The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason (63 page)

2. Kiilerich, “A Different Interpretation,” pp. 118–19.

3. Ibid., p. 123.

4. Ibid., p. 122.

5. See Kinney, “The Iconography of the Ivory Diptych,” pp. 74–82, for the wide variety of contexts in which such torches have been found.

6. Ibid., pp. 67–73, for the contexts in which representations of
pietas
have been found.

7. For the full text of the letters and background details, see B. Croke and J. Harries,
Religious Conflict in Fourth-Century Rome
(Sydney, 1982), chap. 2, “The Debate on the Altar of Victory, A.D. 384.” Earlier the pagan orator Themistius had used a similar argument in an
Appealing Oration
to the emperor Valens (364–78), who had tried to uphold Homoean Christianity against its rivals. Themistius told Valens

that he ought not to be surprised at the difference of judgement in religious questions among Christians; inasmuch as that the discrepancy was trifling when compared to the multitude of conflicting opinions current among the heathen; for these amount to above three hundred, that dissensions occurred was an inevitable consequence of this disagreement, but that God would be more glorified by a diversity of sentiment, and the greatness of his majesty be more venerated from the fact of its not being easy to have knowledge of him.

The oration is quoted in Socrates,
Ecclesiastical History,
4, 32.

8. For the argument that Praetextatus is the man commemorated, see Kiilerich, “A Different Interpretation,” pp. 126–27, from which the quotation in the next paragraph has been taken. The quotation about Praetextatus’ intellectual qualities, which was recorded by one Macrobius, can be found in W. Liebeschuetz, “The Significance of the Speech of Praetextatus,” in P. Athanassiadi and M. Frede, eds.,
Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity
(Oxford, 1999), p. 196. Praetextatus’ funerary monument has survived (in the Capitoline Museum in Rome). It includes details of the many cults with which he was associated. The dedication on it to his wife, Paulina, is worth quoting to give a flavour of pagan marriage in late antiquity.

Paulina, partner of my heart, nurse of modesty, bond of chastity, pure love and loyalty produced in heaven, to whom I have entrusted the deep secrets of my heart, gift of the gods who bind our marriage couch with friendly and modest ties; by the devotion of a mother, the bond of a sister, the modesty of a daughter, and by all the loyalty friends show, we are united by the custom of age, the pact of consecration, by the yoke of the marriage vow and perfect harmony, helpmate of your husband, loving, adoring, devoted.

Paulina’s own tribute to her husband is inscribed on the back of the monument. Quoted in Croke and Harries,
Religious Conflict,
pp. 106–7.

9. See Jerome’s Letter XXII in
Select Letters of St. Jerome,
trans. F. A. Wright (London, 1933).

10. See J. Kelly,
Jerome
(London, 1975), p. 96. Jerome makes the point in his Letter XXIV.

11. Quoted in P. Rousseau, Ascetics, Authority and the Church in the Age of
Jerome and Cassian
(Oxford, 1978), p. 119.

12. Quoted in R. Smith,
Julian’s Gods: Religion and Philosophy in the Thought
and Action of Julian the Apostate
(London and New York, 1995), p. 224. There is some dispute over the origin and date of this anonymous poem, but it is possibly an authentic plea to the emperor Julian.

16

1. Quoted in J. Kelly,
Jerome
(London, 1975), p. 132.

2. Phaedo 66 C; quoted in J. Dillon, “Rejecting the Body, Redefining the Body: Some Remarks on the Development of Platonist Asceticism,” in V. Wimbush and R. Valantasis, eds.,
Asceticism
(New York and Oxford, 1995).

3. The quotation is from P. Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women and
Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity
(New York, 1988; London, 1989), p. 19.

4. Quoted in G. Clark, “Women and Asceticism in Late Antiquity: The Reversal of Status and Gender,” in Wimbush and Valantasis, eds.,
Asceticism,
p. 43.

5. Quotations from his Letter XXII.

6. R. A. Markus,
The End of Ancient Christianity
(Cambridge, 1990), p. 166.

7. P. Brown, “Asceticism: Pagan and Christian,” in A. Cameron and P. Garnsey, eds.,
The Cambridge Ancient History,
vol. XIII (Cambridge, 1998), p. 618.

8. The quotation from Epictetus is from his
Discourses
4.10.16. The other two quotations are taken from Brown,
The Body and Society,
pp. 375 and 309. Aristotle’s views on moderation between two extremes are also important here. See his
Nicomachean Ethics
II. 6–7 and comments on the theme in R. Sorabji,
Emotion
and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation
(Oxford, 2000), chap. 14, “The Traditions of Moderation and Eradication.”

