T. D. Barnes

Tertullian : a historical and literary study

Tertullian lived and wrote in Roman Carthage during the reigns of Septimus Severus (193-211) and his son Caracalla (211-217). His voluminous tracts and pamphlets reveal the atmosphere of early Christianity in an era of persecution. The author sets Tertullians writings within a chronological and historical framework, then uses them to interpret Tertullians intellectial development, his reaction to the society in which he lived, and his place in Latin literature.

Legislation against the Christians

The modern bibliography on the subject of the juridical basis of the persecutions of the Christians in the Roman Empire before 250 is vast, contentious—and in large part worthless. For no-one has yet attempted to gather together in a small compass and to scrutinize without preconceptions all the primary evidence for specific actions or legal enactments of the Senate or of emperors before Decius which directly concerned the Christians, or which were directly rendered necessary by them. Ulpian collected the imperial rescripts relating to the punishment of Christians in the seventh book of his De Officio Proconsulis . This chapter has left no discernible trace in the Digest commissioned by the Christian emperor Justinian. The evidence which remains, therefore, is scattered and often difficult to evaluate. What follows is an attempt to present clearly the primary evidence for the legal basis of the condemnation of Christians before 250 without the accretions of later hagiography or of modern interpretations.

Statistics and the Conversion of the Roman Aristocracy

In a justly famous paper published in 1961, Peter Brown set out a model for understanding the historical process whereby the formerly pagan aristocracy of imperial Rome became overwhelmingly Christian during the course of the fourth and fifth centuries. Browns paper has deeply influenced all who have subsequently studied this historical phenomenon, at least in the English-speaking world. Since this article argues that the Roman aristocracy became Christian significantly earlier than Brown and most recent writers have assumed, it must begin by drawing an important distinction. Browns paper marked a major advance in modern understanding because it redirected the focus of scholarly research away from conflict and confrontation, away from the political manifestations of paganism culminating in the ‘last great pagan revival in the West’ between 392 and 394, away from episodes which pitted pagan aristocrats of Rome against Christian emperors, away from ‘the public crises in relations between Roman paganism and a Christian court’, towards the less sensational but more fundamental processes of cultural and religious change which gradually transformed the landowning aristocracy of Italy after the conversion of Constantine. This change of emphasis was extremely salutary in 1961, it has permanently changed our perception of the period, and it entails a method of approaching the subject which remains completely valid. Unfortunately, however, Brown also adopted prevailing assumptions about the chronology of these changes which are mistaken, on the basis of which he asserted that the ‘drift into a respectable Christianity’ began no earlier than the reign of Constantius. The evidence and arguments set out here indicate that the process began much earlier and proceeded more rapidly than Brown assumed, but they in no way challenge the validity of his approach to understanding the nature of the process.

Hadrian and Lucius Verus

At the age of sixty the emperor Hadrian cast about for a successor. His first choice was L. Ceionius Commodus, his second T. Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus. Both being adopted in turn by the ailing emperor, the former died before Hadrian while the latter survived to succeed him. Modern scholarship has indulged in long speculations about the motives of Hadrian and the political intrigues of his final years. This paper will not attempt to add to such speculations but will examine the precise details of the dynastic settlements of 136 and 138 upon which they are based. For due weight has not been given to certain relevant and important statements in the Historia Augusta , and as a result the facts have been misrepresented. Moreover, since some of these statements occur in the Vita Veri , the excellent worth of which has too often been denigrated, an analysis of that will be necessary. The partial interdependence of the historical and the literary problems dictates the separate yet combined treatment adopted here. The first part of this paper will discuss the biography of Lucius Verus in the Historia Augusta , the second the dynastic plans of Hadrian. The evidence and arguments employed in each part will, it is hoped, both confirm and be confirmed by the thesis advanced in the other.

Constantine and the Christians of Persia

The twenty-three Demonstrations of Aphrahat are not likely to be familiar to most students of Roman history or of Constantine. Aphrahat was head of the monastery of Mar Mattai, near modern Mosul, with the rank of bishop and, apparently, the episcopal name Jacob: as a consequence, he was soon confused with the better known Jacob of Nisibis, and independent knowledge of his life and career virtually disappeared. Fortunately, however, twenty-three treatises survived, whose attribution to ‘Aphrahat the Persian sage’ seems beyond doubt. Aphrahat wrote in Syriac and composed works of edification and polemic for a Mesopotamian audience outside the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, he provides crucial evidence not only for the attitude of Persian Christians towards Rome, but also for the military situation on Romes eastern frontier at the end of the reign of Constantine. It is worth the effort, therefore, to set Aphrahats fifth Demonstration , which bears the title ‘On wars’ or ‘On battles’, in its precise historical context. The present paper begins by considering the place of this Demonstration in Aphrahats oeuvre and its exact date (I–III); it then argues that in 337 Constantine was preparing to invade Persia as the self-appointed liberator of the Christians of Persia (IV, VI), that Aphrahat expected him to be successful (V), and that Constantines actions and the hopes which he excited caused the Persian king to regard his Christian subjects as potential traitors—and hence to embark on a policy of persecution (VII).

