his request for a local synod of western bishops to be convened. This (p. 22 ) council subsequently petitioned both Honorius and Arcadius to invoke a more representative council at Thessalonica that would comprise both eastern and western bishops and review John's deposition.65 Honorius was pleased with the outcome and wrote once again to Arcadius, informing him of the synod's decision and pressing him for a response. This letter, as well as the synod's memorandum and the responses to John's letter by Innocent, Chromatius, and Venerius, were to be delivered to Constantinople by a delegation of western and eastern clergy made up of nine bishops, two priests, and a deacon.66 Of the bishops, four were of the east: Cyriacus, Demetrius, Eulysius, and Palladius.67 In early 406, Palladius and the other envoys set sail for Constantinople. They must have been optimistic about their reception and success, because they had been given broad ecclesiastical and imperial support for their mission. It was also an opportune time for their request, because the position of bishop in Constantinople was currently vacant, not having been filled after the death of John's successor, Arsacius.68 Unfortunately, events that were well beyond their control were also taking place, and these would soon dash their hopes and even claim them as victims. Honorius and his chief adviser, Stilicho, the comes et magister utriusque militiae, had ulterior motives in supporting John. They sought a new source of tax revenue to revive their empire, which was suffering heavy losses from recent invasions. To this end, Stilicho had appointed a supporter of the court, Jovius, as praetorian prefect of Illyricum, hoping that he and Alaric, the Gothic Roman general, might snatch the dioceses of Dacia and Macedonia away from eastern control and restore them to the domain of Honorius.69 Meanwhile the powerful eastern praetorian prefect Anthemius greatly resented the western court because his consulate had not been acknowledged by Stilicho, and this affront made him ill‐disposed to the delegation and uncooperative.70 By the time the delegates arrived, the western military threat that might have forced Arcadius or Anthemius to (p. 23 ) comply with their request had been effectively neutralized. Gothic tribes led by Radagais had invaded northern Italy sometime towards the end of 405, forcing Stilicho to turn his attention away from the east and to focus on matters closer to home.71 The eastern court was free to deal as it pleased with the delegation. Needless to say, the delegation failed miserably. Once Palladius and his colleagues had been detected sailing along the coast of Greece, they were detained, maltreated, and browbeaten. Their presence in the Macedonian diocese was deemed hostile, and they were ‘ignominiously dismissed as if they had invaded a foreign government’.72 After a harrowing adventure at sea, the western bishops were quickly deported home. They sailed across the Sea of Marmara to Lampsacus, where they boarded a merchant vessel on which they made the three‐week journey by sea to Hydra in Calabria. Palladius and the other eastern bishops fared much worse, being imprisoned and taken into exile. Although the evidence is indirect, it appears that Palladius and the other eastern bishops were initially detained in the environs of Constantinople for some time. According to the Dialogue, the trip of the eastern bishops into exile was a hasty land journey that traversed Asia Minor and Syria to their destinations in Palestine and Egypt.73 Although the land route to Syria was often chosen regardless of the season, the considerable speed and urgency with which the delegation was escorted suggests that the sea lanes were closed by the time they departed Constantinople.74 A sea journey would have been much quicker, and would have allowed Arcadius to rid himself of the eastern bishops with as much dispatch as the western bishops who had been sent home by boat. It is likely, therefore, that the journey from Constantinople began some time after October.75 If indeed they left at such a late date, the urgency of their journey may be explained by still further developments in the west. By late August 406, Stilicho had soundly defeated Radagais, and he began resuming preparations with Alaric and Jovius to take Illyricum into western
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control.76 The eastern court may have decided to banish the remaining delegation of eastern bishops from Thrace at this time either because it suspected that the renewed prospect of western imperial support might embolden the bishops to revive their cause, or because it feared that Stilicho could use their detainment as a pretext for action. It is plausible, therefore, that Arcadius kept the eastern bishops either imprisoned or under (p. 24 ) surveillance in the environs of Constantinople after the western bishops were deported, and that it was on account of a revived western threat that he later decided to banish them, although in the event Stilicho's preparations against the east were ultimately stymied by the Suevian and Vandal invasions of Gaul. Adding insult to injury, the delegation soon learned that Anthemius had chosen a successor to Arsacius as bishop of Constantinople, and that it was none other than John's arch‐enemy, Atticus. The journey into exile was long and hard. According to Palladius, they passed through Ancyra and Tarsus, which indicates that they travelled south along the Roman roads of his native Galatia and through the highlands of neighbouring Cappadocia.77 From there they passed through Coloneia and Tyana, and descended through the Cilician Gates into the plains of Cilicia.78 From Tarsus, they travelled east and south through Syria, and the first of their party, Cyriacus, was imprisoned in Palmyra on the Persian border of the empire.79 The remaining bishops were escorted south on the road to Bostra. Eulysius was next imprisoned in the Misphas garrison which was three days east of Bostra. Palladius and Demetrius, however, were forced to keep marching and they were led west on the road to Caesarea of Palestine, whence they travelled south to Ostracine and then Pelusium. Here, as in Ancyra and Tarsus, Palladius and Demetrius were confronted by John's opponents, local bishops who either persuaded the soldiers to rush them out of their city or who prohibited the populace from aiding them in any way.80 Their final destination was Egypt. They travelled along the Nile and were separated somewhere near Oxyrhynchus, where Demetrius was taken west to the Minor (Northern) Oasis.81 Palladius was driven still further south, reaching Syene perhaps some time in December 406, not far from the first cataracts of the Nile.82 There he was ‘hidden away in a dark cell’ of a frontier garrison for eleven (p. 25 ) months, giving him ample time to remember the sage advice of John of Lycopolis, who had warned him not to become a bishop.83 Tragic as it was, the plight of the delegates pales in comparison to that of their leader. After several years in two different locations of exile, John had been ordered to move to Pityus, a desolate location on the Black Sea that was far removed from his supporters and any significant population centre. Forced to travel under harsh conditions that his frail physical constitution could not endure, John died en route on 14 September 407.
The Plea From Exile News of John's death spread quickly and Palladius was soon released from prison, probably in November 407. He departed from the remote and hostile region of Syene and settled in the more familiar and hospitable territory of Antinoë in the Thebaid, where he spent four years and became known as the ‘banished bishop’.84 If he did not leave Egypt it may have been because the land route was long and arduous, and required the company of others. The only other option for a single traveller was to travel by sea, via Alexandria, but Palladius probably wished to avoid Theophilus, who might have learned of his presence in the city had he applied to the governor for an exit visa to sail out of Alexandria at the start of the next sailing season.85 In fact, Palladius says that he spent four years in Antinoë, indicating that he did not leave the region or return to Alexandria until 412, which was the year that Theophilus died. He might have been motivated to stay in Antinoë because he was precluded from returning to his former monastic colony of Cells. In 407 nomadic incursions devastated Scetis and scattered its monks, and the monks in nearby (p. 26 ) Cells were forced to abandon their semi‐eremitic way of life and to congregate together in larger groups for better protection.86 It had become a dangerous place and his former ascetic associates had all been scattered. Moreover, some of the monks from that region had fled south and settled in Antinoë.87 This may help explain why Palladius found an ascetic tradition very similar to his own among the ‘anchorites who have confined themselves in rocky caves’ that flanked the town on the north.88 A local monk named Diocles was ‘most knowledgeable (γνωστικώτατος)’ and given to ‘philosophy (φιλοσοφία)’, and a virgin there bequeathed to Palladius her copy of a work by Clement of Alexandria.89 Overall, he would have found Antinoë a welcoming oasis of Graeco‐Roman civilization in the Egyptian desert. Living in Egypt, Palladius soon learned that Theophilus had written a pamphlet against John.90 In response he composed a visceral defence of John and his supporters, and a scathing condemnation of his opponents, that we have come to know as the Dialogue on the Life of St John Chrysostom When he had left Rome for Constantinople he had 22.1.2012 20:01
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been carrying with him a dossier of documents submitted by the Roman see and western court supporting John's cause and criticizing Theophilus. Palladius now eagerly reconstructed the documents of his confiscated dossier before its contents eluded his memory, filling the pages of his Dialogue with edicts and official letters.91 (p. 27 ) Although there is no explicit date of composition mentioned in the Dialogue, we can be confident that it was written in late 407 or early 408. First, the Dialogue informs its audience that John has died, a notice that would have been unnecessary if it had been written much later. Second, the Dialogue noted that bishops Elpidius and Pappus (both of Syria) had not descended the stairs of their house for three years, and that they had remained there praying for a resolution to the crisis.92 Since many of John's supporters departed from Constantinople after his exile in June 404, it is plausible that Elpidius and Pappus also headed home to Laodicea around that time. Three years from that date would place the composition of the Dialogue in the latter part of 407. Third, the Dialogue notes that Heraclides of Ephesus, who had been installed by John, was imprisoned for approximately four years.93 Although we do not possess precise information concerning Heraclides' incarceration, several charges were raised against him at the synod of Oak, and the final session at the synod concerned him, perhaps exclusively.94 Socrates and Sozomen may corroborate that a synod was convened against Heraclides because they note that, immediately after John's recall to Constantinople, Theophilus entertained charges against Heraclides and sought yet another reason to depose John.95 Theophilus subsequently deposed Heraclides in his absence, on the charges that he beat someone unjustly and then had him dragged through the city in chains.96 Palladius adds that the eunuch of Victor the tribune was ordained in his place while Heraclides was cast into prison.97 It appears that Theophilus accomplished this before John was recalled from his first exile, and that he ordained the successor to Heraclides in Constantinople, an act that (p. 28 ) incited riots there in defence of Heraclides.98 Heraclides was unpopular in his own see of Ephesus, and so there was no move to overturn the substitute ordination, even though its circumstances were so anomalous.99 If the deposition of Heraclides is dated to just after the synod of Oak in the autumn of 403, four years of imprisonment would corroborate that the Dialogue was written in late 407.100 We may set the middle or end of 408 as the terminus ante quem based on additional circumstantial evidence. The Dialogue's deferential tone to Arcadius suggests that it was written before he died in May 408.101 But more importantly, Palladius could not have expected any help from either the Roman church or the Ravenna court after the middle of 408. By May 408, Constantine III, who had declared himself emperor in the previous year in Britain, extended his control as far south as Spain and as far east as Gaul, thereby closing the Alpine passes to Italy and inflicting significant revenue loss upon the court in Ravenna. In August of that same year, Stilicho fell from grace and was executed by Honorius. In the wake of his death, a new policy was formulated that refused cooperation with foreign tribes, and which antagonized Alaric and his Goths. By the end of 408, Alaric had besieged Rome, where starvation, plague, and death ensued. Over the course of 409, Rome's financial resources were depleted to pay to Alaric a large ransom of gold, silver, spices, and clothing to spare the city. Despite this cooperation of the city's senatorial leadership with Alaric, Honorius' obstinacy foiled any true compromise. On 24 August 410, Rome fell to Alaric. Innocent had left Rome that year for Ravenna as part of the Roman delegation sent to negotiate terms for Alaric, and he did not return to Rome until 412.102 The schism provoked by John's deposition also proved to be short‐lived.103 There are no imperial edicts published against the partisans of John after early 406.104 Despite Atticus' role in deposing John, John's supporters gave him their tacit recognition as the legitimate bishop of Constantinople by not (p. 29 ) electing their own bishop when John died in September 407. Their restraint may have moved the court to adopt a more conciliatory stance to John's local supporters. Soon thereafter an ‘amnesty and a reconciliation’ was initiated by none other than Theophilus of Alexandria, who instructed Atticus to receive John's partisans into communion perhaps as early as 408, certainly no later than 409, although in his own province he continued to deal with them much more harshly.105 It is probably in reference to these developments that the Dialogue alludes to an apparent cessation of the persecution.106 Without continued pressure being exerted on the followers of John, tensions quickly dissipated. When Theophilus died on 15 October 412, John's supporters had lost their second most pressing reason to call for another council. For similar reasons, the Johnite schism also healed quickly in Antioch. The catalyst for that schism was Porphyrius' installation as bishop by John's three chief enemies, Acacius, Severus, and Antiochus.107 Porphyrius, however, died at approximately the same time as Theophilus, and he was succeeded by Alexander, who restored John to the diptychs of Antioch and paved the way for a reconciliation of his supporters to the main church.108
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Posthumous support for John continued to grow after 412 and become more widespread and less strident. When Alexander of Antioch visited Constantinople he stirred the populace to pressure Atticus to restore John to the diptychs.109 Although he failed in his attempt, and even his own successor to the see of Antioch later tried to remove John's name from the diptychs for a second time, public pressure eventually prevailed and John's name was permanently restored to the diptychs of both Constantinople and Antioch sometime after 412.110 Even Cyril restored John to the diptychs of Alexandria, (p. 30 ) despite his deep‐seated resistance to John's rehabilitation.111 The liturgical commemoration of John as a legitimate bishop of Constantinople had become the Johnites' only possible vindication, so this was a real victory that conclusively resolved the schism. Only an early date of composition could explain the thoroughly partisan character of the Dialogue. The wounds of the crisis were still fresh, and the need for some form of restitution was still pressing. And so Palladius composed from exile a plea for the restoration of John's name to the diptychs. To whom did he write? Primarily to the church of Rome in order to respond to the accusations levelled against John by Theophilus. When he wrote he knew that Rome was still refusing communion with Theophilus and the other bishops of the east.112 His Dialogue exhorted them to remain steadfast in their support of John, in part by reminding them of the significant role that they had played on his behalf over the last three years. His Roman audience could have included such luminaries as Melania the Younger and her husband Pinian, who were still in the vicinity of the city at the time the Dialogue was written, as well as Apronianus, his wife Abita, and their daughter Eunomia, and perhaps even Pammachius, Macarius, and Constantius, all of whom Palladius had met while in Rome.113 There were also others who would have been very receptive to the Dialogue, such as the nobles Proba, Juliana, and Italica, and the western bishops whom Palladius had accompanied on the ill‐fated trip to Constantinople; John had addressed letters to all of these individuals from exile.114 Palladius would have written his Dialogue hoping that they would continue to lobby on John's behalf.115 (p. 31 ) Palladius also appears to have addressed supporters of John in both Antioch, given his multiple references to events there, and especially Constantinople. He commemorated by name numerous local residents who suffered on John's behalf, such as Paul, the deacon of the Church of the Resurrection where Gregory of Nazianzus once preached, Helladius, the presbyter of the palace, Stephanus, the ascetic who brought letters from Rome, and Provincalius, the soldier of the imperial guard.116 A Constantinopolitan audience would have also recognized the names of John's enemies who were mentioned, both those in the court and those in the ranks of nobles and clergy, and of whom little or nothing else is known.117 Possible addressees in that city could have included Alypius, Antiochus the court dignitary, Brisson the eunuch, and Count Theophilus, all of whom were addressees of various letters that John had sent from his own exile.118 It was they whom Palladius urged to continue refusing communion with Atticus.
Conclusion The Dialogue, however, was not simply a letter or petition, but an embellished work of literature. Surely Palladius wrote with an eye to posterity, too. Although he rarely spoke of himself—perhaps his modest background and education contributed to his self‐effacing personality—he would not have shied away from such a challenge. He was daring enough to leave the comforts of home for distant Palestine to fulfil his vocation as a monk, and then continued still further to Alexandria, Nitria, and finally to Cells where he assumed the austere life of a semi‐eremite, even though he was ill‐suited to being sequestered in a cell. He fretted and itched for an active life, and travelled constantly even after he had ostensibly withdrawn from the world to the desert. He sought out the role of bishop, and having been trained in controversy and argument, he readily assumed the task of travelling to the province of Asia on John's behalf to investigate corruption charges. He agreed to go a second time, this time accompanying John, to help resolve the crisis of confidence in the local hierarchy. It is tempting to speculate that perhaps it was he who invited Isidore and the Tall Brothers to come north to Constantinople to secure support for themselves in their row with Theophilus. Although we have no evidence to this effect, it is both plausible and consistent with his character. He was very devoted to his ascetic companions and he did not recoil from controversy. (p. 32 ) If Palladius did not concern himself with posterity, at the very least he recognized that his involvement on behalf of John was a defining event of his career as a bishop and of his life. He travelled across the empire several times for his sake first to Rome to garner support then back to Constantinople to petition Arcadius and was finally 22.1.2012 20:01
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marched under armed escort to the southernmost frontier of the empire into exile and imprisonment. His other companions were not taken as far as he, which suggests that the imperial court deemed him to have posed the greatest threat to their ecclesiastical status quo. Upon release from prison, he remained undeterred in the face of events that would have led many others to despair. John was dead and Atticus had replaced him. Theophilus had evaded any recriminations and sat contentedly upon his episcopal throne. Palladius was barred from returning to his see and native land, and his ascetic homestead and community were no more. All should have seemed lost, and yet he was neither silenced nor defeated. Notes: (1) Butler, Lausiac History, 1.180–3. (2) HL 35, Butler, 103.17–104.1. (3) For Brisson, see Dial. 20.55–7. (4) Menander is the only classical writer whom Palladius openly acknowledges and cites (Dial. 16.41–4), although there are other unacknowledged citations or allusions in the Dialogue, for a summary of which, see P. R. Coleman‐ Norton, Palladius: Dialogus de vita S. Joannis Chrysostomi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928), lxx–lxxi. (5) HL 44, Butler 131. Butler, Lausiac History, 2.245–7, provides a compelling chronology that has been widely accepted as the basis for further investigation. Despite the numerous shortcomings of this chronology, a more accurate one cannot be constructed from the limited sources; cf. Paul Peeters, ‘Une vie copte de S. Jean de Lycopolis’, AB 54 (1936): 359–81; Eduard Schwartz, ‘Palladiana’, ZNTW 36 (1937): 161–204; W. Telfer, ‘The Trustworthiness of Palladius’, JThS 38 (1937): 379–83; E. D. Hunt, ‘Palladius of Helenopolis: A Party and its Supporters in the Church of the Late Fourth Century,’ JThS, ns, 24 (1973): 456–80 (the most comprehensive recent treatment of Palladius’ life); David F. Buck, ‘The Structure of the Lausiac History’, Byzantion 46 (1976): 292–307; Nicole Moine, ‘Melaniana’, RecAug 15 (1980): 3–79. (6) Hunt, ‘Palladius of Helenopolis’, 458–66, provides a full treatment of the Palestinian context. For Melania the Elder, see HL 46, 64, 65; Melania provided Palladius with material for HL 5, 9, 10, 18 and perhaps HL 6 and 14. (7) Eva Schulz‐Flügel, Tyrannius Rufinus: Historia Monachorum sive de Vita Sanctorum Patrum, Patristische Texte und Studien 34 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1990). (8) HL 4. (9) HL 1–5; on Theophilus, Socr. h.e. 6.2 and 6.7. (10) HL 2. (11) HL 7 and HL 13. (12) HL 10. (13) HL 11. (14) HL 20 and 23. (15) This notice is present in only one of four Syriac recensions of the Lausiac History, for which see René Draguet, Les formes syriaques de la matière de l'Histoire Lausiaque, CSCO 390, Scriptores Syri 170 (Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1978), 80* and 56. Draguet accepted it as integral to the text, but he did not believe that it had been written by Palladius; rather he cited this passage as proof that Palladius had plagiarized the work of another writer. Gabriel Bunge's solution (see Ch. 4 below) to the thorny textual problems of the Lausiac History seems to suggest that Palladius could very well have been ordained by Dioscorus. Palladius’ conversation with John of Lycopolis suggests that he was already ordained a presbyter when he visited him (see HL 35, Butler 104.8–9); an early date of
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ordination to the priesthood could also help explain how he was ordained a bishop so soon after his departure from Egypt. (16) For much of what follows on events in Palestine, I am indebted to J. N. D. Kelly, Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies (London: Duckworth, 1975), 195–209. For the date of 393, see ibid. 199; earlier that year, a certain Atarbius (perhaps instigated by Epiphanius, according to Kelly, Jerome, 198) arrived in Palestine and demanded a rejection of Origen by both Rufinus of Aquileia, who refused, and by Jerome, who acquiesced (Jerome Ruf. 3.33; ed. Pierre Lardet, Saint Jérôme: Apologie contre Rufin, SC 303 (Paris: Cerf, 1983), 300–2). (17) Kelly, Jerome, 200, noting Jerome ep. 51.1, ed. Isidore Hilberg, Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi Epistulae, 3 vols., CSEL 54–6 (Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1910–18), at vol. 54, pp. 395–7. On events in Jerusalem, see Jerome Jo. Hier. 14 (PL 23.355–98, at 366B–367A), and Kelly, Jerome, 199–200. (18) Kelly, Jerome, 201; Jerome Jo. Hier. 42 (PL 23.393C–394A). (19) Kelly, Jerome, 202. Jerome embellished Epiphanius’ attacks on John and Rufinus, and translated them into Latin for a Roman audience, for which see Jerome Ep. 57 (CSEL 54, pp. 503–26) and Kelly, Jerome, 203. (20) For Jerome's brush with exile, see his Jo. Hier. 43 (PL 23.394b) and Ep. 82.10 (CSEL 55, pp. 116–17). (21 ) Kelly, Jerome, 203–4. (22) For the intricate social networks that characterized this controversy, see Elizabeth A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 11–42. (23) A reconciliation was finally arranged by Theophilus in 397; Kelly, Jerome, 207–9. (24) Jerome ep. 51.9 (CSEL 54, p. 412.2–5). ET: NPNF 6, p. 89. (25) Nevertheless, see Butler 1.293–7 and 2.240–3 for the difficulty of identifying this Palladius; see also Hunt, ‘Palladius of Helenopolis’, 470–1. (26) For his trips north to Alexandria and Palestine, see HL 4, Butler, 19. 19–21, and HL 55, Butler, 148.14–15. For his trips south, see HL 29, 31, 32–5, and 47, although it is doubtful that he actually visited the Pachomian monasteries, for which see F. Halkin, ‘L'Histoire Lausiaque et les vies grecques de s. Pachôme’, AB 48 (1930): 257–301; Armand Veilleux, La liturgie dans le cénobitisme pachômien au quatrième siècle, Studia Anselmiana 57 (Rome: Herder, 1968); idem, Pachomian Koinonia, vol. 2, Pachomian Chronicles and Rules, Cistercian Studies 46 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, 1981), 133. (27) HL 55, Butler, 148.15; see also E. D. Hunt, ‘St. Silvia of Aquitaine: The Role of a Theodosian Pilgrim in the Society of East and West’, JThS, ns 23 (1972): 351–73. Paul Devos, on the other hand, disagrees on the identity of this Silvia with the sister of Rufinus the Praetor, ‘Silvie la sainte pèlerine: I en Orient’, AB 91 (1973): 105–20, and ‘Silvie la sainte pèlerine: II en Occident’, AB 92 (1974): 321–45. (28) See Clark, Origenist Controversy, 191, which cites Evagrius ep. 51.1. (29) For Nathaniel, see HL 16, Butler 41.8. (30) HL 18, Butler 58.9–10; HL 23, Butler 75.3–4; HL 35, Butler 103.14–15. (31 ) HL 23, Butler 75.1–5; HL 71, Butler 167.11–14; HL 71, Butler 167.19–21. (32) HL 2, Butler 18.6; HL 12, Butler 35.14; HL 4, Butler 20.12; HL 41, Butler 128.7–10; HL 44, Butler 131.19–20; Dialogue 20.123–4. (33) HL 7, Butler 25.10–14; HL 7, Butler 26.6–7; HL 17, Butler 44.20–6; see also HL 20.
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(34) HL 36, Butler 107.1. Numerous dates have been proposed, but none can be conclusively accepted or rejected on the basis of the evidence; see Butler, Lausiac History, 2.244; Peeters, ‘Une vie copte’, 369–78; Buck, ‘The Structure of the Lausiac History’, 296–9; Hunt, ‘Palladius of Helenopolis’, 473–5. In a letter to a Palestinian synod, Theophilus (Jerome ep. 92.1, CSEL 55, p. 148) writes that foreigners fled Egypt with other Origenists and settled in Palestine with them. Some have proposed that Palladius may have been one of the non‐Egyptians who fled Egypt when Theophilus routed the Origenists in spring 400, but this date is too late as the following discussion will make clear. (35) HL 41. (36) On the ordination of Alexander to Basinopolis by John, see Synesius of Cyrene ep. 66 (PG 66.1408–9, at 1408D). On his return from Asia, John involved himself yet again in the affairs of the churches of Bithynia, by deposing Gerontius, the popular bishop of Nicomedia, and installing Pansophius, for which see Soz. h.e. 8.6; J. N. D. Kelly, Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom—Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop (London: Duckworth, 1995), 177–80. (37) DHGE 23.877–84, s.v. ‘Hélénopolis’; Lucian's companion in martyrdom was Basiliscus, the bishop of Comana, who appeared in a vision to John shortly before his death (Dial. 11.122–9). (38) Chrys. pan. Lucn. PG 50.519–26; tr. Wendy Mayer, with Bronwen Neil, St. John Chrysostom: The Cult of the Saints (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2006), 63–73. (39) Dial. 13–15; Kelly, Golden Mouth, 163–80, analyses the Ephesus affair thoroughly; this synod of visiting bishops presaged the later development of a permanent, or ἐνδημου̑σα, synod, for which see P. Joseph Hajjar, Le synode permanent dans l'église byzantine des origines au xi siècle, OCA 164 (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1962); Richard Potz, Patriarch und Synode in Konstantinopel: Das Verfassungsrecht des ökumenischen Patriarchats, Kirche und Rechte 10 (Vienna: Herder, 1971), 21–4. (40) Dial. 14.93–103. (41) Dial. 14.103–26. (42) Jerome ep. 90 (CSEL 55, p. 144.17–20). (43) Kelly, Golden Mouth, 191; Dial. 17. (44) Dial. 14.127–44. (45) Dial. 14.145–53. When Palladius travelled to Ephesus in January 402, he did not start out from Constantinople with John but rather he met him en route not far from Helenopolis, in Apamea of Bithynia. For this late date of the trip to Ephesus, see Kelly, Golden Mouth, 165–6 and 172–4. (46) Dial. 8.9–22; Kelly, Golden Mouth, 200–49, contains a complete account of what is summarized in the next three paragraphs. (47) Dial. 8.22–62. (48) Socr. h.e. 6.12–14. (49) Dial. 8.36–255. (50) Dial. 9.1–7. (51 ) Kelly, Golden Mouth, 237–40. (52) Kelly, Golden Mouth, 240–3. (53) Dial. 9.157–229. (54) For John's letter to Innocent see Dialogue 2, in Malingrey, Palladios: Dialogue sur la vie de Jean Chrysostom, 22.1.2012 20:01
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SC 341–2 (Paris: Cerf, 1998) 2:68–95. Malingrey determined that the letter was not integral to the text but a later interpolation (Malingrey, Palladios, 2:47–58), for which reason she edited it apart from the main body of the Dialogue, in the second volume of her work. For the dating of John's letter, see Kelly, Golden Mouth, 245–6. (55) Kelly, Golden Mouth, 250. (56) Dial. 9.139–229. For a fuller account of what follows, see Kelly, Golden Mouth, 228–49 and 272–85; Charles Pietri, Roma Christiana: Recherches sur l'Église de Rome, son organisation, sa politique, son idéologie de Miltiade à Sixte III (311–440), 2 vols. (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1976), 1299–1326; Roland Delmaire, ‘Les “lettres d'exil” de Jean Chrysostome: Études de chronologie et de prosopographie’, RecAug 25 (1991): 71–180, at 80–6. (57) For the edicts, see CT 16.2.35, 16.2.37, 16.4.5, and 16.4.6; see also Dial. 3.108–13, and Dial. 11.54–8. (58) Dial. 11.44–53. (59) Dial. 3.78. Palladius was probably driven out of Constantinople by an edict dated 11 September 404, a copy of which he presented upon his arrival in Rome (CT 16.2.37). Malingrey (Palladios, 1:15 n. 4) surmises that if Palladius had stayed longer in Constantinople, he probably would have mentioned the even more strongly worded edict of 18 November 404 that forced all into communion with Arsacius, Theophilus, and Porphyry (CT 16.4.6). (60) Dial. 1.158–65. (61 ) Dial. 1.166–70. (62) See Dial. 1.170–7. (63) For an account of their activity see Dial. 3; for Eulysius, see Dial. 3.71–2; for Demetrius, see Dial. 3.97–104; for Theotecnus, see Dial. 3.34–43; the letters of Innocent are preserved in Soz. h.e. 8.26. The bishops of Caria probably wrote in support of John's extra‐jurisdictional activities, one of which was John's involvement in the destruction of the temples in Phoenice of Caria, for which see PW, 20.1, cols. 426–8, s.v. ‘Phoinix (14)’, and Theodoret h.e. 5.29; ed. Léon Parmentier and Günther Christian Hansen, eds., Kirchengeschichte, GCS Neue Folge 5 (Berlin: Akademie‐ Verlag, 1998); this edition is being reproduced in Annick Martin et al., Théodoret de Cyr: Histoire ecclésiastique, SC 501– (Paris: Cerf, 2006–). (64) According to Kelly (Golden Mouth, 275–6), Honorius sent a letter to Arcadius together with the two letters that Innocent sent to Constantinople; Innocent probably consulted Honorius during that past summer when the emperor was in residence in Rome. For Innocent's two letters, see ep. 7, PL 20.501–7, and ep. 12, PL 20.513; both letters are also preserved in Soz. h.e. 8.26 (GCS, vol. 50, pp. 385–7). For the letter of Honorius to Arcadius, see Collectio Avellana 38, in CSEL 35, pp. 85–8. (65) Dial. 3.119–28. (66) Dial. 3.133–57. Honorius claims that this letter (preserved only by Palladius) is his third on the matter; while the ‘first’ letter can be found in CSEL 35, pp. 85–8, there is no record of a second. (67) John Chrysostom addressed ep. 148 to this delegation (PG 52.699–700). This letter might have been sent to them while they were in Rome, when John first learned of their proposed trip. (68) Socr. h.e. 6.20. Kelly (Golden Mouth, 279) suggests that the delegation set out at the beginning of the sailing season, 11 March 406, because autumn 405 would have been too early for their departure. On the sailing season, see Lionel Casson, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton: n.p., 1971), 270–1. (69) Soz. h.e. 8.25. For Stilicho's activities I depend upon Kelly's analysis (Golden Mouth, 279–80); A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire 284–602: A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964), 184–5, believed that these preparations happened after Stilicho was encouraged by his victory over Radagais in August 407, and that preparations did not start until winter 407–8.
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(70) Not to mention that Anthemius probably sympathized with Theophilus; see Delmaire, ‘Les “lettres d'exil” ’, 108–9; compare John ep. 147 (PG 52.699). (71 ) Kelly, Golden Mouth, 280. (72) Soz. h.e. 8.28. (73) Dial. 20. 107–79. (74) Lionel Casson, Travel in the Ancient World (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1974), 315. On the rapid pace of the delegation's travel, see Dial. 20. 113–14 and 20.147. (75) Casson, Travel, 148–52. (76) John Matthews, Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court A.D. 364–425 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 274–5. (77) For Palladius’ account and the cities they passed, see Dial. 20.31–44 and 20.108–53. For the land routes through Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, see maps in N. H. H. Sitwell, Roman Roads of Europe (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981), 194–5, 170–1; David French, Roman Roads and Milestones of Asia Minor: Fascicle 1: The Pilgrim's Road, British Institute of Archeology at Ankara no. 3, BAR International Series 105 (n.p.: BAR, 1981), maps following p. 129; Benjamin Isaac and Israel Roll, Roman Roads in Judea: I. The Legio-Scythopolis Road, BAR International Series 141 (n.p.: BAR, 1982), 118–20. (78) Dial. 20.175. (79) These frontier regions were marked by outposts that supervised trade, hindered migrating bands, and protected water reservoirs. See C. R. Whittaker, Frontiers of the Roman Empire: A Social and Economic Study (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University, 1994), 135–41, 143–5. (80) Dial. 20.148–54. (81 ) For this Oasis, which bordered with the Mazices (Dial. 20.43), see Hermann Kees, ‘Oasis’, PW, 17.1685–6. (82) Dial. 20.41–2. The duration of their journey may be guessed by similar trips that were conducted in antiquity, for which see Casson, Travel, 190–3, and 315. (83) HL 35, Butler, 105.12–13; cf. Ph. Koukoulès and R. Guilland, ‘Études sur la vie privée des Byzantins: Voleurs et prisons à Byzance’, Revue des études grecques 61 (1948): 118–36, at 129–30. John Chrysostom sent a letter to Palladius when the latter was imprisoned, saying: Θρηνου̑μεν δὲ τὸν κοινὸν τω̑ν ἐκκλησιω̑ν χειμω̑να, καὶ τὸ τὴν οἰκουμένην καταλαβὸν ναυάγιον, καὶ πάντας ὑμα̑ς παρακαλου̑μεν εὐχαι̑ς βοηθει̑ν, ὥστε τὴν πανωλεθρίαν ταύτην λυθη̑ναί ποτε, καὶ εἰς λευκὴν ἅπαντα μεταβαλει̑ν γαλήνην. Του̑το δὴ ποιου̑ντες μὴ διαλίπητε. Λανθάνοντες γὰρ καὶ κρυπτόμενοι, πλείονα σχολὴν ἔχετε νυ̑ν προσκαρτερει̑ν ται̑ς εὐχαι̑ς καὶ μετὰ θλιβομένης διανοίας (John Chrysostom ep. 113, PG 52.669). I differ with Delmaire (‘Lettres d'exil,’ 151) who suggests that this letter was sent soon after the death of Eudoxia. The consolation to which John refers elsewhere in the letter was not Eudoxia's death, as Delmaire believes, but the efforts for his restoration, however futile they may have been. (84) HL 58 and 60. For Antinoë, the capital of the Thebaid, see DACL 1.2. 2328–59; Palladius appears to give an accurate description of the cultic practices related to the martyr Colluthus in HL 60, Butler 154.11–19; cf. DACL 1.2.2336 and 2351. (85) Egypt was so important a source of wheat for the empire that travel in and out of the port of Alexandria was highly regulated, for which see Casson, Travel, 154; on Theophilus' resentment of John's supporters after the entire affair see DHGE 2.189. (86) Hugh G. Evelyn‐White, The Monasteries of the Wâdi ’N Natrûn, vol. 2, The History of the Monasteries of Nitria and of Scetis (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982), 154–61. For Scetis, see Aelred Cody, ‘Sketis’, Coptic 15 of 18
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Encyclopedia 7.2102–6; for Cells, see Antoine Guillaumont et al., ‘Kellia’, Coptic Encyclopedia 5.1396–410. (87) White, Monasteries, 158, cites the story of Abba Bishôi's relocation from Scetis to Antinoë. (88) For a plan of Antinoë, and the hills that surrounded it where the anchorites probably lived, see DACL 1.2.2327, fig. 781. (89) On Diocles, see HL 58, Butler 152.1, 6. For the Evagrian parallels, see the study of René Draguet, ‘L'Histoire Lausiaque: une oeuvre écrite dans l'esprit d'Évagre’, RHE 42 (1947): 5–49, at 32. According to later sources, Origenist monasticism flourished elsewhere in Upper Egypt, too, for which see Tito Orlandi, ‘A Catechesis against Apocryphal Texts by Shenute and the Gnostic Texts of Nag Hammadi’, HThR 75 (1982): 85–95; Ernest Honigmann, ‘The Monks at Fua, Addressees of a Letter from St. Cyril of Alexandria (412–444)’, in Patristic Studies (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1953), 52–3. For the virgin's gift, see HL 60, which describes it as a commentary on Amos, of which we have no record; Meyer (Lausiac History, 214, n. 521) suggests that it may have been a part of Clement's Hypotyposeis, which has not survived but is described by Eusebius h.e. 6.14.1. (90) For this lost pamphlet, see Chrysostomus Baur, ‘S. Jérôme et S. Chrysostome’, RBen 23 (1906): 430–6; cf. Jerome ep. 114. (91 ) For the dossier, see Dial. 4.38–9, and Dial. 20.117–18. Chrysostomos Baur, ‘Wo wurde der dem Palladius von Helenopolis zugeschriebene Dialog über das Leben des hl. Chrysostomus verfasst?’ ZKTh 71 (1949): 466–8, argues that Palladius must have written the Dialogue in Rome in order to have had access to all the documents that he cites. But on closer inspection it appears that Palladius did not have them on hand, because the documents are only mentioned or cited in part, with the exception of the ‘third’ letter of Honorius to Arcadius which cannot be corroborated. Second, Baur fails to recognize that the texts are not simply archival material, but a veritable dossier making the delegation's case to the eastern court. Third, it is difficult to argue that Palladius made a second trip to Rome in late 407 or 408 in light of the discussion above. Palladius may have also been facilitated by the ample supply of papyrus in Antinoë; for book production in the Fayyum and the Thebaid, see Mohammed A. Hussein, Origins of the Book: Egypt's Contribution to the Development of the Book from Papyrus to Codex, trans. Dorothy Jaeschke and Douglas Sharp (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1970). Papyrus was still being used in Egypt, despite the increasing predominance of vellum, for which see Frederic G. Kenyon, Books and Readers in Ancient Greece and Rome (Oxford: Clarendon, 1951), 117–18. (92) For the mention of John's death, see Dial. 5.1; for the notice concerning Elpidius and Pappus, see Dial. 20.59–62. For the flight of John's supporters, see Dial. 11.3–4. Elpidius might have known John from Antioch, since he had formerly been in the company of Meletius of Antioch, according to Theodoret h.e. 5.27. Elpidius and Pappus were restored to their sees during the tenure of Alexander of Antioch (412–16). See Kelly, Golden Mouth, 287; Innocent (ep. 19 [PL 20.541B]) writes to Alexander of Antioch, ‘Libenter praeterea de episcopis Elpidio atque Pappo cognovi, quod sine quaestione suas ecclesias recuperaverint.’ (93) Dial. 20.62–3; cf. Soz. h.e. 8.6. (94) Photius cod. 59, ed. René Henry, Photius Bibliothèque, vol. 1 (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1960), 52–7; Henry's edition is reproduced in Anne‐Marie Malingrey, Palladios: Dialogue sur la vie de Jean Chrysostome, vol. 2, SC 342 (Paris: Cerf, 1988), 97–115. All citations are taken from the Malingrey edition, citing volume, page, and, where appropriate, line numbers too. For the notice concerning Heraclides, Malingrey, Palladios, 2:114.140–41. (95) See Socr. h.e. 6.17 and Soz. h.e. 8.19. (96) Socr. h.e. 6.17. (97) Dial. 15.76–81. (98) For dramatic effect, Palladius often compresses the time that has elapsed in his account; see Florent van Ommeslaeghe, ‘Que vaut le témoignage de Pallade sur le procès de saint Jean Chrysostome?’, AB 95 (1977): 389–413, at 406. For evidence that on several occasions bishops were ordained in Constantinople for the see of Ephesus, see
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ACO 2.1.3, p. 52. Photius cod. 96 (René Henry, Photius Bibliothèque, vol. 2 (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1960), 62.1–11) also gives the impression that the eunuch of Victor was ordained in Constantinople. (99) According to one textual variant of Socr. h.e. 6.11, a tumult arose in Ephesus upon the ordination of Heraclides. (100) Soz. h.e. 8.19. (101) Dial. 9.98–100, 9.119–20, 9.144–7. (102) See E. Amann, ‘1. Innocent 1er’, DTC, 7.2.1941. (103) Here I follow Kelly's analysis of events, Golden Mouth, 286–8. (104) The edict that Palladius cites in Dial. 11.38–41 contains the name of Atticus, but it appears to be the same as 16.4.6 in the Theodosian Code, which was promulgated during the reign of the previous bishop Arsacius. Atticus' name probably replaced that of Arsacius when he was installed as bishop. (105) Synesius of Cyrene mentions such an amnesty in his ep. 66 (PG 66.1408–9). Synesius inquired of Theophilus about the status of a certain Alexander, who returned to his native Libya divested of all episcopal privileges, because as bishop of Basinopolis in Bithynia he had been a partisan of John. Synesius says that he has read the letter of Theophilus that instructed Atticus to receive the Johnites, and that he is writing ἔτος ἤδη τρίτον ἐξήκει μετὰ τὴν ἀμνηστείαν καὶ τὰς διαλλαγάς (PG 66.1409A), which indicates that the amnesty was initiated no later than 409, because Theophilus died in 412. Notice that Alexander had been forced to live like a private individual despite the amnesty and that we have no record of a response by Theophilus to Synesius. (106) Dial. 4.72–3. (107) Dial. 16.1–173. For a positive assessment of Porphyrius’ character, see Theodoret h.e. 5.35. (108) Kelly, Golden Mouth, 286–7. (109) Cyril of Alexandria ep. 75.3 (PG 77.349C); also edited by Eduard Schwartz, Codex Vaticanus gr. 1431: Eine antichalkedonische Sammlung aus der Zeit Kaiser Zenos, Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch‐philologische und historische Klasse, vol. 32, Abhandlung no. 6 (Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1927), 23–4. (110) Cyril of Alexandria ep. 75.4–5 (PG 77.349D–352B). Unfortunately, there is no consensus on the dating for the period discussed here. It was some time between 412 (Alexander is bishop of Antioch) and 419 (Cyril is in communion with Rome, according to Kelly, Golden Mouth, 288). (111 ) On the restoration of John by Cyril see Nestorius of Constantinople, Sermon 12.5, preserved in the translations of Marius Mercator, PL 48.852A. Following the lead of Chrysostomos Baur, Kelly believes that Cyril yielded to John's restoration around 418. See Kelly, Golden Mouth, 288; see also Chrysostomos Baur, John Chrysostom and his Time, vol. 2 (Westminster, MD: Newman, 1959), 450–1. On Cyril's attitude towards John, see Cyril of Alexandria ep. 76 (PG 77.352–60; critical edition in Schwartz, Codex Vaticanus gr., 25–8). (112) Dial. 20.434–9. (113) See HL 41, 61, 62. Nicole Moine (‘Melaniana’, RecAug 15 (1980): 56–65) says that Melania and Pinian were certainly still in Rome and did not depart until just before Alaric besieged the city, and it was around this time that they met with Serena and negotiated the selling of their vast estate; it is possible that Rufinus of Aquileia was also present in the city, see C. P. Hammond, ‘The Last Ten Years of Rufinus’ Life and the Date of his Move South from Aquilea’, JThS, ns 28 (1977): 372–427, at 420–3. Pammachius was a friend of Jerome, but Palladius included a notice about him in his Lausiac History because of his great renown and conversion; see Rufinus Apology against Jerome 2.44. (114) See Pietri, Roma Christiana, 1313; for John Chrysostom's correspondence with the noble women see his ep. 168, 17 of 18
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169, 170; for his correspondence with the bishops, see ep. 157–9; see also Charles Pietri, ‘Esquisse de Conclusion: L'aristocratie chrétienne entre Jean de Constantinople et Augustin d'Hippone’, in Jean Chrysostome et Augustin: Actes du colloque de Chantilly, 22–24 Septembre 1974, ed. Charles Kannengiesser, Théologie Historique 35 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1975), 283–305. (115) It has been suggested that they might have used their influence in Rome to pressure Innocent on John's behalf. See Pietri, Roma Christiana, 1319, and Kelly, Golden Mouth, 275 and 278. (116) Dial. 20.79–93. (117) Dial. 4.84–98. (118) See Delmaire, ‘Les “lettres d'exil” de Jean Chrysostome’, 106, 110, 115, 168. PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2011. All Rights Reserved. Under the te PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/page/privacy-polic
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Palladius of Helenopolis Demetrios S. Katos Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199696963 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696963.001.0001
Advocacy in the Dialogue on the Life of St John Chrysostom Chapter: (p. 33 ) 2 Advocacy in the Dialogue on the Life of St John ChrysostomPalladius of HelenopolisThe Source: Origenist AdvocateDemetrios S. Katos Author(s): DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696963.003.0003
Abstract and Keywords This chapter argues that the Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom should be understood as a legal argument in defense of John composed in accordance with the principles of late antique judicial rhetoric found in the Art of Political Speech (Anonymous Seguerianus) and Art of Rhetoric, attributed to Apsines of Gadara. This chapter analyzes the Dialogue in terms of its four constitutive parts, namely, the introduction [proemion], narration [diegesis], argumentation [kataskeue or pistis], and conclusion [epilogos] and explains the purpose and historical value of each. This chapter reveals that Palladius used the dialogue form to mimic courtroom debate and that he subordinated all narrative elements to the argumentation. It is the argumentation that is at the very heart of the Dialogue, even though its significance has been ignored or even dismissed by most scholarship which has long viewed the dialogue as a historical or biographical narrative. Keywords: Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom , dialogue, judicial rhetoric, forensic, Art of Political Speech, Anonymous Seguerianus, Art of Rhetoric, Apsines of Gadara, narration [ diegesis ], argumentation [ kataskeue or pistis ]
Few tales are as noble or as full of pathos as the Dialogue on the Life of St John Chrysostom. It portrays John as a young aristocrat of Antioch who renounced a bright future in the imperial bureaucracy for service to the church. He went on to distinguish himself with such sincerity and élan that the imperial court took notice and whisked him away to Constantinople where he was installed as bishop. There he initiated reforms that transformed his newly adopted city into the very model of virtue, but which made corrupt clergy and wealthy aristocrats chafe. Meanwhile, a controversy that originated in the distant church of Alexandria began to embroil the unwitting John. The story's drama heightens as John falls prey to the political and ecclesiastical machinations of his opponents: a council stacked with avowed enemies deposes him and he is taken into exile without resistance; an angry populace erupts
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into tumult and he is recalled in triumph; in a cruel twist of fate, his adversaries regain the upper hand and John is permanently banished. Like a lamb led to the slaughter John was taken by forced march to one of the most remote regions of the empire and submitted to cruelty and maltreatment without complaint. Ultimately, he succumbed to the hardship. He was succoured in his final moments by a vision of future blessings, and on his deathbed he reaffirmed his faith in God's providence with his last words, ‘Glory to God for all things’. Rich in detail and fulsome in its praise, the Dialogue succeeded in creating a vivid image of John that was authoritative and which exerted a profound influence on many later hagiographical accounts, such as the Life of Olympias (mid‐fifth century), the Homily on John Chrysostom by Theodore of Trimithus (c. 680), and the Life of John Chrysostom, attributed to George of Alexandria (d. 630) but probably dating from much later, all of which embraced the image of John as saint and martyr.1 Until very recently scholars have preserved (p. 34 ) almost unchanged the Dialogue's account of John's tenure and its explanation of the controversy.2 Not surprisingly, the Dialogue fixed John in the popular consciousness as both hero and innocent victim.3 Yet for all its attention to detail, the Dialogue ignored or passed over much in silence, and even skewed some evidence. It has been long acknowledged that despite the admirable qualities of the Dialogue, it is an incomplete and biased account of John's life.4 Palladius' account of John's ascetic retreat failed to mention that this period of absence from Antioch coincided neatly with the exile and return of his patron bishop, Meletius.5 Other sources suggest that John's preaching in Antioch had generated tension among the local elite just as it had later in Constantinople, and that far from being ignorant of ecclesiastical politics, John was well versed in its rancour and dangers upon his election as bishop.6 Even though the Dialogue paid close attention to the controversy that destroyed John, in some important details it differed from other early sources, such as the funeral oration of Ps.‐Martyrius, which appears to have been composed by another well‐informed eyewitness to the events in Constantinople.7 Whereas the Dialogue claimed that John was judged by the nefarious synod at Oak in a single day, Photius’ summary of the synod's acts explicitly states that it conducted thirteen πράξεις against John, a number too large to have been carried out in a single day.8 Even (p. 35 ) without research into other sources, a careful reading of the Dialogue reveals that Palladius ignored the seriousness of John's challenge to the emperor to be removed by force, and that he dismissed the possibility that arson may have caused the fire that engulfed the church and the senate meeting house, and threatened the rest of the city. Moreover, despite its dramatic elements, the Dialogue is difficult to appreciate as a whole, and it was overtaken in popularity by subsequent hagiographies that had absorbed its most engaging material and dropped its less attractive features. As indicated by its name, the account is cast as a dialogue. This form is ill suited to the narration of a story because it requires repeated interruptions and hinders dramatic development. The verbal volleys between the two speakers protract the presentation and at times become tedious. More problematically, many a reader has been bewildered by the Dialogue's structure. It begins with a brief exposition on the priesthood that seems irrelevant to the rest of the story, and then narrates events starting from John's removal and ending with Rome's intervention on his behalf (chapters 1–4).9 It then presents a more complete account of John's life, from his youth in Antioch to his death in exile (chapters 5–11), but without referring to events found earlier or later in the Dialogue. This is the most attractive section of the entire work, with a description of John's death befitting a biography's conclusion, but which the Dialogue posits at its approximate midpoint. The second half of the Dialogue appears to lack any apparent compositional, chronological, and even thematic coherence. Palladius justifies John's habit of ‘eating alone’ (chapters 12–13) during his tenure as bishop, and then narrates a lengthy account of John's deposition of six bishops in Asia (chapters 13–15). John then disappears from view in the next three chapters, in which it is explained how a certain Porphyrius usurped the bishopric of Antioch (chapter 16), and why the deaconess Olympias supported the refugee monks (chapters 16 and 17). John reappears in the next two chapters (chapters 18–19), but Palladius offers little new biographical or historical material. The reader must trudge through a jumbled and odd mixture of lavish praise for John, virulent criticism of his opponents, and innumerable scriptural quotations, many of which seem either mechanical or reflexive. The Dialogue concludes with similarly fulsome and strident language, although the final chapter is redeemed by an engaging narrative regarding the persecution of John's supporters (chapter 20). (p. 36 ) Despite these criticisms, it is also evident that the Dialogue cannot be rejected as history or ignored as literature It is one of those rare instances in which history belongs to the vanquished and the level of detail it 22.1.2012 20:02
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provides concerning the controversy surrounding John is unmatched in many respects. It is the source of some of the most enduring literary images of late antiquity, with its colourful language, pathetic reminiscences, and vivid descriptions of events and characters. How can one reconcile these excellences with such flaws as its overt partisanship and awkward dialogue?10 By recognizing that these are not flaws, but clues to the very purpose and value of the Dialogue. They suggest that Palladius wrote not as a biographer or as a detached historian, but as an advocate pleading a cause, and that he composed the Dialogue according to the principles of judicial rhetoric. Judicial rhetorical theory not only clarifies the Dialogue's complex arrangement, it also reveals the purpose and value of its historical narrative.
The Tell‐Tale Sign Of Courtroom Rhetoric Palladius set his story in Rome as a dialogue occurring between a young Roman deacon named Theodore, and an elderly bishop visiting from the east, who was left anonymous but was identified as a partisan of John. Conceivably Palladius' choice of dialogue form was made on the basis of personal preference or style, but his choice requires further explanation because a dialogue interrupts narrative flow and it was an unusual literary vehicle for extensive historical or biographical narration. It was also recognized in the fourth century as a difficult genre to master.11 For these reasons, this compositional decision generated a protracted debate in the twentieth century concerning the Dialogue's genre. In 1906, Paolo Ubaldi published a lengthy article, in which he listed many stylistic and verbal parallels between the Dialogue and Plato's Phaedo, and he (p. 37 ) argued that Palladius had consciously imitated them.12 He claimed that the Dialogue was cast in the form of a philosophical dialogue, a claim that found its way into the standard patrologies.13 The argument was partly convincing because both works portrayed a persecuted teacher in his final hours calmly bidding farewell to his disciples. But even a passing familiarity with both works might prompt one to doubt whether this was truly Palladius' intention. There was nothing philosophical about Palladius' dialogue, and the image of the righteous teacher bidding his disciples farewell could have been derived just as well from the gospel of John.14 To his credit, Ubaldi qualified his claim by noting the significant difference between the philosophical nature of the Phaedo and what he termed the ‘historical‐apologetic’ nature of the Dialogue.15 It was this ‘historical‐apologetic’ nature that encouraged others to reject Ubaldi's claim. P. R. Coleman‐Norton suggested in 1926 that the Dialogue had been intended as a biography of John Chrysostom, because it contained the seven categories that he believed were essential to classical biography.16 His argument was not very convincing, however, since even he conceded that Palladius had forced upon this material an arrangement that was odd for a biography. More problematically, Coleman‐Norton did not explain the function of the dialogue form, nor did he suggest why it might have been chosen as the medium of narration.17 Bernd Reiner Voss continued the debate when he published in 1970 a study of early Christian dialogues. Voss was particularly loath to equate the Dialogue with the Phaedo because it bore so little (if any) resemblance to the tone and style of the original, and more importantly, he believed that it made bad use of the dialogue form overall; if Palladius had attempted to copy Plato he succeeded only in the insignificant particulars (p. 38 ) noted by Ubaldi.18 Voss posited that Palladius had written a historical dialogue. In a short appendix on the nature of historical dialogues, he offered three different categories of historical dialogues: fictitious dialogues inserted into traditional histories; philosophical dialogues on historical questions; and dialogues that were purportedly true and recorded in traditional histories.19 Surprisingly, however, the Dialogue was not grouped with any of these. Instead, Voss briefly noted that Palladius' Dialogue and the Dialogues of Sulpicius Severus (ad 360–420/25) were two rare instances in which a dialogue was used to narrate historical events, and he suggested that the inspiration for these two exceptions may have been Theon's Progymnasmata, whose chapter ‘On Narrative’ suggests such an option.20 Recent research on Theon, however, has demonstrated convincingly that this rhetorical handbook should not be dated to the first century, as commonly believed when Voss wrote, but to the late fifth century.21 Voss should have also realized that Greek rhetorical handbooks had little influence on Latin authors in the fifth century. Others were equally perplexed about the proper category for the Dialogue. In 1964 Spyridon Troianos published a book on ecclesiastical judicial processes of late antiquity, and he based his study on conciliar acts and literary works, among which the Dialogue was a very important source. Although he categorized according to genre (e.g. acts, history, hagiography) even the most insignificant of his sources, he could not find an appropriate category for the Dialogue.22 In 1988 Anne‐Marie Malingrey published a critical edition of the Dialogue, but she made no significant
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progress on the question of its genre. Since she had detected in it multiple influences and multiple purposes, she suggested that Palladius had incorporated an assortment of literary forms, each to a different end: dialogue, to discuss disputed issues; history, to record historical events in great detail; apology, to defend John; and finally, moral exhortation, to expound the virtues of the priesthood.23 Apparently she agreed with Voss, who had argued that the dialogue form had been so well assimilated into Christian literature by the fourth century that it could have been used for a variety of purposes, including narrating, arguing, and exhorting.24 To her (p. 39 ) credit, she broadened the parameters of genre considerations beyond the alternatives of Platonic dialogue and bad history or biography. She even recognized the value of the dialogue form for disputed issues, although inexplicably even in the most heated debate in the Dialogue, she still saw mimicry of philosophical dialogue, rather than a forensic argument as I shall argue below.25 Unfortunately, however, she did not venture to identify the primary genre category for the Dialogue, which would have been a significant contribution to the ongoing discussion.26 To cut this Gordian knot one must recognize the central role that advocacy played in shaping the Dialogue, and the role dialectic could play in advocating a cause. The Dialogue was primarily a defence, not a biography, of John, and an analogous assertion could be made for the Dialogues of Sulpicius Severus.27 Although Sulpicius’ dialogues may have recorded the lives of eastern ascetics, their primary purpose was to promote Martin of Tours as their superior and to defend his cult from encroachment by them.28 The usefulness of dialogues in advocating causes is evident in the handbooks of rhetoric that trained students in argumentation for future careers in advocacy. One such handbook that was popular in Palladius' day, and which is central to the discussion in the next chapter, was On Issues by Hermogenes of Tarsus (3rd c.).29 On Issues often used short, terse dialogues to illustrate the different types of arguments at an advocate’s disposal. In one example, a philosopher claimed a reward for (p. 40 ) tyrannicide because he persuaded a tyrant to abdicate. Hermogenes created a short dialogue between the philosopher and city officials to illustrate how the philosopher could have claimed the reward (defining his action as tyrannicide) and how the officials could have denied it (rebutting his definition).30 In another example, an artist painted a shipwreck, and a shipwreck subsequently occurred. Hermogenes developed a dialogue to show how the artist might have defended himself against the prosecution's accusation of complicity.31 Dialogues, therefore, were perceived in the fifth century as conducive to advocating causes. Elements of dialogue introduced each of the major arguments that Palladius developed in defence of John's ‘eating alone’ (chapter 12–13), of his intervention in Asia (chapter 13–16), of his reception of the monks (chapters 16–17), and of his personality (chapters 18–19). Indeed, the dialectical character of the Dialogue is most pronounced in the discussion of contested issues, which suggests that Palladius chose the dialogue form to help in developing the arguments defending John. The deacon often objects to the bishop's claims, and voices the complaints of John's critics. With each response to the deacon, the bishop strengthens his defence of John. The dialogue's usefulness in this regard is explicitly stated at the end of Palladius' argument in defence of John's ‘eating alone’, when the deacon proclaims, ‘Please do not get irritated at my objections. I have only wanted to learn more, so I kept asking you in greater detail of your abundant learning.’32 In the hotly contested issue of the monks’ reception, the deacon adamantly refuses to accept the bishop's interpretation of events, and he repeatedly charges that it was wrong of Olympias to extend aid to clerics whom Theophilus had excommunicated. Their spirited debate, however, justifies John's reception of the Egyptian fugitives.33 Throughout the Dialogue the deacon serves as the bishop's foil, and their exchanges clarify and strengthen the bishop's arguments. Ubaldi was right to note Palladius' allusions to the Phaedo, but they were not evidence of an attempt to imitate a Platonic dialogue. Rather they were literary embellishments of a dialogue in the service of a very practical end, the defence of John.34 Palladius wrote his Dialogue primarily to persuade his audience that John should be restored to the diptychs and commemorated as bishop of Constantinople. He also maintained that Theophilus and his associates must be summoned before a council and censured for their actions. He was inspired not by Platonic philosophy, but by sophistic declamation.
(p. 41 ) Forensic Elements in the Dialogue A dialogue allowed Palladius to convey the colour, tone, and dynamics of a trial by presenting and contesting the opposing viewpoints of the deacon and bishop.35 Throughout the Dialogue he adopted explicit forensic imagery. Consider the following passage in which he recreated a courtroom scene. The deacon asks the bishop to swear an oath and testify, and warns him not to perjure himself, saying,
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You are requested, then, with God as a witness, to reveal to us a really true account of what happened there, for we are anxious to learn this in detail. You know full well that if you should speak an untruth, God shall be your judge and examiner, and you will be cross‐examined by us, too, if we learn otherwise. For it is not one or two, or three, or ten, or even more, who have given us an account of the happenings in Constantinople.36 Palladius portrayed the bishop as a witness in an active courtroom that was staffed with a judge, advocates, and numerous cross‐witnesses in the offing. He then used dialogue for interrogation and cross‐examination of the bishop by the deacon. Consider how he developed their exchange at the beginning of his discussion of John's intervention in Ephesus. In Ephesus, John had deposed and installed several bishops even though the city was outside his jurisdiction. The young deacon inquired whether the elderly bishop was familiar with the matter, and whether his knowledge was first‐hand or hearsay, in the manner of an attorney placing a witness on the stand in a contemporary courtroom drama; he then enjoined him to give a detailed, orderly narrative in response (p. 42 ) to a previous account offered by Theophilus.37 The bishop responded that he would answer as truthfully as though he was present at the heavenly tribunal.38 A little later, the deacon interrupted the bishop's account to inquire whether he was also familiar with the newly elected bishop of Antioch, Porphyry. He asked the bishop to describe his character for the Roman church, and to report how he had been installed, because his ordination was reputed to have violated usual procedure. The bishop responded that he would comply with the inquiry fully, truthfully, and to the best of his knowledge.39 It is no surprise that the Dialogue concluded with the verdict of the Roman church pronounced in favour of John. The decision of the church of Rome was that they should by no means be in communion with the bishops of the East, and especially not with Theophilus, until such time the Lord should grant an opportunity for an ecumenical synod, which would heal the rotted limbs of those men who had perpetrated these deeds. For even though the blessed John has gone to sleep, nevertheless truth is very much awake for which a search shall be made.40 The Dialogue opened, tried, and closed a case, deciding for the defendant. The forensic character of the Dialogue is also apparent in the legal details that Palladius supplies throughout his story. It is true that Palladius says very little, and appears ill‐informed, about the events at the council of Oak, a judicial proceeding of the church, but it should be remembered that he was not present for the council. As for the events leading up to Oak, however, these he carefully recorded, paying close attention to the steady stream of legal summonses that were issued, delivered, and answered. He does not merely state that John's supporters travelled to Rome; he meticulously notes the copies of edicts, depositions, and recorded statements that they bore with them in defence of John. All legal proceedings that played a role in John's troubles were described with painstaking detail of the charges, accusations, and witnesses involved. Such is the case of the proceedings of Theophilus against Isidore and the Tall Brothers in Alexandria, and the case of the countersuit that the fugitive monks lodged against Theophilus in Constantinople. Likewise Palladius offered detailed accounts of John's involvement in the legal proceedings against the bishop of Ephesus, including the original charges that had been proffered in Constantinople, the investigation Palladius (p. 43 ) personally conducted in Hypoepi, and finally the investigations, deposals, and installations of bishops in the province of Asia by John. One might think that this was merely good storytelling, but Palladius was particularly concerned with legal issues and the Dialogue is replete with forensic language. For example, in the passages related to the legal proceedings that were initiated by Theophilus and then by the Egyptian monks in response, there are repeated references to legal terms such as accusation (κατηγορία), charge (ἔγκλημα), action (δίκη), petition (λίβελλος), and judgment or verdict (κρίσις or ἀπόφασις).41 Indeed, some of the Dialogue's language is best understood in its legal sense. For example, the term βιβλίον, or simply, little book, here means specifically a written petition (equivalent to a λίβελλος).42 The term κεφάλαιον has multiple meanings listed in the Liddell–Scott Greek Lexicon (hereafter, LSJ), but in the Dialogue it has a technical legal meaning not found there.43 Specifically, it refers to charges that are brought forward in a λίβελλος against one accused in a legal proceeding. Palladius refers to such κεφάλαια in the λίβελλοι against Theophilus and against Antoninus.44 Πρόστιμον is typically understood to mean some additional penalty or surcharge, whereas in the Dialogue it refers simply to a penalty, or perhaps a type of surety, as it does in the code and novels of Justinian.45 George Lampe's Patristic Greek Lexicon (hereafter, Lampe) notes that the term ἀκολουθία may have procedure or order as one of its meanings but in the Dialogue it has a forensic character describing in one 22.1.2012 20:02
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instance a legal precept, and in two others a judicial process.46 The word δέησις can mean any petition or entreaty, and it is commonly used in Christian literature to refer to prayer. The term, however, (p. 44 ) may also refer specifically to a written petition submitted to the emperor requesting a legal review, even though an appeal or request for review has already been lodged with another judicial body, too.47 It is in this sense that the term appears in the Dialogue, in which Palladius refers to three distinct δεήσεις, each of which was presented to the emperor.48 There are even terms in the Dialogue that are exclusively forensic in their meaning, and are incomprehensible without knowledge of legal terminology. An emissary from the synod at Oak delivered and read a παραναγνωστικόν to John and his bishops, summoning him and several others to cross over to the Oak for investigation.49 There are no attestations of the word in the LSJ, and only three in Lampe, where it is defined as a ‘written message’.50 The first attestation is to this passage in Palladius; the remaining two are from Cyril's Letter 23, where it is found twice, and the Acts of the Council of Ephesus.51 In each instance, and in several others not noted in Lampe, the term refers to a document summoning someone to appear before a synod of bishops.52 Palladius also uses the verb δηλατορεύω to relate that Olympias had been ‘denounced’ to Theodosius, presumably for her decision not to remarry after her untimely widowhood.53 This unusual verb was derived from the Latin delator, an informer, and it referred to the act of informing against, or denouncing, someone to the authorities.54 Lampe notes another attestation from a fragment of Hegesippus, preserved in Eusebius’ Church History, where we find precisely the same usage as in the Dialogue. Hegesippus says that relatives of Jesus were denounced to the authorities as descendants of David, for which reason they were summoned and appeared before the emperor Domitian.55 Related terms δηλατόρευσις and δηλάτωρ appear in Lampe with one or two attestations each, and the latter also appears in the LSJ supplement with a single attestation; a related term, δηλατορία, not found in either the LSJ or (p. 45 ) Lampe, is in a papyrus entitled ‘Memorandum and Speech of an Advocate, ca. AD 325’, in which it is used several times with the meaning of calumny, or possibly libel.56 Another legal term that found its way into the Dialogue is ἀβολιτίων, from the Latin abolitio, and it refers to the withdrawal of charges.57 The only attestation found in Lampe refers to the Dialogue, where Eusebius of Valentinopolis is warned by John that his status as bishop precludes him from filing an abolitio, that is, the withdrawing of charges, once they have been formally entered into the minutes.58 The term also appears as an entry in a late medieval lexicon of legal texts, where this meaning is confirmed.59 It is unfortunate that there is no lexicon of Greek legal terms of the pre‐Justinianic period, because it is clearly necessary to compose one. Although Latin remained the official language of the administration and of the law until the sixth century, Greek and other regional languages were in use for a variety of legal purposes from the early third century.60 As many of the entries in Lampe show, such terms found their way into late antique Christian literature, but their meaning has often been obscured. The Dialogue not only demonstrates Palladius' knowledge of legal proceedings, but sheds light on legal Greek terminology that had currency in his day, too. The Dialogue's forensic qualities would have been readily noticed and appreciated by Palladius' contemporaries, because many of them would have had legal training or experience. For the last several decades scholarship on late antique literature has focused upon epideictic or panegyric rhetorical training as a source of cultural discourse. This is understandable given the interests of humanities scholars in literary criticism, but as a consequence the significance of judicial rhetoric in this period has been ignored. In recent years, however, interest in late antique judicial rhetoric, law, and legal practices has burgeoned, bringing to light forgotten dimensions of early Christian literature. Malcolm Heath's Menander: A Rhetor in Context demonstrates that, unlike epideictic rhetoric, judicial rhetoric was a central component of education and (p. 46 ) rhetorical training; it was absolutely essential for careers and social advancement from the second to the sixth centuries, a period in which many modern scholars believed it had fallen into disuse.61 Heath notes that the third century, typically associated with cultural and political decline, witnessed a remarkable proliferation of technography in judicial rhetoric, and proves that it was a period of very significant theoretical development for the discipline. Similarly, Caroline Humfress, in Orthodoxy and the Courts in Late Antiquity, demonstrates that forensic practices did not decline in the fourth and fifth centuries, but continued to contribute to the development of imperial administration and society, and, more importantly for our topic, to the church's administration and theology.62 Her work confirms that many bishops and clergy had been forensic practitioners who subsequently put their training to the service of the church.63 The Dialogue demonstrates the validity of such a claim, and it is best appreciated in this context. Partisanship, therefore, is not the Dialogue's flaw but its strength.
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Judicial Rhetoric As Key to the Dialogue To understand the Dialogue, therefore, it is important to apply the principles not of historiography, but of forensic practice and judicial rhetorical theory. Late antique judicial rhetorical theory had its roots in the Hellenistic period. Although no representative treatise from this period survives in the original Greek, the principles of Greek judicial rhetoric were assimilated, adapted, and preserved for us by Latin authors such as Quintilian, Cicero, and the anonymous author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium.64 In the second and third centuries of the Christian Era, judicial rhetoric developed significantly and took the basic shape it would have in the fourth and early fifth centuries, that is, at the time the Dialogue was composed. Some of these developments are preserved for us in two surviving rhetorical handbooks, The Art of Political Speech (Τέχνη του̑ πολιτικου̑ λόγου), composed by an unknown author conventionally called Anonymous Seguerianus, and the Art of Rhetoric (Τέχνη ῥητορική), traditionally attributed to Apsines of Gadara. George A. Kennedy has described these two handbooks as ‘probably the best surviving (p. 47 ) representatives of how rhetoric was taught in most Greek schools in the second and third centuries after Christ’.65 In these handbooks we find the key that unlocks the abstruse structure of the Dialogue, and sheds light on its purpose. The opening chapter of The Art of Political Speech provides a road map to the arrangement of the judicial speeches. It states, ‘A political [or judicial] speech divides its contents into four parts; for we use prooemia in it to make the hearers more attentive, and a narration to explain the subject, and proofs to establish or refute what is proposed, and we add epilogues to arouse the hearer to a vote for our side of the issue.’ 66 These four parts, and the principles prescribed for each, help us understand how Palladius organized his material in the Dialogue, and how he argued for John's restoration to the diptychs. Palladius began the Dialogue with a short exposition on the priesthood, and an introduction to the misfortunes of John Chrysostom's supporters from the vantage point of the Roman church.67 If one believes that the Dialogue is a history or biography, then the exposition on the priesthood appears to be an irrelevant introduction to John's vita, and the arrival of John's supporters in Rome a questionable beginning. The handbooks, however, indicate the rationale for such an introduction to a forensic argument. According to The Art of Political Speech, ‘the skopos of the prooemion is to prepare the hearer to be of a certain sort, and its telos is to create attention and receptivity and good will.’68 The exposition on the priesthood stirs the audience's consternation by informing them that worthy bishops such as John and his associates have been (p. 48 ) ousted by Theophilus and Acacius, and others of their ilk. In this way the prooemion prepares the audience to be emotionally receptive to the defence of John that follows. By definition, a prooemion is ‘a speech that arouses or calms the emotions of the hearer; for it is impossible to prepare a hearer without arousing or soothing his emotions’.69 Preparing an audience also requires an appeal to reason, primarily by establishing one's own credibility and gaining the audience's trust.70 Palladius projected his own credibility through the bishop, whom he portrayed as elderly, learned, and pious, with first‐hand knowledge of all the affairs under discussion.71 His concern to maintain his credibility also explains the very limited perspective of the Dialogue on this important historical episode. Although scholars have criticized Palladius for not being well informed about John's life and all of the events pertaining to the controversy, it should be remembered that the Dialogue was written not as a historical record, but as a defence of John against a few significant charges, and that Palladius discussed only those matters which he knew very well. There are other clues that Palladius adhered to the principles of judicial rhetoric in composing the Dialogue. To gain the trust of his audience, Palladius praised his readers as discriminating and impartial, one of several measures prescribed for securing good will.72 He also narrated events in the prooemion from the Roman perspective to remind his audience (the church of Rome) of its past support of John. He then encouraged it to take the next step and restore John's name to the diptychs. Such an overt reminder of past decisions was called the theorem ‘from what follows’ (ἐξ ἀκολούθου), in which the audience is reminded of its initial decision and encouraged to comply with the current request as according with it.73 Towards the end of the prooemion, Palladius courted the reader's continued attention by offering the recommended προέκθεσις, which was a preliminary statement that outlined the subsequent material.74 The prooemion concludes in chapter 4 with variations on the original theme of true versus false priests as a final emotional tonic. In chapter 5 begins the most accessible and attractive portion of the Dialogue, the narrative of John's life, ministry, and death. According to the handbooks, the prooemion is followed by a narration of events (διήγησις) that (p. 49 ) must possess the virtues of ‘brevity and clarity, and persuasiveness’.75 This recipe for success—and Palladius did
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succeed, judging from his widespread acceptance among most twentieth‐century scholars—requires further delineation. Unlike the very brief διήγημα, a διήγησις was fairly detailed by definition, so ‘brevity’ was achieved by keeping the narrative short relative to the entire discourse, and by limiting the material to what was deemed necessary for the examination of the proposed question (προκειμένη ζήτησις).76 Such selectivity also results in ‘clarity’, because the story was never muddled by extraneous information. Quintilian illustrated this point well in his Institutio Oratoria, where he noted that a narration was merely intended ‘to point out the facts on which the judge is to pronounce as soon as he has been prepared for it’.77 A narration was never intended to be a comprehensive record. Seen in this light, the brevity and selectivity of the Dialogue's narration concerning John's life and tenure were not faults but virtues, focusing as they did the reader's attention on the contested issues. The final and perhaps most important virtue of a narration, ‘persuasiveness’, was achieved by writing an account that was thoroughly credible. Quintilian explained how in the following passage. The Narrative will be credible (1) if we consult our own hearts first and so do not say anything contrary to what is natural; (2) if we give motives and reasons before events (not all events, but those on which the inquiry turns); (3) if we set up characters appropriate to the actions which we wish to be believed: for example, an alleged thief should be covetous, an adulterer lustful, a murderer rash; if we are for the defence we take the opposite line; and (4) if we also specify places, times, and the like. There is also a pattern of events which is credible, like that which is found also in comedy or mime. Some things have a natural sequence and coherence such that if you tell the first part well, the judge will himself anticipate what you are next going to relate.78 According to Quintilian, credibility depends upon a natural, coherent, and detailed explanation for the motives, characters, and arguments that will play a significant role in the subsequent proofs. One must establish a pattern of (p. 50 ) events and characters, so that at crucial moments the audience will be able to predict what follows. Told well, the story will tell itself. Palladius' narration, which concludes in chapter 11 with the stunning scene of John's death, is a flawlessly composed unit that succeeds on these counts and has persuaded readers for centuries of the virtues of John and the villainy of Theophilus. The short biographical treatment of John's early life suggested that he could never have been responsible for the crimes charged; Theophilus, on the other hand, was proven a knave from the start. We began this chapter by noting that recent studies on John and Theophilus have suggested that although Palladius may have written a credible account, it may not have been accurate. Judging from the literature, such discrepancies would not have sullied his reputation among his contemporaries, who did not equate credibility with veracity. According to Anonymous Seguerianus, a narration purports to be nothing more than ‘an exposition and transmission to the hearer of the subject which we are sharing with him’.79 Elsewhere he implies a narration may even be false, since it ‘becomes persuasive if (the speaker) tries to make everything he says resemble the truth’.80 Quintilian even reminds the student that ‘there are many true things that are not very credible, and false things are frequently plausible. We must therefore make just as much effort to make the judge believe the true things we say as to make him believe what we invent.’81 We know that Palladius did not lie outright, because his narration has been corroborated in many respects and details by other sources. This is not to say, however, that his narration is entirely true. In this respect, the spate of criticism against Palladius and his Dialogue is partly justified. The Dialogue portrayed John's life, tenure, and death in a manner that exonerated him from all blame, and this required that he pass over certain matters in silence. We know that many of Palladius' contemporaries would have bristled at his laudatory characterization of John's personality and career. But this is not to say that Palladius fabricated his material. Rather, he offered a persuasive interpretation of John's character arising from whatever information was truly advantageous, just as Anonymous Seguerianus had recommended.82 Historical discrepancies, therefore, vis‐à‐vis other sources should be expected in the Dialogue. It is foolish to criticize Palladius for not having written his narration as an objective history or biography—as though one has ever been written—because that was not his intention. He wrote a narration that would (p. 51 ) persuade his audience that the arguments to follow were valid. Was it a partisan account? Yes, indeed! That was precisely the point. Much of the criticism against Palladius is misplaced because despite all the scholarly attention given to Palladius' 22.1.2012 20:02
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narration of events, it played only a subordinate role to the argumentation. The term for argumentation in Greek was originally πίστις, and later, κατασκευή.83 According to Ps.‐Hermogenes’ Invention, another late antique manual of rhetoric, the argumentation was the chief of all parts of rhetoric.84 It has been characterized by modern scholars of rhetoric as the ‘central, decisive part of the speech, which is prepared for by the exordium [viz. prooemion]…and the narratio [viz. διήγησις]’.85 The prooemion and the narration of the Dialogue were designed primarily to prepare the audience for the argumentation in which Palladius defends John and indicts his opponents. Whereas the narration constitutes a quarter of the total Dialogue, the argumentation amounts to approximately half of it. Such a compositional decision makes sense only from the perspective of judicial rhetoric, and not of historiography or biography. The argumentation constitutes the very heart of the Dialogue. Judicial rhetoric explains the significance, arrangement, and rationale of the arguments made on John's behalf. This will be explained more fully in the next chapter, but a brief illustration of this principle is now in order. Palladius began his argumentation with a defence of John's habit of ‘eating alone’ in chapters 12 and 13. It has already been noted above that in terms of John's ministry, this material appears irrelevant, and that with respect to the composition of the Dialogue, it is utterly incongruous in tone and content with the tragic account of John's death that immediately precedes it. The principles of judicial rhetoric, however, alert the reader that this material falls within the context of the argumentation, not the narration that was concluded in the previous chapter. Given the significance of the argumentation, and the prominent placement of this material within it, this charge of ‘eating alone’ deserves close attention as an important issue in the controversy. To dismiss it out of (p. 52 ) hand fails to appreciate the gravity of the matter.86 Judicial rhetoric suggests that Palladius devoted attention to it because it was a serious charge, and this is corroborated by its inclusion in the charges at Oak and its mention by Socrates as a source of John's problems.87 Another apparent fault of the Dialogue is the lack of chronological sequence in chapters 13–17, which discuss in great detail, and with remarkable storytelling flair, the controversy in Ephesus, Porphyry's usurpation of the bishopric of Antioch, and the reception of the refugee monks by Olympias. Palladius also makes no attempt at correlating or reconciling this historical material with the carefully constructed account of John discussed above. At the conclusion of Palladius' defence of John's ‘eating alone’, the deacon exclaims, ‘Return, O most holy father, to the remaining disputed acts.’88 That is to say, these accounts were not a return or continuation of the narration, but additional arguments within the argumentation, and this is the key to reclaiming their significance for historical research. A similar claim can be made regarding chapters 18 and 19. Once they are understood to constitute part of the argumentation they shed more light on John's turbulent reign and the cause of his removal. As the next chapter will demonstrate, even their placement as the last of the arguments in his Dialogue reveals some of the difficulties that Palladius faced in defending John to other bishops. The final chapter of the Dialogue offers a fitting epilogue (ἐπίλογος) to this lengthy and complex work. According to Apsines, ‘The epilogue is a topic in three parts; for it includes a reminder of what has been said, and pity and indignation.’89 Anonymous Seguerianus wrote more clearly that an epilogue is typically ‘divided into two species, into the practical and the pathetical; the recapitulation belongs to the practical (function), preparing the emotions and strengthening the speech belongs to the pathetical’.90 Appropriately, the final chapter of the Dialogue begins with a brief review of all that preceded concerning John and the controversy. Anonymous Seguerianus would call this a recapitulation by hypothesis, which ‘occurs whenever we set out in an unelaborated way the things that have made up the hypothesis (of the speech)’.91 This constituted the recapitulation, the first of Apsines’ three parts and of Anonymous Seguerianus’ two. (p. 53 ) In order to achieve its goal of ‘pity and indignation’, the remainder of Palladius' epilogue had to pull out all the emotional stops. For this reason he narrated the grievous fate of John's followers in an appeal to the audience's sympathy. Anonymous Seguerianus explains that distress (λύπη) is one of the four primary passions that are valuable in an epilogue, and states, ‘distress is a cringing as at a present evil…and pity is distress, as for one suffering undeserved misfortunes.’92 Although this chapter introduces still more material that is out of chronological sequence, and appears out of place thematically, ancient readers would have probably realized that it signalled the shift to the pathetical part of the epilogue. Palladius continued by criticizing John's opponents and portraying them as hypocritical, callous, and envious clerics who ruined John and rent the church asunder; upon them God's justice had already begun to fall, and would continue to fall until they were utterly consumed.93 This invective was not
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gratuitously shrill; rather it served to raise the indignation of the audience against Theophilus and company. To this end, Palladius used several of the techniques prescribed by Apsines, such as comparison, unlimited hyperbole, diaporesis, and cries of indignation.94 In light of the operative rhetorical principles, this final chapter no longer appears to be a jumbled collection of afterthoughts, but a climactic finish that goads an audience to act on John's behalf.
