Peter Van Nuffelen

Orosius and the rhetoric of history

Introduction 1. Unexpected Pearls: Prefaces and the Rhetoric of Deference 2. A Tale of Two Cities: Book 2 and the Fall of Rome 3. The Past as Literature: exempla and the Culture of Rhetoric 4. (Re)sources of Narrative 5. A Sense of the Past: The Truth of Rhetoric 6. A Past for the Present: On Metaphors and Panegyric 7. Beyond Rome: Universal History and the Barbarian 8. What Difference Does Christianity Make?

Episcopal elections in late antiquity

The present volume contributes to a reassessment of the phenomenon of episcopal elections from the broadest possible perspective, examining the varied combination of factors, personalities, rules and habits that played a role in the process that eventually resulted in one specific candidate becoming the new bishop, and not another. The importance of episcopal elections hardly needs stating: With the bishop emerging as one of the key figures of late antique society, his election was a defining moment for the local community, and an occasion when local, ecclesiastical, and secular tensions were played out. Building on the state of the art regarding late antique bishops and episcopal election, this volume of collected studies by leading scholars offers fresh perspectives by focussing on specific case-studies and opening up new approaches. Covering much of the Later Roman Empire between 250-600 AD, the contributions will be of interest to scholars interested in Late Antique Christianity across disciplines as diverse as patristics, ancient history, canon law and oriental studies.

Episcopal Succession in Constantinople (381-450 C.E .): The Local Dynamics of Power

I dedicate this paper to my teacher, Professor Hans Hauben, now enjoying the negotium of retirement. 1. See now in particular Claudia Rapp, Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition, The Transformation of the Classical Heritage 37 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005). Episcopal Succession in Constantinople (381–450 c.e.): The Local Dynamics of Power

Palladius and the Johannite schism

The ‘Dialogue on the life of John Chrysostom’, published by Palladius of Helenopolis c. 408–9, is a key source for the history of the Church at the beginning of the fifth century. This paper argues that the history of the Johannite schism provides the background against which to understand the scope and nature of this work. It questions the received chronology of Palladius’ later life and shows that he is not so much a hard-core supporter of John who refused all contact with the official Church, as someone who could envisage the followers of John accepting an offer of amnesty in 408/409 and reintegrating into the Church. The dialogue is a strategic work that accepts that after the death of John (407) the Johannites can only bank on the support of Rome to improve their situation. As a consequence its trustworthiness cannot be accepted at face value.

BEYOND CATEGORIZATION “Pagan Monotheism” and the Study of Ancient Religion

The term “pagan monotheism” was coined to describe monotheistic tendencies in Greco-Roman religion. Its usefulness has been strongly disputed on various grounds: for introducing a cognitive perspective on ancient religion, which was basically ritualistic; for implicitly taking Christianity as the norm by which to measure classical religion; and for confusing scholarly categories by classifying phenomena as monotheistic that are much better described as henotheistic. This article suggests that these arguments have been attempts to create a supposedly objective and universal scholarly vocabulary, while that new vocabulary would serve to obscure the history and ideological origin of the concepts it promoted. Arguing for a reflective, hermeneutical approach that incorporates an awareness of the origin and charged meanings of our concepts into scholarship, the author proposes methodological pluralism as a way out of these unfruitful terminological debates. Each concept sheds light on some aspects of reality while obscuring others. In particular, the often-criticized ambiguity and fuzziness of the term “pagan monotheism” may help us to formulate questions that otherwise would remain marginal in studies of ancient religion.

Varro’s Divine Antiquities : Roman Religion as an Image of Truth

he loss of varro’s Antiquitates rerum divinarum (ARD) is justifiably lamented. Of the sixteen books of his impressive survey of Roman religion, conceived as part of a diptych with the twenty-five books of res humanae and generally dated in the 40s b.c.e.,1 only disconnected bits and pieces survive, mainly culled from Augustine’s De civitate Dei. This state of affairs has not favored comprehensive interpretations. Most studies focus on a few fragments and well-known themes of the work, like the theologia tripertita (naturalis, civilis, and mythica),2 or the aniconism attributed by Varro to the earliest Romans.3 Usually the work is read against the cultural and political background of the Late Republic, when political revolution and the influx of new, mainly Greek, ideas caused rapid changes in society and culture. Varro’s Divine Antiquities, and Roman antiquarian literature of the Late Republic as a whole, is then understood as an attempt both to cope with the fast-changing society and to preserve the ancient heritage in the face of imminent loss.4 Varro himself becomes the defender of Roman religious traditions, which he wants to reclaim from oblivion. Motivated by an instinctive conservative reaction in the face of rapid changes, he intends to safeguard tradition, rites, and customs, without any regard for their possible deeper meaning. As Claudia Moatti sums it up, for Varro religion was essentially an affair of tradition, not truth.5 As saving ancestral knowledge is the aim Varro explicitly sets out in the introduction to the work,6 there is indeed much truth in this interpretation. In this article, however, I will propose an alternative reading, which focuses on the philosophical background of the ARD rather than on its cultural context. It has already been shown that the antiquarian method itself refers back

