Jews, Pagans, and Early Christians in Controversy

The fierce rivalry between Jews and Christians from the time of the early principate gave rise to a large and long-lived polemical literature, much of it in the genre of the dialogue.10 The preponderance of this adversus Judaeos material, including the Argument between Simon the Jew and Theophilus the Christian , the Dialogue of Athanasius and Zacchaeus , and the Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila , is so one-sidedly in the favor of the Christian position as to suggest that the writers adopted the dialogue form merely to dramatize their anti-Jewish arguments.11 Even so, we can catch glimpses of the circumstances surrounding the face-to-face debates.

In the late second or early third century, a public debate took place between a Christian and a Jewish proselyte in a town in Roman North Africa—or so it was reported by one Christian writer.12 Under the watch-

ful eyes of a group of spectators and partisan supporters (partes ), the disputation dragged on for a full day.13 When toward evening the dust finally settled, the Jewish convert emerged victorious: for the time being, Judaism's claim to represent verus Israel , the true Israel, had been tried and found authentic by the ad hoc judges of the debate—its immediate audience—in one corner of the Roman Empire.14

What I have surmised as the historical outcome of this debate was not, however, the end of the story, otherwise we should never have learned of the incident in the first place. The Christian retired to lick his wounds and settled on a rematch: not a repetition of the day's disappointing performance, but the composition of a dialogue between a Jewish and a Christian interlocutor. Tertullian's Adversus Judaeos was the fruit of this labor.

A dialogue written and published after such an unsatisfactory encounter could "set the record straight" and even turn to one's favor an ambiguous or adverse outcome.15 By reaching beyond the immediate audience of the disputation, both sides could in effect claim victory by practicing what is known in modern American political parlance as spin-doctoring. Though we are lucky to have Tertullian's side of the story, it would mean that much more if we could also read the account of his apparently triumphant opponent. Such a document was probably never composed, for a winner did not need to labor in writing to immortalize a victory that had already been secured.

The heated controversies between Jews and early Christians involved a proprietary dispute: the authority to attach their own preferred interpretations to biblical scriptures and prophecies. Both groups ac-

cepted—though with some notable exceptions, especially in the case of the Christians—the authenticity and authority of the Hebrew bible as holy writ; both embraced the interpretation of sacred texts as a valid method for ascertaining truth. The debates between Jews and Christians became sessions of competitive exegesis in which each side brandished its own catenae, compilations of prooftexts drawn from biblical sources, to advance its religious claims.

Jews and Christians may have contended for the scriptures by means of the scriptures, but they adhered for the most part to the general rules of disputation.16 The rival parties could engage in this kind of verbal and textual contest mainly because they shared certain fundamental assumptions.17 Without the common ground of received tradition and shared concerns and interests, they would have had little incentive or opportunity to engage in public disputations.18

Yet the Jews and Christians of the Roman Empire did not project their rival claims in vacuo. These predominantly urban dwellers lived in a diverse Hellenistic world, which they shared with a majority population of polytheists or pagans of all stripes. They could not afford to ignore this considerable third party; in fact, each sought, with varying degrees of success, to gain the respect of the gentiles.19

Solicitude for this population's goodwill may explain the peculiar nature of the narrative proem of Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho (mid-second century).20 On the one hand, the philosopher, a convert to Christianity, employs the techniques of exegesis to demonstrate that the followers of Christ were the true Israelites, and that scriptural prophecies foretold the coming of Christ.21 On the other hand, Justin directly emulates Platonic dialogues by setting up the exchanges with a dra-

matic preface in which, along a colonnaded avenue of Roman Ephesus, a philosophically trained Jew named Trypho approaches Justin for a discussion of things religious.22 This proem, which places the writing in the genre of literary and philosophical dialogues, was not included solely as a stylistic ornament. In this brief preliminary exchange, Justin sought to show how the ensuing discussion—which is quite extensive and, arguably, quite tedious—could also have relevance for a readership that was neither Jewish nor Christian. When Trypho and his companions (

The author needed to assert that this ostensibly domestic quarrel between Jews and Christians was of concern to everyone with a philosophical bent because what followed the proem bore little resemblance to Graeco-Roman philosophical discourse. Justin and Trypho engaged in extensive exegetical fencing, drawing on specific passages from the Hebrew bible to support their own positions and to refute their opponent's. Their contentions over the rightful interpretation of biblical prophecies, acceptable to those familiar with Jewish-Christian debate, would have elicited little understanding from outsiders.25

Though Justin the Christian philosopher and apologist sternly op-

posed the unthinking acceptance of traditional beliefs by his polytheist contemporaries,26 he knew well that his own arguments in favor of Christianity were unsatisfactory from the standpoint of philosophical demonstration.27 It mattered little that he thought Christian truth-claims to be more worthy of trust than philosophical demonstrations or apodeixeis , for by his juxtaposition of the two Justin exhibited the standard expectations of proof among those trained in philosophy. Elsewhere, educated Christians who wished to conduct disputations based solely on the authority of scriptures likewise acknowledged their departure from normal philosophical practice, as did an interlocutor in Adimantus' De recta in deum fide , who said, "If you wish for there to be a wholly truthful investigation, take leave of philosophical arguments and be persuaded by scriptures alone."28

For their part, Greek philosophers ostensibly disapproved of straightforward reliance on authoritative "givens" even as they paid homage to the ancestral wisdom of eminent predecessors. Rational skepticism was by no means practiced by all philosophical polytheists, or even a majority of them. Cicero knew of certain Pythagoreans, for instance, whom he regarded as undesirably dogmatic, because they invoked what "the master said" as their authority in disputation. The orator roundly denounced this practice of justifying one's position sine ratione , without rational argument, solely on the basis of unexamined traditional authority, auctoritas .29 Clearly, Cicero was protesting a contemporary trend toward the happy acceptance of dogmatic beliefs.

The same criticisms that Cicero had leveled at the Pythagoreans might be applied in equal measure to Jews and Christians. Christians, in particular, bore the brunt of such polemical assaults because they lacked the protective armor of tradition and antiquity that shielded the Jews from its most grievous blows. According to E. R. Dodds, "Had any

cultivated pagan of the second century been asked to put in a few words the difference between his own view of life and the Christian one, he might reply that it was the difference between logismos and pistis , between reasoned conviction and blind faith."30 Christians were considered by many contemporary critics to be incapable of rendering a satisfactory defense of their extraordinary beliefs. Some Christians, unable to prove their claims by scriptures because pagans—who relied on them only in polemics against Christians—would not assent to their authority, even asserted, after the fashion of the apostle Paul, that the wisdom of the world was mere foolishness to the faithful. Tertullian, boasting that credo quia absurdum , self-consciously rejected the standards for demonstrations prescribed by a Hellenistic philosophical koine.31

Another of Tertullian's famous dicta was addressed primarily to other Christians: "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?"32 According to him, Christians ought to desist from attempting to enhance the respectability of their religion by recasting its tenets in Stoic, Platonic, and dialectical terms. For such was what "heretics" attempted when they

Tertullian championed a paradoxical and radically inward-looking faith: "No one is wise unless he is a believer; no one is great unless he is a Christian (Nemo est sapiens, nisi fidelis, nemo maior, nisi Christianus)."34 One ought, in his view, to cultivate simplicity of soul by im-

bibing the gnomic wisdom of a Solomon, not the clever mental tricks of a Greek philosopher. But Tertullian proposed this hierarchy of knowledge more to dissuade Christians from the elitism and fissiparousness of competitive claims to gnosis than to confute pagans critical of Christian simplicitas .35 The Christian wisdom, the true philosophy, was neither esoteric nor restricted to a privileged few, but was freely accessible to all believers, irrespective of rank or birth. Tertullian's invocation of the ideal of the via universalis , as expressed in his Liber apologeticus (46), was aptly summed up by Edward Gibbon, who infused in it his own signature prejudices:

We may be tempted to accept this portrayal as a valid social description. It is not inconceivable that certain Christian tradesmen in Tertullian's time, in keeping with the Graeco-Roman tradition of the self-taught man known as autodidaktos or theodidaktos ,37 flouted the prevalent conventions of their society, which stipulated gentlemanly otium and social privilege as conditiones sine qua non for attaining true elevated knowledge and the competence to discourse on issues concerning the

divine. Still, we can hardly expect that many educated pagans paid them heed, or showed much respect for the ideas expressed.

As far as we know, public disputation with a pars melior trained in philosophy was not the most common means by which early Christians attracted adherents to their faith. The literary record abounds with exceptions that prove the rule. It is unlikely that St. Paul debated publicly in the Athenian agora with philosophers and passersby, or delivered a discourse before the council of Areopagus Concerning the "unknown God" (Acts 17:16-34), yet the author of Luke-Acts thought it useful to depict the Apostle to the Gentiles in such a light.38 And the genteel and cultivated discussion in Minucius Felix's Octavius , in which Christian and pagan interlocutors engaged in a give-and-take school disputation over the validity of Christian beliefs, was almost certainly entirely fictive, yet its author used the genre of Latin literary dialogue to fashion an apologetic construct to suggest that such discussions might have taken place.39

Early Christians mainly relied on less exalted and rigorous means, including the use of "inartistic proofs," to defend their faith and persuade potential converts. This emphasis may be due to demography: during this period, Christians and their potential converts hailed from the humbler segments of society, which traditionally had no training in philosophy.40 As one alert pagan observed:

Most people are unable to follow any demonstrative argument (

?) consecutively . . . just as now we see the people called the Christians drawing their faith from parables [and miracles], and yet sometimes acting in the same way [as those who philosophize]. For their contempt of death [and of its sequel] is patent to us every day, and likewise their restraint in cohabitation. For they include not only men but also women who refrain from cohabiting all through their lives; and they also number individuals who, in self-discipline and self-

This rendition, by Richard Walzer, from the Arabic of a statement attributed to Galen (in an epitome of Plato's Republic ) suggests how, despite the lack of logical demonstration of their claims, Roman Christians were admired by as demanding a judge as the illustrious Pergamene physician-philosopher. Though Stephen Gero has shown convincingly that the Arabic passage reflects later emendations by Christian apologists, he concedes that the first part of the statement—concerning the Christians' use of irrational forms of demonstration—may well be original.42 This strikes me as a fair guess, for an apologetic comment phrased in this concessive fashion would not normally have arisen unless to refute an authentic and widely held criticism. Further, the passage's emphasis on the rationality of religious and philosophical beliefs harmonizes well with the views expressed in many of Galen's undisputed writings, in which he evinces a sincere preoccupation with philosophical demonstration as a necessary guide to important choices in life.