Analysis of the Dialogue's narration It is time to return to the unresolved questions concerning Palladius' presentation of John's early life, his ministry in Antioch and Constantinople, the Origenist controversy, the council at Oak, and his banishment. These principally lie within the narration, with which the remainder of this chapter shall be concerned. Once again, judicial rhetorical theory offers a method by which the narration can be assessed more critically, because Palladius' narration follows the basic structure for narrations as prescribed by the handbooks. According to Anonymous Seguerianus, a narration ought to possess the constituent parts (τά μόρια) of person, thing, place, manner, time, and cause.95 An analysis of each sheds additional light on John, Palladius, and the Dialogue. (p. 54 ) The narration begins with an account of John's person, or πρόσωπον, that is, his family, upbringing, spiritual formation, and election as bishop. From our knowledge of other sources, there is nothing inconsistent in Palladius' portrait of John's aristocratic birth, his training for the law courts, and his decision to serve the church instead. But the discussion of John's early life is very brief, and says nothing of substance concerning his activities in Antioch, which constituted the most productive period of John's career. In light of the discussion above, we now know that Palladius intended to be extremely selective, and that he had not intended (nor would he have been expected) to provide a complete biography, because such information would have fallen beyond the pale of the narration's limited scope and purpose. A lengthier discussion of John's career would have also violated the virtues of brevity and clarity as it would have burdened the narration with John's work in Antioch, whereas it was his tenure as bishop in Constantinople that was at issue. It is more difficult to explain, however, why Palladius devoted a disproportionately long portion of the narrative to John's brief career as an ascetic, and why he styled John as an Egyptian‐style hermit, a rather improbable characterization for a Syrian milieu, and not supported by John's own testimony and Socrates’ Ecclesiastical History, both of which suggest that he had lived as a conventual as was common in the Syrian tradition. Despite J. N. D. Kelly's best efforts to reconcile the contrasting images of Palladius and Socrates,96 Martin Illert has offered a more convincing argument that John in fact practised an asceticism that conformed with the practices of other early Syrian monks, who were physically and socially integrated into communities.97 Illert considered the Dialogue's portrait to be one of many examples of Christian literature in which the hermit topos, and other images derived largely from the popular Vita Antonii, had encroached upon historical reality.98 More plainly, Palladius misrepresented the type of asceticism that John practised. Although one cannot dismiss the presence of such literary influences, Palladius' motive is better explained by judicial rhetorical theory. According to Quintilian, the narration should ‘sow some seeds of the proofs’, that is, prepare for the arguments to follow.99 By describing John as a hermit, (p. 55 ) Palladius hoped to draw a sharp contrast between John and his detractor Isaac (more properly, Isaacius) the Syrian, whom Palladius disparaged for meddling in the affairs of the city, and blamed in large part for the banishment of its bishop.100 John was depicted as practising an asceticism superior to that of Isaacius because he had removed himself from society and from political involvement. Palladius' ascetic portrait also prepared the audience for the first major argument in defence of John, namely his ‘eating alone’. It was John's rigorous hermetic asceticism that destroyed his stomach and made him unfit for the banquets and symposia that he disdained and neglected. Perhaps it was because Socrates the historian knew that John had not been a hermit that he doubted this justification.101 Palladius' description of John has less to do with the life of Antony and more with rhetorical theory, fulfilling one of the prime purposes of a narration, which was to establish ‘characters appropriate to the actions which we wish to be believed’.102 Palladius’ portrait of John's person achieved both the credibility and the persuasiveness that was the goal of his narration. This was less a matter of dissimulation than of authorial licence. We have no evidence that Palladius lied about John having a weak stomach, and it is very plausible that it was believed among John's supporters that he suffered this malady on account of rigorous fasting. It was to the advantage of his argument that Palladius established such a cause‐and‐effect relationship between John's asceticism and his health or perhaps that Palladius 22.1.2012 20:02
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simply presented what may have already been widely believed, a distinct possibility considering that it was at least reported by Socrates. There is also no evidence that Palladius deliberately misrepresented John's asceticism. After all, he appears to have had little or no information about John's life in Antioch. His story concerned Constantinople and John's demise, not Antioch and John's overall career, and when he needed to fill in some blanks he did so on the basis of his own experiences. It is unlikely that his contemporaries would have faulted him for this, especially since the only claim that really mattered here was that John's stomach was weak because of his strict fasting in the past, and this could have resulted from his asceticism as either a hermit or a conventual. (p. 56 ) An argument could be made that Palladius took the liberty of a similar authorial licence in presenting Theophilus. We have every reason to believe that Theophilus would have preferred his own colleague Isidore rather than John as bishop of Constantinople. The sinister light, however, in which Palladius casts Theophilus’ involvement says less about Theophilus’ actual role than about Palladius' opinion of Theophilus and the subsequent arguments that he develops in the Dialogue. Once again, this does not necessitate that Palladius lied, because even the most sympathetic interpretation of all the evidence recognizes that Theophilus had been pressured into ordaining John, and that other sources acknowledge that Theophilus had been either extorted or threatened with exposure.103 Judicial rhetoric does not dictate what we must accept or reject among Palladius' claims, but it does suggest which claims are stronger or weaker, and which require further evidence before accepting or rejecting. This ambiguity may be discomforting, but such is the case with any legal prosecution or defence. After person, a proper narration must address the thing, or πρα̑γμα, around which the entire affair revolves. Immediately following our introduction to John's person, Palladius presents John's ministry in Constantinople and the litany of reforms he enacted.104 He forbade celibate clergy from cohabiting with sworn virgins, stemmed fiscal corruption, reduced expenditures of the episcopal palace, and redirected them to a hospital. He imposed stricter moral guidelines upon the women enrolled as widows, required additional services from his clergy, and challenged the aristocracy to assume more philanthropic activities. At the heart of the controversy, therefore, were John's economic, administrative, and moral reforms—or imperiousness, depending on your perspective, since Palladius also informs us that these reforms prompted John's clergy to defame him in hopes of his removal. We are also told that an opposition party subsequently formed under the leadership of Acacius of Berea, Severianus of Gabala, Antiochus of Ptolemais, and Isaacius the monk. Given the virtues of a narration, discussed above, it is not surprising that Palladius said little about each of these aspects of John's ministry, and ignored still others altogether, such as the leprosarium that John built and which angered so many among the elite.105 Palladius' sole concern was to prepare the audience for his arguments by demonstrating that John's motives and actions were good, and that the resentment generated among the local clergy was on account of their corruption. Additional details or facts would have (p. 57 ) been unnecessary, perhaps even detrimental to his cause. It does not imply that Palladius was not well informed. A narration should then proceed to describe both place (τόπος) and manner (τρόπος). Palladius omitted place because he had informed us already that Constantinople was the object of John's reforms. What follows, therefore, is the manner by which John was deposed from office, and, surprisingly, an insight into a dispute concerning it. We are told that the opposition party sought skeletons from the closet of John's youth hoping to gather information that could be used to defame or extort him, but of course, John's life was impeccable and they found nothing. They then enlisted the help of Theophilus to find for them a manner by which to evict John, even if it was on a pretext (ἠρεύνα ζητω̑ν τρόπον προφάσεως κἂν τη̑ς τυχούσης).106 This explicit reference to the part of the narration prompts a challenge from the young deacon, who interrupts the elderly bishop's narration, saying, ‘Stop the torrents of your words, father, before I forget, so I may tell you of the cause that reached us from Alexandria and which has been widely rumoured.’107 He goes on to say that Theophilus claimed to have brought action against John because he had accepted into communion the clergy he deposed in Egypt. Palladius presents here two conflicting interpretations of the Origenist controversy's role in John's demise. The elderly bishop states that it was the manner by which John was deposed, whereas the deacon suggests that it was the cause. Palladius used the dialogue between the bishop and deacon to make his case that the Origenist controversy was merely the manner by which John was deposed. The deacon presents the position of Theophilus by claiming that it was the cause of John's ruin. The ‘word that reached them from Alexandria’ refers to the tract Theophilus had written against John and sent to Rome.108 The bishop, however, explicitly denies this as cause, stating that had John
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been given the opportunity he would have confessed himself ignorant of the whole thing (πρα̑γμα).109 As the mouthpiece of Palladius, the bishop subsequently relates what he understood or claimed to be merely the manner in this controversy. Here begins the lengthy account of the Origenist controversy, with information concerning Theophilus’ row with Isidore and the Tall Brothers, the accusation against Ammonius of Origenism, the eviction, flight, (p. 58 ) and persecution of the monks from their homes in Lower Egypt via Palestine to Constantinople, and John's cautious involvement in the episode.110 The Dialogue's detailed account of the controversy was not a history of the Origenist or Anthropomorphite controversy, it was a riposte that countered and eventually superseded Theophilus’ own account of why John was deposed, an account that had defamed so many associates who were dear to Palladius, among them Isidore and the Tall Brothers. Palladius acknowledged that John's involvement in the Origenist controversy was a serious charge that had to be addressed, and so he devoted a lengthy discussion to it. But it was not the cause of John's ruin. In the argumentation that follows later in the Dialogue Palladius even exonerates John of any direct responsibility in the Origenist affair. That Palladius had intended the Origenist controversy to be understood as the manner, and not the cause, of John's downfall, is further suggested by the following evidence. As just noted, Palladius related the details of the Origenist controversy immediately after stating that Acacius, Severianus, Antiochus, and Isaacius had sought to find a manner by which to dethrone John. These opponents of John are absent from his account of the controversy, but they reappear at its conclusion, albeit without Isaacius, plotting against John in the house of Eugraphia.111 Thus the Origenist controversy is bracketed by, and subordinated to, the machinations of the Constantinopolitan cabal. According to Palladius, these clergy were really to blame for John's plight, and the purpose of their meeting was to find the manner (τρόπος) by which they could begin actual proceedings against John now that they had the assistance of Theophilus.112 Evidently Eugraphia enjoyed connections to the imperial court, because they decided to petition the emperor directly for John's removal. Palladius then provided a brief account of the Synod of Oak and concluded it with yet another clear reference to manner, saying, ‘In this way, John was exiled from the Church.’113 Of course, John was quickly recalled, but we are told that John's opponents called again upon Theophilus, who at this point had departed for Alexandria, to find for them yet another τρόπος by which they might act.114 This suggestion having failed, they devised for themselves yet a third τρόπος.115 In these ways, Palladius reasserted several times his claim that the Origenist controversy, and the long chain of events that it precipitated—from the Synod of Oak to his final exile—were merely the means by which John was removed from office, not the cause. Cause was the fifth and final part of narration, and that was still to come. (p. 59 ) The next prescribed part of a narration was time (χρόνος). Despite the richness of detail in the narration, no dates for any events described thus far were given, not even John's birth, ordination, or his election to the bishopric. Yet just a few sentences after the last reference to manner, Palladius provided the first date marker. John was to be exiled on Pascha,116 and a violent clash occurred between the army and his supporters, who had met separately for the vigil of Pascha, that is, Great Saturday evening.117 This popular support for John and resistance to imperial authority temporarily hindered the decree of exile from being enforced, but John's opponents kept exerting pressure upon Arcadius until he acceded to their demands. We are told that John was led into exile for a second time shortly after Pentecost.118 A good history or biography would have required many more dates, but such facts would have overburdened an advocate's narration with extraneous details. Palladius offered only those dates directly related to the dispute and which were necessary to strengthen his argument that John's opponents had acted unjustly by perpetrating violence against him and his supporters on the holiest days of the Christian calendar. A narration must conclude by stating the cause (αἰτία) of the controversy. Although Palladius did not explicitly use the word cause in the final portion of his narration, he repeatedly blamed John's downfall on the envy of his opponents. For example, he claimed divine providence had exposed ‘the envy of those responsible’ when the fire that consumed the church and destroyed the senate house had left the church treasury untouched and foiled their plans to accuse John of embezzlement and misappropriation of church funds.119 This same cause was directly responsible for John's death, because while John was in exile his opponents envied him so much that they secured repeated banishments to increasingly remote regions of the empire, first to Arabissus, then to Pityus.120 The physical hardship of the final trip overwhelmed John and he died en route to his destination. As might be expected, this emphasis upon envy as the cause of the controversy distorts the historicity of this account. For example, a careful review of the sources suggests that John was not forcibly banished to Arabissus, but that he
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and the civilian population of Cucusos sought refuge there from ceaseless Isaurian raids.121 Palladius' presentation of the fire was obviously skewed, too. According to Sozomen, who was also sympathetic to John, the fire burned (p. 60 ) from late afternoon until morning.122 Palladius, however, claimed that the fire burned for only three hours. Whom should one believe? Sozomen's account is more plausible given the size of the destruction. Moreover, Palladius stated that the fire burned from the sixth to the ninth hour, alluding to the hours that Jesus hung on the cross, and he maintained that the fire cleansed the filth of those who had behaved so impiously against John, alluding again to the crucifixion and its purging of humanity's sin.123 His claims appear more evocative than factual, as he bent particulars to argue that envy was indeed the cause of John's demise. Judicial rhetoric helps suggest how and why such facts may have been altered.
Conclusion As literature, the Dialogue was no haphazardly composed screed, but a highly structured composition in defence of John. As such it is a fascinating, and informative, work of early Christian literature. Clarifying its different parts allows one to be captivated by the introduction, to profit from the narration, to criticize the arguments, and finally to be stirred by its poignant conclusion. The Dialogue was explicitly written as an argument in favour of John, not as an attempt at recording a favourable history or biography. Understanding how it was shaped by forensic rhetoric helps one to discern the scope, limits, and historical value of the narration. Palladius cannot be accused of misrepresenting John's early years or passing over the minutes of the Synod of Oak. He was ignorant of both and wisely avoided any egregious errors or fabrications. On the other hand, his long acquaintance with Isidore, the Tall Brothers, and Theophilus, his presence in Constantinople during these tumultuous events, his first‐hand knowledge of the depositions at Ephesus, of Olympias’ benefactions, and of John's character, all supply us with precious information that we might otherwise not have had. By and large, we know that his account is honest because it can be corroborated by other sources, leading us to believe that much of the unique information that he conveys is also valuable. This is not to say that Palladius reported all events completely and accurately, and the discrepancies between the Dialogue and the oration of Ps.‐Martyrius remind readers of this fact. Palladius did not lie, although he might have bent the facts a bit and even passed over in silence whatever might not have benefited his client's cause. But to profit from any argument, a reader must distinguish between fact and interpretation. According to Palladius, John was a saint and Theophilus was an ogre. These are not facts, but characterizations that were (p. 61 ) drawn from facts. Every party to an argument is responsible for assembling data and presenting its conclusions. It is the audience that chooses the most persuasive ones. In any event, this analysis has proven that it is altogether misguided to focus exclusively on the veracity of the Dialogue's narration. Its events, characters, and patterns were merely preparatory for the argumentation that followed. Palladius' primary concern was to defend John by developing on his behalf persuasive arguments. To these we must now turn. Notes: (1) For the life of Olympias, see Anne‐Marie Malingrey, Lettres à Olympias, SC 13bis (Paris: Cerf, 1968); for the two Lives of John, see Francois Halkin, Douze recits byzantins sur saint Jean Chrysostome (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1977); for the later dating of the latter vita, see Chrysostomos Baur, John Chrysostom and his Time, 2 vols. (Westminster, MD: Newman, 1959; repr. Vaduz: Büchervertriebsanstalt, 1988), xxxiii–xxxv. (2) In addition to Baur, John Chrysostom and his Time, see P. R. Coleman‐Norton, Palladii dialogus de vita s. Joannis Chrysostomi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928); J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops: Army, Church, and State in the Age of Arcadius and Chrysostom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990); J. N. D. Kelly, Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom—Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop (London: Duckworth, 1995). (3) See Wendy Mayer, ‘John Chrysostom as Bishop: The View from Antioch’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 55 (2004): 455–66, at 455. As noted below, Mayer's article questions this stance and offers a compelling alternative view. (4) For example, Kelly, Golden Mouth, 292, notes that Palladius ‘was not a detached historian, but a partisan concerned to vindicate John and depict him as the model bishop’, and that ‘he was not, and did not claim to be, either 22.1.2012 20:02
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systematic or exhaustive’. (5) Kelly, Golden Mouth, 28–37. (6) Mayer, ‘John Chrysostom as Bishop’, 462–3. (7) Florent van Ommeslaeghe, ‘De lijkrede voor Johannes Chrysostomus toegeschreven aan Martyrius van Antiochie: Tekstuitgave met comentaar’, PhD diss., Catholic University of Louvain (Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven), 1974; idem, ‘La valeur historique de la Vie de S. Jean Chrysostome attribuée à Martyrius d'Antioche (BHG 871)’, Studia Patristica 12 (= TU 115) (1975): 478–83; idem, ‘Que vaut le témoignage de Pallade sur le procès de s. Jean Chrysostome?’, AB 95 (1977): 389–413; idem, ‘La fête de S. Jean Chrysostome dans l'église grecque’, AB 96 (1978): 338; idem, ‘Jean Chrysostome en conflit avec l'impératrice Eudoxia: Le dossier et les origines d'une légende’, AB 97 (1979): 131–59; idem, ‘Jean Chrysostome et le peuple de Constantinople’, AB 99 (1981): 329–49; idem, ‘Chrysostomica: La nuit de Pâques 404’, AB 110 (1992): 123–43. (8) Photius cod. 59, ed. René Henry, Photius Bibliotheque, vol. 1 (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1960), 52–7; Henry's edition is reproduced in Anne‐Marie Malingrey, Palladios: Dialogue sur la vie de Jean Chrysostome, vol. 2, SC 342 (Paris: Cerf, 1988), 97–115. All citations are taken from Malingrey's edition, citing volume, page, and, where appropriate, line numbers too. For the thirteen πράξεις see Malingrey, Palladios, 2:100.8 and 2:114.140; cf. Kelly, Golden Mouth, 226–7. (9) Malingrey (Palladios, vol. 2, pp. 47–95) demonstrated that chapter 2 of the Dialogue, which comprises John's Letter to Innocent 1 in the single manuscript that contains the entire text of that letter, was probably interpolated by a scribe. (10) The bedevilling quality of the Dialogue was best described by Anne‐Marie Malingrey, Palladios, 1:41, who wrote, ‘Tel est ce style étrange, lourd et embarrassé parfois de multiples relatifs de liaison, de participes, avec ses transitions maladroites ou monotones, concis jusqu’à l'obscurité, puis éclairé soudain d'une expression heureuse qui évoque de manière vivante scènes et personnages. Diversité des procédés littéraires, saveur de la langue, violence ou tendresse du ton, tous ces éléments, qui tantôt s'harmonisent, tantôt se heurtent les uns les autres, font du Dialogue une œuvre d'une lecture aussi difficile qu’attachante.’ (11) Basil ep. 135 (PG 32.572B–573B) acknowledges receipt of a narrative cast in dialogue form, but is highly critical of it, noting its difficulties and the skill required to master it; also available in Roy J. Deferrari, Basil: Letters, 4 vols. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1926–34; repr. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), at vol. 2, pp. 306–10. (12) Paolo Ubaldi, ‘Appunti sul Dialogo Storico di Palladio’, Memorie della reale accademia delle scienze di Torino: Classe di scienze morali, storiche, e filologiche, Serie seconda, 56 (1906): 217–96. On Socrates in late antique Christian literature, see Anne‐Marie Malingrey, ‘Le personnage de Socrate chez quelques auteurs chrétiens du IVe siècle’, in Forma futuri: Studi in onore del Cardinale Michele Pellegrino (Turin: d'Erasmo, 1975), 159–78; and Daniel Jackson, ‘Socrates and Christianity’, CF 31 (1977): 189–206. (13) For example, see Berthold Altaner and Alfred Stuiber, Patrologie (Freiburg: Herder, 1966), 240; Johannes Quasten, Patrology, vol. 3 (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1960), 179; Panagiotes K. Chrestou, Ἑλληνικὴ Πατρολογία, vol. 3 (Thessalonike: Kyriakidi, 1976), 156. (14) For the allusions to Christ and his passion, see Dial. 8.89–90, 9.147, 10.25–8, 19.49–80. Of course, Palladius could have intended allusions to both: Origen had already drawn a parallel between Jesus and Socrates in Cels. 7.56, ed. Marcel Borret, Origène: Contre Celse, 5 vols., SC 132, 136, 147, 150, 227 (Paris: Cerf, 1967–76), at vol. 4, pp. 144–6. (15) Ubaldi, ‘Appunti sul Dialogo Storico di Palladio’, 225–35. (16) P. R. Coleman‐Norton, ‘The Use of Dialogue in the Vitae sanctorum’, JThS 27 (1926): 388–95. Coleman‐Norton posited the following categories: γένος (origo); παιδεία (infantia); φύσις (species) with ἠ̑θος (mores) and ἀρεταί (virtutes); μαθήματα καὶ πράγματα (studia et opera); ἐπιτηδεύματα (vita publica) with πολιτεία (vita privata);
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θάνατος (mors); and additamenta et supplementa, which includes miscellanea and eulogia. (17) Coleman‐Norton, ‘The Use of Dialogue’, 394. (18) Bernd Reiner Voss, Der Dialog in der frühchristlichen Literatur, Studia et testimonia antiqua 9 (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1970), 339 and 354. (19) Voss, Dialog, 365–6. (20) Voss, Dialog, 366. See Theon, Progymnasmata 4, ed. Leonard Spengel, Rhetores Graeci, vol. 2 (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1854; repr. Frankfurt: Minerva, 1966), p. 89 l. 29–p. 90 l. 17; for an English translation, see George A. Kennedy, Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric, Writings from the Greco‐Roman World 10 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 37–8. (21 ) Malcolm Heath, ‘Theon and the History of the Progymnasmata’, GRBS 43 (2002): 129–60. (22) Spyridon Troianos, Ἡ έκκλησιαστικὴ δικονομία μέχρι του̑ θανάτου του̑ Ἰουστινιανου̑ (originally, PhD diss., University of Athens Law School, 1964; repr. Athens: Apostolike Diakonia, 2004), 1–6. (23) Malingrey, Palladios, 1: 33–9. (24) Voss, Dialog, 306. (25) See her note on Dial. 16.251, p. 325, note 3: ‘Le dialogue qui suit se déroule à la manière platonicienne. L'evêque joue le rôle de Socrate. Il amène peu à peu le diacre à la réponse qu’il souhaite.’ (26) George Kennedy has noted that ‘Although many written discourses, such as epistles, combine features of deliberative, judicial, or epideictic rhetoric, it is often useful to consider the dominant rhetorical genre of a work in determining the intent of the author and the effect upon the audience in the original social situation’ (George A. Kennedy, ‘The Genres of Rhetoric’, in Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period: 330 B.C.–A.D. 400, ed. Stanley E. Porter (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 45–6). Some persist in identifying the Dialogue with biography, for which see Siver Dagemark, ‘John Chrysostom the Monk‐Bishop: A Comparison between Palladios’ and Possidius’ Pictures of a Bishop’, in Giovanni Crisostomo: Oriente e occidente tra IV e V secolo, XXXIII Incontro di studiosi dell'antichità cristiana, Augustinianum 6–8 May 2004, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 93 (Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 2005), 933–1031; Dagemark also accepts the Phaedo as Palladius’ literary model. (27) In recent decades, studies have illustrated the importance of persuasion in late‐antique biography (although without reference to the Dialogue), for which see Patricia Cox, Biography in Late Antiquity: A Quest for the Holy Man, The Transformation of the Classical Heritage 5 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983) and Thomas Hägg and Philip Rousseau (eds.), Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). (28) See Sulpicius Severus, Dialogues 1.23–7, 3.1–2 and 17, Sulpice Sévère: Gallus, ou Dialogues sur les ‘vertus’ de saint Martin, ed. Jacques Fontaine and Nicole Dupré, SC 510 (Paris: Cerf, 2006), 194–214, 286–96, 356–60. (29) Hermogenes, On Issues, text ed. by Hugo Rabe, Hermogenis Opera, Rhetores Graeci 6 (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1913); trans. Malcolm Heath, Hermogenes, On Issues: Strategies of Argument in Later Greek Rhetoric (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). All references to On Issues cite the page numbers of the Rabe edition; all English translations are by Heath. (30) Rabe, Hermogenis, 59–60. (31 ) Rabe, Hermogenis, 66–7. (32) Dial. 13.74: Κἀμοὶ δὲ μὴ χαλεπήνῃς ἐπὶ τοι̑ς ἀνθυπενεχθει̑σι· πλέον γάρ τι βουέλόμενος μαθει̑ν, έπεξεργαστικώτερον ἠρόμην τὴν σὴν πολυμάθειαν.
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(33) Dial. 16.181–324. (34) Dial. 18.1–3 and 20.421 recognizes the significances of graceful narrative; Dial. 20.340 may allude to the Platonic literary device (εὐ̑ γε καὶ φιλοσόφως ὑπήντησας). (35) According to Heinrich Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric: A Foundation for Literary Study, trans. Matthew T. Bliss, Annemiek Jansen, and David E. Orton (Leiden: Brill, 1998), §63, ‘the dialectical character of rhetoric is most marked in the genus iudiciale, since in the courtroom the prosecutor is always opposed by a defense lawyer so that the same facts are dealt with in detail from two conflicting points of view: each of the two speakers must take into consideration the opposing assessment of the facts so that the dialectic does not only arise from the fact that two speeches are given, but it is also already present in each individual speech’; cf. ibid. §147. Although the handbooks in judicial rhetoric were intended to teach an aspiring advocate the rules for composing a declamation, a practising advocate in the courtroom would have spent less time (if any) declaiming a monologue than engaging the judge in a probing dialectical process, for which see Jill Harries, Law and Empire in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 107, who states, ‘real court records show such a high degree of intervention by both the opposing advocate and the judge that it would be impossible to deliver a narratio in court as a coherent statement at all.’ (36) Dial. 1.148–56: Παρακέκλησο τοίνυν, ἐπὶ Θεου̑ μάρτυρος, μετὰ πάσης ἀληθείας ἡμι̑ν διηγήσασθαι περὶ ὠ̑ν κατὰ μέρος μαθει̑ν ἐπειγόμεθα· ὡς εἰδὼς του̑το ὅτι εἴ τι παρὰ τὴν ἀλήθείαν ἡμι̑ν ἀπαγγείλῃς, ἕξεις μὲν τὸν Θεὸν δικαστὴν καὶ κριτήν, ἐλεχθἠσῃ δὲ καὶ παρ' ἡμω̑ν ἑτέρως μαθόντων· οὐ γὰρ εἰ̑ς ἢ δύο ἢ τρει̑ς ἢ δέκα ἢ οἱ τυχόντες ἡμι̑ν ἀφηγήσαντο περὶ τω̑ν ἐν Κωνσταντινουπόλει συμβάντων, ἀλλὰ καὶ πλείους. For the audience as decision‐maker, κριτής, see Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric, §§59 and 60. (37) Dial. 13.122–31. (38) Dial. 13.147: ὡς ἐπὶ τη̑ς θείας δίκης ἐρω̑. (39) Dial. 16.13–22. (40) Dial. 20.433–39: Ὁ δὲ σκοπὸς τη̑ς ἐκκλησίας τω̑ν Ῥωμαίων οὑ̑τος ἐστίν ἕως τέλους μὴ κοινωνη̑σαι τοι̑ς ἀνατολικοι̑ς ἐπισκόποις, μάλιστα Θεοφίλῳ, ἕως ἂν δῳ̑ Κύριος χώραν οἰκουμενικη̑ς συνόδου, ἰατρευούσης τὰ σεσηπότα μέλη τω̑ν ταυ̑τα ἐργασαμένων· εἰ γὰρ καὶ κεκοίμηται ὁ μακάριος Ἰωάννης, ἀλλ' ἐγρήγορεν ἡ ἀλήθεια, δι' ἣν ἡ ζήτησις ἔσται. The term inquiry (ζήτησις) is significant in determining the issue at hand being judged, for which see Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric, §§123 and 131. (41) Dial. 7.61–8.255. (42) Dial. 14.30 and 14.48; Troianos, Ἡ ἐκκλησιαστικὴ δικονομία, 53, which gives several examples of this use of βιβλίον in Sozomen, Socrates, acts of major councils, and papyri, and cites the passages of Palladius noted here. (43) LSJ, s.v. κεφάλαιον. (44) See Troianos, Ἡ ἐκκλησιαστικὴ δικονομία, 57. For the κεφάλαια against Theophilus see Dial. 7.119; for those against Antoninus, see Dial. 14.48, 51, 55, and 56. For the κεφάλαια against John at Oak, see Malingrey, Palladios, 2:106.61, which appear to be the equivalent to κατηγορία in Malingrey, Palladios, 2:112.117. (45) Dial. 11.98. See LSJ Supplement, s.v. πρόστιμον, and Ivars Avotins, On the Greek of the Code of Justinian: A Supplement to Liddell–Scott–Jones Together with Observations on the Influence of Latin on Legal Greek (Hildesheim and New York: Olms‐Weidmann, 1989), s.v. προστιμάω; idem, On the Greek of the Novels of Justinian: A Supplement to Liddell–Scott–Jones together with Observations on the Influence of Latin on Legal Greek (Hildesheim and New York: Olms‐Weidmann, 1992), s.v. προστιμάω. (46) Lampe, s.v. ἀκολουθία. In Dial. 9.36: Οἱ δὲ παραγενόμενοι κατὰ τὴν τω̑ν κανόνων ἀκολουθίαν ἐκοινώνησαν τῳ̑ Ἰωάννῃ, ἵνα μὴ τὰ αὐτὰ τοι̑ς πρώτοις ἐργάασωνται. In Dial. 15.22: Δεδώκαμεν, ὡμολόγηται, καὶ γεγόναμεν, τοιαύύτην νομίσαντες εἶναι ἀκολουθίαν ἵνα δόξωμεν του̑ βουλευτηρίου ἐλευθερου̑σθαι. In Dial. 8.224: ποίᾳ ἀκολουθίᾴ δικάζετε,
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οἱ μήήτε τοὺς ἐχθρούύς μου ἐξώσαντες καὶ διὰ τω̑ν ἐμω̑ν κληρικω̑ν με μεταστελλόμενοι; This last use of the term, spoken by John, appears identical to its usage in John's Letter to Innocent, where it refers to a type of judicial process that is specifically differentiated each time from both secular and ecclesiastical laws, for which see Malingrey, Palladios, 2:76.89, and 2:92.229. (47) See Troianos, Ἡ ἐκκλησιαστικὴ δικονομία, 149. (48) One was composed by the Tall Brothers and submitted to the emperor to review their grievances against Theophilus, and it is referred to three times in Dial. 8.10, 8.15, 8.17. Another, mentioned only once in Dial. 8.87, was written against John by two of his former deacons at the behest of Theophilus, and it was also presented to the emperor. A third, dictated by Theophilus against the exiled monks, is referred to in Dial. 7.109, 8.7, 8.29, and even though Palladius does not explicitly state that it was directed to the emperor, he does state that the imperial palace was informed of it, which suggests it had been submitted to the emperor. There is only one other use of δέησις in the Dialogue, and that is an explicit, poetic reference to prayer (Dial. 15.59). (49) Dial. 8.148: Παραναγνωστικὸν ἔχομεν μόνον· ποιήσατε οὐ̑ν αὐτὸ ἀναγνωσθη̑ναι. (50) Lampe s.v. παραναγνωστικός. (51 ) Cyril's ep. 23 (PG 77.136A); for the Acts of the Council of Ephesus, ACO 1.1.2, p. 10.4 (52) Troianos, Ἡ ἐκκλησιαστικὴ δικονομία, 85, n. 12, notes additional uses in ACO 1.1.2, p. 11.13 (summons to Nestorius), ACO 1.1.3, p. 23.1 (the third summons to John of Antioch), and ACO 2.1.1, p. 129.23 (the third summons to Eutyches). (53) Dial. 17.148: Ἔτυχεν δὲ κατά τινα φθόνον σατανικὸν δηλατορευθη̑ναι ταύτης τὴν ἄωρον χηρείαν εἰς τὰς ἀκοὰς Θεοδοσίου του̑ βασιλέως. (54) Lampe s.v. δηλατορεύω (55) Eusebius h.e. 3.20 (PG 20.253A). (56) For the LSJ citation of the term δηλάτωρ, see P. Lemerle, ‘Inscriptions latines et grecques de Philippes’, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 59 (1935): 126–64, at 152; the Greek inscriptions date from the third and fourth century. For the papyrus, see P.Princ.III 119 = SB XII 10988. (57) Lampe s.v. ἀβολιτίων. (58) Dial. 14.46: μετὰ γὰρ τὸ ἀναγνωσθη̑ναι καὶ εἰς ἀκοὰς πάντων ἐλθει̑ν, πραττομένων ὑπομνημάτων, οὐκέτι σοι ἔξεστιν, ἐπισκόπῳ ὄντι, ζητει̑ν ἀβολιτίωνα. In the critical apparatus, Malingrey notes the confusion that this term causes for scribes apparently unfamiliar with legal terminology. That bishops could not withdraw formal charges appears corroborated in the sources, for which see Troianos, Ἡ ἐκκλησιαστική δικονομία, 119, n. 4, referring to ACO 2.1.1, p. 132.3, although the term ἀβολιτίων is not found here. (59) Lexicon in Hexabiblos Aucta, letter alpha, lemma 112 line 1, and lemma 113 line 1; see also s.v. ἀβολίτζιο, letter alpha lemma 98 line 1, in M. T. Fögen, Das Lexikon zur Hexabiblos aucta, Forschungen zur byzantinischen Rechtsgeschichte 17 (Frankfurt am Main: Löwenklau Gesellschaft, 1990), 162–214. (60) John F. Matthews, Laying Down the Law: A Study of the Theodosian Code (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 28–30. (61 ) Malcolm Heath, Menander: A Rhetor in Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 3–93. (62) Caroline Humfress, Orthodoxy and the Courts in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). (63) See especially, Humfress, Orthodoxy, 135–95.
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(64) R. Dean Anderson Jr., Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Paul (rev. edn.; Leuven: Peeters, 1999), 67–107. (65) Mervin R. Dilts and George A. Kennedy, Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises from the Roman Empire: Introduction, Text, and Translation of the Arts of Rhetoric attributed to Anonymous Seguerianus and to Apsines of Gadara (Leiden: Brill, 1997), ix. For Valerius Apsines of Gadara (b. 190), see Heath, Menander, 53–5. Heath, however, argues that it was not Apsines, but a pupil of his named Aspasius (possibly Aspasius of Tyre) who wrote Art of Rhetoric (hereafter Rhet.), an argument that plausibly explains the third‐person references to Apsines that it contains. He identifies Apsines as the author of On Invention, which was falsely attributed to Hermogenes of Tarsus (Menander, p. 57). (66) Anonymous Seguerianus 1: Ὁ πολιτικὸς [ἤτοι δικανικὸς] λόγος εἰς τέσσαρα μέρη διαιρει̑ται τὰ προκείμενα· χρῄζομεν γὰρ ἐν αὐτῳ̑ προοιμίων μὲν πρὸς τὸ προσεχεστέρους ποιη̑σαι τοὺς ἀκροατάς, διηγήσεως δὲ πρὸς τὸ διδάξαι τὸ πρα̑γμα, τω̑ν δὲ πίστεων πρὸς τὸ κατασκευάσαι ἢ ἀνασκευάσαι τὸ προκείμενον· τοὺς δὲ ἐπιλόγους ἐπάγομεν πρὸς τὸ ἐπιρρω̑σαι τὸν ἀκούοντα εἰς τὴν ὑπὲρ ἡμω̑ν ψη̑φον. All citations and translations of Anonymous Seguerianus are from the text edited and translated by Dilts and Kennedy, Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises, 1–73. On the term political rhetoric as an equivalent for judicial rhetoric, see also Hermogenes On Issues 1 (Rabe, Hermogenis, 29.15–30.4), ‘First of all, we must state what is meant by a political question. It is a rational dispute on a particular matter, based on the established laws or customs of any given people, concerned with what is considered just, honourable, advantageous, or all or some of these things together.’ (67) Dial. 1.1–117 for the exposition on the priesthood; Dial. 1.148–4.68 for the rest. The prooemion does not include chapter 2, since this is a later interpolation, as noted above. (68) Anonymous Seguerianus 9. See also Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric, §§266–79, which elucidates the principle iudicem attentum, docilem, beneuolum parare; and Josef Martin, Antike Rhetorik: Technik und Methode (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1974), 60–75. (69) Anonymous Seguerianus 5. (70) Anonymous Seguerianus 14–18. (71 ) Dial. 1.55–7, 1.106–9, and 1.132–46. According to Heath, Menander, 326–8, one's success in the law courts of antiquity and the late empire depended greatly on the degree of learning, culture, and grace displayed in the course of argumentation; Palladius refers to the bishop's πολυμάθειαν (Dial. 13.76) and portrays him as a wellspring of neologisms and hapax legomena, for which see Theodore F. Brunner, ‘Hapax and non‐hapax legomena in Palladius’ Life of Chrysostom’, AB 107 (1989): 33–8. (72) Apsines Rhet. 1.4 and 1.11 note the importance of praising the hearers; text edited and translated by Dilts and Kennedy, Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises, 76–239. Cf. Dial. 4.169–81. (73) Apsines Rhet. 1.14. (74) Anonymous Seguerianus 11; cf. Dial. 4.99–109. (75) Anonymous Seguerianus 63; see also Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric, §§289–92 and 308. (76) Anonymous Seguerianus 46 (recording the rhetorician Neocles): ‘the narration in a judicial speech is an exposition of matters pertaining to some proposed question, or by Zeus, an exposition of the circumstances pertaining to some question’; cf. Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric, §289. For Neocles, a second century rhetorician of unknown provenience, see Dilts and Kennedy, Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises, p. xiii. For the juridical significance of ζήτησις, cf. Dial. 20.439, where Palladius writes εἰ γὰρ καὶ κεκοίμηται ὁ μακάριος· Ἰωάννης, ἀλλ' ἐγρήγορεν ἡ ἀλήθεια, δι' ἣν ἡ ζήτησις ἔσται. (77) Quintilian Institutio Oratoria (hereafter Inst.) 4.2.1; all citations and translations of Quintilian are from Donald A. Russell, Quintilian: The Orator's Education, Books 3–5 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001).
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(78) Quintilian Inst. 4.2.52–3. (79) Anonymous Seguerianus 51; this definition is attributed to the little‐known Alexander, son of Numenius, for whom see Dilts and Kennedy, Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises, xi–xii. (80) Anonymous Seguerianus 89. (81 ) Quintilian Inst. 4.2.34. See also Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric, §322–3, which discusses the importance of persuading the judge with your narratio. (82) Anonymous Seguerianus 117. (83) For the characteristics of argumentatio, see also Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric, §§ 348–430; Martin, Antike Rhetorik, 95–137; Richard A. Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms, 2nd edn. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 121–2, 171–4; and Malcolm Heath, ‘Invention’, in Porter (ed.), Handbook of Classical Rhetoric, 89–119. (84) See Ps.-Hermogenes On Invention 3.1 (Rabe, Hermogenis, 126.3–4) which identifies the κατασκευή as τὸ κορυφαι̑ον τη̑ς ῥητορικη̑ς μέρος. Although edited into its final form some time in the fifth or sixth century, it was mostly written in the third or fourth century and contains much material from as early as the mid‐second century, according to George A. Kennedy, Invention and Method: Two Rhetorical Treatises from the Hermogenic Corpus, Writings from the Greco‐Roman World 15 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005), xvi. Commenting on Book 3 of Inventio, Kennedy writes, ‘Book 3 discusses kataskeuê, the “confirmation” of proof as the third major division in a speech after the prooemion and diegesis: everything before it is preparatory. The importance of the subject is here emphasized by a formal dedication and catalogue of the contents of the book’ (Kennedy, Invention and Method, 61). (85) Lausberg, Handbook, §348. (86) As Kelly, for example, in Golden Mouth, 222. (87) See charge 25 that John the deacon raised at Oak, Malingrey, Palladios, 2:106.51; Socrates HE 6.4. (88) Dial. 13.72–3 (my translation): Ἐπανάζευξον, ὠ̑ ἱερώτατε πάτερ, ἐπὶ τὰ λοιπὰ τω̑ν πραγμάτων. More follows in the next chapter on πράγματα as the acts in dispute. (89) Apsines Rhet. 10.1: Ὁ ἐπίλογος τόπος τριμερής ἐστιν· ἔχει γὰρ καὶ ἀνάμνησιν τω̑ν εἰρημένων καὶ ἔλεον καὶ δείνωσιν. (90) Anonymous Seguerianus 203: Διαιρειται δὲ ὁ ἐπίλογος εἰς δύο, εἴς τε τὸ πρακτικὸν καὶ τὸ παθητικόν· καὶ του̑ μὲν πρακτικου̑ ἐστιν ἡ ἀνακεφαλαίωσις, του̑ δὲ παθητικου̑ τὸ τὰ πάθη κατασκευάζειν καὶ ῥωννύειν τὸν λόγον. (91 ) Anonymous Seguerianus 215: Κατὰ μὲν οὐ̑ν ὑπόθεσιν ἀνακεφαλαίωσις γίνεται ὅταν αὐτὰ τὰ τὴν ὑπόθεσιν πεποιηκότα ψιλω̑ς ἐκτιθώμεθα. Cf. Dial. 20.14–20. (92) Anonymous Seguerianus 224–5: Καὶ λύπη μέν ἐστι συστολὴ ὡς ἐπὶ κακῳ̑ παρόντι…καὶ ἔλεος μέν ἐστι λύπη ὡς ἐπ' ἀναξίως δυστυχου̑ντι. Apsines has an extended discussion on pity, for which see Rhet. 10.15–47. (93) See especially Dial. 20.626–33, 647–8. (94) See Apsines Rhet. 10.50–4. (95) Anonymous Seguerianus 90: μόρια δὲ διηγήσεως πρόσωπον, πρα̑γμα, τόπος, τρόπος, χρόνος, αἰτία. This appears to have been an improvement upon the order prescribed by Hellenistic judicial rhetoric, for which see Quintilian Inst. 4.2.55, ‘We can in fact give a taste in the Narrative of everything that we shall be treating in the Proof: person, motive, place, time, means, opportunity.’ (96) Kelly, Golden Mouth, 14–35.
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(97) Martin Illert, Johannes Chrysostomus und das antiochenisch-syrische Mönchtum: Studien zu Theologie, Rhetorik und Kirchenpolitik im antiochenischen Schrifttum des Johannes Chrysostomus (Zurich and Freiburg im Breisgau: Pano Verlag, 2000), 105. (98) Ibid. 103. The desert quickly became a literary topos rather than a geographical one; see James E. Goehring, ‘The Encroaching Desert: Literary Production and Ascetic Space in Early Christian Egypt’, JECS 1 (1993): 281–96. (99) Quintilian Inst. 4.2.54: ‘ne illud quidem fuerit inutile, semina quaedam probationum spargere, verum sic ut narrationem esse meminerimus, non probationem.’ (100) For a more critical assessment of the cause of conflict between John and Isaac, see Daniel Caner, Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity, The Transformation of the Classical Heritage 33 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 169–77, 190–9. (101) Socrates h.e. 6.4. (102) Quintilian Inst. 4.2.52–3, quoted above in full. This point is obscured if the Dialogue is perceived as promulgating monk‐bishops as an ideal, as does Andrea Sterk, Renouncing the World Yet Leading the Church: The Monk-Bishop in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 156–9; she is followed by Dagemark, ‘John Chrysostom the Monk‐Bishop’, 1024. It should be noted here that both analyses rely heavily upon the short narration and mostly ignore the Dialogue's lengthy argumentation. (103) See Norman Russell, Theophilus of Alexandria (New York: Routledge, 2007), 17. (104) Dial. 5.100–66. Dial. 5.100: Οὕτως χειροτονηθείς ὁ Ἰωάννης ἄρχεται τη̑ς τω̑ν πραγμάτων ἐπιμελείας. Both Malingrey and Meyer have accurately translated the ‘things’ here as a reference to the affairs of the church, but Palladius may have also intended to allude to the ‘things’ that sparked the controversy. (105) van Ommeslaeghe, ‘De lijkrede voor Johannes Chrysostomus’, 90–3; idem, ‘Que vaut le témoignage’, 396–7. (106) Dial. 6.26–7. (107) Dial. 6.29–30 (translation slightly modified): Ἐπίσχες, ὠ̑ πάτερ, τω̑ν λόγων τὴν ῥύμην, πρὶν ἐπιλήσομαι, ἵνα σοι εἴπω τὴν ἀπὸ Ἀλεξανδρείας διαβα̑σαν πρὸς ἡμα̑ς καὶ θρυληθει̑σαν αἰτίαν. (108) This pamphlet is referred to again in Dial. 13.126–45; fragments survive in Facundus of Hermiane, Pro defensione trium capitulorum 6.5 (PL 67.677–8); see also Johannes‐Maria Clément and Rolandus vander Plaetse, eds., Facundi Episcopi Ecclesiae Hermianensis Opera Omnia (Turnhout: Brepols, 1974), reproduced in Anne Fraïsse‐ Bétoulières, Facundus d'Hermiane: Défense des trois chapitres (à Justinien), SC 471, 478–9, 484, 499 (Paris: Cerf, 2002–6), at vol. 2.2, SC 479, pp. 376–80. (109) Dial. 6.42: καὶ τὸν Ἰωάννης ἀπολογησάμενον ἠγνοηκέναι τὸ πρα̑γμα. (110) Dial. 6.1–9.114. (111 ) Dial. 8.76–90. (112) Dial. 8.86: συναχθέντες δὲ ἐζήτουν τρόπον πω̑ς ἄρξονται τη̑ς δίκης. (113) Dial. 9.1: Οὕτως ἐξώσθη ὁ Ἰωάννης τη̑ς ἐκκλησίας. (114) Dial. 9.15: τρόπον ἡμι̑ν ὑπόθου τινά, δι' οὑ̑ τὴν ἀρχὴν ποιήσωμεν. (115) Dial. 9.107: ἐμηχανω̑ντο δὲ ποίῳ τρόπῳ ἐξωσθῃ̑ ὁ Ἰωάννης. (116) Dial. 9.118. (117) See Dial. 9.162–229 for the entire account. 22.1.2012 20:02
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(118) Dial. 10.19. (119) Dial. 10.114. (120) Dial. 11.66, 75, 88. In the first two instances noted here, Palladius uses the term βασκανία rather than φθόνος. See Dial. 11.66 (βασκήναντες δὲ αὐτῳ̑) and Dial. 11.75 (σφοδρότερον δὲ τῃ̑ φλογὶ τη̑ς βασκανίας κατακαιόμενοι). (121) Kelly, Golden Mouth, 260. (122) Sozomen h.e. 8.22. (123) Dial. 10.118–19. PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2011. All Rights Reserved. Under the te PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/page/privacy-polic
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Palladius of Helenopolis Demetrios S. Katos Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199696963 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696963.001.0001
In defence of John Chapter: (p. 62 ) 3 In defence of JohnPalladius of HelenopolisThe Origenist AdvocateDemetrios S. Katos Source: Author(s): DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696963.003.0004
Abstract and Keywords This chapter continues the analysis of the Dialogue in accordance with principles of judicial rhetoric. This chapter analyzes the rhetoric of the arguments used by Palladius to defend John by applying the principles of late antique stasis, or issue, theory as developed by Hermogenes of Tarsus. Stasis theory comprises tactics and strategies of argumentation, and it was a keystone of late antique rhetorical training. Palladius addressed four major issues: John's “eating alone,” the deposition of the bishops in Asia, the reception of the fugitive Origenist monks, and John's character, using respectively the arguments of definition (horos), conjecture (stochasmos), counterplea (antilepsis), and legal arguments (nomikas staseis),This chapter reveals that Palladius fully recognized the gravity of John's numerous violations of episcopal protocol, and that he even admitted some of John's character flaws, but that finally the reason for his removal was not grounded in any of these. Keywords: Dialogue , judicial rhetoric, stasis (issue) theory, Hermogenes of Tarsus, argumentation, Origenist, definition ( horos ), conjecture ( stochasmos ), counterplea ( antilepsis ), and legal arguments ( nomikas staseis )
Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as it is generally in books the worst sort of reading. Jonathan Swift1 Palladius' argumentation in defence of John lacks both the literary charm and the coherence of his narration. Nevertheless it still demands the reader's attention, because it is the very raison d'être of the Dialogue as the previous chapter demonstrated. Not only does the argumentation defend John's reputation against the accusations of his critics it offers a detailed record of the causes underlying the controversy by disclosing the positions not only of 22.1.2012 20:03
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John's supporters, but also of his critics. Moreover, the structure of the argumentation, and the tactics it employed, reveal what Palladius believed to be the greatest opportunities, and challenges, for vindicating John. Finally, it sheds light on John's character and the nature of his ministry, and helps explain why he was removed from his position. These insights, however, cannot be garnered by a simple comparison with other available historical records, as would be the case in corroborating or contradicting the historicity of a narration. This is because an argument does not simply present facts germane to a particular case, it also interprets them. To understand the argument qua argument, and the significance of the facts presented in the case, requires that one understand the rhetorical principles that were used by both the prosecution and defence, so to speak, in developing their contested interpretations. For our purposes, the Dialogue's argumentation is best analysed by applying the principles of issue or στάσις theory. Issue theory had been recognized in the Hellenistic period as important for the invention of sound arguments, but by the third century of the Christian Era it was developed into a system of prescribed methods of analysis and argumentation. This theory (p. 63 ) provided a useful skill that came to constitute the core of late antique and early medieval Greek rhetorical training. It was utterly indispensable for protecting property or advancing a career at the municipal or imperial level. Judicial rhetoric, of course, incorporated many other elements of rhetoric such as invention and style, but issue theory was fundamental in the training of all advocates. Late antique issue theory is preserved for us in the third-century handbook On Issues (Περὶ Στάσεων) of Hermogenes of Tarsus, a wunderkind of rhetoric who had the honour of declaiming before Marcus Aurelius at the tender age of 15.2 He later taught rhetoric at the intermediate level, perhaps in Athens, teaching principles of analysis and composition that would have been required for success in a legal or political career.3 In his Lives of Sophists, Philostratus jibes that Hermogenes' talent was short‐lived and his later career unimpressive, but his inclusion in the collection is a better indication of his renown, and this denigrating remark probably refers to his career as declaimer, of which nothing further is known after his early success.4 Hermogenes' fame in the Byzantine period was in large measure attributed to his On Issues, which systematized strategies for argumentation, and which was well suited for teaching because it was clearer, easier to use, and shorter than its predecessors.5 It enjoyed such success that it generated commentaries throughout the third and fourth centuries, and it became authoritative in the fifth century; it was destined to become the foundation for medieval Greek rhetoric and is the only surviving work of its kind.6 The purpose of On Issues is neatly summarized in its first few lines. It teaches one of the most important aspects of invention (εὕρεσις), namely, ‘the division (διαίρεσις) of political questions (πολιτικω̑ν ζητημάτων) into what are known as heads (κεφάλαια)’.7 On Issues promised to teach what to argue, and how to argue it persuasively. Hermogenes began by discussing the possible subjects of dispute, that is, the different characteristics of both persons (πρόσωπα) and acts (πράγματα) that might form the basis of an argument, and then assessed their relative argumentative value. Similarly, he assessed the types of questions (ζητήματα) that might arise in a debate, and their suitability (p. 64 ) for sustained argumentation. He explained how each of these—persons, acts, and questions —could give rise to various contested issues or στάσεις, so called because they were the points at which an argument comes to rest between two disputants. Whereas earlier Hellenistic treatises distinguished only four main issues, Hermogenes listed the thirteen issues that had become canonical in his day.8 To his credit, he recognized the need to present these in a synopsis form that allowed a student to analyse disputed subjects and to identify their contested issues. After identifying the issues, Hermogenes divided them into their pertinent heads (κεφάλαια). These heads were the claims and arguments that a student could manipulate to develop the most plausible case for his client. Hermogenes’ contribution was immense—a concise handbook that prescribed methods to assess, analyse, and exploit any problem or argument. Applying his theory explains the structure and logic of Palladius' defence. It also elucidates Palladius' understanding of John and his tumultuous tenure.
‘Eating alone’ The Dialogue's argumentation begins in chapters 12 and 13 with Palladius' rigorous defence of John's ‘eating alone’, an offence that appears trivial on the surface. One might be tempted to pass over these chapters and move on to the more substantive accusations of John's involvement in Asia or of Olympias’ reception of the monks that follow, but issue theory suggests that such a move would be ill‐advised. This is the first of the arguments, and the heuristic process encouraged by issue theory suggests that it should also be the strongest. Its significance should not be overlooked. The charges against John were serious He had broken with the custom of hosting banquets and greatly offended his 22.1.2012 20:03
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colleagues. Surprisingly, Palladius did not refute this accusation, but chose instead to characterize John's actions as merely ‘eating alone’.9 This allowed him to deflect attention from the contravention and bring to light more favourable aspects of John's ministry. To accomplish this, he developed an argument that closely follows Hermogenes’ prescription for the issue of ὅρος, or definition.10 In definition, both parties admit that a particular act occurred, but they disagree on how to characterize it. Hermogenes’ chapter teaches an advocate the steps necessary to redefine it persuasively. It is worth examining each of the heads, or claims, of this first argument in detail to understand better how it is developed and what it says about both Palladius and John. (p. 65 ) The first prescribed heads for this issue are presentation (προβολή), in which the act is presented and its importance is either stressed or dismissed, and definition (ὅρος), which characterizes the act in a new manner on the basis of facts ignored by the original definition or characterization.11 These are both present when the deacon asks why John ‘ate alone’, and the bishop responds that he is surprised such petty topics would concern him, rather than the more important aspects of John's professional and personal virtues. With this Palladius tacitly admitted that John did not host banquets. He not only decreased its perceived importance, he also offered an alternative definition of the practice. John did not cancel banquets, rather, he merely had the habit of ‘eating alone’, which was repeated and explained by the bishop in the monologue that followed. He claimed that John ate little because of his weak physical constitution. He could not drink wine or eat rich foods, because alcohol bothered him and he suffered from gastrointestinal ailments that were caused by the rigorous asceticism of his youth. The bishop reported that on many occasions John would altogether ‘forget to eat’, because he was so preoccupied with matters that were more important than food, such as church administration and spiritual reflection.12 John's detractors, however, would not have been convinced so easily by Palladius' definition. They would have replied that he did not host banquets because he was inhospitable and a poor steward of church wealth. They accused John of being uncharitable and even guilty of malfeasance. Neither personal health nor eccentric habits could excuse his lapses in official duties and obligations. Hermogenes had anticipated such challenges and suggested in response a counterdefinition (ἀνθορισμός), which would be based on the actual events and which proves that the new characterization offered by the definition does indeed qualify.13 The elderly bishop continues by arguing that John's practice of eating alone was indicative of both charity and fiscal prudence, because it eliminated the need for the extravagant banquets that had funnelled food into hierarchical ‘bellies’ and money into clerical purses and deprived the poor of both. Clearly, such banquets were not charity, as his opponents claimed, but sacrilege (ἱεροσυλία)!14 Palladius had a gift for such creative satirizing, but in this instance the charge of sacrilege may have been suggested to him by On Issues, because it is a classic topos used by Hermogenes to illustrate one of several variants of definition.15 In Hermogenes’ example, a (p. 66 ) man has stolen property from a temple, and varying definitions of this act are offered. The man is charged with sacrilege, but he defends himself by claiming that he stole private (not temple) property, and that the charge must be commuted to robbery. Hermogenes suggested that counterdefinition be followed by an assimilation (συλλογισμός).16 As Heath succinctly notes, it must be demonstrated that ‘in all important respects, what is covered by the looser counterdefinition amounts to the same thing as what is required by the strict definition’.17 Palladius had to prove that his looser definition of hospitality and charity, that is, the elimination of banquets, accorded well with the stricter one, namely, the hosting of banquets. To this end he argued that direct expenditure on the poor was of limited value, and that hospitality and charity were better expressed in the spiritual labours that one undertakes on behalf of others. He cited the example of the apostles in Acts who delegated to deacons the responsibility of distributing food so that they might devote themselves to preaching. He drily remarked that even Jesus Christ could feed only as many as five thousand with food, but that he had saved the entire world with his teaching.18 John embodied such scriptural paradigms because he occupied himself primarily with catechism and preaching, and it was only when these exhausted him that he turned to the less strenuous, and less important, task of caring for the physical needs of strangers and the poor.19 Palladius then discredited the stricter definition of hospitality and charity offered by John's critics. They contended that care for the poor required the material outlays of episcopal banquets, but he argued that such banquets were motivated by selfishness and reciprocity, because invitations were extended only to the wealthy and powerful as means of prompting a return invitation, of acquiring a good reputation or avoiding a bad one, or of attaining some other, fleeting glory.20 As noted above, Hermogenes had stated that the definition to be supplied must distinguish
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the act (πρα̑γμα) in question.21 Palladius' definition had distinguished John's act of ‘eating alone’, or more properly of not hosting banquets, such that it was now one worthy of emulation by the audience. This was signalled by the pronouncement of the young deacon Theodore, who at this juncture exclaimed, ‘Dear father, it was not at all to blame or run down such austerity that I pursued the inquiry for your precise (p. 67 ) definition…but so that having learned his purpose I might imitate his act (ἀλλ' ἵνα τὸν σκοπὸν μαθω̑ν ζηλώσω τὸ πρα̑γμα).’22 Hermogenes prescribed legislator's intent (γνώμη του̑ νομοθέτου) as the next head.23 Both sides were instructed to argue that their respective definitions conform to the law and thus warrant conviction or acquittal. The elderly bishop argued that his definition accorded with scripture, which we may understand as the law of Christians, and he provided dozens of quotations and allusions in support of his definition. Food proved to be the ruin of Eve, Cain, Esau, the children of Job, Saul, the sons of Eli, and a host of biblical villains; abstinence and spiritual effort, on the other hand, helped the patriarchs and prophets to accomplish God's will.24 John, however, is not vindicated yet. The deacon speaks on behalf of the opposition when he replies that banquets may also be virtuous and confer spiritual benefits. He cites the example of Abraham, who received the very Lord when he offered unstinting hospitality.25 The elderly bishop caustically remarks that Abraham's hospitality does not imply that bishops should abandon their teaching responsibilities and become innkeepers, any more than the virgin Mary's birth should suggest to nuns that they ought to abandon their vows of chastity and seek marriage. It is worth noting here the usefulness of the dialogue form in developing this argument. It allowed Palladius to develop both sides of the arguments, just as Hermogenes had recommended when he wrote that ‘legislator's intent will be examined by both sides for their own advantage (πρὸς τὸ οἰκει̑ον συμφέρον)’.26 This explains why the bishop suggested to the audience that regarding the true intent of scripture ‘the conscience of each, if he is willing, will dictate what is to their advantage’ (ἑκάστου γὰρ τὸ συνειδός, ἐὰν βούληται, τὸ συμφέρον ὑπαγορεύει).27 Palladius implied that he had demonstrated the συμφέρον of scripture by merely seeking its real meaning, which is accessible to all who interpret it conscientiously. His opponents, on the other hand, had manipulated scripture to their own devious purpose. Hermogenes’ next two heads were importance (πηλικότης), in which it was to be argued that ‘what has occurred is important’, and relative importance (πρός τι), in which it was argued that what had not occurred is more important.28 That is, one should argue that the committed act, as now redefined, comes closest to fulfilling the intent of the law, or, as in the case of the opposition, is furthest from it. The elderly bishop continues by arguing (p. 68 ) that John's preaching embodied the very principles that he was accused of neglecting. John may now say with his Lord, ‘My symposium is the teaching and distribution of the word; it is for this that I have been chosen, towards the salvation of his people, because “food will not bring us close to God”. ’29 Spiritual banquets are more perfect expressions of Christian hospitality and charity than are physical banquets, which limit themselves to food and drink. These last two heads close the primary argument and briefly return the audience to the sequence of events, that is, to the admission that John did not host banquets. Hermogenes prescribed a secondary argument in which the newly characterized act was to be vigorously defended.30 Although the actual heads may vary, Hermogenes recommended beginning with a counterposition (ἀντίθεσις), which was the equivalent of a counteraccusation.31 Predictably, the elderly bishop adopts an offensive posture and argues that John was right to stop episcopal banquets. He says mockingly that only pagans would lament the absence of physical food and drink, because they do not value spiritual instruction and have failed to understand the Apostle Paul's admonition that food and drink are harmful when they lead to the corruption of morals.32 The implicit claim is that John's actions were not only free of reproach, but beneficial too. ‘Necessarily, an objection (μετάληψις) will follow’, Hermogenes noted.33 Not surprisingly the young deacon of the dialogue interjects here an objection, stating that John could have avoided these difficulties by inviting to his table only well‐disciplined hierarchs and clergy who would have been immune to such temptations.34 Hermogenes then recommended a counterplea (ἀντίληψις), in which the opponent's objection is dismissed, the original counterposition is reaffirmed, and the secondary argument is closed.35 On cue, the elderly bishop temporarily acknowledges the objections, exclaiming, ‘You have objected most appropriately (συνεκτικώτατα ἀνθυπήνέγκας).’36 But he reproves the young deacon for his naivety and dismisses the objection. 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(p. 69 ) The secondary argument was to be followed by an exploitation, a short epilogue by which the act was amplified to persuade the judge and secure the desired outcome. Amplification refers to the practice of increasing the significance of an accepted fact. Heath notes that in issues such as definition, where the question revolves around an undisputed act, the exploitation is more complex and requires amplification of person, too.37 By suggesting that the agent is beyond reproach, one may plausibly argue that the act was not committed for reprehensible ends. Hermogenes recommended in such instances the use of a quality (ποιότης), which ‘is based on the concomitants of person’.38 Attention turns away from the act per se to the agent, who must be characterized in harmony with the proffered definition. The elderly bishop proceeds to praise John, but not with the heads of encomium as prescribed by Hermogenes, probably because this would have been unnecessary after the lengthy description of John offered in earlier chapters of the Dialogue. Instead he praised John's service to the poor, widows, virgins, sick, distressed, and imprisoned.39 This characterization sharply contrasted with the one offered by John's critics who claimed that at best he was miserly, at worst, he was criminally remiss. The claims of quality are extended in the intention (γνώμη), in which one asserts the agent's intent in performing the act.40 John had been criticized for not discerning his priorities as bishop and setting enough time aside for hosting banquets in addition to his other duties. Palladius rejoined that, on the contrary, he knew precisely what his priorities were as bishop, and for this reason he devoted his time to preaching and ignored banquets.41 Hermogenes advised ending with a common quality (κοινὴ ποιότης), which amplifies the argument in a generalized way, without reference to specific persons and events.42 Palladius castigated bishops for using hospitality for self‐aggrandizement or personal ends. He noted sardonically that some bishops were so despised for their inappropriate, even illicit, activities, that hosting lavish celebrations was necessary to curry favours from the powerful, and constructing magnificent edifices was required to maintain the support of the masses.43 This brief section adheres to the recommendation of Hermogenes that the common quality be handled in the manner of a common topic, because it employs many of the heads typically associated with common topic (p. 70 ) (exposition, comparison, intention, legality, justice, honour, and result).44 It ends with a brief epilogue that secures assent by intensifying the emotion of indignation that was introduced in the introduction and developed in the narration.45 The elderly bishop succeeded in convincing the deacon who marvelled at his words (ἐπὶ τούτοις θαυμάσας) and announced that what has been so naturally stated (φυσικω̑ς εἰρημένων) cannot generate any objection (ἀντίρρησιν).46 What was proclaimed as free of artifice and appears to the modern reader irredeemably confused in structure is actually a sophisticated and deliberate argument organized on the principles of issue theory. J. N. D. Kelly dismissed the charge of John's ‘eating alone’ as frivolous, perhaps even libellous.47 This is testimony to Palladius' skill and to the utility of issue theory, because the charge against John was in fact very grave. John was not resented because he ‘ate alone’ as Palladius would have it, but because he had refused to host banquets for neighbouring and visiting bishops. He was accused of breaching episcopal protocol, disrupting networks of patronage, and even embezzling ecclesiastical resources. As the bishop of an important metropolis, John was responsible for hosting such banquets that served important social, professional, and ultimately administrative functions. These banquets sustained and enlarged networks of patronage that were essential to the conduct of personal, ecclesial, and imperial transactions. In the course of the conversation on the subject of Abraham, the bishop mentioned that, unlike the Constantinopolitan bishops, Abraham had extended his hospitality to desert sojourners from whom he expected nothing in return, and not to ‘consuls’ (ὑπάτους) or ‘generals’ (στρατηγούς) or ‘men of power in this world’.48 These invitees reflect the political order of the late Roman empire, not the semi‐nomadic Canaanite world of Abraham, and they suggest the kinds of patronage networks generated at such banquets. John had also been expected to engage in public benefaction, or euergetism, another political tool characteristic of late antiquity. Whereas patronage was offered to specific individuals who would be expected to reciprocate, euergetism was offered indiscriminately to the entire populace of a city for a more general prestige and honour that solidified support for one's public role.49 (p. 71 ) Palladius may have derided this as a useless mania,50 but it was expected that bishops would expend funds for such grand purposes that not only projected the power of the church and state, but also provided tangible benefits to the public. John, however, was loath to spend money this way. His uncustomary attitude to both patronage and euergetism ruffled aristocratic and ecclesiastical plumes and generated resentment against him. It was left to Palladius to construct a plausible and compelling account that would divert attention from this omission, justify his new protocol, and recast him in a positive light. Issue theory provided him
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with the tools.
The depositions in Asia The Dialogue's next argument defended John for the controversial deposition and installation of numerous bishops in the province of Asia. Although there is no mention of it in the narration, this act particularly alarmed Theophilus and other bishops because it trammelled traditional jurisdictional limits. Despite Palladius' bravado in responding to the charge, a review and analysis of his argument reveals that he recognized the gravity of this accusation. According to Palladius, Eusebius of Valentinopolis appeared before John and other bishops as they were gathered to celebrate the Eucharist, and he filed charges before them all against the bishop of Ephesus, Antoninus.51 He accused Antoninus of a variety of administrative and financial improprieties, the most serious of which was simony, or the sale of ecclesiastical office. Palladius tells us that John attempted to reconcile Eusebius with Antoninus, but the importunate accuser remained undeterred until he received a hearing, the results of which were inconclusive.52 John hoped to break the impasse by arranging for a three‐member delegation (of which Palladius was one) to travel to Asia to investigate witnesses. The delegation, however, was obstructed by Eusebius, who subsequently extorted, or was bribed by, Antoninus to drop the charges. When the delegates realized that they had been duped, they deposed Eusebius on the count of proffering unsubstantiated charges.53 The matter might have ended there without contest, but when Antoninus died, the bishops of Asia requested that John ordain for them a successor to his see. John obliged them and ordained a successor in concert with seventy local (p. 72 ) bishops, a number probably more symbolic than accurate.54 Eusebius reappeared at the ceremonies and demanded that he be accepted into communion with the other bishops, but they chafed at the suggestion, arguing that he had already been deposed. Eusebius insisted that he could still prove the charges against Antoninus, because those who had paid him for their offices were present, and witnesses could be summoned to testify against them. It must have been an awkward moment for the guilty parties present. In all, six bishops were deposed. According to Palladius, John was so conciliatory that he allowed them to sue for their money and retain some clerical privileges, and he even promised to petition the emperor for continued exemption from the curia. He subsequently ordained six others in their stead.55 The circumstances of the Asian depositions suggest that the issue is one of counterplea (ἀντίληψις). In counterplea, one admits that an act occurred, but denies that it was self‐evidently illegal.56 In this case, it would have required that Palladius admit to the fact that John deposed Asian bishops and ordained replacements for them, and then that he argue that this act was not self‐evidently illegal, because he had done so at the behest of, and in conjunction with, other Asian bishops. Such an admission of the act, however, does reduce the overall force of the argument. This would explain why Palladius resisted employing the argument of counterplea. He implied this at the beginning of his account of the Asian depositions, when he promised to relate the events exactly as they occurred, changing neither the ‘quantity’ (ποσότης) of bishops deposed, nor the ‘quality’ (ποιότης) of John's actions in deposing them.57 Quality was the term used in Hellenistic judicial rhetorical theory for the third of the four major issues, the first being conjecture and the second definition. The issues were organized in descending order of argumentative force.58 Hermogenes subsequently divided quality into more detailed issues, the first of which was counterplea.59 In all the issues grouped under quality, the matter or action to be judged is clear and complete, that is, agreed upon by all parties, and it is the quality of the act that (p. 73 ) needs to be investigated in order to determine, for example, whether it was legal or appropriate under the given circumstances. In the case of the Asian depositions, Palladius denied that the quality of the issue needed to be changed or amplified. Instead he treated this issue as conjecture, the first and strongest of all the arguments. An advocate would use conjecture when the act in the case was disputed altogether, or when the act that occurred was not illegal, but was prosecuted as evidence of another, illegal act. The classic example of the latter case is that of a man who is charged with homicide because he was discovered burying a corpse.60 In such a case, one is conjecturing that there was a murder and that the man burying the body is the murderer, even though there is no indication that the accused man was responsible for the death, let alone the murder. Yet Palladius admitted that John had deposed bishops and had ordained replacements. How could he have built an
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argument on the principles of conjecture? He capitalized on the fact that some of the acts were indeed disputed: John had been accused of sixteen depositions and ordinations in a single day, whereas there were only six. It is possible that the number sixteen had circulated as a malicious rumour, but it is also possible that John's accusers tallied each ordination and deposition singly, which would have raised the number to twelve. They could have raised the number still further to sixteen, if they had included the deposition of Eusebius (which occurred months before) and the installation of Heracleides (which had probably occurred on a different day than the ecclesiastical trial), and if they had included the deposition of Gerontius from his position as bishop of Nicomedia, and the installation of Pansophius as his replacement, which occurred on John's return from Asia to the city.61 More importantly, however, Palladius argued that these acts were not evidence of what had actually been charged against John, presumably by Theophilus’ tract. With a rhetorical sleight of hand, Palladius deflected attention from the ordinations by addressing instead the accusation that John was dominated by φιλαρχία or lust for power.62 John indeed deposed and ordained replacements for six bishops, but this act was not a sign of lust for power, which was the real charge of his calumniators who believed that he deposed sixteen bishops in one day, and ordained his own cronies as replacements. This would have been an entirely specious argument had Palladius dismissed the seriousness of extra‐jurisdictional ordinations, but he did not. In fact, even though he adopted the stance of conjecture, he vigorously defended the (p. 74 ) legality of John's involvement by offering reasons why any reasonable bishop would have behaved as John, and this is the substance of counterplea. By focusing, however, on the charge of lust for power, Palladius cleared the way to deny outright any guilt on John's behalf, and perhaps avoided any residual taint that may have been acquired by admitting more explicitly to the act. A very brief analysis of the argument will demonstrate how Palladius did this by using the heads of conjecture (στοχασμός) suggested by Hermogenes.63 One begins with a primary argument that must focus on the charge that was raised and demonstrate that there was no evidence for the allegations; it must also argue that the defendant was unlikely to have committed the act and that the sequence of events does not support the allegations.64 To this end, Palladius emphasized that John's subcommittee of bishops (of which Palladius was a part) deposed only a single bishop, namely Eusebius. This was an uncontroversial deposition because Eusebius had pressed charges that he later failed to substantiate, and this was an infraction of ecclesial and imperial law that always merited deposition. Moreover, this act did not constitute any extra‐jurisdictional meddling, because it was not the result of an investigation into the affairs of the Asian church. Hermogenes suggested that one should begin the primary argument with a demand for evidence (ἡ τω̑ν ἐλέγχων ἀπαίτησις), which Palladius did not develop, although he did testify on oath as though he stood at the divine judgement that only six bishops were deposed.65 Next, one turns to the motive and capacity (ἡ βούλησις καὶ ἡ δύναμις),66 either of the defendant or other parties involved.67 Palladius berated Theophilus and extolled John to demonstrate that it was more likely that Theophilus had exaggerated the event than that John had erred.68 The primary argument ends with the sequence of events (τὰ ἀπ' ἀρχη̑ς ἄχρι τέλους), which must demonstrate that the allegations are unsupportable. Hermogenes instructed that this offered the most persuasive arguments for conjecture, because the links to the contested act could be strengthened or weakened as needed.69 Palladius signalled his use of τὰ ἀπ' ἀρχη̑ς ἄχρι τέλους when the deacon implored the bishop to ‘present in detail what happened, both its end (τέλος) and its beginning (ἀρχή)’,70 and the bishop responded with a detailed narration of all events until the death of Antoninus of (p. 75 ) Ephesus.71 He argued that the events that occurred were not signs of lust for power, and this included an implicit argument that the acts themselves were legal, too. According to Hermogenes, a good sequence of events must be coherent and not ‘self‐contradictory’ (ἐναντία πω̑ς ἑαυτῃ̑), otherwise the argument will fall apart.72 We are not surprised to find this emphasized at the end of the account, when the deacon declares himself persuaded by the story's coherence, saying: ‘Your consistent narrative and sincere explanation have convinced me that these things really happened, since a fabricated story has no consistency in itself (ἀδύνατον γὰρ ψευδη̑ λόγον ἑαυτῳ̑ συμφωνη̑σαι).’73 In conjecture's secondary argument, one subsequently denies that what occurred signified what was charged. Palladius argued that the ordination of a new bishop to the see of Ephesus, and the subsequent deposing and replacing of six bishops, did not signify that John was drunk with power; neither did it signify that he recklessly installed cronies as bishops, even though he had installed his deacon Heracleides, whom Palladius did not mention here by name. We find again the heads recommended by Hermogenes. There is a discernible counterplea (ἀντίληψις)
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in Palladius' claim that John's ordination of Heracleides was legitimate, because he had been invited to do so by the Asian bishops.74 There is also an implied objection (μετάληψις): he should not have continued with the deposition and installation of so many other bishops.75 Palladius offers a clear transposition of cause (μετάθεσις τη̑ς αἰτίας), by blaming Eusebius, whom he identifies as ὁ τη̑ς μακρηγορίας ἡμι̑ν αἴτιος, because not only did he first raise the charges against Antoninus, he raised additional charges against the individual bishops who had bribed Antoninus.76 This is followed by a persuasive defence (πιθανή ἀπολογία), in which Palladius claimed that his account of the Asian affair, well‐documented and easily corroborated by the testimony of many bishops who had been present, was the only valid and possible one.77 The secondary argument concludes with an exploitation in the form of a common quality or common topic, already described above for definition, on the kind of candidates that should be ordained to ecclesiastical offices.78 This (p. 76 ) exploitation includes an invective against the vice‐ridden and incompetent Victor, who had been installed in Ephesus after John's appointee, Heracleides, had been removed. It makes John's interference in Asia appear benign, if not legitimate and even beneficial. This exploitation prompted Palladius to attach to his argument a lengthy invective against Porphyrius, who had been installed in Antioch by John's opponents, Acacius and Severian.79 The election of Porphyrius to the see of Antioch was particularly vexing because he was later to be one of the three bishops, the other two being Theophilus of Alexandria and Arsacius of Constantinople, with whom Johnites were being forced into communion by the imperial court.80 Palladius' compositional decisions are now clearer. It was noted in the previous chapter that Palladius resumes narrating events in John's life in chapters 13 through 15 and that this appears to divide the argumentation. But this analysis demonstrates that this historical episode is not a resumption of the narration: rather it is a head (namely, sequence of events) within the argument of conjecture. Palladius himself explicitly identified this section as part of the argumentation near the close of the previous argument, when the deacon urged the bishop to move on to the next argument, saying, ‘Return, O most holy father, to the remaining disputed acts.’81 The heads of conjecture also explain why Palladius would have chosen to include material that appears to be tangential, if not irrelevant, to the Johnite controversy, such as the accounts of Victor and Porphyrius. Both of these examples of extra‐jurisdictional meddling make John's actions look reasonable and lawful. This analysis can also explain why Palladius' argument in defence of the Asian depositions follows his argument of why John ‘ate alone’. Despite Palladius' application of the heads for conjecture, the issue was truly one of counterplea. Had it truly been an issue of conjecture, Palladius would have offered it first because it would have been the strongest and most persuasive of arguments: John cannot be accused of extra‐jurisdictional ordinations, because he did not perform them! This would have cast a shadow on the credibility of the prosecution and perhaps weakened all their subsequent accusations. But John did perform extra‐jurisdictional ordinations, and the audience would have expected a counterplea in his defence, in which Palladius would have admitted to them and then explained why they were not self‐evidently illegal. Palladius accommodates the expectations of his audience to some degree by admitting to some ordinations, explaining why they were justified, and by placing this argument after his argument of definition. In the (p. 77 ) course of this analysis, it becomes evident that Palladius arranged his arguments in order of decreasing persuasive strength, not only as presented in the handbooks of stasis theory, but as would logically have been expected by his audience. Palladius closed this argument with the exclamation of the deacon, ‘You have freed my mind, father, which had been enslaved by ambiguity, by presenting to me openly the acts in question.’ 82 What ambiguity? Presumably whether John's ordinations in Ephesus were self‐evidently legal. This analysis suggests that Palladius ultimately recognized they were not, by conforming in some degree to his audience's expectation of a counterplea. This does not imply that the ordinations were self‐evidently illegal; on the contrary, such an accusation is precisely what the defence disputes in a counterplea, the ultimate purpose of which is to prove that an act was legal. Palladius, however, created an argument that focuses upon the accusation that John was dominated by a lust for power, in order to deflect attention from the ordinations that had been performed. He knew that extra-jurisdictional meddling was the cause of much mischief, and that it was sternly prohibited by canon law.