9. See G. Stroumsa,
Barbarian Philosophy: The Religious Revolution of Early
Christianity
(Tubingen, 1999), chap. 10, “
Caro Salutis Cardo:
Shaping the Person in Early Christian Thought,” especially pp. 177–81. There are immense philosophical problems about what is meant by “will” here. See, as an introduction, C. Kahn, “Discovering the Will: From Aristotle to Augustine,” in J. M. Dillon and A. A. Long, eds.,
The Question of Eclecticism: Studies in Later Greek Philosophy
(Berkeley and London, 1988).

10. P. Brown, “Asceticism: Pagan and Christian,” in Cameron and Garnsey, eds.,
The Cambridge Ancient History,
vol. XIII, p. 616.

11. See A. Cameron,
Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire
(Berkeley and London, 1991), p. 153.

12. Brown, “Asceticism,” p. 607. The quotation comes from section 67 of the
Life of Anthony
.

13. Eunapius of Sardis, Vitae Sophistarium vi.11 (c. 395); quoted in P. Rousseau,
Ascetics, Authority and the Church in the Age of Jerome and Cassian
(Oxford, 1978), p. 9.

14. Quoted in Clark, “Women and Asceticism,” pp. 34 and 43.

15. Brown,
The Body and Society,
p. 370.

16. Quoted on p. xix of M. Warner,
Alone of All Her Sex
(London, 1985).

17. See H. Bettenson,
The Early Christian Fathers
(Oxford, 1956), pp. 82–83 for Irenaeus’ views and pp. 126–27 for Tertullian’s.

18. Kelly,
Jerome,
p. 301.

19. Vasiliki Limberis,
Divine Heiress: The Virgin Mary and the Creation of
Christian Constantinople
(London and New York, 1994). As Limberis shows, in the great hymn to Mary, the Akathistos Hymn, Mary absorbed many of the epithets used of both Rhea and another ancient goddess, Hecate. For instance, Hecate is virgin but also a protecting mother (one of her most common roles was as a carer for orphans), and the Virgin Mary is acclaimed in the same role in the hymn. Hecate is also seen as an initiator into divine knowledge, and Mary is hailed as “O knowledge, superseding the wise,” the one “who enlightens the minds of believers” and “who extricates us from the depths of ignorance.”

20. For further examples of the adoption of Isis’ attributes by Mary, see R. Witt,
Isis in the Greco-Roman World
(London, 1971), pp. 272–73.

21. Warner,
Alone of All Her Sex,
p. 58.

22. Kelly, Jerome, pp. 180–87, for Jerome’s views on Jovinian. P. Brown, “Christianisation and Religious Conflict,” in Cameron and Garnsey, eds.,
The
Cambridge Ancient History,
vol. XIII, p. 638, for Jovinian’s flogging in Rome. Tertullian’s view is quoted in Jaroslav Pelikan,
The Christian Tradition,
vol. 1 (Chicago and London, 1971), p. 288.

23. Rousseau,
Ascetics, Authority and the Church,
p. 179.

24. Kelly,
Jerome,
p. 99.

25. Rousseau,
Ascetics, Authority and the Church,
p. 29.

26. Ibid., p. 152.

27. Kallistos Ware “The Way of the Ascetics, Negative or Affirmative?” in Wimbush and Valantasis,
Asceticism,
p. 7. See also the account of the life of St. Theodore of Sykeon, pp. 122–50 in vol. 2 of S. Mitchell, Anatolia: Land, Men and
Gods in Asia Minor
(Oxford, 1993). Theodore specialized in cures and exorcisms.

28. The French sociologist Emile Durkheim spotted the problem.

Imagine a society of saints, a perfect cloister of exemplary individuals. Crimes, properly so called, will be there unknown; but faults which appear venial to the layman will create the same scandal there that the ordinary offence does in ordinary consciousness. If, then, this society has the power to judge and punish, it will define these acts as criminal and judge them as such.

From Emile Durkheim,
Rules of Sociological Method,
Eng. trans. (Glencoe, Ill., 1950).

29. Rousseau,
Ascetics, Authority and the Church,
p. 187.

30. Ibid., p. 49.

31. S. Elm, Virgins of God (Oxford, 1994), p. 63.

32. Ibid., p. 69.

33. Rousseau,
Ascetics, Authority and the Church,
pp. 195–96.

34. Ibid., p. 55.

35. Ibid., p. 220.

36. Ibid., p. 151, and one might mention the modern example of the late Cardinal Basil Hume, who followed the same path.

37. Markus,
The End of Ancient Christianity,
p. 197.

38. Quoted in Rousseau,
Ascetics, Authority and the Church,
p. 105.

39. Quoted in R. MacMullen, Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to
Eighth Centuries
(New Haven and London, 1997), p. 16.