Galen followed the advice of his father, whom he greatly admired, by avoiding attachment to any of the contemporary philosophical and medical sectae without thorough and lengthy investigation of their teachings.43 Galen set great store by the philosophical methods of establishing episteme , or certain knowledge, by which what was true could be distinguished from what merely appeared to be so; his extremely high standard of proof was outlined in his De optima secta .44 The central question was how to arrive at incontrovertible knowledge (

The question of how others discerned the veracity of their claims had concerned Greek physicians at least since the Hippocratic writings, for they often had to appeal beyond their professional circle for recognition.47 This concern was in part a reaction against the traditional temple medicines practiced by those who could not, or would not, articulate a rational scientific theory for their praxeis .48 For Galen, appeals to customary usage and established textual authority did not suffice as foundations of true knowledge, whether in the practice of medicine or in other areas of life. Galen, who enjoyed access to libraries and the leisure to cultivate broad-based knowledge, understandably scorned the dogmatism of others, whose positions stemmed partly from the realities of their limited choices. He generally deprecated blind trust in the dictates of an authority or in the accepted wisdom of authoritative texts, including the Jews' reliance on the Laws of Moses, which he otherwise admired.49

The charge that Christians were unusually obstinate and unyielding to rational persuasion in matters of faith echoed widely in antiquity. Such a criticism could arguably be applied with justice to the pagans of Galen's time as well,50 yet to outsiders at least, Christians appeared especially unresponsive to pleas for philosophical demonstration.51 To sturdy souls convinced that divine revelation was their exclusive birthright, amelioration of their views—the epistemological principle upon which a dialectic of inquiry is predicated—was unnecessary, even undesirable. The proof of their belief rested in their supreme conviction, which they displayed before the world by becoming martyrs in Roman

arenas. This histrionic bravado, a Christian brand of demonstration, disturbed even the philosophical temper of Marcus Aurelius.52

Certain Christians, eager for recognition outside of their own religious community, proposed a more intellectually defensible Christianity, but more often than not their attempts to respond to pagan critiques were regarded by their fellow believers as heretical.53 Others, such as Clement of Alexandria, proposed the use of philosophical dialectic as a means of differentiating proper from improper Christians.54

Another educated pagan found absolutely nothing to commend in Christianity. Unlike Galen, whose rationalist outlook promised at least a degree of openmindedness, Celsus was a resolute traditionalist and apologist for the pagan heritage who based his arguments for polytheism on its greater antiquity and on the sanctity of customary usage. This determined foe of the Christian religion underscored what he regarded as the disturbingly unphilosophical modes of persuasion on which Christians relied to advance their faith:

Celsus characterized Christians as subversive infiltrators who targeted their efforts at women, children, and old men—people whose powers of judgment were customarily considered deficient—and who won them over by specious arguments and "old wives' tales."56 In his view, Christians had wrongfully bypassed the dominant authority of the adult males, in particular the patresfamilias , by appealing directly to the more gullible segments of Roman society. Christians employed this disgraceful tactic of taking advantage of the legally acknowledged weaknesses (to asthenes, levitas , and infirmitas ) of those compromised by their gender and age because, according to Celsus, they were unable to defend their views before cognoscenti Such as himself who possessed paideia , good education and moral character, and sound judgment. Since he could not otherwise come to grips with his elusive but seemingly successful adversaries, Celsus composed Alethes Logos (The true doctrine, c. 178-80), an exposé of Christian fraud using numerous established Jewish arguments, and in so doing threw down a gauntlet. The challenge waited three generations for the Christian intellectual Origen to take it up by composing his famous Contra Celsum to refute Celsus' denunciations seriatim .

One of Celsus' attacks turned on the plebeian character of Christian literature, unfavorably comparing the Altercatio Jasonis et Papisci —an early Christian anti-Jewish dialogue composed by Ariston of Pella following the Bar Kochba Revolt—with pagan literary dialogues.57 Celsus especially objected to its use of allegory to "explain away" difficult points.58

Origen admitted Celsus' criticism of the "lowbrow" nature of the Altercatio , but argued that the work was directed at simple Christians to bolster their faith.59 To speak to the simplices , a sermo humilis was in order,60 though Origen himself was anything but a simple Christian.61

Public Debate and Dispute Settlement Among Early Christians

In the mid-third century, Origen was among the foremost intellectual luminaries of the Greek east, held in the highest regard not only for his immense learning but also for his ascetic convictions and attainments.62 Deriving additional charismatic authority from his ministrations to the poor and visits to confessors in the prisons of Alexandria,63 this young hearer of Ammonius Saccas rapidly gained wide renown among Christians and non-Christians alike.64 Easily conversant and respected in both intellectual traditions, he "thought it right to examine both the opinions of the heretics, and also the claim that the philosophers make to speak concerning truth."65

Origen conducted discussions and debates with an impressive cast of characters, many of whom wished to test (

logoi .66 Slightly before 215, he was politely summoned to an audience with the Roman governor of Arabia, who greatly desired to exchange words with him.67 His growing reputation caused Julia Mamaea to bring him from Palestinian Caesarea to her court in Antioch to make trial (

Origen did not limit his use of logoi to debates with religious outsiders, for a full roster of his discussions with other Christians has survived. These accounts are important in that they clearly document the use of public debate as a means for restoring social order and discipline within divided Christian communities.

Origen was especially active in Roman Arabia where, on numerous occasions, he participated in "town meetings" convened to resolve disputes among Christians.73 One such meeting came about after Beryllus, the bishop of Bostra in Arabia, uttered statements arguing that Christ did not exist before his incarnation, occasioning great offense among other Christians.74 Origen was given the first chance to enter into dialogue with Beryllus (

goal, according to Eusebius, was "to discover what were his opinions, and when he knew what it was that he asserted, he corrected what was unorthodox, and, persuading him by reasoning, established him in the truth as to the doctrine, and restored him to his former sound opinion."75

The Caesarean Eusebius claimed to have seen the actual acta recording the discussions (

Once more, the location was Roman Arabia. Around 245, a regional synod was convoked in response to a disturbance (

Origen was once again called in. As arbitrator, he instituted an anakrisis , a cross-examination of the disputing parties aimed at establishing the facts of the case alluded to on the papyri.79 The preliminary and auxiliary nature of this procedure may explain why the exchanges were not recorded. Origen may also have judged it prudent to exclude from the written acta a negotiation held in private, behind stage as it were, so that during the preliminary meeting itself all sides could enjoy the widest latitude in explaining, discussing, and compromising without fear of public disgrace. Otherwise, existing differences might even become more entrenched as protagonists, equating the accommodation of opposing views with public defeat, hardened their positions with defiance.

Much more ceremonial in nature, the public discussions that took place before the assembled congregation comprised the official acta of

the synod. The exchanges followed the model of an interview rather than that of an agonistic debate, and Origen, like the Socrates of Platonic dialogues, gently yet firmly pressed Heracleides to express and defend his own controversial views. The prevailing tone was that of a friendly conversation: the sincere goodwill demonstrated by Origen and his respondents recalls the intimate collegiality of Plutarch's dialogues. An instance of this bonhomie was Heracleides' behavior after he was maneuvered by Origen into saying that the Son was "different from the Father" and hence a second god, a claim that profoundly shocked his audience. Realizing that he had been neatly refuted, he courteously conceded defeat, agreed to never again raise the tricky theological question of christology, and subscribed to (

The next segment of the papyri describes a session, equally congenial, in which Origen responded to questions from others. The tenor was that of a revered teacher dispensing wisdom to respectful disciples. At the end of the session, these Christians pronounced their complete satisfaction with Origen's views and subscribed to his formulation just as Heracleides had earlier. The process of mending shattered solidarity continued. Origen called on the assembled congregation (

Around 247, Origen once again played the key role at a local Christian synod, this one convened to examine the belief that the human soul dissipates at death and reconstitutes at the general resurrection, a view causing commotion within the Christian community. Origen again successfully employed the public debate as a forum for Christian dispute settlement:

When a synod of no small dimensions was then assembled together, Origen was again invited, and there opened a discussion in public (

) on the subject in question, with such power that he changed the opinions of those who had formerly been deluded.82

In his repeated attempts to reconcile divided Christian communities, Origen never took for granted an ideal, apostolic consensus omnium among Christians; instead, he saw unity as the fruit of constant vigilance. Refuting an accusation by Celsus, Origen confessed with refreshing candor that Christians had never been, even from the beginning, "of one mind." This admission, he said, should occasion no scandal, for "anyone who criticizes Christianity on account of the sects might also criticize the teaching of Socrates; for from his instruction many schools have come into being, whose adherents do not hold the same opinion."83 When Origen claimed for Christianity the name of philosophy, it was not just to garner prestige but to appropriate the indulgence accorded philosophical sects. Also, Origen wished to represent Christianity as another philosophical secta because his own circle operated in some respects as philosophical groups did. Origen's disciple Gregory Thaumaturgus lectured as a philosopher would, freely entertaining questions from his audience and debating with pagan intellectual agonistikos in an eristic fashion.84

Broadly speaking, the influence of rational logoi and persuasion extended even to the conciliar proceedings of early Christians. Our discussion concerning Origen suggests that the position of third-century Christians as merely one religious and social group among many enabled relatively unauthoritarian and unregulated colloquia to be used successfully to air and settle internal differences.

This fundamental aspect of pre-Constantinian Christian debates is epitomized by an encounter between Dionysius of Alexandria (d. 264), Origen's pupil, and the Christians in the Arsinoite nome. While bishop of Alexandria, Dionysius received word of a spreading millenarian movement in the Fayum. Upon his arrival at the site of the disturbance, he made inquiries and discovered that the millenarian expectations of the local Christians were justified on the basis of the writings of a Bishop Nepos, whose work on the Revelation of John allegedly inspired wide-

spread eschatological hopes.85 Accordingly, Dionysius arranged for a public debate between himself and the local Christians, the account of which was given by Eusebius, who narrated it from Dionysius' perspective:

When I came to the nome of Arsinoë, where, as thou knowest, this doctrine had long been prevalent, so that schisms and defections of whole churches had taken place, I called together the presbyters and teachers of the brethren in the villages (there were present also such of the brethren as wished), and I urged them to hold the examination of the question publicly (

). And when they brought me this book as some invincible weapon and rampart, I sat with them and for three successive days from morn till night attempted to correct what had been written.86

The debate focused not on the merit of millenarian expectations, which had presumably been the prime cause of offense, but on the authorship of the Revelation of John.87 In other words, immediate social concerns were addressed in exegetical terms. Dionysius, using scholarly skills dearly attributable to his training by Origen, was able to convince the leaders of the local movement that the text in question was not written by the disciple John and therefore did not deserve the serious consideration the Fayumite Christians were giving it. Yet such an outcome was only possible because Dionysius' debaters abided by the rules of debate that he had set down. The bishop recalled:

On that occasion I conceived the greatest admiration for the brethren, their firmness, love of truth, facility in following an argument, and intelligence, as we propounded in order (

) and with forbearance (

) the questions (

), the difficulties (

) raised and the points of agreement (

); on the one hand refusing to cling obstinately (

) and at all costs (even though they were manifestly wrong) to opinions once held; and on the other hand not shirking the counter-arguments (