Olympias and the monks The Dialogue's next argument defends John's involvement in the Origenist controversy, in which he was charged with wrongfully sheltering monks who had been evicted by Theophilus 83 This argument contains another 22.1.2012 20:03
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remarkable manipulation of rhetorical theory in John's defence, because John is never so much as mentioned. Palladius transformed the argument into a defence of Olympias, the wealthy widow who had been ordained a deacon and had put her great wealth at the disposal of the church and its leadership. Palladius argued that when a ragtag band of monks entered Constantinople in 401 looking for shelter before the onset of winter, it was only right that Olympias should have taken them in. We are surprised, therefore, to find the young deacon of our Dialogue emphatically telling the elderly bishop four times that Olympias was wrong in receiving or providing for the monks whom Theophilus had evicted.84 These are the strongest accusations in the entire Dialogue, and a clear indication that the act was considered prima facie illegitimate. According to Hermogenes, ‘If the defendant concedes that the act in question was wrong, the (p. 78 ) generic name is counterposition.’85 In counterposition (ἀντίθεσις), one concedes that the act was liable to the charge raised by the prosecution because it is indisputable, but nevertheless argues that it was ‘justifiable or excusable’ because of some circumstance, and hence, ‘not wrong’ in a qualified sense.86 Counterposition is a generic term for several arguments that do this in different ways, one of which is to accept the blame for what happened, but to emphasize that it was offset by the beneficial consequence of the act involved.87 This suggests itself here as the most plausible defence, because it was argued that these were saintly men falsely accused and in dire need of assistance. Remarkably, however, Palladius once again chose a counter‐intuitive tactic. Instead of counterposition, he used the argument of counterplea (ἀντίληψις), in which he admits to the act, but refuses to recognize that it was indisputably illegitimate or prima facie wrong, despite all the evidence to the contrary and the insistence of John's opponents. He was able to use a counterplea because he insisted that the monks were never accepted into spiritual communion as charged. He precluded further discussion on this subject by concentrating his argument instead upon the material aid given by Olympias, something not proscribed by canon law. John's assistance in their physical needs is not discussed. A brief analysis can demonstrate the effect Palladius achieved by using counterplea's structure of preliminary, primary, and secondary argument. Palladius' preliminary argument questioned whether the monks were rightfully evicted in the first place, because it was upon this supposition that the charges against Olympias rested.88 Perhaps Theophilus evicted them out of personal malice rather than in his official capacity as bishop? Such a preliminary argument offered an alternative definition of what happened: the monks were not rightfully evicted, and therefore Olympias did no wrong in sheltering them.89 As we have seen above, definition must be amplified with its typical concomitants, namely, counterdefinition, assimilation, legislator's intention, importance, and relative importance.90 The deacon retorted with a counterdefinition, stating that it was not out of malice that Theophilus evicted them, but on account of their heterodoxy, in which case their eviction was justified or (p. 79 ) lawful.91 Notice that doctrine was an underlying factor in this argument. The bishop responded with an assimilation, that is, he argued that even this alternative interpretation or definition of events is consistent with an unlawful eviction, because Theophilus should have ‘corrected and persuaded them’, not evicted them.92 The deacon, however, persisted, asking what if they refused to be either corrected or persuaded? The bishop responded that the ‘true spirit’ of the law (legislator's intention) prohibited such maltreatment, and he supported himself quoting Titus 3.10–11, which states: ‘after a first and second admonition, have nothing more to do with anyone who causes divisions, since you know that such a person is perverted and sinful, being self‐condemned.’ Next, importance. The bishop argued that what occurred was furthest from fulfilling the intent of the law, insofar as Theophilus did not display the love befitting a Christian, let alone a bishop, or one named ‘Lover of God’. He should have shown forbearance with the monks, and he should not have accused Olympias of impropriety.93 Finally, relative importance was offered in response to importance. The deacon noted that despite this interpretation, the act itself was so serious that it still constituted a serious violation. The deacon admitted that Theophilus’ motives were bad, but he argued nevertheless that as bishop he retained the right to expel individuals from the church. The deacon was adamant that under any circumstance, Olympias was wrong to shelter them.94 It is extraordinary that Palladius could be so honest, as author and defending advocate, as to grant this first round to the prosecution. The preliminary argument was to be followed by the primary argument, in which one contends that the act in question was legitimate. This claim, however, must be supported and prepared for properly, because if it could have been claimed outright that the act was legitimate, it would not have formed the basis of an issue in the first place.95 The bishop offered the requisite head of counterplea (ἀντίληψις) and reminded the deacon that the Lord sheltered
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sinners rather than expel them. Olympias followed the example of Jesus Christ, who was willing to receive and nourish the unworthy multitudes in the desert.96 The deacon replied with an objection (μετάληψις), in this case, one of counterrepresentation (ἀντιπαράστασις), in which Hermogenes stated one would claim that ‘Even if it is permissible, it is not so on these conditions and in this way.’97 So the deacon replied, ‘But he (viz. Theophilus) will tell you, “You took my enemies to my grief.” ’98 The response to the objection is one of counterposition (ἀντίθεσις);99 in this instance, the counterposition is by counteraccusation (ἀντέγκλημα), by which the bishop berated Theophilus, having (p. 80 ) stated that, ‘it is entirely his fault, for he called them enemies, he who ought to have suffered insults in imitation of Christ’.100 The deacon drops the second objection that Hermogenes suggested would typically arise in the argumentation, and he admits instead that Theophilus’ actions were self‐serving and hypocritical, and that his accusations against Olympias (and by extension John) were vindictive.101 The bishop then began the secondary argument with its second counterplea, arguing that if Olympias' act was legitimate in the case of sinners, it was all the more praiseworthy since she had sheltered saints.102 Just as his argument concerning the Asian depositions had prompted an invective against Porphyrius, this argument prompted an encomium of the evicted monks.103 For reasons that will become clearer below, it is important to note here that this encomium is merely an ancillary component to the central argument that justified Olympias. Just as Porphyrius was a secondary concern for Palladius in the previous argument, so too in this instance were the Origenist monks. Palladius was in a position to speak of them at length because of his friendship and long association, but he did not identify them, or their doctrinal orthodoxy, a central element of this argument. Their saintliness simply justified or mitigated Olympias’ actions, and by extension those of John. It also cast a shadow of doubt on the appropriateness of Theophilus’ actions in evicting them. This encomium on the monks was concluded with the counterplea's thesis (θέσις), which moved from specific occurrence to a more general principle.104 Although there is no fully developed thesis here with all the concomitant heads, the bishop argued that this is a case analogous to the parable of the Good Samaritan, in which bad behaviour is exposed by redemptive behaviour from unexpected quarters. The bishop exclaims: ‘It is to the shame of men that a manly woman would take them in, and it is to the accusation of bishops that a female deacon should befriend them.’ 105 As usual, an exploitation concludes the argument.106 The first element in exploitation was quality, in which the argumentation turned from act to agent, which prompted a description of Olympias’ life and virtues.107 The second was intent, in which the argument turned from agent to agent's intent, and the bishop explained how Olympias’ intentions were sincerely altruistic, because (p. 81 ) she had extended benefices not only to the monks and John, but to many clergy, including even John's enemies.108 The exploitation concludes with a common quality, of sorts, in which it is claimed that the general concern for worldly provisions should be subordinated to the eager longing for the bounties of the next age.109 By using counterplea instead of counterposition, Palladius once again opted for an issue that was stronger in argumentative force than might have been expected given the evidence. Counterplea allowed him to argue that Olympias’ actions were not self‐evidently illegal, and that a perfectly legitimate explanation could be offered for the act committed. This was a case of a good act judged wrongly.110 Just as with the Asian depositions, the stronger argument allowed Palladius to deflect his readers’ attention from the real issue at hand, which was the reception of excommunicated monks not by a wealthy widow, but by a bishop. In the narration of the Dialogue we were told that it was John who had sheltered them in the Anastasia chapel, and that ‘some pious women brought their daily sustenance’.111 Olympias was not mentioned by name. Palladius even minimized the aid that John extended to them in the narration by noting that the monks supported themselves with manual labour. In the argumentation, however, it appears that they were given more assistance than first suggested, and this may explain why John faded from view in the argument and was not given any role in their reception or shelter. Olympias was credited with making all the arrangements in order to deflect attention from John. Palladius' rhetorical strategy was analogous to John's tactic of using Olympias as a proxy. Astonishingly, Palladius also tacitly admitted the prima facie illegitimacy of this act despite his use of counterplea. Most obviously he did so through the voice of the deacon, who repeatedly stated that Olympias had committed a wrong. John was obviously the ultimate target of these accusations. But Palladius also admitted it by placing this argument after what should have been a counterplea (the argument defending the Asian depositions), and where his audience would have anticipated an argument of counterposition. Counterposition not only follows counterplea in
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argumentative strength and in the presentation of the handbooks, it also immediately precedes legal arguments, which constitute the remaining argumentation of the Dialogue. As noted above, counterposition concedes that an act is subject to prosecution, but justifies it on the basis of unique circumstances. This is not to say that John violated canonical order by actually accepting the monks into communion as Theophilus believed (or at least insisted). His contemporaries would have been quick to call him to task if he lied about this matter and his credibility would have been severely diminished. But it does suggest Palladius (p. 82 ) might have secretly admitted that, on the face of the matter, Theophilus had a right to be angry.
Perceptions of John And Theophilus was not the only bishop angry with John. At the conclusion of Palladius' defence of Olympias, the deacon complained that Olympias had provided for all of John's expenses. This had infuriated many of his critics, who suspected that he was embezzling funds. One can only presume that their anger must have become febrile when John tried to curb her generous gifts to others, a fact that is reported only by Sozomen.112 Resentment against John is evident throughout the Dialogue, but in the remaining three arguments the vexation of John's critics is palpable. This sentiment explains the significant shift in the argumentative strategy of the final argument, which actually comprises three short arguments of a similar type all addressing similar charges. These last arguments are less concerned than the first three with redefining, disputing, or mitigating John's acts and their attendant circumstances. Rather, they seek scriptural justifications for each of them. The primary argumentative strategy is to demonstrate that the charges should be dismissed because in principle the acts were permissible. In issue theory, arguments that revolved around verbal instruments (such as laws or wills) by which a particular act was to be judged were known as legal arguments.113 In legal arguments, the matter to be judged was both clear and complete, that is to say, the facts were agreed upon by all parties. The act with which one was charged did not allow much reinterpretation, and the only plausible defence was a reinterpretation of the law that argued that the act might still be considered just, lawful, or advantageous, despite its obviously wrongful character. It is obvious that these last three remaining arguments are best understood as legal ones because Palladius treated Scripture as the verbal instrument by which the accusations against John were to be evaluated. Chapters 18 and 19 are crowded with scriptural verses and allusions that condemn or exonerate John. The bishop's arguments demonstrate that the spirit and preponderance of the law justified John. There are four types of legal arguments, letter and intent (ῥητὸν καὶ διάνοια), assimilation (συλλογισμός), conflict of laws (ἀντινομία), and ambiguity (ἀμφιβολία).114 Palladius used the first three forms of arguments in John's defence. The final legal argument, ambiguity, was very limited in scope and addressed only ambiguities in the explicit, literal meaning of the law that (p. 83 ) stemmed from issues of Greek script.115 The first three arguments, however, all shared a common trait, insofar as they recognized a common literal or explicit meaning to the law, but disputed its implied or intended meaning on the basis of distinguishing features of the act itself. In letter and intent, one argued that a particular law should (or should not) apply to an act, despite its literal relevance, because the act in question possessed a feature that distinguished it from such a literal meaning; in assimilation, one argued that even though a law did not literally apply to an act, it should be applied because of particular circumstances; in conflict of laws, one argued which of two or more laws that were not normally contradictory ought to take precedence in the case of an extraordinary act in which they happened to conflict.116 Although legal arguments were distinguished from other arguments by their focus upon the laws as the main point of contention, they were not entirely unconcerned with the acts or actions themselves.117 For this reason, although the primary phase of the argument usually revolved around the proper interpretation of the law, the secondary phase then addressed the act in light of the interpretation just offered.118 It was the advocate's responsibility to demonstrate that the act accorded with the new meaning of the law that he provided. It is unnecessary to analyse each of Palladius' remaining arguments with the detail offered above for the first three. A brief summary will suffice to demonstrate that he deployed legal arguments. In the first argument the deacon argues that John erred in accepting funds from Olympias’ private purse rather than the church treasury. After all, ‘the labourer deserves to be paid’, according to 1 Tim 5.18. The bishop also quotes (albeit imprecisely) the passage from 1 Cor 9.7, which asks, ‘Who plants a vineyard and does not eat any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not get any of its milk?’ The bishop concedes this point, but responds that there are 22.1.2012 20:03
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other scriptural precepts that are equally valid, and even more appropriate. He quotes other passages from 1 Corinthians, in which Paul professes ‘we have not made use of this right’, preferring to deny himself lest he become ‘a stumbling block to the weak’ and doing ‘all for the sake of the gospel’.119 (p. 84 ) This argument revolved around a conflict of laws. This was a case in which the laws conflicted because of extraordinary circumstances. John refused to take what the law permitted, because he was holding himself to the standards of a higher law. Whereas the law was created for sinners, John was imitating God like a true son and exceeded the law, becoming a lawgiver unto himself.120 As for his opponents who ostensibly adhered to the law by accepting their livelihood from the church funds, they proved themselves subject to the law in the worst sense, namely, condemned by it as sinners on account of their bribery, corruption, and perjury.121 Palladius demonstrated that there were two sets of laws according to which John could be judged, and he argued that the second set was more appropriate. He also demonstrated that John's actions were more in keeping with the spirit of the entire law, because he rejected the perquisites of the office for a higher spiritual cause. His arguments even echo those already made in his defence of John's ‘eating alone’. John was criticized for rejecting earthly banquets, but they should be criticized for depleting church funds with their revelry, and for rejecting the spiritual banquets conducted at the Lord's altar table.122 Despite his defence of John, Palladius still conveyed the main contention of his critics. They charged that it was unethical for him to accept funds from Olympias that presumably could not be monitored. This was especially galling to them because they believed that he was concurrently mismanaging, even embezzling, church funds. In the second argument, the deacon argued that John should have known better than ‘to assault those in power’, referring to the verbal attacks he may have made against the empress Eudoxia that resulted in chilly relations with the imperial court.123 After all, scripture warns against such mistakes, forbidding one to ‘stand in the place of the great’ (Prov 25.6), and exhorting us to ‘[conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders] making the most of the time’ (Col 4.5). Palladius used the argument of letter and intent, to distinguish an implicit meaning of the law that was different from the explicit one argued by the deacon. The bishop responded by saying the true intention of these passages was not understood. He argued that the first passage did not suggest cowering before the mighty and powerful: rather it warned unworthy people not to assume priestly ranks, because ‘the great’ referred to the apostles, not secular rulers.124 He also argued that the second passage did not suggest that one remain hypocritically silent when confronted with wrongdoing or evil, but that one should speak with the boldness of a martyr or prophet.125 The bishop (p. 85 ) claimed that John fulfilled both of these requirements.126 Numerous passages from scripture were evinced to demonstrate that prophetic boldness was essential to the exercise of priestly ministry. Nevertheless, in the course of this argument, we have learned that John's critics accused him of being incompetent. He should have known better than to irritate the imperial court, and he should have demonstrated more tact when dealing with the aristocracy. The final accusations appear to be the most trifling. John was accused of being proud (ὑπερήφανος) and insolent (ὑβριστής), as indicated by his disdain for socializing and his habit of keeping to himself.127 The bishop defended John by arguing that scripture enjoined the avoidance of crowds as spiritually harmful, and he quotes: ‘When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him’ (Matt 5.1). He also adds, ‘Now when Jesus saw great crowds around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side’ (Matt 8.18). The deacon agreed that this passage sanctioned the avoidance of crowds, but he replied that it did not justify John's habit of avoiding individuals. The bishop responded by arguing that even a single person could be as spiritually harmful as a crowd, and that this is the implied meaning of the passage. This is an assimilation, in which the meaning of the text was expanded to include the sanctioning of something not explicitly stated or immediately obvious from the passage. John was not insolent: rather he reproved and admonished others for their own benefit, and the bishop adduced numerous scriptural passages that demonstrated his conformity with scripture. Apparently, even if some of John's critics did not go as far as to call him unethical or incompetent, they may have still believed he was unsuitable for the post and that his behaviour did not accord with his office. These last arguments revolved less around what John did, and more around who he was. The ‘acts’ being judged according to scripture were his character and personality. Palladius' use of legal arguments was a remarkable admission of John's lack of social grace. Although legal arguments permitted an act to be redefined or reinterpreted to some degree, it was an argumentative strategy employed when the act itself was agreed upon by all parties, and it
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did not permit the more vigorous reinterpretation employed by some of the earlier arguments. It was an argument used when one had to admit guilt to an indisputable charge, but which allowed acquittal by demonstrating that the law permitted such acts, provided that the law was properly interpreted. In this respect, legal arguments were among the weakest in the repertory of issues available to an advocate. Although they might have resulted in an acquittal, they did not exonerate an individual of a particular act. For this reason, they were among the last to be presented in the handbooks. Likewise, Palladius (p. 86 ) used them last in his defence of John. It does not appear that any one of these accusations of unethical, incompetent, or inappropriate behaviour was serious enough to remove John from office, but in toto they capture the animus and ire of his enemies. John irritated and antagonized many around him, and Palladius did not deny it.
The causes of John's removal Palladius insisted that John was deposed because of unwarranted, unmerited hatred, but this careful reading of the Dialogue has revealed the seriousness of the various administrative issues contested by both parties. It is plausible that John may have been justly deposed for these violations. Recent historical‐critical scholarship has supported such an interpretation, and it has viewed Palladius' staunchly partisan interpretation of events with suspicion for having dismissed the validity of these charges.128 This analysis, however, has shown that Palladius was well aware of the gravity of these charges and that he addressed each one as best he could. Yet even if one were not persuaded by any of his arguments, one would still be hard pressed to argue that any of these violations of episcopal protocol were sufficient grounds for his deposition. The reasons for John's removal from office should be sought in the minutes from the Synod of Oak. This, however, is complicated by two factors. The minutes are lost and only a summary has been preserved, written in the ninth century by Photius of Constantinople.129 Photius was far removed from the events and openly partial to John, writing at a time when the sanctity and innocence of John were taken for granted.130 Fortunately, the general consensus is that his summary is historically reliable because there was no attempt to correct the unflattering picture of John that the minutes presented. The more serious problem with the summary is that it merely states that a vote was taken to depose John, without expressly stating on what grounds. Examining, (p. 87 ) however, the sequence of events as outlined in the summary, and comparing this sequence to the witness of other sources, one can infer a plausible answer to this question. According to the summary, the bishops at Oak began by examining charges proffered by a deacon named John. Of the twenty‐nine charges he raised, sixteen of these confirm what Palladius later disclosed in his Dialogue, that Bishop John was on bad terms with many of his clergy. Among other things, he is said to have ‘disparaged his clergy as men without honour, corrupt, dissolute, good for nothings’; to have ‘composed a slanderous pamphlet against the clergy’; to have given ‘money to the bishops he consecrates so that through them he can oppress the clergy’.131 The remaining thirteen charges also confirm the picture painted by Palladius. These charges dealt mostly with administrative issues, accusing John of abusing his authority and managing poorly his responsibilities as bishop. Six charges accused him of irregular ordinations, three of fiscal mismanagement, three of liturgical deviations; one even implied sexual impropriety, claiming that he ‘receives women entirely on his own, excluding all others’.132 Surprisingly, however, these charges were not sufficient grist to the synod's mill, because there appears to have been a general dissatisfaction with the charges.133 The synod started with the first and second charges of John the deacon, in which he accused John the bishop of ‘having treated him unjustly by excluding him for having beaten his own servant Eulalius’, and of having given instructions that a monk John ‘be beaten, taken into custody and put in chains along with possessed persons’.134 But while he was examining the second charge, the investigation took an unexpected twist and turned instead to charges that Heracleides of Ephesus and Palladius were Origenists.135 Presumably, John the monk was being interrogated as a witness related to the second charge of John the deacon, and it was during his interrogation that he submitted this new libellus mentioned by Photius. The libellus accused Heracleides and Palladius of heresy, and the synod's interest in examining implies that they hoped to prove that Bishop John shared their views. These must have been significant accusations. It appears to have been expedient for a council to address first the most serious charges in a libellus, because a verdict upon these saved time by rendering unnecessary (p. 88 ) the examination of the remaining charges.136 The relative merits of the different charges, therefore, can often be deduced by the sequence in which they were treated. That the synod investigated this charge rather than continuing with the others already at hand indicates that it held the most 22.1.2012 20:03
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promise for a speedy guilty verdict. That the synod returned to the remaining charges, however, also suggests that their attempt failed. For good measure, John the monk had added in his libellus a complaint against Chrysostom that he had promoted Heracleides to the see of Ephesus at a time when Heracleides had been charged with stealing the vestments of another deacon in Caesarea of Palestine.137 It was probably this accusation that prompted the synod to consider next, and out of sequence, the ninth and twenty‐seventh charges, complaining that John accused in the presence of other bishops three of his deacons of stealing his garment, and that he punched Memnon and subsequently gave him communion while Memnon's mouth was still blood‐stained.138 Despite their shocking nature, the synod does not appear to have considered any of the charges thus far to have been substantial enough to warrant John's removal. Even a beginning student of church history would sheepishly admit that such administrative violations appear to have been widespread in antiquity, and that such accusations were more common still. This would explain why Isaacius the monk, whom we have already met in Palladius' narration as a chief member of the Constantinopolitan cabal opposed to John, subsequently submitted a new libellus containing seventeen charges.139 Kelly noted that this new libellus repeats some of the original twenty‐nine charges, but that it ‘omits their implausible features and gives them a sharper edge’.140 In Isaacius’ list we find a renewed attempt to impugn John's orthodoxy. John was accused of using language not sanctioned by the church to describe his charismatic form of prayer experience and the liturgical symbolism of the altar; he was also accused of granting penance too freely and of being excessively friendly with non‐Christians.141 More tellingly, there were three charges that accused him of being sympathetic to Origenists.142 The first charge accused John of thrashing and placing in irons John the monk on account of the Origenists.143 The council decided to pass over this since it had (p. 89 ) already been examined. It turned instead to the second charge, which argued that: ‘Blessed Epiphanius of Salamis refused to hold communion with him because of the Origenists Ammonius, Euthymius, Eusebius and also Heracleides and Palladius.’144 This charge indisputably accused John of heresy, and not of an administrative error, because it included Heracleides and Palladius, who were bishops of independent cities and not among the refugee monks persecuted by Theophilus.145 It is also evident that the charge was examined in conjunction with (or just prior to) the seventh charge, which made no mention of Origenism, but was an explicit attack upon John's doctrinal orthodoxy. It charged that John ‘blasphemes when he asserts in church that, although Christ prayed, he was not listened to because he did not pray in the right way’.146 What heresy this referred to is not immediately clear. Malingrey thought that this charge might have deceitfully attributed to John the very claims of subordinationism that he had refuted in his preaching.147 Kelly, on the other hand, thought that it might have referred to John's comments on Jesus’ prayers in Gethsemane.148 Its conjunction with the second charge, however, suggests that the council sought to accuse John of subordinating the Son to the Father in a matter akin to Origen, and that the two charges together were intended to impugn John with Origenism. The council was openly sniffing for scents of heresy. The synod must have believed that an indictment of heresy would have been the most effective charge against John, because it repeatedly dropped its investigation into the litany of other available charges in order to explore the possibilities of such a prosecution. But it must have also recognized that John could not be proven a heretic by mere association. This would explain why it did not proceed to the third charge regarding Origenists, the fifteenth in Isaacius’ list, which accused John of offering hospitality to the excommunicated Origenists while allowing their canonical accusers from Egypt to languish in prison.149 Had the synod been concerned with administrative (p. 90 ) violations, it should have at least paused to consider this issue since it was one of the central concerns in the controversy from Theophilus’ point of view, and Palladius devoted much time to it in his narration and argumentation. The council, however, dropped their investigation into the charges of Isaacius altogether. The next‐strongest charges appear to have been the third and fourth of the original charges, which accused John of selling church property.150 It is likely that John's main enemies, viz. Arsacius, Atticus, and Acacius, had become impatient with the proceedings, and that they goaded the council to consider these charges of theft or sacrilege. It was they who testified as the main accusers against John, and upon concluding their testimony, they urged the bishops on the council to hasten their verdict.151 The synod obliged them and voted to depose John. Unfortunately, the summary does not state why or on what grounds John was deposed. We have, however, every reason to believe Palladius' claim that it was on a procedural matter, namely, that John had failed to appear before the synod as required.152 This is corroborated by Martyrius, our earliest source, although he adds that false verdicts
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were subsequently concocted.153 Had any verdict against John been formulated, however, whether true or false, one would think that Socrates would have preserved or at least mentioned them, considering that he excoriated John and believed him responsible for his own (p. 91 ) demise.154 Yet both he and Sozomen agree with Palladius and report that John was removed for failing to appear before the synod.155 Circumstantially, the summary also supports these claims, because Photius was honest enough to note that John had been summoned four times, one more than the three times Palladius noted in his narration and required by canon law.156 Choosing a procedural issue indicates that the synod lacked a substantial argument against John. Although procedural issues were legally binding and effective, they were also recognized as the weakest of all arguments per se, because they avoided debate about the acts themselves. The summary shows that John's administrative violations were discussed at Oak, but that they were not considered as promising as the doctrinal accusations. This suggests that some, if not many, bishops at the synod considered that John's violations in matters of administration and governance were either commonplace (even if serious), or justifiable, as Palladius was to argue in his Dialogue. The only consensus among them appears to have been their ill regard for John, with whom they were utterly exasperated. Acacius probably spoke for them all when, according to the recollection of Cyril of Alexandria, he remarked: ‘If I knew that, if we granted forgiveness to John, he would be better disposed within himself and would depart from the hardness and harshness which is in him, I would beseech you all in his behalf.’157 We know that he did not, and that John proved true to the old adage that a man's character is his fate.
The role of doctrine in the controversy Palladius tells us that Theophilus wrapped his pallium around the neck of the elderly Ammonius and beat him mercilessly with his fists, crying, ‘Anathematize Origen, you heretic!’ This damning episode portrays Theophilus as an opportunist who recklessly trumped up charges of heresy in order to destroy political enemies. But was heresy really an issue in this controversy? The primary sources present conflicting interpretations. Palladius and Socrates suggested that it was a pretence created by Theophilus, and most scholarship until recently felt confident in accepting that doctrine played a significant (p. 92 ) (albeit trumped‐up) role in John's removal.158 Newer studies, however, on the Johnite controversy suggest that doctrine did not play a significant role in John's removal, and they imply that Palladius raised it to divert attention from issues of John's administration.159 Neither of these two interpretations is entirely right. Theophilus should be given credit for taking the doctrinal issue very seriously, even if he wielded it against the Tall Brothers and John unscrupulously. Although he believed that John had committed many mistakes for which he was deservedly punished, it was his reception of excommunicated monks that he reported to Rome as the main reason for John's removal.160 Although this charge directly accused John of extra‐jurisdictional meddling, indirectly it also impugned his orthodoxy. This has often been dismissed as a case of bald opportunism, but Theophilus had officially condemned Origenism in Egypt. Even if the process was vindictive, his condemnation of Origenism was carefully considered, rejecting only those doctrines that were truly problematic for the orthodoxy of his own day.161 John's reception of the Nitrians not only flouted Theophilus’ authority and destabilized a tenuous situation; it also suggested that he agreed with them theologically. And had John not shown an affinity for receiving and ordaining other Origenist ascetics? Theophilus had good reason to suspect John of Origenism. Seen in this light, he may have even been justified in instigating Epiphanius to travel to Constantinople to condemn Origenism and ferret out John's true sentiments.162 It is no surprise that the Synod of Oak pursued charges of heresy with such great relish.163 Theophilus’ attempt to ensnare John on a doctrinal issue would explain why other early sources also discuss it. For example, our very first record of this episode, the funeral oration of Ps.‐Martyrius, mentions the Origenist controversy, even if only briefly and obliquely. It refers to some ‘holy monks’ and a (p. 93 ) ‘holy man involved in charity’ who came to Constantinople having been threatened by a ‘menace’ which evicted them and set on fire their monastic retreats; it mentions that a certain Origen, of whom the speaker coyly professes ignorance, was the pretext for the debacle that ensued in Egypt.164 The episode is brought to a close with the statement that a reconciliation was effected before the council of Oak.165 More specific information on this matter was either precluded by genre considerations,166 or unnecessary given the Constantinopolitan audience and the fact that the oration was not a direct response to Theophilus. The church historians Socrates and Sozomen also attributed a role to the Origenist controversy in John's demise, but in different ways and for different reasons Socrates wrote at length about the role of the Origenist controversy in 22.1.2012 20:03
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John's downfall, and he focused much of his discussion on the theological issues involved.167 He also added the visit of Epiphanius to Constantinople, during which Epiphanius tried to force John to condemn Origen openly and to sever his ties with Origenists whom he had ordained as clergy.168 Socrates admired Origen and his theology, and was offended by the tactics of both Theophilus and Epiphanius. Yet he also disliked John and blamed him squarely for all his troubles.169 For these reasons, he was cynical of Theophilus’ motives, and made the point that Theophilus also read Origen and that he created the charge of heresy out of political expediency. He discussed the doctrinal elements of the Origenist controversy to expose it as the travesty that it was. Sozomen also wrote extensively on the role of the Origenist controversy in the downfall of John, but from a different perspective than Socrates, even (p. 94 ) though he depended upon him heavily as a source.170 Sozomen admired John and exonerated him from all responsibility, painting an almost hagiographic portrait of him.171 Sozomen found it convenient to blame the doctrinal question in the Origenist controversy to help explain how John could have been innocently dragged to his ruin.172 What many fail to recognize is that Palladius sought to minimize, not exaggerate, the effect of the doctrinal accusations by turning public sentiment against Theophilus in his narration. As an admiring reader of Origen and a disciple of Evagrius, Palladius would have been incensed at Theophilus’ attempts to condemn Origen and his theology. In response, he recounted (or composed) the story of how Theophilus beat Ammonius and demanded that he anathematize Origen as a paradiegesis (παραδιήγησις), which ‘creep[s] in to increase belief or for amplification or prejudice or something else of that sort’.173 That is to say, a paradiegesis is crafted to persuade the judge of the narration's overall validity.174 In this instance, the paradiegesis suggested that Theophilus’ anger had reached such a fever pitch that it drove him to such absurdities as calling Ammonius a heretic and demanding that he anathematize Origen. Many in Palladius' day would have agreed that such a thing was preposterous. Origen remained one of the most highly esteemed Christian thinkers of Palladius' day, even among those who recognized that many of his ideas had been rendered problematic by newer standards of Nicene orthodoxy. More than a decade later in his Lausiac History, Palladius was still unapologetically promoting these same Origenists to the imperial court as model Christians. A paradiegesis also deliberately ‘seizes on things beyond the subject’.175 This suggests that doctrine was indeed beyond the subject of the dispute between Theophilus and the Origenists, and more importantly, beyond the subject of the Johnite controversy. This paradiegesis insinuated that Theophilus’ real motive was to cover his embezzlement and extortion, and it depicts him as unscrupulous, vindictive, and even desperate. (p. 95 ) Of course, Palladius also had many personal reasons to address the charges of Theophilus related to the Origenist episode. He was after all guilty as charged by John the monk in his libellus at Oak. He had been an ‘Origenist’ monk and he wrote his Dialogue from that perspective. His friendship with Isidore and the Tall Brothers went back nearly twenty years at the time he wrote, and he was present in Constantinople as the debacle unravelled. What is often forgotten, however, is that he also wrote from the perspective of someone who had known (or at least, known about) Theophilus for a long time. At one time Palladius may have believed that he and Theophilus shared a certain theological vision.176 He may have also thought that he and Theophilus were kindred spirits, judging by their mutual acquaintances. Just shortly before Palladius left Egypt a few years before, the Alexandrian bishop held Palladius' friends and associates in high esteem. For example, he had tried to install Isidore as bishop of Constantinople to reward him for his inestimable service.177 He had also ordained three of the four Tall Brothers: Dioscorus he made bishop of Hermopolis Parva, and Eusebius and Euthymius he made clergy and ‘committed to their charge the management of ecclesiastical affairs’.178 He would have even installed Palladius' mentor, Evagrius of Pontus, as bishop of Thmuis had Evagrius not avoided the office.179 Theophilus’ volte‐face understandably embittered Palladius, whether it had disproved his opinion of him or possibly even confirmed it. It was recognized by all the early sources that Theophilus had attempted to give doctrine a significant role in the controversy. It was not a ruse devised by Palladius to conceal John's administrative difficulties, and this chapter's rhetorical analysis has shown that issues of governance and administration were the focus of Palladius' argumentation. If Palladius added to the cynicism against Theophilus’ attempts, it was not by increasing the significance of doctrine: rather it was by minimizing and parodying it. This chapter's analysis has shown that the issue of doctrine was only an ancillary argument to one of the many arguments made in John's defence. Palladius never seriously considered the possibility that there was a real doctrinal issue that required further examination. If he appears to suggest otherwise in his narration, it was because he had to respond to the diatribe that Theophilus had written against John and sent to Rome, in which Theophilus had implied heresy was a main casus (p. 96 ) belli.180 Theophilus may have been unjustly vilified for posterity, but in this one respect he deserved what he got. He
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played the doctrine card with Rome, and he was trumped.
Conclusion Just as judicial rhetorical theory explains the structure of the Dialogue as a whole, so too issue theory explains the structure and reasoning of the Dialogue's argumentation. Although events had predetermined for Palladius which of the various issues he would address, issue theory explains how he did so. It also explains some of Palladius' compositional decisions, such as the inclusion of additional historical material concerning Victor, Porphyrius, and the depositions in Asia outside the chronological sequence of the narration in chapters 5–10. Issue theory also provides insight into the historical significance of various dimensions of the controversy. Scholars have often noted that the charge that John ate alone appeared in multiple attestations, and yet they never bothered to understand why, because on the surface it seemed to be such an inconsequential charge. Issue theory, however, prompts the reader to take the charge very seriously in light of its prominent position in the argumentation. It also reveals how hotly contested the Asian depositions and the reception of the fugitive monks were in John's own day. Overall, it illumines the nature of the debate and explains the positions that had been taken by John's supporters and his opponents. Palladius concluded his argumentation with a reaffirmation of its veracity,181 and the reader is expected to agree with the deacon and profess that he has been persuaded.182 Has the reader been duped? Palladius was a partisan, and conceding agreement may imply that we have been blinded to the opposition's arguments. One must remember, however, that Palladius did not write a hagiography. This rhetorical analysis has revealed that he rarely concealed the complaints of John's critics. Rather he addressed them directly using the most persuasive arguments available to him. Despite his avowed task of advocating for John, he was devastatingly honest about many dimensions (p. 97 ) of the controversy and John's character, and he preserved for the record the unflattering portrait of John that his enemies saw, together with all their arguments against him. This is not an idealized portrait akin to Sozomen's. Of course, Palladius rejected the negative characterization of John, and he created an alternative portrait based on the qualities that endeared him to his many supporters. Late antique rhetoric rarely feigned objectivity, preferring the bluster of the opposed poles of invective and praise. In such a context, Palladius was laudably fair in his assessment of John (although not of Theophilus). This analysis reminds us that there are two sides to every story, and Palladius should be commended for preserving both. There were, after all, other dimensions to John than those that Theophilus excoriated and Socrates censured, dimensions that endeared him to the city's populace and inspired the devotion of fervent supporters like Olympias, Cassian, and Palladius, who literally travelled to the ends of the earth for his sake. Palladius, however, claimed that it was an unmerited hatred and envy of John that motivated his enemies. This claim seems untenable from a critical vantage point, and it appears to ignore all the opposition's arguments. In some respects, however, Palladius was right. Ultimately, John was not removed for any one of the contested issues analysed here. At Oak they tried to accuse him of heresy, but they could not because the evidence was flimsy. They also tried to convict him of administrative improprieties, but they did not because, as serious as these violations were, they could not guarantee his deposition. His enemies, however, were determined to rid themselves of him, and they pursued their goal relentlessly even after Oak failed. In this sense, John was indeed deposed because he was hated. Was the animus against John unwarranted or inspired by envy, as Palladius claimed? The arguments in the Dialogue demonstrate that this was subject to debate and argument. Theophilus argued that John's deposition was entirely justified, and Palladius argued that it was not. The reader is free to choose whichever argument he finds most persuasive, but it is hoped that this analysis has demonstrated that the Dialogue is a sophisticated composition and historically valuable. Palladius' achievement is particularly impressive when one considers that his purpose in writing the Dialogue was limited to responding to Theophilus’ charges, and to building public support for John in Rome and Constantinople. If the Dialogue also completes our picture of the Origenist controversy and explains how John became embroiled in it, that has less to do with John than with Theophilus, who had chosen to make it central to his prosecution. Palladius could not have allowed Theophilus’ attacks upon mentors and friends to go unchallenged, and so he responded vigorously on their behalf. The argumentation, however, proves that the Dialogue was written as a defence of John, not of Origenist monks. Such an apologia was still to come. Notes: 22.1.2012 20:03
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(2) See Malcolm Heath, Menander: A Rhetor in Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 36–51. (3) Heath, Menander, 39–40. (4) Heath, Menander, 39. (5) Hermogenes, On Issues, text edited by Hugo Rabe, Hermogenis opera, Rhetores Graeci 6 (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1913); all references to On Issues cite the page and line numbers of the Rabe edition. There is also an earlier, and still widely available, edition in Leonard Spengel, Rhetores Graeci, vol. 2 (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1854; repr. Frankfurt: Minerva, 1966). All English translations are by Malcolm Heath, Hermogenes, On Issues: Strategies of Argument in Later Greek Rhetoric (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). (6) Heath, Menander, 43–6, 69–78, 295; Heath notes that Hermogenes' title may have been On Divisions. (7) Rabe, Hermogenis, 28.11–13. (8) Rabe, Hermogenis, 29.7–43.14. (9) Dial. 12.7. (10) Rabe, Hermogenis, 59.11–65.8. (11) According to Hermogenes, the definition ‘distinguishes the act, and arises from the things passed over in the sequence of events’ (Rabe, Hermogenis, 59.16–18). (12) Dial. 12.15–30. (13) Rabe, Hermogenis, 60.6–8; see also the commentary in Heath, Hermogenes, 104. (14) Dial. 12.30–44. (15) Rabe, Hermogenis, 61.21–62.10. See also Anonymous Seguerianus 216, where the charge of sacrilege is also used to illustrate the stasis of definition; ed. Mervin R. Dilts and George A. Kennedy, Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises from the Roman Empire: Introduction, Text, and Translation of the Arts of Rhetoric attributed to Anonymous Seguerianus and to Apsines of Gadara (Leiden: Brill, 1997). Palladius employs the image of sacrilege again in Dial. 20.636–61 in which he rejects one definition of it, and offers another that exonerates John and condemns his accusers. (16) Rabe, Hermogenis, 60.8–14. (17) Heath, Hermogenes, 104. (18) Dial. 12.38–44, 12.111–21. (19) Dial. 12.45–51. (20) Dial. 12.51–59. (21 ) Rabe, Hermogenis, 59.17: Ὁ ὅρος χωρίζει τὸ πρα̑γμα. (22) Dial. 12.64–69; translation modified. (23) Rabe, Hermogenis, 60.14–15. (24) Dial. 12.128–337. (25) Dial. 12.199–203; see also 12.233–5. (26) Rabe Hermogenis 60 14–15 22.1.2012 20:03
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(27) Dial. 12.213–16. (28) Rabe, Hermogenis, 60.15–18; cf. Heath, Hermogenes, 105. (29) Dial. 12.340–4, citing 1 Cor. 8.8. (30) Heath, Hermogenes, 107. (31 ) Rabe, Hermogenis, 60.19–61.3. (32) Dial. 12.346–52. (33) Rabe, Hermogenis, 61.3–4. (34) Dial. 13.1–11. (35) Rabe, Hermogenis, 61.5–6; see Heath, Hermogenes, 109. (36) Dial. 13.12; cf. Pseudo‐Hermogenes, On Inventions 4.14 (Rabe, Hermogenis, 211.15–16) where ἀνθυπενέγκειν appears as a head in comparative definitions and functions as a technical term of rebuttal. As noted above, Heath (Menander, 57) attributes On Inventions to Apsines. (37) Heath, Hermogenes, 109. (38) Rabe, Hermogenis, 61.6–7. (39) Dial. 13.30–50. (40) Rabe, Hermogenis, 61.15–20. (41) Dial. 13.50–71. (42) Rabe, Hermogenis, 61.18–20; here, Hermogenes merely notes the inclusion of a common quality, for a fuller description of which one must refer to his discussion of the previous issue of conjecture, for which see Rabe, Hermogenis, 52.6–53.13. (43) Dial. 13.96–7. (44) Cf. Aphthonius, Progymnasmata 7 (Spengel, Rhetores Graeci, 32.20–35.23); for an English translation, see George A. Kennedy, Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric, Writings from the Greco‐Roman World 10 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 105–8. (45) Dial. 13.105–15. (46) Dial. 13.116–18. (47) J. N. D. Kelly, Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom—Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop (London: Duckworth, 1995), 222. (48) Dial. 12.95–102. (49) For a general introduction to the economic and social importance of such benefactions in antiquity, see Peter Garnsey and C. R. Whittaker, ‘Trade, Industry, and the Urban Economy’, in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 13, The Late Empire A.D. 337–425, ed. Averil Cameron and Peter Garnsey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 312–37; see also Arnaldo Marcone, ‘Late Roman Social Relations’, in the same volume, 338–70. (50) Dial. 6.62: Palladius says of Theophilus, ‘λιθομανία γάρ τις αὐτὸν φαραώνιος ἔχει εἰς οἰκοδομήματα, ὠ̑ν οὐδαμω̑ς χρῄζει ἡ ἐκκλησία.’
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(51 ) Dial. 13.156–76. (52) Dial. 14.1–85. (53) Dial. 14.86–128. (54) Dial. 14.128–64; for the number seventy, see Exod 1.5, Luke 10.1. (55) Dial. 15.1–53. (56) Rabe, Hermogenis, 38.12–15; cf. Heath, Hermogenes, 72. (57) Dial. 13.148–50. (58) See Quintilian Inst. 3.6.83–4, which describes the four major issues as follows, ‘Let them therefore learn first of all that there are four possibilities which the intending speaker has to consider first in every case. For—to begin for preference with the defendant—by far the strongest method of defending oneself is, when possible, by denying the charge; second best is if it can be said that what was done is not what was alleged in the charge; the third, and most honorable, is by defending the act as justifiable. If all these fail us, the last (and now the only) hope of safety lies in escaping by some helpful device of law from a charge which can neither be denied nor defended, in such a way as to make it seem that the legal action is not justifiable…for there are some things allowed by law, but not naturally praiseworthy.’ (59) Rabe, Hermogenis, 37.17. (60) Rabe, Hermogenis, 36.10–15. (61 ) Sozomen h.e. 8.6 narrates the events in Nicomedia; he also states that John ‘deposed thirteen bishops, some in Lycia and Phrygia, and others in Asia itself, and appointed others in their stead’. (62) Dial. 13.129–31. (63) Rabe, Hermogenis, 43.17–59.9. (64) Cf. Heath, Hermogenes, 82. (65) Dial. 13.146–7; cf. Rabe, Hermogenis, 45.1. (66) Rabe, Hermogenis, 46.8. (67) Cf. Rabe, Hermogenis, 46.24–47.2: ‘One should examine the motive and capacity not only of those persons brought to trial, but of all those given in the problem.’ (68) Dial. 13.132–45. (69) Rabe, Hermogenis, 43.19–20. (70) Dial. 13.125–7 (translation modified): Τίνα οὐ̑ν ἐστι τὰ παρακολουθήσαντα καὶ ποι̑ον εἴληφε τέλος καὶ πόθεν τὴν ἀρχὴν ἐσχηκότα, λεπτομερω̑ς παράστησον. (71 ) Dial. 13.150–14.128. (72) Rabe, Hermogenis, 50.5. Cf. Heath, Hermogenes, 82 and 84, for his emphasis upon the coherence of the account given in conjecture. (73) Dial. 16.176–9: ἡ γὰρ συμφωνία τω̑ν λόγων καὶ ἡ ἄσκηπτος διήγησις ἐπληροφόρησέν με ἀληθη̑ εἶναι τὰ γεγενημένα· ἀδύνατον γὰρ ψευδη̑ λόγον ἑαυτῳ̑ συμφωνη̑σαι. Cf. Heath, Hermogenes, 84, for the suggestion that in conjecture the sequence of events should be handled demonstratively, without amplifying events, suggesting a
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reason for Palladius' insistence that his account was an ἄσκηπτος διήγησις. (74) Dial. 14.128–64; cf. Rabe, Hermogenis, 48.3–9. (75) Cf. Rabe, Hermogenis, 48.10–49.6. (76) See Dial. 15.1–42; cf. Rabe, Hermogenis, 49.7 and Dial. 15.1–2. (77) Dial. 15.42–53. (78) Dial. 15.54–107. (79) Dial. 16.13–168. (80) CTh XVI.4.6, dated 18 November, for which see Clyde Pharr, The Theodosian Code and Novels, and the Sirmondian Constitutions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952). (81 ) Dial. 13.72–3 (translation modified): Ἐπανάζευξον, ὠ̑ ἱερώτατε πάτερ, ἐπὶ τὰ λοιπὰ τω̑ν πραγμάτων. (82) Dial. 16.174–5 (translation modified): Ἠλευθέρωσας μου̑ τὴν διάνοιαν, πάτερ, τῃ̑ ἀμφιβολίᾳ δεδουλωμένην, τοι̑ς ὀφθαλμοι̑ς μου παραστήσας τὰ πράγματα. (83) Dial. 16.179–17.224. (84) Dial. 16.216, 249, 253, 275. (85) Rabe, Hermogenis, 38.16–18. (86) Heath, Hermogenes, 123. (87) Rabe, Hermogenis, 38.18–39.1: ‘This is divided as follows. The defendant will either accept all responsibility for what happened himself, or will transfer it to some external factor. If he accepts responsibility himself he makes a counterstatement (ἀντίστασις); a counterstatement arises when the defendant, while conceding that he has done some wrong, sets against that some other benefit achieved as a result of that same wrong.’ (88) Dial. 16.218–49. (89) Dial. 16.218–25. (90) Rabe, Hermogenis, 66.4–17, cf. Heath, Hermogenes, 119. (91 ) Dial. 16.226. (92) Dial. 16.228. (93) Dial. 16.237–46. (94) Dial. 16.247–50. (95) Heath, Hermogenes, 119. (96) Dial. 16.250–74; cf. John 6.5–13, Rabe, Hermogenis, 67.1–3. (97) Rabe, Hermogenis, 66.4–5. (98) Dial. 16.276. (99) Dial. 16.277–305; Rabe, Hermogenis, 67.5–8.
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(100) Dial. 16.277–9, Rabe, Hermogenis, 72.2; cf. Rabe, Hermogenis, 73.2–5, which states that every counteraccusation will be handled in the manner of a common topic. Note that many of the heads (which are exposition, comparison, intention, legality, justice, honour, and result) are found here in this passage. (101) Dial. 16.302, 306, 318. (102) Dial. 16.306–11. (103) Dial. 17.1–122. Both encomium and invective have a comparative element, which in this instance prompted a tirade against evil hierarchs who had been or were being punished for their actions against John; Dial. 17.30–63. (104) Rabe, Hermogenis, 67.13; see the explanation of Heath, Hermogenes, 121. (105) Dial. 17.123–4. (106) Rabe, Hermogenis, 67.18. (107) Dial. 17.131–84. (108) Dial. 17.185–212. (109) Dial. 17.213–24. (110) Cf. Dial. 16.251–6. (111 ) Dial. 7.90. (112) Sozomen h.e. 8.9. (113) Rabe, Hermogenis, 39.21. (114) Rabe, Hermogenis, 40–1. (115) Rabe, Hermogenis, 41–2. For example, the lack of accentuation or word breaks could result in dual meaning; Hermogenes illustrates this with the case of a disputed will, in which a father with two sons, one named Leon and the other Pantaleon, is survived by a will that states εχετωταεμαπανταλεον, which could mean either ‘Pantaleon should have what is mine’ or ‘Leon should have all that is mine’. (116) Rabe, Hermogenis, 39.20–41.12. (117) See Heath, Hermogenes, 141; Heath also notes that earlier theorists such as Hermagoras believed that legal arguments excluded any consideration of the act, but that later theorists such as Quintilian and Hermogenes readily acknowledged that the act was still an important element from which an advocate would draw arguments; see idem, Hermogenes, 76. (118) Heath, Hermogenes, 141–2. (119) 1 Cor. 9.12b, 8.9, and 9.23. (120) Dial. 18.39. (121) Dial. 18.80. (122) Dial. 18.78, 18.105. (123) Dial. 18.191–7. Scholars dispute whether John actually called Eudoxia a Jezebel as Palladius reports in Dial. 8.246–7; Kelly, Golden Mouth, 170–1, finds the story plausible; Florent van Ommeslaeghe, ‘Jean Chrysostome en conflit avec l'impératrice Eudoxie: Le dossier et les origines d'une légende’, AB 97 (1979): 131–59, does not.
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(124) Dial. 18.208–15. (125) Dial. 18.216, 18.222–7. (126) Dial. 18.243, 18.300–4. (127) See Dial. 19.6–191 for the final argument. (128) For example, see Susanna Elm, ‘The Dog that Did Not Bark: Doctrine and Patriarchal Authority in the Conflict between Theophilus of Alexandria and John Chrysostom of Constantinople’, in Christian Origins: Theology, Rhetoric, and Community, ed. Lewis Ayres and Gareth Jones (London: Routledge, 1998), 68–93, which first emphasized the gravity of the contested issues of authority and governance in the Johnite controversy, although she did not recognize how directly Palladius himself had addressed these issues. (129) Photius cod. 59, ed. René Henry, Photius Bibliothèque (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1960), vol. 1, 52–7; Henry's edition is reproduced in Anne‐Marie Malingrey, Palladios: Dialogue sur la vie de Jean Chrysostome, vol. 2, SC 342 (Paris: Cerf, 1988), 97–115. All citations are taken from the Malingrey edition, citing volume, page, and, where appropriate, line numbers too. (130) See his opening comments that the synod was ‘illegally’ convened and that his enemies played the role of ‘judges and accusers and witnesses’ (Malingrey, Palladios, 2:100.1–7). (131) See the charges brought forward by John the deacon, numbered 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, in Malingrey, Palladios, 2:100–6. All English translations of the charges are those of Kelly, Golden Mouth, 299–301. (132) For the accusations of irregular ordinations, see charges 10, 13, 14, 18, 24, 29; for fiscal mismanagement, charges 3, 4, 17; for liturgical deviations, charges 12, 16, 28; for the allusion to sexual impropriety, see charge 15. Malingrey, Palladios, 2:100–6. (133) See Kelly, Golden Mouth, 221–7. (134) Malingrey, Palladios, 2:101.15–102.19. (135) Malingrey, Palladios, 2:108.69–74. (136) Dial. 14.50–60. (137) Malingrey, Palladios, 2:108.74–7. (138) Malingrey, Palladios, 2:108.79–81. (139) Malingrey, Palladios, 2:108.82–112.116. (140) Kelly, Golden Mouth, 223. (141) Isaac's fourth, fifth, sixth, and ninth charges (Malingrey, Palladios, 2:108.92–2:110.99, and 2:110.103–4). (142) Isaac's first, second, and fifteenth charges (Malingrey, Palladios, 2:108.86–91 and 2:110.109). (143) Malingrey, Palladios, 2:108.86–8. (144) Malingrey, Palladios, 2:108.88–91. (145) As discussed in Chapter 1, Palladius was already a bishop of Helenopolis and either in Constantinople or Ephesus (investigating the charges against Antoninus) when the Origenist controversy broke out in the spring or summer of 400. Heracleides had been a deacon of John and ordained bishop of Ephesus in spring 402, just shortly after the refugee monks had arrived in Constantinople. The argument here is strengthened when one considers that only the doctrinal issue is raised in this charge, whereas Epiphanius probably allied himself with Theophilus because 23 of 26
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of their common stance against John on the issue of the Paulinian schism at Antioch, for which see Wendy Mayer, ‘John Chrysostom as Bishop: The View from Antioch’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 55 (2004): 460–1. (146) Malingrey, Palladios, 2:110.99–101. (147) Malingrey, Palladios, 2:110, n. 2. For the homilies, see Anne‐Marie Malingrey, Jean Chrysostome: Sur l'égalité du père et du fils, SC 396 (Paris: Cerf, 1994), 212–83; also in PG 48.777–96. (148) Kelly, Golden Mouth, 225. (149) Malingrey, Palladios, 2:110.109–112.113. (150) Malingrey, Palladios, 2:112.119–26. (151) They were joined by the unknown Eudaimon and Onesimus, both of unstated rank. Malingrey, Palladios, 2:112.128. (152) Dial. 8.237–41. (153) See Ps.-Martyrius, P 498a–b, ed. Florent van Ommeslaeghe, ‘De lijkrede voor Johannes Chrysostomus toegeschreven aan Martyrius van Antiochie: Tekstuitgave met comentaar’ (PhD diss., Catholic University of Louvain [Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven]), 1974), 97, ll. 15–18. This funeral oration, possibly the earliest surviving text written about John Chrysostom after his death, was delivered when news of his death arrived in Constantinople, perhaps some time around the second week of November 407, for which see Florent van Ommeslaeghe, ‘La fête de S. Jean Chrysostome dans l'église grecque’, AB 96 (1978): 338; T. D. Barnes agrees with van Ommeslaeghe on the early date of the funeral oration in his review of Martin Wallraff, Der Kirchenhistoriker Sokrates: Untersuchungen zu Geschichtsdarstellung, Methode und Person, JThS, ns 50 (1999): 350–3. Van Ommeslaeghe once promised to publish an edition in Subsidia Hagiographica, but died before doing so. For an analysis of the oration and its value in comparison to other sources, see the series of articles published by van Ommeslaeghe: ‘Chrysostomica: La nuit de Pâques 404’, AB 110 (1992): 123–43; ‘Jean Chrysostome en conflit avec l'impératrice Eudoxie: Le dossier et les origines d'une légende’, AB 97 (1979): 131–59; ‘Jean Chrysostome et le peuple de Constantinople’, AB 99 (1981): 329–49; ‘La valeur historique de la Vie de S. Jean Chrysostome attribuée à Martyrius d'Antioche (BHG 871)’, Studia Patristica 12 (= TU 115) (1975): 478–83; ‘Que vaut le témoignage de Pallade sur le procès de s. Jean Chrysostome?’, AB 95 (1977): 389–413. See also Martin Wallraff, ‘L'epitaffio di un contemporaneo per Giovanni Crisostomo (“Ps.‐Martirio”) inquadramento di una fonte biografica finora trascurata’, in Giovanni Crisostomo: Oriente e Occidente tra IV e V secolo, XXXIII Incontro di studiosi dell'antichità cristiana, Augustinianum 6–8 May 2004, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 93 (Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 2005), 37–49. (154) Socrates h.e. 6.3–6. (155) Socrates h.e. 6.15, Sozomen h.e. 8.17. (156) Malingrey, Palladios, 2:106.61; the fourth summons is corroborated by Sozomen h.e. 8.17. (157) Cyril of Alexandria ep. 33.7, ed. Schwartz, ACO 1.1.7, pp. 147–50; trans. John I. McEnerney, St. Cyril of Alexandria: Letters 1–50, FOTC 76 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1987), 128–35; cf. Severian's comment that even if John were innocent, his pride justified his deposition, Sozomen h.e. 8.18. (158) For Theophilus’ duplicity, see Socrates h.e. 6.17; for the consensus of scholarly opinion, see Chrysostomos Baur, John Chrysostom and his Time, vol. 2 (Westminster, MD: Newman, 1959; repr. Vaduz: Büchervertriebsanstalt, 1988), 192–206, and Kelly, Golden Mouth, 193. (159) Elm, ‘The Dog that Did Not Bark’, 68–93, has already been mentioned above; see also Norman Russell, Theophilus of Alexandria (London: Routledge, 2007), 18–34, which presents more positively Theophilus' role in the condemnation of Origenism, and argues that Theophilus' primary motive for expelling John was based on canon law, not doctrine.
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(160) Jerome ep. 113.1, ed. Isidore Hilberg, Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi Epistulae, 3 vols., CSEL 54–6 (Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1910–18), 2: 393–4; see also Dial. 6.28–33. (161) For a brief summary of the doctrines condemned by Theophilus in Egypt, see Russell, Theophilus, 24–6; for a fuller exposition, see Elizabeth A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 105–21. (162) Socrates h.e. 6.12, 14. (163) Elm, ‘The Dog that Did Not Bark’, suggests that Palladius overemphasized the significance of doctrine (83), which this chapter and the previous has indicated was not the case. Although Elm suggests that doctrine did not play as significant a role as issues of administration and governance, she did not explain why the synod repeatedly returned to the issue of the Origenists, or why it failed to depose John on charges of administrative misconduct. (164) Ps.‐Martyrius recognizes many of John's problems with local clergy and nobles, but he still mentions the Origenist controversy as playing a role: van Ommeslaeghe, ‘De lijkrede voor Johannes Chrysostomus’, 77–8; see also idem, ‘Que vaut le témoignage de Pallade sur le procès de saint Jean Chrysostome?’, AB 95 (1977): 389–413. On John's connection to the Origenists, see Jean‐Marie Leroux, ‘Jean Chrysostome et la querelle origéniste’, in Epektasis: Mélanges patristiques offerts au cardinal Jean Daniélou, ed. Jacques Fontaine and Charles Kannengiesser (Paris: Beauchesne, 1972), 335–41. (165) van Ommeslaeghe, ‘De lijkrede voor Johannes Chrysostomus’, 84; confirmed by Sozomen h.e. 8.17, and placed after John's deposition by Socrates h.e. 6.16. (166) van Ommeslaeghe, ‘Que vaut le témoignage’, 399. (167) Socrates h.e. 6.7 and 6.13 on Origenism; as an Origenist, Socrates may have caricaturized the Anthropomorphites, according to Georges Florovsky, ‘The Anthropomorphites in the Egyptian Desert’, Akten des XI. Internationalen Byzantinistenkongresses, München, 1958, ed. F. Dölger and H. G. Beck (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1960), 154–9. (168) Socrates h.e. 6.10. (169) Socrates h.e. 6.3–5; see also Glenn F. Chesnut, The First Christian Histories: Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret and Evagrius, 2nd edn. (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1986), 188–98; Theresa Urbainczyk, Socrates of Constantinople: Historian of Church and State (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1997), 133–7. Martin Wallraff considers Socrates to be fair to John on the basis of his available sources, and an excellent complement and balance to Palladius, for which see his Der Kirchenhistoriker Sokrates: Untersuchungen zu Geschichtsdarstellung, Methode und Person, Forschungen zur Kirchen‐ und Dogmengeschichte 68 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), 55–75. (170) Sozomen h.e. 8.11–13. for Sozomen's dependence on Socrates, see Chesnut, The First Christian Histories, 204–6. (171) Sozomen h.e. 8.2–5, 9, 28. (172) Sozomen h.e. 8.13. (173) Anonymous Seguerianus 55. (174) Anonymous Seguerianus 57: ‘Whenever, then, a narration of the facts occurs, then a paradiegesis will occur, providing a topic for enthymemes and containing something persuasive.’ There are different types of paradiegesis: those that precede (prodiegesis), accompany (paradiegesis, now used in a narrow sense according to Kennedy, Anonymous, 21, n. 67), or follow (epidiegesis) the narration, each described more fully in Anonymous Seguerianus 58–60. (175) Anonymous Seguerianus 61 ‘One should know that some have supposed that the digression (parekbasis) is the 22.1.2012 20:03
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same thing as the paradiegesis, but it differs; for the paradiegesis, as they say, seizes on things beyond the subject, but the digression is an excursus of words in terms of comparison or imitation of things that have happened.’ (176) According to Socrates h.e. 6.17, Theophilus was an admiring reader of Origen. (177) See Socrates h.e. 6.2 and Dial. 6.46–116. Cf. Jerome, Against John 37, ed. Jean Louis Feiertag, Contra Iohannem, CCSL 79A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999). (178) Socrates h.e. 6.7. (179) Socrates h.e. 4.23, and Adalbert de Vogüé, ‘Palladiana III: La version copte de l'Histoire Lausiaque: II. La vie d'Évagre’, SM 33 (1991): 14; on other bishops whom Theophilus ordained and later persecuted, see Dial. 17.117–18. (180) This was first suggested by P. R. Coleman‐Norton, Palladii dialogus de vita s. Joannis Chrysostomi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928), xx, and has been supported in part by Elm, ‘The Dog That Did Not Bark’, 71. Theophilus' pamphlet is referred to in Dial. 13.126–45; fragments survive in Facundus of Hermiane, Pro defensione trium capitulorum 6.5 (PL 67.677–8); a critical edition is available in Johannes‐Maria Clément and Rolandus vander Plaetse, Facundi Episcopi Ecclesiae Hermianensis Opera Omnia (Turnhout: Brepols, 1974), and reproduced in Anne Fraïsse‐Bétoulières, Facundus d'Hermiane: Défense des trois chapitres (à Justinien), SC 471, 478–9, 484, 499 (Paris: Cerf, 2002–6), at vol. 2.2, SC 479, 376–80. (181) Dial. 19.197–8. (182) Dial. 20.1–2. PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2011. All Rights Reserved. Under the te PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/page/privacy-polic
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Palladius of Helenopolis Demetrios S. Katos Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199696963 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696963.001.0001
The Lausiac History Chapter: (p. 98 ) 4 The Lausiac HistoryPalladius of HelenopolisThe Origenist AdvocateDemetrios S. Katos Source: Author(s): DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696963.003.0005
Abstract and Keywords This chapter posits that Palladius did not write his Lausiac History to wax nostalgic about a monastic golden age, but to construct a model asceticism that promoted many of his deceased Origenist associates as exemplars of the spiritual life to Lausus and the imperial court dominated by Pulcheria and her sisters. The chapter discusses the date, provenance, genre, and audience of the History, and Palladius portraits of Didymus the Blind, Isidore the Presbyter, Melania the Elder, Rufinus of Aquilea, and Evagrius of Pontus. Whereas many modern scholars have been interested in seeing how the HL muted its Origenist inheritance, this chapter argues that it served as an apologia on behalf of Origenists and their ascetic program, in part as a response to recent attacks against both by Jerome. Keywords: Lausiac History , Origenists, Lausus, Pulcheria, Didymus the Blind, Isidore the Presbyter, Melania the Elder, Rufinus of Aquilea, Evagrius of Pontus, Jerome
The years in Antinoë rolled on as Palladius deliberated his future. He could not return to Helenopolis, because his support for John had cost him his position there and a new bishop had been assigned to that city.1 As discussed earlier, returning to his former ascetic hermitage was no longer an option either. He chose therefore to return home, spending ‘a long time’, perhaps several years, with Philoromus in Galatia.2 He may have stayed near Ancyra, because he claimed a long‐standing friendship with an ex‐count of that city, Verus and his wife Bosporia, who lived in its suburbs and were renowned for their extensive charity there.3 He was also very familiar with Ancyra's monastic communities and the work of some of its most eminent ascetics.4 During this time he resumed his work as bishop and writer, composing, or at least revising, what eventually became known as the Lausiac History (henceforth HL). This chapter investigates questions of the HL's date, audience, and genre, and it argues that the first Origenist controversy, which had involved Palladius' associates and resulted in the eviction of many from their hermitages, had
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a profound impact on the composition of the HL, in which Palladius, just as he had in the Dialogue, came to the defence of his colleagues and friends.
(p. 99 ) Composing the Lausiac History According to his own testimony, Palladius wrote the Lausiac History in the ‘thirty‐third year of [his] being in the company of the brethren and of [his] own solitary life, [his] twentieth year as a bishop, and the fifty‐sixth year of [his] life as a whole’.5 Assuming that he was ordained a bishop after he left Egypt in 399, this would have been around the year 419–420.6 Was he an active bishop when he wrote? It is generally accepted that he was granted a position as bishop of nearby Aspuna, but when or how that happened is not certain.7 It has also been generally assumed that he was transferred in 417 or 418, around the time when John's name was restored to the list of bishops in the diptychs of Constantinople and there was a ‘general pacification of enmities’.8 This would have been necessary for Palladius to overcome the various obstacles blocking his appointment. Aspuna was a suffragan see of Ancyra, and presumably he would have required the endorsement of its bishop in order to be assigned there. The last attested bishop of Ancyra prior to the council of Ephesus in 431 is Leontius, the virulent opponent of John Chrysostom who harassed Palladius and his banished companions as they passed through Ancyra en route to exile.9 Despite the amnesty, it is hard to imagine that Leontius would have consented to his installation as bishop, or that Palladius would have courted the favour of a man against whom he inveighed so vigorously in his Dialogue.10 Leontius, however, is not cited by any source after the Johnite controversy, so it is possible that he had died by 417 when Palladius settled down in Ancyra. His successor, Theodotus, may have been installed as bishop long before he is mentioned for the first time in the acts of the council of Ephesus in 431.11 Another obstacle to Palladius' installation as bishop of Aspuna may have been Atticus, who occupied the see of Constantinople and who was the object of Palladius' harshest vituperations in the Dialogue. In this regard there are three possible scenarios. If Atticus had blocked his installation, perhaps it was not until he died in 426 that Palladius was reinstated as a bishop. After all, (p. 100 ) there is no indication in the Lausiac History that he was an active bishop as he composed it, let alone the bishop of Aspuna. This scenario might indicate that he was installed with the help of both Theodotus of Ancyra and the new bishop of Constantinople, Nestorius. Nestorius rehabilitated the memory of his Antiochene compatriot Chrysostom by being the first to celebrate his memory on 26 September 428, and he and Theodotus were on good terms before the council of Ephesus.12 Quite conceivably, Nestorius would have been happy to restore Palladius, a companion of John, to a bishopric. The second possibility is that Atticus permitted the ordination despite the long‐standing dispute between him and Palladius. He proved himself conciliatory (or politic) enough to restore John's name to the diptychs in 417, and even appealed to Cyril of Alexandria to do the same. It may have been easier for him to agree, or submit to pressure, if Theodotus had the cooperation of his friend and metropolitan bishop, Firmus of Caesarea in Cappadocia, who was much nearer to Ancyra and Aspuna than was Constantinople.13 The third possible scenario is that Atticus had no say at all in this matter. There is evidence that the metropolis of Ancyra resisted the encroaching authority of Constantinople and reserved its right to ordain its own suffragans until 451, so Palladius may have been appointed without his approval after all.14 Palladius claimed that he first met Lausus in Egypt, during the consulate of Tatian in 391,15 but it was probably after his return to Galatia, or after his installation as bishop of Aspuna, that they established the relationship of client and patron, which prompted the composition of the Lausiac History. Lausus had become by then the ‘prefect of the most religious bedchamber’ (πραιπόσιτον του̑ εὐσεβεστάτου κοιτω̑νος), or praepositus sacri cubiculi, and as such, he was probably a non‐Roman eunuch whose responsibility for the administration of the imperial bedchamber afforded him unparalleled and unrestricted access to the emperor; at the time of Palladius' writing, the position had been raised to the highest of administrative levels.16 His (p. 101 ) proximity to the emperor would have conferred upon him both political power and wealth, especially in Asia Minor, inasmuch as one of his duties would have been the control of the domus divina in Cappadocia, the estates whose income maintained the sacred bedchamber.17 It is not known whether Lausus attended to business in the area personally, but at the very least he would have controlled a large estate and exercised significant influence in this region.18 His local administrative responsibilities explain how he had become acquainted with other bishops in the region. Firmus, the bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, addressed two letters to him; Theodotus, the bishop of Ancyra in Galatia and a colleague of Firmus, addressed to him six books against Nestorius.19 Palladius, therefore, was only one of several Asia Minor bishops who enjoyed Lausus' patronage, and who dedicated literary compositions to him.