40. Seneca, Letter LXXX, 3–4.

41. Ambrose,
Expositio in Psalmum 118
, 4.22; quoted in R. F. Newbould, “Personality Structure and Response to Adversity in Early Christian Hagiography,”
Numen
XXXI (1984): 199.

42. William James’ book originated as the Gifford Lectures delivered in Edinburgh in 1901–2 and was published for the first time in 1902. The quotation comes from lecture 13.

17

1. Eusebius: Life of Constantine, ed. A. Cameron and S. Hall (Oxford, 1999), 3:15.

2. See the introduction ibid., especially pp. 34–39.

3. Quoted in E. M. Pickman,
The Mind of Latin Christendom
(New York, 1937), p. 545.

4. See C. Kelly, “Emperors, Government and Bureaucracy,” in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. XIII, ed. A. Cameron and P. Garnsey (Cambridge, 1998), p. 141.

5. Ibid., p. 143.

6. Ibid., p. 142.

7. For a full account of the affair, see J. Kelly,
Golden Mouth: The Story of
John Chrysostom
(London, 1995), chap. 6.

8. Quoted in R. MacMullen, Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to
Eighth Centuries
(New Haven and London, 1997), p. 27.

9. As in
The Cambridge Ancient History,
vol. XIII, pp. 638–39.

10. Ibid., p. 642.

11. I have relied heavily on J. Kelly,
Golden Mouth,
for my account of John Chrysostom’s life, but see also J. Liebeschuetz,
Barbarians and Bishops: Army,
Church and State in the Age of Arcadius and Chrysostom
(Oxford, 1990), part 3 in particular.

12. J. Kelly,
Golden Mouth,
pp. 45–46, for Jerome’s views on Paul and virginity. The quotation comes from Hubart Richards,
St. Paul and His Epistles: A
New Introduction
(London, 1979). See now Margaret Mitchell,
The Heavenly
Trumpet: John Chrysostom and the Art of Pauline Interpretation
(Tubingen, 2000), for an analysis of John’s attitude toward Paul.

13. J. Kelly,
Golden Mouth,
pp. 97–98. The “silver chamber pot” quotation comes from Liebeschuetz,
Barbarians and Bishops,
p. 176.

14. J. Kelly,
Golden Mouth,
pp. 62–66, for a survey of the sermons. The fullest analysis is to be found in R. L. Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and
Reality in the Late Fourth Century
(Berkeley and London, 1983). There is useful background information (relating John’s sermons to earlier anti-Judaism) in chap. 8 of G. Stroumsa,
Barbarian Philosophy: The Religious Revolution of Early
Christianity
(Tubingen, 1999).

15. For the conflict between John Chrysostom and the emperor’s views of the church, see Vasiliki Limberis,
Divine Heiress: The Virgin Mary and the Creation of
Christian Constantinople
(London and New York, 1994), pp. 37–40. Limberis sees the conflict as one not just of personalities but of irreconcilable differences over the degree to which the church should submit to the state. Kelly considers the issues surrounding the intervention in Asia Minor in
Golden Mouth,
pp. 178–80.

16. Despite their unruliness, the loyalty of the crowds was eventually rewarded. In 438, the emperor Theodosius II, anxious to calm tensions within the church, ordered the return of John’s body to Constantinople. It was received with great ceremony, although whether John would have approved of his resting place, in the church of the Holy Apostles close to the bodies of Arcadius and Eudoxia, is another matter. Even this was not his final grave—his body was one of the many relics stolen by the Venetians and the Crusaders after their sack of the city in 1204 and is reputedly now in St. Peter’s in Rome.

17. For the controversy and its main protagonists I have drawn on the excellent accounts given by F. Young in her
From Nicaea to Chalcedon
(London, 1993), chap. 5, and J. Pelikan,
The Christian Tradition,
vol. 1 (Chicago and London, 1971), chap. 5, “The Person of the God-Man.” The complex philosophical problems involved are also dissected by C. Stead in chap. 17, “Two Natures United,” of his Philosophy in
Christian Antiquity
(Cambridge, 1994). There is much in this chapter about the ingenuity of the theologians. How could two natures, divine and mortal, which were opposites, possibly be combined? What physical analogy might be used? Were they like a pile of beans and peas, materially separate from each other even when mingled, or two coexisting entities that maintain their identities like heat in a piece of iron, or did they lost their identity in each other, like tin and copper in bronze (an analogy drawn from Stoic physics)?