), but as far as possible attempting to grapple with the questions in hand and master them. Nor, if convinced by reason, were we ashamed to change our opinions and give our assent; but conscientiously and unfeignedly and with hearts laid open to God we accepted whatever was established by the proofs and teachings of the holy Scriptures (

).88

This ideal scenario for a debate lasting three successive days was sustained by a common trust in scriptural authorities, by mutual adherence to a code of civility, and by the forswearing of intransigence, so that points of contention could be addressed by questions and answers in an orderly fashion. Dionysius was rewarded for his patient, noncoercive approach to durable consensus with his debaters' open admiration and promise of cooperation:

Aside from this happy ending, a suspiciously satisfactory closure to the story, we do not know whether Dionysius' exegetical debate was successful in quelling what appeared to be a widespread millenarian movement. Dionysius himself harbored enough residual concern to compose On Divine Promises , a work designed to counter Nepos' arguments once and for all, because

if he [Nepos] were present and putting forward his opinions merely in words, conversation, without writing, would be sufficient, persuading and instructing by question and answer (

) 'them that oppose themselves.' But when a book is published . . . then we are compelled to argue with Nepos as if he were present.90

When it emerged that social and religious differences between Christians could be adequately addressed with a public debate based on the interpretation of sacred texts, the written word assumed greater importance. This common textual focus rendered the debates exercises in competitive scriptural exegesis, and as such they could be conducted on terms of parity, without any invocation of hierarchical authority or threats of compulsion.91

Dionysius. was unable to attend the Council of Antioch in 264, convened to examine the teachings of Paul of Samosata, an influential

Christian and relative of Zenobia of Palmyra.92 According to Eusebius, Paul's theological position proposing the unity of God and the humanity of Christ had become cause for controversy.93 Prominent Christians, led by Firmilian of Caesarea, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Maximus of Bostra (an interlocutor in Origen's discussion with Heracleides), and others, set out in separate interviews to ascertain Paul's views and to persuade him of his error.94 The absent Dionysius articulated his own opinions in a writing that was read aloud in public, a practice foreshadowing subsequent Christian conciliar procedures (see ch. 7).

Yet despite the combined strength of the opposition, Paul was able to hold his own in the debates until Malchion, a priest and head of the paideuterion , the civic school of rhetoric, of Antioch, intervened and succeeded in formally securing Paul's defeat.95 It is not easy to discover from Eusebius' very abbreviated account how Malchion was able to accomplish what numerous prominent bishops had failed to do. The explanation for Malchion's success has traditionally been sought in the genitive absolute phrase episemeioumenon tachugraphon , which suggests that Malchion effected Paul's upset with the help of the stenographers he brought in to record the debate. This reading of the passage has recently been disputed by Marcel Richard, whose arguments remain inconclusive.96 He points out that the traditional supposition leaves unaddressed the question of how the incorporation of stenographers into the debate turned the table in Malchion's favor, and he further argues that notarii in the third century scarcely enjoyed the prominence they were to have in later centuries.97 Yet, at a minimum, a staff of shorthand writers implied ecclesiastical wealth, rich private patronage, or the interested support of secular elites. I suggest that the very introduction of stenographers was itself decisive, for they kept verbatim records with which debaters were able to point out their opponents' inconsistencies, and without which an effective elenchos or refutation would have been much more difficult to secure. In a fragment from an eleventh-century manu-

script that purports to refer to the exchanges between Paul and Malchion, Malchion recalled a previous statement by Paul in building his own argument, a tactic most effective when used in concert with "undeniable" records of the debate.98

In Search of Consensus in Late Antiquity

Most scholars agree that the third-century anarchy was a turning point in Graeco-Roman society and culture. The crises, at once military, economic, and political—perhaps even spiritual—demonstrated the fragility of order and of its guarantor, secure political authority. They ushered in new adaptive responses, particularly in terms of the ideological formulations and representations of power, as the classical Mediterranean. model of competitive parity yielded to a more over fly pyramidal and authoritarian pattern of social relationship.99 Understandably, established modes of social interaction and competition between and within groups were also altered to reflect this broader realignment. Thus, a growing reliance on textual authority in debates was unexceptional at a time when traditional authority held fast, especially in religious and philosophical circles.100

One concrete outcome of these changes was the increasingly negative reception of public debate as a form of social competition and dispute settlement. The focus of my study is to analyze this phenomenon historically and critically, without reference to a spirit of irrationalism that is at once unhelpfully tautological and mystifying. In this respect, my approach is informed by works of anthropologists and sociologists, notably Mary Douglas, whose labors to create understanding from observed social forms continually remind us that the ways in which communities adjudicate disputes correspond to their notions of authority and cultural preferences. Social conflicts, of which public debate is but one possible manifestation, and how people construe and approach them, lay bare implicit assumptions about power and social structures.101 By

investigating late antique constructions of and responses to public debate, we stand to gain a richer understanding of the concrete dynamics involved in what modem scholars characterize as a phenomenon of growing traditionalism.

Many communities had found that their liminal social status guaranteed them freedom from intervention by outsiders, especially those on high, while the nature of some groups had disinclined the authorities to expect concord. These two considerations ensured that the social spaces occupied by philosophical and religious groups in the Roman world remained pockets of relative freedom, where disputes were allowed to unfold and resolve themselves in accordance with unsupervised local initiatives. Philosophers, especially those from different schools, were expected to dispute among themselves; thus little effort had been made to bring an end to philosophical dissension.102 While they at times embarrassed the educated and inspired the satirist's wit, the philosophers' disagreements had no bearing on the status of the rulers, who could therefore acquiesce to their disarray.

When not subject to episodic local persecutions, Christians initially also benefited from the autonomy guaranteed by the rulers' neglect. Their disputes with Jews excited little external concern until they became riotous and violent. Although Christian communities were beset with factional disputes from the beginning, no Roman emperor intervened in their affairs in a meaningful way before Constantine. Earlier, the pagan Aurelian was said to have arbitrated a dispute between Christians in Antioch (c. 272-75), but he did so only in a rescript to a petition and because the question concerned the rightful possession of property. Even the imperious Aurelian acted more in the role of iudex than of autokrator .103

Constantine's engagement with Christians and their affairs shifted the delicate balance in significant ways. Christians were no longer marginal: much more property and wealth were at stake once Constantine bestowed his munificence on his new brethren; much more hinged on

the rightful possession of the nomen Christianum , now that the name conferred privileges and status. Who would be entitled to priestly exemption from civic liturgies? Which factions would be endowed with imperial basilicas? These became pressing questions. There were also the beginnings of a demographic shift as Christians became more numerous and more socially prominent, swelling the imperial service and the new Constantinopolitan senate. In the post-Constantinian age, Christians picked up the pace of their march from social marginality toward the center of social and political power; as a result, rulers who earlier granted Christians freedom from intervention could no longer remain so indulgently detached.

The crises of the third century, the many decades of fratricidal wars for the imperial purple that brought on economic collapse and barbarian inroads, had reinforced in the minds of late Roman elites the supreme importance of consensus among themselves and with others.104 The rhetoric of concord assumed greater weight as social reality became increasingly characterized by fragmentation, conflict, and anarchy. Disagreements among their subjects that had been tolerable, even amusing, when the burdens of empire were lighter became thorns in the side of soldier-emperors who were not (though some tried to be) the civiles principes of the early empire. Order was bound to become an obsessive goal for those attempting to tame a disorderly world, whether the pagan Diocletian or the Christian Constantine. In a law that would have been unthinkable during the principate, Constantine exhorted jurists, known for and distinguished by their professional disagreements, to end their interminable squabbles over the interpretation of legal minutiae so as not to undermine the authority of Roman law.105

A pronounced and energetic imperial advocacy for consensus in society could not fail to generate ripples that would reach, with varying strength and effect, the other strata of society. Such advocacy certainly had an impact on the development of imperial Christianity, including some immediate consequences that were not intended. The direct imposition of imperial demands for consensus was perhaps less important than the anticipation of imperial preferences, which often caused local leaders to impose unity on "their" people in the hope of courting imperial favor with greater success. This consideration was all the more

crucial at a time of change, uncertainty, and experimentation. At an unsettling time when untraditional channels of patronage and power were thrown open to competing groups, the pressing question became: To which of the competing voices, to which hierarchizing principles, and to what types of personages should the celsae potestates pay heed? Out of the din generated by this intense competition for recognition and scarce resources, the voice that represented the unanimous concord of a populus was the one most likely to be heard.106 Even the elder Symmachus, a powerful senator, thought that the opinion of the Roman curia would gain a fairer hearing from an imperial court not always sympathetic to Roman senatorial sentiments if it was offered as a consensual decision of the entire body.107 The powerful force of unanimous advice was also recognized by nearly contemporary Chinese emperors, who heeded the axiom, "A hereditary ruler does not neglect precedents and the unanimous recommendations of officials."108

The collective voice of a people came to be regarded as an expression of authoritative opinion, even of truth, in late antiquity.109 The corollary to this positive reception of vocal consensus was that demands made with discordant voices were likely to be passed over. According to the Petitiones Arianorum , Constantine's arrival at Alexandria (a visit I do not find attested elsewhere) was greeted by the customary official delegation followed by a crowd bearing requests and petitions. Among the petition-bearers were Arian Christians wishing to bring before the emperor accusations against Athanasius of Alexandria. They proceeded to shout their demands, apparently without prior coordination, and Constantine dismissed their request, convinced that "justice will not proceed from a multitudinous mob and from a Babel of sounds."110

Constantine's reaction is not surprising, for the emperor was accustomed to chants by choruses of trained voices—no babel would emanate

from a self-respecting late Roman theater. The voces of assembled citizens rising up from the theaters and hippodromes long remained one of the most compelling forces countervailing the authority of late Roman emperors. The effect of this "popular" expression was enhanced when organized into metrical chants, which enabled many voices to coalesce into a single vox populi.111 It was their control over this singular voice that entitled local notables to demand consideration from emperors. Yet this sociopolitical formula, featuring civic unity as a currency of negotiations between imperial and local elites, required that notables for their part vouchsafe in their cities a semblance of social order and deference to authority.112

Before long, the role of consensus became important to Christians who wished their voices heard. The establishment of Christian culture within the context of a supportive secular empire was a complex transformation that entailed forging new bonds between the imperial center and the local city, at the head of which now stood the bishop.113 Late antique bishops, increasingly drawn from the decurionate and curial classes, became what Edward Shils calls macrosocial elites: people who by virtue of their grooming, training in politics, and relation to power possessed a keen awareness of the systemic ramifications of consensus and dissensus.114 They well understood that the viability of the alliance between center and periphery rested precariously on the stability of two main fronts: the strength of local support for the bishop, and the reliability of imperial patronage.