The Funerary Speech for John Chrysostom

Preface Abbreviations Notes on the translations Chronology of Johns life and posthumous rehabilitation Introduction Funerary Speech for Bishop John Johns Letters from Exile 1. Introduction 2. Translation of thirty selected letters of John Appendices A. The Council of the Oak B. Theodorets Lost Orations on John C. John in the Calendar of the Church of Constantinople D. Concordance to the Funerary Speech E. Concordance to Editions of Palladius, Historical Dialogue F. Concordance to Johns Letters to Olympias Map of Asia Minor Bibliography Index

Was There a Constantinian Revolution

Most modern accounts of Constantine, whatever their interpretation of the emperor, have given a central place in the logical structure of their arguments to Lactantius’ political and military narrative of the years 303–313 in his pamphlet On the Deaths of the Persecutors and to Constantine’s own letters and edicts preserved in works of Christian literature, especially in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History and Life of Constantine and among the documents that Optatus of Milevis appended to his polemic against the Dontatists. Raymond Van Dam’s book about Constantine, The Roman Revolution of Constantine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), breaks with this venerable scholarly tradition. He explicitly denies that “Constantine’s involvement with Christianity was the defi ning characteristic of his long reign” (10), quoting the titles of seven books that he takes to typify the approach that he repudiates, whose authors are, in chronological order, Norman Baynes (1931), Andreas Alföldi (1948), A.H.M. Jones (1949), T.D. Barnes (1981), T.G. Elliott (1996), Harold Drake (2000), and Charles Odahl (2004). Van Dam asserts that “before Constantine was a Christian emperor, he was a typical emperor,” proclaiming that his book “highlights different, and often alternative, perspectives on the signifi cance of his reign” (11). Now, whereas Constantine did indeed behave very much like earlier emperors, including Diocletian and his colleagues between 293 and 305, in matters of administration and routine government,1 that did not prevent him from adopting fundamental and far-reaching innovations in religious matters. Van Dam’s book is formally divided into three sections with the titles “A Roman Empire without Rome” (19–141), “A Greek Roman Empire” (143–220), and “Emperor and God” (221–353), framed by an introduction entitled “Augustus and Constantine” (1–18) and an epilogue entitled “One Emperor” (354–362). A bare list of chapter titles will suffi ce to convey the tone and fl avor of the book’s three sections, each of which has four chapters. The fi rst quartet comprises “Constantine’s Rescript to Hispellum,” “His Favorite Rooster: Old Rome and New Rome,” “‘Hope in his Name’: The Flavian Dynasty,” and “Reading Ahead”; the second “Constantine’s Dialogue with Orcistus,” “‘The Most Holy Religion’: Petitioning the Emperor,”

Hadrian's Farewell to Life

In 1915 a dispute over the meaning and interpretation of lines 3–4 of this poem prompted Ernst Hohl not only to propose reading ‘quo … locos’ instead of ‘quae … loca’ (a conjecture which he rightly abandoned in his edition of the Historia Augusta for the Teubner series in 1927) but also to question whether the poem really was composed by Hadrian.

Eusebius of Caesarea

The life and writings of Eusebius of Caesarea have been misunderstood on various levels. This article seeks to assess recent attempts to clarify the details of his life and work. It describes Eusebius’ life before he became a subject of Constantine and considers what is known about his participation in ecclesiastical politics after Constantine’s conquest of the East in 324. It offers a discussion of Eusebius’ extant writings and of his theological views, including his interpretation of human history.

The Late Roman Army.

List of figures. List of plates. Preface and Acknowledgements. List of emperors. Outline of significant events. 1. Sources 2. Crisis and Transition 3. Barbarians and Bureaucrats: The Army from Constantine to Justinian 4. Recruitment 5. Conditions of Service 6. Equipment 7. Fortifications 8. Siege Warfare 9. The Morale of the Late Roman Army 10. The End of the Army. Maps 1-V: The Empire from the Mid Second Century to the Fifth Century AD. Glossary. Bibliography. Index.