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Palladius began his HL with a short prologue addressed to Lausus, which exhorted him to mimic the intent of his ascetic subjects, and not necessarily their particular practices. In some respects, the prologue was an apology for monastic literature, which attempted to explain the value of such work for non‐monastic audiences. He argued that the sayings and deeds of monks and virgins could furnish men and women in all walks of life with examples of how to apply their own free will and reason in pursuit of virtue and a spiritual life appropriate to one's own particular circumstances.20 For this reason, he included the stories of any he considered holy, whether they lived ‘in the cities, or in the villages, or in the desert. For we are concerned not with the place where they settled, but rather it is their way of life that we seek.’21 (p. 102 ) According to Palladius, ‘[Lausus] wanted stories of the fathers, of both male and female anchorites, those I had seen and others I had heard about, and of those I had lived with in the Egyptian desert and Libya, in the Thebaid and Syene…and those in Mesopotamia, Palestine and Syria, and, in the West, those in Rome and Campania and points near by.’22 To this end, he appears to have edited and significantly revised his earlier treatise on the monks of Egypt, a work referred to by Socrates the historian as a monobiblion which he had originally written before his ordination as bishop, and which he now expanded, by adding stories from his travels across the Mediterranean world.23 (p. 103 ) Although the precise nature of the HL that was sent to Lausus is still contested among textual critics, we may generalize by saying that it began with accounts of ascetics he met during his stay in Alexandria (chapters 1–6), in the environs of Nitria, Cells, and Scetis (chapters 7–31 and 36–9), and during his several excursions further south to the Thebaid (chapters 32–5). This constitutes roughly two‐thirds of the HL, and much of this material was probably derived from or contained in the original monobiblion. Most of the HL's remaining chapters, chapters 40–70, are devoted to acquaintances he made in Syria, Palestine, Asia Minor, and Italy. Although the complicated manuscript evidence related to the HL prohibits many categorical assertions about its textual history, it is fairly safe to assume that these chapters contained mostly new material composed for the sake of Lausus, as indicated by the prologue and by the internal chronology that can be stitched together from the various chapters. This would explain why there is so much more attention paid to aristocrats in these chapters than in the earlier ones, (p. 104 ) which focused primarily on ascetics. What more appropriate model of Christian life for Lausus than that of Melania the Elder, the subject of chapters 46, 54, and 55?24 Her spectacular wealth, social rank, and subsequent Christian achievements provided members of the Constantinopolitan elite such as Lausus with an excellent paradigm of an aristocrat converted to asceticism, contemplation, and charity. Palladius praised Lausus as one who would have been receptive to such a message, because he had ‘been diminishing [his] wealth on [his] own initiative by distributing to the needy’, and because he was one ‘whom riches and honor and power did not make less God‐fearing’.25 From another source it is known that approximately ten years after the composition of the HL Lausus extended hospitality to Melania's granddaughter, Melania the Younger, whom he quartered in his palace in the Forum of Augustus Constantine, and that at her request he furnished the baths for one of her convents.26 As the example of Melania the Elder illustrates, these newer chapters of the HL also devoted more attention to women than did the older chapters of the original monobiblion. In the prologue, Palladius urged Lausus to become a guide not only unto himself, but to his friends, his subordinates, and most importantly, the ‘most pious rulers’.27 Although he had addressed his work to Lausus, he also wrote with an eye towards the whole imperial court, which at the time was ruled by the powerful older sister of Theodosius II, Aelia Pulcheria. She began her ascent to political prominence in 412, when she dismissed the eunuch Antiochus from his role as cubicularius and assumed the role of guardian (ἐπίτροπος) for her younger brother.28 In 414, she engineered a change in the imperial administration and was declared Augusta, securing power that remained unrivalled until her brother married in 421; her rise to power corresponds closely with the rise to power of the grand chamberlain.29 Her political power was cresting just as Palladius addressed his work to Lausus in 420, and she (whom Lausus may have served personally) was certainly one (p. 105 ) of his intended readers.30 For this reason, the HL paid homage to aristocratic women such as Olympias, Candida, Gelasia, and Melania the Younger, all of whom were portrayed as following in the footsteps of Melania the Elder.31 Such examples could have ingratiated Palladius with Pulcheria and her younger sisters Arcadia and Marina, who had converted the imperial palace into an ascetic community by taking public vows of chastity and by spending time in reading, prayer, and works of mercy.32 This is not to say, however, that he crafted in its pages a distinctively feminine spirituality. Throughout the HL he demonstrated that the spiritual life was universally accessible, irrespective of gender, race, or class.33 He used the term ‘holy fathers’ to refer to both men and women,
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and they could be drawn from the classes of the educated and the illiterate, the nobility and the commonality.34 The only criteria that occupied him were spiritual knowledge and virtue, for these designated one's place in the hierarchy of teacher and pupil.35 Nevertheless, the aristocratic women who had publicly devoted themselves to virginity and whom Palladius included in the HL would have been compelling and obvious examples of Christian renunciation for the women of the imperial court. By all measures, the Lausiac History was a great success. Palladius' narrative style and the diversity of biographical subjects appealed greatly to his contemporaries, and within a generation it was translated into both Latin and Syriac.36 It also appealed to a much broader audience of later generations who copied and recopied it—there are countless surviving manuscripts of the Greek HL—and who also translated it into many other languages, including Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopic, and Arabic. Undoubtedly, its popularity was due (p. 106 ) in part to its unaffected style. All the stories are short and entertaining, and contain an easily recognizable moral or spiritual component. Palladius' gift for narrative, already displayed in the Dialogue, was given free rein in these accounts, and there were no abstruse rules of argumentation, as in the Dialogue, to disrupt the flow and force of his tales. The simplicity of the HL, however, should not suggest that it was simplistic. The popularity of the HL may have also owed something to the innovativeness of its literary form, for it had few true models or equivalents among contemporary works of Christian literature. Palladius called his composition a diegesis, a term that was increasingly being employed by Christian authors to describe hagiographic compositions that avoided the ornate style of secular biographies and histories, and in which the author claimed to be providing first‐hand testimony of the story's truth claim.37 The term, however, was not a strict marker of genre, and the various surviving diegeseis vary widely in both style and form such that classifying the Lausiac History has never been easy. Ironically, one should begin by clarifying that the HL was not a history, even if the secondary literature has treated it as such and the word ‘history’ is part of its modern title. True, the HL has long been appreciated by modern readers for its wealth of first‐hand testimony concerning ascetic practices of the late antique Mediterranean world, but it was never intended to be read as a history and it lacks many of the fundamental characteristics of ancient historiography.38 For example, it contains no refined rhetoric and no overt political agenda extending throughout; few historical events are discussed, and there is little attention paid to their causes or consequences. There is no continuous narration of an event or events per se, nor an explicit dependence on (or correction of) any preceding historian. Historians of classical antiquity were also noted for their long, invented speeches, whereas here only perhaps chapter 47 fits such a description, and we shall see in Chapter 6 that this was intended to be a short theological excursus on providence. As for early Christian historians, they were noted for their rigorous documentation of events, and of this there is none in the HL.39 Earlier Christian histories had also absorbed many of the themes that had dominated secular histories, such (p. 107 ) as the roles of providence, fate, and fortune in the events of history; once again, only chapter 47 might appear to fit such a description, but it is primarily concerned with the attainment of virtue, not the explanation of historical events.40 It is with good reason, therefore, that the HL makes for a poor history: its description of the Pachomian community has no basis in any of the genuine Pachomian sources, and Palladius never mentions Shenute of Atripe, one of the most significant figures of Egyptian monasticism, even though he dedicated two chapters to a convent in Atripe and he claimed to have been in Tabennisi, less than ten miles from the location of Shenute's White Monastery.41 But one must remember that Palladius was less interested in preserving facts about the Pachomian monasteries (which he probably never visited) than he was in conveying an inspiring lesson that he had gleaned from his source material. Certainly, he had no intention of offering an exhaustive survey of contemporary asceticism. Perhaps the most convincing proof that the HL did not resemble the historiography of the classical or late antique periods is that the scribes of the late antique and medieval periods never identified it as such. We have no record of its original title, but the Lausiac History came to be widely known as such only after the seventeenth century when Jean de Meurs published a Greek edition of the text under the title Historia Lausiaca.42 This was a poor choice of title, however, because it appeared in only one manuscript of the more than fifty which Butler himself examined; in fact, the word ‘history’ or its adjectival form ‘historical’ appears in the title of only three manuscripts altogether.43 They preferred simply The Lausiac or The Lausaic (Τὸ Λαυσιακόν or Τὸ Λαυσαϊκόν), or even Lives of the Holy Fathers (Βίοι τω̑ν ἁγίων Πατέρων), although it would be equally mistaken to identify the HL as a biographical work, despite some common denominators between it and secular biography.44
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(p. 108 ) The only composition truly analogous to the HL was the History of the Monks of Egypt (HM).45 Written c.394–5 by anonymous Palestinian monks visiting Egypt, it comprised short, anecdotal sketches of ascetics and their communities. It was part travelogue and part biography, but only in the loosest sense: an itinerary of sorts can be deduced by the sequence of chapters, and these sometimes preserve the only biographical information available for their subject. But they did not adhere to any particular form or order, and their biographical information was very limited. For the most part they focused on short, pithy, spiritual teachings (apophthegms or sententiae) that were intended for the reader's edification. Much the same can be said of the HL. The HM and the HL (and presumably its predecessor, the monobiblion) were probably inspired in part by the various serial compilations that were becoming more commonplace in secular literature.46 Plutarch's Parallel Lives (early second century ad) was immensely popular in Palladius' day, and similar to our composition inasmuch as it emphasized the vices and virtues of individuals in a series of biographical treatments. But the Parallel Lives contained biographies that were more formally structured, more comprehensive, and far lengthier than those of either the HM or the HL. Moreover, the biographies of the Parallel Lives were the result of historical investigation, not personal acquaintance, as were many of the sketches in the HL. Similar works include Diogenes Laertius' Lives of the Philosophers, Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists (both third century ad), and in Latin, Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars and Lives of Illustrious Men.47 Closer still in style to the HL was Suetonius’ imitator, Aurelius Victor, whose Lives of the Caesars was characterized increasingly by its mingling of biography and history and by its anecdotal and sententious character.48 Aurelius Victor's Lives of the Caesars was also notably shorter than that of Suetonius, and the fourth and fifth centuries saw the advent of a number of compendious histories in the form of serial, personal (p. 109 ) sketches, such as the Lives of Philosophers by Eunapius of Sardis, the anonymous Historia Augusta, and the Breviarium of Eutropius.49 The HM and HL may have been encouraged to mirror these developments in non‐Christian literature by the increasing popularity of the apophthegmata, spiritual maxims that were circulating orally in the desert, and which had started to be recorded, as by Evagrius, Palladius' mentor, in his Praktikos.50 The well‐known compilations of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers were not edited until much later in the fifth and sixth centuries.51 Although they typically included less biographical information than the HM or the HL, their Christian origin and their simple, unadorned style may have inspired Palladius and the anonymous author of the HM. The editions of Sayings that later took shape also lack the overall framework of travelogue and pilgrimage that gave shape and force to both the HM and the HL.52 For these reasons, one can comfortably argue that these two works created a new genre of Christian literature that they would occupy alone for some time. Theodoret of Cyrrhus’ Devout History or Ascetic Discipline (Φιλόθεος ἱστορία ἢ Ἀσκητικὴ πολιτεία), commonly called the History of the Monks of Syria, was more influenced by earlier classical models and their formal patterns, which are especially noticeable in some of the longer chapters such as those dedicated to Jacob of Nisibis (p. 110 ) and Julian Saba (chapters 1 and 2), although one could argue that some of the shorter chapters, such as those dedicated to Maesymas, Acepsimas, and Maron (chapters 14–16), break free from classical conventions and resemble more closely the recent HM and HL.53 Truer successors, however, to the HM and the HL were the Spiritual Meadow by John Moschus and, to a lesser extent, the Lives of the Eastern Fathers by John of Ephesus.54
Contra Hieronymum Despite its charm and widespread appeal, the HL was not guaranteed a warm reception. The obvious influence upon the HL that was exercised by the patronage of Lausus and the imperial court, and the subsequent popularity that it enjoyed in its original and subsequent recensions, has obscured from our view its polemical and apologetic elements. When Palladius wrote the HL, he was still fiercely at odds with Jerome (who probably died just as it was being written), with whom he had first clashed more than twenty‐five years earlier. We have already seen that Jerome had eagerly allied himself with Epiphanius of Salamis against John of Jerusalem, a confrontation in which Palladius had sided with John. Only a few years later, Jerome joined forces with Theophilus against John of Constantinople in a pitched battle that cost Palladius dearly. It was also Jerome who had translated into Latin the diatribe against John that Theophilus sent to Rome, and to which Dialogue was composed in response. The dispute between them, however, did not end there. Many of Jerome's last years were absorbed in the refutation of Pelagianism, a controversy in which he facilely targeted Palladius and his associates.55 Pelagius had visited Jerusalem in 412 and was warmly received by its bishop, John. This, of course, infuriated Jerome, who reckoned that
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Pelagius’ understanding of human self‐determination was not only excessively optimistic, but that it belittled the need (p. 111 ) for God's grace and ignored the human experience of deeply ingrained sin.56 In his inimitable way, Jerome struck two birds with a single stone when in his attacks upon Pelagius he revived his anti‐Origenist criticisms against John of Jerusalem and his supporters Melania the Elder and Rufinus of Aquileia. He claimed that Pelagius’ teaching on sinlessness (impeccantia) had been derived from a long tradition of pagan and heretical ideas, among the most recent example of which was Evagrius' teaching of impassibility (ἀπάθεια).57 But why do I speak of Priscillian who has been condemned by the whole world and put to death by the secular sword? Evagrius of Ibera in Pontus who sends letters to virgins and monks, and among others to her whose name bears witness to the blackness of her perfidy [sc. Melania the Elder], has published a book of maxims on apathy, or as we should say, impassivity or imperturbability; a state in which the mind ceases to be agitated and—to speak simply—becomes either a stone or a God. His work is widely read, in the East in Greek and in the West in a Latin translation made by his disciple Rufinus.58 In this letter Jerome exhibited a much more intimate knowledge of contemporary Origenists than he had ten years earlier during the first phase of the Origenist controversy.59 It was here that he mentioned Evagrius for the first time. Jerome also criticized the Latin version of the History of the Monks of Egypt, which he mistakenly attributed to Rufinus as an original work, saying, He has also written a book which professes to be about monks and includes in it many not monks at all, whom he declares to have been Origenists, and who have certainly been condemned by the bishops. I mean Ammonius, Eusebius, Euthymius [sc. the Tall Brothers], Evagrius himself, Horus, Isidorus, and many others whom it would be tedious to enumerate.60 (p. 112 ) Origen had ceased to be Jerome's bogeyman. He now directed his invective against the ascetics with whom Palladius had long‐standing and enduring friendships or associations.61 In 415, only a year later, Jerome continued his attack against Origenists in his Dialogue Against the Pelagians, and in the contemporaneous Commentary on Jeremiah (ad 414–416).62 In the Dialogue Against the Pelagians, he argued once again that Origenism was at the root of the current evil of Pelagianism, and he included Evagrius as a predecessor to Pelagius.63 For the first time he also targeted Palladius directly, and he indicated that the row between them stemmed from multiple points of contention. In its prologue he wrote, ‘Palladius, no better than a villainous slave, tried to impart energy to the same heresy [i.e. Pelagianism], and to excite against me fresh prejudice on account of my translation of the Hebrew…Even now the mystery of iniquity worketh, and every one chatters about his views.’64 In his own works, Palladius said nothing on the matter of the translation of scriptures from the Hebrew, but Rufinus had also disagreed with Jerome on this issue and one may speculate that they shared similar views in this regard.65 In one particularly bitter tirade, in which Rufinus was defending his own translations from Greek to Latin, he decried Jerome's translation project. Perhaps it was a greater piece of audacity to alter the books of the divine Scriptures which had been delivered to the Churches of Christ by the Apostles to be a complete record of their faith, by making a new translation under the influence of the Jews…We hold it a thing worthy of condemnation that a man should have put forth some strange opinions in the interpretation of the law of God; but to pervert the law itself and make it different from that which the Apostles handed down to us—how many times over must this be pronounced worthy of condemnation?66 Rufinus recognized that every translation contains an element of interpretation, and he was incensed that Jerome would berate his translation of Christian commentaries and theological treatises, while having the audacity to undertake single‐handedly the translation of the Scriptures themselves. Jerome retorted that Origen had been the first to translate from the Hebrew, (p. 113 ) but Rufinus rejoined that Origen always maintained the primacy of the Greek text, whereas Jerome did not.67 Moreover, even though Origen was an enthusiastic textual critic, he was primarily concerned with producing a complete biblical text that would include all forms of the Scriptures known to both Christians and Jews.68 Jerome, on the other hand, emphasized the importance of the Hebrew text and scandalized many contemporaries, most famously Augustine, who learned that the congregation at Oea in Tripolitana rioted upon hearing that the gourd of Jonah had been rendered as ivy. One could imagine that Palladius
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and Rufinus were especially piqued that Jerome contradicted the methodology of their revered teacher, for whom the inspired Greek text was primary and designated for the use of the church. Is it any wonder, then, that the vitriol and anger that was so characteristic of the Dialogue reappeared in the HL, only this time directed not against Theophilus, but against Jerome? When Palladius departed from Egypt in early 399, he settled in Bethlehem, living with Posidonius the Theban for about a year. This placed him in close proximity to Jerome, whom he conceded to be ‘a man of good birth and well gifted in Latin letters’, but who ‘had so much envy that it eclipsed his learning’.69 Envy (βασκανία) was the same vice of which Chrysostom's enemies were also possessed.70 Perhaps it was upon a chance sighting of Jerome on the streets of Bethlehem that Posidonius, who had lived with him for quite some time, had whispered into Palladius' ear, ‘The noblewoman Paula, who provides for him, will die before him and be delivered from his envy, I believe. It is on account of this man that no holy man will live in these parts, for his envy would not spare even his own brother.’71 Palladius substantiated these words by claiming that it was Jerome who ‘drove out the blessed Oxyperentius, the Italian, and another holy man, Peter the Egyptian, and Simeon, wonderful men on (p. 114 ) whom I then put my mark of approval’.72 At the time of Palladius' sojourn in Bethlehem, his relations with Jerome must have been particularly sour—Jerome and Rufinus were in the middle of an especially acrimonious dispute concerning the translation of Origen's On First Principles.73 Twenty years later, this relationship had not improved, but worsened as a result of Jerome's anti‐Pelagian apologetics. As indicated by Posidonius’ remark, Palladius was particularly vexed by Jerome's influence on Paula of Rome, whom he greatly admired and characterized as a ‘woman highly distinguished in the spiritual life’.74 He complained that Jerome ‘became an obstacle (ἐμπόδιον) to her, because she was well able to surpass everyone else, being a genius of a woman, but he thwarted her with his envy and drew her towards his own purpose’.75 Jerome had been criticized back in Rome for persuading wealthy matrons to defy conventions and embrace ascetic lifestyles while becoming his patrons, but Palladius' comments arise from a different context.76 Although he does not explain how Jerome drew Paula ‘towards his own purpose’, it is unlikely that he was referring to Jerome's hold on Paula's wealth, because the comment was made with reference to her spiritual and intellectual faculties. Rather, I suspect that this jab was related to Jerome's volte‐face concerning Origen and the effect it had upon Paula. In a letter written before the Origenist controversy, Jerome had praised Origen warmly to Paula, and furnished her with a list of his works so that she could refer to them and see how superior they were to those of even Varro.77 It was for her and Eustochium's sake that he had translated thirty‐nine homilies of Origen on Luke, to supplant some terrible ones that they had read earlier and which they claimed lacked any sophistication; it was also for them that he had written numerous commentaries on the New Testament epistles, in all of which he borrowed very heavily from Origen, in many instances even lifting (p. 115 ) long passages directly from his works.78 The commentary that he dedicated to them on Ecclesiastes showed an equally ardent admiration for Origen.79 In another letter, he praised Paula's daughter Blaesilla, as having ‘even rivalled the great Origen in those acquirements which won for him the admiration of Greece’.80 Of course, after the Origenist controversy, Jerome disassociated himself from Origen's legacy as much as possible. What probably angered Palladius was that he presumed to do the same for Paula, too. In his letter eulogizing the deceased Paula, Jerome severed all connections between her and Origen's legacy. He described Paula's travels throughout the East, but in his discussion of her stay in Caesarea of Palestine, he made no mention of either Origen's library or house, at least one of which Paula would have certainly visited considering the excitement with which Jerome himself had once spoken of the books of Origen that he possessed.81 In the same letter he also claimed that Paula had asked him to refute certain heretical opinions of someone who denied the resurrection of the flesh and the preservation of sexual distinction in the afterlife, an unmistakable reference to his construction of Origenism.82 Jerome refuted these positions so thoroughly that, ‘from that day forward, so profoundly did Paula commence to loathe the man—and all who agreed with him in his doctrines—that she publicly proclaimed them as enemies of the Lord’.83 If this was indeed true, it is no wonder that Palladius styled Jerome as an obstacle to her intellectual progress. There were certainly other matters on which they disagreed (such as theodicy, for which see Chapter 6), but the record of their relationship is too brief to say more. It is clear, however, that Jerome and the Origenist camp had not patched up their differences during the years 417–419, as once suggested (p. 116 ) by some.84 Yes, it is true that Melania the Younger and her husband Pinian stayed with Jerome when they travelled to Palestine to extract from 22.1.2012 20:07
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Pelagius retractions of heresy and avowals of orthodoxy, but that would have had no bearing on Jerome's relation with Palladius, who, incidentally, appears to have been ignorant of this visit.85 One must keep in mind that when Palladius set out to revise his monobiblion he would have been particularly galled by the knowledge that Chrysostom died ignominiously in exile, whereas the man whom he had hoped at one time would have been driven out of Palestine remained all the while unperturbed in Bethlehem.86 In the event that he had known of Jerome's death, he apparently insisted on having the last word in their long‐standing dispute. Whichever the case, the bitterness of Palladius' tone was palpable.
An Origenist apologia It is only in light of Jerome's recent censures, and his row with Palladius, that one can fully appreciate the apologetic tone of the HL, which opens with a shot across Jerome's bow by praising all the ascetics recently criticized in Letter 133. Chapter 1 is dedicated to Isidore of Alexandria, one of the leading Origenist ascetics in his day, a friend of Melania the Elder, a mentor to Palladius, and a main target of Theophilus’ prosecution. Palladius described him as a marvellous man, adorned with both moral character and spiritual knowledge, and one who was now to be found among the angels.87 So highly did he esteem Isidore that he even made a pilgrimage to his former ascetic cell at Nitria. According to Palladius, Isidore lived a very ascetic life—wearing simple clothes, avoiding personal luxuries, and maintaining a strict vegetarian diet—but in such an unpretentious way that it was unknown to all but his close circle of friends and disciples. So numerous were the virtues of Isidore (p. 117 ) that he could not recount them all, but it sufficed to say that he was ‘so tenderhearted and peaceful that even his enemies, unbelievers that they were, revered his very shadow because of his great goodness’.88 All this would have sorely vexed Jerome had he lived to read it. He had criticized Isidore in Letter 133 for the various roles he had played in the Origenist controversy, particularly his failed attempt at mediating in the dispute between Bishop John and Epiphanius, in which Jerome accused him of having been partisan.89 To this we must add the role that Isidore played in the next phase of the controversy, in which he led the fugitive monks to Constantinople. Jerome had translated Theophilus’ second synodal letter to the bishops of Palestine and Cyprus, in which he accused Isidore of stirring up the Alexandrian populace against him, evading ecclesiastical and criminal proceedings, and dispensing his wealth to sustain the exiled Nitrian monks.90 Palladius passed over this episode in silence and simply remarked that Isidore died in peace. More importantly, he emphasized Isidore's ascetic character and his career as a monk, and said little about the influence that he had wielded as the wealthy ξενοδόχος of Alexandria, and which he may have used in an attempt to unseat Theophilus.91 Palladius' decision to portray Isidore as a monk, instead of the powerful administrator that he was, is analogous to his representation of Chrysostom as an Egyptian‐style ascetic rather than as an ecclesiastical administrator. The next two chapters of the HL also paid homage to Isidore. HL 2 records Palladius' stay with Dorotheus, the ascetic to whom Isidore had directed him for physical training, and HL 3 recounts the story of the martyr Potamiaena that Isidore had related to him. The following chapter, HL 4, was a paean to Didymus the Blind, whom he described as both a miracle and a veritable fulfilment of the scriptural verse ‘the Lord makes the blind wise’ (Ps. 145.8). Didymus had never been taught to read or write before losing his sight, and yet he possessed a prodigious knowledge of scripture. Palladius made four trips to him during his time in Alexandria, Nitria, and Cells. He recorded several anecdotes that illustrated Didymus’ virtue, one of which was about the immured ascetic Alexandra, the subject of HL 5. Jerome, of course, had also admired Didymus’ erudition before the Origenist controversy. He had studied under him in Alexandria, received from him commentaries on Hosea and Zechariah, translated his On the Holy Spirit, and depended on him repeatedly in his own exegetical work; following the Origenist controversy, however, he came very close to (p. 118 ) disavowing him.92 In contrast, Palladius had claimed that Didymus had earned for himself a place in heaven among the other many saints produced by the Alexandrian church.93 Following this account of Didymus, Palladius offered an extended account of the settlement of Nitria, beginning with a chapter that described the general features of the community. It also listed many of the inhabitants that he came to know there, some of whom were even contemporaries of Amoun, the settlement's founder, or Antony the Great.94 What he learned from the Nitrians about the great desert ascetics stirred him to retreat further into the desert and emulate them. Subsequent chapters in the HL were devoted to the great monks of Nitria, such as Or, Ammonius and his Tall Brothers, and their teacher Pambo.95 Pambo was described as a man of the greatest virtue, such that he was never at all possessed by the desire for wealth, and Palladius illustrated the point by narrating stories told to him by Melania the Elder and others that demonstrated Pambo's great level of discernment and wisdom. Ammonius he
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described as not only virtuous, but also erudite beyond his peers, having committed to memory the Old and New Testaments. Moreover, Ammonius was so devoted to the ascetic life that he refused promotion to the rank of bishop by cutting off his left ear in a dramatic gesture that rendered him canonically unfit for the office. When his admirers persisted, he threatened to sever his tongue as well and thus averted ordination. Jerome had also visited Nitria with Paula and was very warmly received, but when writing his Apology in 402, during the height of the Origenist controversy, his estimation of that ascetic establishment had drastically changed for the worse, and he remarked that among the monks who lived there, he also spotted many vipers.96 Whereas Palladius eulogized the Tall Brothers and Or, they were the targets of Jerome's Letter 133. Another rebuff to Jerome was Palladius' homage to Melania the Elder. According to Palladius, she was in the centre of the Origenist circle as pupil, benefactor, and spiritual guide, and her presence is felt throughout the HL as either the subject or the source of much material.97 He catalogued her life and remarkable accomplishments in more detail than any other of his subjects. He (p. 119 ) noted her enthusiasm for the ascetic life, describing her renunciation of wealth and the prospects of a second marriage after she was widowed at the age of 22, and her long and arduous pilgrimage among the hermits of Lower Egypt.98 During that pilgrimage she consulted the immured virgin Alexandra for spiritual guidance, visited Or and attested to his virtue, and became so endeared to Pambo and Macarius of Alexandria that they both bequeathed gifts to her.99 Melania quickly proved to be a formidable leader and spiritual director in her own right. She prepared Pambo for his burial, and some time after the death of Athanasius in 373, she became a confessor for the Nicene faith, having been chased out of Egypt with other bishops and Ammonius the monk. She converted Evagrius to the solitary life, and catechized many of her family members and relatives. She not only founded a monastery on the Mount of Olives, but even served as the abbess to its fifty nuns. Palladius claimed that Melania served as the inspiration and paradigm for other wealthy noblewomen who converted to asceticism, including Olympias, Candida, and Gelasia, and her granddaughter Melania the Younger.100 Of course, she was also a great benefactor, such that recipients of her generosity could be found throughout the empire and beyond. It is no wonder that Palladius assigned to her many glowing epithets—she was ‘thrice‐blessed’, rather than merely ‘blessed’ in the usual manner of referring to the deceased, a ‘person of God’, both ‘wondrous and holy’, and a ‘slave of Christ’.101 In conjunction with Melania, Palladius praised Rufinus of Aquileia, saying, ‘close by [to Melania's residence in Jerusalem] dwelt also the very noble Rufinus from the Italian city of Aquileia; his way of life was like hers, and he was a most staunch man, later deemed worthy of the priesthood—a more learned and reasonable man was never found.’102 He credited Rufinus for (p. 120 ) the work that he carried on jointly with Melania, namely their cenobitic establishments on Mt Olivet, and the philanthropy and hospitality that they had extended to so many. He passed over their role in the Origenist controversies that had rent the Jerusalem church in two, and portrayed them instead as mediators. He attributed to them the reconciliation of certain Pneumatomachians to the church, as well as the reconciliation of a certain Paulinus, which may have been a reference to Paulinianus, the brother of Jerome who had been ordained by Epiphanius in Palestine.103 If so, they had also worked towards healing the breach that erupted between Jerome and John of Jerusalem. According to Palladius, Melania and Rufinus were so conciliatory that they ‘finished their days without offending anyone’.104 That is, anyone save Jerome. Jerome had been a long‐time companion and friend of Rufinus, and he once respected and admired Melania, whom in 384 he presented as an example to the bereaved Paula.105 Their establishments on the Mount of Olives may have even served as the model for the community that he and Paula created in Bethlehem, and relations between them were good for many years.106 His sentiments, however, soured after the first wave of the Origenist controversy in Palestine between Epiphanius and John of Jerusalem, in which he and Rufinus chose opposite sides and their bond of friendship was irreparably severed. Both Melania and Rufinus became the targets of Jerome's withering polemics. Our estimation of both may have been quite different had it not been for Palladius and his HL. Likewise, Palladius had the last word between them concerning Evagrius, of whom he said, ‘it would not be right to pass over in silence the famous deacon Evagrius, a man who lived in truly apostolic fashion’.107 Palladius presented Evagrius as possessing an impeccable priestly pedigree: the son of a chorbishop, ordained a lector by Basil of Caesarea, and a deacon by Gregory of Nazianzus.108 Palladius also claimed that Evagrius was indisputably orthodox. He was so skilful in ‘confuting all the heresies’ that when Gregory departed from Constantinople he left Evagrius
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behind to assist his successor Nectarius in promulgating Nicene orthodoxy.109 Palladius further supports his claim by relating an anecdote in which Evagrius was confronted towards the end of his life by three demons that appeared in the guise of clerics to test his orthodoxy. (p. 121 ) Each one espoused heretical positions attributed to Arians, Eunomians, and Apollinarians, but they failed to deceive Evagrius, who stood firm and ‘got around them with his knowledge and a few words’.110 Palladius also presented Evagrius as a monk famous for his profound degree of renunciation and his ascetic feats, despite the unconventional start to his monastic career. He related that Evagrius had become infatuated with an aristocrat's wife while he was a deacon in Constantinople. Although he came to his senses before the affair was consummated, by that time he had aroused the woman's ardour as well, and he subsequently found himself becoming ensnared in his own desire again, so he prayed fervently to God to place some obstacle in the way of this temptation and to find a solution for him to this dilemma. In a dream he saw himself imprisoned and enchained on unspecified charges, but suspecting nevertheless that he had been arrested on account of his feelings for the woman, and that her husband had brought the charges against him. As others were being tried and tortured, and he waited for his own turn with fear and trembling, he was met unexpectedly by a friend who encouraged him to leave Constantinople and repent. He promptly agreed and swore on the Bible that he would leave the next day after preparing his things, at which moment he awoke from his nightmare. Years later Evagrius was to say that he always considered that oath a solemn promise to God, even though it had been made in a dream. He left for Jerusalem the very next day, but not long after his arrival he relapsed into his former vanity and self‐conceit, and he fell into a violent fever that kept him ill for more than six months, and which he considered a providential punishment sent to him by God to weaken his flesh and its desires. Melania the Elder realized that Evagrius suffered from more than simply physical ailments and intervened. Evagrius soon confessed everything to her and promised that he would live henceforth as a monk. He left for Nitria, where he stayed for two years, and then continued to Cells, where he remained the last fourteen years of his life. This delicately reared young man, with a reputation for being a dandy, embraced a rigorous ascetic discipline of exacting physical hardship and an extremely limited diet in order to overcome his weaknesses. He occupied himself with manual labour (as a high‐quality scribe) only to the extent that was required to provide for his most basic necessities. Palladius recorded these sayings and deeds of Evagrius to stand as proof of his virtue and spiritual accomplishment. What is more remarkable, however, is what he excluded. He did not discuss Evagrius’ reputation as a revered spiritual guide, or as an erudite ascetic theologian and prolific author, beyond mentioning in passing that he was gifted in discerning spirits and had written (p. 122 ) the Antirrhetikos.111 In comparison, Socrates the historian gave a much more accurate representation of Evagrius' literary career, not only citing the titles of several works, but also quoting selections from the Praktikos and the Gnostikos.112 Socrates had never met Evagrius, whereas Palladius had lived with him for the last nine years of his life and was intimately familiar with Evagrius' theology, as shall be demonstrated in Chapters 5 and 6.113 Moreover, years earlier, Palladius had offered a more intimate portrait of Evagrius as the Coptic testimony to the monobiblion indicates. There he had given many more details for the later period of his life than those provided by the later HL, and he had portrayed Evagrius as the spiritual guide of the desert that he was.114 For example, he acknowledged that he would join Evagrius every Saturday evening and spend the following day with him for spiritual counsel, before returning to his solitary cell for the remainder of the week.115 He claimed that Evagrius had attracted a great number of visitors and monks who would gather to hear his profitable teaching and confess to him their thoughts.116 He included more anecdotes that portrayed Evagrius as a remarkably gifted ascetic, claiming that he was granted visions from God and that Theophilus had wished to ordain him as a bishop. He also noted that Evagrius had written several books that attested to his remarkable intelligence and knowledge, one of which was directed to cenobitic monks, another to anchorites, and yet another for priests, a three‐part division that may indicate the works For Monks [Ad Monachos], Praktikos, and Gnostikos.117 Undoubtedly, when Palladius revised his monobiblion he was guided primarily by the interests of Lausus and the imperial court. He shortened his longer portraits to make room for new ones, and in all probability he was less inclined to emphasize the interior spiritual states of his subjects than their deeds, which could serve as sources of inspiration for his audience. But he was also influenced by his ongoing dispute with Jerome, and he would have been eager to portray his former colleagues in the most positive light possible. In this regard, he seems to have succeeded remarkably well. Centuries later, an (p. 123 ) anonymous scribe remarked that the Evagrius of the HL was a great saint of the fourth century, and not the same Evagrius condemned as a heretic in the sixth century.118 That is not to
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suggest that the monobiblion, judging from the preserved Coptic material, contained any information that was damaging to Evagrius; it is to say that the HL had a decidedly apologetic character, for which reason it brought to the fore Evagrius' role in defending Nicene doctrine.119 This would also explain why Palladius emphasized disproportionately Evagrius' early life even though he lacked first‐hand knowledge of it, a manoeuvre similar to the one he employed on John's behalf in the Dialogue. After the sixth century, the HL was repeatedly edited and sanitized by scribes who removed references to Origen and his legacy. But while modern scholarship has concerned itself with the degree of anti‐Origenist editing that the HL underwent in its long and complicated textual history, it has not considered the possibility that Palladius himself might have edited his earlier monobiblion so as to advocate on behalf of these Origenists before the imperial court and posterity. This, it seems, is precisely what he intended.
Conclusion Palladius was neither self‐indulgent in the praise he lavished upon his associates nor vindictive in his attacks upon Jerome. Persecuted, banished, and violently stripped of friends and teachers, he had suffered greatly and yet he maintained both the dignity and composure to lay to rest most of his grievances. He wrote the HL with the primary goal of edifying and exhorting Lausus and the court. Considering his past and ongoing differences with Jerome, it is only to be expected that he would have been indignant with him, and overall he showed remarkable restraint. As for his depiction of Origenists, it was to be expected that he would have commemorated in a (p. 124 ) most positive way the lives of his former mentors and colleagues, and that he would have given pride of place to those who instructed him in theology and nurtured him spiritually. He had no ambivalence about what he learned from them. On the contrary, throughout the HL and the Dialogue he consciously promoted their theology. Let us see how. Notes: (1) On the fate of John's partisans after their bishop's exile, Dialogue 20.44–90; P. D. Stiernon, ‘Helenopolis’, DHGE, 23.881, believed that a certain Alexander was consecrated to the see of Helenopolis in Palladius’ absence, on the basis of the passage in Socrates h.e. 7.36 which stated: ‘Palladius was transferred from Helenopolis to Aspuna; and Alexander from the same city to Adriani.’ Socrates, however, provided no dates for these transfers; although some bishops were restored to their sees (viz. Elpidius and Pappus, for which see Kelly, Golden Mouth, 287, and Innocent Letter 19 [PL 20.541B]), others were not (e.g. Alexander of Basinopolis, for whom see Synesius Letter 66 [PG 66.1408–9]). (2) HL 45, Butler 132.15; for the chronology, see Butler, Lausiac History, 2:245. (3) For Verus and Bosporia, see HL 66, esp. Butler 162.11 (οὑ̑ καὶ μακρὰν πει̑ραν ἔσχηκα). (4) HL 67–9; for Magna and the female ascetic community of Ancyra (two thousand virgins), see HL 67, Butler 163.11, 13; for the charitable monk, see HL 68. (5) HL Prologue, Butler 9.12–10.2. (6) Butler, Lausiac History, 1:3, 179–81; HL Prologue, Butler, 9.12. Butler assumed that Palladius was not ordained a bishop until he arrived in Asia Minor after he left Egypt (c.399) and he based the rest of his calculations on this date. Butler, Lausiac History, 2:243–4. (7) Socrates h.e. 7.36. (8) Butler, Lausiac History, 2:245; Kelly, Golden Mouth, 286–8. (9) For Aspuna, see Giorgio Fedalto, Hierarchia ecclesiastica orientalis: Series episcoporum ecclesiarum christianarum (Padua: Edizioni Messagero, 1988), vol. 1, Patriarchus constantinopolitanus, 58; DHGE 19.721; Jean Darrouzès, Notitiae episcopatuum ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae: Texte critique, introduction et notes (Paris: Institut Français d'Études Byzantines, 1981), 207, notitia no. I.126. On the harassment by Leontius, see Dial. 20.150. (10) Dial. 9.53–5. (11) ACO 1.2.3.
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(12) On the celebration of John's memory, see Kelly, Golden Mouth, 289. On Theodotus and his friendship with Nestorius, see ACO 1.2.38 and EEC 2.829. (13) On their friendship, see Marie‐Ange Calvet‐Sebastie and Pierre‐Louis Gatier, Firmus de Césarée: Lettres, SC 350 (Paris: Cerf, 1989), 60. (14) See A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire 284–602: A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964), 892; DHGE 19.722; ACO 2.1.86. (15) HL 61, Butler, 169.6–8. On the problems posed by the date of their first meeting, see Butler, Lausiac History, 2:246. (16) HL 71, Butler 169.7–8; see also W. Enßlin, ‘Praepositus’, PW Supplement 8.556–64. Praepositi peddled their enormous influence, for which see Jones, Later Roman Empire, 127, 567–70. See also, Arthur E. R. Boak and James E. Dunlap, Two Studies in Later Roman and Byzantine Administration: Part I. The Master of the Offices in the Later Roman and Byzantine Empires; Part II. The Office of the Grand Chamberlain in the Later Roman and Byzantine Empires (New York: Macmillan, 1924). By 422, the praepositus was ‘raised to parity with the praetorian and urban prefect, and magistri militum’ (Jones, Later Roman Empire, 569). (17) According to Jones, Later Roman Empire, 425, the praepositus sacri cubiculi took this responsibility from the comes rei privatae sometime between 390 and 414; see also Dunlap, Grand Chamberlain, 187–8, 217–18. (18) The res privata had traditionally exercised some jurisdiction over its tenants, and by 442, tenants were given the ‘quite extraordinary privilege of being under the exclusive jurisdiction of the comes domorum.…with appeal to the praepositus sacri cubiculi’ in civil and criminal cases: Jones, Later Roman Empire, 486. It is possible that the grand chamberlain merely reviewed decisions of the count of the crown lands and that he did not travel to Cappadocia: Dunlap, Grand Chamberlain, 200. (19) Firmus met Lausus in Constantinople, and addressed to him ep. 9 and 20, for which see Calvet‐Sebastie and Gatier, Firmus de Césarée, 58–9, 88–91, 118–19. Firmus addressed Lausus as ὑμετέρα μεγαλοπρέπεια (ep. 20, line 5), a title in use at this time to designate the praepositus sacri cubiculi, according to PW Supplement 8.560.40; as patron of his city, it is likely that he had numerous reasons for communicating with Lausus, see Calvert‐Sebastie and Gatier, Firmus de Césarée, 37–42. For Theodotus of Ancyra, see ‘Theodote d'Ancyra’, in DTC 15.328, which also cites Theodotus’ now lost ‘τοὺς πρὸς Λαυ̑σον γραφέέντας (λόγους) κατὰ Νεστορίου ἐν τόμοις ἕξ’ (Mansi, Concil. 13.312); for this text, see also Gennadius On illustrious men 55, ed. Carl Albrecht Bernoulli, Hieronymus und Gennadius: De viris inlustribus (Freiburg in Breisgau: J. C. B. Mohr, 1895; repr. Frankfurt: Minerva, 1968), 80. The imperial court had numerous ties to the province of Galatia, for which see Clive Foss, ‘Late Antique and Byzantine Ankara’, DOP 31 (1977): 29–87. (20) HL Prologue 9–10, Butler 12.7–24. (21 ) HL Prologue 16, Butler 15.1–4. (22) HL, Prologue 2, Butler 10.2–5. The textual history of the HL is extremely complicated and owes a great debt to Butler, who was the first to recognize that the most widely circulating edition of the Lausiac History was only one of three Greek recensions, and that it was a conflation of the Lausiac History and the History of the Monks of Egypt (Lausiac History of Palladius, 1:15–172). He isolated what he believed to be the most authentic recension and examined over fifty‐three manuscripts and fragments to produce a critical edition (Lausiac History of Palladius, 1:6–172 and 2:ix–xcvi; see also Robert T. Meyer, trans., Palladius: The Lausiac History, Ancient Christian Writers 34 [New York: Paulist, 1964], 8–11). Butler's new edition possessed a much greater degree of cohesion and unity than the previous one in circulation and was widely acclaimed (C. H. Turner, ‘The Lausiac History of Palladius’, JThS 6 [1905]: 321–55; Eduard Schwartz, ‘Palladiana’, ZNTW 36 [1937]: 161–204). But it was not perfect: critics complained that his edition was constructed from a variety of manuscripts, and that it did not exist in its entirety in any single, extant manuscript. Butler admitted that he could not examine every manuscript containing the HL because there were simply too many (in too many locations), and he even acknowledged that he erred in underestimating the value of a certain manuscript family (Butler ‘Palladiana’ JThS 22 [1920]: 21–35) Nevertheless it was a remarkable piece 22.1.2012 20:07
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of scholarship and his edition slowly emerged as the de facto normative text, such that when G. J. M. Bartelink published his own edition of the Lausiac History (Palladio: La Storia Lausiaca, Vite dei Santi 2 [n.p.: Lorenzo Valla, 1974]), which accounted for many of the criticisms that had been raised against Butler's edition, he still used Butler's work as the basis of his own, and he argued that a better critical edition could not be published without further extensive studies on all the versions and recensions of the History (see the introduction by Christine Mohrmann, ibid., x–xii). The growing consensus around the Butler edition prompted a flurry of new scholarship on Palladius, for which see E. D. Hunt, ‘St. Silvia of Aquitaine: The Role of the Theodosian Pilgrim in the Society of East and West’, JThS, ns 23 (1972): 351–73; ‘Palladius of Helenopolis: A Party and its Supporters in the Church of the Late Fourth Century’, JThS, ns 24 (1973): 456–80; M.‐G. de Durand, ‘Évagre le Pontique et le Dialogue sur le vie de Saint Jean Chrysostome’, BLE 77 (1976): 191–206; Paul Devos, ‘Approches de Pallade a travers le Dialogue sur Chrysostome et l'Histoire Lausiaque: Deux oeuvres, un auteur’, AB 107 (1989): 243–66. See also Robert T. Meyer, ‘Lexical Problems in Palladius’ Historia Lausiaca’, Patrologia Syriaca 1 (TU 63 [1957]): 44–52; idem, ‘Lectio Divina in Palladius’, in KYRIAKON: Festschrift Johannes Quasten, ed. Patrick Granfield and Josef A. Jungman (Münster: Verlag Aschendorff, 1970), 580–4; idem, ‘Palladius and Early Christian Spirituality’, SP 10.1 (1970): 379–90; idem, ‘Palladius and the Study of Scripture’, SP 13.2 (1975): 487–90; idem, ‘Palladius as Biographer and Autobiographer’, SP 17.1 (1982): 66–71; idem, ‘Holy Orders in the Eastern Church in the Early Fifth Century as Seen in Palladius’, SP 16.2 (1985): 38–49. (23) For the monobiblion see Socrates h.e. 4.23. Although the original monobiblion does not survive in any manuscript, Gabriel Bunge believed that he found traces of it in the Coptic Synaxaria which contained compelling historical material not found in the Greek History; whereas Butler had rejected this material because it did not accord with the existing Greek recensions of the History, Bunge proposed that the Coptic versions reflected still other recensions that were compilations of two works: a late, revised recension of the Lausiac History, as well as a recension of the conjectural monobiblion. See Gabriel Bunge, ‘Palladiana: I. Introduction aux fragments coptes de l'Histoire Lausiaque’, StudMon 32 (1990): 79–129; for French translations of the Coptic version of the HL and vestiges of the monobiblion, see Adalbert de Vogüé, ‘Palladiana: II–V. La version copte de l'Histoire Lausiaque’, StudMon 32 (1990): 323–39, StudMon 33 (1991): 7–21, StudMon 34 (1992): 7–28, StudMon 34 (1992): 217–32; these were later collected in Gabriel Bunge and Adalbert de Vogüé, Quatre ermites égyptiens d'après les fragments coptes de l'Histoire Lausiaque, Spiritualité Orientale 60 (Bégrolles‐en‐Mauges: Abbaye de Bellefontaine, 1994). English translations of the Coptic passages were subsequently made available by Tim Vivian, Four Desert Fathers: Pambo, Evagrius, Macarius of Egypt, and Macarius of Alexandria, Coptic Texts Relating to the Lausiac History of Palladius (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2004). Bunge also proposed that the original monobiblion probably contained some of the material preserved only in the Syriac recensions of the Lausiac History; for these, see René Draguet, Les formes syriaques de la matière de l'Histoire Lausiaque, 2 vols., CSCO 389–90, 398–9 (Louvain: Secrétariat du Corpus SCO, 1978). Draguet had been the most implacable of Butler's critics, for many years having argued that some of the fragments dismissed by him contained valuable alternative readings (although even he admitted that most of the changes he advocated would not have altered Butler's text significantly); for his criticism of Butler, see his ‘Un nouveau témoin du texte G de l'Histoire Lausiaque’, AB 67 (1949): 300–8; idem, ‘Butler et sa Lausiac History face à un ms. de l'édition le Wake 67’, Muséon 63 (1950): 205–30; idem, ‘Un texte G de l'Histoire Lausiaque dans le Laura 333 G 93’, RecSR 40 (1952): 107–15. Draguet's abrasiveness rallied Derwas Chitty to Butler's defence in ‘Dom Cuthbert Butler, Professor Draguet, and the Lausiac History [Ms. Wake 67]’, JThS ns 6 (1955): 102–10; naturally, Draguet rebutted in, ‘Butleriana: Une mauvaise cause et son malchanceux avocat’, Muséon 58 (1955): 238–58. Ultimately, Draguet's work did lead to the recovery of significant material, including an address to a woman (Draguet, Les formes syriaques, 1:80), and two additional chapters on the ascetics Eucarpios and Stephen (chapters 72 and 73 in Draguet, Les formes syriaques, 236–41), both of which are absent from Butler's text, but mentioned in HL 47 Butler, p. 137. 17–18. For an excellent summary of some of these textual problems, see Vivian, Four Desert Fathers, 46–52. Although the case for the conjectural monobiblion is not closed, a fact noted by Mark Sheridan, in his review of Bunge and de Vogüé, in Collectanea Cisterciensia 57 (1995)= Bulletin de spiritualité monastique 12 (1995): [548]–[552], it is less disputed now whether Palladius may have written an earlier work that he later revised (a theory that remains more persuasive than any other on the basis of the limited current evidence), than it is disputed to what degree the Coptic passages reflect that earlier material. (24) HL Prologue 9, Butler 12.7–9.
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(25) HL 71, Butler 169, 8–9. (26) For Lausus’ hospitality, see Gerontius Life of Melania 53, ed. Denys Gorce, Vie de sainte Mélanie, SC 90 (Paris: Cerf, 1962), 228–32; for his palace, see Elizabeth A. Clark, The Life of Melania the Younger, Studies in Women and Religion 14 (New York: Edwin Mellen, 1984), 137; for his patronage, see ibid. 116. (27) HL Prologue 3, Butler 10.16–17: τω̑ν εὐσεβεστάτων βασιλέων. On the subordinates of the grand chamberlain, see Dunlap, Grand Chamberlain, 202–23. (28) Kenneth G. Holum, Theodosian Empresses: Women and Imperial Dominion in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 91; according to Holum, Antiochus was dismissed from his position as praepositus. See ‘Antiochus (5)’ in J. R. Martindale, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 101–2. (29) For an account of Pulcheria's successful manoeuvres against the praetorian prefect Anthemius and the urban prefect Isidore, son of Anthemius, see Holum, Theodosian Empresses, 93–6; for the rise to power of the grand chamberlain, see Dunlap, Grand Chamberlain, 184–5. (30) On Pulcheria, see Holum, Theodosian Empresses, 101–11. Lausus may have been the praepositus to the bedchamber of Pulcheria, who, as Augusta, was also entitled to a praepositus sacri cubiculi (PW Supplement 8. 562–3). According to Martindale, Prosopography, 102 (see ‘Antiochus [5]’), Antiochus is attested as praepositus sacri cubiculi and patricius c.421, possible evidence for two praepositi at this time; Dunlap mentions a Macrobius: Grand Chamberlain, 186–7, 192–3. In any event, the cubicularii of Pulcheria would have been under the administration of Lausus, as demonstrated by Dunlap, Grand Chamberlain, 191, 205. (31 ) For Olympias, see HL 56; for Candida and Gelasia, HL 57; for Melania the Younger, see HL 61. (32) Sozomen h.e. 9.1, 3; cf. Arthur L. Fisher, ‘Women and Gender in Palladius’ Lausiac History’, StudMon 33 (1991): 23–50; Susanna Elm, ‘Virgins of God’: The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 311–30; Heinz Hofmann, ‘Die Geschichtsschreibung’, in Neues Handbuch der Literaturwissenschaft, 4: Spätantike, mit einem Panorama der byzantinischen Literatur, ed. Lodewijk J. Engels and Heinz Hofmann (Wiesbaden: AULA, 1997), 403–67, at 449. Holum, Theodosian Empresses, 93–6, discusses the political motivations for their declarations of chastity. (33) A point well made by Verna E. F. Harrison, ‘This Female Man of God: Women and Spiritual Power in the Patristic Age, AD 350–450’, JThS, ns, 48 (1997): 694–700, at 699, who warns against seeing a uniquely feminine form of spirituality in early Christian literature more generally. (34) On the explicit inclusion of women among ‘the fathers’, see his comment that Lausus had desired τὰ τω̑ν πατέρων διηγήματα, ἀρρένων τε καὶ θηλειω̑ν (HL Prologue, Butler 10.2–3). (35) See Palladius' Letter to Lausus, Butler 7.5–6. (36) See Butler, Lausiac History, 1:58–171; 2:xiv–xxvi. (37) Claudia Rapp, ‘Storytelling as Spiritual Communication in Early Greek Hagiography: The Use of Diegesis’, JECS 6 (1998): 431–48; with the benefit, however, of my analysis of the Dialogue, we should no longer presume that the author of a diegesis had only a derivative or second‐hand knowledge of rhetorical theory, as she seems to suggest (447–8). (38) On the characteristics of ancient historiography, see Simon Hornblower (ed.), Greek Historiography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 7–54; Michael Grant, The Ancient Historians (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970); idem, Greek and Roman Historians: Information and Misinformation (London: Routledge, 1995); T. J. Luce, The Greek Historians (London: Routledge, 1997), 142–5; Stephen Usher, The Historians of Ancient Greece, 2nd edn. (Norman, OK: Oklahoma University Press, 1985), 235–57.
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(39) Arnaldo Momigliano, ‘Pagan and Christian Historiography in the Fourth Century A.D.’, in The Conflict between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century, ed. idem (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), 79–99; repr. in idem, Terzo contributo alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico, vol. 1 (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1966) 87–109. (40) Glenn F. Chesnut, The First Christian Histories: Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Evagrius, 2nd edn. (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1986), 7–31. (41) On the convent in Atripe, HL 29–30; cf. Butler, Lausiac History, 2.204, n. 46. W. Telfer, ‘The Trustworthiness of Palladius’, JThS 38 (1937): 379–83; François Halkin, ‘L'Histoire Lausiaque et les vies grecques de s. Pachôme’, AB 53 (1930): 257–301; Armand Veilleux, Pachomian Koinonia, vol. 2, Pachomian Chronicles and Rules, Cistercian Studies 46 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, 1981), 133; Paul Peeters, ‘Une vie copte de S. Jean de Lycopolis’, AB 54 (1936): 359–81; idem, ‘Le dossier copte de S. Pâchome et ses rapports avec la tradition grecque’, AB 64 (1946): 276–7; René Draguet, ‘Le chapitre de l'Histoire Lausiaque sur les Tabennésiotes dérive‐t‐il d'une source copte?’, Muséon 57 (1944): 53–146 and 58 (1945): 15–96; idem, ‘L'inauthenticité du proemium de l'Histoire Lausiaque’, Muséon 59 (1946): 529–34; idem, ‘Une nouvelle source copte de Pallade: le ch. VIII (de l'Histoire Lausiaque)’, Muséon 60 (1947): 227–55. (42) Joannes Meursius, Palladii Episcopi Helenopoleos Historia Lausiaca (Leyden, 1616). (43) Butler, Lausiac History, 2.8. (44) Patricia Cox, Biography in Late Antiquity: A Quest for the Holy Man, The Transformations of the Classical Heritage 5 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), xiii. (45) Greek edited by A.‐J. Festugière, Historia monachorum in Aegypto: Édition critique du texte grec, Subsidia Hagiographica 34 (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1961); trans. Norman Russell, The Lives of the Desert Fathers: The ‘Historia Monachorum in Aegypto’ (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, 1981). Cf. Butler, Lausiac History, 1.15–51. (46) Clark, Melania the Younger, 153–70, warns that Christian works of late antiquity do not strictly conform to classical genres. (47) Panagiotes Chrestou, Ἑλληνικὴ Πατρολογία, 2nd edn., 5 vols. (Thessaloniki: Patriarchal Institute of Patristic Studies, 1985–92), 3.154, cites Diogenes as a predecessor of the HL; Suetonius may not have been directly influenced by Plutarch, according to G. W. Bowersock, ‘Vita Caesarum: Remembering and Forgetting the Past’, in La biographie antique, ed. Widu Wolfgang Ehlers, Entretiens sur l'antiquité classique 44 (Geneva: Vandoeuvres, 1997), 193–210. (48) Pierre Dufraigne, Aurelius Victor: Livre des césars (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1975), xlvi–xlviii; on the increasing importance of biography in Late Antiquity, see Simon Swain, ‘Biography and Biographic in the Literature of the Roman Empire’, in Portraits: Biographical Representation in the Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire, ed. Mark J. Edwards and Simon Swain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 1–37. (49) Brian Croke and Alanna M. Emmett, ‘Historiography in Late Antiquity: An Overview’, in History and Historians in Late Antiquity, ed. eidem (Sydney: Pergamon, 1983), 1–12; H. W. Bird, The Breviarium ab urbe condita of Eutropius, Translated Texts for Historians 14 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1993). These latter works are more similar to the HL in that they are also anecdotal, deliberately inventive, and rarely critically reflective, for which see the introduction by Herbert S. Long in R. D. Hicks, Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Loeb Classical Library, 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925; repr. 1980), vol. 1, xvii–xxiv; R. J. Penella, Greek Philosophers and Sophists in the Fourth Century A.D.: Studies in Eunapius of Sardis (Leeds: Francis Cairns, 1990), 32–9; Bowersock, ‘Vita Caesarum: Remembering and Forgetting the Past’, 206–7. (50) See Praktikos 91–100, text ed. Antoine Guillaumont and Claire Guillaumont, Évagre le Pontique: Traité pratique ou Le moine, 2 vols., SC 170–1 (Paris: Cerf, 1971). (51 ) PG 65.71–440; see also Jean‐Claude Guy, Les Apophthegmes des pères: Collection systématique, chapitres I–IX, SC 387 (Paris: Cerf, 1993); and idem, ‘Les Apophthegmata patrum’, in Théologie de la vie monastique: Études sur la
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tradition patristique, Théologie 49 (Paris: Aubier, 1961), 74–83. For an English translation, see Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection (London: Mowbray, 1975). The collection revolves around the monastic tradition of Abba Poimen and was compiled in Palestine: Jean Gribomont, ‘Les apophthegmes du désert’, Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa 13 (1977): 534–41; for their dating, see Douglas Burton‐Christie, The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 87; Burton‐Christie cites Ruth Frazer, ‘The Morphology of Desert Wisdom in the Apophthegmata Patrum’ (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1977), 85–7, and Lucien Regnault, ‘Les Apophtegmes en Palestine aux Ve–VIe siècles’, Irénikon 57 (1981): 320–30, reprinted in Regnault, Les pères du désert à travers leurs Apophtegmes (Sablé‐sur‐Sarthe: Solesmes, 1987), 73–83. See also Graham Gould, The Desert Fathers on Monastic Community (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). (52) On the HM and HL as travelogues, see Georgia Frank, The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 30 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). (53) Pierre Canivet and Alice Leroy‐Molinghen, Théodoret de Cyr: Histoire des moines de Syrie (‘Histoire philothée’), 2 vols., SC 234 and 257 (Paris: Cerf, 1977 and 1979); see also Pierre Canivet, Le monachisme syrien selon Théodoret de Cyr, Théologie Historique 42 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1977), 68–72. (54) PG 87:2851–3116; trans. John Wortley, The Spiritual Meadow of John Moschus (Pratum Spirituale), Cistercian Studies Series 139 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, 1992); E. W. Brooks, ed., John of Ephesus: Lives of the Eastern Saints, PO 17.1, 18.4, and 19.2 (Paris: Firmin‐Didot and Co., 1923–5); Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Asceticism and Society in Crisis: John of Ephesus and the Lives of the Eastern Saints (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 34–7. Harvey noted (36) that the Historia monastica by Thomas of Marga (ninth century) was deliberately modelled on the Lausiac History. (55) See J. N. D. Kelly, Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies (London: Duckworth, 1975), 310–31. (56) See Jerome ep. 130 and 133 (ed. Isidore Hilberg, Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi Epistulae, 3 vols., CSEL 54–56 [Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1910–18], at vol. 55, pp. 175–201 and pp. 241–60), and Dialogue against the Pelagians (PL 23.495–590; also C. Moreschini, ed., S. Hieronymi Presbyteri Opera, Pars III, Opera Polemica 2, CCL 80 [Turnhout: Brepols, 1990]); see also Kelly, Jerome, 317, who cites R. F. Evans, Pelagius: Inquiries and Reappraisals (London: Black, 1968), 126, for passages in Jerome's Commentary on Jeremiah that attack Pelagius. (57) Such ‘heresy genealogies’ were not intended to be accurate descriptions of the development of religious thought, although they were important for a variety of rhetorical purposes, for which see Benoît Jeanjean, Saint Jérôme et l'hérésie (Paris: Institut d'Études Augustiniennes, 1999), 424–8; see also Susanna Elm, ‘Jerome's Classification of Pelagius and Evagrius Ponticus’, SP 33 (1997): 311–18. (58) Jerome ep. 133.3 (CSEL 56, p. 246.3); see the corresponding analysis in Kelly, Jerome, 315, especially n. 35; Jerome had once been full of praise for Melania (see ep. 3.3, 4.2, 39.5, 45.4). (59) Elizabeth A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 147. (60) Jerome ep. 133.3 (CSEL 56, p. 246.9–13). Jerome does not mention that Dioscorus, who had been elevated to the rank of bishop, was also included. (61 ) Between 402 and 414, Jerome referred to Origen as a heretic only in ep. 126 (ad 411) and 127 (ad 413), according to Jeanjean, Saint Jérôme, 97. (62) Jerome Comm. Jer. 4.41 (CCL 74. 210–11); see also Comm. Jer. 6.6 (CCL 74.294) and 41.17 (CCL 74.15). (63) Jerome Pelag., Prologue 1 (PL 23.496A; CCL 80, p. 3.13). (64) Jerome Pelag. Prologue 2 (PL 23.497B, CCL 80, p. 4.16–5.20); allusion to 2 Thes 2.7.
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(65) Rufinus Apol. Hier. 2.36–41, ed. Manlio Simonetti, Rufini Opera, CCL 20 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1961), 107–12; for the English translation cited in the text above, see NPNF 2.3, pp. 434–82, where it is numbered 2.32–7. For a review of the conflict between Rufinus and Jerome and the literature on the matter, see Pierre Lardet, Saint Jérôme: Apologie contre Rufin, SC 303 (Paris: Cerf, 1983), 59–77; in English, F. X. Murphy, ‘Magistros meos nec muto nec accuso: Rufinus on Origen’, Aug 26 (1986): 241–9. (66) Rufinus Apol. Hier. 2.36 (CCL 20, p. 111; NPNF 2.32). (67) Rufinus Apol. Hier. 2.40 (CCL 20, p. 114; NPNF 2.32). On the Septuagint's inspiration and primacy, see M. F. Wiles, ‘Origen as Biblical Scholar’, in The Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 1, From the Beginnings to Jerome, ed. P. R. Ackroyd and C. F. Evans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 454–64; S. P. Brock, ‘Origen's Aims as a Textual Critic of the Old Testament’, in Studies in the Septuagint: Origins, Recensions, and Interpretations, ed. Sidney Jellicoe (New York: KTAV Publishing, 1974), 343–6. (68) A point well made by Marguerite Harl, ‘La Septante et la pluralité textuelle des écritures: Le témoignage des pères grecs’, in Naissance de la méthode critique (Paris: Cerf, 1992), 231–43, but missed by others; Eugene Ulrich, ‘Origen's Old Testament Text: The Transmission History of the Septuagint to the Third Century, C.E.’, in Origen of Alexandria: His World and his Legacy, ed. Charles Kannengiesser and William L. Petersen (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), 3–33; Paul M. Blowers, ‘Origen, the Rabbis, and the Bible: Toward a Picture of Judaism and Christianity in Third‐Century Caesarea’, ibid. 96–116. (69) HL 36, Butler 108.7–9. (70) Dial. 11.66 and 11.75. (71 ) HL 36, Butler 108.11–12. Here and in the Dialogue (11.66, 75, and 88) Palladius used the terms φθόνος and βασκανία interchangeably. (72) HL 36, Butler 108.6–18. (73) For a chronology of Jerome that attempts to reconcile the insights of recent scholarship, see Megan Hale Williams, The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian Scholarship (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 267–301. (74) HL 41, Butler 128.6–7. (75) HL 41, Butler 128.7–10: ἧς [i.e. Paula's] ἐμπόδιον γέγονεν Ἱερώνυμός τις ἀπὸ Δαλματίας· δυναμένης γὰρ αὐτὴν ὑπερπτη̑ναι πασω̑ν, εὐφυεστάτη οὐ̑σα, προσενεπόδισε τῇ ἑαυτου̑ βασκανίᾳ ἑλκύσας αὐτὴν πρὸς τὸν ἴδιον αὐτου̑ σκοπόν. (76) On the relationship of Jerome to Paula and her family, see Kelly, Jerome, passim; Stefan Rebenich, Hieronymus und sein Kreis: Prosopographische und sozialgeschichtliche Untersuchungen (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1992); and Elizabeth A. Clark, Jerome, Chrysostom, and Friends: Essays and Translations, Studies in Women and Religion 1 (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1979), 35–106, which also notes that Paula never attained to the same status in scriptural study as Jerome's other famous scriptural student, the more independently minded Marcella (at 75–7). (77) Jerome ep. 33, only a fragment of which survives (CSEL 54, pp. 253–9); Jerome mentions this list a second time in his Vir. ill. 54 (Bernoulli, Hieronymus und Gennadius, 32–4). (78) Kelly, Jerome, 143–5. (79) Kelly, Jerome, 149–52. (80) Jerome ep. 39.1 (CSEL 54.293–308). He also exhorts Paula to imitate the example of Melania the Elder (and Origenist), and wishes, ‘Lord grant that you and I may have part with her in His day’, ep. 39.5 (CSEL 54, pp. 305.10–13).
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(81 ) Jerome ep. 108.8 (c.404; CSEL 55, pp. 313–14). Jerome had spoken of the Caesarean library approximately ten years earlier, in Vir. ill. 75 (Bernoulli, Hieronymus und Gennadius, 42), where he wrote, ‘Pamphilus the presbyter…was so inflamed with love of sacred literature, that he transcribed the greater part of the works of Origen with his own hand and these are still preserved in the library at Caesarea. On the twelve prophets I have twenty‐five volumes of commentaries of Origen, written in his hand, which I hug and guard with such joy, that I deem myself to have the wealth of Croesus’ (trans. NPNF 2.3, p. 377, slightly modified). On the date of Vir. ill., with its terminus a quo of 393, see Pierre Nautin, ‘La date du De viris illustribus de Jérôme, de la mort de Cyrille de Jérusalem et de celle de Grégoire de Nazianze’, RHE 56 (1961): 33–5. On Jerome's use of geography as a metaphor for spiritual orthodoxy, see Susan Weingarten, The Saint's Saints: Hagiography and Geography in Jerome, Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 58 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 216–65; Jerome considered Caesarea an example of Christian appropriation of space in Palestine, but sites related to Origen were nevertheless ignored. (82) Jerome ep. 108.23–25 (CSEL 55, pp. 339–44). (83) Jerome ep. 108.25 (CSEL 55, pp. 345); trans. NPNF 2.6, in ep. 108.26. (84) Hunt, ‘Palladius of Helenopolis’, 480; assumed that ‘tensions had subsided’ between the Origenists and Jerome by the time Melania the Younger visited Jerusalem. His suggestion was followed by Clark who stated: ‘yet whatever enmities had existed between Melania the Elder's monastic establishments in Jerusalem and those of Paula and Jerome in Bethlehem, they had apparently been laid to rest by Melania the Younger's time’ (Melania the Younger, 151). Clark cited Melania's presence in Jerome's company in Bethlehem as evidence for this amnesty. (85) Moine, ‘Melaniana’, 73–7, even suggested that Melania the Younger broke ranks with the Origenists and joined Jerome because she felt duped by Pelagius who proved intractable; HL 61, however, posited that Melania was to be found on her estates either in Sicily or in Campania. (86) Palladius seemed unaware of Jerome's death in 419; meanwhile, he continued to speak of his own involvement on John's behalf without any regret in HL 35, Butler 105.11–12, and to sound the clarion call of Johnites by referring to John as bishop in HL 41 (Butler, 129.6) and HL 61 (Butler 157.12). (87) HL 1, Butler 15.7. (88) HL 1, Butler 15.20–2. (89) For Isidore's partisan role in the Palestinian Origenist controversy, see Jerome Jo. Hier. 37 (PL 23.355–96, at 389B–390B). (90) Jerome ep. 92.3 (CSEL 55, pp. 150–1). (91 ) On Isidore's position and the power struggle between him and Theophilus, see Federico Fatti, ‘Eretico, condanna Origene! Conflitti di potere ad Alessandria nella tarda antichità’, ASE 20 (2003): 383–435. (92) Jerome ep. 84.2–3 (CSEL 55, pp. 121–5); see also Kelly, Jerome, 124–7, 142–4. (93) HL 4, Butler 19.17–19. (94) HL 7; the intervening chapters (HL 5 and 6) are extensions of his accounts on Didymus, and perhaps even Isidore, because it was Didymus who narrated to him the subject of HL 5 (with additional material offered by Melania the Elder), and which in turn prompted the story of HL 6. This second story concerns a hospitaller of Alexandria named Macarius, and reflects perhaps a story or experience similar to one related to Palladius by Isidore. (95) On Ammonius, HL 11; on Pambo, HL 10, Butler 30.6–7, and Rufinus of Aquileia Apol. Hier. 2.15 (CCL 20, pp. 94–5). (96) Jerome Ruf. 3.22 (SC 303, p. 272); see Kelly, Jerome, 124–7. (97) Also noted by Hunt, ‘Palladius of Helenopolis’, 464; on the masculine, neuter, and feminine forms of her name, 22.1.2012 20:07
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see the discussion in C. H. Turner, ‘The Lausiac History of Palladius’, JThS 6 (1904–5): 351–4, and the brief discussion in A. M. Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus (London: Routledge, 2006), 63–4. (98) See HL 46 and 54; despite her largesse, it should be noted that Melania upheld the Roman convention to preserve her patrimony for the use of her family, giving her wealth to her son, a fact noted by Gillian Cloke, ‘This Female Man of God’: Women and Spiritual Power in the Patristic Age, AD 350–450 (New York: Routledge, 1995), 144, which cites Jerome ep. 39.5 (CSEL 54, 304–5), and to which I would add HL 46, Butler 134.7. (99) For Alexandra, see HL 5; for Or, see HL 9; for Pambo, HL 10; in HL 18, Melania claims to have received a gift of hide from Macarius of Alexandria, which he had received as a gift from a wild animal that was grateful for healing its blind pup, but as pointed out by Moine, ‘Melaniana’, RA 15 (1980): 21, the story appears in different sources in very different versions (both the giver and recipients are varied in the different accounts). (100) HL 56, 57, and 61. (101) For τρισμακαρία see HL 5, Butler 21.10 and HL 46, Butler 134.1, to be understood as effusive praise and not as a technical term, since he also referred to her by the more customary term for those deceased, viz. μακαρία (HL 10, Butler 30.4); for ἡ ἄνθρωπος του̑ θεου̑ see HL 9, Butler 29.10, and see Harrison's (‘This Female Man of God’, 699) warning against translating it as ‘female man of God’, as in Cloke's title; for θαυμάσια and ἁγία, see HL 54, Butler 146.1. We are told that Melania proclaimed του̑ δὲ Χριστου̑ εἰμὶ δούλη, in HL 46, Butler 135.10. (102) HL 46, Butler 135.20–136.3. (103) For the identification of the schism with the one in Jerusalem, rather than the one in Antioch, see HL 46, Butler 136.8–9, and n. 88, Butler, vol. 2: 224. For the likelihood that the breach had been restored, and the possibility that it was Melania who had a hand in it, see Kelly, Jerome, 209. (104) HL 46, Butler 136.11. (105) Jerome ep. 39.5 (CSEL 54, pp. 304–5). (106) See Kelly, Jerome, 121, 127–8, 136. (107) HL 38, Butler 116.6–13: Τὰ κατὰ Εὐάγριον τὸν ἀοίδιμον διάκονον, ἄνδρα βεβιωκότα κατὰ τοὺς ἀποστόλους, οὐ δίκαιον ἡσυχάσαι. (108) HL 38, Butler 116.14–15. (109) HL 38, Butler 117.5–6, 7. (110) HL 38, Butler 121.9–122.1. (111 ) HL 38, Butler 121.1–2. Palladius calls it the ἱερὰ μοναχω̑ν ἀντιρρητικά, a text preserved in translation only, for which see Quasten, Patrology, 3:171–2 and Wilhelm Frankenberg, Evagrius Pontikus (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1912), 472–545. (112) Socrates h.e. 4.23; cf. Gennadius Vir. ill. 11 (PG 58.1066A–1067B; Bernoulli, De Viris Inlustribus, 64–5). (113) See also René Draguet, ‘L'Histoire Lausiaque, une oeuvre écrite dans l'esprit d'Évagre’, RHE 41 (1946): 321–64 and RHE 42 (1947): 5–49, and de Durand, ‘Evagre le Pontique et le Dialogue’, 191–206. (114) Bunge, ‘Palladiana I’, 118. Bunge notes that the Coptic Life of Evagrius supplies many details from his years at Cells; for this Life which he attributes to Palladius, see Bunge and de Vogüé, ‘Palladiana. III.’, 12–21; ET in Vivian, Four Desert Fathers, 69–92. (115) Bunge and de Vogüé, ‘Palladiana. III.’, 8–9. (116) Bunge and de Vogüé ‘Palladiana III ’ 13 14 22.1.2012 20:07
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(117) Bunge and de Vogüé, ‘Palladiana. III.’, 13, and n. 39. (118) Antoine Guillaumont and Claire Guillaumont, Évagre le Pontique: Traité practique ou Le moine, SC 170 (Paris: Cerf, 1971), 239. The scribe's marginal note reads as follows: Ἱστέον ὅτι ἄλλος ἐστὶν οὑ̑τος ὁ Εὐάγριος καὶ ἄλλος ὁ αἱρετικός· του̑τον γὰρ ὁ ἐν ἁγίοις Παλλάδιος οὐ μόνον οὐ λέγει αἱρετικόν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοι̑ς κατ’ ἐκείνῳ καιρῳ̑ μεγάλοις ἁγίοις ἐναρίθμιον ποιει̑, ὡς καὶ ἀσκητικώτατον ὄντα καὶ τω̑ν ὀρθω̑ν δογμάτων ἐξηγητήν· μαθητὴς γάρ φησιν ὑπη̑ρχε του̑ μεγάλου Βασιλείου, παρ’ οὑ̑ καὶ τὴν του̑ ἀναγνώστου σφραγι̑δα εἴληφε· παρὰ δέ γε του̑ μεγάλου Γρηγορίου Νύσσης τὴν του̑ διακόνου χειροτονίαν. The substitution of Gregory of Nyssa for Gregory of Nazianzus stems from alternative readings of the Lausiac History, for which see HL 38, Butler, 117; see also Ernst Honigmann, ‘Heraclides of Nyssa’, in Patristic Studies, Studi e Testi 173 (Vatican City: Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, 1953), 104–22. (119) Clark, Origenist Controversy, 192–3, says that Rufinus may have tried a similar tactic, by insisting that to be orthodox it was necessary only to adhere to the essential doctrines formulated by church councils. The implicit corollary is that speculation in non‐essential theological matters was legitimate. PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2011. All Rights Reserved. Under the te PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/page/privacy-polic
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Palladius of Helenopolis Demetrios S. Katos Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199696963 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696963.001.0001
The ascent to God in prayer Chapter: (p. 125 ) 5 The ascent to God in prayerPalladius of HelenopolisThe Origenist AdvocateDemetrios Source: S. Katos Author(s): DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696963.003.0006
Abstract and Keywords This chapter explores the dynamics of Palladius’ model asceticism and its indebtedness to Origen and especially Evagrius of Pontus. It demonstrates that Palladius adapted an Evagrian understanding of spiritual progress, one that began with physical asceticism, progressed to the training of the mind in knowledge (gnosis) by the reading of scripture, and terminated at the contemplation of God in prayer. Palladius adapted many Evagrian concepts such as the passions, the eight thoughts (logismoi), apatheia, and he possessed a detailed knowledge of Origen’s biblical commentaries and interpretation. This chapter concludes by examining Palladius’ attention to contemplation and ecstatic prayer, and suggests that the practice of imageless prayer was an expression of complete human receptivity to divine life. Keywords: asceticism, Origen, Evagrius of Pontus, spiritual progress, knowledge ( gnosis ), scripture, contemplation, passions, the eight thoughts ( logismoi ), apatheia, imageless prayer
It was René Draguet who first recognized the breadth and depth of Evagrius’ influence upon the HL, dubbing it ‘une oeuvre écrite dans l’esprit d’Évagre’.1 Similarly, although on a less ambitious scale, a later study revealed the Evagrian elements that were present in the Dialogue.2 But while no one doubts any longer that Palladius was inspired by Origen and trained by Evagrius, neither has anyone attempted to reconstruct Palladius’ own theology or his understanding of the spiritual life. The recovery of Evagrius’ rich literary corpus has prompted many modern scholars to see many of Evagrius’ teachers, associates, and disciples through the lens of Evagrius’ theology. Although in many respects this has deepened our knowledge of their theology, in other respects it has also narrowed it, particularly when the key to his thought is identified with the unexpurgated Syriac recensions of his Kephalaia Gnostica and the sixth‐century condemnations. Much of the interest exhibited by modern scholars in Origenists of
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the fourth and fifth centuries has revolved around questions of whether they held notions of a subordinated Son, pre‐existing rational souls, and multiple creations.3 One premise of this book is that Evagrius was but one of many Origenists during this period, and perhaps tellingly, not one of those accused as such at the Synod of Oak in 403.4 That honour was reserved for Palladius and Heracleides, along with Ammonius and the other Tall Brothers. Of these, Palladius is the only voice that we are certain has survived to the (p. 126 ) present day,5 and he said nothing concerning such doctrines. He was primarily concerned with the practice of Christian life and asceticism, and it is this concern that surfaces repeatedly in the Dialogue and forms the core of the HL. This chapter and the next delineate Palladius’ understanding of spiritual praxis, scriptural exegesis, prayer, evil, suffering, and human freedom. In each of these areas he displayed significant influences of either Origen, Evagrius, or both, for which reason I submit it may be considered as yet one more construction of the Origenist tradition in the fifth century, to be added to those described by others such as Elizabeth Clark. Palladius gives witness to a tradition that was primarily concerned with progress in the spiritual life, from its beginnings in physical discipline, to its exercise of the mind in scripture and prayer, to its final goal of a direct encounter with God that transcended any words or description. This dynamic of salvation is the subject of the present chapter. The following chapter discusses one of the key warrants underlying this system, namely human freedom.