To cement such a relationship, it was first necessary to forge local consensus, which in turn entailed the quelling of dissensus.115 Diffused discussions and disputing, with individuals applying their powers of persuasion in a freewheeling way, were potentially dire threats to the shaky bond between center and periphery. The fluid manner in which

pagans, Jews, and Christians debated "in the council-Chambers of Greek cities, in the market-places of North African villages, and in thousands of humble homes"116 became less desirable with the rise of new interest groups who preferred a via media —characterized by hierarchical order and firm group boundaries—to a more amorphous and unruly via universalis .

Though religious disputing was central to a proselytizing faith such as Christianity in the period of its early diffusion, in late antiquity the missionary religion par excellence was Manichaeism. The fear that local Christians might be lured into dispute by Manichaeans and then persuaded to "defect" long remained in certain regions of the empire.

The fear of influence through persuasion greatly increased at the highest end of the social scale, as when the imperial court itself became a cockpit for ecclesiastical struggles. Emperors and other imperial personages might be swayed by sophistic arguments to forsake one ecclesiastical party for another, with dire consequences for the spurned suitors. Sozomen alleged a direct appeal by Eunomius of Cappadocia, of whom more will be said in Chapter 4, to Theodosius I that was thwarted by Empress Flacilla only at the last moment. Mid-fifth century Constantinopolitans remembered this incident with a shudder: it was most unsettling to ponder how much still hung on a thread in the late fourth century, during the reign of that champion of orthodoxy, Theodosius I.117

The political alliance between center and periphery thus sported two Achilles' heels. These vulnerabilities threatened both aspiring and established Christian leaders of favored status while presenting opportunities for their challengers to exploit. The practice of disputing among Christians was an obvious concern for those who prized hierarchical authority and their position at the apex of a stable community. No amount of wishful thinking could make good the embarrassment engendered by open Christian controversies, which became, to the chagrin of many Christians, prime satirical fodder. On the comic stage, publicly brawling Christian prelates became stock figures, joining a cast of disreputable characters that included prostitutes.118 A modem scholar of early Byzantine theater goes so far as to name this new subgenre "der christologischer Mimus. "119

The public perception of widespread disputing, along with Christian rioting that at times turned murderous, rendered the myth of Christian solidarity meaningless. Worse, this situation arose in a veritable market economy of opinions, in which the notion of deference—that is, the willingness of the hurniliores to give their assent to the guidance of the honestiores , who supposedly possessed better moral judgment—was irretrievably lost. Once deference, long considered a "voluntary" and "natural" state of affairs, had vanished among proliferating claims to knowledge and authority, it usually could not be regained by compulsion, which resulted only in a state of enslavement.120 The "superior" Christian ethos of simplicity was mobilized, I suggest, as a means of counterbalancing this eroded sense of deference. Though both deference and simplicity contribute to a successful hierarchical ordering of society, the difference between them is great: deference is an unspoken rule of conduct enmeshed in a complex system of social exchange, whereas simplicity is a vocal ideology promoted by interested parties to mimic the former. The distinction is not trivial. Origen saw simplicity as a quality natural to some Christians, but later Christians would plead that other Christians, even if they did not consider themselves to be such, should nevertheless become simplices .

An intensified advocacy for apophatic simplicity as a paradigmatic virtue was but one of many results of this confluence of competing interests. Many individuals and groups sought to domesticate the perceived threat of dissensus in public disputing, choosing from various ideological strategies and cultural values to mobilize hierarchical forms of authority against a culture that validated individualistic claims and rational argumentation. This complex web, within which the classical heritage was slowly transformed into a Byzantine matrix during late antiquity, is one I propose to unravel, one strand at a time, in the remaining chapters of this book.

Dialectic and Public Disputation in Classical Antiquity

Ever since Zeno of Elea (b. 490 B.C.E. ?) was credited by Aristotle as the inventor of both the philosophical dialectic and the genre of the dialogue,13 the relationship between the two forms has remained an

intimate one.14 Ancient doxography identifies the old Parmenides of Elea (Zeno's teacher) as the man who instructed Socrates in the art of give-and-take, conversational dialectic. Socrates subsequently adapted this method for daily use in his interrogations of fellow Athenians. Employing his peculiar brand of cross-examination, Socrates succeeded in publicly demonstrating, in the cases of virtually all his interlocutors, the embarrassing fact that they had no bases for their ideas and beliefs, that they lacked sophia .15

Within the context of a democratizing aristocratic society in which the ruling elites needed more than ever to justify their positions by claims to virtue, especially to sophia and the virtue of knowledge, Socrates' rapid-fire questioning showed that these aristoi , supposedly the cream of the citizenry, did not in fact have episteme , or certain knowledge. The philosopher's eristic style tore through the composure of politicians trained to render continuous public discourses when questions were put to them, but unused to close examination by one who denied them refuge behind platitudes.16 In this regard, his dialectical method, in addition to its philosophical utility, was also a tool of social critique, regardless of Socrates' avowed goals. Seen in this light, the unmitigated enmity of Socrates' accusers and his eventual conviction by a jury of Athenian dicasts become readily understandable.

Plato used Socrates' method of investigation as a vehicle for his own philosophical expression after the death of his teacher in 399.17 The dialectical principle plays a prominent role in his early dia-

logues.18 The methodological emphasis in these dialogues may incline one to suppose that a Socratic style of elenchic disputation was taught in the Academy that Plato established, and that both disputation and the art of dialectic were included in its curriculum.19 Gilbert Ryle questions this assumption by calling to attention Plato's reservations about philosophical disputation in Republic 537-39.20 There, Plato's Socrates remarked on the potential of dialectic and disputation for corrupting the young—precisely one of the two formal charges brought against Socrates at his trial. Dialectical argumentation, a powerful tool for separating episteme , certain knowledge, from doxa , human opinion,21 was thought unsuitable for those who saw it only as a competitive sport or a means for gaining advantage. Socrates explained his reservation by appealing to common experience:

I suppose that it has not escaped you that young lads (

), whenever they taste their first disputation, treat it as a kind of game (

), always using it for contention, and having imitated the refuters they themselves are refuted. They rejoice always—as puppies do (

)—in pulling apart and tearing with words those near to them.22

Men in their twenties (

clastic debunking of hitherto unquestioned social norms. They would, as a consequence of such exercises, cease to respect their elders and the social values treasured by their society.

Because such an outcome was deemed undesirable, Plato's Socrates stipulated that only men over thirty (that is, the age of eligibility for Athenian magistracies) could practice philosophical disputation in the Academy.24 His ratiocination relied on the belief that a direct, causal connection existed between age and good sense: "An older man would not wish to partake of this madness (

Through Socrates, Plato dearly expressed his own convictions and educational ideals. His nuanced reservation about the dialectical art was reflected in his other writings: contrast the debate scenes involving Gorgias in the first book of the Republic with the less dialectical, almost monologic, style of the later books. In Plato's later dialogues, one detects his outright abandonment of dialectical inquiry. The dialogues become monologues, with discussion partners relegated to the role of obliging "nodders."

From these observations, one may surmise that Plato neither taught dialectic nor installed dialectical disputation in the curriculum of the Academy. This may explain why Aristotle claimed that he had to learn the art of dialectic by himself, in the process discovering the figure of the syllogism.27 Yet even if Plato continued to entertain doubts about the value of dialectical disputation, he did not object to Aristotle's teaching of the topics in the Academy.

In the dialectic of questioning in Aristotle's works, the de[con]structive or critical dialectic of Socrates assumed a more domesticated form. Tradition holds that Aristotle originated and Theophrastus popularized the question-and-answer dialogue (

a question-and-answer dialogue was strictly observed: there were those who posed questions and those to whom questions were posed. The competitive parity among the protagonists in dialogues was sacrificed; so too the importance of mutual, dialectical inquiry for establishing truth.30 Instead, the dialectical principle of philosophical disputation was harnessed into forms that served the functions of protreptic introduction and the socialization of the less advanced members of the philosophical circle.31

In the post-classical period, philosophical groups such as the Megarian dialektikoi pursued the specialized study and practice of dialectic.32 Dialectical disputation remained an important component of Academic training, but we may deduce from certain literary philosophical texts—such as Cicero's De finibus and Tusculan Disputations , assuming that the school-debate setting of the Ciceronian treatises did not merely reflect literary topos but rather echoed ongoing social practice33 —that the tone of the proceedings was hardly agonistic. The later manuscripts of the Tusculan Disputations place the exchanges firmly within the context of a teaching session by labeling the protagonists A. and M. for auditor and magister , pupil and teacher.

Plotinus and Porphypy

What we know of Platonist philosophers and philosophical circles in the post-classical period is characteristically fragmentary, or anecdotal, or

both.34 One of the few philosophers about whose life and social circle it is possible to say something substantive is Plotinus of Lycopolis (205-70), a student of Ammonius Saccas35 who began to give philosophical lectures in Rome in 244.36 We owe this relative abundance of information to the biography composed thirty years after Plotinus' death by his disciple Porphyry of Tyre.

Although posterity would identify Plotinus' circle as a schola ,37 a term suggesting a high degree of institutional organization, scholars today describe those around Plotinus as a loose confederation comprising two main groups: the akroatai or interested listeners,38 and the zelotai or serious students.39 This two-fold division was characteristic of late antique philosophical and religious groups generally, and Platonist groups in particular.40 Amelius Gentilianus, Porphyry, and a few others belonged to the intimate cadre of Plotinus' disciples that constituted his inner circle; a larger following of those who attended Plotinus' lectures, including many aristocratic Romans, formed the outer circle.41

The social cohesion of this layered group was provided by Plotinus himself and by a shared devotion to Plato: the group was consciously construed as a Platonist philosophical group, even though it bore no relation to the reconstituted Platonic succession in Athens.42 The anniversaries of the founders' birthdays43 were celebrated by Plotinus and company with sacrifices, banquets, and epideictic speeches.44 Yet such occasions were not the high feasts of a "sect," narrowly defined,45 nor were they restricted to Plotinus' regular listeners or disciples; he also invited other dose friends (

During one such celebration of Plato's birthday, a rhetor named Diophanes recited an apologia of Alcibiades, the Athenian enfant terrible and disciple of Socrates. He argued, citing the famous association between the two men, that a philosopher's pupil should be willing to go as far as to have intercourse (

On more mundane occasions, the philosopher and his students met inside a private domus in regular sunousiai , from which no interested person was in theory excluded.46 His immediate listeners were his only audience, except when one among them took notes for later transcrip-

tion.47 Oral exegesis of written texts was a cornerstone of Plotinian instruction. Plotinus frequently had others read aloud from the Middle-Platonic and Pythagorean commentaries (