Philo of Carpasia : ecclesiastical history (CPG 7512)

This article offers the first edition of the fragments of the lost Church History of a certain Philo. We argue that it is, most likely, a 4th-century work by the homonymous bishop of Carpasia, on the island of Cyprus. The two extant fragments both derive from works ascribed to Anastasius of Sinai (7th century), of which at least one, so we demonstrate, must be ascribed to Anastasius of Antioch (second half of the 6th century). The fragments report anecdotes about the persecutions of Diocletian, and we suggest that they should be understood against the background of discussions about episcopal authority current in the last quarter of the 4th century. If these anecdotes have no historical value, the Church History of Philo is important for our understanding of the genre of ecclesiastical history: Philo was one of the earliest successors of Eusebius but clearly did not consider his own work as a continuation of the latter. In fact, only in the 5th century, after Rufinus’ Latin translation and continuation of...

Literature and Society in the Fourth Century AD

Challenging ideas about the declining social role and impact of literature in Late Antiquity, Literature and Society in the Fourth Century AD demonstrates how Greek and Latin literature of the fourth century AD continued to play an important role in public performance and debate, the creation of reality, and self-presentation.

1 The Social Role and Place of Literature in the Fourth Century ad

This chapter focuses on one specific issue, namely the social role of literature and explores how literature functioned within fourth-century society. First, the question of the social function of literature cuts across some of the traditional oppositions with which scholarship has tended to approach late antique literature. Without wishing to claim that it does justice to every piece of scholarship, the chapter suggests that three main narratives influence studies of literature in Late Antiquity. The first is the narrative of Christianization and resistance to it. The second narrative focuses on the continuity and transformation of classical literary traditions. Thirdly, scholarship on late antique literature has a marked preference for what are, in modern eyes, the most obvious literary texts, namely poetry. The major poets, such as Claudian, Prudentius, Ausonius, and Rutilius Namatianus have received detailed literary studies, whereas texts in prose are often left to historians. Keywords: antique literature; Christianization; fourth-century society

Episcopal Self-Presentation: Sidonius Apollinaris and the Episcopal Election in Bourges AD 470

Sidonius Apollinaris was a fifth-century Gallo-Roman aristocrat who is one of our most important sources for that time – thanks to his poetry and his correspondence. Born in Lyons, he was a resident of Clermont, nowadays Clermont-Ferrand, in the Auvergne. After a career as a high government official (lately prefect of Rome), whilst at times leading a life of leisure as a land-owner and a poet, he became bishop of Clermont in 469/70. This is a surprising fact. It was unprecedented in Gaul for a prefect and patrician suddenly to abandon high office and become a bishop in a relatively unimportant provincial town. Sidonius himself is totally silent about his consecration. There may have been connections with the trial of one of his friends, the prefect of Gaul Arvandus, who was accused of high treason. Whatever the case, the sudden change affected him deeply: he began his episcopate with a severe illness. His career as a Catholic bishop is marked by the struggle with the Arian Visigoths. He organized the defence of the town against their attacks. Clermont was the last Roman outpost in Gaul; its defence was as heroic as it was hopeless. In 475 he was forced by the emperor Julius Nepos to capitulate. In 476 the Roman Empire in the West came to an end altogether.1 After two years of exile, Sidonius was reinstated as bishop of Clermont by the Visigothic king. In the following years he published revised selections from his correspondence, which is deeply imbued with the urge to keep Roman culture alive and perpetuate the influence of both the Gallo-Roman nobility and the Catholic church – although he was fully aware that, from a political point of view, the times had changed radically. In the title of my commentary on book 7 of Sidonius’ letters, I have styled his correspondence ‘Writing to survive’.2