Praxis Ephraem the Syrian is portrayed by the HL as an ascetic who had progressed from natural contemplation (γνω̑σις φυσική), to its successor theology (θεολογία), and finally, blessedness (μακαριότης).6 This portrait says less about the historical reality of Ephraem the Syrian deacon—in fact, this is the first of many biographical sketches that eventually result in an Ephraem Byzantinus7—than it does about Palladius and his conception of the spiritual life. Indeed it betrays an outline of spiritual progress that was characteristic of Evagrius, who wrote in his Gnostikos that ‘the goal of praktike [i.e. ascetic practices] is to purify the intellect and to render it free of passions; that of gnostike is to reveal the truth hidden in all beings; but to distance the intellect from matter, and to turn it towards the First Cause—this is the gift of theology.’8 This conception of spiritual progress, which has roots in Origen (p. 127 ) and Clement, gives shape to Palladius’ own ideas and many of the portraits that constitute the HL. According to Palladius, all spiritual progress began with physical exercise, or praktike (πρακτική), which was necessary to discipline the body, especially one that was young, vigorous, and healthy. This was the first lesson he received from Isidore, who insisted that such physical training must precede any spiritual instruction. He wrote, When I was a young man and visited [Isidore], begging to be instructed in the solitary life, I was in my full prime (σφριγώσις ἔτι τη̑ς ἡλικίας), needing not so much precept as hard bodily toil (πόνων τω̑ν κατὰ σάρκα). He like a good colt‐breaker…handed me over to Dorotheus, a Theban ascetic…and he commanded me to stay three full years with him in subduing my passions.9 Palladius portrayed in a similar manner the beginning of Chrysostom’s and Evagrius’ spiritual development, too. In the Dialogue he wrote that after John was baptized, he departed into the mountains outside Antioch where he adopted a very rigorous ascetic discipline, being as he was in the full vigour of his youth (σφριγώσις τη̑ς νεότητος).10 Likewise, Evagrius was instructed by Melania to depart for Egypt and to live ascetically, because his vigorous, youthful body made him prone to sexual temptations (ὡς νέω καὶ σφριγω̑ντι τὴν ἡλικίας γέγονεν ἐνδυασμός τις καὶ ἐδιψύχησε).11 Novice monks were required, therefore, to assume a life of toil (πόνος) and rigorous discipline (σκληραγωγία), which included fasting, chastity, vigils, manual labour, and vows of poverty.12 These rigours were designed to subdue the passions and to overcome evil thoughts that were prompted by the pleasures and pains of this world, and which constituted the main obstacles to spiritual progress. Palladius listed them as gluttony (γαστριμαργία), hedonism (φιληδονία), avarice (φιλαργυρία), anger and irritability (ὀργή and θυμός), listlessness (ἀκηδία), forgetfulness (λήθη), an irrational love of glory (εὐδοξίας ἀλόγου), and arrogance or conceit or contempt of others (ἀλαζονεία or τύφος, which he equates with ὑπεροψία).13 This list was relatively comprehensive, because each vice represented the cause or root of all other evils. In this schema, conceit gives rise to envy, and anger (p. 128 ) gives rise to hubris and murder.14 He did not, however, use the terms with the same precision as Evagrius, and he readily replaced some with equivalent terms. For example, he substituted φιλαργυρία with πλεονεξία, and φιληδονία with πορνεία or λαγνεία.15 The irrational love of glory and arrogance are elsewhere 22.1.2012 20:08
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exchanged with more common terms such as vainglory (κενοδοξία) and pride (ὑπερηφανία).16 In another instance he added to this list the vices of sadness (λύπη), intemperance (ἀφροσύνη), and cowardice (δειλία).17 All these vices, as well as their derivatives, were prompted by harmful thoughts (λογισμοί) that mercilessly assailed the monk, whose task it was to ignore or repel them. In one instance when Palladius suffered from acedia (ποτὲ ἀκηδιάσας), he asked Macarius, ‘What shall I do, Father, since my thoughts (λογισμοί) prompt me to leave, saying, “You accomplish nothing, depart hence”?’18 Macarius exhorted him, ‘Tell them (i.e. the λογισμοί), “On Christ's behalf, I am holding up the walls.” ’ Palladius’ list of vices and the operation of harmful thoughts exhibits a clear dependence upon Evagrius, for whom the eight thoughts were a central component of the ascetic programme, and who devoted an entire treatise to them.19 In his Praktikos, Evagrius listed the evil thoughts in summary form, stating that ‘all the generic types of thoughts (λογισμοί) fall into eight categories in which every sort of thought is included. First is that of gluttony (γαστριμαργία), then fornication (πορνεία), third avarice (φιλαργυρία), fourth sadness (λύπη), fifth anger (ὀργή), sixth acedia (ἀκηδία), seventh vainglory (κενοδοξία), eighth pride (ὑπερηφανία).’20 The order in which these vices were listed was equally important because it reflected the sequence in which a monk was expected to overcome each one, and Palladius changed it only slightly in the three times that it appeared in his Dialogue. Gluttony, fornication, and avarice were all thoughts associated with the appetites or desire, ἐπιθυμία, and they were believed to be the most easily cured. They were the main preoccupation of the novice monk involved in praktike, who abstained from food, sex, and the accumulation of wealth. The sins of sadness, anger, acedia, and forgetfulness were associated with the soul's irascibility, or θυμός.21 They (p. 129 ) were recognized as being more difficult to overcome, and they were typically identified as the vices of the more advanced, contemplative monk, the gnostic (γνωστικός), who had overcome his desire for ease or pleasure, but who might still become unexpectedly angry or bear secret resentment towards his monastery’s brethren. According to both Palladius and Evagrius, should either the ἐπιθυμία or the θυμός take control of the soul, the monk was quickly reduced to the condition of a beast or demon.22 The final thoughts listed by both authors were vainglory and pride. These were associated with the highest part of the soul, the rational part, and they were the most difficult to extirpate. They were the final obstacles remaining in one’s communion with God, as shall be discussed below at length. The appearance of Evagrius’ teachings in a work of such a distinctive genre and purpose as that of the Dialogue suggests that Palladius had assimilated them into his own thought in a most profound way. Despite the extraordinary amount of attention Palladius paid to ascetic practices in the HL, by definition praktike was only a means to an end, and as such, it was never his primary concern.23 For example, even though he portrayed Chrysostom as having practised an asceticism that was severe enough to harm his gastrointestinal system, he argued that ultimately John triumphed over his temptations not so much by toil as by reason.24 His initial period of strict asceticism was followed by a two‐year period of contemplation, during which he lived alone and ‘never relaxed…not in the day nor at night’, so that he might learn the ‘covenants of Christ to dispel ignorance’.25 Palladius even exhibited some disdain for excessive ascetic practices, and he regarded them with suspicion. Although he had initially agreed to Isidore’s plan to stay with Dorotheus for three years, he refused to complete his apprenticeship because Dorotheus’ asceticism was so ‘austere and barren’ that he found it repulsive.26 He was equally wary of Abramius the Egyptian monk, who lived a ‘most harsh and wild life’, but who fell prey nonetheless to demonic delusions.27 And as we shall see below, there were many others who suffered a similar downfall despite their strict ascetic discipline. Far more congenial to Palladius was Isidore’s asceticism, which retrained the body without any (p. 130 ) ostentatious practices that might have attracted attention, and which concerned itself instead with virtue and spiritual teaching (διδασκαλία πνευματική).28 The proper goal of praktike was the attainment of apatheia (ἀπάθεια), a state in which one was free from harmful passions, or in which these disruptive, ill‐ordered movements of body and soul have been stilled.29 Palladius believed that a monk who had not attained apatheia remained blinded by his own evil thoughts and passions while reading scripture or praying, the two modes of contemplation by which one acquired knowledge of God.30 Unless apatheia was attained, one laboured in vain and was in grave danger of a gradual, almost imperceptible decline into sin.31 To avoid such a fate, he suggested that the monk must apply his God‐given rational faculty (λόγος) to choose freely and act in a virtuous manner that leads to salvation.32 More will be said about human freedom in the next chapter, but for now it is important to note that Palladius was more concerned with the underlying motive or intent of ascetic practices than with any particular practice per se; for this reason, he exhibited interest in a remarkably wide range of
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practices and he did not prescribe specific ones to his audience. Any were permissible so long as they did not hinder one’s choice (προαίρεσιν) and self‐determination (αὐτεξούσιον).33 From the accounts contained in the HL it is clear that he believed one could be a worthy ascetic whether one lived in a city, monastery, or desert. Even within the desert, living arrangements and ascetic disciplines varied greatly, as was the case on the mountain of Nitria.34 What mattered most was that they were all aimed at the discipline of the body, the overcoming of evil thoughts and their subsequent passions, and finally, the attainment of apatheia. Those who succeeded in this regard were the monks whom he admired most, as for example, Ammonius, of whom Evagrius had once said, ‘οὐδέποτε αὐτου̑ ἀπαθέστερον ἑώρακα ἄνθρωπον.’35 Likewise, he praised Ammoun and his wife, Sarapion Sindonites, Gregory of Nazianzus, John Chrysostom, Elpidius of Jericho, and (p. 131 ) Amma Talis of Antinoë for having attained high degrees of apatheia.36 Apatheia enabled an ascetic to proceed to the next stage of spiritual development, in which he acquired knowledge.37
Natural contemplation and scripture As noted above, Ephraem was depicted as progressing from physical asceticism to natural contemplation (γνω̑σις φυσική) in the course of his ascent to God. Palladius believed that monastic abodes were not simply places of physical exercise, but the equivalent of a philosopher’s school (φροντιστήριον) where knowledge was imparted.38 He indicated that what distinguished the Origenists who fled to Constantinople as exemplary monks was not their strict asceticism, but the time they spent in reading and prayer.39 If he found Dorotheus’ ascetic programme distasteful, it was because it lacked this contemplative dimension. By contrast, he had only praise for Diocles of Antinoë who was ‘most knowledgeable’ (γνωστικώτατος) and given to ‘philosophy’ (φιλοσοφίαν).40 He also extolled Isaac the monk and presbyter as one ‘exceedingly knowledgeable in Scripture’ (γνωστικὸς ἐν Γραφαι̑ς ὑπερβαλλόντως), and he paid tribute to Hierax and the Tall Brothers for being so knowledgeable that nothing in the Scriptures escaped them.41 He devoted one of the longest chapters in the HL to Paphnutios Kephalas because he was capable of interpreting both the Old and New Testaments, even though he had never learned to read.42 Palladius also boasted that Ammonius, Didymus the Blind, Serapion Sindonites, a young ascetic named Mark, and a second Isaac, who had also fled to Constantinople, had memorized the scriptures in their entirety.43 (p. 132 ) Natural contemplation was rooted in the study of scripture. Palladius and his colleagues eagerly read the scriptural commentaries of Clement, Origen, and their contemporary Didymus the Blind, whom he visited four times and whom he praised as one who ‘interpreted the Old and the New Testaments word by word, having such regard for doctrine and expounding his explanation so skilfully and firmly, that he surpassed all the ancients in knowledge’.44 Palladius fondly remembered how an elderly virgin of Antinoë had bequeathed to him ‘a composition of Clement the Stromatist on the prophet Amos’.45 He claimed that his friend Ammonius ‘knew by heart 6,000,000 verses of the highly reputable writings of Origen, Didymus, Pierius, and Stephen’.46 Equally breathtaking was the accomplishment of Melania the Elder, who ‘was most erudite and fond of literature, and she turned night into day going through every writing of the ancient commentators—three million lines of Origen, and two and a half million lines of Gregory, Stephen, Pierius, Basil and other worthy men’.47 More remarkable still, she read through each of these works seven or eight times. Her study distinguished her and granted her a prominent place among the countless ascetics that filled the pages of his History. Palladius writes that ‘thanks to those books…[she was] liberated from knowledge falsely so called’, and was ‘mount[ed] on wings…[and transformed] into a spiritual bird’ that made the ‘journey to Christ’.48 In his own reading of scripture, Palladius exhibited a remarkable degree of familiarity with Origen’s work and method. As Origen had done, he signalled many of his non‐literal interpretations with the verb αἰνίσσομαι, that is, ‘to intimate’ or ‘to shadow forth’, which often (but not always) introduced a spiritual or moral interpretation of the text.49 For example, when Palladius listed the evil thoughts that assail the monk, discussed above, he borrowed the scriptural image of Satan sifting sinners in Luke 22.31–2 and posited that the sieve’s holes ‘intimated’ the pleasures or pains of this world by which sinners fell.50 He did (p. 133 ) the same when explaining the lengthy passage from Ezekiel that speaks of the priesthood’s corruption, and which he used to castigate the clerics of Constantinople who were responsible for John’s eviction.51 When citing Ezekiel 8.12, ‘Then he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, in their secret bedchamber,” ’ he suggested that the secret bedchamber is an intimation of an unclean mind.52 Similarly, the ‘clouds without water’ and ‘wandering stars’ of Jude 12–13 should be applied to John’s enemies, because when Jude ‘called them “clouds without water”, he intimated their evil hail, which is so destructive of the vine. By “wandering star” he was alluding to the enemy of the
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ship. Now the ship and the vine are the church.’ 53 Of course, there are also uses of αἰνίσσομαι that simply mean ‘revealing’, ‘demonstrating’, or ‘indicating’, and which have no explicit theological, spiritual, or moral content, and one could also argue that his spiritual interpretations are not of the same quality as Origen’s.54 Nevertheless, there are instances in which Palladius interpreted spiritually various historical narratives of scripture, as in the case of Ezekiel 9.2–6, which describes the desolation of Jerusalem. He argued that the passage referred not only to the destruction of the city by the Babylonians, and to its later destruction by the Romans during the reign of Vespasian, but also to the spiritual punishment that visits sinners now or awaits them in the future. He justified this interpretation on the basis of 1 Corinthians 10.11, the locus classicus for Origen’s justification of typological and allegorical interpretation.55 Not surprisingly, some of his interpretative moves were very similar to Origen’s. For example, at the beginning of the Dialogue, the elderly bishop was depicted as anxious to begin narrating his account of the Johnite controversy. At one point he exclaims, ‘the spirit of my belly constrains me’, quoting the Septuagint version of Job 32.18, in which Elihu was similarly portrayed as champing at the bit to speak. Palladius maintained that ‘belly’ intimated ‘the mind filled with words’.56 This rather odd image echoes what Origen once said when commenting on the same passage. He posited, (p. 134 ) As it happens with a pregnant woman who—once the child that is to be born of her has developed —comes to labour pains until she gives birth to what she has conceived, so something similar occurs in the case of the soul that loves learning. For the soul conceives the word—which it shapes into speech and forms in an appropriate manner—and when it hands it over in completed form (after the shaping and forming), then it gives birth. And until it does so it is weighed down by labour pains.57 The elderly bishop of the Dialogue mirrors Palladius’ own condition, because he had suffered much on account of John, and he had a long period of time in which to form his ideas and words on John’s behalf. These now burdened him and compelled him to speak.58 Palladius also demonstrated several times that he was familiar with the minutiae of Origen’s work. Consider his use of Jeremiah 9.21, which is drawn from a passage speaking of the desolation of Zion, and which exhorts, ‘Hear, O women, the word of the Lord, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth; teach to your daughters a lament, and each to her neighbour a dirge’ (v. 20). ‘For death has come up into our windows, it has entered our palaces, cutting off the children from the streets and the young men from the squares’ (v. 21). The elderly bishop cautions the deacon Theodore to beware of evil, and to admit only what is good and true into his conscience, in this case, his own particular account of John’s affair.59 He asserts that God designed human anatomy as a reminder that the physical senses must guard the interior man from whatever might be morally destructive. The ears, for example, were bored ‘spiralwise, intimating by this shape that words do not enter too quickly, so that going in more slowly the matter of falsehood along with the filth of evil might be more easily rejected and so left behind’.60 Likewise, God ‘placed curtains ahead of the pupils of the eye as though they were doors so they would not accept deadly concupiscence. For the prophet gave witness to this when he said, “Death came up through the windows (Jer. 9.21).” ’61 According to Palladius, death is the vice or passion that enters the soul through the unguarded eyes, which are symbolized here by windows, even though there is little or nothing at all to suggest this in the original passage and its literary context, let alone its historical context. (p. 135 ) This interpretation of the text was probably suggested to him by Origen, who had come to a similar conclusion when commenting on Song of Solomon 2.9, ‘My beloved is like a gazelle, or a young stag. Behold, there he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice.’ Origen wrote, We can perceive these windows to be our corporeal senses, through which either life or death enters the soul, for the prophet Jeremiah designates them as such when he discusses sinners, saying, ‘Death came up through the windows.’ How does death come up through the windows? When the eyes of a sinner ‘look at a woman with concupiscence’; for since he who regards a woman in this way has ‘committed adultery with her in his heart’, so death enters the soul through the windows of the eyes.62 Origen identified death entering through the windows with concupiscence entering through the eyes. The Song of Solomon 2.9, with its reference to windows, bridges the otherwise obscure connection with concupiscence and eyes
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that both he and Palladius make with Jeremiah 9.21. That Palladius was inspired by this commentary is also suggested by Origen’s comment on the ears, which he also likened to windows, for, ‘when a person hears some piece of vanity, and especially the vanity of the false knowledge of perverted teachings, then death enters that soul through the windows of the ears’.63 Although Jeremiah 9.21 makes no mention of either eyes, ears, or concupiscence, they are essential elements to the interpretations of both Origen and Palladius. In a similar manner, Palladius shared with Origen a particular interpretation of the barley loaves that are mentioned in John 6.9, in which the barley signified either lack of faith or even wickedness.64 The interpretation arises in the course of the argument that justified Olympias for the care and hospitality that she extended to the expelled monks. The bishop in the Dialogue argues that she was right to care for them even if the monks were indeed heretics as Theophilus had maintained and did not deserve her beneficence, on the basis that the Lord himself had granted favours and miracles to wicked people as when he fed the multitudes with the barley loaves. The gospel text, of course, (p. 136 ) says nothing about the morality of the people who had gathered, but the bishop argues that the barley signified precisely this: why else would Jesus have fed them coarse barley loaves if they were good (διὰ τὶ οὐ̑ν κριθίνοις ἐτράφησαν, καλοὶ ὄντες;), rather than more refined wheat bread?65 The deacon suggests that wheat bread may have been unavailable and that the people were hungry (διὰ σπάνην ἴσως πυρίνων καὶ λιμόν), but he is reproved for being naïve. Jesus had reprimanded the multitude when they came to him a second time, accusing them of coming simply for the sake of free food and indicating by this that they were indeed bad.66 As we have seen already in Chapter 3, the bishop ultimately argues that Olympias was especially justified in light of the holiness of the monks in question, but what concerns us here is the inference of the barley. Origen had suggested a very similar interpretation of the barley in John 6.9 in his Commentary on Matthew. Commenting upon Matthew 14.14–21, he wrote, It must be observed, however, that in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the disciples say they have five loaves and two fish without indicating whether the loaves were of wheat or barley; only John says that the loaves were barley loaves, which is why, perhaps, the disciples do not acknowledge that the loaves are with them in John’s gospel, but according to him say that, ‘There is a young boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.’67 The disciples do not admit to owning the barley loaves, because such loaves would have been unworthy of them. Barley was appropriate for the unbelieving masses. This is clarified just a little later in the same commentary when Origen interpreted the second feeding of the multitude, in Matthew 15.32–8. Origen argued there that the second multitude mentioned in the Matthew account was more spiritual than the first. He wrote: Turning my attention, therefore, to the difference between what was written in the various places in regard to the loaves, I think that these [viz. the second multitude fed with wheat loaves] are of a different order than those [viz. the first multitude fed with barley loaves]; that is why these are fed on a mountain, but those in a desert place, and why these remained with Jesus for three days, but those one day, on the evening of which they were fed. Also, if it is not the same thing for Jesus to act on his own as it is to act after having heard from his disciples, see if they are not different who received (p. 137 ) Jesus’ benefaction when he fed them, acting benevolently of his own accord. And if according to John they were barley loaves, of which the twelve baskets remained, but nothing of the sort is said about these, how are these not better than the former [emphasis mine]?68 Jesus distributed barley loaves to those who had been with him for a day in the desert at the prompting of his disciples. It appears that Origen saw the desert as a symbol for the sterility of their faith or as an allusion to the wandering of the Hebrews in the desert and their murmuring against God in disbelief. The imperfect faith of the multitude was further demonstrated by its inability to stay with Jesus for more than a single day. By contrast, the other group exerted an effort to be with Jesus by climbing a mountain, and it remained with him for three days, for which reason Jesus was solicitous for their welfare of his own accord. To these virtuous ones, he distributed loaves of wheat bread. That the barley signified weak and impure faith was also suggested to Origen by the distinction drawn between barley and wheat in Jeremiah 23.28.69 Only in light of Origen’s commentaries do Palladius’ remarks concerning the barley make sense. Origen’s exegesis also helps explain the inspiration of a passing comment that Palladius made in his discussion of
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the Johnite schism in Antioch.70 Palladius described Constantius, a presbyter of Antioch, as ‘ambidextrous’, a term to which he lends many positive connotations, but without explaining at length why or how. Palladius argued that Constantius should have succeeded Bishop Flavian, and he was outraged that the worthless, vice‐ridden Porphyrius had outmanoeuvred him to that position, and that he had done so with the aid of three of John’s chief opponents, Acacius, Severianus, and Antiochus. He claimed that despite Porphyrius’ long career in the Antiochene church, he had a reputation for extortion, embezzlement, and debauchery.71 He described Constantius, however, as a model presbyter (as well as a trusted friend of John), and ‘a man whom Judges calls “ambidextrous”, for what is commonly (p. 138 ) called the left hand was in his case more skilful than the right hand of others’.72 This was a reference to Judges 3.15 (LXX), ‘And the sons of Israel cried out to the Lord, and the Lord raised up for them a deliverer, Aod son of Gera son of Iemeni, an ambidextrous man.’73 The meaning of this statement, however, becomes clear only gradually, as he claimed that, [Constantius] was meek if ever a man was, ascetic in his habits, had discernment of vision and sharpness of intellect, was reluctant to chastise, conscientious, ever able to draw inferences by reflection. He was merciful, not a lover of money, just in his judgments, long‐suffering under stress, vigorous in persuasion. He often fasted until evening, so that he might free those who were oppressed with suffering.74 In short, he was the most virtuous and spiritual of men. But how was any of this implied by the designation ἀμφοτεροδέξιος? Once again, we turn to Origen. By definition, one who is ambidextrous has two right hands and lacks a left hand, and Origen derived the significance of right or left from Matthew 25.31–46, a parable of the Last Judgment in which the saved are placed to the right side of the judge, and the damned are placed to the left. From this he inferred the meaning of ambidextrous. He wrote, Behold, such is he who is raised for the saving of Israel! He has nothing in him that is sinister [i.e. relating to the left], but each hand is of the right; such therefore is he who is called ambidextrous. He is a truly worthy leader of the people and judge of the church who does nothing sinister [i.e. relating to the left], of whom it can be said, ‘that which the right does, the left is ignorant of’; he is right in every way, right in faith and right in actions, having nothing of those of who are gathered ‘on the left’ to whom it was said, ‘depart from me, you workers of iniquity, I do not know you; go into the eternal fire God prepared for Zabulus and his angels.’ 75 The ambidextrous man was impeccable in character and conduct, and he possessed all the qualities befitting a good secular or ecclesiastical ruler. This (p. 139 ) is precisely the meaning that Palladius had intended when he characterized Constantius as ambidextrous, and when he claimed that he should have been elected bishop of Antioch. There is similar evidence suggesting that Palladius had also incorporated Evagrius’ exegetical insights. Such is the case in his peculiar description of two monks who became deluded as a result of their vainglory and pride. In the first instance, Palladius reported that the monk Ptolemy had become estranged from the teaching and company of holy men and their help (ὃς ἀποξενωθεὶς διδασκαλίας καὶ συντυχίας ἀνδρω̑ν ὁσίων καὶ ὠφελείας), and from the continual communion of the mysteries. He reached such a pitch of nonsense as to say that these things are nothing. Report has it that he is borne about Egypt suspended aloft in his pride and has given himself over to gluttony and winebibbing, setting no good example to anyone. Now this Ptolemy suffered misfortune because of his irrational conceit; as Holy Writ has it: ‘they who have no direction fall like leaves (Prov. 11.4, LXX)’.76 According to Evagrius, Proverbs 11.4 referred to those who were ‘tossed about by every wind of teaching and who shipwreck their faith’ (Παντὶ ἀνέμῳ τη̑ς διδασκαλίας περιφερόμενοι καὶ ναυαγου̑ντες περὶ τὴν πίστιν), a description that matched Ptolemy well.77 In the second instance, Palladius reported that while he was staying in Antinoë he met an anchorite who suffered from the same delusion and spiritual malady of conceit as this Ptolemy, even though he had not surrendered himself in the same way to food and drink. Nevertheless,
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He was deluded in dreams by the madness of vainglory; then he mocked those who were themselves deceived, thus herding the winds (ἀντέπαιζε τοὺς ἀπατωμένους, ἀνέμους ποιμαίνων). Yet he held his body in check, both because of his age and the season, perhaps also because of his vainglory. However, his thinking powers were utterly deranged by the great evil of vainglory.78 The obscure phrase ‘herding the winds’ (ἀνέμους ποιμαίνων) is an allusion to Proverbs 9.12a (Septuagint), which reads, ‘He who supports himself with lies will as well herd winds’ (ὃς ἐρείδεται ἐπὶ ψεύδεσιν, οὑ̑τος ποιμανει̑ ἀνέμους). It is plausible that Palladius implied that mocking deluded monks was as futile or pointless as attempting to herd wind, but a certain scholium of Evagrius makes more sense out of it. According to Evagrius, Proverbs 9.12a referred to those who were ‘tossed about by every wind of teaching and who shipwreck their faith’ (Παντὶ ἀνέμῳ τη̑ς διδασκαλίας περιφερόμενοι καὶ ναυαγου̑ντες περὶ τὴν πίστιν).79 This was precisely the same interpretation that he had lent to (p. 140 ) Proverbs 11.14, which Palladius had also used to describe a delusional monk. These two passages are very different from one another, inasmuch as one concerns a fool who lacks direction and the other concerns a fool who lies. Nevertheless, both Evagrius and Palladius applied them in similar circumstances and with similar intent. Other examples of such indebtedness can be found even within material governed by the strict parameters established by stasis rhetorical theory. As noted in Chapter 3, the Dialogue's final arguments required that Palladius manipulate verbal instruments (in this case, the scriptures) in John's defence. In one of these arguments, Palladius had to respond to the accusation that, at the very least, John was incompetent in his dealings with the imperial court. His accusers argued that he failed to meet the criteria of scripture established in Proverbs 25.6, which warned, ‘Do not boast in front of the king, and do not linger in the places of rulers’ (μὴ ἀλαζονεύου ἐνώπιον βασιλέως μηδὲ ἐν τόποις δυναστω̑ν ὑφίστασο). Palladius turned the passage against his opponents, claiming that the ‘rulers’ (δυνάσται) mentioned in this passage were not the members of the imperial court, but the apostles, and that instead it accused John's enemies of failing to meet the standards of the scriptural law, because they had wrongfully set themselves in the place of the apostles’ successors, the clergy who ruled the church.80 He employed the argument of letter and intent as prescribed by stasis theory, but he did so in a way that harmonized with his Alexandrian exegetical tradition. Origen had also suggested that spiritual, rather than secular, ‘rulers’ were intended by Proverbs, when he commented on Proverbs 31.4–5, a passage that exhorted, ‘Do everything with counsel; drink wine with counsel. Those in power are wrathful, but let them not drink wine, lest they drink wine and forget wisdom, and will not be able to judge the powerless rightly.’81 Origen claimed that ‘Here it addresses as “those in power” the righteous, those who have rule (which he calls “wrath”) over the demons and the passions.’82 A similar interpretation of ‘those in power’ as the spiritually advanced can also be found in Evagrius’ scholia.83 It is true that all these examples are few and that there are even instances in which Palladius’ interpretations were at odds with those of Origen.84 (p. 141 ) Considered, however, in the context of the different genres in which they wrote, and the different aims of their respective works, the similarities between them are striking. Palladius was neither a catechist, like Origen, nor a spiritual guide to other ascetics, like Evagrius; rather, he wrote his Dialogue as an advocate in defence of John, and he composed the HL as a popular religious diegesis for his patron. Nevertheless, he clearly demonstrated in both of these that he was well versed in the details of both Origen’s and Evagrius’ exegesis. Yet such intellectual exercise was but another stepping stone to the ultimate goal of theologia. Just as he believed that ascetic discipline was a prerequisite of scriptural study, he viewed the natural contemplation made possible by the scriptures as an aid to training the mind to ascend still higher in prayer.
Theologia For Palladius, the highest level of contemplation went beyond natural contemplation and scripture to theologia, knowledge of God attained in a direct encounter, which occurred in the non‐verbal forms of prayer that Palladius learned from his master Evagrius.85 It was probably this kind of prayer to which he alluded when he spoke of Isidore the Hospitaller, as having ‘such a profound knowledge of scripture and the divine doctrines that even at the mealtime of brethren he would fall into an intellectual trance and become silent’.86 When he was asked by his disciples to describe his ecstatic experiences, he would simply say, ‘I went away in thought, snatched up by a contemplation.’ 87 Palladius did not refer explicitly in either the Dialogue or the HL to the contemplation of incorporeals, which was for Evagrius an (p. 142 ) intermediate stage between the contemplation of nature and knowledge of God. It is possible that Palladius did not have as highly developed a schema as Evagrius in this respect, but it is equally possible that the
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genre in which he wrote did not permit the nuance and details that such a discussion would have required. In any event, Palladius’ references to contemplation refer mostly to the highest or ultimate experience available to the ascetic. Palladius believed that the mind must be trained to persevere in prayer and remain with God in thought at all times. This was the virtue of unceasing prayer (ἀδιάλειπτος προσευχή), a virtue which he claimed his master Evagrius had possessed.88 Unceasing prayer was enjoined by 1 Thessalonians 5.17 and Luke 18.1, and it was an ideal to which many ascetics aspired. Evagrius accepted these scriptural injunctions quite literally, despite his penchant for allegory. He posited that the mind had this particular capacity for unceasing prayer, because it was an activity that was indeed proper to it; in fact, this capacity for unceasing prayer was the most attractive quality of the mind, and it distinguished the mind from the body, because the body could never engage in any of its own proper activities (such as work or fasting) without the necessary respite.89 Evagrius may have learned unceasing prayer from Macarius of Egypt, one of his desert spiritual fathers, who according to Palladius, ‘was said to be in continual ecstasy (ἐλέγετο γὰρ ἀδιαλείπτως ἐξίστασθαι)… [and] occupied himself much more with God than with earthly things’.90 Palladius, however, spoke less about unceasing, formal prayer such as that which Evagrius prescribed, and more about the persevering in holy thoughts and sincere prayer, perhaps in an attempt to offer a practicable method of prayer to his intended audience in the imperial court. While living in Antinoë Palladius met Diocles, who insisted that one must persevere in his thoughts of God, because a ‘mind divorced from the thought of God becomes either a beast or a demon’.91 When he challenged Diocles and asked how it was possible that a human mind could be unceasingly with God (ἀδιαλείπτως εἶναι…μετὰ θεου̑), Diocles responded that ‘whenever the soul is concerned with a thought or deed that is pious and godlike, then it is with God’.92 If (p. 143 ) Palladius did not advocate that the mind be constantly in actual or formal prayer, he argued that it must be applied constantly towards virtuous thoughts. This was the special quality of a nun who feigned madness at the Tabennesi monastery. The renowned ascetic Piterum had been directed to her by an angel that wished to teach him a lesson in humility. He was told by the angel that the woman was greater than he, because, ‘while being cuffed about by such a crowd, she has never taken her heart off God’ (τὴν καρδίαν αὐτη̑ς οὐδέποτε ἀπέστησε του̑ θεου̑), whereas he dwelled in the desert, but ‘wander[ed] about cities in [his] mind’.93 The story of Paul, a monk of Pherme in Egypt, also suggests that Palladius was less interested in promoting lengthy prayer than in promoting prayer that was more sincere.94 Paul was said to have ‘engaged in no work or business’, and that ‘his work and asceticism was to pray unceasingly (ἔργον δὲ αὐτῳ̑ καὶ ἄσκησις γέγονε τὸ ἀδιαλείπτως προσεύχεσθαι). For he knew three hundred prayers by heart, and he would collect that many pebbles, hold them in his lap, and at each prayer cast out a pebble.’95 One day he approached Macarius of Alexandria, and cried, ‘Abba, I am afflicted!’ Paul had learned of a virgin living in a certain town who recited seven hundred prayers a day, and he had become dejected by the realization that this was more than twice as long as his own prayer routine. Macarius, who was a close acquaintance of Palladius and probably reported this story to him, recognized that Paul suffered from arrogance, and offered himself to Paul as an example for comparison. He replied that in his own devotions, he recited only one hundred prayers a day, despite his advanced age and reputation as an elder, and yet his conscience was at ease. He then said, ‘if you say three hundred prayers and your conscience bothers you, it is clear that you do not pray them purely (καθαρω̑ς), or else you could say more and do not’.96 Praying at length may have been important, but praying well or purely (καθαρω̑ς) was paramount. Pure prayer required that the ascetic set aside his own limited concepts of God and Palladius would have been well versed in such prayer, having learned it from his teacher of nine years. According to Evagrius, ‘you cannot practise pure prayer while entangled in material things and agitated by continuous concerns, for prayer is the laying aside of mental representations’.97 Pure (p. 144 ) prayer, therefore, was the sincerest prayer possible, because one prayed without any intervening distraction or human thought.98 Although Palladius did not offer explicit directions or prescriptions, he offered his audience several cautionary tales of bad prayer and its consequences. In each instance, pride and arrogance corrupted the ascetic's prayer, and grave spiritual harm resulted. Valens was a monk who had come to the Egyptian desert from Palestine.99 He was an arrogant man who had an innate ability to cope with the rigours of eremitic life, and rather than be humbled by his desert experience, he grew proud and became deluded by demons. One night he was weaving a basket in the darkness of his cell and he dropped his needle As he groped around his cell a demon took advantage of the situation and provided for him a lamp which 22.1.2012 20:08
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revealed the needle. Valens was elated at its miraculous discovery and he reckoned himself a great ascetic. He soon began exhibiting overtly anti‐social behaviour, by abstaining from communion of the Eucharist and coming into open conflict with Macarius of Alexandria, whose small gift of pastry Valens had rejected as a sign that he was no longer subordinate to him. Macarius came to meet with Valens personally to warn him that he was being manipulated by demons, but he took no heed. A demon then appeared to Valens in a night vision in the shape of Christ, surrounded by a thousand angels carrying lamps and encircled by a fiery wheel (cf. Ezekiel 10.6–19). One of the angels stepped forward and declared to him: ‘Christ has been pleased with your manner and boldness of life and has come to see you. Step out of your cell, and do nothing but behold him from afar, stoop down and worship him.’100 Valens dutifully emerged from his cell, and fell down and worshipped the vision. Raised to the heights of arrogance, he entered the church on the next day, and declared before all, ‘I have no need of communion, for I have seen Christ today.’101 His pride, arrogance, and hubris led to separation from the community. The community, however, healed him of his self‐conceit (οἴημα)102 by summarily apprehending him, sequestering him for a year, and forcing him to live less ascetically. (p. 145 ) Still more tragic was the example of Eucarpius, whose account is preserved only in the Syriac Lausiac History, which René Draguet proved to be evidence of a lost, original Greek recension.103 Eucarpius was not an ascetic parvenu like Valens, but a respected monk who had struggled quietly in the confines of his cell for eighteen years. He ate very sparingly, and had spoken to no one for fifteen years, communicating only by passing short notes. He began to separate himself ‘from communion and association with the brothers’, and ‘he devoted himself entirely to constant prayer’.104 Unfortunately, on account of this activity, he subsequently ‘exalted himself’ and ‘became proud in spirit’, and he thought that ‘he had become perfect’, and that ‘he saw God continually in his spirit because of his purity of heart’.105 In his pride, he believed that he saw Christ in a vision. Palladius wrote that: ‘One night Satan appeared to him in the form of an angel of light and said to him: “It is I who am the Christ.” Eucarpius, then, when he saw him, thought that the vision was true. He fell down, and worshipped him.’106 Eucarpius was told that he had acquired perfection, and that he had been appointed the new leader of Scetis with the mandate to establish there a new ascetic discipline. He was to instruct the monks that they should ‘not busy themselves with reading the scriptures and with the office of the Psalms, not to toil with bodily labours, not to wear themselves out with hunger, thirst, and fasting’. He was to promise them a much faster route to spiritual perfection. He was told, ‘Instead, teach [the brethren] to toil with the labours of the soul so that they may quickly be able to ascend to the highest rank and constantly behold me in their minds, and I will show them my glory.’107 Whereas Palladius and his associates believed that the monk must purify his body and mind with physical and contemplative ascetic practices before attempting the highest forms of prayer, Eucarpius proposed abandoning the lower levels of asceticism—that is, physical asceticism, petitionary prayers, and meditation upon the scriptures—for an enticingly more direct route. ‘Eucarpius, then, exalted himself still more and became proud in spirit. He was convinced and believed in the Deceiver's lie, for his reason was taken away from him; and his mind was deranged as soon as he worshipped the Adversary.’108 (p. 146 ) The next day Eucarpius marched into the church where the monks were assembled and challenged the spiritual authority of John the Little, who at the time was instructing other brethren, by speaking to him with ‘pride and evil anger’, saying, ‘Why do you adorn yourself and sit like a harlot to multiply your lovers? Or who has commanded you to direct the brothers, while I am the leader?’ The monks were shocked and perplexed, but it soon became clear that he had been beguiled by the wiles of Satan who had convinced him that he alone could teach others how to ascend ‘to the highest ranks of the glorious vision’.109 He also rejected the authority of both Macarius of Alexandria, whom he called ‘an ornamented idol, that those who had strayed worshipped, since he did not know how to lead the brothers to heavenly things’, and of Evagrius, whom he called a ‘sculptor of words, causing the brothers to stray after his writings and stopping them from spiritual exercise’.110 According to Palladius, Eucarpius suffered a devastating spiritual fall ‘because he reviled and despised the brothers through his pride and boasting, and because he was unwilling to meditate on the Holy Scriptures and the teaching of the fathers’.111 He was ultimately ‘healed of his pride’ just as Valens, by being sequestered by the brethren and forced to live a more humble existence, in which he ministered to the sick and washed the feet of strangers.112 A similar account is related of Abramius, an Egyptian who lived in the Palestinian desert. He also suffered from conceit (οἴησις) and marched into the church challenging the authority of the presbyters and demanding that he be 22.1.2012 20:08
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recognized as a spiritual leader, on the basis of a vision that he saw, presumably during prayer. ‘I was ordained priest just this past night by Christ; now allow me to perform the functions of a priest.’113 He was removed from the desert by the other monks, who ‘brought him to a less ascetic and less exacting way of life, and they cured him of his arrogance (ὑπερηφανία) by bringing him, who had been the sport of demons, to a knowledge of his own weakness’.114 These accounts stand in stark contrast to Palladius’ depictions of Macarius of Alexandria, whose authority both Valens and Eucarpius had rejected, and who understood the significance of praying purely and without visions. Palladius writes that Macarius once wanted to keep his ‘mind (νου̑ς) fixed upon God without any distractions for the space of five days’, but that he was unable and had to descend again to the contemplation of the world (p. 147 ) (εἰς θεωρίαν του̑ κόσμου).115 Praying without distractions was how Evagrius had described imageless prayer; the descent to contemplation of the world suggests a return to the reading of scripture, which reveals the origin, purpose, and nature of creation.116 That Macarius had been praying in this episode without human words or concepts was emphasized by some of the Greek manuscripts of the HL which added ‘καὶ μηδὲν ἄλλο τι ὅλως ἐννοη̑σαι’, and by one Syriac version, which added ‘being above all cares and thoughts of creation’.117 Such prayer required Herculean effort, and he could not sustain the effort for five days without being threatened by visions. Unlike Eucarpius or Valens, however, Macarius recognized these visions as demonic and accepted his personal limitations, returning to the contemplation of the world so that he might not fall into the sin of arrogance.118 Praying purely thus required praying with humility, of which the lack of images was proof. Images during prayer were symptomatic of the more pernicious underlying problems of vainglory and pride. In fact, the stories of Valens and Eucarpius were just two among several others that explained why ascetics might sin so egregiously after exercising spiritual discipline in the desert for so many years. Heron, Ptolemy, and an unnamed, immured virgin were other examples of how vainglory, conceit, elation, or pride could ruin ascetics and sever them from social and liturgical communion with other monks.119 In each case, communion was re‐established only after they were healed of their pride. We shall see in Chapter 6 that vainglory and pride were also central to Palladius’ discussion of human freedom in HL 47. (p. 148 ) Palladius’ HL suggests that Evagrius’ prohibitions against images also stemmed in part from a concern about the corrosive effects of pride and vainglory, which he believed distorted the mental faculties (φρένα) and led the ascetic away from the worship of God to the worship of idols. He wrote that ‘When the heart resounds with the glory of the thoughts and there is no resistance’, that is, when the mind is engaged in concepts rather than imageless prayer, a monk will not escape madness in the secret of his mental faculties, for his ruling faculty risks being shaken loose from its senses, either through dreams which are given credence, or through forms that take shape during vigils, or through visions seen in a change of light. For ‘Satan himself takes on the form of an angel of light’ (2 Cor. 11.14) to deceive us.120 This passage helps explain why Valens and Eucarpius became deluded. Evagrius had warned that one should ‘hold no desire to see angels or powers or Christ with the senses, lest you go completely insane, taking a wolf to be the shepherd and worshipping your enemies the demons’.121 He explicitly attributed this downfall to vainglory (κενοδοξία), because it is the source of all mental errors, and ‘when the mind is moved thereby, it makes attempts at circumscribing the divine in forms and figures’.122 That is, pride and vainglory create idols of one’s mental constructs, and humility is the only safeguard against such a move. Whereas vainglory and pride render the ascetic the plaything of repulsive and abhorrent demons, humility engenders communion with the brethren. Of the seven beatitudes that Evagrius wrote for the practitioners of imageless prayer, the last two extolled the wonders of true communion with one’s neighbour, declaring as blessed the monk who ‘in all joy looks with pleasure upon the salvation and progress of all as he would his own’, and who ‘considers all people as God after God’.123 These were followed by additional sayings that reinforced the importance of communion with others, describing the true monk as one who ‘is separated from all and united with all’,124 and who ‘esteems himself as one with all people because he ever believes he sees himself in each person’.125 Humility engenders love for others and binds monks together in spiritual union. The quality of one’s prayer, therefore, was directly proportionate to the degree of one’s humility. This was the (p. 149 ) message of the parable of the publican and the Pharisee, which 11 of 23
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Jesus told ‘to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and who despised others’, and which he concluded by saying ‘for every one who exalts himself will be humbled (ταπεινωθήσεται), but he who humbles (ταπεινω̑ν) himself will be exalted’.126 For this reason, Evagrius urged the ascetic to pray only when ‘clothed with fitting modesty and humility’.127 Palladius illustrated this principle in his description of Macarius of Alexandria, and its converse in his accounts of Valens and Eucarpius. This reading of Palladius casts a shadow of doubt on one prevailing interpretation of imageless prayer as a radical iconoclasm. It has been argued by Elizabeth A. Clark that Evagrius’ promulgation of imageless prayer was evidence of his depreciation of material creation and his belief that it obstructed knowledge of God.128 In her view, all images obscure the vision of God, not only sinful ones, but even simple images or thoughts that were the natural consequence of inhabiting a visible and intelligible creation. She suggested that enduring pagan influences in Egypt may have also sharpened the criticism against images voiced by Evagrius.129 According to this argument, injunctions against images in prayer may have been part of an anti‐pagan campaign eradicating the last vestiges of idolatry, including the Eucharist, which she argued had little or no significance for Evagrius or his system of imageless prayer.130 Her argument resonated with similar arguments that had been proposed by others that the first Origenist or Anthropomorphite controversy was not about whether God exists in human form, but whether the human body truly participates in God's image.131 These all shared the common assumption that Origenists of the fourth century shared a certain pessimism regarding history, material creation, and the human body.132 The (p. 150 ) Syriac recension of Evagrius’ Chapters of Knowledge133 and his Great Letter, both of which were recovered in the twentieth century, appeared to confirm these views.134 In both of these texts, Evagrius presented rational creation as originally existing in an ideal, bodiless state that permitted direct knowledge of God, and whose sin consisted in rejecting or turning from this knowledge of God, which he described as a fall into the present, embodied condition.135 The degree of one’s fall determined the nature of one’s body and its resulting angelic, human, or demonic condition. Additionally, Evagrius believed that the goal of the rational creature was to return to its original condition, which he likened to a naked mind. In the final age all naked minds were to return to God as torrents return to the sea, such that they would become indistinguishable not only from one another, but even from God, the utterly simple monad with whom they had been united. From this vantage point, imageless prayer also appears to be something of a realized eschatology. Such language could easily be interpreted as evidence of a radical iconoclasm were one to ignore Evagrius’ sayings on providence and natural contemplation. Palladius, however, corroborates newer readings of Evagrius that suggest he had a very robust appreciation for physical and material creation.136 Valens (p. 151 ) and Eucarpius succumbed to the worship of an image because their vainglory and pride had obstructed true communion with God. One may conclude that imageless prayer was not a rejection of material creation and the human body, but a sign of humility and the mark of a true encounter with God. Humility was the final virtue acquired by ascetic practice and its presence was proof that one had achieved perfect apatheia.137 Humility and apatheia were not the equivalent of self‐flagellation or self‐debasement: rather they constituted points of entry to pure love and true knowledge, and therefore, self‐fulfilment and exaltation. Humility resulted in apatheia, which in turn engendered love, and both were required for the acquisition of knowledge as discussed above.138 Love propelled an ascetic through ever higher strata of knowledge and intelligibility and finally to union with God.139 Once the monk had reached the limits of intelligibility via his capacity for love and humility, he would be brought by grace before the Holy Trinity in both amazement and silence, and the knowledge of God would be revealed to him as a brilliant sun.140 By being humble, therefore, the monk was paradoxically elevated to an utterly transcendent, uncreated sphere of reality, where he encountered God revealed as Trinity. Yet this encounter with God was not a mechanical process produced by either humility, or apatheia, or love. These were merely the preconditions that made such encounters possible.141 Imageless prayer, therefore, was a signpost of these virtues, a marker that one was truly receptive to divine life. In one instance Evagrius even states that imageless prayer was not the equivalent of pure prayer, but its frontier,142 upon which he exhorted the monk to stand guard, so that he might be visited by God and ‘receive the most glorious gift of prayer’.143 If pure prayer prefigured the eschaton, it was not only because it temporarily cast off the body and purged images from the mind, but because it was also pure receptivity to divine life. Thus imageless prayer was not an end unto itself: rather it was a means to the greater goal of an encounter with God, who ultimately must ‘collaborate with him [viz. the monk praying without images] and (p. 152 ) breathe into him the connatural light’.144 This connatural light was a visitation of the Holy Trinity itself, which ‘comes in the time of prayer’.145 In
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one instance this encounter with God was described as the companionship of God on a journey.146 In the experience of Evagrius and Palladius, vainglory and pride did not permit the mind to become a receptacle of grace, neither did they permit God to visit a monk, or to accompany him on a journey. Rather they, and other related vices such as conceit (οἴησιν),147 spurred the mind to localize the Divinity and the form of God.148 They did not engage in imageless prayer because they deprecated materiality, but because they feared the sin of idolatry. In this respect, imageless prayer was thoroughly biblical. It is true that Origen and Evagrius used metaphors that appear to denigrate creation or the human body, but that does not necessitate an underlying radical iconoclasm. First, it must be remembered that similar language could be found among other eminent, and canonical, theologians of the first four centuries. Gregory of Nazianzus, for example, who both ordained Evagrius and mentored him in Constantinople, spoke of the soul as seeking to rid itself of the entanglements of the senses,149 and identified the image of God in man with his ‘noetic soul’ without necessarily referring to the body.150 He also suggested that delusion was the result of sporting with images,151 and he likened the eschatological union with God as that of small lights encircling a great light—an image that suggests as indistinguishable a unity among multiple subjects as the image of fresh waters returning to the sea.152 Second, despite Evagrius’ limited and cryptic references to the Eucharist, both he and Palladius valued it greatly and they attributed to it a significant role in their spiritual programmes.153 Third, recent scholarship has suggested that the (p. 153 ) practice of imaging God in prayer may have remained a Christian practice in Egypt through the fourth century, thus suggesting yet another reason why a Nicene Christian such as Evagrius would have promulgated imageless prayer.154 Finally, Evagrius expressed a profound reverence for creation and incorporated it into his programme of contemplation and noetic ascent, albeit not in a way that would be approved by subsequent councils. It is no wonder that imageless prayer, far from necessitating an ‘iconoclastic’ theology, proved itself very amenable to the highly symbolic and iconic tradition of the later Byzantine period.155 Palladius’ anecdotes confirm that anthropological pessimism was not at the root of his spiritual programme. Imageless prayer must be understood within the context of a monk’s spiritual progress, which was nothing less than a journey to God, to paraphrase recent Evagrian scholarship. Imageless prayer did not devalue the body and creation: rather it reminded monks that they must be silent if they wished to hear the voice of God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As Evagrius once wrote, ‘Every proposition has a predicate, or a genus, or a distinction, or a species, or a property, or an accident, or that which is composed of these things. But on the subject of the Blessed Trinity, nothing of what has been said [here] is admissible. In silence let the ineffable be adored!’156
Conclusion Although on the surface the HL seems to be little more than an agglomeration of credulous accounts of ascetic feats, Palladius in fact used his anecdotes to promote a highly developed spiritual programme that comprised both physical and intellectual elements, and which culminated in contemplative prayer. This is partly illustrated by the HL’s presentation of Antony of Egypt. Although the HL was only one of many Christian works that championed Antony of Egypt as a model ascetic, its conception of that model was quite distinct. Whereas the Life of Antony emphasized the miraculous, and the (p. 154 ) History of the Monks portrayed him as a harsh, unrelenting ascetic,157 the HL depicted him as a mild, contemplative monk, whose primary ascetic concern was intellectual progress.158 Palladius related that Antony received visitors at Pispir, where his disciples Macarius and Amatas vetted them on his behalf. When he would arrive from his cave they would secretly inform him of his visitors’ capacity for spiritual discussion, having ‘given them this code for identification: “If they are easygoing, say that they are Egyptians; if reverend and erudite, say that they are from Jerusalem.” ’159 If they were ‘from Egypt’, Antony would extend to them hospitality and say a prayer on their behalf, but shortly send them on their way. If, however, they were ‘from Jerusalem’, he would ‘sit up all night talking to them about salvation’.160 Palladius created an image of Antony that summed up his own ideal ascetic programme, a programme that exercised both the body and the mind, and which was aimed at the contemplation of God in prayer. It was this programme that framed his understanding of the ascetics whom he met, and which shaped the character of the lives that he recorded. It was a programme that was indebted to Origen and Evagrius, either in its spirit, details, or vision, and therefore aptly identified as an Origenist or Origenian theology. Moreover, it was a programme that rested upon one of Origen’s most foundational warrants—the belief that the human person was truly free and capable of cooperating with God’s providential care. Notes:
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(1) René Draguet, ‘L’Histoire Lausiaque, une oeuvre écrite dans l’esprit d’Évagre’, RHE 41 (1946): 321–64; 42 (1947): 5–49. Draguet memorably wrote that the HL ‘baigne par tous ses pores dans la doctrine d’Évagre; le souffle doctrinal qui l’inspire de bout en bout est celui‐là même qui anime l’oeuvre d’Évagre; le materiel qui y est incorporé a été aperçu, jugé et présenté selon l’esprit d’Évagre; son vocabulaire technique est celui d’Évagre’, RHE 42 (1947): 42. (2) Matthieu‐Georges de Durand, ‘Evagre le Pontique et le Dialogue sur le vie de Saint Jean Chrysostome’, BLE 77 (1976): 191–206. (3) Augustine M. Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus (London: Routledge, 2006), 14–35, neatly summarizes how Evagrius came to be interpreted in this way; Casiday also provides an excellent summary of contemporary Evagrian scholarship in ‘Gabriel Bunge and the Study of Evagrius Ponticus: Review Article’, SVTQ 48 (2004): 249–97. (4) Casiday, Evagrius, 17. (5) Sozomen h.e. 8.15 alludes to some texts of Ammonius or his brothers; see also Antoine Guillaumont, Les ‘Kephalaia gnostica’ d’Évagre le Pontique et l’histoire de l’origénisme chez les grecs et chez les syriens, Patristica Sorboniensia 5 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1962), 83. Theodor Zahn, ‘Der Exeget Ammonius und andere Ammonii’, ZKG 38 (1920): 1–22, 311–36, thinks that Sozomen refers to the scriptural commentaries of Ammonius, priest of Alexandria (PG 85.1361–1610), but Guillaumont disagrees (Kephalaia, 83 n. 7). (6) HL 40, Butler, 126.3–6. (7) As styled by Sidney H. Griffith, ‘Images of Ephraem: The Syrian Holy Man and his Church’, Traditio 45 (1990): 7–33. (8) Evagrius Gnostikos 49; the Gnostikos has been edited by Antoine Guillaumont and Claire Guillaumont, Évagre le Pontique: Le Gnostique, Ou a celui qui est devenu digne de la science, SC 356 (Paris: Cerf, 1989), but the Greek original for this chapter has not survived, for which see 190–1. All English translations of Evagrius’ Gnostikos are by Luke Dysinger, OSB, http://www.ldysinger.com/Evagrius/02_Gno‐Keph/00a_start.htm (slightly modified). (9) HL 2, Butler 16.15–22. (10) Dial. 5.17. (11) HL 38, Butler 119.12. (12) The term σκληραγωγία was used to describe both his own and Chrysostom’s training in HL 2, Butler 16.22, and Dial. 5. 20, respectively; much of HL 38 was a description of Evagrius’ κόπος and πόνος (Butler, 122.17). (13) Dial. 20.206–23; he equates φιληδονία with fornication, as indicated by his scriptural citations, viz., Hos 4.12 and 1 Cor 6.9–10, which refer to πορνεία and πόρνοι respectively. See also de Durand, ‘Evagre le Pontique’, 193–8. (14) Dial. 20.225–33. (15) See Dial. 20.236, 228, and 235. (16) Dial. 20.229 and 230. (17) Dial. 20.237–8. (18) HL 18, Butler 53.8–11. (19) On the Eight Thoughts (PG 79.1145–64); trans. Robert E. Sinkewicz, Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 66–90, which compared this edition against other manuscripts, too. All English translations of the Greek corpus of Evagrius are by Sinkewicz, unless noted otherwise. (20) Evagrius Praktikos 6, ed. Antoine and Claire Guillaumont, Évagre le Pontique: Traité pratique ou Le Moine, SC 170 1 (Paris: Cerf 1971) 22.1.2012 20:08
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(21 ) For the association of forgetfulness and the θυμός, see Evagrius On Thoughts 23 (ed. Paul Géhin, Claire Guillaumont, and Antoine Guillaumont, Évagre le Pontique: Sur les Pensées, SC 438 [Paris: Cerf, 1998], 234.9–24), in which he says that because of anger and sadness (as well as pride), ‘some who were caught in an irreversible forgetfulness no longer had the strength to lay hold of their first state…therefore it is necessary to take up the anchoretic life with much humility and gentleness, and to encourage the soul of the fellow with spiritual words.’ (22) HL 58, Butler, 152.10–12: Νου̑ς ἀποστὰς θεου̑ ἐννοίας ἢ κτη̑νος γίνεται ἢ δαίμων καὶ τὴν μὲν ἐπιθυμίαν ἔλεγε κτηνώδη, τὸν δὲ θυμὸν δαιμονιώδη. For several parallels in Evagrius’ corpus, see Draguet, ‘L’Histoire Lausiaque’, RHE 42 (1947): 32–3. (23) See Evagrius Praktikos 1 (SC 171, p. 498) and To the Monks 118–20, ed. H. Greßman, ‘Nonnenspiegel und Mönchsspiegel des Euagrios Pontikos’, Texte und Untersuchungen 39.4 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1913), 143–65; cf. Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 10.7.5 (1177b): ἀπὸ δὲ τω̑ν πρακτικω̑ν ἢ πλει̑ον ἢ ἔλαττον περιποιούμεθα παρὰ τὴν πράξιν. (24) Dial. 5.18–25. (25) Dial. 5.23–7. (26) HL 4, Butler 16.26: αὐχμώδης καὶ ξηροτάτη. (27) HL 53, Butler 145.9–10 (trans. slightly modified): τραχύτατον καὶ ἀγριώτατον βίον ζήσας έν τη̑ ἐρήμῳ. (28) HL 1, Butler 15.18–22, HL 2, Butler 16.24. (29) HL Prologue 8, Butler 12.1–3. (30) Dial. 8.156: ‘H ἐσκοτισμένη ψυχὴ οὐκ ἀκολούθως βλέπειν, ἀλλὰ φαντάζεσθαι ἃ τὸ πάθος ὑπαγορεύει. See also Dial. 6. 133: Τοιου̑τον γὰρ οἱ θυμοί, καθάπερ οἱ κύνες, τυφλὰ τίκτουσι καὶ τὰ πράγματἁ καὶ τὰ ῥήματα. Cf. Evagrius Gnostikos 10: ‘If only the Knower could, at the time when he interprets the Scriptures, be free from anger, resentment, sadness, bodily suffering, and anxieties!’ According to another recension of Gnostikos 10, Evagrius wrote, ‘The Knower will examine whether he is free from anger, resentment, and sadness, the passions of the body, and anxieties at the moment when he interprets scripture’ (the original Greek has not survived; see SC 356, p. 103). (31 ) HL Prologue 8, Butler 12.4–6. (32) HL Prologue 9–10, Butler 12.10–24. (33) HL Prologue 9–10, Butler 12.10–24. (34) HL 7, Butler 25.5–7. (35) HL 11, Butler 34.11. (36) For Ammoun and his wife, see HL 8, Butler 28.4; for Sarapion Sindonites, HL 37, Butler 116.4; for Gregory of Nazianzus, HL 38, Butler 117.2; for John Chrysostom, Dial. 20.559; for Elpidius of Jericho, HL 38, Butler 143.9; and for Amma Talis of Antinoë, HL 59, Butler 153.13. (37) Cf. HL Prologue 13, Butler 13.16–17: οὔτε γὰρ ἡ βρω̑σίς ἐστί τι κατὰ ἀλήθειαν οὔτε ἡ ἀποχή, ἀλλὰ πίστις δι’ ἀγάπης τοι̑ς ἔργοις παρεκτεινομένη; see also Dial. 12.13–15: ἀλλὰ γνω̑σις μετὰ πράξεως ἐνεργουμένη. (38) See Dial. 11.52 and Malingrey, Palladios, 1:219 n. 4. (39) Dial. 17.10–11: Οἱ ἄνδρες οὑ̑τοι…εὐχαι̑ς καὶ ἀναγνώσμασι τὸν ἑαυτω̑ν κατανάλωσαν χρόνον. (40) HL 58, Butler 152.1, 6; for the Evagrian parallels, see Draguet, ‘L’Histoire Lausiaque’, 32. (41) On Hierax and the Tall Brothers, see Dial. 17.22–23: τοιου̑τοι ὄντες ἐν γνώσει ὡς μηδὲν αὐτοὺς διαφεύγειν τω̑ν ἐν 22.1.2012 20:08
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ται̑ς Γραφαι̑ς τοι̑ς πολλοι̑ς ἀπορουμένων. On Isaac the monk, see Dial. 17.109–10. (42) HL 47, Butler 137.4–5; cf. p. 138.2 where he is styled γνωστικώτατος. (43) For Ammonius, see HL 11, Butler, 34.5–6; for Didymus the Blind, HL 4, Butler, 20.1–4; for Mark, HL 18, Butler 56.8–9; for Serapion Sindonites, HL 37, Butler, 109.5; and for Isaac, Dial. 17.103. To this illustrious group perhaps one should also add Solomon (HL 58, Butler 151.16: ἐν οἰ̑ς ἐστι Σολομών τις…ἐκμαθὼν πα̑σαν ἁγίαν γραφήν). (44) HL 4, Butler 20.1–4. (45) HL 60, Butler 154.20; this work is otherwise unknown. (46) HL 11, Butler 34.6. Pierius was known as ‘Origen Junior’ according to Jerome Vir. ill. 76 ed. Carl Albrecht Bernoulli, Hieronymus und Gennadius: De viris inlustribus (Freiburg in Breisgau: J. C. B. Mohr, 1895; repr. Frankfurt: Minerva, 1968), at 42; Photius later accused him of Trinitarian subordinationism and the pre‐existence of souls, in his cod. 119, ed. René Henry, Photius Bibliothèque (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1960), 2: 92–4. We have no record of Stephen. (47) HL 55, Butler 149.11–17. (48) HL 55, Butler 149.17–20. (49) On Origen’s use of αἰνίσσομαι, see Henri Crouzel and Manlio Simonetti, Origène: Traité des principes, SC 269 (Paris: Cerf, 1980), 185, n. 41. See also Evagrius Scholia on Proverbs 302 (commenting on Prov. 25.8), ed. Paul Géhin, Évagre le Pontique: Scholies aux Proverbes, SC 340 (Paris: Cerf, 1987), 394; and Evagrius, On Thoughts 5 (SC 438, p. 168.28). (50) Dial. 20.201–203: οὐδὲν ἕτερον αἰνισσομένου του̑ κοσκίνου ἢ τὸν περίγειον κύκλον ἡδονω̑ν καὶ ὀδυνω̑ν πεπληρωμένον δι’ ὀπω̑ν ἐκπίπτουσιν οἱ γεώδεις ἀπὸ του̑ τροφίμου σίτου ἐπὶ τὸν ¸ δην, ὡς ἀπὸ τρυπημάτων διαχωριζόμενοι. (51 ) Dial. 18.82–101, in which he cites Ezek. 8.7–10, 12–14, 16–17. (52) Dial. 18.91: τὴν ἀκάθαρτον αὐτω̑ν διάνοιαν αἰνιττόμενος. (53) Dial. 18.113–16: 𠆁Η μὲν γὰρ “νεφέλας ἀνύδρους” ἐκάλεσεν, τὴν πονηρὰν αὐτω̑ν ἠνίξατο χάλαζαν, τὴν τη̑ς ἀμπέλου ἀντίδικον, ᾑ̑ δὲ “πλανήτας ἀστέρας” τὸν τη̑ς νηὸς ἐπίβουλον ὑπῃνίξατο· τις ναυ̑ς καὶ ἄμπελός ἐστιν ἡ ἐκκλησία. (54) For alternative uses of αἰνίσσομαι, see Dial. 4.54, 15.94, 18.82, 20.256. (55) Dial. 18.161–3: ἀποδεχόμεθα μὲν τὸν ταυ̑τα νοου̑ντα [viz. the one who accepts a typological interpretation of Ezekiel], παρακαλου̑μεν δὲ αὐτόν, ὡς ὑιὸν τη̑ς Καινη̑ς Διαθήκης, πείθεσθαι τῳ̑ τω̑ν τοιούτων μύστῃ Παύλῳ τῳ̑ λέγοντι περὶ πάντων τω̑ν τοιούτων βιβλίων τὸ “Ταυ̑τα δὲ τυπικω̑ς συνέβαινεν ἐκείνοις, ἐγράφη δὲ πρὸς νουθεσίαν ἡμω̑ν, εἰς οὕς τὰ τέλη τω̑ν αἰώνων κατήντηκεν.” Origen cited 1 Cor. 10.11 in princ. 4.2.6 to argue that Scripture calls for a spiritual interpretation of itself; ed. H. Crouzel and M. Simonetti, Origène: Traité des principes, SC 252–3, 268–9 (Paris: Cerf, 1978–84), at vol. 268, p. 320, l. 181. (56) Dial. 3.56–8: Πάνυ γαρ, ὡς λέγει ὁ Ἐλιου̑ς τῳ̑ Ἰώβ· “Συνέχει με τὸ πνευ̑μα τη̑ς γαστρός,” “γαστέρα” τὴν διάνοιαν αἰνιττόμενος πεπληρωμένην λόγων. (57) Origen sel. in Job (PG 12.1041D–1044A): Ὤσπερ τις ἔγκυος γίνεται, καὶ μορφωθέντος του̑ γεννωμένου ἐν αὐτῇ ἐπὶ ὠδι̑νας ἔρχεται, μέχρις οὑ̑ ἀπογενήσῃ τὸ συλληφθέν· κατὰ ταυ̑τα δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ τη̑ς φιλομαθου̑ς ψυχη̑ς γίνεται· συλλαμβάνει γὰρ τὸν λόγον, ὃν ἀπαγγελλόμενον μορφοι̑, καὶ τυποι̑ αὐτὸν τῇ τάξει· ὅταν δὲ μετὰ τὸ τυπω̑σαι καὶ μορφω̑σαι, τετελειωμένον αὐτὸν παραδω̑, τότε τίκτει καὶ μέχρις ἂν τέκῂ βαρύνεται ἐν ὠδι̑νι. (58) By way of contrast, Chrysostom (Comm. Job 32.8) had offered a moral interpretation of this passage, arguing that it was necessary to have patience and to suffer much when learning to control one’s tongue; see Henri Sorlin
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and Louis Neyrand, Jean Chrysostome: Commentaire sur Job, SC 346 and 348 (Paris: Cerf, 1988), at vol. 348, pp. 158–9. (59) Dial. 4.110–47. (60) Dial. 4.138–42. (61 ) Dial. 4.139–47. (62) Origen Cant. 3.14.16: ‘Possumus autem sensus corporeos fenestras intelligere, per quos aut vita aut mors intrat ad animam; sic enim designat Hieremias propheta, cum de peccatoribus loquitur, dicens: Ascendit mors per fenestras vestras (Jer. 9.20). Quomodo more ascendit per fenestras? Si oculi peccatoris videant mulierem, moechatus est eam in corde suo (Matt. 5.28), sic mors ingressa est ad animam per fenestras oculorum’ (ed. Luc Brésard, Henri Crouzel, and Marcel Borret in Origène: Commentaire sur le Cantique des Cantiques, SC 375–6 [Paris: Cerf, 1991–2], at vol. 376, pp. 664–6). Origen repeats this interpretation in his hom. in Cant. 2.12, for which see O. Rousseau, Origène: Homélies sur le Cantique des Cantiques, SC 37 (Paris: Cerf, 1953), 142. ET: R. P. Lawson’s in Origen: The Song of Songs, Commentary and Homilies, ACW 26 (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1957), 233–4 (slightly modified). (63) ‘Sed et cum recipit quis auditum vanum et praecipue falsae scientiae dogmatum perversorum, tunc mors per aurium fenestras intrat ad animam’ (Origen Comm. on Song of Songs, 3.14.16 [SC 376, pp. 664–6]; trans. Lawson, Origen, 234). (64) Dial. 16.247–98. (65) Dial. 16.261–2. (66) John 6.26 and Dial. 16.282–92. (67) Origen comm. in Mt. 11.2: Παρατηρητέον μέντοι, ὅτι τοὺς πέντε ἄρτους καὶ τοὺς δύο ἰχθύας οἱ μαθηταὶ λέγουσιν ἔχειν παρὰ τῳ̑ Ματθαίῳ καὶ τῳ̑ Μάρκῳ καὶ τῳ̑ Λουκᾳ̑, οὔθ’ ὅτι πύρινοι οὔθ’ ὅτι κρίθινοι ἦσαν ὑποσημειωσάμενοι· ὁ δὲ Ἰωάννης μόνος κριθίνους εἶπεν εἶναι τοὺς ἄρτους, διὸ τάχα οὐδὲ οἱ μαθηταὶ ὁμολογου̑σιν [ἔχειν] αὐτοὺς παρ’ ἑαυτοι̑ς ἐν τῳ̑ του̑ Ἰωάννου εὐαγγελίῳ, ἀλλὰ λέγουσιν παρ’ αὐτῳ̑ ὅτι ἔστι παιδάριον ὠ̑δδε ὃς ἔχει πέντε ἄρτους κριθίνους καὶ δύο ὀψάρια (ed. Erich Klostermann, Origenes Matthäuserklärung I., in Origenes Werke, vol. 10, GCS 38 [Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1933], 36; ET: ANF 10.432). (68) Origen’s comm. in Mt. 11.19 (GCS 38, p. 68): Προσέχων οὐ̑ν τῇ διαφορᾳ τω̑ν κατὰ τοὺς τόπους ἐπὶ τοι̑ς ἄρτοις γεγραμμένων, τούτους νομίζω τάγματος εἶναι διαφέροντος παρ’ ἐκείνους· διόπερ οὑ̑τοι μὲν ἐν ὄρει τρέφονται ἐκει̑νοι δὲ ἐν ἐρήμῳ̑ τόπ , καὶ οὑ̑τοι μὲν τρει̑ς παραμείναντες τῳ̑ Ἰησου̑ ἡμέρας ἐκει̑νοι δὲ μίαν, ἧς ἐν τῇ ἑσπέρ ἐτράφησαν. Ἔτι δὲ εἰ μὴ ταὐτόν ἐστι τὸ ἀφ’ ἑαυτου̑ ποιη̑σαι τὸν Ἰησου̑ν τῳ̑ ἀπὸ τω̑ν μαθητω̑ν ἀκούσαντα πρα̑ξαι, ὄρα εἰ μὴ διαφέρουσιν οἱ εὐεργετηθέντες ὑπὸ του̑ Ἰησου̑ αὐτόθεν ἐπὶ τῳ̑ εὐεργετη̑σαι θρέψαντος αὐτούς. Εἰ δὲ κατὰ τὸν Ἰωάννην κρίθινοι ἦσαν οἱ ἄρτοι, ἀφ’ ὠ̑’ν ἐπερίσσευσαν οἱ δώδεκα κόφινοι, οὐδὲν δὲ τοιου̑τον περὶ τούτων λέγεται, πω̑ς οὐ βελτίους οὑ̑τοι παρὰ τοὺς προτέρους; ET: ANF 10.449. (69) See also Origen fr. in Jer. (PG 13.573B), in which he comments on Jer. 23.28: Tὶ τὸ ἄχυρον πρὸς τὸν σι̑τον; Τὶ δὲ, Τὶ τὸ ἄχυρον πρὸς τὸν σι̑τον εἴπεν, ἀλλ’ οὐ πρὸς κριθήν; Παρέθηκεν γὰρ ὁ Κύριος ἄρτους, τοὺς μὲν κριθίνους τοι̑ς ἀλογιωτέροις, τοὺς δὲ πυρίνους τοι̑ς λογικοι̑ς. Διὸ καὶ νυ̑ν οὐκ ἔφη· Τὶ τὸ ἄχυρον πρὸς τὴν κρίθην; ἀλλὰ πρὸς τὸν σι̑τον, τὴν λογικὴν ἀκριβω̑ς παρέστησε τροφήν. (70) Dial. 16.1–178; on the schism, see J. N. D. Kelly, Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom—Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop (London: Duckworth, 1995), 252. (71 ) Cf. Theodoret h.e. 5.35, which speaks highly of Porphyrius’ character and intellect. (72) Dial. 16.66–71: ἀνδρός, ὡς λέγουσιν οἱ Κριταί, ἀμφοτεροδεξίου· καὶ ἡ νομιζομένη γὰρ αὐτου̑ ἀριστερὰ τη̑ς ἄλλων δεξια̑ς ἀμείνων ὑπη̑ρχεν.
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(73) Judges 3.15: Καὶ ἐκέκραξαν οἱ υἱοὶ Ισραηλ πρὸς Κύριον· καὶ ἤγειρεν αὐτοι̑ς Κύριος σωτη̑ρα τὸν Αωδ υἱὸν Γηρα υἱου̑ του̑ Ιεμενι, ἄνδρα ἀμφοτεροδέξιον. All Septuagint selections are taken from Alfred Rahlfs, ed., Septuaginta (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1935). ET: Philip E. Satterthwaite, in A New English Translation of the Septuagint, ed. Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). (74) Dial. 16.79–87. (75) Origen hom. in Jud. 3.5: ‘Ecce qualis est iste, qui suscitatur ad salvandum Israhel! nihil habet in se sinistrum, sed utramque manum dextram habet; hoc est enim, quod dicitur ambidexter. Dignus vere populi princeps et ecclesiae iudex, qui nihil agat sinistrum, cuius “quod agit dextera, nesciat sinistra” in utraque parte dexter est, in fide dexter est, in actibus dexter est, nihil habet de illis qui collocantur “a sinistris” quibus dicitur: “discedite a me operarii iniquitatis, nescio vos; ite in ignem aeternum, quem praeparavit Deus Zabulo et angelis eius.” ’ W. A. Baehrens, Origenes Werke: Homilien zum Hexateuch in Rufins Übersetzung, vol. 7, GCS 30 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1921), 485.21–8. This edition is reproduced in Pierre Messié, SJ, Louis Neyrand, SJ, Marcel Borret, SJ, Origène: Homélies sur les Juges, SC 389 (Paris: Cerf, 1993). (76) HL 27, Butler 83.4–9; ET of Prov. 11.14 from the New English Translation of the Septuagint. (77) Evagrius Scholia on Proverbs 125 (SC 340, 222). (78) HL 58, Butler 153.1–6. (79) Evagrius Scholia on Proverbs 110 (SC 340, p. 206). (80) Dial. 18.208–15. (81 ) Prov. 31.4–5: ετὰ βουλη̑ς πάντα ποίει, μετὰ βουλη̑ς οἰνοπότει· οἱ δυνάσται θυμώδεις εἰσίν, οἶνον δὲ μὴ πινέτωσαν, ἵνα μὴ πιόντες ἐπιλάθωνται τη̑ς σοφίας καὶ ὀρθὰ κρι̑ναι οὐ μὴ δύνονται τοὺς ἀσθενει̑ς. (82) Origen exp. in Pr. (PG 17.233B): Δυνάστας ἐνταυ̑θα τοὺς δικαίους φησίν, οἵτινες κατὰ τω̑ν δαιμόνων καὶ τω̑ν παθω̑ν τὴν δύναμιν ἔχοντες, ντινα θυμὸν ἐκάλεσε. (83) Evagrius Scholia on Proverbs 170 (SC 340, p. 267), commented on Prov. 17.26 (ζημιου̑ν ἄνδρα δίκαιον οὐ καλόν, οὐδὲ ὅσιον ἐπιβουλεύειν δυνάσταις δικαίοις), and implied that the δίκαιος δυνάστης was an angel or a gnostic monk. Cf. Origen exp. in Pr. (PG 17.201D), commenting on the same verse: δυνάστας λέγει τοὺς ἐν Χριστῳ̑ βασιλεύοντας. (84) For example, in the conclusion of the Dialogue, the bishop commended the deacon for having praised John with his own words as well as passages drawn from scripture. The bishop likened this to producing ‘new things and old’ from the treasury of one’s mind, an allusion to Matt. 13.52, which Palladius explained by saying, ‘Now, by old things he means the teaching of purely human wisdom; by new things are meant the oracles of the Holy Spirit (Dial. 20.551).’ Origen (comm. in. Mt. 10.15 [GCS 40, p. 18.32–19.3]), however, saw in the opposition of ‘old’ and ‘new’ an intimation of the two covenants; see also Origen exc. in Ps. (PG 17.144D). It is worth noting, however, that Palladius may have been inspired by Didymus the Blind (On the Holy Spirit 151): ‘Ipse ergo Spiritus veritatis, ingrediens puram et simplicem mentem, signabit in vobis scientiam veritatis, et, semper nova veteribus adiungens, diriget vos in omnem veritatem’ (ed. Louis Doutreleau, Didyme l'Aveugle: Traité du Saint-Esprit, SC 386 [Paris: Cerf, 1992], 284). (85) This did not imply that either praktike or the study of the scriptures was set aside; Dysinger has likened Evagrius’ notion of spiritual progress to the image of a helix, which has a linear direction and circular movement, such that ‘the journey towards God is not simply a movement beyond prakitiké into theoretiké: spiritual progress entails a gentle oscillation between these two poles in such a way that continuing attention to the changing demands of praktiké yields ever greater contemplative refreshment’ (Psalmody and Prayer in the Writings of Evagrius Ponticus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 27–8). (86) HL 1, Butler 15.22–16.1: τοσαύτην δὲ ἔσχε γνω̑σιν τω̑ν ἁγίων γραφω̑ν καὶ τω̑ν θείων δογμάτων ὡς καὶ παρ’ αὐτὰ τὰ συμπόσια τω̑ν ἀδελφω̑ν ἐξίστασθαι τὴν διάνοιαν καὶ ἐνεάζειν.