Plotinus was far from being a dogmatic lecturer. In fact, his two most advanced students, Amelius and Porphyry, considered his style meandering and incoherent, a deficiency often rendered more pronounced by his habit of interrupting his discourse to entertain questions from the audience.49 The presence of this give-and-take element does not, however, necessarily mean that Socratic dialectical questioning was practiced in the Plotinian lecture room, as one scholar has suggested.50 The questions posed fell within the context of instruction, and as such served as points of departure for continuous discourses on given themes. This dynamic of the Plotinian lecture room can also be seen in the reactions of Gregory Thaumaturgus (c. 213-70), a contemporary of Plotinus, to the aporia raised by a certain Theopompus. Far from engaging the questioner in a Socratic exchange, Gregory at first flatly ignored the query. When he finally addressed the question after Theopompus revisited with an improved formulation, Gregory used the occasion as the pretext for a monologue which became the Dialogue with Theopompus on the Impassibility and Passibility of God , now extant only in Syriac.51

When Gregory Thaumaturgus and Plotinus entertained questions from their audiences, they did so as purveyors of wisdom rather than as equal partners in a Socratic exchange. The dominant ethos of the Plotinian circle, as far as our sources allow us to see, was one of deep respect for the authoritative teacher. Yet this respect did not stop the zelotai from interrupting with difficult questions. Porphyry confessed that, on at

least one occasion, he persistently asked difficult questions in such a way as to require Plotinus to break off from the train of his discourse to address them.52 He recalled that

once I kept on asking Plotinus over three days about the connection between the soul with the body, and he continued demonstrating (

) to me. . . . A certain person named Thaumasius (who was studying universal propositions) had come into the lecture-room and said that he wished to hear Plotinus lecture with reference to written [philosophical] texts, but that he could not stand Porphyry's answers and questions (

).53

Although the connection between the soul and the body was long a central philosophical question,54 for our purposes it is more instructive to read this and other passages bearing on the dynamics of the Plotinian lecture room in conjunction with Plutarch's little pamphlet De recte ratione audiendi , "How to Listen to a Philosophical Lecture."55

For Plutarch, who was concerned with the maintenance of an ideal philosophical lecture room in which eutaxia or good order reigned, the issue of proposing questions during a lecture was a delicate one. On the one hand, he pronounced listeners who insistently interjected uninvited questions (

It is quite likely that Porphyry's particular interjections were not

solicited by Plotinus, but they were encouraged by his customary openness to students who posed questions (

A similar indulgence toward questioning, even in contexts where the dialectical element was severely restricted, was likely to be shared by the zelotai . For Porphyry and others engaged in earnest pursuit of wisdom, it was essential that intellectual difficulties be dealt with squarely and in detail; those in the inner circle aimed to learn the means by which they, too, might become wise philosophers. For that reason, they naturally wished to participate in philosophical discussions as contributing partners.62 Many among the akroatai and the masses (

From information gleaned from anecdotal asides, we know that rivalry was rife within the Plotinian circle, always bubbling just beneath

the surface, especially wherever hierarchical distinctions were weak or nonexistent. Being a zelotes automatically set one off from the barely initiated hearers, but among the zelotai themselves there existed a great drive to compete and excel. Internal stratification could be furthered by defining an innermost circle: Porphyry was doing precisely that when he boasted of his status as one among the most intimate companions (

Plotinus' circle was neither the Academy nor the Lyceum. It provided its members with little or no institutional mechanisms, such as regular intramural philosophical disputations, by which they might test themselves in public against each other, or the teacher. We can discern, however, more subtle techniques of rivalry through which members of the circle mutually competed and established an informal hierarchy. Plutarch astutely noted that even the classroom setting could provide the opportunity for ambitious individuals to show off by asking the teacher sharp questions designed to make an impression. Still, Plutarch thought it unwise to overindulge in this practice, counseling that one should avoid seeming to be "proposing many problems or proposing them often himself. For this is, in a way, the mark of a man who is taking occasion to show himself off."67 Porphyry unwittingly confirmed the justice of Plutarch's remark when he claimed superiority over fellow disciples by virtue of the fact that he served as Plotinus' chief interlocutor in the sunousiai .

The student who tried to build his own reputation by asking the teacher clever questions was tied to him in a complex relationship that was at once antagonistic and intimate. Porphyry attached great weight to the signs of personal devotion Plotinus showed him. He proudly pointed out that Plotinus chose to entrust him (even more than Amelius) with the task of editing his lectures.68 He boasted also that he was the one disciple asked by his teacher to prepare notes for the reply to the Platonic questions of Eubulus, the Platonic successor in Athens, and to furnish a rebuttal to Diophanes' controversial speech.

In a competitive culture lacking a formal set of criteria for assessing a student's worth and therefore dependent on subtler hierarchizing principles, tokens of intimacy with the teacher were a crucial means of creating a pecking order among the students. (It may be worthwhile to

pursue this connection between the tendency to revere the teacher as a divine figure and the weak institutional framework of Platonist circles, where diffused social competition flourished.)69 In such situations, philosophical authority was an asset amplified and passed down through networks of loyalties, rather than acquired by individuals through institutional accreditation or by open display of one's abilities in contests.

Junior philosophers sometimes did reach beyond the narrow inner group to seek external affirmation of their worth by demonstrating their abilities in public discourses, but the tendency toward such exhibitions was customarily considered a fault.70 Eunapius told how Porphyry, returning to Rome from Lilybaeum in Sicily, continued the study of logoi and began to discourse before a general audience in an epideictic manner.71 The epideixis was a rhetorical set piece intended to demonstrate a speakers skill before large audiences. In Eunapius' view, Porphyry's ability to make his philosophy understandable and appealing to the general public compared favorably with Plotinus' austere and difficult style,72 but the success of Porphyry's display was credited by the audience to Plotinus himself.73

Diffused rivalry existed not only between students in a philosophical group but also between teachers and students. This aspect of late antique philosophical circles may initially elude us, given the devotion of students to their teachers. But both Amelius and Porphyry had come to Plotinus as advanced students, having studied respectively in the philosophical school of Lysimachus and with the famous Longinus. Porphyry remained skeptical of the teachings of Plotinus because the latter disagreed with certain precepts of Longinus, whom he disparaged as a philologos .74 Plotinus' contempt was reciprocated by Longinus, who at

first claimed not to understand the prose of his rival's works—here we see philosophical competition taking the form of stylistic criticism, illustrating the close connection between philosophy and culture.75

Porphyry's own disagreement with Plotinus went beyond matters of style and conflicting loyalties. His trip to Sicily, for which Eunapius gave a medical reason, probably had to do with his dispute with Plotinus over the latter's interpretation of the Aristotelian categories. This reading has been suggested by Evangeliou and merits serious consideration.76 Plotinus had taken issue with the categories, reducing them from ten to five, and proposed to apply them to noetic reality. Porphyry, who had studied Aristotle's works under Longinus, could not bring himself to assent to Plotinus' innovation and even wrote against his teacher to show how he had mistakenly transferred the skopos of the categories from the sensible realm to the intelligible realm, to which they were never designed to apply.77

In the half decade Porphyry spent with Plotinus, he challenged his teacher both implicitly and explicitly by posing questions during lectures, and by drawing on his own expertise in Aristotle's works. Porphyry further observed that Plotinus' philosophical abilities declined steadily with old age. For all this, Porphyry could not have usurped his teacher's standing had he tried because the ethos of the group dictated that the highest philosophical excellence rested in the personal experience of the philosopher, not in his grasp of dialectic or other branches of philosophical learning.78 Porphyry described, with a touch of envy, how during his student days Plotinus achieved mystical union with the divine some four times.79 In contrast to such exalted experiences, dialectic was an accomplishment suited to beginners in the philosophical life.

Yet, while a philosopher must first be trained in dialectic, to the point of becoming a complete dialectician (

Given these beliefs, Plotinus in effect established himself on an unshakable platform above Porphyry and the other zelotai .81 Even should Porphyry prove himself more steeped in Aristotelian teachings than Plotinus and more gifted at analytical philosophy—debatable points both—such accomplishments could still carry him only halfway. Truly superior knowledge could come only through divine possession or inspiration; it could not result from training in logic and dialectic, however advanced. An Egyptian priest, who upon arrival in Rome exhibited his powers by summoning Plotinus' daimon, causing a godlike spirit to appear, effectively confirmed Plotinus' innate philosophical superiority.82

As the source of philosophical authority shifted away from rational discourse to divine revelation, social competition between philosophers assumed a less verbal, more indirect form. Thus when Olympius of Alexandria, who had studied under Ammonius Saccas with Plotinus,83 decided to compete with his fellow student "out of the desire to be top dog (

When the philosopher, who cultivated an ascetic way of life and practiced philosophical discourse, came to be regarded as a holy person and a fount of wisdom, philosophical authority left dialectic and alighted on the person of the philosopher-teacher himself. Because philosophical holiness was a quality that eluded precise measurement and frustrated attempts at direct comparison with others, the philosopher effectively withdrew himself from overt challenges. This personal authority at times manifested itself physiognomically: Plotinus' "intel-

lect visibly lit up his face."85 As we turn to examine the circles around Iamblichus and Aedesius, we find these themes resurfacing with noted emphasis.

Platonists of the Fourth Century

Interspersed throughout the Vitae philosophorum et sophistarum (c. 399)86 of Eunapius of Sardis are anecdotal observations about the public self-representations of philosophers and the role of competition, verbal and otherwise, in fourth-century philosophical circles. Because Eunapius' work is frequently our only source for figures and events, questions of source dependency and redaction are difficult to address.87 Though Eunapius' Vitae sophistarum partly derived from eyewitness and second-and thirdhand accounts, his stories—when checked against other evidence, as with the descriptions of Iamblichus—can sometimes be shown to provide an idiosyncratic, even an inaccurate, picture.

Iamblichus and His Circle

When Iamblichus of Chalcis (c. 242-325) came to study with Porphyry, he was already an advanced student of philosophy.88 Earlier, Plotinus and Porphyry had differed over their reception of the Aristotelian categories; Iamblichus found himself disagreeing with Porphyry at the same intersection of logic and metaphysics. Like Porphyry, Iamblichus commented on Aristotle's Categories , but his interpretations tended to devalue the philosopher's system as a whole. He wrongly supposed that Aristotle had derived his ideas from the work of a Pythagorean named Archytas; that where their ideas coincided, Aristotle borrowed from the Pythagorean; and that where they differed, Aristotle corrupted the an-

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cient tradition.89 Iamblichus thus subordinated the Aristotelian logical enterprise to a more venerable and ancient Pythagorean science. This approach harmonized well with Iamblichus' noted pythagoreanizing tendencies and with his theory of the progressive decline of divine wisdom in a passage about astronomy: "This is true for all forms of knowledge that passed from the gods to men. With the inevitable passage of time, they, having commingled with much that is mortal, began to lose the divine character of knowledge."90

In his Protrepticus , a general exhortation to the philosophical life based on the traditional genre of the protreptikos logos , Iamblichus blended Platonic, Aristotelian, and Neopythagorean teachings to form a new synthesis. In line with traditional philosophical thought, he began with an introductory philosophical manual that stressed the need for the exercise of reason (

) in the purification of the soul.91 But, although his system accommodated elements from the full range of philosophical and scientific knowledge, Iamblichus placed the personal judgment of the wise holy man (

) at the apex of philosophical attainments.92 Interestingly, it was precisely as a wise holy man that Iamblichus himself appeared in Eunapius' Vitae sophistarum .93

"Of Iamblichus' circle of disciples we know nothing save what Eunapius tells us, and most of that is anecdotal."94 Eunapius represented Iamblichus' relationship with his student-companions (

) as a rather peculiar one: a skeptical group of students always putting their teacher to the test. Once, after Iamblichus directed his group to detour from a road on which a dead body had been carried to avoid ritual pollution, some of his more testy companions (

) resolved to take the original route.95 Eunapius likened these Thomases to dogs going after the proof (

).96

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They should not have wasted their effort by doubting Iamblichus' premonition, as they soon encountered the mourners returning from the funeral.

Eunapius' use of the language of philosophical demonstration in the context of "miraculous" proof is highly suggestive and to the point. These competitive and skeptical students continued to put their master to the test after this episode until Iamblichus acceded to their wish, saying: "It is irreverent to the gods to give you this demonstration (

), but for your sakes it shall be done."97 Iamblichus then demonstrated how spirits from the springs could be summoned, a deed vividly narrated by Eunapius, who admitted he learned it as hearsay. After this incident, the disciples desisted from seeking proof of Iamblichus' power; instead, convinced by the revealing demonstrations (

), they began to believe him in all matters.98

Like the Jesus of the synoptic gospels, the traditional Iamblichus was repeatedly tested by others. His contemporary Alypius of Alexandria, a renowned philosopher and "consummate dialectician" (

),99 was. usually attended by a large entourage of disciples. The paths of the two men and their students often crossed, and one such chance meeting, compared by Eunapius to the intersection of orbiting luminaries, became an occasion for a public contest.100 A gathering crowd looked on as the spectacle (

) unfolded before them:

Iamblichus was waiting to have questions put to him rather than to ask them, but Alypius, contrary to all expectations, postponed all questioning about philosophy since an audience had gathered and asked: "Tell me, philosopher, is a rich man either unjust or the heir of the unjust, yes or no? For there is no middle course."101

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In his preference to receive rather than pose a philosophical question, Iamblichus resembled the legendary Apollonius of Tyana.102 Presumably he planned to use the question as a springboard for a continuous, epideictic discourse on a given philosophical theme. But because their meeting had turned into a public spectacle, Alypius decided against the customary practice of proposing a philosophical theme (

); instead, he asked Iamblichus to solve a logical dilemma.103 Eunapius' stress on the fact that Alypius' action was contrary to accustomed usage (

) tells us, by inversion, the cultural norms of philosophical interactions.

As described in the narrative, Alypius confronted Iamblichus with a request for a dialectical premiss. His further invocation of the phrase

, expressing the logical principle of the excluded middle, left Iamblichus no room to modify the limited choices presented to him.104 Iamblichus was asked to give an answer of yes or no (

;) to a cunningly fashioned proposition: in neither case could he avoid offending the well-to-do among the audience. Once a particular proposition had been chosen by Iamblichus, it would become a thesis for Alypius to contradict or render meaningless. It is significant that the "consummate dialectician" Alypius allegedly refused to apply his dialectical skills to a discussion of metaphysics but instead aimed to impress his audience by sophistically posing an ethical dilemma.

Iamblichus so resented the limitation of the two admissible pre-misses in Alypius' petitio principii that he declined to respond. But after departing from the scene, Iamblichus reflected on the encounter and came to be impressed by Alypius' astuteness. He later cultivated a friendship with Alypius and held him in such high regard that, when the latter died without committing any of his teachings to writing, he composed a biography in commemoration.

Aedesius and His Circle

Following Iamblichus' death and the trial and execution of his prize student Sopater for treason, Aedesius of Cappadocia (d. 352-55) took over

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the masters diatribe and circle of student-companions.105 Aedesius established himself in Pergamum, where his students engaged in competitive disputations (

) either philosophical or rhetorical in nature.106 He observed with dissatisfaction his students' arrogance, and strongly discouraged the putting on of airs107 —interesting advice from a man whom Eunapius described as one of the more contentious of Iamblichus' pupils.108

Regarded as part of the Iamblichan diadoche , Aedesius was courted by the young prince Julian, who desired to study with him.109 An incident that arose from Julian's attempt to become Aedesius' student is highly instructive about the diffused rivalry among Aedesius' disciples.

Because Maximus of Ephesus and Priscus, Aedesius' foremost pupils, were not in Asia Minor at the time, the old philosopher entrusted the education of the prince to Eusebius of Myndus and Chrysanthius. Eusebius was a younger pupil of Aedesius who excelled in the dialectical art and who—according to Eunapius, who no doubt heard the story from Chrysanthius, his erstwhile teacher and informant—regarded Maximus' emphasis on theurgy to be mere theatricality unworthy of a true philosopher. Eusebius privately scorned Maximus' conjurer's tricks, yet in deference to a more advanced fellow student, he never revealed his profound reservations while Maximus was present (

). At those times, according to Eunapius, Eusebius

used to avoid precise and exact divisions of a disputation and dialectical devices and subtleties (

); though when Maximus was not there (

) he would shine out like a bright star.110

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When Eusebius disagreed with Maximus' theurgic practices, he was, knowingly or unknowingly, also competing with this elder student of Aedesius for legitimacy and authority within the philosophical circle. Thus he invariably concluded his discourses by advising his hearers to shun the deceptions of magic, sorcery, and wonder workers and to instead pursue the study of dialectic, which alone enabled one to grasp true reality (

).

Asked by Julian to clarify his veiled polemic, Eusebius openly aired his differences with Maximus. He referred to the latter as an elder and more variously accomplished (

) prodigy who had somehow "gone off the deep end." Maximus was someone who, during a spell of political favor; was said to have impressed the ordinary people of Constantinople as a walking oracle who bedecked himself in rich silken robes instead of the philosopher's humble garb.111 The philosopher manqué had lost more than his outward seemliness; he had abandoned the security of rational philosophical demonstration (

) in favor of what Eusebius described as madness (

).112 Once, Eusebius explained, Maximus even invited his younger fellow students to a seance at the temple of Hecate, where he offered proof of his superior power by summoning the presence of divine spirits. For Eusebius, Maximus' theatrical exhibition was precisely the sort of sham that philosophical demonstration should unmask. He passed on the following advice to Julian: "You must not marvel at any of these things [Maximus' miracles], even as I marvel not, but rather believe that the thing of the highest importance is that purification of the soul which is attained by reason (

)."113

His words fell on deaf ears. Learning of Maximus' reputation, Julian judged Eusebius not to be the "true philosopher" he had been seeking and turned to the theurgist with a Parthian shot: "

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."114 By Commenting that he was leaving Eusebius to his learned tomes, Julian tapped into an ancient reservoir of ambivalence toward book knowledge. Julian preferred to receive his knowledge through a personal intermediary. Though he had read Aristotle's logical treatises, he preferred to style himself the pupil of Priscus, who had sent him the works and who thereby, in Julian's view, initiated him into that branch of knowledge.115

Julian confessed to Priscus that he found Aristotle's logic easier to grasp than Plato's.116 In general, philosophical dialectic had the dubious advantage of being easily learned. Even the proverbial old woman was supposed to command a rudimentary knowledge of logic.117 In some measure, philosophers' objection to sophists and their art derived from the fact that rhetoric was thought to be a techne that could be mastered by dint of hard work (

). Iamblichus believed that a student could rapidly master the art of discourse (

) to become a rival to his teacher;118 such mastery was a cheap virtue that could be appropriated by repetition and practice: "

."119 This sentiment revealed a deep-seated prejudice against achievement through hard work that persists today in written evaluations of student performance; the adjective "diligent," now as then, euphemistically hints at a slight deficiency in intellectual or philosophical capacity.120 For instance, Porphyry may well have been putting down his fellow student Amelius when he commented on the latter's diligence in compiling voluminous lecture notes.

The Testing of Philosophers and Retreat from Competition

Sometimes the ability to answer questions meant the difference between life and death: charged with having fomented insurrection, Indian gym-

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nosophists were interrogated by Alexander the Great, who threatened to execute them if they failed to answer satisfactorily his supposedly insoluble questions (

).121 But more often the stakes were not so high, or the matter was purely of antiquarian interest, as when the Christian Theodosius H (408-50) asked seven pagan philosophers, in a folkloric variant of the riddle test, to explain the significance of the statuary on the spina of the hippodrome in Constantinople.122

Testing philosophers in this manner was a popular sport. Witness Eustathius, the philosopher who in 358 conducted an embassy to Shapur and impressed, though finally failed to convince, the king of kings with his eloquence.123 He triumphed in the face of such tests because, according to Eunapius, he was "most gifted with eloquence when put to the test (

)."124 At these times, his words seemed "nothing less than witchcraft (

)."125 But not all philosophers responded to questions in the expected fashion. After the deaths of Sosipatra and Eustathius, their son Antoninus lived and worshiped at the native Egyptian shrines at the Canobic mouth of the Nile by Alexandria.126 According to Eunapius, people came from all over (

) to converse with him, at which time,

on being granted an interview with him, some would propound a logical problem, and were forthwith abundantly fed with the philosophy of Plato; but others, who raised questions as to things divine, encountered a statue. For he would utter not a word to any one of them, but fixing his eyes and gazing up at the sky he would lie there speechless and unrelenting, nor did anyone ever see him lightly enter into converse with any man on such themes as these.127

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When Antoninus chose not to accept all public challenges, he became a silent oracle. This is understandable, for the wisdom that Antoninus cultivated was, according to Eunapius, inaccessible to the masses: "

." What remains unexplained is the selectivity of Antoninus' show of reserve: Why should he refuse to answer questions asked by people deemed qualified to converse with him (

)? Perhaps he remained silent when asked about divine matters for the same reason that he shunned theurgy and similar practices: he feared accusations of sorcery, which was condemned under imperial law and frequently punished with execution.128 But what is interesting in this scenario is the implicit division of philosophical knowledge into two distinct categories, logic and theology—the former being suitable for open discussion, the latter dearly out of bounds.

Though philosophers frequently found themselves tested in late antiquity, some chose to remove themselves from this relentless public scrutiny either by some perspicuous demonstration of power or by arguing the negative effects of cutthroat competition in public disputations. Two of Eunapius' philosophers, Priscus and Chrysanthius, deliberately refrained from philosophical disputation while furnishing quite incisive reasons for their choices.