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(87) HL 1, Butler 16.1: ἀπεδήμησα τῇ διανοιᾳ, ἁρπαγεὶς ὑπὸ θεωρίας τινος. (88) HL 38, Butler 122.17. (89) See Evagrius Praktikos 49 (SC 171, pp. 610–12), ‘We have not been commanded to work, to keep vigil, and to fast at all times, but the law of unceasing prayer has been handed down to us (προσεύχεσθαι δὲ ἡμι̑ν ἀδιαλείπτως νενομοθέτηται).’ See also Evagrius To Eulogius: On the Confession of Thoughts and Counsel in Their Regard 10, ‘Cherish also in a special way alongside your manual labour the remembrance of prayer; for the former does not always have available a means of achieving the activity, but the latter offers a means continuously available (τὸ δὲ ἀδιάλειπτον ἔχει τη̑ς ἐργασίας τὸν πόρον)’ (Sinkewicz, Evagrius of Pontus, pp. 310–33, at p. 316). (90) HL 17, Butler 44.25–6. For Evagrius’ relation to Macarius of Egypt, see Gabriel Bunge, ‘Évagre le Pontique et les deux Macaire’, Irénikon 56 (1983): 215–27, 323–60. (91 ) HL 58, Butler 152: Νου̑ς ἀποστὰς θεου̑ ἐννοίας ἢ κτη̑νος γίνεται ἢ δαίμων. (92) HL 58, Butler 152, 14–15: Ἐν οἵῳ δ’ ἂν νοήματι ἢ πράγματι εἴη ἡ ψυχὴ εὐσεβει̑ καὶ θεϊκῳ̑, μετὰ θεου̑ ἐστιν. (93) HL 34, Butler 98.21–99.1. Cf. Evagrius Exhortation to a Virgin 5 (Greßman, ‘Nonnenspiegel’, 146), ‘Pray without ceasing (προσεύχου ἀδιαλείπτως), and remember Christ who begot you.’ (94) HL 20. (95) HL 20, Butler 62.19–63.4. (96) HL 20, Butler 63.16–18. (97) Evagrius On Prayer 70; Sinkewicz did not translate the Migne edition of On Prayer (the citations of which are supplied here for the reader's convenience), rather he chose the text of Nikodemos the Hagiorite and Makarios of Corinth, eds., Φιλοκαλία τω̑ν ἱερω̑ν νηπτικω̑ν, vol. 1 (Athens: Aster, 1974), which was unavailable to me, ‘supplemented by a collation of select manuscripts’, because the ‘text of the Patrologia graeca is unreliable’ (Sinkewicz, Evagrius of Pontus, 183). Nevertheless, I have included references to the readily available Migne as a helpful reference; for On Prayer 70, see PG 79.1166–99, at 1181C. (98) On Prayer 67, 70, 72; Praktikos 23, 42; Exhortation to a Virgin 38; To Eulogius 30 (or 28.30); On the Eight Thoughts 5.6 (old numbering: ch. 11; see PG 79.1145–64, at 1156c and Sinkewicz, Evagrius of Pontus, 82). (99) HL 25. (100) HL 25, Butler 80.3–6. Alexander Golitzin, ‘The Demons Suggest an Illusion of God's Glory in Form: Controversy over the Divine Body and Vision of Glory’, Studia Monastica 44 (2002): 13–43, at 36–7, discusses the resemblance to merkavah literature. (101) HL 25, Butler 80.10–11. (102) HL 25, Butler 80.14. (103) Syriac Lausiac History [73], ed. René Draguet, Les formes syriaques de la matière de l'Histoire Lausiaque, CSCO 389–90, 398–9 (Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1978); tr. Rowan A. Greer, in Tim Vivian, Four Desert Fathers: Pambo, Evagrius, Macarius of Egypt and Macarius of Alexandria: Coptic Texts relating to the Lausiac History of Palladius (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2004), 170–2. (104) Lausiac History [73.2], Draguet vol. 398, p. 369, l. 10; Vivian, Four Desert Fathers. (105) Lausiac History [73.2], Draguet vol. 398, p. 369, ll. 12–13; Vivian, Four Desert Fathers, 171. (106) Lausiac History [73.3], Draguet vol. 398, p. 369; Vivian, Four Desert Fathers, 171.
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(107) Lausiac History [73.3], Draguet vol. 398, p. 370; Vivian, Four Desert Fathers, 171. (108) Lausiac History [73.3], Draguet vol. 398, p. 370; Vivian, Four Desert Fathers, 171. (109) Lausiac History [73.4], Draguet vol. 398, p. 371; Vivian, Four Desert Fathers, 172. (110) Lausiac History [73.4], Draguet vol. 398, p. 371; Vivian, Four Desert Fathers, 172. (111 ) Lausiac History [73.4], Draguet vol. 398, p. 371; Vivian, Four Desert Fathers, 172. (112) Lausiac History [73.5], Draguet vol. 398, pp. 371–2; Vivian, Four Desert Fathers, 172. (113) HL 53, Butler 145.12–13. (114) HL 53, Butler 145.13–17. (115) HL 18, Butler 53.16–54.2. (116) Evagrius On Prayer 118 (PG 79.1193A): Μακάριός ἐστιν ὁ νου̑ς, ὃς ἀπερισπάστως εὐχόμενος (which prays without distraction), πλείονα πόθον ἀεὶ πρὸς θεὸν προσλαμβάνει. For undistracted prayer, cf. Evagrius Praktikos 63 and 69 (SC 171, pp. 646, 654). (117) See the notes for line 17 of Lausiac History 18, in Butler, vol. 2, p. 53; see also Draguet, vol. 389, p. 144, ll. 7–8. (118) For the Coptic recension of the Life of Macarius, see Émile Amélineau, Histoire des monastères de la BasseEgypte, Annales du Musée Guimet 25 (Paris: E. Leroux, 1894), corrected by Adalbert de Vogüé, ‘Le texte copte du chapitre XVIII de l'Histoire Lausiaque: L'édition d'Amélineau et le manuscrit’, Orientalia 61 (1992): 459–62. Macarius attempts to ‘cleave to God…the consubstantial Trinity’ (Amélineau, Histoire, 245; tr. Vivian, Four Desert Fathers, 148). The Trinity's consubstantiality was another reason that Evagrius believed pure prayer must be utterly imageless, because the Trinity could be consubstantial, that is, truly a single entity or reality, only if God were without body or number and therefore without image or form (see Basil ep. 8.2–3, actually written by Evagrius [Robert Melcher, Der achte Brief des hl. Basilius: Ein Werk des Evagrius Pontikus, Münsterische Beiträge zur Theologie 1 (Münster: Aschendorf, 1923)]; cf. Evagrius On Prayer 67). See also Evagrius Reflections 18 and 20, ed. J. Muyldermans, ‘Note additionnelle à Evagriana’, Muséon 44 (1931): 369–83, at 375–6; for the complicated manuscript history see Sinkewicz, Evagrius of Pontus, 210–11. The Coptic Life of Macarius adds that when Macarius abandoned the protracted effort of prayer, he returned to ‘human ways of seeing’ (Amélineau, Histoire, 246; tr. Vivian, Four Desert Fathers, 149), which also suggests that he had been praying purely. (119) HL 26–8. (120) Evagrius To Eulogius 31.34 (Sinkewicz, Evagrius of Pontus, 332). (121) Evagrius On Prayer 115 (PG 79.1192D–1193A). (122) Evagrius On Prayer 116 (PG 79.1193A): Ἀρχὴ πλάνης, νου̑ κενοδοξία, ἐξ ἧς κινούμενος ὁ νου̑ς, ἐν σχήματι καὶ μορφαι̑ς περιγράφειν πειρα̑ται τὸ θει̑ον. (123) Evagrius On Prayer 122–3 (PG 79.1193B–C); cf. 1 Cor 4.13. (124) Evagrius On Prayer 124 (PG 79.1193C). (125) Evagrius On Prayer 125 (PG 79.1193C). (126) Evagrius On Prayer 151 (PG 79.1200B), referring to Lk 18.10–14. Evagrius also refers to Matt. 6.7, in which Jesus warns one must ‘not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words’. (127) Evagrius On Prayer 145 (PG 79.1197C): αἰδὼ καὶ ταπεινοφροσύνης προσήκουσαν περιβαλλομένη. 22.1.2012 20:08
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(128) Elizabeth A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 66–9. (129) Clark, The Origenist Controversy, 57–8. (130) Clark, The Origenist Controversy, 63–6. (131) Georges Florovsky, ‘The Anthropomorphites in the Egyptian Desert’, in Akten des XI Internationalen Byzantinistenkongresses (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1958), 154–9, and idem, ‘Theophilus of Alexandria and Apa Aphou of Pemdje: The Anthropomorphites in the Egyptian Desert, Part II’, in Saul Lieberman (ed.), Harry Austryn Wolfson Jubilee Volume, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1965): 1: 275–310. Both articles are reprinted in Richard S. Haugh, ed., The Collected Works of Georges Florovsky, vol. 4, Aspects of Church History (Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1975), 89–129. See also Graham Gould, ‘The Image of God in the Anthropomorphite Controversy in Fourth Century Monasticism’, in Robert Daly (ed.), Origeniana Quinta: Historica, Text and Method, Biblica, Philosophica, Theologica, Origenism and Later Developments. Papers of the 5th International Origen Congress (Leuven: Peeters, 1992), 549–57. (132) Florovsky, ‘The Anthropomorphites’, 93; Gould, ‘The Image of God’, 551. (133) Antoine Guillaumont, Les six centuries des ‘Képhalaia gnostica’ d’Évagre le Pontique, PO 28 (Paris: Firmin‐ Didot, 1958); idem, Les ‘Képhalaia gnostica’ d’Évagre le Pontique et l'histoire de l’origénisme chez les grecs et chez les syriens, Patristica Sorboniensia 5 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1962). (134) The Great Letter (also known widely as the Letter to Melania, although it does not appear to have been addressed to her) was edited in two parts: the first part was edited by W. Frankenberg, Euagrius Ponticus, Abhandlungen der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Philologisch‐Historische Klasse, Neue Folge Bd. 13, Nr.2 (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1912; repr. Göttingen: Kraus and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970); the second part (with corrections of Frankenberg’s §§ 17, 24, 25) in Gösta Vitestam, Seconde partie du traité, qui passe sous le nom de ‘La grande lettre d’Évagre le Pontique à Mélanie l’Ancienne’: Publiée et traduite d’après le manuscrit du British Museum Add. 17192, Scripta Minora Regiae Societatis Humaniorum Litterarum Lundensis 1963–4:3 (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1964). Subsequent references are cited as GL followed by the section numbers of A. M. Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus (London: Routledge, 2006), 64–77 (whose English translation I use throughout), and the page number in Frankenberg or Vitestam; for ease of reference, I have also included the chapter and line numbers as found in Martin Parmentier, ‘Evagrius of Pontus’ “Letter to Melania” ’, Bijdragen 46 (1985): 2–38. (135) For a detailed survey of Evagrius’ cosmology, soteriology, and eschatology, see the posthumously published work of Antoine Guillaumont, Un philosophe au désert: Évagre le Pontique (Paris: Vrin, 2004), 337–404; see also Parmentier, ‘Evagrius of Pontus’, 21–38. (136) For a refutation of Clark’s assessment on the basis of Evagrian evidence, see Augustine Casiday, ‘Christ, the Icon of the Father, in Evagrian Theology’, in Il monachesimo tra eredità e aperture: Atti del simposio ‘Testi e temi nella tradizione del monachesimo cristiano’ per il 50° anniversario dell’Instituto Monastico di Sant’ Anselmo (Roma, 28 maggio–1°guigno 2002), ed. Maciej Bielawksi and Daniël Hombergen, Studia Anselmiana 140 (Rome: Pontificio Ateneo S. Anselmo, 2004), 31–60. A more compelling, and nuanced, interpretation of the role of material creation in Evagrius’ spirituality is offered by Julia Konstantinovsky, Evagrius Ponticus: The Making of a Gnostic (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 27–66; their differences are motivated in part by their disagreement on the fundamental issue of Evagrius’ Christology. (137) Evagrius Praktikos 57–8, 60 (SC 171, pp. 634–40). (138) Evagrius Praktikos 81, 84, 86 (SC 171, pp. 670, 674, 676). (139) See Evagrius Gnostikos 1, 3, 4, 18, 23, 45, 49 (SC 356, pp. 88, 90, 92, 178; the Greek original has not survived for 18 [p. 117], 23 [p. 125], and 49 [p. 191]).
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(140) See Evagrius GL 64 (Mel 12.497–503; Vitestam, p. 27), Gnostikos 41 (SC 356, p. 166), and Praktikos Epilogue (SC 171, p. 712). (141) Evagrius On Prayer 55 (PG 1177C): ‘One who has attained impassibility has not already found true prayer as well, for one can be among simple intellections and be distracted by the information they provide, and so be far from God.’ (142) Evagrius On Prayer 61 (PG 79.1180C): ‘When your mind out of a great longing for God gradually withdraws, as it were, from the flesh and turns aside all mental representations (πάντα τὰ…νοήματα ἀποστρέφηται) deriving from the senses or from the memory or from temperament, being filled with both reverence and joy, then consider yourself to be near the frontiers of prayer (ὅροις προσευχη̑ς).’ (143) Evagrius On Prayer 69 (PG 79.1181C). (144) Evagrius Reflections 2 (Muyldermans, ‘Note additionnelle’, 374). (145) Evagrius Reflections 4 (Muyldermans, ‘Note additionnelle’, 374): ‘The state of the mind is an intelligible height resembling the colour of heaven, to which the light of the Holy Trinity comes in the time of prayer.’ (146) Evagrius On Prayer 65 (PG 79.1181A). (147) Evagrius On Prayer 67 (PG 79.1181B); cf. οἴημα, in Palladius Lausiac History 25, Butler 80.14, noted above. (148) Evagrius On Prayer 72 (PG 79.1181D). (149) Gregory of Nazianzus Oration 8.14, ed. Marie‐Ange Calvet‐Sebasti, Grégoire de Nazianze: Discours 6–12, SC 405 (Paris: Cerf, 1995), 274–8. (150) Gregory of Nazianzus Oration 38.11, ed. Claudo Moreschini, Grégoire de Nazianze: Discours 38–41, SC 358 (Paris: Cerf, 1990), 124–26. (151) Gregory of Nazianzus Oration 18.42 (PG 35.1041B): Μία ζωὴ, πρὸς τὴν ζωήν βλέπειν· εἰ̑ς θάνατος, ἡ ἁμαρτία· ψυχη̑ς γὰρ ὅλεθρος. Τἄλλα δέ, οἰ̑ς μέγα φρονου̑σί τινες, ὀνειράτων ὄψις ἐστὶ κατὰ τω̑ν ὄντων παίζουσα, καὶ ψυχη̑ς ἀπατηλὰ φάσματα. (152) Gregory of Nazianzus Oration 18.42 (PG 35.1041B): ἐσόμεθα φω̑τα μικρὰ, φω̑ς τὸ μέγα περιχορεύοντες. Winslow, Dynamics of Salvation, 52–4, offers more examples of such language, but explains how they must not be accepted at face value, because Gregory believed that the body was integral to deification. (153) Jeremy Driscoll, Evagrius Ponticus: Ad monachos, Ancient Christian Writers 59 (New York: Newman, 2003), 135–7, and 320–41; for even more evidence, see Casiday, ‘Christ, the Icon’, 44–7, which also makes two nods towards Palladian evidence, and Konstantinovsky, Evagrius Ponticus, 111–14. (154) See Alexander Golitzin, ‘The Demons Suggest an Illusion of God's Glory in Form: Controversy over the Divine Body and Vision of Glory’, StudMon 44 (2002): 13–43, at 15. (155) On imageless prayer in the early Christian and Byzantine tradition, see Kallistos Ware, ‘Ways of Prayer and Contemplation’, in Christian Spirituality: Origins to the Twelfth Century, ed. Bernard McGinn and John Meyendorff (New York: Crossroad, 1986), 395–412. (156) Evagrius Gnostikos 41 (SC 356, p. 166). (157) In History of the Monks 24, Antony commanded his novice Paul the Simple to fulfil numerous irrational orders, such as pouring honey on the ground and then gathering it with a spoon free of any dirt, whereas in HL 22, the sympathetic Antony expressed concern for Paul's welfare, and tested Paul primarily by asking him to imitate his own ascetic programme, which included not just physical asceticism but long periods of prayer.
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(158) In this regard, the HL more closely resembles the character of the Antony of the Letters, for which see Samuel Rubenson, The Letters of St. Antony: Monasticism and the Making of a Saint (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), and idem, ‘Evagrios Pontikos und die Theologie der Wüste’, in Logos: Festschrift für Luise Abramowski, ed. Hanns Christof Brennecke, Ernst Ludwig Grasmück, and Christoph Markschies (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1993), 384–401, who argued that Antony, rather than Origen, was the more proximate source of desert Origenism. Of course, Evagrius had been introduced to Origen’s ascetic spirituality long before he arrived in the desert. (159) HL 21, Butler 66.12–13. (160) HL 21, Butler 66.20–1. PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2011. All Rights Reserved. Under the te PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/page/privacy-polic
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Palladius of Helenopolis Demetrios S. Katos Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199696963 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696963.001.0001
Theodicy and human freedom Chapter: (p. 155 ) 6 Theodicy and human freedomPalladius of HelenopolisThe Origenist AdvocateDemetrios Source: S. Katos Author(s): DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696963.003.0007
Abstract and Keywords This chapter continues the books presentation on Origenist theology at the turn of the fifth century. Human freedom and divine omnipotence were two hallmarks of Origen's legacy, and this chapter demonstrates Palladius' conceptual and linguistic affinities with this ancient tradition. Palladius borrowed from Origen many key ideas concerning free will, such as the permission (sygchoresis) of evil and suffering, and the value of providential abandonment (egkataleipsis). In these respects, Palladius differed sharply from Jerome, but he closely resembled his contemporaries Evagrius, Rufinus, and Cassian, who are also briefly surveyed. Whereas Jerome believed that this theodicy presupposed pre‐existent souls and multiple creations, this chapter argues that it did not. It posits that Palladius based his ideas upon an anthropological and cosmological foundation of binaries that was indeed developed by Evagrius (in his Letter to Melania and Kephalaia Gnostica), and which remained amenable to the orthodoxy of his day. Keywords: freedom, divine omnipotence, permission ( sygchoresis ), suffering, abandonment ( egkataleipsis ), Jerome, Evagrius, Rufinus, Cassian, theodicy
In his Dialogue Against the Pelagians, Jerome presented the Pelagian interlocutor Critobulus as arguing that persons must be utterly free in all their actions, and truly independent of any immediate or omnipresent assistance by God. How else could evil not be attributed to God, or how could individuals be held responsible for it on Judgment Day? To insist that God's grace was required for every human action would suggest that every act of evil was a result of God's deliberation or impotence, insofar as he either chose not to assist in the execution of the good, or was unable to do so. Critobulus insists that the only plausible solution to the problem of evil is that God somehow more passively permits evil to occur through free human agency. The Catholic Atticus responded as only the inimitable
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Jerome could, and accused Critobulus of doing precisely what he had tried to avoid. He sarcastically urged Critobulus to blame God openly for all the evil that humans commit, because this was the implication of his argument. Do you not perceive that your dilemma has cast you into the deep pit of blasphemy? God is either impotent or envious, and is not worthy of praise, as the author of good and one who gives assistance, but of censure, for not repressing evil. Disparage him, therefore, since he allows the devil to exist, and because he allows (and continues to allow daily!) in this world some evil to be done.1 According to Jerome, even if one argued that God willed only the good, and simply permitted evil, he was still responsible for evil, even if only indirectly. He argued that this was equivalent to the error of Marcion and other heretics who claimed that the god of Genesis 1–3 was not the ultimate, true God and Father of Jesus Christ. (p. 156 ) Only a few years later Palladius wrote his Lausiac History and reasserted precisely this same argument that Jerome had derided: individuals were free to act as they pleased, and that God willed the good, but permitted evil to occur. This should not imply that Jerome was correct to accuse Palladius and his ascetic companions in his prologue to the Dialogue Against the Pelagians that they were predecessors of Pelagius. Rather it suggests that this was a fundamental point of contention between them, and that a robust belief in human freedom characterized Palladius' theology. In this regard he exhibited another similarity to Origen, who had posited human free will as the sine qua non of a rational Christian theology. Although Origen's more speculative cosmological and anthropological assertions had become the fodder of polemicists by the fourth and fifth centuries, later Origenists such as Evagrius, Rufinus, Cassian, and Palladius still maintained his central tenet that God's love and justice required both divine omnipotence and absolute human freedom. Palladius' single, most extensive theological discussion was devoted to this issue, as seen in his conversation with the ascetic Paphnutius in HL 47. He also addressed it in a number of other instances throughout the HL and even in the Dialogue, and in each of these places he drew heavily from Origen's legacy, and he exhibited many parallels with Evagrius and Cassian. Jerome derided their understanding of evil, suffering, and human freedom, because he assumed that it required, as it had for Origen, a belief in pre‐existent souls. A careful reading of Palladius, however, suggests that by the fifth century this may no longer have been the case, and that an alternative metaphysical framework supported this Origenist theodicy, to use the term anachronistically. Evagrius had developed an intricate understanding of how the free choice of rational creation resulted in the unnatural pairing of evil with good in creation, and how this pairing generated a tension and force that a monk could harness to overcome his evil tendencies and to propel himself to an unmediated encounter with God. These principles did not require the cosmological or anthropological tenets condemned in the sixth century, whether they were genuinely Origen's or simply a misunderstanding of his argument and work, and yet they can be characterized as genuinely Origenist insofar as they emphasize the significance and role of freedom in the spiritual life.
Palladius on evil, suffering, and human freedom Palladius, Evagrius, and their mutual friend Albanius once visited the saintly Paphnutius Kephalas for spiritual counsel. A string of recent fatal accidents had befallen certain monks whom they knew and this had shaken their confidence in divine providence. They came to enquire why monks should (p. 157 ) suffer such grave misfortunes. One ascetic named Chaeremon was found dead in his chair still holding the handiwork with which he occupied himself. Another monk died while digging a well that collapsed upon him, while still another died of dehydration while travelling from Scetis, presumably to Cells or Nitria. More generally, however, Palladius and his companions were interested in the interaction of human free will and divine omnipotence, because they also asked Paphnutius why ‘brethren should go astray, or leave, or be frustrated in the proper life’, and why it was that ‘men living in the desert sometimes are deceived in their minds or are wrecked by lust’.2 In fact, these latter questions appear to be of greater concern than the former, because Palladius had taken pains to record at some length both in his HL and in his earlier monobiblion the moral lapses of monks such as Eucarpius, Valens, Ptolemy, Stephen, and Heron. Speaking through the elderly Paphnutius, Palladius provided an explanation to his readers that was remarkably long for the Lausiac History, and which addressed many questions related to theodicy. Palladius exhibited a faithfulness to Origen's legacy by defending both human freedom and the goodness of divine providence, which transforms the destructive power of such evils. Although Palladius was concerned mostly with human freedom, he had Paphnutius begin his explanation of recent 22.1.2012 20:09
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events by first asserting God's omnipotence and goodness. He declared unequivocally that all things occur either as a result of God's good will or by his permission. Everything that comes about is one of two things, that which God approves or that which He permits. Everything that happens which is in accordance with virtue and the glory of God happens by His will (ταυ̑τα γίνεται εὐδοκίᾳ του̑ θεου̑). Now, on the other hand, things harmful and dangerous, accidents and falls, occur with God's consent (ταυ̑τα γίνεται κατὰ θεου̑ συγχώρησιν).3 The first of these two possibilities can be easily reconciled with the belief that divine providence is good, so Paphnutius said nothing else concerning it. For this reason, the remainder of the discussion is devoted to the second possibility, the more problematic one that God permits (συγχωρει̑) evil. Palladius had already entertained this notion that God permits evil in his Dialogue. Whereas Ezekiel 33.2, which states ‘On whatsoever land I shall bring a sword’, suggests that God is directly responsible for the evil that the people will suffer, Palladius insisted that ‘I shall bring’ was equivalent to ‘I shall permit’ (τὸ δὲ ἐπάγω ἀντὶ του̑ συγχωρήσω).4 Such a claim both deflected the direct (p. 158 ) cause of evil to another agent, while simultaneously reasserting the omnipotence of God, who is ultimately in control by permitting such acts to occur. Most importantly, such permission also asserts the goodness of God's providence, because he only permits evil to occur for the benefit of those about to suffer it, and never out of malice or whim, because ‘of all the things God does, not one is done out of evil intent, but all are for a good purpose’.5 How might evil be transformed and serve a ‘good purpose’? Paphnutius explained that God permits monks to suffer evil in the hope that the experience will help them change their wicked ways. ‘God abandons them for their own good (θεου̑ πρὸς τὸ συμφέρον αὐτω̑ν ἐγκαταλιμπάνοντος αὐτούς), so that by this abandonment (διὰ τη̑ς ἐγκαταλείψεως) they may perceive the change and so correct themselves, either their intention or their act.’6 As noted in the previous chapter, the prologue to the HL warned against hypocrisy and ostentatious ascetic practices. Here Paphnutius said that a monk who erred or was led astray by his pride might be abandoned by God to suffer an evil or a misfortune that would humble him and ultimately lead to his salvation. Paphnutius' explanation encouraged monks to persevere when in tribulation or after a moral lapse, and to remain committed to their ascetic vocation when tempted to abandon it. Although the monk experienced such periods of trial as having been abandoned by God, this was not a true abandonment, only an apparent one. Hence Paphnutius equated abandonment with a sign of divine solicitude, because the evil one suffered was permitted only for the sake of his salvation. The monk who suffered evil did not experience an absolute dereliction, but had been given a salutary punishment that was intended to shatter his pride (τυ̑φος or ὑπερηφανία), and which was only commensurate to the degree of pride from which he suffered (πα̑σα οὐ̑ν πτω̑σις…πρὸς τὴν ἀναλογίαν τη̑ς ὑπερηφανίας κατ' ἐγκατάλειψιν γίνεται).7 Paphnutius warned the proud monk, that whenever an action or some naturally good act is not done for the sake of the good end itself, or when those who have superior abilities attribute them not to God, the dispenser of all good things, but to their own will and goodness, and self‐sufficiency, these persons are abandoned completely and given over either to shameless conduct or to shameful experiences. Because of the resultant humiliation and shame they slowly rid themselves of the pride they have in their pretended virtue.8 Palladius believed that it was especially important to remind ascetics that they remain humble and not take credit for their virtues and ascetic (p. 159 ) accomplishments, lest they also suffer the fate of a Valens. Evagrius fled from Constantinople with the resolve to amend his ways, but he soon found himself backsliding in Jerusalem because he was very vain. According to Palladius, it was on account of this sin that God permitted him to suffer from a terrible fever that enervated his body, but which also withered his passion of sexual desire and ultimately led to his diagnosis by Melania and a subsequent restoration to health.9 Not all suffering, however, is merited. Paphnutius explained that in certain instances God permitted a blameless monk to suffer evil for the sake of some greater good. Such were the biblical examples of the patriarch Job and the apostle Paul, who had been abandoned by God's providential care to illness and natural misfortunes. They had not merited their punishment, neither was their abandonment intended to expose any hidden vice. Rather, it was intended to reveal their concealed virtue, which had been known only to God (διὰ κεκρυμμένην ἀρετήν, ἵνα
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φανερωθῃ̑), and to fend off any diabolical pride (δι' ἀποτροπὴς ὑπερηφανίας).10 In a similar vein Palladius argued elsewhere in the HL and in the Dialogue that God permitted evil to befall the saints for their improvement. Chrysostom and his supporters suffered evil so that they might be further trained as spiritual athletes (κατὰ συγχώρησιν του̑ Κυρίου εἰς γυμνάσιον τω̑ν ἁγίων), and Satan could have no power over them had he not expressly requested and received permission from God.11 Macarius of Alexandria was also subjected to a demonic trial by the permission of God with the intent of training him to hope in God still more fervently (του̑ θεου̑ συγχωρήσαντος εἰς πλείονα αὐτου̑ γυμνασίαν).12 On some occasions that greater good is the salvation of others. Such was the case of John's supporters who had been banished to remote garrisons in Palestine and Egypt. As they made their way through Asia Minor, they were harassed by local bishops who had opposed John, and they were deprived of the dignities due to their office. In one instance they were discomfited by their lodging in a place of ill repute, but one of the bishops, perhaps Palladius himself, encouraged the others by saying, Why do we grieve over our lodgings? Is it up to us to decide where we stay, such that we will be punished for behaving disgracefully of our own volition (οἰκείᾳ αἱρέσει)? Do you not realize that all these things that have happened and will happen are of God who is glorified in all things (ταυ̑τα πάντα καὶ γεγένηται καὶ γενήσεται, του̑ θεου̑ διὰ πάντων δοξαζομένου)? How many of these prostitutes who had forgotten God, or perhaps never had knowledge of him to begin with, when they saw us so badly treated, (p. 160 ) have been brought to the fear and knowledge of God, so as perhaps to improve their own way of life or at least not to worsen it?13 They consoled themselves by the thought that their suffering might have been working towards the salvation of others, and that they might become like the apostle Paul ‘an aroma of Christ God…among those who are perishing’ (2 Corinthians 2.15).14 Paradoxically, the righteous that suffer may even be comforted by the prosperity of the wicked, because they know that God endures their evil only for a time and that they will eventually be punished for their misdeeds.15 All things are in the hands of a good and provident God. As Origen had done generations earlier, Palladius argued that divine omnipotence never hinders or restricts human freedom. Free choice and self‐determination were the foundation of the spiritual life as he understood it. The evils that might beset a believer were not predetermined, neither did they infringe upon a believer's freedom. They were instead the result of that freedom. God permitted evil or abandoned a believer only when it was merited or beneficial. God's permission for evil ‘comes about reasonably (ἡ δὲ συγχώρησις ἐκ λόγου γίνεται); for it is impossible that one who thinks and acts rightly (τὸν ὀρθω̑ς φρονου̑ντα καὶ ὀρθω̑ς βιου̑ντα) could fall into disgrace or into the trap of demons’.16 Sin and suffering typically result from pride, and so the proud monk gave himself credit for his virtues and failed to recognize that he required God's cooperation, which Paphnutius described as the ‘angel of providence’.17 Yet even the proud monk who has rejected God's assistance and descended into sin retains his freedom, and at any time he may repent and be restored to his former condition. According to Palladius, ‘should such a man correct himself, and put away the cause of his dereliction, namely his pride, and should he regain humility and realize his proper worth, and stop putting himself above his neighbour, and be thankful to God, then knowledge with its own proofs comes back again’.18 There is no ontological distinction between saint and sinner. In the Dialogue, Palladius claimed that ‘human nature which commits sin and does good is one, and in one and the same circumstance it runs to evil or to good all depending on the person's conscious choice (οἰκείᾳ προαιρέσει)’.19 Since human nature is inherently mutable, God's goodness and justice required that people be also created self‐determining (αὐτεξούσιοι), so that each individual might be able to execute his actions according to his own choice (p. 161 ) (οἰκείᾳ αἱρέσει) and thereby receive his just rewards.20 Although God may supply good thoughts, it is the responsibility of the believer to convert that into moral action by taking those thoughts into consideration, and then ‘to speak what he thinks, and to do what he speaks’.21 Asceticism was most beneficial in this regard because it strengthened the will to choose the good and to shun evil. In Palladius' view, it was intended primarily to purge the Christian of any pride, which he identified as the greatest lapse or sin. Pride was the cause of most of the evils that befell ascetics and the seemingly virtuous.22 Palladius' theodicy was not without its flaws. His system rationalized natural evil to the extent that it ceased to be an evil at all for those who desired virtue for the sake of the Good (δι' αὐτὸ τὸ καλόν).23 The monk Benjamin was grievously ill and suffered a physical malady that resulted in such hideous deformity that Palladius was nauseated at 22.1.2012 20:09
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the sight of him and averted his glance. Nevertheless, Benjamin not only remained in good spirits, but he even performed miraculous healings. Evagrius likened him to the biblical Job, and Palladius included his account in the HL so that his readers ‘might not be too surprised when some accident befalls just men’.24 It would seem that his understanding of suffering and evil could reconcile any enormity to the goodness of God. What is worse, it seems to fault men such as Chaeremon and the two anonymous monks at the beginning of our discussion, who all died suddenly or under curious circumstances.25 But it must be remembered that Palladius was primarily concerned with moral lapses, which he almost always identified with pride, and not natural evils. This is evident in his conversation with Paphnutius, which quickly passed over the fate of these three monks and revolved around the problem of lapsed ascetics, and elsewhere in the HL and Dialogue. There are many similarities between Palladius' theodicy and Origen's. Indeed every major point that he made has its immediate parallel in the Alexandrian's work. Origen rejected the fatalism of the astrologers and Valentinians to construct a Christian theology on the premise that rational creatures were endowed with a free will that allowed them to choose virtue or vice, redemption or enslavement.26 Common sense and everyday experience (p. 162 ) gave evidence that human nature was endowed with a free will and a principle of motion or self‐determination that emanated from within; if not, human beings were no different from a stone or a piece of dead wood, devoid of any personal volition and wholly subject to external forces.27 Moreover, reason suggested to him that God's goodness and justice required that humans be possessed of a free will, because one could not be judged for deeds unless they had been committed freely.28 What distinguished Origen, however, was not so much his belief in completely free human agency, as much as his reconciliation of this principle with complete divine omnipotence, even though the two seem to be mutually exclusive principles. Origen reconciled these two principles using the same language and framework that we have just seen in Palladius. For example, according to Origen, ‘of all things that occur, some are according to his positive will (βούλησις), some according to his good will (εὐδοκία), and some according to his permission (συγχώρησις)’.29 He says little of the distinction between βούλησις and εὐδοκία, but he does elaborate on the distinction between εὐδοκία and συγχώρησις, by arguing that God actively created or enacted the good, whereas evil was merely allowed to occur. According to Origen, this implies that God's role in the second instance is a passive one. More importantly, God's providence must encompass all of creation, because Jesus said that God does not overlook even a single sparrow, five of which are sold for a mere two pennies (Luke 12.6). Origen identified these five sparrows with the rational soul's five spiritual senses, and then construed Jesus’ words to imply that no rational soul could be forgotten in God's sight. This included even the least of those souls, which might have chosen to contemplate mundane things instead of divine. He reconciled God's omnipotence with human free will by suggesting that God permitted creatures to fail in their exercise of reason, even though he did not directly will it. As for the natural evil and temptations that befall rational souls, Origen maintained that God permits (συγχωρει̑) these, too, to reveal the hidden virtues of souls, as indicated by the book of Job.30 (p. 163 ) This raises the issue of abandonment, which Origen had also developed. He argued that God abandons (ἐγκαταλείπει) rational beings for their benefit and ultimate salvation. In his treatise On First Principles, Origen said: Therefore, the one who is abandoned is abandoned by divine judgment (ἐγκαταλείπεται θείᾳ κρίσει), and God is forbearing towards certain sinners, not unreasonably (οὐκ ἀλόγως), but advantageously with respect to the immortality of the soul and the eternal world, insofar as they should not be helped quickly to salvation but should be brought to it more slowly after having experienced many ills.31 God's abandonment, therefore, is profitable for the individual. He repeated this idea in his commentary on Exodus, which is preserved in the Philokalia anthology of the fourth century. There he argued that God abandons souls to what they mistake for pleasure in order that they might become sated and voluntarily turn away from it; he also argued (as in the quoted passage above) that the return to God from sin must be gradual, because the slower and more painful the healing process, the more efficacious it is.32 God, therefore, abandons rational beings so that they might have the opportunity to reveal their inner character. Without such abandonment, a soul might not have realized the extent of its evil or the magnitude of God's grace. Origen insisted of course that ‘abandonment’ was not an actual abandonment, but only perceived as such from the finite perspective of the rational creature. Created nature could not comprehend the totality of God's providence, but 5 of 23
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grasped only a limited aspect or a single facet of it. Even if it appears that God has abandoned someone when evil befalls him, God is still engaged in that person's salvation and in the salvation of all souls.33 This was why Origen had accorded an important role to angels, arguing that they assisted humans in their struggle to choose good, and explaining that the temptations of the world were so innumerable that humans required the benefit of their assistance.34 Palladius held a similar notion of aid given by spiritual beings, such as the ‘Angel of Providence’ that God provided to believers, and which he removed from them if they proved unworthy of his assistance.35 Needless to say, Origen's treatment of the topic was far more comprehensive than that of Palladius. He had gone further in reconciling divine omnipotence and human freedom by suggesting that human free will was in fact subordinated to God's foreknowledge, although it was still never infringed (p. 164 ) upon because foreknowledge did not imply predetermination.36 God was truly omnipotent, and the human will was truly free, because God provided all the circumstances and events that accorded well with a person's merit and which could procure salvation, although the response to these were entirely within the realm of individual freedom. But such differences are to be expected when comparing Origen's lengthy commentaries and treatises to the simpler diegema of the HL. Overall, Palladius' principles and guiding concerns harmonized well with those of Origen, and both shared the same motivations. Just as Origen had raised the question of human freedom and theodicy to develop his ideas concerning a rational soul's spiritual progress, so too Palladius later discussed the nature of evil and human freedom to develop his ideas concerning an ascetic's spiritual development.37 The distinction between God's will and his permission, the idea of a providential abandonment, and the reconciliation of human freedom with divine omnipotence, were ideas characteristic of Evagrius, too. In his Scholia on Ecclesiastes, he employed the distinction between God's actions and his permission to interpret Ecclesiastes 1.13, which states: ‘for a wicked (πονηρόν) preoccupation God has given to the sons of men with which to be preoccupied’.38 According to Evagrius, the use of πονηρόν in this passage required interpretation, lest one attribute wickedness to God. He defined it not in the moral sense of ‘wicked’, but in the physical sense of ‘toilsome’, a viable alternative definition. Evagrius posited that God is the fountain of all good things, and that he cannot be the cause of evil, or be said to give anything evil to man, although he conceded that it is possible that God might permit something evil to occur as in the case of providential abandonment. He said that Ecclesiastes 1.13 may have intended ‘to give’ in the sense of ‘to permit’, as according to ‘the teaching of abandonment (πλὴν εἰ μὴ λέγεται διδόναι ὡς συγχωρω̑ν κατὰ τὸν τη̑ς ἐγκαταλείψεως λόγον)’.39 Evagrius argued that abandonment typically occurred because of one's own iniquities, but he also conceded that there were instances, such as that of Job, when a righteous person suffered abandonment as a test of his virtue.40 In either case, it always occurred for the soul's salvation. He states this categorically in chapter 28 of his Gnostic, in which he furnished a total of five different causes of abandonment. (p. 165 ) Hold in your mind the five causes of abandonment, so that you may perceive the [kinds of] faint‐ heartedness which are destroyed by affliction: indeed, abandonment reveals virtue which is hidden; when the former has been neglected, it reestablishes it through punishment; and it becomes the cause of salvation for others; and when virtue has become preeminent, it teaches humility to those who possess it [only] in part; indeed he hates the evil which is the cause of the experience. Now experience is the offspring of abandonment, and this abandonment is the daughter of apatheia.41 Abandonment can reveal hidden virtue, chastise the sinner and lead him to repentance, lead others to salvation, purge pride, and teach humility. Abandonment can also teach a sinner to hate sin, a required step towards apatheia. Although Palladius did not list all five causes of abandonment in the speech he attributed to Paphnutius, he did scatter them throughout the HL and the Dialogue, as we have just seen. The beneficial consequences of abandonment explain why in the Kephalaia Gnostica Evagrius had coined the term ‘non‐abandonment’ (Syr. lʿšbqtʿ) to describe the condition of our exile from paradise, or more precisely, the condition of rational souls that by their own free movement had descended from the contemplation of God to the contemplation of the created, sensible world. The first knowledge that is in the logikoi is that of the Blessed Trinity; then there took place the movement of freedom, the beneficial providence and the non‐abandonment (lʿšbqtʿ, lit. ‘not‐abandonment’) and then the
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judgment, and again the movement of freedom, providence, the judgment, and that up to the Blessed Trinity. Thus a judgment is interposed between the movement of freedom and the providence of God.42 Although the goodness of God prohibited a true and absolute abandonment, it was nevertheless very painful and experienced as a true abandonment, whether one was a sinner in need of correction, or a gnostic monk, who was being tested and purified just as he was attaining the highest levels of spiritual progress. This is why he exhorted the monk to ‘pray first to be purified from the passions, second to be delivered from ignorance and forgetfulness, (p. 166 ) and third from all temptation and abandonment (παντὸς πειρασμου̑ καὶ ἐγκαταλείψεως).’43 Another contemporary of Palladius who embraced Origen's principles of theodicy was Rufinus. In fact, much of his career was devoted to promulgating this dimension of Origen's theology, primarily by translating works in which this subject figured prominently. Among these were Origen's Homilies on Psalms 36–38, his homilies on Joshua, Judges, Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus, and his Commentary on Romans, and most famously, On First Principles.44 So important was this subject in his estimation that he translated other treatises on the topic, too, such as the anonymous Dialogue with Adamantius and the Pseudo‐Clementine Recognitiones.45 According to Elizabeth Clark, Rufinus basically ‘trimmed the essentials of the Christian faith’ to Nicene Trinitarian theology, which had become in his time the hallmark of orthodoxy, but he ‘retained the driving concern of Origen's system, namely to uphold God's love and justice simultaneously’.46 In her estimation, this was the most significant difference between Rufinus and Jerome,47 even though Jerome and other anti‐Origenists ignored this underlying issue, until it became a critical one for Jerome later in the course of the Pelagian controversy.48 Cassian, another contemporary of Palladius, borrowed the key ideas and terminology of HL 47 for a discussion that he also attributed to a Paphnutius, albeit one surnamed Bubalas, in Conference 3.49 In this conference, Paphnutius discussed the three major stimuli leading towards renunciation: the first, a direct call by God as in the case of Antony the Great (primus ex deo est); the second, human agency, as in the case of a personal decision prompted by desire for salvation (secundus per hominem); the third, a decision prompted by necessity, as when one suffered an unexpected trial or evil and renounced the world in contrition (tertius ex necessitate).50 Paphnutius, however, was less (p. 167 ) concerned with these initial stimuli that led an ascetic to renounce the world than he was with the subsequent ones that would result in ongoing renunciation throughout one's life.51 The discussions in Conf. 3 and HL 47 were similar insofar as they addressed the proper frame of mind for an ascetic and emphasized the importance of cooperating with divine grace or providence. Cassian asserted that God maintained control over every event that occurred in language that was very reminiscent of Palladius. For it must be admitted that everything occurs either by his will (voluntate eius) or by his permission (permissu). We should believe that good things (bona) are accomplished by the will of God and by his help, while unfavourable things (contraria) are accomplished by his permission, when on account of our wickedness and hardness of heart the divine protection abandons us (deserens nos) and allows the devil or the shameful passions of the body to master us.52 This scheme follows the same basic pattern as that of Palladius. God directly wills the good and merely permits evil, and he allows the ascetic to be abandoned when he wilfully disobeys.53 It is equally remarkable that immediately following this passage Cassian cited both Romans 1.26 (‘For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions’) and 1.28 (‘And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done’), the same two verses with which Palladius had closed his own discussion, and which he had used as a riposte to Jerome, as we shall see below. Cassian also defended free will and human agency, and he argued that the proper exercise of the free will (liberum arbitrium) was critical to one's salvation. It was by his free will that an ascetic chose to conform to the good intentions of God's providence, because ‘just as we know that God offers opportunities for salvation in different ways, so also it is up to us to be either more or less attentive to the opportunities that have been granted to us by God (ita nostrum est occasionibus a diuinitate concessis vel enixius vel remissius famulari).’54 He agreed with Palladius that spiritual progress required that one moved from bodily discipline to higher levels of intellectual contemplation partly on the basis of one's own desire and concentrated effort.55 Cassian also stressed the importance of cooperation with the free will at the end of Conference 3, where he reiterated that ‘we are very clearly taught that the (p. 168 ) beginning of a good will is bestowed upon us at the Lord's inspiration…but that it is up to us to pursue God's 22.1.2012 20:09
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encouragement and help in either a haphazard or a serious manner (ut adhortationem auxiliumque dei uel remissius uel enixius exsequamur)’.56 It may have been the Lord who brought the Israelites into the Promised Land and delivered it into their hands, but it was still up to Israel either to destroy the nations or to make a treaty with them, and it was ‘obvious from this testimony what we ought to ascribe to free will and what to the plan and daily help of the Lord, and that it belongs to divine grace to offer us opportunities of salvation and favourable moments and victory, but that it is up to us to pursue either intently or lazily the benefits that God bestows’.57 Divine grace and free will, therefore, work inextricably together towards salvation. Of course, Cassian defended the free will still more vigorously in Conference 13, and this prompted Prosper of Aquitaine to accuse him of Pelagianism.58 It is somewhat ironic that he was labelled as such, because compared to Evagrius, Rufinus, and Palladius, he was by far the most critical about the capacity of the free will, and he most vehemently insisted that the free will could not function properly without the assistance of God. According to him, the will inclines to vice (fertur ad uitia) through ignorance or passionate desire (vel ignoratione boni vel oblectatione passionum), and it threatens utterly to destroy us (ne penitus libero conlabamur arbitrio); he also spoke candidly about the infirmity of the will (infirmitas liberi arbitrii), its instability (lubrica facultas arbitrii), and its wickedness (pravitas arbitrii).59 Indeed Cassian sounds less like Origen and more like Augustine throughout Conference 3, particularly when he asserted that ‘no righteous person is able of himself to obtain righteousness unless the divine mercy offers the support of its hand to him every time that he stumbles and trips, lest he be overthrown and be completely lost when he has fallen down because of the weakness of his free will’.60 Clearly, Cassian's primary concern was to affirm that the Lord saves, and that an ascetic cannot save himself.61 The Paphnutius of his conference was even concerned that his (p. 169 ) vigorous defence of God's omnipotence might unwittingly destroy human agency and free will, and he was forced to qualify his language by stating that ‘we say these things not so as to nullify our zeal and labour and efforts, as if they were expended foolishly and to no avail, but so that we might know that we cannot strive without God's help, nor can we successfully attempt to lay hold of the immeasurable reward of purity unless it has been bestowed upon us through the Lord's help and mercy’.62 In any event, it is an unfortunate accident of history that Prosper's accusation obscured for centuries Cassian's affinity to a tradition of theodicy that shares much in common with the work of Origen, Evagrius, Rufinus, and Palladius. But Cassian unfortunately was as self‐effacing an author as Palladius, and his relationship to other Origenists can be sketched out only on the basis of circumstantial evidence. Take, for example, his relationship with Palladius, about whom he said nothing, but with whom he shared much in common. Both lived as ascetics in Palestine and later in Egypt at about the same time and in very close proximity to one another; both were inspired by Origen, and directly indebted to Evagrius; both received ecclesiastical orders from John Chrysostom and both later went to Rome in John's defence; and, of course, both recorded their monastic experiences for new audiences, whether in the east or west.63 Nevertheless, Palladius never mentioned John Cassian in the HL, and only once in his Dialogue; for his part, Cassian made no reference to Palladius. Of course, Cassian never mentioned Evagrius either, and yet it was his theology that he transmitted and preserved for a Latin audience. Admittedly, much of this language concerning divine providence and its interaction with the human will was not peculiar to these Origenists, but common to the broader Christian theological tradition.64 Nevertheless, it was foundational to their thought, and it distinguished them from some of their contemporaries, particularly Jerome, who ardently disagreed with both Rufinus and Palladius on matters of evil and providence.65 According to Clark, (p. 170 ) Jerome had not realized the seriousness of the theodicy issue for Origenists until fairly late, and even then he did not think it important to respond by offering an alternative solution.66 This is evident as late as 414, when he wrote his Letter 133 to Ctesiphon, in which he simply insisted that God's actions were inscrutable and not for anyone to question, daring Ctesiphon to ‘bring yet a graver charge against God, ask Him why, when Esau and Jacob were still in the womb, he said, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated” ’.67 He encouraged Ctesiphon to mimic Paul and ‘condescend to remain ignorant of that into which you inquire (dignare et ista nescire quae quaeris)’ and to ‘leave to God his power over what is his own, he does not need you to justify his actions (concede deo potentiam sui, nequaquam te indiget defensore)’.68 Palladius, however, refused to jettison rationality as Jerome had suggested, or to imply in any way that Esau was not free.69 He argued that Esau was not arbitrarily rejected, but that he had made a free, conscious choice that led to sin, saying, ‘Esau was abandoned and fell into evil because he preferred the filth of intestines to his father's blessings’.70 Like Origen, Palladius insisted upon human freedom, and perhaps in response to Jerome's challenge, he offered a rational explanation for God's abandonment of Esau when he wrote his Lausiac
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History.
The metaphysics of an Origenist theodicy When Jerome dared Ctesiphon to ask God why he loved Jacob and hated Esau, he may have been implicitly daring him to provide the same explanation as Origen had once given.71 Origen had refused to accept that Romans 9.13 (p. 171 ) spoke of an inscrutable mystery, because the context of the passage did ‘not appear…to be altogether silent on the nature of this secret’.72 He believed that Paul knew the reason for God's selection of Jacob, and Origen insisted that there must be a rational explanation for it, because there cannot be unrighteousness on God's part.73 Origen posited that God chose Jacob rather than Esau because of the free choices made by each in a previous life, which resulted in the divergent movement of their souls.74 There is no injustice on God's part, ‘if we feel that he [i.e. Jacob] was worthily beloved by God according to the deserts of his previous life, so as to deserve to be preferred before his brother’.75 These free decisions made before their bodily birth explain God's choice of Jacob, and therefore the righteousness of the Creator ‘will be seen more clearly at last, if each one, whether celestial or terrestrial or infernal beings, be said to have the causes of his diversity in himself, and antecedent to his bodily birth’.76 It was this presupposition of the soul's pre‐existence that Jerome believed, and modern scholars have assumed, was the basis of an Origenist's belief in free will in the fifth century, and it was ultimately condemned in the sixth century.77 This, however, was not the explanation of Romans 9.13 that Palladius had offered in response to Jerome. Instead he argued on the basis of Genesis 25.29–34 and Hebrews 12.16, which depict Esau despising his birthright for a meal. Palladius moved away from a literal reading of Origen and blunted the criticisms levelled against Origen by polemicists by suggesting that Paul was aware of the Esau‐like decisions that humans repeatedly make, and that this led him to proclaim: ‘since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper (p. 172 ) conduct’, and to add that, although many ‘knew God they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, [for which reason] God gave them up to dishonourable passions’.78 It was a response that had been purged of, or at the very least did not require, theological positions that had become the subject of recent controversy, but still remained faithful to the overall concerns of Origen. A fuller discussion of theodicy was obviously required, but it was not appropriate or feasible within the genre and purpose of either the Lausiac History or the Dialogue.79 For a better understanding of the metaphysical framework within which Palladius may have developed his understanding of theodicy, particularly his idea concerning abandonment and the implication that evil can serve a ‘good purpose’, I propose that one turn again to Evagrius. Evagrius' teaching on theodicy and abandonment was largely founded upon his conception of the world as one in constant movement, oscillating between opposing terms of good and evil. It was this metaphysical foundation that informed his spiritual counsel to monks who were engaged in the practical and gnostic life, and it suggested how a monk might harness this movement to his benefit and then halt it altogether by coming to rest in a God in whom there is no movement. Evagrius, in a manner similar to Origen, typically described the sin of a rational creature as the movement of an intelligible mind away from God, a movement that introduced an opposition to an initial good.80 On this basis, one could argue that evil is without substance and can be experienced only as an absence of goodness or reality. Whereas God had created only what was good, evil was experienced in conjunction with it because rational nature had abused or mishandled it. This absolved God from responsibility for that evil, (p. 173 ) because it arose (it was not created) from the free choice of rational creation to turn away from God. Evagrius developed the basic notion of good paired with evil into an intricate system of additional pairings, or binaries, that helped describe and direct a believer's movement towards salvation. Evagrius analysed the created order using the categories of natures, ranks, combinations, dispositions, and movements.81 He organized these from the most general to the more specific, whereby he designated nature as the broadest category and movement as the most specific. Each category comprised elements that were always evenly numbered and paired, and in some type of opposition to one another. For example, there are two natures, namely, the perceptible and the intelligible.82 Similarly, he conceived of four combinations: warmth and coldness, dryness and moisture.83 This same kind of pairing and even‐numbered division was applied to ranks, dispositions, and movements, too. Evagrius said, The ranks of the intelligible body are also these [viz. the same as those of the perceptible body]: life and death, 22.1.2012 20:09
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health and sickness. Its dispositions are these: sitting and standing, walking and reclining, silent and garrulous. Its movements are these: hunger, sleep, lust, rage, fear, distress, enmity, sloth, disquiet, cunning, savagery, pride, mournfulness, lamentation and wickedness. The opposite (Syr. lqwbl’) movements are these: satisfaction, vigilance, loathing, serenity, fortitude, gladness, love, diligence, quiet, simplicity, meekness, humility, joy, consolation, and goodness.84 Even though he lists each of the movements alone rather than in pairs, each movement has a corresponding opposite which together would form a binary. In fact, Evagrius regularly referred to these pairs as opposites or oppositions in both the Great Letter and the Kephalaia Gnostica.85 As the example of life and death makes clear, these binaries express inversion or negation, insofar as they are constituted of both a positive and a negative term.86 An element (p. 174 ) of negation is implied even when the binaries are not called explicitly opposites.87 These binaries describe the reality of human experience, in which created goods inexplicably contain an inherent element of opposition or negation. But the binaries also explain the progress of human experience, because not only have these binaries been created as a result of a movement, they in turn generate their own movement by virtue of an inherent dialectic. Something similar can be traced back to the Phaedo in which pleasure (τὸ ἡδύ) was closely related with its opposite, sadness or pain (τὸ λυπηρόν or τὸ ἀλγεινόν), and in which the experience of the one emotion prompted the experience of the other.88 Evagrius spoke of a movement occurring between, and even generated by, these oppositional, or positive and negative, terms. Movement could be directed towards either term in a binary, but only one movement prevailed at any given moment. The prevailing term or movement he characterized as active, while the opposing one he characterized as potent or dormant. He said: There is no way to contemplate them all together constantly in the body. But when one of them is moved at its appointed time (whether it is by an internal or external cause), it effectively moves another, opposite effect from the body—even if [the latter] is mighty in the body, as can be seen at its own appointed time. Thus, when hunger is present, satisfaction is absent; likewise, sleep and vigilance, grief or fear and joy or fortitude, and so forth. Yet you must know that these opposites are not completely removed. For hunger springs from satisfaction and grief from joy. The body cannot be without them, although it does not use them all simultaneously: it does not always keep vigil, nor does it always sleep; it does not always eat, nor does it always abstain. This is so for all the aforementioned movements and their opposites, following the three ranks (by which I mean, following life, health, sickness) and six dispositions mentioned above.89 (p. 175 ) That is, everything that one sees and experiences can be ascribed to the prevalence of one term in the binary over the other, from which there results a movement in its particular direction. All of creation, therefore, is in constant movement or flux towards a particular term. The problem of movement or flux also troubled Gregory Nazianzus, whom Palladius styled Evagrius' teacher and mentor, and who often lamented creation's continuous movement and mutability, and yearned for the stability and immutability of the next age.90 In one especially poignant passage he wrote: ‘I am indeed, a troubled river's current, I am always in transit, having nothing fixed’, alluding to the famous proverb that had been attributed to Heraclitus, ‘one cannot step through the same river twice’.91 Evagrius did not believe that this movement precluded intelligibility, as did the radical Heraclitean Cratylus.92 On the contrary, he affirmed that it was precisely this movement that was discernible to the senses, so that movement formed the basis for all natural knowledge and consequently was the starting point of any ascent to union with God. This understanding of movement was consistent with the more plausible interpretation of Heraclitus’ abstruse and lapidary work, which suggests that he had posited such continuous movement in order to argue that unity and stability prevailed in nature's diverse phenomena, despite the constant changes that one perceived. For example, a river is defined as a body of water in which the water is always flowing. According to Heraclitus, this kind of change and flux does not preclude constancy; in such an instance, constancy actually requires both change and flux, because the body of water must always be moving if it is to be a river, and not be something else, such as a lake or pond.93 Stated otherwise, change and flux are part of a greater stability or constancy. As a result, all movement is ultimately in (p. 176 ) balance. It is plausible, therefore, that Evagrius understood change and flux as a fixed quality of a greater, more stable, created whole. 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within it to be both good and appropriate. Evagrius, however, limited change and flux to the created sphere. He did not believe it was related to God's realm of ultimate truth and divine life, which was characterized by stability and permanence. If change and flux were not destabilizing to creation, it was because divine providence had permitted it—for a ‘good purpose’ (to borrow from Palladius), as we shall soon see—and limited its scope. He claimed that movement and binaries were also characteristic of the intelligible world, and he often used oppositional pairs to describe a spiritual reality.94 After all, movement was first introduced when rational creation first turned away from God in whom there was no movement, and therefore even intelligible creation must be characterized as mutable and even unstable, as it changes from one condition to another.95 It would seem, however, that such changes in the intelligible realm implied an increase or decrease in divine knowledge, and as a result that they could not be neutral changes, such as those perceived in the sensible realm, wherein one might simply alternate between standing and sitting, or between walking and lying down. Evagrius explicitly characterized the binary terms and their resultant movements in the intelligible realm as good or bad, and he identified them with vice and virtue. This is a common feature of the Kephalaia Gnostica, which described the interior life of the gnostic monk in binaries of light and dark, ignorance and knowledge, and life and death.96 (p. 177 ) Despite the rather abstruse nature of this concept of binaries and movements, Evagrius developed it for application in spiritual counsel. He used intelligible binaries not merely to describe intelligible reality, but to prescribe guidance for monks who could then harness these movements.97 This was praktike, or ascetic exercise, the first stage in the spiritual progress of the monk, in which there was movement from the negative binary terms to the opposite, positive terms. Evagrius exhorted monks to be aware of the binaries and use them, saying: ‘virtues are said to be in front of us, on the side where we have the senses; while behind us are the vices, on the side where we do not have senses. For we are commanded to flee fornication (1 Cor. 6.8) and pursue hospitality (Rom. 12.13)’.98 Palladius had suggested a similar system of binaries for guidance in praktike when he spoke of the pairing of vices and virtues. When listing the evil thoughts, he claimed that ‘to each one of these vices God has assigned its contrary virtue (τούτων ἑκάστη τω̑ν κακω̑ν ὁ Θεὸς ἀντίδικον ἔταξεν ἀρετήν)’.99 Thus, self‐control is opposed to lust, abstinence to gluttony, justice to covetousness, meekness to anger, joy to sorrow, memory to forgetfulness, patience to accidie, good sense to foolishness, courage to cowardice, humility to vainglory, and so on; and holy scripture is opposed to all of these. Only to pride (τύφος) has he not given its contrary virtue, because it is so overwhelmingly bad; he has kept it for himself as he said: God resists the proud.100 Each of the eight thoughts or vices has a corresponding opposition in a virtue. Pride (here τύφος, but he used ὑπερηφανία interchangeably) has no corresponding opposition, because it is opposed by God himself. From what Palladius has said elsewhere, God presumably opposes this vice by abandoning the proud person to suffer a malady or some other evil, although here, somewhat contradictory to his point, Palladius noted instead that the wicked are allowed to prosper because God was storing for them the full measure of their crime which would be repaid at a later time.101 These binaries were not merely bifurcations akin to the ‘two ways’ of the Didache, because Evagrius and Palladius conceived of not one, but multiple bifurcations, each of which were links that created a path of spiritual progress towards knowledge. Evagrius had said, ‘The first renunciation is voluntary (p. 178 ) abandonment of the objects of this world for the sake of the knowledge of God. The second renunciation is the laying aside of vice, which happens through divine grace and human diligence. The third renunciation is separation from ignorance, which naturally becomes apparent to people according to the state they have attained.’102 The monk reaches his goal by moving along binaries both expressed and implied here, namely, objects of the world and knowledge of God, vice and virtue, ignorance and knowledge.103 In some instances, there is no mention of movement, but binaries are described to indicate which terms the monk must reject or embrace. Evagrius states: ‘knowledge and ignorance are united in the nous, while epithumia is receptive of self‐control and luxury, and love and hate normally occur to thumos, but the first accompanies first [beings], and the second, second [beings]’, by which he implies that the monk should seek out self‐control, love, and knowledge, and shun luxury, hate, and ignorance.104 In a binary, therefore, the presence or the experience of the negative element goads the errant soul or mind towards the positive one. Evagrius has a highly developed understanding of the role of natural evil and suffering in the 22.1.2012 20:09
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purgation of the soul, and Palladius appears to have embraced this notion of binaries as the foundation for his own ideas on abandonment. In fact, the experience of evil could be so effective that Evagrius asserted that ‘the Lord takes pity on those to whom he gives spiritual knowledge if the just walk in the light, but the foolish in darkness (Ecclesiastes 2.14). But the Lord also pities the foolish, in that he does not torment him immediately, but rather urges him from evil towards virtue.’105 Later readers were apparently discomfited by Evagrius' readiness to attribute the experience of evil directly to God, and so the passage was altered to read: ‘but the Lord also pities the foolish, in that he does not torment him immediately, but presents for him a model by which he might be converted and live’.106 Another passage makes a similar claim about the effectiveness of the experience of evil. Evagrius said: ‘Two among the worlds purify the passible part of the soul, one of them by praktike, and the other by cruel torment.’107 Although it did not state that God distributed this cruel torment, this passage had also been altered in the original Syriac translation to (p. 179 ) read, ‘the passible part of the soul is cleansed by two major ways, the working of the commandments and the mind's humility and sorrow’.108 In both instances, the experience of evil could be used towards one's benefit. God did not create evil, but he allowed it to continue within creation, and he ‘abandoned’ rational creatures to it as necessary so that they might learn from the experience. Many of these Evagrian principles are alluded to by Palladius. As we mentioned above, he claimed that each of the vices represented by the holes of Satan's sieve was cured by its opposition. As we have seen in Chapter 5, the deluded monk Valens (HL 25) was cured by an opposition. His vainglory had been healed by the humiliating punishment doled out to him by the brethren, who bound him in irons for a year and ‘by their prayers and the living of an ordinary, unbusied life they purified him of his self‐conceit. As the saying goes, “opposites are cured by their opposites (τὰ ἐναντία τοι̑ς ἐναντίοις ἰάματα).” ’109 The maxim was drawn from Ps.‐Hippocrates Περὶ Φυσω̑ν 1, in which the author of this sophistic essay began by explaining that a physician must understand the cause of a disease before he may prescribe a remedy. For example, hunger is a disease, as everything is called a disease which makes a man suffer. What then is the remedy for hunger? That which makes hunger to cease. This is eating; so that by eating must hunger be cured. Again, drink stays thirst; and again repletion is cured by depletion, depletion by repletion, fatigue by rest. To sum up in a single sentence, opposites are cures for opposites (τὰ ἐναντία τω̑ν ἐναντίων ἐστὶν ἰήματα).110 Every disease or condition was to be cured by an opposing remedy or condition, as this medical precedent for Palladius' and Evagrius' prescriptions illustrates.111 We are not surprised to learn that the monks also bound Eucarpius, who suffered from vainglory as badly as Valens, and cured his illness by an opposition, too. Similarly, Palladius suggested a curing by opposition when he defended a practice of Chrysostom that his opponents had found particularly irritating (p. 180 ) and offensive. Chrysostom had been accused of being insolent because he spoke rudely to his clerics and bishops. Palladius argued that it was for the edification of his closest associates that he addressed them with gentle mocking if they had lapsed into vainglory on account of their virtue. First of all, John found it well‐nigh impossible to kid someone he would chance upon, let alone be insolent. When it came to his own colleagues, disciples, clerics, or bishops, should he perceive any of them bragging of their abstinence from anything, or of the achievement of bodily discipline, he would joke with them and give them an opposite name (τὸ ἐνάντιον πρὸς αὐτοὺς ἐπισκώπτων ἀπεκάλει); for example, he would call the teetotaller a drunk, the one who owned nothing he called greedy, and the almsgiver he would call a thief.112 Palladius argued that this was actually a very delicate tactic, since the names he used highlighted their virtues. What concerns us, however, is that he believed that by using an ‘opposition’, even a false one since that particular vice to which he alluded did not exist, John was able to goad the sinner to improve.113 Evagrius believed that ultimately the binaries were to be transcended, because their existence and utility were provisional. Just as binaries of opposition have a fixed beginning, they must also have a fixed end. That is why Evagrius said: There was [a time] when evil did not exist, and there will be [a time] when it no longer exists; but there was never [a time] when virtue did not exist and there will never be [a time] when it does not exist: for the seeds of virtue are indestructible. And I am convinced by the rich man who was condemned to hell because of his
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evil, and who felt compassion for his brothers (Luke 16.19–31). For to have pity is a very beautiful seed of virtue.114 Here the binary of virtue and vice is dissolved. Evagrius recognized that Nicene theology, echoes of which can be found here in the repetition of ‘there was’, categorically rejected as irrational the notion that mutability and instability could be absolute. Anything with an origin must be mutable and could not be identified with God, irrespective of whether its origin is within time or outside it. This is why the binaries could only be provisional, even if God's providence had transformed them into something useful. All movement must cease in the end and be eradicated from the perfect body or soul, but a complete cessation was only possible in death or union with God.115 Evagrius forbade religious suicide, and instead encouraged the (p. 181 ) monk to end the movements gradually, by practising praktike and attaining apatheia, which he described as a spiritual death.116 In practical terms, the monk's task was to end the movements in his body by stilling the passions and attaining apatheia, which are best understood here as movement and stasis, respectively.117 This offered a preliminary cessation of movement, because for Evagrius it began the process of transcending creation's binaries, movements, and oppositions. He said, ‘conversion is the ascent away from (the) movement and away from vice and ignorance towards knowledge of the Blessed Trinity’.118 But praktike and apatheia were only means towards acquiring virtue and engaging in natural and divine contemplation. As virtue was acquired, movement began to slow because ‘virtue is that state of the reasoning soul in which it is difficult to move it towards evil’.119 Evagrius, however, conceived of varying levels of apatheia, and at its higher stages the monk could experience for the first time the absence of all opposition, because at those stages one might pray purely and encounter directly the God in whom there are no binaries or oppositions or movements. This is why Evagrius said: ‘and while opposed to reasoning nature there is non‐existence, and [opposed] to knowledge there is evil and ignorance, there is in these no opposition to God’.120 If virtue slows the movements, the experience of God in pure prayer stills them altogether, and so Evagrius called this state ‘perfect’ apatheia, because it signified a perfect condition in which the experience of God was direct and without any mediation.121 In the current age, this is a fleeting, temporary condition; it shall become permanent, however, in the final age when the binaries and oppositions will be dissolved and all movement will cease.122 (p. 182 ) In summary, Evagrius had developed a theodicy that consistently recognized evil as such and denied it any element or trace of goodness (in which case, it would cease to be evil). At the same time, he could explain optimistically why and how the experience of evil, or abandonment, was not a total loss, but an experience that could assist the monk to return to higher states of virtue. Although the presence of evil was lamentable, and not part of God's plan for creation, it could nevertheless propel one to the opposite, positive term of a binary and bring one closer to God. He posited that all rational creatures were in a state of constant change and movement between positive and negative terms as a result of their own free will, and that as a consequence one of two possible movements was present at any given moment. As a result, at the very moment that one was not actively pursuing virtue, the only alternative movement offered by a binary was vice or evil, and so a monk must cultivate the virtues as ceaselessly as he breathed; there could be no rest in the pursuit of virtue because the negative term of a binary always lay potent or dormant.123 Conversely, and more happily, simply fleeing vice or evil implied a flight towards virtue or the good, although Evagrius did not say so explicitly. True rest from movement, or the struggle for virtue, would only come at the end when one had achieved union with God, in whom there are no opposites or movement. Much of this can be found either explicitly or implicitly in Palladius. These parallels, however, should not imply that Palladius had also embraced Evagrius' protology and eschatology. Palladius does not say anything with respect to the origin or destiny of creation anywhere in his work, and this system of binaries appears to explain sufficiently why divine providence allows men to suffer. That such a schema of binaries could cohere and function independently of Evagrius' protology and eschatology might be seen in the seventh‐century example of Maximus the Confessor, who also attributed suffering to divine providence and employed a binary to explain how and why suffering could effect our salvation. In his Ad Thalassium 61, Maximus claimed that humanity abused its faculty for spiritual pleasure at the moment of its creation by turning towards sensible pleasure, and in a providential response, ‘God therefore affixed pain [παρέπηξεν…τὴν ὀδύνην] alongside this sensible pleasure [ἡδονή] as a kind of punitive faculty, whereby the law of death was wisely implanted in our corporeal nature to curb the foolish mind in its desire to incline unnaturally toward sensible things.’124 (p. 183 )
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Palladius had also spoken of the world as replete with ἡδονή and ὀδύνη,125 with the difference that he had not spoken of God as introducing the pain that accompanied pleasures. Rather he suggested that the experience of pain and pleasure coexisted presumably as a result of our own free will. This distinction indicates that Palladius was more closely aligned with Evagrius and the earlier, philosophical dialectic of pleasure and sadness (ἡδονή and λύπη) that suggested that the experience of pleasure has as a logical consequence the experience of sadness.126 By contrast, when Maximus stated that ‘God affixed pain alongside this sensible pleasure’, he transformed that dialectic into a more active and deliberate polarity of pleasure and pain (ἡδονή and ὀδύνη) and perhaps unwittingly suggested that were it not for God's intervention, unalloyed pleasure may have been experienced without any negative consequence.127 Maximus also argued that this dialectic between pleasure and pain had the potential to work salvation, but not in a manner precisely analogous to the binaries of either Evagrius or Palladius, because pain was not intended to spur one back to pleasure, but to break the cycle altogether.128 Nevertheless, the parallel demonstrates that Palladius' theodicy does not imply any more than it explicitly claims concerning creation's origins and destiny. To imply that he, or his colleagues in the desert, must (p. 184 ) have embraced a particular protology or eschatology goes beyond any of the evidence.129
Conclusion Palladius' construction of theodicy was relatively simple on the surface. It subordinated evil to God's authority and assured the believer that there were no forces beyond God's control to which one might fall prey. Most importantly, it posited that God did not generate evil, but merely permitted it when a person could ultimately benefit from it. This was an especially adequate answer for the sort of moral evil that Palladius witnessed in the desert among monks, because it suggested that all their experiences helped spur one along the path of virtue and perfection. It was a less adequate answer for many natural evils, but he largely passed over these. It was a deeply rooted conviction of Palladius and his associates that a person could determine his present course of action and his future destiny, and that lapses in the spiritual life were not the result of arbitrary or whimsical fate, but of a personal failing that could be corrected. They were comforted by the knowledge that they had not been utterly abandoned to suffer the consequences of their own weaknesses, and that a benevolent, omnipotent God offered them the opportunity to transform such reversals of fortune, however well deserved they may have been, into a medium of salvation. This confidence and optimism in the monk's freedom to cooperate with God motivated Palladius' asceticism and his entire tradition of spirituality. The simplicity of this construct, however, belies its underlying sophistication. It was a theodicy inspired by Origen, directly influenced by Evagrius, embraced by Cassian, and apparently rejected by Jerome. In this sense, it was an Origenist theodicy. Although it may have been developed in the third century upon a theoretical foundation that required multiple worlds and pre‐existent souls, and was further elaborated by Evagrius in the fourth century within a similar framework, there is no evidence for such ideas in the fifth‐century compositions of either the HL or the Dialogue. This may help explain how such characteristically Origenist teachings on abandonment and the providential utility of suffering and evil survived in their pages. More importantly, these ideas had not lost any of their integrity or coherence, and they continued to give hope to the struggling monk that ultimately evil would be overcome when the binaries of good and evil are dissolved, the negations and oppositions pass away, and believers are united with God who will be all in all.130 Notes: (1) Jerome Pelag. 3.6: ‘Non intelligis διλήμματον tuum in grande blasphemiarum decidisse barathrum: ut ex utraque parte, aut inualidus sit Deus, aut inuidus, et non tantum ei laudis sit, quod bonorum auctor est et adiutor, quantum uituperationis, quod mala non coercuit. Detrahatur ergo illi, cur diabolum esse permiserit, cur passus sit, et hucusque patiatur quotidie aliquid in mundo mali fieri’ (C. Moreschini, S. Hieronymi Presbyteri Opera, Part 3.2, CCL 80 [Turnhout: Brepols, 1990], 104.13–105.18). (2) HL 47, Butler 137.8–11, 20–1. (3) HL 47, Butler 138.2–7. See G. W. H. Lampe, Patristic Lexicon, s.v. ‘εὐδοκία’ for two later uses of these categories, by Dorotheus of Gaza and John of Damascus. (4) Dial. 18.168–9; Palladius projects a consistent message of theodicy throughout the HL and the Dialogue, such that it would be mistaken not to attribute the ideas in HL 47 to Palladius pace Jeremy Driscoll ‘Evagrius and 22.1.2012 20:09
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Paphnutius on the Causes for Abandonment by God’, StudMon 39 (1997): 259–86; repr. in idem, Steps to Spiritual Perfection: Studies on Spiritual Progress in Evagrius Ponticus (New York: Newman Press, 2005), 94–122. (5) HL 47, Butler, 138.7–24; see also HL 24, Butler 78.12–13. (6) HL 47, Butler 138.9–14. (7) HL 47, Butler 140.6 and 140.14; cf. 139.14. (8) HL 47, Butler 139.1–8. (9) HL 38, Butler 119.15–18: ὁ δὲ ἐμποδιστὴς τη̑ς πάντων ἡμω̑ν ἀπωλείας θεòς ἐνέβαλεν αὐτὸν εἰς περίστασιν πυρετου̑…ταριχεύσας αὐτου̑ τὸ σαρκίον, δι' οὑ̑ ἐνεποδίζετο. (10) HL 47, Butler 141.5–18. (11) See Dial. 20.196; cf. 20.342 and Luke 22.31–2, which Palladius cites. (12) HL 18, Butler 49.25. (13) Dial. 20.129–37. (14) Dial. 20.137–8. (15) Dial. 20.249–53. (16) HL 47, Butler 138.7–9. (17) HL 47, Butler 139.8–11. (18) HL 47, Butler, 140.5–9; cf. 138.14. (19) Dial. 18.296–9: τὸ μίαν εἰ̑ναι καὶ τὴν ἁμαρτάνουσαν καὶ τὴν κατορθου̑σαν φύσιν, καὶ ἐκει̑νο καὶ του̑το ἐν τῳ̑ αὐτῳ̑ γιγνομένην οἰκείᾳ προαιρέσει. (20) See Dial. 20.330–9: του̑ ἀγαθου̑ καὶ δικαίου Θεου̑ κατὰ τινὰς ἀπορρήτους λόγους, σταδίου δίκην, τὸν κόσμον ἐκτείνοντος καὶ αὐτεξουσίους ἡμα̑ς ποιήσαντος, ἵνα οἰκείᾳ αἱρέσει τοι̑ς πράγμασιν ἐπιβάλλοντες δικαίας τὰς εὐθύνας παράσχωμεν…οὐ γὰρ σοφὸν ἠ̑ν τὸ ἀτρέπτους ἡμα̑ς γενέσθαι, ἄθλων οὐ προκειμένων καὶ γνώμης οὐ κατορθούσης, μόνῳ τῳ̑ θείῳ καὶ ἀϊδί προσαρμόζοντος του̑ ἀτρέπτου. (21 ) HL 47, Butler, 140.25–6: δει̑ γὰρ τὸν πιστὸν καὶ ἀγαθὸν φρονει̑ν μὲν ἃ δίδωσιν ὁ θεóς, λαλει̑ν δὲ ἃ φρονει̑, ποιει̑ν δὲ ἃ λαλει̑. (22) HL Prologue 10–16, Butler, 12.16–14.25; HL 47, Butler 138.24–140.18. (23) HL 47, Butler 139.2. (24) HL 12, Butler 36.7–8. (25) HL 47, Butler 137.11–16. (26) For theodicy in Origen, see Hendrik S. Benjamins, Eingeordnete Freiheit: Freiheit und Vorsehung bei Origenes (Leiden: Brill, 1994); cf. Hal Koch, Pronoia und Paideusis: Studien über Origenes und sein Verhältnis zum Platonismus (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1932; repr. New York: Garland, 1979); Eberhard Schockenhoff, Zum Fest der Freiheit: Theologie des christlichen Handelns bei Origenes, Tübingen Theologische Studien 33 (Mainz: Matthias‐ Grünewald, 1990). (27) Origen princ. 3.1.2–6, ed. Henri Crouzel and Manlio Simonetti, Origène: Traité des principes, SC 252–3, 268–9,
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312 (Paris: Cerf, 1978–1984), at vol. 268, pp. 18–40. (28) Origen Cels. 2.20, ed. Marcel Borret, Origène: Contre Celse, SC 132, 136, 147, 150 (Paris: Cerf, 1967–9), at vol. 132, pp. 336–44. (29) Origen fr. in Lc. 192.18, for which see Origenes Werke: Die Homilien zu Lukas in der Übersetzung des Hieronymus und die griechischen Reste der Homilien und des Lukas-Kommentars, ed. Max Rauer, GCS 9 (Berlin: Akademie, 1959), 309. (30) Origen fr. in Lc. 95 (GCS 9, p. 264). (31 ) Origen princ. 3.1.13 (SC 268, p. 76, ll. 350–5). (32) Origen philoc. 27.4, ed. Éric Junod, Origène: Philocalie 21–27, Sur le libre arbitre, SC 226 (Paris: Cerf, 1976), 280–2. (33) Origen hom. in Jer. (Greek homilies) 3.2, ed. Pierre Nautin, Origène: Homélies sur Jérémie, SC 232 (Paris: Cerf, 1976), 250–2. (34) Origen princ. 3.2.5 (SC 268, pp. 174–8). (35) HL 47, Butler 139.10–12. (36) Origen Cels. 2.20 (SC 132, p. 336.12–18); Benjamins, Eingeordnete Freiheit, 50–121. (37) Origen princ. 3.2.1–7 (SC 268, pp. 152–82). (38) Eccl 1.13: ὅτι περισπασμὸν πονηρὸν ἔδωκε ὁ θεòς τοι̑ς υἱοι̑ς τω̑ν ἀνθρώπων του̑ περισπα̑σθαι ἐν αὐτῳ̑. See Evagrius Scholia on Ecclesiastes 4, ed. Paul Géhin, Évagre le Pontique: Scholies à l'Ecclésiaste, SC 397 (Paris: Cerf, 1993), 62. (39) Evagrius Scholia on Ecclesiastes 4 (SC 397, p. 62). Géhin (SC 397, pp. 64–5) notes the parallels among Origen, Evagrius, and Palladius. (40) Evagrius Scholia on Ecclesiastes 37 and 61 (SC 397, pp. 126 and 167). (41) Evagrius Gnostic 28. Only a fragment of the original Greek survives, but it contains the key word ἐγκατάλειψις, which helped determine which of the surviving translations was the most accurate; see Antoine Guillaumont and Claire Guillaumont, Évagre le Pontique: Le Gnostique, ou, À celui qui est devenu digne de la science, SC 356 (Paris: Cerf, 1989), 134–43, for a detailed analysis of the passage, and for the parallels found in the works of Palladius, Maximus, and the Ps.‐Damascene. ET: Luke Dysinger, OSB, http://www.ldysinger.com/Evagrius/02_Gno‐ Keph/00a_start.htm. (42) See Evagrius Kephalaia Gnostica 6.75 (from S2), ed. Antoine Guillaumont, Les six centuries des ‘Kephalaia Gnostica’ d'Évagre le Pontique, PO 28 (Paris: Firmin‐Didot & Co., 1958), 249; hereafter, referred to as KG (followed by century and chapter number, and the page number in the PO edition). ET: Luke Dysinger, www.ldysinger.com/Evagrius/02_Gno‐Keph/00a_start.htm. (43) Evagrius On prayer 37 (PG 79.1176A): προσεύχου πρότερον περὶ του̑ καθαρθη̑ναι τω̑ν παθω̑ν, καὶ δεύτερον περὶ του̑ ῥυσθη̑ναι ἀπὸ τη̑ς ἀγνωσίας, καὶ τρίτον ἀπὸ παντὸς πειρασμου̑ καὶ ἐγκαταλείψεως. All translations of Evagrius’ Greek corpus are by Robert E. Sinkewicz, Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). (44) Rufinus’ defence of providence and free will has received a thorough treatment in Elizabeth A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 164–87. (45) Clark, Origenist Controversy, 169 and 187.