Aedesius' pupil Priscus, praised by Julian as a true philosopher, taught at Athens, where he became a prominent figure.129 Eunapius was especially interested in Priscus' ethos , to which he devoted a lengthy, though not entirely flattering, description.130 He portrayed the philosopher as exceedingly secretive (

), with a stuffy, antiquarian attitude toward learning, and extreme in the caution with which he communicated his views to broader audiences. His reluctance to engage in public debates cast a faint shadow over his reputation, for

he might have been thought uneducated (

), because it was hard to induce him to engage in disputation (

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), and he kept his own convictions hidden as though he were guarding a treasure, and used to term prodigals those who too lightly gave out their views on these matters.131

This aloofness was disapprovingly regarded as eccentric by his contemporaries. Eunapius, realizing the need for an explanation of this apparently unphilosophical avoidance of disputation, had Priscus couch his reluctance in terms of the adverse effects of agonistic disputation (

) on philosophers:

For he used to say that one who is beaten (

) in philosophical argument (

) does not thereby become milder, but rather, as he fights against the might of truth and suffers the pains of thwarted ambition (

), he becomes more savage, and ends by hating both letters and philosophy equally, and by being thoroughly confused in his mind. For this reason, therefore, he usually maintained his reserve.132

Thus, Priscus attributed his reticence to his concern for adversaries whom he might better in debate. Yet this philanthropic motive does not square with Eunapius' own description of the philosopher as a proud and self-centered man. Priscus valued his inner calm much more than the rewards of a successful debate. He may even have feared that he might himself experience the anguish of the vanquished. Regardless of the authenticity of the motive attributed to Priscus, Eunapius' account makes explicit an ancient awareness of the pitfalls of agonistic disputation.

The views here ascribed to Priscus were later repeated in a similar story about Chrysanthius. By contrast with the haughty Priscus, Chrysanthius was a mild-mannered man, yet he shared with Priscus a deep ambivalence toward public disputations. Like Priscus, he held back from open contests because he believed the potential harm of public debate to outweigh its benefit: "It was not easy to rouse him to philosophical discussions or competitions (

), because he perceived that it is especially in such contests that men become embittered."133 Here, too, the philosopher's avoidance of public competition was ascribed to his concern for others. Yet we can accept this reason at face value only if we are prepared to grant that neither Priscus nor Chrysanthius ever lost or anticipated losing a debate.

Chrysanthius shied away from public confrontations and contrived

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not to become the object of others' envy by studiously cultivating a conciliatory style, to the extent of commending the worthless statements of others and applauding their "incorrect conclusions (

)."134 As with Priscus, Chrysanthius' reluctance to dispute was generally perceived as a sign of weak intellect and deficiency in learning.135 The philosopher thus enjoyed a reputation for mildness (

) rather than for philosophical virtuosity. Given that Eunapius reported but did not share this appraisal, it appears to accurately reflect the contemporary reputations of the two philosophers.

Chrysanthius' reluctance to enter in a dialectical disputation before an audience might not have been due entirely to his professed altruism. Even philosophers could not be expected to excel in all forms of public display. It may be that Chrysanthius shunned the epideixis , the declamatory showpiece by which Porphyry and other philosophers established reputations for themselves, because he was not equipped to succeed in that genre.136 His gift was evident when he discoursed on philosophy (

), and in this area he enjoyed an impressive reputation among fellow philosophers:

If in an assembly of those most distinguished for learning any dissension arose, and he thought fit to take part in the discussion, the place became hushed in silence as though no one were there. So unwilling were they to face his questions (

) and definitions (

) [of philosophical terms] and powers of quoting from memory, but they would retire into the background and carefully refrain from discussion or contradiction (

), lest their failure should be too evident.137

According to Eunapius, it was Chrysanthius' superiority that caused others to refrain from responding to his words. But this interpretation of the silences that greeted Chrysanthius' discourses may well be Eunapius' own. Much less flattering reasons may be adduced. No matter, the effect was the same: Chrysanthius, when he saw fit to take part or to speak, could lecture on without fear of interruption from the audience.

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Physiognomy and the Anatomy of Visible Holiness

Vulnerability to public discomfiture, whether their own or others', was of great concern to philosophers of late antiquity, who, with the notable exception of the Cynics,138 were careful to cultivate an image of unperturbed serenity. This aspiration to dignified styling assumed a high degree of self-consciousness in the fourth century, when it was correlated with a strong interest in physiognomy.139

Eunapius' portrait of Chrysanthius accorded well with the concern of philosophers for their public image and the sensibilities revealed in physiognomic works. People used to think (

) that Chrysanthius underwent a physical transformation as he engaged in dialectical disputations (

):140 his hairs stood on end (

), his eyes suggested that his inner soul (

) was set in motion around his teachings (

),141 and he appeared altogether transformed; he had become another (

). The tense poignancy of logical disputations did not cause Chrysanthius to lose his classical composure, but allowed him to transcend it.

The Eunapian Maximus of Ephesus also had "winged eyes." An intense interest in the eyes can be found in the physiognomic texts and in imperial and philosophical biographies, and is richly documented by late antique material representations. The recently published group of philosophers' portraits from Aphrodisias in Caria includes a late antique tondo of Pindar that iconographically adapted a fifth-century portrait style.142 The classical Greek style of a tight-lipped, reserved figure re-

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flected the mores of the traditional aristocracy. In the late antique adaptation, the mouth was drilled open and the eyes and eyebrows received greater detailing to make them appear more intense. According to Smith, this modification in effect transformed the archaic poet Pindar "from a cool, aloof aristocrat into a committed, energetic exponent of the spiritual hellenism of Late Antiquity."143 The "Old Philosopher" portrait from the same group suggests a similar emphasis:

It combines echoes from hellenistic philosopher images, with an expression of wide-eyed fervour that are very much of its own age. The knitted brows were a familiar sign for concentration and vigour of mind, for intellectual power, but the expression of the whole portrait is rather of an overriding intense, beatific spirituality.144

These developments in literary and material representations broadly parallel shifts in emphasis in philosophical ideology. Increasingly, a true philosopher was someone whose primary claim to consideration was divine inspiration.

In Eunapius' account, Sosipatra's inspired teaching compared favorably to the precision of Aedesius' philosophical statements (

); she was likened to an omniscient goddess, or an oracle who alternated between bacchic frenzy and mystical silence.145 This quality of hers could not be quantified or measured, unlike the gift of precise logoi , and hence could not be used as a basis for direct competition between philosophers.146 Instead, competition rested in the degree of public recognition. A philosopher who desired the high estimation of others acquired it by claiming privileged access to the divine world. He achieved this access not so much through the methods of rational inquiry as through the mediation of a divine companion—though of course these two elements were not necessarily incompatible, as Socrates himself boasted of his daimon.147 Thus, the true worth of a philosopher depended not on his skill in philosophical discourse but on the nature and power of his daimon.

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In Search of True Philosophers

The Formation of Philosophical Identity

Like Julian, many people in the fourth century were constantly on the lookout for "true philosophers,"148 but the means used to find them varied with the seeker. At a time when haireseis had declined in importance and coherence and when diadochai or philosophical successions were not yet firmly established, there were no easy institutional markers or credentials that could set off "true" philosophers from pretenders to the title. Broad public recognition was of uncertain value. Ammonius Saccas, for example, who later enjoyed an enormous reputation as a philosopher (gained in part through the accomplishments of his students), was not known to Plotinus as one of the "approved" philosophers (

: individuals normally honored with statues and other civic privileges) in Alexandria when Plotinus was searching for a more fulfilling preceptor.

The problem of philosophical identity gradually resolved itself. By the fifth century, the notion of a Platonic diadoche as a holy race had become firmly entrenched in the work of Hierocles, who attempted to harmonize the entire philosophical tradition.149 Later, Marinus traced a "Golden Chain" all the way back to Solon.150 Even Eunapius tried to create a "true" diadoche of philosophers who could trace their lineage through Iamblichus to Plotinus and beyond to Plato. The crop of philosophers after the reign of Septimius Severus (d. 211) constituted for Eunapius the fourth and most current generation of philosophers.151 Establishing this purified genealogy was not an easy task because the philosophers Eunapius wished to include did not always have a fixed abode and thus could not be classified according to locality. Iamblichus taught that, though the philosopher's body dwelled in one city, his dianoia traveled everywhere (

).152 The geographical specificity of philosophical holiness underscored by Garth Fowden in his admirable study of late Platonists was a later fifth-century development that be-

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speaks the desirability of formal signs of recognition and authority derived from association with places that could boast a distinguished philosophical past.153

Before most popular audiences, whoever wore the tribonion , the philosopher's cloak, and carried sakkia crammed with books could lay claim to being a philosopher. Even Christians began to appropriate the name in earnest. But Eunapius took pains to distinguish his philosophers from the common lot by mentioning in passing, for example, that certain people who professed to be philosophers exploited the fame of the philosophical couple Eustathius and Sosipatra by repeatedly quoting their sayings.154 Eunapius' decision to censure by silence has effectively denied us knowledge of those whom he considered unworthy to be named philosophers.

Philosophers and Sophists: Dynamics of Categorization

An even more pressing difficulty in the formation of a distinctive philosophical identity was the well-documented confusion of professional boundaries between philosophers and sophists in late antiquity.155 Isidore of Pelusium did not help matters when he called his correspondent Harpocras a sophist in name but a philosopher in his way of life.156 The boundaries were transgressed not only in the attribution of professional labels but also in the professional practices themselves. Nymphidianus of Smyrna, the brother of Maximus of Ephesus and a trained sophist who achieved great renown under Julian,157 naturally practiced the composition of rhetorical themes and the handling of problems (

), but also engaged in, though with less facility, the preliminary statements of proofs and philosophical disputation (

).158

Eunapius' Vitae sophistarum , like the work of his predecessor Philostratus, included the bioi of individuals judged by various criteria to be-

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long to the categories of philosophers and sophists. Although Eunapius himself was trained as a sophist and considered ho sophistes as an appellation of praise, it is far from dear that the philosophers he eulogized shared his view.

On the whole, Eunapius' philosophical heroes did not seek approbation from the general public. Given that this common trait was a topos favored by Eunapius, still we detect a number of reasons for the philosophers' avoidance of the limelight. The first was the growing importance of an imperial Christianity that claimed a monopoly on wisdom and the pressures this competition placed on pagan philosophers.159 Another was the traditional philosophical suspicion of high office, noticeable ever since Diogenes asked Alexander of Macedon to move so as not to spoil his sunbathing. Chrysanthius was commended by Eunapius for his lack of experience with real authority; the abject fate of Maximus of Ephesus, whose involvement in high imperial politics resulted in his execution, served as a lesson discouraging philosophers from entering the maelstroms of high political life.160 Indeed, the theurgist would have done well to heed the advice of Iamblichus, who, in his Protrepticus , urged his readers to shun the civic life of late antique society.161 A third, less obvious consideration was the need for philosophers to distinguish themselves from sophists.