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(46) Clark, Origenist Controversy, 193. (47) Clark, Origenist Controversy, 13: ‘Most important, Rufinus—unlike Jerome—vigorously affirmed that the motivation undergirding Origen's enterprise should be lauded: he had wished to uphold both God's justice and benevolence, and human free will, against the determinism of Gnostics and astrologers. Under attack Rufinus maintained that any theology worth credence must protect these teachings of the Christian tradition at all costs.’ (48) Clark, Origenist Controversy, 193. (49) Butler, Lausiac History, 2.224–5; Coptic Encyclopedia, s.v. ‘Paphnutius of Scetis, Saint’. For the Conferences, see E. Pichery, Jean Cassien: Conferences I–VII, SC 42 (Paris: Cerf, 1955); ET: Boniface Ramsey, John Cassian: The Conferences, ACW 57 (New York: Paulist, 1997). (50) Cassian conl. 3.4 (SC 42, p. 141). (51 ) Cassian conl. 3.5 (SC 42, pp. 143–5). (52) Cassian conl. 3.20 (SC 42, p. 163–4): ‘Aut enim voluntate eius aut permissu agi uniuersa fatendum est, ut scilicet haec quae bona sunt uoluntate dei perfici auxilioque credantur, quae autem contraria sunt permissu, cum pro nequitiis ac duritia cordis nostri deserens nos diuina protectio diabolum nobis uel ignominiosas corporis passiones patitur dominari.’ (53) For a still fuller treatment of abandonment, see Cassian conl. 4.2–6 (SC 42, pp. 168–72). (54) Cassian conl. 3.12 (SC 42, p. 155). (55) Cassian conl. 3.6–7 (SC 42, pp. 145–50). (56) Cassian conl. 3.19 (SC 42, p. 162). (57) Cassian conl. 3.19 (SC 42, p. 163): ‘Quo testimonio manifeste discernitur, quid libero arbitrio quidue dispensationi uel cotidiano adiutorio domini debeamus adscribere, et quod diuinae sit gratiae praestare nobis occasiones salutis et prouentus secundos atque uictoriam, nostrum uero ut concessa dei beneficia uel intentius uel segnius exsequamur.’ (58) For the ‘semi‐pelagian’ controversy, see Columba Stewart, Cassian the Monk (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 76–81; and Rebecca Harden Weaver, Divine Grace and Human Agency: A Study of the Semi-Pelagian Controversy, Patristic Monograph Series 15 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1996), 71–116. (59) Cassian conl. 3.12 (SC 42, pp. 156–7). (60) Cassian conl. 3.12 (SC 42, p. 157): ‘nullus iustorum sibi sufficit ad obtinendam iustitiam, nisi per momenta singula titubanti ei et conruenti fulmenta manus suae subposuerit diuina clementia, ne prostrates intereat penitus, cum fuerit liberi arbitrii infirmitate conlapsus.’ (61 ) Cassian conl. 3.13–15, 3.22 (SC 42, pp. 157–9, and pp. 164–5). (62) Cassian conl. 3.15 (SC 42, p. 159): ‘haec autem dicimus, non ut stadium nostrum vel laborem atque industriam quasi inaniter et superfluo inpendenda uacuemus, sed ut nouerimus nos sine auxilio dei nec adniti posse nec efficaces nostros esse conatus ad capessendum tam inmane praemium puritatis, nisi nobis adiutorio domini ac misericordia fuerit contributum.’ (63) Cassian had also challenged Jerome's theology, for which see Steve Driver, ‘From Palestinian Ignorance to Egyptian Wisdom: Cassian's Challenge to Jerome's Monastic Teachings’, American Benedictine Review 48 (1997): 293–315. (64) The Christian tradition on providence was a long and diffuse one by the time Palladius wrote; see Aimé
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Solingnac, ‘Volonté: I. Vue d'ensemble historique sur le mot et la notion’, DSp 16.1220–8; H.‐D. Simonin, ‘Providence: II. La providence selon les pères grecs’, DTC 13.1.941–960. (65) Clark, Origenist Controversy, 194–244; Peter Brown, ‘The Patrons of Pelagius: The Roman Aristocracy between East and West’, JThS, ns, 21 (1970): 56–72, repr. in idem, Religion and Society in the Age of St. Augustine (London: Faber and Faber, 1972), 208–26; see a related article by Charles Pietri, ‘Esquisse de Conclusion’, in Jean Chrysostome et Augustin: Actes du colloque de Chantilly, 22–24 septembre 1974, ed. C. Kannengiesser (Paris: Beauchesne, 1975), 283–305; Lionel Wickham, ‘Pelagianism in the East’, in The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honor of Henry Chadwick, ed. Rowan Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 200–13; Robert A. Markus, ‘The Legacy of Pelagius’, ibid. 214–34, repr. in R. A. Markus, Sacred and Secular: Studies on Augustine and Latin Christianity (Aldershot: Variorum Press, 1994). (66) Clark, Origenist Controversy, 179–80. (67) Jerome ep. 133.9: ‘Obice deo fortiorem calumniam, quare, cum adhuc in utero essent Esau et Iacob, dixerit: Iacob dilexi, Esau autem odio habui’ (Isidore Hilberg, Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi Epistulae, Part 3, CSEL 56 [Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1918; repr. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1996], p. 255, ll. 8–10). Jerome alluded to Rom. 9.13 and Mal. 1.2–3; cf. Gen. 25.23. (68) Jerome ep. 133.9 (CSEL 56.1, p. 256.1); ET: NPNF series 2, vol. 6, p. 278. (69) Jerome of course confessed a free will, but of the sort that ‘depends upon the help of God and needs his aid moment by moment (sed ipsum liberum, ut diximus, arbitrium dei nititur auxilio illiusque per singula ope indiget)’ (ep. 133.10 [CSEL 56.1, p. 256.14–15]; ET: NPNF series 2, vol. 6, p. 278). (70) HL 47, Butler 141.21–142.1–2. Cf. Heb. 12.16. (71 ) Jerome himself had once offered Origen's answer as a plausible solution, for which see Clark, Origenist Controversy, 178. (72) Origen princ. 2.9.7 (SC 252, p. 366.213–14): ‘verum ne scriptura quidem sancta uidetur mihi penitus arcani huius tacuisse rationem.’ (73) Cf. Rom 9.14: Τὶ οὐ̑ν ἐρου̑μεν; μὴ ἀδικία παρὰ τῳ̑ θεῳ̑; μὴ γένοιτο. (74) Mark Julian Edwards, Origen against Plato (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2002), 89–93, presents compelling arguments for a reassessment of Origen in this regard, but in my estimation the force of his argument is somewhat tempered by his own admission that for Origen and for his contemporaries it may not have been a problematic idea per se, and by the evidence for a similar system in Evagrius, for which see Julia Konstantinovsky, Evagrius Ponticus: The Making of a Gnostic (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 123–8 and 175–7; in any event, Clark (Origenist Controversy) and Dechow (Dogma and Mysticism) have demonstrated convincingly that this schema was presented quite literally by anti‐Origenist polemicists and vehemently rejected by them. (75) Origen princ. 2.9.7 (SC 252, p. 368.241–3): ‘si ex praecedentis uidelicet uitae meritis digne eum dilectum esse sentiamus a deo, ita ut et fratri praeponi mereretur.’ See also princ. 1.7.4 (SC 252, pp. 214–16). (76) Origen princ. 2.9.7 (SC 252, p. 370.262–5): ‘Quae, ut mihi uidetur, ita demum lucidius ostendetur, si causas diuersitatis unusquisque uel caelestium uel terrestrium uel infernorum in semet ipso praecedentes natiuitatem corpoream habere dicatur.’ (77) Clark argues that Rufinus’ vigorous defence of Origenist theodicy presupposes that he embraced Origen's cosmology and anthropology: Origenist Controversy, 191–3; Crouzel, however, suggests that he attempted to retreat from such a position, in Origène: Traités des principes, 4: 47, n. 119. (78) HL 47, Butler 142.1–8, quoting Rom. 1.28, and a conflation of Rom. 1.21 and 1.26; in this regard, Palladius approximates what was claimed for Origen by Edwards, Origen against Plato, 93.
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(79) See Dial. 20.334–6. (80) See Origen princ. 1.4–5 (SC 252, pp. 214–20), 2.9 (SC 252, pp. 352–72), pace Edwards, Origen against Plato, 89–93 (noted above); Evagrius delineated most clearly his vision of the origin, fall, and return to God of both creation and humanity in his Great Letter (also known as the Letter to Melania), which was edited and printed in two parts: the first in W. Frankenberg, Euagrius Ponticus, Abhandlungen der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Philologisch‐Historische Klasse, Neue Folge Bd. 13, Nr. 2 (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1912; repr. Göttingen: Kraus and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970); the second (with corrections of Frankenberg's §§ 17, 24, 25) in Gösta Vitestam, Seconde partie du traité, qui passe sous le nom de ‘La grande lettre d'Évagre le Pontique à Mélanie l'Ancienne’: Publiée et traduite d'après le manuscrit du British Museum Add. 17192, Scripta Minora Regiae Societatis Humaniorum Litterarum Lundensis 1963–4:3 (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1964). Subsequent references are cited as GL followed by the section numbers of A. M. Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus (London: Routledge, 2006), 64–77 (whose English translation I use throughout), and the page number in Frankenberg or Vitestam; for ease of reference, I have also included the chapter and line numbers as found in M. Parmentier, ‘Evagrius of Pontus’ Letter to Melania,’ Bijdragen 46 (1985): 2–38. See Konstantinovsky, Evagrius Ponticus, 156–7. (81 ) ‘Now we must seek to know how many natures (kynʿ [pl.]), ranks (ţksʿ [pl.]), combinations (mwzgʿ [pl.]), and dispositions (ʿskymʿ [pl.]) there are; how many movements (zw‘’ [pl.]) each and every one has and what their opposites are’, or, more precisely, ‘and [those movements] which are opposite to them (wdlqwblhwn)’, GL 35 (Mel 8.272–4; Vitestam, p. 9). Cf. Origen princ. 2.1.4, 3.1.2, 4.4.6–7, noted by Casiday, Evagrius, 214, n. 26. (82) GL 38 (Mel 8.297–8; Vitestam, pp. 11–12): ‘Now then, as for the number of natures of created beings, only two are known: the perceptible and the intelligible.’ (83) GL 40 (Mel 8.309–10; Vitestam, p. 12). (84) GL 41 (Mel 9.316–25; Vitestam, p. 13). (85) For opposition (Syr. sqwblywtʿ), see KG 1.2 (PO 28, p. 16). (86) ‘The true life of the logikoi is their natural activity, while their death is an activity against nature. But if such death is so mortal as to naturally extinguish true life, who among beings is immortal? For every reasoning nature is susceptible to opposition.’ S2 KG 1.64 (PO 28, p. 47). The categories positive and negative would not have been available to Evagrius. Diophantus of Alexandria (c. ad 250) had made great advances concerning the use of the minus sign, but the notion of a negative number for him was absurd or ἄτοπος, for which see Thomas L. Heath, Diophantus of Alexandria: A Study in the History of Greek Algebra, 2nd edn. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910; repr. New York: Dover, 1964). Negative numbers were first used in India in the seventh century, but were not used in the west until the sixteenth century, and more widely in calculations in the seventeenth century, for which see Jan Gullberg, Mathematics: From the Birth of Numbers (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), 72–3. The use of negative numbers was particularly significant for the physicist to distinguish between electric charges, for which see Lloyd Motz and Jefferson Hane Weaver, The Story of Mathematics (New York: Plenum Press, 1993), 46–7; this latter use appears analogous to Evagrius’ distinction between opposites in binaries. (87) ‘The wealth of the soul is knowledge, and its poverty ignorance; but if ignorance is deprivation of knowledge, wealth precedes poverty, and the health of the soul [precedes] its sickness’ (S2 KG 2.8 [PO 28, p. 63]). (88) Plato Phaedo 60B–C; for an introduction to later Stoic developments of this dialectic, see J. M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 37–53; cf. Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator: The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor (Lund: Gleerup, 1965), 167–8, who briefly surveys the dialectic of pleasure and pain in the Stoics, Philo, Gregory of Nyssa, Evagrius, Nilus, and Nemesius, in preparation for his treatment of this key feature of Maximus the Confessor. (89) GL 42–44 (Mel 9.325–339; Vitestam, pp. 14–15); here Evagrius excludes the fourth rank, viz. death, because of a preceding discussion concerning death as the absence of all movement.
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(90) For the close relationship between Gregory and Evagrius, see Casiday, Evagrius, 6–8; their thought, however, diverged in significant ways, for which see Konstantinovsky, Evagrius Ponticus, 70–2, 152, 173–4, and passim. (91 ) Gregory Nazianzus carm. 1.2.14, lines 25–32 (PG 37.757–8); also Kristijan Domiter, Gregor von Nazianz: De Humana Natura [c. 1,2,14], Patrologia: Beiträge zum Studium der Kirchenväter VI (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1999), 30–2: ‘I am. Think: what does this mean? Something of me's gone by, something I’m now completing, another thing I’ll be, if I will be. Nothing's for sure. I am indeed, a troubled river's current, always in transit, having nothing fixed. Which of these, then, will you say that I am? And what I am more than yourself, come teach me. Now, stick with this, and watch, or I’ll escape you. You won’t go twice through that same flow of river that you traversed before, neither will you see the same man as he is at present.’ Trans. Peter Gilbert, On God and Man: The Theological Poetry of St. Gregory of Nazianzus (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2001), 133; cf. Heraclitus Fragments 12 and 91, ed. Hermann Diels, Herakleitos von Ephesos (Berlin: Weidmann, 1901). (92) Plato Cratylus 440a–d; Aristotle, Metaphysics 987a29–987b13, Aristotle, Metaphysics 1010a1–1010a14. (93) Daniel W. Graham, ‘Heraclitus’, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries /heraclitus/), § 3.1; cf. Charles H. Kahn, The Art and Thought of Heraclitus: An Edition of the Fragments with Translation and Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 166–8, and 220–7. (94) GL 41 (Mel 9.316–25; Vitestam, p. 13). This passage was quoted above. (95) ‘The monad is not moved in itself: rather, it is moved by the receptivity of the nous which through inattentiveness turns its face away, and which through this deprivation besets ignorance’ (KG 1.49 [PO 28, pp. 40–1]). Movement, not incorporeality, appears to be the primary marker of rational creation or fallen creation: ‘It is not because the nous is incorporeal that it bears the likeness of God, but because it has been made receptive of Him. And if it is because it is incorporeal that it bears the likeness of God, it is therefore essential knowledge; and it is not by receptivity that it has been made [in] the image of God. But examine whether this is the same thing, the fact that it is incorporeal and the fact that it is able to receive knowledge, or quite otherwise, like a statue and its bronze’ (S2 KG 6.73 [PO 28, p. 247]). Evagrius was not the only monk in Egypt for whom movement was a preoccupation, for which see Letters of Antony 4.17 (‘As for Arius, who stood up in Alexandria, he spoke strange words about the Only‐begotten: to him who has no beginning, he gave a beginning…and to the immovable he gave movement’), and 6.108–9 (‘Why did Jesus gird himself with a towel [cf. John 13.4–5] and wash the feet of his disciples, if not to make this an example and teach those who turn back to their first beginning, since pride is the origin of that movement which was in the beginning’), in Samuel Rubenson, The Letters of St. Antony: Monasticism and the Making of a Saint (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 211 and 224. (96) ‘Just as light and shadow are accidents of air, so virtue and vice, as well as knowledge and ignorance, are united with the rational soul’ (S2 KG 1.59 [PO 28, p. 45]). (97) ‘Whether the logikoi exist always or do not exist depends on the will of the Creator; but whether they are immortal or mortal depends on their own will, as does [the question] whether they are joined or not joined to one thing or another’ (S2 KG 1.63 (PO 28, p. 47)). (98) S2 KG 1.66 (PO 28, p. 49). (99) Dial. 20.234. (100) Dial. 20.234–43, alluding to Jas 4.6, 1 Pet 5.5. (101) Palladius does not appear to share Evagrius’ notion of a provisional hell whose ultimate purpose was to purify and which would cease to exist after it fulfilled its purpose, for which see Konstantinovsky, Evagrius Ponticus, 160–2. (102) S2 KG 1.78–80 (PO 28, pp. 53–5). (103) Cf. S2 KG 6.90 (PO 28, p. 255): ‘Whoever will have obtained spiritual knowledge will help the holy angels and
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will return reasoning souls from vice to virtue and from ignorance to knowledge’; and S2 KG 5.37 (PO 28, p. 193), ‘The intelligible [fish-]hook (Job 9.25) is the spiritual teaching that draws the soul from the depth of vice towards virtue.’ (104) S2 KG 1.84 (PO 28, p. 57). (105) Translation slightly modified, S2 KG 1.72 (PO 28, p. 51); cf. S2 KG 6.86 (PO 28, p. 253): ‘Holy angels instruct some men through the word; they bring others back by means of dreams; they render still others chaste by nocturnal terrors, and they make others return to virtue through blows.’ (106) S1 KG 1.72 (PO 28, p. 50); this recension attributes a more passive role to the Lord. (107) S2 KG 5.5 (PO 28, p. 179). (108) S1 KG 5.5 (PO 28, p. 178). (109) HL 25, Butler 80.12–15. (110) Hippocrates de flat. 1.29–34; trans. W. H. S. Jones, Hippocrates, vol. 2, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959), at 228. This source was found by Butler (2: 201, n. 42), who noted similar parallels in Jerome, Cassian, and Gregory the Great. (111 ) For the significance of medical language in Evagrius, see Luke Dysinger, ‘Healing Judgment: “Medical Hermeneutics” in the Writings of Evagrius Ponticus’, in Il monachesimo tra eredità e aperture: Atti del simposio ‘Testi e temi nella tradizione del monachesimo cristiano’ per il 50° anniversario dell’Instituto Monastico di Sant’ Anselmo (Roma, 28 maggio–1°guigno 2002). Studia Anselmiana 140, ed. Maciej Bielawksi and Daniël Hombergen (Rome: Pontificio Ateneo S. Anselmo, 2004), 75–104. See in particular Dysinger's discussion on countermeasure (ἀντίρρησις), the speaking of scriptural verses in opposition to the evil thoughts (96–8), and on judgment (κρίσις), which describes the common medical practice of offering a diagnosis and prognosis of one's condition on the outcome of critical moments in the course of one's illness (98–9); Evagrius held that the gnostic monk should be able to observe the successive κρίσεις and forecast what might occur next in the movement towards vice or virtue. (112) Dial. 19.93–100. (113) Meyer (Dialogue, 210, n. 854) also noted that this appears to be ‘a practical application’ of the Hippocratean maxim in HL 25. (114) S2 KG 1.40 (PO 28, p. 37); trans. slightly modified. (115) ‘Again, it might be thought, as certain people say, that if it were perfectly in the likeness of God as it was created it could even elevate it above all the movements’ (GL 46 [Mel 9.356–9; Vitestam, p. 16]). Immovability or stability commonly denoted some form of salvation or eschatological reality in late antique religious and philosophical thought, and by extension it came to denote transcendent or divine qualities; see Michael Allen Williams, The Immovable Race: A Gnostic Designation and the Theme of Stability in Late Antiquity, Nag Hammadi Studies 29 (Leiden: Brill, 1985). (116) Evagrius warned against desiring one's own death, saying that ‘One who is passionate and who prays to quickly depart (the body) resembles the sick man who asks the carpenter to quickly break up his bed.’ S2 KG 4.76 (PO 28, p. 169); for references to apatheia as a spiritual death, see Mette Sophia Bøcher Rasmussen, ‘Like a Rock or like God? The Concept of apatheia in the Monastic Theology of Evagrius of Pontus’, Studia Theologica 59 (2005): 147–62, at 155–7. (117) So it has been convincingly argued by Rasmussen (‘Like a Rock or like God?’, 154), who cites Praktikos 6, 11, 47, and 51 as evidence for the passions as movement, and Praktikos 12, 57, 64, 67 as evidence for apatheia as the opposite of movement. (118) S2 KG 6 19 (PO 28 p 225) 22.1.2012 20:09
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(119) S2 KG 6.21 (PO 28, p. 225). (120) S2 KG 1.89 (PO 28, p. 59). (121) Rasmussen, ‘Like a Rock or like God?’, 160. (122) Rasmussen, ‘Like a Rock or like God?’, 160, says, ‘but in earthly life, perfect apatheia is not permanent since it is only attained during prayer. The very condition of motion and change of the created world is incompatible with the immovable, unchangeable condition of perfect apatheia, and therefore the condition will constantly be attained and lost again…This is because the condition is not lost on account of newly committed sins, but because of the incompatibility between this condition and the created world.’ (123) GL 52–3 (Mel 10.400–10; Vitestam, p. 20). (124) Maximus Confessor qu. Thal. 61; ed. Carl Laga and Carlos Steel, Maximii confessoris quaestiones ad Thalassium, vol. 2, CCG 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1990), 85, ll. 16–21; trans. Paul M. Blowers and Robert Louis Wilken, On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ: Selected Writings (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2003), 131–2. (125) Dial. 20. 203: Τὸν περίγειον κύκλον ἡδονω̑ν καὶ ὀδυνω̑ν πεπληρωμένον. (126) See also Evagrius Praktikos 10 (SC 171, p. 514), in which a soul is saddened because of unfulfilled desires, and which does not in any way suggest that God was responsible for the resulting pain experienced by the ascetic. (127) This led Lars Thunberg to say that this polarity was ‘introduced by God Himself into the life of sinful man as a punitive and purgative power’, in his Man and the Cosmos: The Vision of St. Maximus the Confessor (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary, 1985), 58. On the dialectic of ἡδονή and λύπη and its transformation to that of ἡδονή and ὀδύνη, see Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 166–9; on the centrality of this latter dialectic to the thought of Maximus see Christoph von Schönborn, ‘Plaisir et douleur dans l'analyse de s. Maxime, d'après les Quaestiones ad Thalassium’, in Maximus Confessor: Actes du Symposium sur Maxime le Confesseur, Fribourg, 2–5 septembre 1980, ed. Feliz Heinzer and Christoph Schönborn, Paradosis 27 (Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires, 1982), 273–4. Schönborn argues that this dialectic does not disrupt creation between the sensible and the spiritual: rather it establishes the integration of the two. (128) Unlike the binaries of Evagrius in which the one term is a good, either a spiritual good (such as virtue), or a lesser, sensible one, this binary of Maximus does not have a positive and negative term; rather, both terms are negative, because this ἡδονή is strictly sensible, not spiritual, and thus it cannot be accounted a good. Thunberg suggested that Maximus’ notion of a positive, spiritual ἡδονή may have been derived from Nemesius of Emesa, but that in his association of the term with ὀδύνη, he displayed a greater indebtedness to Gregory of Nyssa who reserved ἡδονή for sensual pleasures (Microcosm and Mediator, 167). According to Maximus, the incarnation subsequently transfigured both ἡδονή and ὀδύνη, such that the pain experienced in resisting passions (in imitation of Christ's pain during his Passion) results in true, spiritual pleasure of the resurrection, for which see qu. Thal. 61 (CCG 22.91, lines 109–11): ‘In truth, then, God became a man and provided another beginning (ἀρχή), a second nativity (γένεσις), for human nature, which, through the vehicle of suffering, ends in the pleasure of the life to come’ (Wilken and Blowers, Cosmic Mystery, 135). (129) This appears to be the intent of the list of monks drawn from the HL and the Dialogue by Jon F. Dechow, Dogma and Mysticism in Early Christianity: Epiphanius of Cyprus and the Legacy of Origen, Patristic Monograph Series 13 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1988), 146–77. (130) 1 Cor. 15.28; Eph. 1.23. PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2011. All Rights Reserved. Under the te PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/page/privacy-polic
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Palladius of Helenopolis Demetrios S. Katos Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199696963 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696963.001.0001
Conclusion Chapter: (p. 185 ) ConclusionPalladius of HelenopolisThe Origenist AdvocateDemetrios S. Katos Source: Author(s): DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696963.003.0008
Abstract and Keywords The conclusion briefly reviews the book's central claims: that Palladius was an influential personality among Origenist ascetics at the turn of the fifth century; that the Dialogue is best understood through the lens of late antique judicial rhetoric and stasis theory; and that Palladius was deeply influenced in his theology by both Origen and his mentor Evagrius, particularly in his understanding of spiritual progress and human freedom. The conclusion suggests that judicial rhetoric may prove useful for the analysis of other works of Christian literature considering the widespread training among Christian bishops in this area. The author briefly considers several aspects of Palladius' thought that could appeal to an audience broader than that of specialists in late antique Christianity, and concludes by noting that Palladius' death marked the twilight of an era in which there was open admiration for Origen and his remarkable contributions. Keywords: Origenist, judicial rhetoric, stasis theory, Origen, Evagrius, spiritual progress, human freedom
Palladius concluded his Lausiac History with a chapter devoted to the ‘brother’ who was with him ‘from his youth until this very day’, a thinly veiled self‐reference that preserved his modesty but also paid tribute to his own ascetic efforts and placed him in the ranks of the numerous monks whose deeds and words he had recorded in the HL. Considering the value he placed on humility, this third‐person reference served him well for nearly two millennia, because he has remained largely in the shadows of history, and few members of either church or academy have concerned themselves with studying him per se. By exploring the life and thought of Palladius, this book has shed light on the degree to which he was indebted to the legacy of Origen, and committed to the work of Evagrius and those in his circle. In this regard, it has advanced our understanding of those who have often been characterized as Origenists, delineating the contours of their circle and thought, by examining the history, rhetoric, and theology of 22.1.2012 20:09
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Palladius' Dialogue and Lausiac History. With respect to historical research, this book offers the fullest biography of Palladius to date. Although it has been correctly argued by others that Butler's chronology is incomplete and inaccurate in various points, a better one cannot be constructed on the basis of the surviving records. Meanwhile, as this study has shown, Butler's chronology is still coherent, which is more than can be said for that of many late antique personalities, and it provides a fairly complete picture of Palladius' life and times. Barring the discovery of any new literature that might be related to Palladius, I do not believe it is possible to go further. It is a shame that we hear of Palladius mostly from Jerome, who expressed nothing but contempt for the man, rather than from Palladius' friends or associates. From them we might have learned much more about this restless soul. His devotion to them was without measure, and he imbibed deeply their theology and spirit. I have also shown that Palladius played an important role among those labelled as Origenists in his day. Both his Dialogue and his History promoted (in different ways and to varying degrees) the work and thought of his associates and their patrons. Although he did not command others' respect as did Melania, Isidore, or Ammonius, it was he who secured their reputation (p. 186 ) for posterity. Although he did not attract disciples as did Pambo, Macarius the Alexandrian, and Evagrius of Pontus, his popular and widely influential Lausiac History has instructed countless generations of Christians from many different cultural milieus. Whatever the deficiencies of this book, it is hoped that its subject will finally be accorded the status of an important late antique writer and thinker who is worthy of study in his own right. I believe that the most significant contribution of this book lies in its rhetorical analysis of the Dialogue, a work that has been so important for historians and biographers, but whose structure and style has bedevilled them for centuries. By means of rhetorical theories that have only recently been incorporated into late antique studies, I have argued that the Dialogue was composed in accordance with the principles of judicial rhetoric, and that its narration of John's life and passion, which captured the imagination of generations of Christians, was limited in both scope and purpose, and was never intended to be either a history or a biography. It is rather to the arguments that one must turn to appreciate the Dialogue and the seriousness of the charges against John. Although these arguments have often been ignored, they are in fact at the heart of the text. Stasis theory reveals that Palladius was fully aware of the magnitude and gravity of John's problem, and that he appreciated the claims and arguments of his opposition; it also reveals why he believed John was ultimately justified in his actions and why he believed so deeply in his cause. As a result of this analysis, this book also provides additional circumstantial evidence that Palladius of Helenopolis was indeed the author of the Dialogue, an attribution that has been disputed since the seventeenth century (although much less so in the past century). The rigorous application of principles of both judicial rhetoric and stasis theory in the Dialogue indicate that the author was trained as an advocate. That our Palladius possessed such training, and was recognized as an adept practitioner, is suggested by the fact that John appointed him twice to travel to Ephesus to investigate the charges raised against Antoninus of Ephesus, and by the fact that Innocent of Rome sent him to Constantinople to plead the case of John before the imperial court. Finally, this book sketches the central theological elements of Palladius' writings, and argues that Palladius was profoundly indebted to both Origen and Evagrius, even if he never displayed the sweeping theological vision of the former, or the detailed psychoanalysis of the latter. Origen's rationale for human self‐determination and Evagrius' understanding of spiritual progress are at the heart of the HL and colour the portraits of its ascetics. This study has shown that both the Dialogue and the History contain evidence that Palladius read the scriptural commentaries, homilies, and scholia of both Origen and Evagrius, and that he adopted many of their views concerning evil, suffering, abandonment, and free will. The similarity of Palladius' language in these respects to that of Origen and Evagrius is striking, and his emphasis on human (p. 187 ) freedom indicates that it was of paramount importance for him. His interest in pure prayer reminds the reader that he rejected a secular career for the contemplative life of a hermit—even if he was not the most conventional of anchorites. As a result of these investigations, the book delineates a theology whose gist and flavour could be characterized as Origenist, even though it did not presuppose or openly espouse the problematic elements of Origen's legacy that were being condemned as Origenism. Palladius' writings suggest a purpose and motive for the practice of pure prayer 2 of 3
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that did not imply radical dualism or anti‐materialism, but complete receptivity to divine life. We do not find, neither do we require, any pre‐existent souls or multiple worlds in Palladius' theodicy. Consequently, this book shows that such cosmologies and anthropologies may not have been as characteristic of fourth‐ and fifth‐century Origenists as ancient polemicists and some modern scholars have suggested. Looking beyond the theological questions, this study prompts broader questions about how rhetoric shaped early Christian and late antique literature. Given the existence of the episcopalis audientia and the legal training of many bishops, it is surprising that forensic influences in composition have been overlooked for so long. As this study and the growing interest in this field suggest, such analyses can be very fruitful. Certain principles of stasis theory, such as assimilation, letter and intent, and conflict of laws, guided the process of scriptural interpretation in ways that we are only beginning to realize. Such evidence suggests that legal training, no less than philosophical or philological training, had a profound influence upon the language and conventions of early Christian literature that deserves closer attention. The significance of Palladius' theological work was eclipsed shortly after his death by the Christological controversies that followed soon thereafter. It is even likely that by the time that he was writing for Lausus, he had already become something of an oddity. All his mentors and colleagues having died, Palladius' last years truly marked the twilight of an ascetic circle that had openly embraced Origen's legacy. Of course, Origen's work continued to influence Christian theology through the works of other luminaries who preceded and followed Palladius, but with the inexorable march of time the voices that defended these ascetics and a theology so openly indebted to Origen were silenced—all save for one. In his Dialogue and his History, Palladius bequeathed to posterity a powerful testimonial to the virtue of his friends and their supporters, and to the beauty of their theology. In these works his tenacious spirit has survived to the present day and continues to advocate for his friends and their tradition. ΤΕΛΟΣ ΚΑΙ Τῼ ΘΕῼ ΔΟΞΑ PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2011. All Rights Reserved. Under the te PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/page/privacy-polic
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Palladius of Helenopolis Demetrios S. Katos Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199696963 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696963.001.0001
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—— Contra Celsum. Marcel Borret, ed., Origène: Contre Celse, 5 vols., SC 132, 136, 147, 150, 227 (Paris: Cerf, 1967–76). (p. 191 ) —— De principiis. Henri Crouzel and Manlio Simonetti, eds., Origène: Traité des principes, SC 252–3, 268–9 (Paris: Cerf, 1978–84). —— Excerpta in Psalmos. PG 17.105–49. —— Expositio in Proverbia. PG 17.161–252. —— Fragmenta in Jeremiam. PG 13.544–605. —— Fragmenta in Lucam. Max Rauer, ed., Origenes Werke: Die Homilien zu Lukas in der Übersetzung des Hieronymus und die griechischen Reste der Homilien und des Lukas-Kommentars, GCS 9 (Berlin: Akademie, 1959). —— Homiliae in Canticum. O. Rousseau, ed., Origène: Homélies sur le Cantique des Cantiques, SC 37 (Paris: Cerf, 1953). —— Homiliae in Jeremiam. Pierre Nautin, ed., Origène: Homélies sur Jérémie, SC 232 (Paris: Cerf, 1976). —— Homiliae in Judices. W. A. Baehrens, ed., Origenes Werke, vol. 7, Homilien zum Hexateuch in Rufins Übersetzung, GCS 30 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1921). Reproduced in Pierre Messié, SJ, Louis Neyrand, SJ, Marcel Borret, SJ, eds., Origène: Homélies sur les Juges, SC 389 (Paris: Cerf, 1993). —— Philocalia. Éric Junod, Origène: Philocalie 21–27, Sur le libre arbitre, SC 226 (Paris: Cerf, 1976). —— Selecta in Job. PG 12.1032–49. Palladius, Dialogus de vita s. Joannis Chrysostomi. P. R. Coleman‐Norton, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928). Revised: Anne‐Marie Malingrey, ed., Palladios: Dialogue sur la vie de Jean Chrysostome, SC 341–2 (Paris: Cerf, 1988). English translations: Robert T. Meyer, trans., Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom, Ancient Christian Writers 45 (New York: Newman Press, 1985). Herbert Moore, The Dialogue of Palladius concerning the Life of Chrysostom (London: SPCK, 1921). —— Historia Lausiaca. Cuthbert Butler, ed., The Lausiac History of Palladius: A Critical Discussion Together with Notes on Early Egyptian Monachism, Texts and Studies VI, 1–2. 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898, 1904; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1967). G. J. M. Bartelink, Palladio: La Storia Lausiaca, Vite dei Santi 2 (n.p.: Lorenzo Valla, 1974). Syriac edition: René Draguet, Les formes syriaques de la matière de l'Histoire Lausiaque, 2 vols., CSCO 389–90, 398–9, Scriptores Syri 169–70, 173–4 (Louvain: Secréteriat du CorpusSCO, 1978). Latin edition: Adelheid Wellhausen, Die lateinische Übersetzung der Historia Lausiaca des Palladius, Patristische Texte und Studien 51 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2003). English translation: Robert T. Meyer, trans., Palladius: The Lausiac History, Ancient Christian Writers 34 (Westminster, MD and London: Newman Press, 1965). See also Tim Vivian, Four Desert Fathers: Pambo, Evagrius, Macarius of Egypt and Macarius of Alexandria (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2004). French translation: A. Lucot, trans., Palladius: Histoire Lausiaque, Textes et documents pour l'étude historique du christianisme (Paris: Picard, 1912). German translation: Stephan Krottenthaler, trans., Palladius, Leben der heiligen Väter, Bibliothek der Väter (Kempten: Kosel, 1912). —— De gentibus Indiae et Bragmanibus. J. Duncan M. Derrett, ed., ‘Palladius: De vita Bragmanorum narratio, alias Palladii de gentibus Indiae et Bragmanibus commonitorii necnon Arriani opusculi versio ornatior’, Classica et mediaevalia 21 (1960): (p. 192 ) 100–35; W. Berghoff, ed., Palladius de gentibus Indiae et Bragmanibus, Beiträge zur Klassischen Philologie 4 (Meisenheim am Glan: n.p., 1967). Latin text: A. Wilmart, ed., ‘Les textes latins de la lettre de Palladius sur la moeurs des Brahmanes’, RBen 45 (1933): 29–42. Photius of Constantinople, Bibliothecae codices. René Henry, ed., Photius Bibliothèque., 7 vols. (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1960–74). Ps ‐Hermogenes Περὶ Εὑρέσεως Hugo Rabe ed Hermogenis Opera Rhetores Graeci 6 (Leipzig: B G Teubner 22.1.2012 20:10
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Palladius of Helenopolis Demetrios S. Katos Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199696963 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696963.001.0001
Index Source: Palladius of HelenopolisThe Origenist Advocate (p. 208 ) (p. 209 ) Index abandonment by God 158, 163, 164–5 Abita (Roman) 30 abolitio 45 Abramius (Egyptian monk) 129, 146 Acacius of Berea 29, 48, 56, 58, 76, 90, 91, 137 Acepsimas (Syrian monk) 110 Ad Monachos (Evagrius of Pontus) 122, 129 n23 Ad Thalassium (Maximus the Confessor) 182 advocacy, suitability of dialogue format to 39–40 Aelia Pulcheria (sister of Theodosius II) 104–5 Alaric the Goth 22, 23, 28, 30 n113 Albanius (friend of Palladius) 156 Alexander of Antioch 27 n92, 29 Alexander of Basinopolis 17 n36, 98 n1 Alexander of Helenopolis 98 n1 Alexander son of Numenius 50 n79 Alexandra (immured virgin) 119 Alexandria, Palladius' ascetic career in 12–13 Alypius (addressee of John Chrysostom) 31 Alypius (Egyptian official) 9 Amatas (disciple of Antony of Egypt) 154 ambidextrousness 137–9 ambiguity, in issue theory 82–3 Amma Talis of Antinoë 131
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Ammonius. See Tall Brothers Amoun (founder of Nitria) 118, 130 Ancyra, Palladius' familiarity with 98 angels, Origen and Palladius on 163 Anonymous Seguerianus 46, 47 n66, 49 n76, 50, 52, 53, 65 n15, 94 n174–5 Anthemius (praetorian prefect) 22–3, 24, 104 n29 Anthropomorphites 93 n167, 149 Antinoë, Palladius in 25–6, 98 Antioch, Johnite schism in 29, 137–9 Antiochus the court dignitary 31 Antiochus the eunuch 104 Antiochus of Ptolemais 29, 56, 58, 137 Antirrhetikos (Evagrius of Pontus) 122 Antoninus of Ephesus 17, 18, 43, 71–2, 74–5, 89 n145, 186 Antony of Egypt (Antony the Great) 54, 55, 118, 153–4, 166, 176 n95 apatheia 130–1, 151, 165, 181 Aphthonius, Progymnasmata 70 n44 Apollinarians 121 Apology (Jerome) 118 apophthegmata 109 Apronianus (Roman) 30 Apsines of Gadara 46, 47 n65, 52, 68 n36 Arcadius (eastern Roman emperor) 21 n64, 22–3, 26 n91, 28, 32, 59 Arius and Arians 121, 176 n95 arrogance see pride Arsacius (bishop of Constantinople) 20, 21, 22, 24, 28 n104, 76, 90 The Art of Political Speech (Anonymous Seguerianus) 46–7 Art of Rhetoric (attrib. Apsines of Gadara) 46–7 Asceticism; see also spirituality of Palladius of Evagrius of Pontus 6, 127, 128 importance to Palladian spirituality 6, 126 of John Chrysostom 54–5, 117, 127, 130 monastic career of Palladius and 10–16 praktike or physical ascetic practices 126–31, 177, 181 significance of Palladius for study of vii Aspasius of Tyre 47 n65 Aspuna, Palladius as bishop of 99–100 assimilation, in issue theory 66, 78, 79, 82–3 Athanasius of Alexandria 119 Atticus (bishop of Constantinople) 20, 24, 28–9, 31, 32, 90, 99–100, 155 Augustine of Hippo 113, 168 Aurelius Victor 108 banquets, John Chrysostom's failure to host 64–71, 84 Bartelink, G. J. M. 102 n22 Basil of Caesarea 36 n11, 120, 132, 147 n118 Basiliscus of Comana 17 n37 Baur, Chrysostomos 30 n111 Bible. See scriptures binaries or oppositions 173–81, 183 bishop, Palladius as 9–10, 16–25, 98, 99–100 Blaesilla (daughter of Paula of Rome) 115 body, Origenist pessimism regarding 149–50 Bosporia, wife of Verus of Ancyra 98 Breviarium (Eutropius) 109 22.1.2012 20:11
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Brisson (bishop and brother of Palladius) 11 Brisson the eunuch 31 Bunge, Gabriel 6, 13 n15, 102–3 n23, 122 n114 Butler, C. 6, 99 n6, 102 n22, 103 n23 (p. 210 ) Candida (holy woman) 105, 119 capacity, in issue theory 74 Caria, destruction of temples in Phoenice in 21 n63 Casiday, Augustine M. 125 n3, 150 n136 Cassian on human freedom and theodicy 7, 156, 166–9 in Origenist controversy 18, 21 cause, in judicial rhetoric 59 Cells Palladius' ascetic career in 13–16 scattering of monastic community of 25–6 Chaeremon (ascetic) 157 Chapters of Knowledge (Evagrius of Pontus) 150 Chromatius of Aquileia 20, 22 Church History (Eusebius of Caesarea) 44 Cicero 46 Clark, Elizabeth A. 108 n46, 116 n84, 123 n119, 126, 149, 150 n136, 166, 169–70, 171 n74, 171 n77 Clement of Alexandria 26, 127, 132 Coleman‐Norton, P. R. 37 Commentary on Jeremiah (Jerome) 112 Commentary on Romans (Origen) 166 common quality and common topic, in issue theory 69, 75–6, 81 Conference (Cassian) 166, 167, 168 conflict of laws, in issue theory 82–3, 84 conjecture, in issue theory 72, 73, 74, 75 Constantine I the Great (Roman emperor) 17 Constantine III (Roman emperor) 28 Constantius (presbyter of Antioch) 137–8, 137–9 Constantius (Roman) 30 contemplation natural contemplation and study of scripture 131–41 theologia (knowledge of God attained in direct encounter) 141–53 counteraccusation, in issue theory 79 counterdefinition, in issue theory 65–6, 78 counterplea, in issue theory 68, 74, 75, 78, 79, 80, 81 counterposition, in issue theory 68, 78, 79, 81 counterrepresentation, in issue theory 79 courtroom rhetoric, see judicial rhetoric, Dialogue as Cratylus (Plato) 175 Critobulus (Pelagian interlocutor) 155 Ctesiphon, Jerome's Letter to 170 Cyriacus of Synnadi 21, 22, 24 Cyril of Alexandria 29–30, 44, 91, 100 Cyrinus of Chalcedon 18 Dagemark, Siver 39 n26, 55 n102 Dechow, Jon F. 171 n74 definition, in issue theory 64–5, 72, 76, 78 delator 44 Demetrius of Second Galatia 21, 22, 24 demonic visions 129 140 142 144 8 150 159 160 22.1.2012 20:11
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desert, Palladius' ascetic career in 12–13 Devos, Paul 15 n27 Devout History or Ascetic Discipline, known as History of the Monks of Syria (Theodoret of Cyrrhus) 109–10 Dialogue Against the Pelagians (Jerome) 112, 155–6 Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom (Palladius) 4, 33–61 advocacy, suitability of dialogue format to 39–40 audience for 30–1 authorship of 186 biases and shortcomings of 34–6, 50–1, 59–60 causes for removal of John in 57–8, 86–91 composition of 26–8, 30–2 critical editions of 2 on depositions in Asia 71–7, 80, 81, 96 ‘eating alone,’ defense of John's habit of 40, 51–2, 64–71 eight thoughts in 128, 129 forensic elements and imagery in 41–6 format, structure, and genre 35–9 HL compared 98, 99, 106, 110, 113, 123 on human freedom and theodicy 156, 159 on imprisonment and exile of Palladius 23 issue theory defenses in, see issue theory narratio, analysis of 48–50, 53–60 Olympias, sheltering of exiled monks by 77–82 principles of judicial rhetoric as key to 46–53 prooemion on priesthood, purpose of 47–8, 51 scriptural interpretation in 135–6, 140–1 n84 significance of, vii 5, 33–4, 36, 186 spiritual life, concern with 126 survival of 1 technical legal terminology, use of 43–5 Dialogue with Adamantius 166 Dialogues of Sulpicius Severus 38, 39 Didymus the Blind 12, 117–18, 131–2, 141 n84 diegeseis 106 Diocles of Antinoë 26, 131, 142 Diogenes Laertius 108 Diophantus of Alexandria 173 n86 (p. 211 ) Dioscorus, see Tall Brothers diptychs, restoration of John Chrysostom to 29–30, 40, 47, 48, 99, 100 distress, in rhetoric 53 divine foreknowledge 163–4 divine omnipotence and goodness, see human freedom and theodicy Domitian (Roman emperor) 44 Dorotheus (ascetic) 12–13, 117, 127, 129, 131 Dorotheus of Gaza 157 n3 Draguet, René 13 n15, 103 n23, 125, 145 Dysinger, Luke 141 n85, 179 n111 ‘eating alone,’ defense of John's habit of 40, 51–2, 64–71, 84 Ecclesiastical History (Socrates) 54 Edwards, Mark Julian 171 n74 eight thoughts 127–9, 177 Elm, Susanna 86 n128, 92 n163 Elpidius of Jericho 130 Elpidius of Syria 27 98 n1 22.1.2012 20:11
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embezzlement John Chrysostom accused of 21, 59, 70, 82, 84, 90 Theophilus of Alexandria suspected of 94 envy asceticism as means of overcoming 127 Jerome's 113–14 John Chrysostom brought down by 59–60, 97 Ephesus, Council of (431) 44, 99 Ephraem the Syrian 126, 131 epilogue, in judicial rhetoric 52 Epiphanius of Salamis 13–14, 18, 19, 89, 92, 93, 110, 117, 120 episcopal career of Palladius of Helenopolis 9–10, 16–25, 98, 99–100 eschatology and protology 182–4 Eucarpius (monk) 145–7, 149, 151 Eudoxia (empress) 25 n83, 84 Eugenius of Phrygia 21 Eugraphia (Constantinopolitan) 58 Eulalius (servant of John Chrysostom) 87 Eulysius of Apameia in Bithynia 21, 22, 24 Eunapius of Sardis 109 Eunomia (Roman) 30 Eunomians 121 Eusebius (deacon of Constantinople) 21 Eusebius (Tall Brother), see Tall Brothers Eusebius of Caesarea 44 Eusebius of Valentinopolis 17, 45, 71–5 Eustochium (patron of Jerome) 114 Euthymius, see Tall Brothers Eutropius 109 Evagrius of Pontus; see also specific works asceticism of 6, 127, 128 Cassius and 169 death of 16 destruction or misattribution of works of 1 in HL 120–3 human body, Origenist pessimism regarding 149–50 on human freedom and theodicy 7, 156, 164–6, 172–7, 180–2, 184 Jerome's critique of 111 John of Jerusalem, correspondence with 15 John of Lycopolis and 9, 10 Melania the Elder and 119, 121, 127, 159 metaphysics of 172–7, 180–2 modern interest in 2 Origenists viewed through theology of 125 Palladius' monastic career under 9–10, 13, 16 scriptural exegesis of 139–40 sexual infatuation, cured of 121, 127, 159 theologia as practiced by 141–2, 143, 147, 148–9, 151–3 Theophilus of Alexandria and 95 evidence, demand for, in issue theory 74 evil, see human freedom and theodicy exegesis, see scriptures exploitation, in issue theory 69, 75–6, 80–1 Facundus of Hermiane 57 n108 96 n180 22.1.2012 20:11
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Firmus of Caesarea 100, 101 Flavius Rufinus (praetorian prefect) 14, 15 foreknowledge, divine 163–4 forensic elements and imagery, Dialogue's use of 41–6 freedom and free will, see human freedom and theodicy ‘from what follows’ theorem 48 Gainas (Gothic Roman general) 14, 17 Gelasia (holy woman) 105, 119 Germanic invasions of Roman empire 14, 23, 24 Germanus the priest 21 Gerontius of Nicomedia 17 n36 gnostic monks 129, 140 n83, 165, 172, 176, 179 n111 Gnosticism 7 Gnostikos (Evagrius of Pontus) 122, 126, 130 n30, 165 goodness and omnipotence, divine, see human freedom and theodicy Gothic invasion of Italy 23 Great Letter or Letter to Melania (Evagrius of Pontus) 150, 172 n80, 173 (p. 212 ) Greek terms 43–5, 48–9, 51, 52, 54, 56–9, 62–9, 72, 74, 75, 78, 79, 82, 94, 127–30, 132–3, 143, 162, 164 Gregory I the Great (pope) 179 n110 Gregory of Nazianzus 31, 120, 123 n118, 130, 132, 152, 175 Gregory of Nyssa 123 n118, 174 n88, 183 n128 hapax legomena 48 n71 Harries, Jill 4, 41 n35 Harrison, Verna E. F. 105 n33 Heath, Malcolm 4, 5, 45–6, 47 n65, 48 n71, 66, 68 n36, 69, 75 n73, 83 n117 Hegesippus (rhetorician) 44 Helenopolis, as town 17 Helladius (presbyter of the palace) 31 Heraclides of Ephesus 16, 18, 19, 27–8, 73, 75, 76, 87–9, 125 Heraclitus 175–6 Heresies, see specific types heresy genealogies 111 n57 Hermogenes of Tarsus, On Issues Dialogue's defense of John Chrysostom and 65–9, 72, 74, 75, 77, 78 n87, 79, 80, 83 n115, 83 n117 issue theory in 63–4; see also issue theory judicial rhetoric, Dialogue as 39–40, 47 n65–6 Heron (monk) 147, 157 Hesychius of Parius 17 Hierax (monk) 131 Historia Augusta 109 History of Monks (Rufinus) 12 The History of the Monks of Egypt or HM 12, 102 n22–3, 108–10, 111, 154 History of the Monks of Syria (Devout History or Ascetic Discipline, Theodoret of Cyrrhus) 109–10 HL, see Lausiac History or HL HM or The History of the Monks of Egypt 12, 102 n22–3, 108–10, 111, 154 Homilies (Origen) 166 Homily on John Chrysostom (Theodore of Trimithus) 33 Honorius (western Roman emperor) 21–2, 26 n91, 28 human body, Origenist pessimism regarding 149–50 human freedom and theodicy 7, 156–84 abandonment by God 158, 163, 164–5 binaries or oppositions 173–81, 183 in broader Christian tradition 169 Cassian on 7 156 166 9 22.1.2012 20:11
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end of movement and binaries 180–1 Evagrius on 7, 156, 164–6, 172–7, 180–2, 184 evil permitted by God 157–8, 160 foreknowledge, divine 163–4 irrational or mysterious approaches to, rejection of 170–1 Jerome on 7, 155–6, 166, 169–71, 184 meaning of suffering/evil 156–61 metaphysical foundations of 172–84 movement of world and 172–7, 180–1 natural evil 161 no restriction of human freedom by divine omnipotence 160–1 Origenist understanding of 7, 156, 157, 160, 161–4, 169–70, 184 Pelagianism and 155–6, 168–9 pre‐existence of souls and 170–1, 184 pride, evil/suffering resulting from 158–9, 160, 161 protology and eschatology, relationship to 182–4 Rufinus on 7, 156, 166, 170 n77 spirituality of Palladius and 130, 147, 154 Humfress, Caroline 4, 46 Huns, invasions of 14 Hunt, E. D. 116 n84 Hypotyposeis (Clement) 26 n89 iconoclasm and imageless prayer 149–51 Illert, Martin 54 imageless prayer 6, 147–53 importance, in issue theory 67, 78, 79 Innocent (ascetic) 11 Innocent of Rome (pope) 20–2, 27 n92, 28, 30 n115, 186 Institutio Oratoria (Quintilian) 49, 53–4 n95, 54 n99, 55 n102, 72 n58 Isaac (ascetic praised by Palladius) 131 Isaac[ius] the Syrian 55, 56, 58, 88, 89–90 Isidore of Alexandria ascetic acquaintances of 12, 13 Epiphanius of Salamis and John of Jerusalem, in dispute between 14 in HL 116–17 Jerome's attacks on 111, 116, 117 John Chrysostom's protection of Tall Brothers and 18–19, 77–82, 89, 92 Olympias, sheltered by 35, 40, 52, 77–82 Palladius' association with 12, 95, 127, 129–30 Theophilus of Alexandria's dispute with and exile of 16 n34, 18–19, 31, 42–3, 57–8, 91–2, 117 Isidore, son of Anthemius (praetorian prefect) 104 n29 Isidore the Hospitaller 141 issue theory (stasis theory) 5, 62–97 concept of 62–4 (p. 213 ) depositions and installations of bishops in Asia 71–7, 80, 81, 96 ‘eating alone,’ John's habit of 64–71, 84 legal arguments, use of 82–6 scriptural exegesis and 82–6, 140 sheltering of exiled monks by Olympias 35, 40, 52, 77–82 Italica (Roman) 30 Jacob of Nisibis 109 Jerome Apology 118 Cassian challenging 169 n63 22.1.2012 20:11
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Commentary on Jeremiah 112 Dialogue Against the Pelagians 112, 155–6 HL as critique of 5–6, 110–16, 117, 118, 120, 122, 123 on human freedom and theodicy 7, 155–6, 166, 169–71, 184 Origen, volte‐face on 14, 114–15 Origenists, attacks on 14, 110–13, 114, 115, 120 Palladius' dislike of 15, 113–14 Pelagianism, refutation of 110–11 on Pierius 132 Theophilus of Alexandria and 110, 117 Jesus and Socrates, parallels between 37 n14 John Cassian, see Cassian John Chrysostom 4–5, 33–97; see also Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom acceptance of funds from Olympias by 82, 83–84 asceticism of 54–5, 117, 127, 130 causes for removal of 57–8, 86–91 depositions and installations of bishops in Asia by 71–7, 80, 81, 96 diptychs, restoration to 29–30, 40, 47, 48, 99, 100 ‘eating alone,’ habit of 40, 51–2, 64–71, 84 embezzlement charges against 21, 59, 70, 82, 84, 90 episcopal career of Palladius and 16–18 funeral oration of Ps. Martyrius for 4, 34, 60, 90, 92–3 imprisonment, exile, and death of 25, 27, 29, 33, 59 issue theory defenses of, see issue theory modern interest in 2 Origenist controversy and 18–23, 29–30, 57–8, 77, 87–9, 91–6 pride and insolence, accusations of 85–6, 91 n157, 180 scriptural interpretation of 134 n58 sheltering of exiled monks and 18–19, 77–82, 89, 92 significance of Palladius for study of vii Theophilus of Alexandria, dispute with 18–23, 29–30, 36, 91–6 verbal attacks on those in power by 84–5 John the deacon, at Synod of Oak 87 John of Ephesus 110 John of Jerusalem 13–15, 110–11, 117, 120 John of Lycopolis 9–10, 13 n15, 25 John the monk, at Synod of Oak 87, 88 John Moschus 110 Jones, A. H. M. 22 n69 Jovius (praetorian prefect) 22, 23 judicial rhetoric, Dialogue as; see also issue theory; specific rhetorical terms advocacy, suitability of dialogue format to 39–40 forensic elements and imagery 41–6 narratio analyzed according to principles of 48–50, 53–60 principles of judicial rhetoric as key to Dialogue 46–53 significance of 186 technical legal terminology, use of 43–5 Julian Saba 110 Juliana (Roman) 30 Kelly, J. N. D. 30 n111, 34 n4, 54, 70, 88 Kennedy, George A. 39 n26, 46–7, 51 n84 Kephalaia Gnostica (Evagrius of Pontus) 125, 165, 173, 176 Konstantinovsky, Julia 150 n136 Lampe George Patristic Greek Lexicon 43 44 22.1.2012 20:11
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Lausberg, Heinrich 41 n35 Lausiac History or HL (Palladius) 5–6, 99–124 asceticism and spiritual life, concern with 126–7, 130, 131, 145, 153–4 composition of 99–105 critical editions of 2, 102 n22 Dialogue compared 98, 99, 106, 110, 113, 123 format and genre 106–10 on human freedom and theodicy 156, 157, 159, 164, 167 Jerome, as critique of 5–6, 110–16, 117, 118, 120, 122, 123 ordination of Palladius and 13 n15 as Origenist apologia 6, 98, 116–23 Palladius' monastic experience in Palestine and 11–12 popularity of 1, 105–6, 186 prologue 101–3 significance of vii women as subjects and audience of 104–5 (p. 214 ) Lausus (imperial bedchamber official) 5, 100–4, 105 n30, 105 n34, 110, 122, 123, 187 legal arguments, in issue theory 82–6 legal rhetoric, see judicial rhetoric, Dialogue as legislator's intention, in issue theory 67, 69, 78, 79 Leontius of Ancyra 99 letter and intent, in issue theory 82–3, 84, 140 Letter to Innocent (John Chrysostom) 20 n54, 35 n9, 43 n46, 98 n1 Letter to Melania or Great Letter (Evagrius of Pontus) 150, 172 n80, 173 Liddell–Scott Greek Lexicon (LSJ) 43, 44 Life of John Chrysostom (attrib. George of Alexandria) 33 Life of Olympias, influence of Dialogue on 33 Lives of the Caesars (Aurelius Victor) 108 Lives of the Caesars (Suetonius) 108 Lives of the Eastern Fathers (John of Ephesus) 110 Lives of Illustrious Men (Suetonius) 108 Lives of Philosophers (Eunapius of Sardis) 109 Lives of the Philosophers (Diogenes Laertius) 108 Lives of the Sophists (Philostratus) 63, 108 LSJ (Liddell–Scott Greek Lexicon) 43, 44 Lucian of Antioch 17 Macarius (disciple of Antony of Egypt) 154 Macarius (Roman) 30 Macarius of Alexandria 13, 118 n94, 119, 128, 143, 144, 146–7, 149, 159, 186 Macarius of Egypt 142 Macrobius (Grand Chamberlain) 105 n30 Maesymas (Syrian monk) 110 Malingrey, Anne‐Marie 20 n54, 20 n59, 35 n9, 36 n10, 38–9, 45 n58, 56 n104, 89 manner, in judicial rhetoric 57, 58 Marcella (student of Jerome) 114 n76 Marcion (Roman heretic) 155 Marcus Aurelius (Roman emperor) 63 Mark (ascetic) 131 Maron (Syrian monk) 110 Martin of Tours 39 material creation, Origenist pessimism regarding 149–50 Maximus the Confessor 182–3 Mayer, Wendy 5, 34 n3 Melania the Elder 22.1.2012 20:11
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Evagrius of Pontus and 119, 121, 127, 159 in HL 104, 105, 118–20, 121 Jerome and 111, 115 n80, 120 in Origenist controversy 14, 120 Palladius' monastic career and 11–12, 13, 15 on Pambo 118 scriptural knowledge of 132 Melania the Younger 30, 104, 105, 116, 119 Meletius of Antioch 27 n92, 34 Memnon (deacon) 88 Menander 11 n4 metaphysics of Palladius 172–84 binaries or oppositions 173–81, 183 end of movement and binaries 180–1 movement of world 172–7, 180–1 protology and eschatology, relationship to 182–4 Meurs, Jean de 107 Meyer, Robert T. 56 n104 Moine, Nicole 30 n113, 116 n85 Molinier, Nicolas 7 n13 monastic career of Palladius 10–16 monobiblion of Palladius 102–3, 116, 122–3 motive, in issue theory 74 movement of world, metaphysical understanding of 172–7, 180–1 narratio of Dialogue, analysis of 48–50, 53–60 Nathaniel (monk) 15 natural contemplation and study of scripture 131–41 Nectarius (successor of Gregory of Nazianzus) 120 negative numbers, concept of 173–4 n86 Nemesius of Emesa 183 n128 Neocles (rhetorician) 49 n76 Nestorius of Constantinople 30 n111, 100, 101 Nicene orthodoxy 94, 119, 120, 123, 153, 166, 180 Nitria HL's account of settlement of 118 Palladius' ascetic career in 13 ‘non‐abandonment’ 165 Oak, Synod of (403) annulled by Innocent 21 causes of John's removal by 86–91 dating of composition of Dialogue and 27 Dialogue on 34, 42, 43, 52, 58 doctrinal issues, consideration of 87–9, 92 Evagrius not mentioned at 125 failure of John to appear before 19, 90–1 Palladius as sole surviving voice of Origenists accused at 3 Palladius named as Origenist at 87, 89, 94–5, 125 Palladius' whereabouts during 19 (p. 215 ) objection, in issue theory 68, 75, 79, 80 Olympias (deaconess) denounced to Theophilus 44 in HL 105, 119 John's acceptance of funds from 82, 83–4 Life influence of Dialogue on 33 22.1.2012 20:11
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Melania as paradigm for 119 sheltering of exiled monks by 35, 40, 52, 77–82 omnipotence and goodness, divine, see human freedom and theodicy On First Principles (Origen) 114, 166 On Invention (Ps. Hermogenes) 47 n65, 51 n84, 68 n36 On Issues. See Hermogenes of Tarsus, On Issues On Prayer (Evagrius of Pontus) 143 n97 On the Holy Spirit (Didymus the Blind) 117 On Thoughts (Evagrius of Pontus) 128–9 n21 oppositions or binaries 173–81, 183 Or (Nitrian monk) 118, 119 Origen of Alexandria and Origenist thought Antony of Egypt and 154 n158 asceticism and spirituality of Palladius and 6, 125–6, 131–8, 140, 141, 149, 152, 154 burning of Origen's works 1 as cause of John Chrysostom's removal 57–8, 87–9, 91–6 defining Origenist and Origenism 7–8 Epiphanius of Salamis and John of Jerusalem, dispute between 13–15, 110–11, 117 esteem for Origen in Palladius' time 94 Evagrius of Pontus' theology and 125 HL as apologia for 6, 98, 116–23 human body, pessimism regarding 149–50 on human freedom and theodicy 7, 156, 157, 160, 161–64, 169–70, 184 Jerome's attacks on 14, 110–13, 114, 115, 120 Jerome's volte‐face on 14, 114–15 John Chrysostom and 18–23, 29–30, 57–8, 77, 87–9, 91–6 modern interest in 2, 3 monastic experience of Palladius in Palestine and 12 Palladius named as Origenist 87, 89, 94–5, 125 pre‐existence of souls 3, 7–8, 132, 170–1, 184, 187 scriptural interpretations of Origen 31–138, 140, 141 significance of Palladius for study of, vii 2–3 Theophilus of Alexandria and John Chrysostom, dispute between 18–23, 29–30, 36, 91–6 Theophilus of Alexandria, Origenists expelled by 16 n34, 18–19, 31, 42–3, 57–8, 91–2 Oxyperentius the Italian 113 Pachomian monastic communities 15 n26, 107 pain and pleasure 174, 183 Palestine, Palladius in 11–12, 16 Palladius of Helenopolis 1–32 birth, family, and early life 10–11 education and training of 11 episcopal career of 9–10, 16–25, 98, 99–100 HL 5–6, 99–124; see also Lausiac History or HL on human freedom 7, 156–84; see also human freedom and theodicy imprisonment and exile of 10, 23–32, 98 issue theory used by 5, 62–97; see also issue theory on John Chrysostom 4–5, 33–97; see also Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom ; John Chrysostom John of Lycopolis and 9–10, 13 n15, 25 modern academic neglect of 2–3 as monk 10–16 monobiblion of 102–3, 116, 122–3 ordination of 13 Origenist, named as 87, 89, 94–5, 125 personal characteristics of 9 10 12 13 15 16 31 22.1.2012 20:11
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reputation of 1–2 in Rome 20–2 significance of, vii 185–7 spirituality of 6, 125–54; see also spirituality of Palladius theodicy of 7, 155–84; see also human freedom and theodicy theology of 3 travels of 15, 17–18, 31 Pambo (ascetic) 13, 118–19, 186 Pammachius (Roman) 30 Pamphilus the presbyter 115 n81 Pansophius of Nicomedia 17 n36, 73 Pansophius of Pisidia 21 Paphnutius Bubalas 166–7, 168–9 Paphnutius Kephalas 131, 156–61, 165 Pappus of Syria 21, 27, 98 n1 papyrus, use of 27 n91 paradiegesis 94 Parallel Lives (Plutarch) 108 Patristic Greek Lexicon (Lampe) 43, 44 Paul (deacon of Church of the Resurrection, Constantinople) 31 (p. 216 ) Paul (monk of Pherme in Egypt) 143 Paul of Heraclea 18 Paul the Simple 154 n157 Paula of Rome 113, 114–15, 116 n84, 118, 120 Paulinianus (brother of Jerome) 14, 120 Pelagius and Pelagianism 110–11, 116 n85, 155–6, 168–9 person, in judicial rhetoric 54 persuasive defense, in issue theory 75 Peter the Egyptian 113 Phaedo (Plato) 36, 37, 39 n26, 40, 174 Philoromus of Galatia 98 Philostratus 63, 108 Photius of Constantinople 28 n98, 34, 86, 87, 91, 132 n46 physical ascetic practices or praktike 126–31, 177, 181 Pierius (Origenist author) 132 Pinian (husband of Melania the Younger) 30, 116 Piterum (ascetic) 143 place, in judicial rhetoric 57 Plato 36–7, 39, 40, 174 n88, 175 n92 pleasure and pain 174, 183 Plutarch 108 Porphyrius of Antioch 29, 35, 76, 80, 96, 137 Porphyry of Antioch 20, 42, 52 Posidonius the Theban 16, 113, 114 Potamiaena (martyr) 117 praktike or physical ascetic practices 126–31, 177, 181 Praktikos (Evagrius of Pontus) 109, 122, 129 n23, 142 n89, 183 n126 prayer, see spirituality of Palladius pre‐existence of souls 3, 7–8, 132, 170–1, 184, 187 presentation, in issue theory 65 pride evil/suffering resulting from 158–9, 160, 161 John Chrysostom accused of insolence and 85–6, 91 n157, 180 as one of eight evil thoughts affecting ascetic practice 127 128 22.1.2012 20:11
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Palladius on spiritual dangers of 144–7 priesthood, prooemion of Dialogue on 47–8, 51 Proba (Roman) 30 Progymnasmata (Aphthonius) 70 n44 Progymnasmata (Theon) 38 prooemion of Dialogue on priesthood 47–8, 51 Prosper of Aquitaine 168–9 protology and eschatology 182–4 Provincalius (soldier of the imperial guard) 31 Ps. Clement 166 Ps. Hermogenes, On Invention 47 n65, 51 n84, 68 n36 Ps. Hippocrates 179 Ps. Martyrius, funeral oration of 4, 34, 60, 90, 92–3 Ptolemy (monk) 139, 147, 157 Pulcheria (sister of Theodosius II) 104–5 pure prayer 143–4, 147 quality, in issue theory 69, 72–3, 80 Quintilian 46, 49–50, 53–4 n95, 54–5, 72 n58, 83 n117 Radagais the Goth 22 n69, 23 radical iconoclasm and imageless prayer 149–51 Rasmussen, Mette Sophia Bøcher 181 n117, 181 n122 Recognitiones (Ps. Clement) 166 Reflections (Evagrius of Pontus) 152 n145 relative importance, in issue theory 67, 78, 79 rhetoric. See Hermogenes of Tarsus, On Issues; judicial rhetoric, Dialogue as; specific rhetorical terms Rhetorica ad Herennium 46 Rome Dialogue addressing church of 30 Dialogue set in 36 Palladius in 20–2, 26 siege and sack of (408‐9) 28 western support for John Chrysostom, repercussions of 20–4 Rubenson, Samuel 154 n158 Rufinus of Aquileia in HL 119–20 on human freedom and theodicy 7, 156, 166, 170 n77 Jerome, dispute with 111, 112–14, 120 in Origenist controversy 14 on orthodoxy 123 n119 Palladius' monastic career and 11–12 in Rome 30 n113 Russell, Norman 5, 92 n159 Sabiniana the deaconess (aunt of John Chrysostom) 16 Sarapion Sindonites 130, 131 Satan's sieve 132, 179 Sayings of the Desert Fathers 109 Scetis 13, 25–6, 103, 145, 157 Scholia on Ecclesiastes (Evagrius of Pontus) 164 Schönborn, Christoph von 183 n127 scriptures Jerome on translation of 112–13 (p. 217 ) legal arguments in issue theory citing 82–6 natural contemplation and study of 131–41 sequence of events in issue theory 74 5 22.1.2012 20:11
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Severianus of Gabala 29, 56, 58, 76, 91n197, 137 Shenute of Atripe 107 Silvania (escorted by Palladius and Melania the Elder) 15 Simeon (monk in Bethlehem) 113 Socrates (historian) 27, 43 n42, 52, 54, 55, 90, 91, 93, 94 n170, 95 n176, 97, 98 n1, 102, 122 Socrates (Plato's teacher) 37 n12, 37 n14 Sozomen (historian) 27, 43 n42, 59–60, 73 n61, 82, 91, 93–4, 97, 126 n5 Spiritual Meadow (John Moschus) 110 spirituality of Palladius 6, 125–54 apatheia, attainment of 130–1, 151, 165, 181 bad prayer, consequences of 144–6 binaries or oppositions, use of 177–81 gnostic monks 129, 140 n83, 165, 172, 176, 179 n111 imageless prayer, practice of 6, 147–53 importance of asceticism to 6, 126 importance to study of Origenists 125–6 natural contemplation and study of scripture 131–41 Origenist nature of 6, 125–6, 131–8, 140, 141, 149, 152, 154 praktike or physical ascetic practices 126–31, 177, 181 pure prayer 143–4, 147 theologia (knowledge of God attained in direct encounter) 141–53 stasis theory, see issue theory Stephanus (ascetic) 31 Stephen (Christian author) 132 Stephen (monk) 157 Sterk, Andrea 55 n102 Stiernon, P. D. 98 n1 Stilicho (advisor to Honorius) 22–4, 28 Stoics 174 n88 Suetonius 108 Suevian invasion of Gaul 24 suffering/evil, see human freedom and theodicy suicide, religious 180–1 Sulpicius Severus, Dialogues of 38, 39 Swift, Jonathan 62 Syncleticus of Traianopolis 17 Synesius of Cyrene 17 n36, 29 n105 Tall Brothers (Ammonius, Dioscorus, Eusebius, and Euthymius) asceticism and spirituality of 130, 131, 132 in HL 118 Jerome's attacks on 111 John Chrysostom's protection of 18–19, 77–82, 89, 92 Olympias, sheltered by 35, 40, 52, 77–82 ordination by Theophilus of Alexandria 95 Palladius' association with 13, 95 petition composed by 44 n48 physical attack on Ammonius by Theophilus of Alexandria 91, 94 Synod of Oak charges against John Chrysostom involving 89 texts by 126 n5 Theophilus of Alexandria's dispute with and exile of 16 n34, 18–19, 31, 42–3, 57–8, 91–2, 117 Theodicy, see human freedom and theodicy Theodoret of Cyrrhus 27 n92, 29 n107, 109, 137 n71 Theodotus of Ancyra 99, 100, 101 theologia (knowledge of God attained in direct encounter) 141 53 22.1.2012 20:11
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Theon, Progymnasmata 38 Theophilus (Count) 31 Theophilus of Alexandria death of 29 Dialogue composed in response to 26–7 Dialogue on need to censure 40 Dialogue's portrayal of 50, 53, 56, 58, 60, 74, 91, 94 Epiphanius of Salamis and John of Jerusalem, in dispute between 14 expelling of Origenists by 16 n34, 18–19, 31, 42–3, 57–8, 91–2, 117 Jerome and 110, 117 John Chrysostom, dispute with 18–23, 29–30, 36, 91–6 modern rehabilitation of 5 Palladius and 12, 25, 95 physical attack on Ammonius 91, 94 role of doctrine in dispute with John 91–6 Theotecnus the priest 21 thing, in judicial rhetoric 56 Thunberg, Lars 183 n127–8 time, in judicial rhetoric 59 To Eulogius (Evagrius of Pontus) 142 n89 transposition of cause, in issue theory 75 Troianos, Spyridon 38, 44 n52 Ubaldi, Paolo 36–7, 40 vainglory, see pride Valens (monk) 144, 146, 147, 149, 150–1, 159, 179 Valentinians 161 van Ommeslaeghe, Florent 4, 90 n153 Vandal invasion of Gaul 24 (p. 218 ) Varro 114 Venerius of Milan 20, 22 verbal instruments, legal arguments involving 82–6 Verus of Ancyra 98 Victor the tribune, eunuch of 27, 28 n98, 76, 96 Vita Antonii or Life of Antony 54, 55, 153–4 Vogüé, Adalbert de 6 Voss, Bernd Reiner 37–8 Wallraff, Martin 93 n169 western support for John Chrysostom, repercussions of 20–4 women as subjects and audience of HL 104–5 Zahn, Theodor 126 n5 Notes: (13) Nicolas Molinier, Ascèse, contemplation et ministère: d'après l'Histoire Lausiaque de Pallade d'Hélénopolis (Bégrolles‐en‐Mauges: Abbaye de Bellefontaine, 1995) ignored the influences of Evagrius and Origen upon Palladius (as though to acknowledge these would still harm the reputation of his subject), and proposed instead greater and more direct influence upon Palladius by John Chrysostom. This is a tenuous claim and to my knowledge, this book has not had any discernible influence on studies of Palladius, Evagrius, or John Chrysostom. (4) Menander is the only classical writer whom Palladius openly acknowledges and cites (Dial. 16.41–4), although there are other unacknowledged citations or allusions in the Dialogue, for a summary of which, see P. R. Coleman‐ Norton, Palladius: Dialogus de vita S. Joannis Chrysostomi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928), lxx–lxxi. (10) HL 2. 15 of 31
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(15) This notice is present in only one of four Syriac recensions of the Lausiac History, for which see René Draguet, Les formes syriaques de la matière de l'Histoire Lausiaque, CSCO 390, Scriptores Syri 170 (Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1978), 80* and 56. Draguet accepted it as integral to the text, but he did not believe that it had been written by Palladius; rather he cited this passage as proof that Palladius had plagiarized the work of another writer. Gabriel Bunge's solution (see Ch. 4 below) to the thorny textual problems of the Lausiac History seems to suggest that Palladius could very well have been ordained by Dioscorus. Palladius’ conversation with John of Lycopolis suggests that he was already ordained a presbyter when he visited him (see HL 35, Butler 104.8–9); an early date of ordination to the priesthood could also help explain how he was ordained a bishop so soon after his departure from Egypt. (26) For his trips north to Alexandria and Palestine, see HL 4, Butler, 19. 19–21, and HL 55, Butler, 148.14–15. For his trips south, see HL 29, 31, 32–5, and 47, although it is doubtful that he actually visited the Pachomian monasteries, for which see F. Halkin, ‘L'Histoire Lausiaque et les vies grecques de s. Pachôme’, AB 48 (1930): 257–301; Armand Veilleux, La liturgie dans le cénobitisme pachômien au quatrième siècle, Studia Anselmiana 57 (Rome: Herder, 1968); idem, Pachomian Koinonia, vol. 2, Pachomian Chronicles and Rules, Cistercian Studies 46 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, 1981), 133. (27) HL 55, Butler, 148.15; see also E. D. Hunt, ‘St. Silvia of Aquitaine: The Role of a Theodosian Pilgrim in the Society of East and West’, JThS, ns 23 (1972): 351–73. Paul Devos, on the other hand, disagrees on the identity of this Silvia with the sister of Rufinus the Praetor, ‘Silvie la sainte pèlerine: I en Orient’, AB 91 (1973): 105–20, and ‘Silvie la sainte pèlerine: II en Occident’, AB 92 (1974): 321–45. (34) HL 36, Butler 107.1. Numerous dates have been proposed, but none can be conclusively accepted or rejected on the basis of the evidence; see Butler, Lausiac History, 2.244; Peeters, ‘Une vie copte’, 369–78; Buck, ‘The Structure of the Lausiac History’, 296–9; Hunt, ‘Palladius of Helenopolis’, 473–5. In a letter to a Palestinian synod, Theophilus (Jerome ep. 92.1, CSEL 55, p. 148) writes that foreigners fled Egypt with other Origenists and settled in Palestine with them. Some have proposed that Palladius may have been one of the non‐Egyptians who fled Egypt when Theophilus routed the Origenists in spring 400, but this date is too late as the following discussion will make clear. (36) On the ordination of Alexander to Basinopolis by John, see Synesius of Cyrene ep. 66 (PG 66.1408–9, at 1408D). On his return from Asia, John involved himself yet again in the affairs of the churches of Bithynia, by deposing Gerontius, the popular bishop of Nicomedia, and installing Pansophius, for which see Soz. h.e. 8.6; J. N. D. Kelly, Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom—Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop (London: Duckworth, 1995), 177–80. (37) DHGE 23.877–84, s.v. ‘Hélénopolis’; Lucian's companion in martyrdom was Basiliscus, the bishop of Comana, who appeared in a vision to John shortly before his death (Dial. 11.122–9). (54) For John's letter to Innocent see Dialogue 2, in Malingrey, Palladios: Dialogue sur la vie de Jean Chrysostom, SC 341–2 (Paris: Cerf, 1998) 2:68–95. Malingrey determined that the letter was not integral to the text but a later interpolation (Malingrey, Palladios, 2:47–58), for which reason she edited it apart from the main body of the Dialogue, in the second volume of her work. For the dating of John's letter, see Kelly, Golden Mouth, 245–6. (59) Dial. 3.78. Palladius was probably driven out of Constantinople by an edict dated 11 September 404, a copy of which he presented upon his arrival in Rome (CT 16.2.37). Malingrey (Palladios, 1:15 n. 4) surmises that if Palladius had stayed longer in Constantinople, he probably would have mentioned the even more strongly worded edict of 18 November 404 that forced all into communion with Arsacius, Theophilus, and Porphyry (CT 16.4.6). (63) For an account of their activity see Dial. 3; for Eulysius, see Dial. 3.71–2; for Demetrius, see Dial. 3.97–104; for Theotecnus, see Dial. 3.34–43; the letters of Innocent are preserved in Soz. h.e. 8.26. The bishops of Caria probably wrote in support of John's extra‐jurisdictional activities, one of which was John's involvement in the destruction of the temples in Phoenice of Caria, for which see PW, 20.1, cols. 426–8, s.v. ‘Phoinix (14)’, and Theodoret h.e. 5.29; ed. Léon Parmentier and Günther Christian Hansen, eds., Kirchengeschichte, GCS Neue Folge 5 (Berlin: Akademie‐ Verlag, 1998); this edition is being reproduced in Annick Martin et al., Théodoret de Cyr: Histoire ecclésiastique, SC 501– (Paris: Cerf, 2006–).
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(64) According to Kelly (Golden Mouth, 275–6), Honorius sent a letter to Arcadius together with the two letters that Innocent sent to Constantinople; Innocent probably consulted Honorius during that past summer when the emperor was in residence in Rome. For Innocent's two letters, see ep. 7, PL 20.501–7, and ep. 12, PL 20.513; both letters are also preserved in Soz. h.e. 8.26 (GCS, vol. 50, pp. 385–7). For the letter of Honorius to Arcadius, see Collectio Avellana 38, in CSEL 35, pp. 85–8. (69) Soz. h.e. 8.25. For Stilicho's activities I depend upon Kelly's analysis (Golden Mouth, 279–80); A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire 284–602: A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964), 184–5, believed that these preparations happened after Stilicho was encouraged by his victory over Radagais in August 407, and that preparations did not start until winter 407–8. (71 ) Kelly, Golden Mouth, 280. (83) HL 35, Butler, 105.12–13; cf. Ph. Koukoulès and R. Guilland, ‘Études sur la vie privée des Byzantins: Voleurs et prisons à Byzance’, Revue des études grecques 61 (1948): 118–36, at 129–30. John Chrysostom sent a letter to Palladius when the latter was imprisoned, saying: Θρηνου̑μεν δὲ τὸν κοινὸν τω̑ν ἐκκλησιω̑ν χειμω̑να, καὶ τὸ τὴν οἰκουμένην καταλαβὸν ναυάγιον, καὶ πάντας ὑμα̑ς παρακαλου̑μεν εὐχαι̑ς βοηθει̑ν, ὥστε τὴν πανωλεθρίαν ταύτην λυθη̑ναί ποτε, καὶ εἰς λευκὴν ἅπαντα μεταβαλει̑ν γαλήνην. Του̑το δὴ ποιου̑ντες μὴ διαλίπητε. Λανθάνοντες γὰρ καὶ κρυπτόμενοι, πλείονα σχολὴν ἔχετε νυ̑ν προσκαρτερει̑ν ται̑ς εὐχαι̑ς καὶ μετὰ θλιβομένης διανοίας (John Chrysostom ep. 113, PG 52.669). I differ with Delmaire (‘Lettres d'exil,’ 151) who suggests that this letter was sent soon after the death of Eudoxia. The consolation to which John refers elsewhere in the letter was not Eudoxia's death, as Delmaire believes, but the efforts for his restoration, however futile they may have been. (89) On Diocles, see HL 58, Butler 152.1, 6. For the Evagrian parallels, see the study of René Draguet, ‘L'Histoire Lausiaque: une oeuvre écrite dans l'esprit d'Évagre’, RHE 42 (1947): 5–49, at 32. According to later sources, Origenist monasticism flourished elsewhere in Upper Egypt, too, for which see Tito Orlandi, ‘A Catechesis against Apocryphal Texts by Shenute and the Gnostic Texts of Nag Hammadi’, HThR 75 (1982): 85–95; Ernest Honigmann, ‘The Monks at Fua, Addressees of a Letter from St. Cyril of Alexandria (412–444)’, in Patristic Studies (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1953), 52–3. For the virgin's gift, see HL 60, which describes it as a commentary on Amos, of which we have no record; Meyer (Lausiac History, 214, n. 521) suggests that it may have been a part of Clement's Hypotyposeis, which has not survived but is described by Eusebius h.e. 6.14.1. (91 ) For the dossier, see Dial. 4.38–9, and Dial. 20.117–18. Chrysostomos Baur, ‘Wo wurde der dem Palladius von Helenopolis zugeschriebene Dialog über das Leben des hl. Chrysostomus verfasst?’ ZKTh 71 (1949): 466–8, argues that Palladius must have written the Dialogue in Rome in order to have had access to all the documents that he cites. But on closer inspection it appears that Palladius did not have them on hand, because the documents are only mentioned or cited in part, with the exception of the ‘third’ letter of Honorius to Arcadius which cannot be corroborated. Second, Baur fails to recognize that the texts are not simply archival material, but a veritable dossier making the delegation's case to the eastern court. Third, it is difficult to argue that Palladius made a second trip to Rome in late 407 or 408 in light of the discussion above. Palladius may have also been facilitated by the ample supply of papyrus in Antinoë; for book production in the Fayyum and the Thebaid, see Mohammed A. Hussein, Origins of the Book: Egypt's Contribution to the Development of the Book from Papyrus to Codex, trans. Dorothy Jaeschke and Douglas Sharp (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1970). Papyrus was still being used in Egypt, despite the increasing predominance of vellum, for which see Frederic G. Kenyon, Books and Readers in Ancient Greece and Rome (Oxford: Clarendon, 1951), 117–18. (92) For the mention of John's death, see Dial. 5.1; for the notice concerning Elpidius and Pappus, see Dial. 20.59–62. For the flight of John's supporters, see Dial. 11.3–4. Elpidius might have known John from Antioch, since he had formerly been in the company of Meletius of Antioch, according to Theodoret h.e. 5.27. Elpidius and Pappus were restored to their sees during the tenure of Alexander of Antioch (412–16). See Kelly, Golden Mouth, 287; Innocent (ep. 19 [PL 20.541B]) writes to Alexander of Antioch, ‘Libenter praeterea de episcopis Elpidio atque Pappo cognovi, quod sine quaestione suas ecclesias recuperaverint.’ (98) For dramatic effect, Palladius often compresses the time that has elapsed in his account; see Florent van Ommeslaeghe, ‘Que vaut le témoignage de Pallade sur le procès de saint Jean Chrysostome?’, AB 95 (1977): 389–413,
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at 406. For evidence that on several occasions bishops were ordained in Constantinople for the see of Ephesus, see ACO 2.1.3, p. 52. Photius cod. 96 (René Henry, Photius Bibliothèque, vol. 2 (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1960), 62.1–11) also gives the impression that the eunuch of Victor was ordained in Constantinople. (104) The edict that Palladius cites in Dial. 11.38–41 contains the name of Atticus, but it appears to be the same as 16.4.6 in the Theodosian Code, which was promulgated during the reign of the previous bishop Arsacius. Atticus' name probably replaced that of Arsacius when he was installed as bishop. (105) Synesius of Cyrene mentions such an amnesty in his ep. 66 (PG 66.1408–9). Synesius inquired of Theophilus about the status of a certain Alexander, who returned to his native Libya divested of all episcopal privileges, because as bishop of Basinopolis in Bithynia he had been a partisan of John. Synesius says that he has read the letter of Theophilus that instructed Atticus to receive the Johnites, and that he is writing ἔτος ἤδη τρίτον ἐξήκει μετὰ τὴν ἀμνηστείαν καὶ τὰς διαλλαγάς (PG 66.1409A), which indicates that the amnesty was initiated no later than 409, because Theophilus died in 412. Notice that Alexander had been forced to live like a private individual despite the amnesty and that we have no record of a response by Theophilus to Synesius. (107) Dial. 16.1–173. For a positive assessment of Porphyrius’ character, see Theodoret h.e. 5.35. (111 ) On the restoration of John by Cyril see Nestorius of Constantinople, Sermon 12.5, preserved in the translations of Marius Mercator, PL 48.852A. Following the lead of Chrysostomos Baur, Kelly believes that Cyril yielded to John's restoration around 418. See Kelly, Golden Mouth, 288; see also Chrysostomos Baur, John Chrysostom and his Time, vol. 2 (Westminster, MD: Newman, 1959), 450–1. On Cyril's attitude towards John, see Cyril of Alexandria ep. 76 (PG 77.352–60; critical edition in Schwartz, Codex Vaticanus gr., 25–8). (113) See HL 41, 61, 62. Nicole Moine (‘Melaniana’, RecAug 15 (1980): 56–65) says that Melania and Pinian were certainly still in Rome and did not depart until just before Alaric besieged the city, and it was around this time that they met with Serena and negotiated the selling of their vast estate; it is possible that Rufinus of Aquileia was also present in the city, see C. P. Hammond, ‘The Last Ten Years of Rufinus’ Life and the Date of his Move South from Aquilea’, JThS, ns 28 (1977): 372–427, at 420–3. Pammachius was a friend of Jerome, but Palladius included a notice about him in his Lausiac History because of his great renown and conversion; see Rufinus Apology against Jerome 2.44. (115) It has been suggested that they might have used their influence in Rome to pressure Innocent on John's behalf. See Pietri, Roma Christiana, 1319, and Kelly, Golden Mouth, 275 and 278. (3) See Wendy Mayer, ‘John Chrysostom as Bishop: The View from Antioch’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 55 (2004): 455–66, at 455. As noted below, Mayer's article questions this stance and offers a compelling alternative view. (4) For example, Kelly, Golden Mouth, 292, notes that Palladius ‘was not a detached historian, but a partisan concerned to vindicate John and depict him as the model bishop’, and that ‘he was not, and did not claim to be, either systematic or exhaustive’. (9) Malingrey (Palladios, vol. 2, pp. 47–95) demonstrated that chapter 2 of the Dialogue, which comprises John's Letter to Innocent 1 in the single manuscript that contains the entire text of that letter, was probably interpolated by a scribe. (10) The bedevilling quality of the Dialogue was best described by Anne‐Marie Malingrey, Palladios, 1:41, who wrote, ‘Tel est ce style étrange, lourd et embarrassé parfois de multiples relatifs de liaison, de participes, avec ses transitions maladroites ou monotones, concis jusqu’à l'obscurité, puis éclairé soudain d'une expression heureuse qui évoque de manière vivante scènes et personnages. Diversité des procédés littéraires, saveur de la langue, violence ou tendresse du ton, tous ces éléments, qui tantôt s'harmonisent, tantôt se heurtent les uns les autres, font du Dialogue une œuvre d'une lecture aussi difficile qu’attachante.’ (11) Basil ep. 135 (PG 32.572B–573B) acknowledges receipt of a narrative cast in dialogue form, but is highly critical of it, noting its difficulties and the skill required to master it; also available in Roy J. Deferrari, Basil: Letters, 4 vols. 18 of 31
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(New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1926–34; repr. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), at vol. 2, pp. 306–10. (12) Paolo Ubaldi, ‘Appunti sul Dialogo Storico di Palladio’, Memorie della reale accademia delle scienze di Torino: Classe di scienze morali, storiche, e filologiche, Serie seconda, 56 (1906): 217–96. On Socrates in late antique Christian literature, see Anne‐Marie Malingrey, ‘Le personnage de Socrate chez quelques auteurs chrétiens du IVe siècle’, in Forma futuri: Studi in onore del Cardinale Michele Pellegrino (Turin: d'Erasmo, 1975), 159–78; and Daniel Jackson, ‘Socrates and Christianity’, CF 31 (1977): 189–206. (14) For the allusions to Christ and his passion, see Dial. 8.89–90, 9.147, 10.25–8, 19.49–80. Of course, Palladius could have intended allusions to both: Origen had already drawn a parallel between Jesus and Socrates in Cels. 7.56, ed. Marcel Borret, Origène: Contre Celse, 5 vols., SC 132, 136, 147, 150, 227 (Paris: Cerf, 1967–76), at vol. 4, pp. 144–6. (26) George Kennedy has noted that ‘Although many written discourses, such as epistles, combine features of deliberative, judicial, or epideictic rhetoric, it is often useful to consider the dominant rhetorical genre of a work in determining the intent of the author and the effect upon the audience in the original social situation’ (George A. Kennedy, ‘The Genres of Rhetoric’, in Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period: 330 B.C.–A.D. 400, ed. Stanley E. Porter (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 45–6). Some persist in identifying the Dialogue with biography, for which see Siver Dagemark, ‘John Chrysostom the Monk‐Bishop: A Comparison between Palladios’ and Possidius’ Pictures of a Bishop’, in Giovanni Crisostomo: Oriente e occidente tra IV e V secolo, XXXIII Incontro di studiosi dell'antichità cristiana, Augustinianum 6–8 May 2004, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 93 (Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 2005), 933–1031; Dagemark also accepts the Phaedo as Palladius’ literary model. (35) According to Heinrich Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric: A Foundation for Literary Study, trans. Matthew T. Bliss, Annemiek Jansen, and David E. Orton (Leiden: Brill, 1998), §63, ‘the dialectical character of rhetoric is most marked in the genus iudiciale, since in the courtroom the prosecutor is always opposed by a defense lawyer so that the same facts are dealt with in detail from two conflicting points of view: each of the two speakers must take into consideration the opposing assessment of the facts so that the dialectic does not only arise from the fact that two speeches are given, but it is also already present in each individual speech’; cf. ibid. §147. Although the handbooks in judicial rhetoric were intended to teach an aspiring advocate the rules for composing a declamation, a practising advocate in the courtroom would have spent less time (if any) declaiming a monologue than engaging the judge in a probing dialectical process, for which see Jill Harries, Law and Empire in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 107, who states, ‘real court records show such a high degree of intervention by both the opposing advocate and the judge that it would be impossible to deliver a narratio in court as a coherent statement at all.’ (42) Dial. 14.30 and 14.48; Troianos, Ἡ ἐκκλησιαστικὴ δικονομία, 53, which gives several examples of this use of βιβλίον in Sozomen, Socrates, acts of major councils, and papyri, and cites the passages of Palladius noted here. (46) Lampe, s.v. ἀκολουθία. In Dial. 9.36: Οἱ δὲ παραγενόμενοι κατὰ τὴν τω̑ν κανόνων ἀκολουθίαν ἐκοινώνησαν τῳ̑ Ἰωάννῃ, ἵνα μὴ τὰ αὐτὰ τοι̑ς πρώτοις ἐργάασωνται. In Dial. 15.22: Δεδώκαμεν, ὡμολόγηται, καὶ γεγόναμεν, τοιαύύτην νομίσαντες εἶναι ἀκολουθίαν ἵνα δόξωμεν του̑ βουλευτηρίου ἐλευθερου̑σθαι. In Dial. 8.224: ποίᾳ ἀκολουθίᾴ δικάζετε, οἱ μήήτε τοὺς ἐχθρούύς μου ἐξώσαντες καὶ διὰ τω̑ν ἐμω̑ν κληρικω̑ν με μεταστελλόμενοι; This last use of the term, spoken by John, appears identical to its usage in John's Letter to Innocent, where it refers to a type of judicial process that is specifically differentiated each time from both secular and ecclesiastical laws, for which see Malingrey, Palladios, 2:76.89, and 2:92.229. (48) One was composed by the Tall Brothers and submitted to the emperor to review their grievances against Theophilus, and it is referred to three times in Dial. 8.10, 8.15, 8.17. Another, mentioned only once in Dial. 8.87, was written against John by two of his former deacons at the behest of Theophilus, and it was also presented to the emperor. A third, dictated by Theophilus against the exiled monks, is referred to in Dial. 7.109, 8.7, 8.29, and even though Palladius does not explicitly state that it was directed to the emperor, he does state that the imperial palace was informed of it, which suggests it had been submitted to the emperor. There is only one other use of δέησις in the Dialogue, and that is an explicit, poetic reference to prayer (Dial. 15.59).
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(52) Troianos, Ἡ ἐκκλησιαστικὴ δικονομία, 85, n. 12, notes additional uses in ACO 1.1.2, p. 11.13 (summons to Nestorius), ACO 1.1.3, p. 23.1 (the third summons to John of Antioch), and ACO 2.1.1, p. 129.23 (the third summons to Eutyches). (58) Dial. 14.46: μετὰ γὰρ τὸ ἀναγνωσθη̑ναι καὶ εἰς ἀκοὰς πάντων ἐλθει̑ν, πραττομένων ὑπομνημάτων, οὐκέτι σοι ἔξεστιν, ἐπισκόπῳ ὄντι, ζητει̑ν ἀβολιτίωνα. In the critical apparatus, Malingrey notes the confusion that this term causes for scribes apparently unfamiliar with legal terminology. That bishops could not withdraw formal charges appears corroborated in the sources, for which see Troianos, Ἡ ἐκκλησιαστική δικονομία, 119, n. 4, referring to ACO 2.1.1, p. 132.3, although the term ἀβολιτίων is not found here. (65) Mervin R. Dilts and George A. Kennedy, Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises from the Roman Empire: Introduction, Text, and Translation of the Arts of Rhetoric attributed to Anonymous Seguerianus and to Apsines of Gadara (Leiden: Brill, 1997), ix. For Valerius Apsines of Gadara (b. 190), see Heath, Menander, 53–5. Heath, however, argues that it was not Apsines, but a pupil of his named Aspasius (possibly Aspasius of Tyre) who wrote Art of Rhetoric (hereafter Rhet.), an argument that plausibly explains the third‐person references to Apsines that it contains. He identifies Apsines as the author of On Invention, which was falsely attributed to Hermogenes of Tarsus (Menander, p. 57). (66) Anonymous Seguerianus 1: Ὁ πολιτικὸς [ἤτοι δικανικὸς] λόγος εἰς τέσσαρα μέρη διαιρει̑ται τὰ προκείμενα· χρῄζομεν γὰρ ἐν αὐτῳ̑ προοιμίων μὲν πρὸς τὸ προσεχεστέρους ποιη̑σαι τοὺς ἀκροατάς, διηγήσεως δὲ πρὸς τὸ διδάξαι τὸ πρα̑γμα, τω̑ν δὲ πίστεων πρὸς τὸ κατασκευάσαι ἢ ἀνασκευάσαι τὸ προκείμενον· τοὺς δὲ ἐπιλόγους ἐπάγομεν πρὸς τὸ ἐπιρρω̑σαι τὸν ἀκούοντα εἰς τὴν ὑπὲρ ἡμω̑ν ψη̑φον. All citations and translations of Anonymous Seguerianus are from the text edited and translated by Dilts and Kennedy, Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises, 1–73. On the term political rhetoric as an equivalent for judicial rhetoric, see also Hermogenes On Issues 1 (Rabe, Hermogenis, 29.15–30.4), ‘First of all, we must state what is meant by a political question. It is a rational dispute on a particular matter, based on the established laws or customs of any given people, concerned with what is considered just, honourable, advantageous, or all or some of these things together.’ (71 ) Dial. 1.55–7, 1.106–9, and 1.132–46. According to Heath, Menander, 326–8, one's success in the law courts of antiquity and the late empire depended greatly on the degree of learning, culture, and grace displayed in the course of argumentation; Palladius refers to the bishop's πολυμάθειαν (Dial. 13.76) and portrays him as a wellspring of neologisms and hapax legomena, for which see Theodore F. Brunner, ‘Hapax and non‐hapax legomena in Palladius’ Life of Chrysostom’, AB 107 (1989): 33–8. (76) Anonymous Seguerianus 46 (recording the rhetorician Neocles): ‘the narration in a judicial speech is an exposition of matters pertaining to some proposed question, or by Zeus, an exposition of the circumstances pertaining to some question’; cf. Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric, §289. For Neocles, a second century rhetorician of unknown provenience, see Dilts and Kennedy, Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises, p. xiii. For the juridical significance of ζήτησις, cf. Dial. 20.439, where Palladius writes εἰ γὰρ καὶ κεκοίμηται ὁ μακάριος· Ἰωάννης, ἀλλ' ἐγρήγορεν ἡ ἀλήθεια, δι' ἣν ἡ ζήτησις ἔσται. (79) Anonymous Seguerianus 51; this definition is attributed to the little‐known Alexander, son of Numenius, for whom see Dilts and Kennedy, Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises, xi–xii. (84) See Ps.-Hermogenes On Invention 3.1 (Rabe, Hermogenis, 126.3–4) which identifies the κατασκευή as τὸ κορυφαι̑ον τη̑ς ῥητορικη̑ς μέρος. Although edited into its final form some time in the fifth or sixth century, it was mostly written in the third or fourth century and contains much material from as early as the mid‐second century, according to George A. Kennedy, Invention and Method: Two Rhetorical Treatises from the Hermogenic Corpus, Writings from the Greco‐Roman World 15 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005), xvi. Commenting on Book 3 of Inventio, Kennedy writes, ‘Book 3 discusses kataskeuê, the “confirmation” of proof as the third major division in a speech after the prooemion and diegesis: everything before it is preparatory. The importance of the subject is here emphasized by a formal dedication and catalogue of the contents of the book’ (Kennedy, Invention and Method, 61). (95) Anonymous Seguerianus 90: μόρια δὲ διηγήσεως πρόσωπον, πρα̑γμα, τόπος, τρόπος, χρόνος, αἰτία. This appears to have been an improvement upon the order prescribed by Hellenistic judicial rhetoric, for which see Quintilian
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Inst. 4.2.55, ‘We can in fact give a taste in the Narrative of everything that we shall be treating in the Proof: person, motive, place, time, means, opportunity.’ (99) Quintilian Inst. 4.2.54: ‘ne illud quidem fuerit inutile, semina quaedam probationum spargere, verum sic ut narrationem esse meminerimus, non probationem.’ (102) Quintilian Inst. 4.2.52–3, quoted above in full. This point is obscured if the Dialogue is perceived as promulgating monk‐bishops as an ideal, as does Andrea Sterk, Renouncing the World Yet Leading the Church: The Monk-Bishop in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 156–9; she is followed by Dagemark, ‘John Chrysostom the Monk‐Bishop’, 1024. It should be noted here that both analyses rely heavily upon the short narration and mostly ignore the Dialogue's lengthy argumentation. (104) Dial. 5.100–66. Dial. 5.100: Οὕτως χειροτονηθείς ὁ Ἰωάννης ἄρχεται τη̑ς τω̑ν πραγμάτων ἐπιμελείας. Both Malingrey and Meyer have accurately translated the ‘things’ here as a reference to the affairs of the church, but Palladius may have also intended to allude to the ‘things’ that sparked the controversy. (108) This pamphlet is referred to again in Dial. 13.126–45; fragments survive in Facundus of Hermiane, Pro defensione trium capitulorum 6.5 (PL 67.677–8); see also Johannes‐Maria Clément and Rolandus vander Plaetse, eds., Facundi Episcopi Ecclesiae Hermianensis Opera Omnia (Turnhout: Brepols, 1974), reproduced in Anne Fraïsse‐ Bétoulières, Facundus d'Hermiane: Défense des trois chapitres (à Justinien), SC 471, 478–9, 484, 499 (Paris: Cerf, 2002–6), at vol. 2.2, SC 479, pp. 376–80. (15) Rabe, Hermogenis, 61.21–62.10. See also Anonymous Seguerianus 216, where the charge of sacrilege is also used to illustrate the stasis of definition; ed. Mervin R. Dilts and George A. Kennedy, Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises from the Roman Empire: Introduction, Text, and Translation of the Arts of Rhetoric attributed to Anonymous Seguerianus and to Apsines of Gadara (Leiden: Brill, 1997). Palladius employs the image of sacrilege again in Dial. 20.636–61 in which he rejects one definition of it, and offers another that exonerates John and condemns his accusers. (36) Dial. 13.12; cf. Pseudo‐Hermogenes, On Inventions 4.14 (Rabe, Hermogenis, 211.15–16) where ἀνθυπενέγκειν appears as a head in comparative definitions and functions as a technical term of rebuttal. As noted above, Heath (Menander, 57) attributes On Inventions to Apsines. (44) Cf. Aphthonius, Progymnasmata 7 (Spengel, Rhetores Graeci, 32.20–35.23); for an English translation, see George A. Kennedy, Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric, Writings from the Greco‐Roman World 10 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 105–8. (58) See Quintilian Inst. 3.6.83–4, which describes the four major issues as follows, ‘Let them therefore learn first of all that there are four possibilities which the intending speaker has to consider first in every case. For—to begin for preference with the defendant—by far the strongest method of defending oneself is, when possible, by denying the charge; second best is if it can be said that what was done is not what was alleged in the charge; the third, and most honorable, is by defending the act as justifiable. If all these fail us, the last (and now the only) hope of safety lies in escaping by some helpful device of law from a charge which can neither be denied nor defended, in such a way as to make it seem that the legal action is not justifiable…for there are some things allowed by law, but not naturally praiseworthy.’ (61 ) Sozomen h.e. 8.6 narrates the events in Nicomedia; he also states that John ‘deposed thirteen bishops, some in Lycia and Phrygia, and others in Asia itself, and appointed others in their stead’. (73) Dial. 16.176–9: ἡ γὰρ συμφωνία τω̑ν λόγων καὶ ἡ ἄσκηπτος διήγησις ἐπληροφόρησέν με ἀληθη̑ εἶναι τὰ γεγενημένα· ἀδύνατον γὰρ ψευδη̑ λόγον ἑαυτῳ̑ συμφωνη̑σαι. Cf. Heath, Hermogenes, 84, for the suggestion that in conjecture the sequence of events should be handled demonstratively, without amplifying events, suggesting a reason for Palladius' insistence that his account was an ἄσκηπτος διήγησις. (87) Rabe, Hermogenis, 38.18–39.1: ‘This is divided as follows. The defendant will either accept all responsibility for what happened himself, or will transfer it to some external factor. If he accepts responsibility himself he makes a 22.1.2012 20:11
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counterstatement (ἀντίστασις); a counterstatement arises when the defendant, while conceding that he has done some wrong, sets against that some other benefit achieved as a result of that same wrong.’ (115) Rabe, Hermogenis, 41–2. For example, the lack of accentuation or word breaks could result in dual meaning; Hermogenes illustrates this with the case of a disputed will, in which a father with two sons, one named Leon and the other Pantaleon, is survived by a will that states εχετωταεμαπανταλεον, which could mean either ‘Pantaleon should have what is mine’ or ‘Leon should have all that is mine’. (117) See Heath, Hermogenes, 141; Heath also notes that earlier theorists such as Hermagoras believed that legal arguments excluded any consideration of the act, but that later theorists such as Quintilian and Hermogenes readily acknowledged that the act was still an important element from which an advocate would draw arguments; see idem, Hermogenes, 76. (128) For example, see Susanna Elm, ‘The Dog that Did Not Bark: Doctrine and Patriarchal Authority in the Conflict between Theophilus of Alexandria and John Chrysostom of Constantinople’, in Christian Origins: Theology, Rhetoric, and Community, ed. Lewis Ayres and Gareth Jones (London: Routledge, 1998), 68–93, which first emphasized the gravity of the contested issues of authority and governance in the Johnite controversy, although she did not recognize how directly Palladius himself had addressed these issues. (145) As discussed in Chapter 1, Palladius was already a bishop of Helenopolis and either in Constantinople or Ephesus (investigating the charges against Antoninus) when the Origenist controversy broke out in the spring or summer of 400. Heracleides had been a deacon of John and ordained bishop of Ephesus in spring 402, just shortly after the refugee monks had arrived in Constantinople. The argument here is strengthened when one considers that only the doctrinal issue is raised in this charge, whereas Epiphanius probably allied himself with Theophilus because of their common stance against John on the issue of the Paulinian schism at Antioch, for which see Wendy Mayer, ‘John Chrysostom as Bishop: The View from Antioch’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 55 (2004): 460–1. (153) See Ps.-Martyrius, P 498a–b, ed. Florent van Ommeslaeghe, ‘De lijkrede voor Johannes Chrysostomus toegeschreven aan Martyrius van Antiochie: Tekstuitgave met comentaar’ (PhD diss., Catholic University of Louvain [Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven]), 1974), 97, ll. 15–18. This funeral oration, possibly the earliest surviving text written about John Chrysostom after his death, was delivered when news of his death arrived in Constantinople, perhaps some time around the second week of November 407, for which see Florent van Ommeslaeghe, ‘La fête de S. Jean Chrysostome dans l'église grecque’, AB 96 (1978): 338; T. D. Barnes agrees with van Ommeslaeghe on the early date of the funeral oration in his review of Martin Wallraff, Der Kirchenhistoriker Sokrates: Untersuchungen zu Geschichtsdarstellung, Methode und Person, JThS, ns 50 (1999): 350–3. Van Ommeslaeghe once promised to publish an edition in Subsidia Hagiographica, but died before doing so. For an analysis of the oration and its value in comparison to other sources, see the series of articles published by van Ommeslaeghe: ‘Chrysostomica: La nuit de Pâques 404’, AB 110 (1992): 123–43; ‘Jean Chrysostome en conflit avec l'impératrice Eudoxie: Le dossier et les origines d'une légende’, AB 97 (1979): 131–59; ‘Jean Chrysostome et le peuple de Constantinople’, AB 99 (1981): 329–49; ‘La valeur historique de la Vie de S. Jean Chrysostome attribuée à Martyrius d'Antioche (BHG 871)’, Studia Patristica 12 (= TU 115) (1975): 478–83; ‘Que vaut le témoignage de Pallade sur le procès de s. Jean Chrysostome?’, AB 95 (1977): 389–413. See also Martin Wallraff, ‘L'epitaffio di un contemporaneo per Giovanni Crisostomo (“Ps.‐Martirio”) inquadramento di una fonte biografica finora trascurata’, in Giovanni Crisostomo: Oriente e Occidente tra IV e V secolo, XXXIII Incontro di studiosi dell'antichità cristiana, Augustinianum 6–8 May 2004, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 93 (Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 2005), 37–49. (157) Cyril of Alexandria ep. 33.7, ed. Schwartz, ACO 1.1.7, pp. 147–50; trans. John I. McEnerney, St. Cyril of Alexandria: Letters 1–50, FOTC 76 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1987), 128–35; cf. Severian's comment that even if John were innocent, his pride justified his deposition, Sozomen h.e. 8.18. (159) Elm, ‘The Dog that Did Not Bark’, 68–93, has already been mentioned above; see also Norman Russell, Theophilus of Alexandria (London: Routledge, 2007), 18–34, which presents more positively Theophilus' role in the condemnation of Origenism, and argues that Theophilus' primary motive for expelling John was based on canon law, not doctrine.
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(163) Elm, ‘The Dog that Did Not Bark’, suggests that Palladius overemphasized the significance of doctrine (83), which this chapter and the previous has indicated was not the case. Although Elm suggests that doctrine did not play as significant a role as issues of administration and governance, she did not explain why the synod repeatedly returned to the issue of the Origenists, or why it failed to depose John on charges of administrative misconduct. (167) Socrates h.e. 6.7 and 6.13 on Origenism; as an Origenist, Socrates may have caricaturized the Anthropomorphites, according to Georges Florovsky, ‘The Anthropomorphites in the Egyptian Desert’, Akten des XI. Internationalen Byzantinistenkongresses, München, 1958, ed. F. Dölger and H. G. Beck (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1960), 154–9. (169) Socrates h.e. 6.3–5; see also Glenn F. Chesnut, The First Christian Histories: Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret and Evagrius, 2nd edn. (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1986), 188–98; Theresa Urbainczyk, Socrates of Constantinople: Historian of Church and State (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1997), 133–7. Martin Wallraff considers Socrates to be fair to John on the basis of his available sources, and an excellent complement and balance to Palladius, for which see his Der Kirchenhistoriker Sokrates: Untersuchungen zu Geschichtsdarstellung, Methode und Person, Forschungen zur Kirchen‐ und Dogmengeschichte 68 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), 55–75. (170) Sozomen h.e. 8.11–13. for Sozomen's dependence on Socrates, see Chesnut, The First Christian Histories, 204–6. (174) Anonymous Seguerianus 57: ‘Whenever, then, a narration of the facts occurs, then a paradiegesis will occur, providing a topic for enthymemes and containing something persuasive.’ There are different types of paradiegesis: those that precede (prodiegesis), accompany (paradiegesis, now used in a narrow sense according to Kennedy, Anonymous, 21, n. 67), or follow (epidiegesis) the narration, each described more fully in Anonymous Seguerianus 58–60. (176) According to Socrates h.e. 6.17, Theophilus was an admiring reader of Origen. (180) This was first suggested by P. R. Coleman‐Norton, Palladii dialogus de vita s. Joannis Chrysostomi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928), xx, and has been supported in part by Elm, ‘The Dog That Did Not Bark’, 71. Theophilus' pamphlet is referred to in Dial. 13.126–45; fragments survive in Facundus of Hermiane, Pro defensione trium capitulorum 6.5 (PL 67.677–8); a critical edition is available in Johannes‐Maria Clément and Rolandus vander Plaetse, Facundi Episcopi Ecclesiae Hermianensis Opera Omnia (Turnhout: Brepols, 1974), and reproduced in Anne Fraïsse‐Bétoulières, Facundus d'Hermiane: Défense des trois chapitres (à Justinien), SC 471, 478–9, 484, 499 (Paris: Cerf, 2002–6), at vol. 2.2, SC 479, 376–80. (1) On the fate of John's partisans after their bishop's exile, Dialogue 20.44–90; P. D. Stiernon, ‘Helenopolis’, DHGE, 23.881, believed that a certain Alexander was consecrated to the see of Helenopolis in Palladius’ absence, on the basis of the passage in Socrates h.e. 7.36 which stated: ‘Palladius was transferred from Helenopolis to Aspuna; and Alexander from the same city to Adriani.’ Socrates, however, provided no dates for these transfers; although some bishops were restored to their sees (viz. Elpidius and Pappus, for which see Kelly, Golden Mouth, 287, and Innocent Letter 19 [PL 20.541B]), others were not (e.g. Alexander of Basinopolis, for whom see Synesius Letter 66 [PG 66.1408–9]). (6) Butler, Lausiac History, 1:3, 179–81; HL Prologue, Butler, 9.12. Butler assumed that Palladius was not ordained a bishop until he arrived in Asia Minor after he left Egypt (c.399) and he based the rest of his calculations on this date. Butler, Lausiac History, 2:243–4. (22) HL, Prologue 2, Butler 10.2–5. The textual history of the HL is extremely complicated and owes a great debt to Butler, who was the first to recognize that the most widely circulating edition of the Lausiac History was only one of three Greek recensions, and that it was a conflation of the Lausiac History and the History of the Monks of Egypt (Lausiac History of Palladius, 1:15–172). He isolated what he believed to be the most authentic recension and examined over fifty‐three manuscripts and fragments to produce a critical edition (Lausiac History of Palladius, 1:6–172 and 2:ix–xcvi; see also Robert T. Meyer, trans., Palladius: The Lausiac History, Ancient Christian Writers 34
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[New York: Paulist, 1964], 8–11). Butler's new edition possessed a much greater degree of cohesion and unity than the previous one in circulation and was widely acclaimed (C. H. Turner, ‘The Lausiac History of Palladius’, JThS 6 [1905]: 321–55; Eduard Schwartz, ‘Palladiana’, ZNTW 36 [1937]: 161–204). But it was not perfect: critics complained that his edition was constructed from a variety of manuscripts, and that it did not exist in its entirety in any single, extant manuscript. Butler admitted that he could not examine every manuscript containing the HL because there were simply too many (in too many locations), and he even acknowledged that he erred in underestimating the value of a certain manuscript family (Butler, ‘Palladiana’, JThS 22 [1920]: 21–35). Nevertheless, it was a remarkable piece of scholarship and his edition slowly emerged as the de facto normative text, such that when G. J. M. Bartelink published his own edition of the Lausiac History (Palladio: La Storia Lausiaca, Vite dei Santi 2 [n.p.: Lorenzo Valla, 1974]), which accounted for many of the criticisms that had been raised against Butler's edition, he still used Butler's work as the basis of his own, and he argued that a better critical edition could not be published without further extensive studies on all the versions and recensions of the History (see the introduction by Christine Mohrmann, ibid., x–xii). The growing consensus around the Butler edition prompted a flurry of new scholarship on Palladius, for which see E. D. Hunt, ‘St. Silvia of Aquitaine: The Role of the Theodosian Pilgrim in the Society of East and West’, JThS, ns 23 (1972): 351–73; ‘Palladius of Helenopolis: A Party and its Supporters in the Church of the Late Fourth Century’, JThS, ns 24 (1973): 456–80; M.‐G. de Durand, ‘Évagre le Pontique et le Dialogue sur le vie de Saint Jean Chrysostome’, BLE 77 (1976): 191–206; Paul Devos, ‘Approches de Pallade a travers le Dialogue sur Chrysostome et l'Histoire Lausiaque: Deux oeuvres, un auteur’, AB 107 (1989): 243–66. See also Robert T. Meyer, ‘Lexical Problems in Palladius’ Historia Lausiaca’, Patrologia Syriaca 1 (TU 63 [1957]): 44–52; idem, ‘Lectio Divina in Palladius’, in KYRIAKON: Festschrift Johannes Quasten, ed. Patrick Granfield and Josef A. Jungman (Münster: Verlag Aschendorff, 1970), 580–4; idem, ‘Palladius and Early Christian Spirituality’, SP 10.1 (1970): 379–90; idem, ‘Palladius and the Study of Scripture’, SP 13.2 (1975): 487–90; idem, ‘Palladius as Biographer and Autobiographer’, SP 17.1 (1982): 66–71; idem, ‘Holy Orders in the Eastern Church in the Early Fifth Century as Seen in Palladius’, SP 16.2 (1985): 38–49. (23) For the monobiblion see Socrates h.e. 4.23. Although the original monobiblion does not survive in any manuscript, Gabriel Bunge believed that he found traces of it in the Coptic Synaxaria which contained compelling historical material not found in the Greek History; whereas Butler had rejected this material because it did not accord with the existing Greek recensions of the History, Bunge proposed that the Coptic versions reflected still other recensions that were compilations of two works: a late, revised recension of the Lausiac History, as well as a recension of the conjectural monobiblion. See Gabriel Bunge, ‘Palladiana: I. Introduction aux fragments coptes de l'Histoire Lausiaque’, StudMon 32 (1990): 79–129; for French translations of the Coptic version of the HL and vestiges of the monobiblion, see Adalbert de Vogüé, ‘Palladiana: II–V. La version copte de l'Histoire Lausiaque’, StudMon 32 (1990): 323–39, StudMon 33 (1991): 7–21, StudMon 34 (1992): 7–28, StudMon 34 (1992): 217–32; these were later collected in Gabriel Bunge and Adalbert de Vogüé, Quatre ermites égyptiens d'après les fragments coptes de l'Histoire Lausiaque, Spiritualité Orientale 60 (Bégrolles‐en‐Mauges: Abbaye de Bellefontaine, 1994). English translations of the Coptic passages were subsequently made available by Tim Vivian, Four Desert Fathers: Pambo, Evagrius, Macarius of Egypt, and Macarius of Alexandria, Coptic Texts Relating to the Lausiac History of Palladius (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2004). Bunge also proposed that the original monobiblion probably contained some of the material preserved only in the Syriac recensions of the Lausiac History; for these, see René Draguet, Les formes syriaques de la matière de l'Histoire Lausiaque, 2 vols., CSCO 389–90, 398–9 (Louvain: Secrétariat du Corpus SCO, 1978). Draguet had been the most implacable of Butler's critics, for many years having argued that some of the fragments dismissed by him contained valuable alternative readings (although even he admitted that most of the changes he advocated would not have altered Butler's text significantly); for his criticism of Butler, see his ‘Un nouveau témoin du texte G de l'Histoire Lausiaque’, AB 67 (1949): 300–8; idem, ‘Butler et sa Lausiac History face à un ms. de l'édition le Wake 67’, Muséon 63 (1950): 205–30; idem, ‘Un texte G de l'Histoire Lausiaque dans le Laura 333 G 93’, RecSR 40 (1952): 107–15. Draguet's abrasiveness rallied Derwas Chitty to Butler's defence in ‘Dom Cuthbert Butler, Professor Draguet, and the Lausiac History [Ms. Wake 67]’, JThS ns 6 (1955): 102–10; naturally, Draguet rebutted in, ‘Butleriana: Une mauvaise cause et son malchanceux avocat’, Muséon 58 (1955): 238–58. Ultimately, Draguet's work did lead to the recovery of significant material, including an address to a woman (Draguet, Les formes syriaques, 1:80), and two additional chapters on the ascetics Eucarpios and Stephen (chapters 72 and 73 in Draguet, Les formes syriaques, 236–41), both of which are absent from Butler's text, but mentioned in HL 47 Butler, p. 137. 17–18. For an excellent summary of some of these textual problems, see Vivian, Four Desert Fathers, 46–52. Although the case for the conjectural monobiblion is not closed, a fact noted by 22.1.2012 20:11
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Mark Sheridan, in his review of Bunge and de Vogüé, in Collectanea Cisterciensia 57 (1995)= Bulletin de spiritualité monastique 12 (1995): [548]–[552], it is less disputed now whether Palladius may have written an earlier work that he later revised (a theory that remains more persuasive than any other on the basis of the limited current evidence), than it is disputed to what degree the Coptic passages reflect that earlier material. (29) For an account of Pulcheria's successful manoeuvres against the praetorian prefect Anthemius and the urban prefect Isidore, son of Anthemius, see Holum, Theodosian Empresses, 93–6; for the rise to power of the grand chamberlain, see Dunlap, Grand Chamberlain, 184–5. (30) On Pulcheria, see Holum, Theodosian Empresses, 101–11. Lausus may have been the praepositus to the bedchamber of Pulcheria, who, as Augusta, was also entitled to a praepositus sacri cubiculi (PW Supplement 8. 562–3). According to Martindale, Prosopography, 102 (see ‘Antiochus [5]’), Antiochus is attested as praepositus sacri cubiculi and patricius c.421, possible evidence for two praepositi at this time; Dunlap mentions a Macrobius: Grand Chamberlain, 186–7, 192–3. In any event, the cubicularii of Pulcheria would have been under the administration of Lausus, as demonstrated by Dunlap, Grand Chamberlain, 191, 205. (33) A point well made by Verna E. F. Harrison, ‘This Female Man of God: Women and Spiritual Power in the Patristic Age, AD 350–450’, JThS, ns, 48 (1997): 694–700, at 699, who warns against seeing a uniquely feminine form of spirituality in early Christian literature more generally. (34) On the explicit inclusion of women among ‘the fathers’, see his comment that Lausus had desired τὰ τω̑ν πατέρων διηγήματα, ἀρρένων τε καὶ θηλειω̑ν (HL Prologue, Butler 10.2–3). (46) Clark, Melania the Younger, 153–70, warns that Christian works of late antiquity do not strictly conform to classical genres. (57) Such ‘heresy genealogies’ were not intended to be accurate descriptions of the development of religious thought, although they were important for a variety of rhetorical purposes, for which see Benoît Jeanjean, Saint Jérôme et l'hérésie (Paris: Institut d'Études Augustiniennes, 1999), 424–8; see also Susanna Elm, ‘Jerome's Classification of Pelagius and Evagrius Ponticus’, SP 33 (1997): 311–18. (76) On the relationship of Jerome to Paula and her family, see Kelly, Jerome, passim; Stefan Rebenich, Hieronymus und sein Kreis: Prosopographische und sozialgeschichtliche Untersuchungen (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1992); and Elizabeth A. Clark, Jerome, Chrysostom, and Friends: Essays and Translations, Studies in Women and Religion 1 (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1979), 35–106, which also notes that Paula never attained to the same status in scriptural study as Jerome's other famous scriptural student, the more independently minded Marcella (at 75–7). (80) Jerome ep. 39.1 (CSEL 54.293–308). He also exhorts Paula to imitate the example of Melania the Elder (and Origenist), and wishes, ‘Lord grant that you and I may have part with her in His day’, ep. 39.5 (CSEL 54, pp. 305.10–13). (81 ) Jerome ep. 108.8 (c.404; CSEL 55, pp. 313–14). Jerome had spoken of the Caesarean library approximately ten years earlier, in Vir. ill. 75 (Bernoulli, Hieronymus und Gennadius, 42), where he wrote, ‘Pamphilus the presbyter…was so inflamed with love of sacred literature, that he transcribed the greater part of the works of Origen with his own hand and these are still preserved in the library at Caesarea. On the twelve prophets I have twenty‐five volumes of commentaries of Origen, written in his hand, which I hug and guard with such joy, that I deem myself to have the wealth of Croesus’ (trans. NPNF 2.3, p. 377, slightly modified). On the date of Vir. ill., with its terminus a quo of 393, see Pierre Nautin, ‘La date du De viris illustribus de Jérôme, de la mort de Cyrille de Jérusalem et de celle de Grégoire de Nazianze’, RHE 56 (1961): 33–5. On Jerome's use of geography as a metaphor for spiritual orthodoxy, see Susan Weingarten, The Saint's Saints: Hagiography and Geography in Jerome, Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 58 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 216–65; Jerome considered Caesarea an example of Christian appropriation of space in Palestine, but sites related to Origen were nevertheless ignored. (84) Hunt, ‘Palladius of Helenopolis’, 480; assumed that ‘tensions had subsided’ between the Origenists and Jerome by the time Melania the Younger visited Jerusalem. His suggestion was followed by Clark who stated: ‘yet whatever enmities had existed between Melania the Elder's monastic establishments in Jerusalem and those of Paula and 22.1.2012 20:11
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Jerome in Bethlehem, they had apparently been laid to rest by Melania the Younger's time’ (Melania the Younger, 151). Clark cited Melania's presence in Jerome's company in Bethlehem as evidence for this amnesty. (85) Moine, ‘Melaniana’, 73–7, even suggested that Melania the Younger broke ranks with the Origenists and joined Jerome because she felt duped by Pelagius who proved intractable; HL 61, however, posited that Melania was to be found on her estates either in Sicily or in Campania. (94) HL 7; the intervening chapters (HL 5 and 6) are extensions of his accounts on Didymus, and perhaps even Isidore, because it was Didymus who narrated to him the subject of HL 5 (with additional material offered by Melania the Elder), and which in turn prompted the story of HL 6. This second story concerns a hospitaller of Alexandria named Macarius, and reflects perhaps a story or experience similar to one related to Palladius by Isidore. (114) Bunge, ‘Palladiana I’, 118. Bunge notes that the Coptic Life of Evagrius supplies many details from his years at Cells; for this Life which he attributes to Palladius, see Bunge and de Vogüé, ‘Palladiana. III.’, 12–21; ET in Vivian, Four Desert Fathers, 69–92. (118) Antoine Guillaumont and Claire Guillaumont, Évagre le Pontique: Traité practique ou Le moine, SC 170 (Paris: Cerf, 1971), 239. The scribe's marginal note reads as follows: Ἱστέον ὅτι ἄλλος ἐστὶν οὑ̑τος ὁ Εὐάγριος καὶ ἄλλος ὁ αἱρετικός· του̑τον γὰρ ὁ ἐν ἁγίοις Παλλάδιος οὐ μόνον οὐ λέγει αἱρετικόν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοι̑ς κατ’ ἐκείνῳ καιρῳ̑ μεγάλοις ἁγίοις ἐναρίθμιον ποιει̑, ὡς καὶ ἀσκητικώτατον ὄντα καὶ τω̑ν ὀρθω̑ν δογμάτων ἐξηγητήν· μαθητὴς γάρ φησιν ὑπη̑ρχε του̑ μεγάλου Βασιλείου, παρ’ οὑ̑ καὶ τὴν του̑ ἀναγνώστου σφραγι̑δα εἴληφε· παρὰ δέ γε του̑ μεγάλου Γρηγορίου Νύσσης τὴν του̑ διακόνου χειροτονίαν. The substitution of Gregory of Nyssa for Gregory of Nazianzus stems from alternative readings of the Lausiac History, for which see HL 38, Butler, 117; see also Ernst Honigmann, ‘Heraclides of Nyssa’, in Patristic Studies, Studi e Testi 173 (Vatican City: Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, 1953), 104–22. (119) Clark, Origenist Controversy, 192–3, says that Rufinus may have tried a similar tactic, by insisting that to be orthodox it was necessary only to adhere to the essential doctrines formulated by church councils. The implicit corollary is that speculation in non‐essential theological matters was legitimate. (3) Augustine M. Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus (London: Routledge, 2006), 14–35, neatly summarizes how Evagrius came to be interpreted in this way; Casiday also provides an excellent summary of contemporary Evagrian scholarship in ‘Gabriel Bunge and the Study of Evagrius Ponticus: Review Article’, SVTQ 48 (2004): 249–97. (5) Sozomen h.e. 8.15 alludes to some texts of Ammonius or his brothers; see also Antoine Guillaumont, Les ‘Kephalaia gnostica’ d’Évagre le Pontique et l’histoire de l’origénisme chez les grecs et chez les syriens, Patristica Sorboniensia 5 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1962), 83. Theodor Zahn, ‘Der Exeget Ammonius und andere Ammonii’, ZKG 38 (1920): 1–22, 311–36, thinks that Sozomen refers to the scriptural commentaries of Ammonius, priest of Alexandria (PG 85.1361–1610), but Guillaumont disagrees (Kephalaia, 83 n. 7). (21 ) For the association of forgetfulness and the θυμός, see Evagrius On Thoughts 23 (ed. Paul Géhin, Claire Guillaumont, and Antoine Guillaumont, Évagre le Pontique: Sur les Pensées, SC 438 [Paris: Cerf, 1998], 234.9–24), in which he says that because of anger and sadness (as well as pride), ‘some who were caught in an irreversible forgetfulness no longer had the strength to lay hold of their first state…therefore it is necessary to take up the anchoretic life with much humility and gentleness, and to encourage the soul of the fellow with spiritual words.’ (23) See Evagrius Praktikos 1 (SC 171, p. 498) and To the Monks 118–20, ed. H. Greßman, ‘Nonnenspiegel und Mönchsspiegel des Euagrios Pontikos’, Texte und Untersuchungen 39.4 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1913), 143–65; cf. Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 10.7.5 (1177b): ἀπὸ δὲ τω̑ν πρακτικω̑ν ἢ πλει̑ον ἢ ἔλαττον περιποιούμεθα παρὰ τὴν πράξιν. (30) Dial. 8.156: ‘H ἐσκοτισμένη ψυχὴ οὐκ ἀκολούθως βλέπειν, ἀλλὰ φαντάζεσθαι ἃ τὸ πάθος ὑπαγορεύει. See also Dial. 6. 133: Τοιου̑τον γὰρ οἱ θυμοί, καθάπερ οἱ κύνες, τυφλὰ τίκτουσι καὶ τὰ πράγματἁ καὶ τὰ ῥήματα. Cf. Evagrius Gnostikos 10: ‘If only the Knower could, at the time when he interprets the Scriptures, be free from anger, resentment, sadness, bodily suffering, and anxieties!’ According to another recension of Gnostikos 10, Evagrius wrote, ‘The Knower will examine whether he is free from anger, resentment, and sadness, the passions of the body, and anxieties at the moment when he interprets scripture’ (the original Greek has not survived; see SC 356 p 103) 22.1.2012 20:11
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(46) HL 11, Butler 34.6. Pierius was known as ‘Origen Junior’ according to Jerome Vir. ill. 76 ed. Carl Albrecht Bernoulli, Hieronymus und Gennadius: De viris inlustribus (Freiburg in Breisgau: J. C. B. Mohr, 1895; repr. Frankfurt: Minerva, 1968), at 42; Photius later accused him of Trinitarian subordinationism and the pre‐existence of souls, in his cod. 119, ed. René Henry, Photius Bibliothèque (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1960), 2: 92–4. We have no record of Stephen. (58) By way of contrast, Chrysostom (Comm. Job 32.8) had offered a moral interpretation of this passage, arguing that it was necessary to have patience and to suffer much when learning to control one’s tongue; see Henri Sorlin and Louis Neyrand, Jean Chrysostome: Commentaire sur Job, SC 346 and 348 (Paris: Cerf, 1988), at vol. 348, pp. 158–9. (71 ) Cf. Theodoret h.e. 5.35, which speaks highly of Porphyrius’ character and intellect. (83) Evagrius Scholia on Proverbs 170 (SC 340, p. 267), commented on Prov. 17.26 (ζημιου̑ν ἄνδρα δίκαιον οὐ καλόν, οὐδὲ ὅσιον ἐπιβουλεύειν δυνάσταις δικαίοις), and implied that the δίκαιος δυνάστης was an angel or a gnostic monk. Cf. Origen exp. in Pr. (PG 17.201D), commenting on the same verse: δυνάστας λέγει τοὺς ἐν Χριστῳ̑ βασιλεύοντας. (84) For example, in the conclusion of the Dialogue, the bishop commended the deacon for having praised John with his own words as well as passages drawn from scripture. The bishop likened this to producing ‘new things and old’ from the treasury of one’s mind, an allusion to Matt. 13.52, which Palladius explained by saying, ‘Now, by old things he means the teaching of purely human wisdom; by new things are meant the oracles of the Holy Spirit (Dial. 20.551).’ Origen (comm. in. Mt. 10.15 [GCS 40, p. 18.32–19.3]), however, saw in the opposition of ‘old’ and ‘new’ an intimation of the two covenants; see also Origen exc. in Ps. (PG 17.144D). It is worth noting, however, that Palladius may have been inspired by Didymus the Blind (On the Holy Spirit 151): ‘Ipse ergo Spiritus veritatis, ingrediens puram et simplicem mentem, signabit in vobis scientiam veritatis, et, semper nova veteribus adiungens, diriget vos in omnem veritatem’ (ed. Louis Doutreleau, Didyme l'Aveugle: Traité du Saint-Esprit, SC 386 [Paris: Cerf, 1992], 284). (85) This did not imply that either praktike or the study of the scriptures was set aside; Dysinger has likened Evagrius’ notion of spiritual progress to the image of a helix, which has a linear direction and circular movement, such that ‘the journey towards God is not simply a movement beyond prakitiké into theoretiké: spiritual progress entails a gentle oscillation between these two poles in such a way that continuing attention to the changing demands of praktiké yields ever greater contemplative refreshment’ (Psalmody and Prayer in the Writings of Evagrius Ponticus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 27–8). (89) See Evagrius Praktikos 49 (SC 171, pp. 610–12), ‘We have not been commanded to work, to keep vigil, and to fast at all times, but the law of unceasing prayer has been handed down to us (προσεύχεσθαι δὲ ἡμι̑ν ἀδιαλείπτως νενομοθέτηται).’ See also Evagrius To Eulogius: On the Confession of Thoughts and Counsel in Their Regard 10, ‘Cherish also in a special way alongside your manual labour the remembrance of prayer; for the former does not always have available a means of achieving the activity, but the latter offers a means continuously available (τὸ δὲ ἀδιάλειπτον ἔχει τη̑ς ἐργασίας τὸν πόρον)’ (Sinkewicz, Evagrius of Pontus, pp. 310–33, at p. 316). (97) Evagrius On Prayer 70; Sinkewicz did not translate the Migne edition of On Prayer (the citations of which are supplied here for the reader's convenience), rather he chose the text of Nikodemos the Hagiorite and Makarios of Corinth, eds., Φιλοκαλία τω̑ν ἱερω̑ν νηπτικω̑ν, vol. 1 (Athens: Aster, 1974), which was unavailable to me, ‘supplemented by a collation of select manuscripts’, because the ‘text of the Patrologia graeca is unreliable’ (Sinkewicz, Evagrius of Pontus, 183). Nevertheless, I have included references to the readily available Migne as a helpful reference; for On Prayer 70, see PG 79.1166–99, at 1181C. (118) For the Coptic recension of the Life of Macarius, see Émile Amélineau, Histoire des monastères de la BasseEgypte, Annales du Musée Guimet 25 (Paris: E. Leroux, 1894), corrected by Adalbert de Vogüé, ‘Le texte copte du chapitre XVIII de l'Histoire Lausiaque: L'édition d'Amélineau et le manuscrit’, Orientalia 61 (1992): 459–62. Macarius attempts to ‘cleave to God…the consubstantial Trinity’ (Amélineau, Histoire, 245; tr. Vivian, Four Desert Fathers, 148). The Trinity's consubstantiality was another reason that Evagrius believed pure prayer must be utterly imageless, because the Trinity could be consubstantial, that is, truly a single entity or reality, only if God were
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without body or number and therefore without image or form (see Basil ep. 8.2–3, actually written by Evagrius [Robert Melcher, Der achte Brief des hl. Basilius: Ein Werk des Evagrius Pontikus, Münsterische Beiträge zur Theologie 1 (Münster: Aschendorf, 1923)]; cf. Evagrius On Prayer 67). See also Evagrius Reflections 18 and 20, ed. J. Muyldermans, ‘Note additionnelle à Evagriana’, Muséon 44 (1931): 369–83, at 375–6; for the complicated manuscript history see Sinkewicz, Evagrius of Pontus, 210–11. The Coptic Life of Macarius adds that when Macarius abandoned the protracted effort of prayer, he returned to ‘human ways of seeing’ (Amélineau, Histoire, 246; tr. Vivian, Four Desert Fathers, 149), which also suggests that he had been praying purely. (136) For a refutation of Clark’s assessment on the basis of Evagrian evidence, see Augustine Casiday, ‘Christ, the Icon of the Father, in Evagrian Theology’, in Il monachesimo tra eredità e aperture: Atti del simposio ‘Testi e temi nella tradizione del monachesimo cristiano’ per il 50° anniversario dell’Instituto Monastico di Sant’ Anselmo (Roma, 28 maggio–1°guigno 2002), ed. Maciej Bielawksi and Daniël Hombergen, Studia Anselmiana 140 (Rome: Pontificio Ateneo S. Anselmo, 2004), 31–60. A more compelling, and nuanced, interpretation of the role of material creation in Evagrius’ spirituality is offered by Julia Konstantinovsky, Evagrius Ponticus: The Making of a Gnostic (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 27–66; their differences are motivated in part by their disagreement on the fundamental issue of Evagrius’ Christology. (145) Evagrius Reflections 4 (Muyldermans, ‘Note additionnelle’, 374): ‘The state of the mind is an intelligible height resembling the colour of heaven, to which the light of the Holy Trinity comes in the time of prayer.’ (157) In History of the Monks 24, Antony commanded his novice Paul the Simple to fulfil numerous irrational orders, such as pouring honey on the ground and then gathering it with a spoon free of any dirt, whereas in HL 22, the sympathetic Antony expressed concern for Paul's welfare, and tested Paul primarily by asking him to imitate his own ascetic programme, which included not just physical asceticism but long periods of prayer. (158) In this regard, the HL more closely resembles the character of the Antony of the Letters, for which see Samuel Rubenson, The Letters of St. Antony: Monasticism and the Making of a Saint (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), and idem, ‘Evagrios Pontikos und die Theologie der Wüste’, in Logos: Festschrift für Luise Abramowski, ed. Hanns Christof Brennecke, Ernst Ludwig Grasmück, and Christoph Markschies (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1993), 384–401, who argued that Antony, rather than Origen, was the more proximate source of desert Origenism. Of course, Evagrius had been introduced to Origen’s ascetic spirituality long before he arrived in the desert. (3) HL 47, Butler 138.2–7. See G. W. H. Lampe, Patristic Lexicon, s.v. ‘εὐδοκία’ for two later uses of these categories, by Dorotheus of Gaza and John of Damascus. (63) Cassian had also challenged Jerome's theology, for which see Steve Driver, ‘From Palestinian Ignorance to Egyptian Wisdom: Cassian's Challenge to Jerome's Monastic Teachings’, American Benedictine Review 48 (1997): 293–315. (74) Mark Julian Edwards, Origen against Plato (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2002), 89–93, presents compelling arguments for a reassessment of Origen in this regard, but in my estimation the force of his argument is somewhat tempered by his own admission that for Origen and for his contemporaries it may not have been a problematic idea per se, and by the evidence for a similar system in Evagrius, for which see Julia Konstantinovsky, Evagrius Ponticus: The Making of a Gnostic (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 123–8 and 175–7; in any event, Clark (Origenist Controversy) and Dechow (Dogma and Mysticism) have demonstrated convincingly that this schema was presented quite literally by anti‐Origenist polemicists and vehemently rejected by them. (77) Clark argues that Rufinus’ vigorous defence of Origenist theodicy presupposes that he embraced Origen's cosmology and anthropology: Origenist Controversy, 191–3; Crouzel, however, suggests that he attempted to retreat from such a position, in Origène: Traités des principes, 4: 47, n. 119. (80) See Origen princ. 1.4–5 (SC 252, pp. 214–20), 2.9 (SC 252, pp. 352–72), pace Edwards, Origen against Plato, 89–93 (noted above); Evagrius delineated most clearly his vision of the origin, fall, and return to God of both creation and humanity in his Great Letter (also known as the Letter to Melania), which was edited and printed in two parts: the first in W. Frankenberg, Euagrius Ponticus, Abhandlungen der Königlichen Gesellschaft der
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Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Philologisch‐Historische Klasse, Neue Folge Bd. 13, Nr. 2 (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1912; repr. Göttingen: Kraus and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970); the second (with corrections of Frankenberg's §§ 17, 24, 25) in Gösta Vitestam, Seconde partie du traité, qui passe sous le nom de ‘La grande lettre d'Évagre le Pontique à Mélanie l'Ancienne’: Publiée et traduite d'après le manuscrit du British Museum Add. 17192, Scripta Minora Regiae Societatis Humaniorum Litterarum Lundensis 1963–4:3 (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1964). Subsequent references are cited as GL followed by the section numbers of A. M. Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus (London: Routledge, 2006), 64–77 (whose English translation I use throughout), and the page number in Frankenberg or Vitestam; for ease of reference, I have also included the chapter and line numbers as found in M. Parmentier, ‘Evagrius of Pontus’ Letter to Melania,’ Bijdragen 46 (1985): 2–38. See Konstantinovsky, Evagrius Ponticus, 156–7. (86) ‘The true life of the logikoi is their natural activity, while their death is an activity against nature. But if such death is so mortal as to naturally extinguish true life, who among beings is immortal? For every reasoning nature is susceptible to opposition.’ S2 KG 1.64 (PO 28, p. 47). The categories positive and negative would not have been available to Evagrius. Diophantus of Alexandria (c. ad 250) had made great advances concerning the use of the minus sign, but the notion of a negative number for him was absurd or ἄτοπος, for which see Thomas L. Heath, Diophantus of Alexandria: A Study in the History of Greek Algebra, 2nd edn. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910; repr. New York: Dover, 1964). Negative numbers were first used in India in the seventh century, but were not used in the west until the sixteenth century, and more widely in calculations in the seventeenth century, for which see Jan Gullberg, Mathematics: From the Birth of Numbers (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), 72–3. The use of negative numbers was particularly significant for the physicist to distinguish between electric charges, for which see Lloyd Motz and Jefferson Hane Weaver, The Story of Mathematics (New York: Plenum Press, 1993), 46–7; this latter use appears analogous to Evagrius’ distinction between opposites in binaries. (88) Plato Phaedo 60B–C; for an introduction to later Stoic developments of this dialectic, see J. M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 37–53; cf. Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator: The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor (Lund: Gleerup, 1965), 167–8, who briefly surveys the dialectic of pleasure and pain in the Stoics, Philo, Gregory of Nyssa, Evagrius, Nilus, and Nemesius, in preparation for his treatment of this key feature of Maximus the Confessor. (92) Plato Cratylus 440a–d; Aristotle, Metaphysics 987a29–987b13, Aristotle, Metaphysics 1010a1–1010a14. (95) ‘The monad is not moved in itself: rather, it is moved by the receptivity of the nous which through inattentiveness turns its face away, and which through this deprivation besets ignorance’ (KG 1.49 [PO 28, pp. 40–1]). Movement, not incorporeality, appears to be the primary marker of rational creation or fallen creation: ‘It is not because the nous is incorporeal that it bears the likeness of God, but because it has been made receptive of Him. And if it is because it is incorporeal that it bears the likeness of God, it is therefore essential knowledge; and it is not by receptivity that it has been made [in] the image of God. But examine whether this is the same thing, the fact that it is incorporeal and the fact that it is able to receive knowledge, or quite otherwise, like a statue and its bronze’ (S2 KG 6.73 [PO 28, p. 247]). Evagrius was not the only monk in Egypt for whom movement was a preoccupation, for which see Letters of Antony 4.17 (‘As for Arius, who stood up in Alexandria, he spoke strange words about the Only‐begotten: to him who has no beginning, he gave a beginning…and to the immovable he gave movement’), and 6.108–9 (‘Why did Jesus gird himself with a towel [cf. John 13.4–5] and wash the feet of his disciples, if not to make this an example and teach those who turn back to their first beginning, since pride is the origin of that movement which was in the beginning’), in Samuel Rubenson, The Letters of St. Antony: Monasticism and the Making of a Saint (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 211 and 224. (110) Hippocrates de flat. 1.29–34; trans. W. H. S. Jones, Hippocrates, vol. 2, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959), at 228. This source was found by Butler (2: 201, n. 42), who noted similar parallels in Jerome, Cassian, and Gregory the Great. (111 ) For the significance of medical language in Evagrius, see Luke Dysinger, ‘Healing Judgment: “Medical Hermeneutics” in the Writings of Evagrius Ponticus’, in Il monachesimo tra eredità e aperture: Atti del simposio ‘Testi e temi nella tradizione del monachesimo cristiano’ per il 50° anniversario dell’Instituto Monastico di Sant’ Anselmo (Roma, 28 maggio–1°guigno 2002). Studia Anselmiana 140, ed. Maciej Bielawksi and Daniël Hombergen 29 of 31
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(Rome: Pontificio Ateneo S. Anselmo, 2004), 75–104. See in particular Dysinger's discussion on countermeasure (ἀντίρρησις), the speaking of scriptural verses in opposition to the evil thoughts (96–8), and on judgment (κρίσις), which describes the common medical practice of offering a diagnosis and prognosis of one's condition on the outcome of critical moments in the course of one's illness (98–9); Evagrius held that the gnostic monk should be able to observe the successive κρίσεις and forecast what might occur next in the movement towards vice or virtue. (117) So it has been convincingly argued by Rasmussen (‘Like a Rock or like God?’, 154), who cites Praktikos 6, 11, 47, and 51 as evidence for the passions as movement, and Praktikos 12, 57, 64, 67 as evidence for apatheia as the opposite of movement. (122) Rasmussen, ‘Like a Rock or like God?’, 160, says, ‘but in earthly life, perfect apatheia is not permanent since it is only attained during prayer. The very condition of motion and change of the created world is incompatible with the immovable, unchangeable condition of perfect apatheia, and therefore the condition will constantly be attained and lost again…This is because the condition is not lost on account of newly committed sins, but because of the incompatibility between this condition and the created world.’ (126) See also Evagrius Praktikos 10 (SC 171, p. 514), in which a soul is saddened because of unfulfilled desires, and which does not in any way suggest that God was responsible for the resulting pain experienced by the ascetic. (127) This led Lars Thunberg to say that this polarity was ‘introduced by God Himself into the life of sinful man as a punitive and purgative power’, in his Man and the Cosmos: The Vision of St. Maximus the Confessor (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary, 1985), 58. On the dialectic of ἡδονή and λύπη and its transformation to that of ἡδονή and ὀδύνη, see Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 166–9; on the centrality of this latter dialectic to the thought of Maximus see Christoph von Schönborn, ‘Plaisir et douleur dans l'analyse de s. Maxime, d'après les Quaestiones ad Thalassium’, in Maximus Confessor: Actes du Symposium sur Maxime le Confesseur, Fribourg, 2–5 septembre 1980, ed. Feliz Heinzer and Christoph Schönborn, Paradosis 27 (Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires, 1982), 273–4. Schönborn argues that this dialectic does not disrupt creation between the sensible and the spiritual: rather it establishes the integration of the two. (128) Unlike the binaries of Evagrius in which the one term is a good, either a spiritual good (such as virtue), or a lesser, sensible one, this binary of Maximus does not have a positive and negative term; rather, both terms are negative, because this ἡδονή is strictly sensible, not spiritual, and thus it cannot be accounted a good. Thunberg suggested that Maximus’ notion of a positive, spiritual ἡδονή may have been derived from Nemesius of Emesa, but that in his association of the term with ὀδύνη, he displayed a greater indebtedness to Gregory of Nyssa who reserved ἡδονή for sensual pleasures (Microcosm and Mediator, 167). According to Maximus, the incarnation subsequently transfigured both ἡδονή and ὀδύνη, such that the pain experienced in resisting passions (in imitation of Christ's pain during his Passion) results in true, spiritual pleasure of the resurrection, for which see qu. Thal. 61 (CCG 22.91, lines 109–11): ‘In truth, then, God became a man and provided another beginning (ἀρχή), a second nativity (γένεσις), for human nature, which, through the vehicle of suffering, ends in the pleasure of the life to come’ (Wilken and Blowers, Cosmic Mystery, 135). PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2011. All Rights Reserved. Under the te PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/page/privacy-polic
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Palladius of Helenopolis Demetrios S. Katos Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199696963 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696963.001.0001
Index of Greek Legal and Rhetorical Terms Source: Palladius of HelenopolisThe Origenist Advocate (p. 219 ) Index of Greek Legal and Rhetorical Terms ἀβολιτίων 45 αἰτία 59 ἀκολουθία 43 ἀμφιβολία 82 ἀνθορισμός 65 ἀντέγκλημα 79 ἀντίληψις 68, 72, 75, 78 ἀντινομία 82 ἀντιπαράστασις 79 ἀντίρρησιν 70 ἀντίθεσις 68, 78, 79 ἀπόφασις 43 βιβλίον 43 χρόνος 59 δέησις 43 δηλατορεύω 44 δηλατόρευσις 44 δηλατορία 44 δηλάτωρ 44 διαίρεσις 63 διήγημα 49 δίκη 43 διήγησις 48–9, 51 ἔγκλημα 43
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ἐπίλογος 52 εὕρεσις 63 ἐξ ἀκολούθου 48 γνώμη 69 γνώμη του νομοθέτου 66 ἡ βούλησις καὶ δύναμις 74 ἡ των ἐλέγχων ἀπαίτησις 74 ἱεροσυλία 65 κατασκευή 51 κατηγορία 43 κεφάλιον/κεφάλαια 43, 63, 64 κοινὴ ποιότης 69 κρίσις 43 λίβελλος 43 μετάληψις 68, 75, 79 κρος 64–5 παραδιήγησις 94 παραναγνωστικόν 44 πηλικότης 67 πίστις 51 πιθανὴ ἀπολογία 75 ποιότης 69, 72 πολιτικ[ω]ν ζητημάτων 63 ποσότης 72 πραγμα/πράγματα 56, 57, 63, 66 προβολή 65 προκειμένη ζήτησις 49 πρός τι 67 πρόσωπα 54, 63 πρόστιμον 43 ῥητὸν καὶ διάνοια 82 στάσεις 64 στάσις 62 στοχασμός 74 συλλογισμός 66, 82 τὰ ἀπ’ ἀρχης Ἂχρι τέλους 74 τόπος 57 τρόπος 57, 58 ζητήματα 63 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2011. All Rights Reserved. Under the te PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/page/privacy-polic
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