In the perennial battle of professional categories, the fundamental difference between philosophers and sophists rested in their valuation of the ends of verbal skill. The one camp, according to this analysis, entered into public debates to advance philosophical knowledge and to establish the truth through a dialectical process of discovery, whereas the other mobilized rhetorical techniques to achieve victory in law courts and political debates. The philosophers could be construed as engaging in a contest between ideas, not persons; the sophists, as fighting with others for supremacy and material advantage.

Persuasion, not objective truth, was the professed goal of sophistic argumentation. Eristics, as taught by Protagoras and popularized by treatises such as the Dissoi Logoi (Contrasting arguments, c. 400 B.C.E ), aimed at winning over an audience, not at establishing episteme . The value of a sophistic argument could be judged only by its efficacy in securing victory, which was in turn measured by the extent of public acclaim.

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The status of sophists thus depended almost exclusively on external affirmation, manifested in cheers and applause. According to Eunapius, when a "town and gown" dispute broke out in Athens162 and the sophists were afraid to declaim in public (

) for fear of violence, the famous sophist Julian of Cappadocia built in his house a private auditorium that imitated the architectural style of the public theater, complete with marble facing and busts of his favorite students. Within this "private" public arena, the sophists of Athens, safe from the angry townspeople, continued to compete (

) among themselves in winning applause and fame.163

The judgment of the audience at hand was the central concern of sophists. They took great pains to solicit the audience's goodwill, and sometimes planted cheering squads made up of students or paid supporters.164 Partisans commonly turned against their champion's opposition by stirring up a thorubos , a disruptive uproar—that is, by heckling—in the hope of ruining the competitor's delivery or at least adversely affecting its reception.165 Even someone as skilled in rhetoric as the famed Prohaeresius, a student of Julian of Cappadocia, found his enthusiasm considerably dampened one day when he found his audience packed with rival partisans. His response is highly instructive: he asked them not to clap during his delivery. This imaginative request turned out to be a successful tactic, for Prohaeresius' rhetorical genius was given time to work its charm on the initially hostile audience.166 A less bold sophist forthrightly demanded that the partisans of his rival—in this case, Libanius—be sent away before he commenced his declamation.167

A good reputation was essential to a professional sophist, who relied heavily for income on student fees; a successful public debate brought not just renown and honor but also new students and increased revenues and contacts.168 After Libanius triumphed over Eubulus in

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a series of debates in the winter of 354-55, the roster of his students jumped from seventeen to fifty.169

In this key respect, public debate was integral to the institutional life of Greek sophists in the Roman Empire,170 as was the need to posit fine distinctions.171 The demand for a high degree of accuracy and precision (

) in one's discourse derived from the need to surpass one's rivals in the estimation of others. This culture of cutthroat competition arose not from an irrational "love of rivalry" but from the very real needs of sophists to distinguish themselves in the eyes of prospective students and exalted patrons. As Philostratus aptly remarked with regard to Favorinus the sophist, echoing the Works and Days of Hesiod, that ambition or love of competition (

) is invariably aimed at one's rival in the same trade (

).172

In contrast, many of those who considered themselves philosophers shunned public competition and refused to have their status as philosophers determined by the uninitiated masses. Philosophical wisdom was not to be evaluated strictly by the applause it brought forth. The philosophical circle encompassed an enclosed institutional culture in which praise and blame were ideally accorded by members within the group, by the true cognoscenti.173 This avoidance of public rivalry strengthened the boundary between philosophers and sophists. In any case, the philosophers had fewer material reasons to contend in public, as theirs was supposedly an ascetic vocation: "They ought above all to claim to avoid mercenary activity."174

Platonist philosophers increasingly stayed away from public places and the civic life of late Roman cities. They also tended to hail from

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wealthy aristocratic families and to marry exclusively Within their narrow circles.175 The possession of wealth was after all the only thing that could distinguish theurgists from quacks, goetai , who plied their craft for profit, kerdos .176 Because philosophers were not to be concerned with material possessions, much less perform before large audiences for their livelihood, they needed to be fairly prosperous to start with.177 This rigidification of boundaries lessened both social mobility and social competition in philosophical circles.

The philosophical enterprise of the late Platonists possessed internally consistent rules and objectives that have yet to be examined historically. The reception of dialectic and the practice of philosophical disputation are instructive in this regard. Philosophers who wished to acquire or magnify a reputation for excellence used public debate as a means for upward advancement within the philosophical circle. Thus the junior members were usually the ones associated with the ardent application of dialectic; they were also often criticized for it. Dialectic constituted a powerful tool which, in theory at least, allowed a junior member such as Eusebius of Myndus to show that he was as good as, or superior to, older students (or even the teacher).

Yet, employed as a personal claim to consideration, dialectic made an unsatisfactory hierarchizing principle on which to build stable communities, if such was the goal, because of its intrinsically agonistic and egalitarian character. To establish such groups, philosophers needed to attach the greatest value to the attainments of those contributing the most to the common good, and not to the dialectical excellence of philosophers who pursued their own advancement.

The Socratic prohibition of philosophical disputation for those under thirty years of age, if ever heeded, was most likely observed in late antiquity in the breach. In theory at least, this measure helped to insulate the more advanced members of the philosophical circle from the recurring public challenges of ambitious and gifted students in their teens or twenties. But no such boundary, whether practical or ideological, shielded the teacher from the testings and competitive challenges of the zelotai . The struggle between older and younger generations for

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power and even survival was a central element of Greek culture, as evidenced in many cosmogonic stories and heroic myths. In the culture of the philosophers, an underlying agonistic ideology continued to exist in the absence of dear hierarchical markers. Unlike their counterparts who opted for the cursus honorum of a civic career, those who joined a Platonist circle did not necessarily advance through carefully graduated stages even after the advent of a Pythagorean discipline. The ways in which philosophical groups managed to survive with no explicit mechanism for harnessing competition among members merits closer scrutiny.

Numenius of Apamea meditated on the institutional fragmentation of philosophical groups in On the Divergence of the Academics from Plato , a treatise which itself survives only in fragments. The Platonic Academy split up, he thought, because ambition caused later members to challenge the teachings of their predecessors, including those of Plato himself.178 Stoics were worse yet, for they fought over inconsequential differences, their rivalry continued into Numenius' own time.179 Only the Epicureans were able to maintain group coherence by strictly forbid-cling challenges to Epicurus' teachings and the introduction of novel ideas.180 The Epicureans also possessed a more hierarchical group structure, dearly delineating grades within the philosophical life beyond the distinction between zelotai and akroatai .181 They further employed the ideology of philia or friendship to bind members to each other.182 These measures may have contributed to the Epicureans' success in avoiding the almost complete institutional factionalization noted in the other schools.183 Though present in the Platonist philosophical circles of late antiquity, the influence of Pythagorean friendship, the outright avoid-

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ance of conflict,184 and the common ascetic life were less pervasive there than among Epicureans.185

If pronouncing the master's teachings indisputable, as the Epicureans appear to have done, seems somewhat drastic and contrary to the spirit of dialectical inquiry shared by Platonists and Aristotelians (even at a time when philosophical dogmatism was on the rise), certainly the underlying principle is dear. One may argue that it was unnecessary to put rivalry out of bounds in such a forthright manner, that containing it within tolerable limits would have sufficed. Rampant public competition could have been stemmed by undercutting the very principles that conferred legitimacy on such proceedings. This goal was sometimes achieved by transferring ascribed value from dialectic, a competitive skill, to other forms of philosophical attainment; other times it was reached by hierarchizing the philosophical virtues so that mastery of dialectic alone became a relatively minor accomplishment, ,a humbler philosophical arete .186

Tacitus observed: "Dabunt Academici pugnacitatem, Plato altitudinem."187 How could one reconcile the two? The increasing reverence accorded to Plato and his writings within the context of an Aristotelianizing movement among the later Platonists contributed to a process of establishing a hierarchy of philosophical authorities and, by implication, cultural virtues.

For Marinus' Proclus, Aristotle's intellectual system represented the lesser mysteries:188 the greater mysteries were rooted in the teachings of Plato. Proclus himself possessed a kind of divine knowledge or episteme that he arrived at, it was said, "neither methodically, nor demonstratively nor by means of syllogisms."189 In the subsequent Neoplatonist tradition, this manifest subordination of Aristotle to Plato showed itself more and more explicitly. Notice the specific terms of valuation employed by Damascius in his Vita Isidori:

Those people, however, who labor on perishable and human things, or those who would understand or wish to become knowledgeable quickly, accomplish nothing great with respect to the wisdom that is

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divine and great. For Aristotle and Chrysippus were the most clever (

) of the ancient philosophers, but they became most diligent for learning (

) and, moreover, most given to meticulous scholarship (

). Still they did not complete the entire ascent. Hierocles, and others like him among the more recent philosophers, while they lacked nothing with regard to human culture, were in many ways very deficient in the realm of divine concepts.190

The hierarchization and harmonization of the philosophical traditions envisioned by Damascius were a response to the threat posed by increasingly dominant Christians, who saw fragmentation as lack of truth, but these processes were not accomplished until the fifth century, when a Platonist diadoche was reestablished in Athens with Plutarch, Syrianus, and Proclus.191 Meanwhile, the strength of charismatic authority, such as that attributed to Neopythagorean sages, carried the philosophical groups through the transitional period of the late fourth century. The pages of Eunapius' Vitae sophistarum brim with an array of marvelous philosophical figures whose lives and deeds loomed large on a horizon increasingly usurped by Christians.192 The contest between polytheists and Christians could proceed only on common ground, and trials of power provided one such field of battle in a way that public debates could not. Thus the words thauma, thaumazein , and cognates appear some fifty times in Eunapius' Vitae sophistarum , a fact indicative of the works tone.193 Just as the Eunapian Iamblichus, shouting pausasthe thaumazontes , dispelled the wonder of onlookers by dismissing an apparition as a gladiator's phantom (

), so too Eunapius wished his readers to see that it was the polytheists, and not the Christians, who possessed the truly great daimons.194

In the pagan circles described by Eunapius, the philosopher was fast becoming a holy figure. This is not to say that the decline of competitive disputation and the concomitant rise of the philosopher-teacher may be explained by a rise in the spirit of irrationalism or a "failure of nerve."

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Instead these shifts can be seen as institutional responses to the pressures brought about by otherwise unchecked social competition. The appreciation in value of personal authority and spiritual power allowed the polytheist philosophers to placidly traverse a competitive social landscape that, more and more under a Christian empire, replaced the charmed intellectual worlds in which they had lived.

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Disputation and the Manichaean Kerygma

Disputation was central to Manichaean religious identity from the inception of the movement. More by means of radical reinterpretation than direct negation, Mani's kerygma brought into question the very legitimacy of the religious self-understanding of Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, and Buddhists.4 Manichaeans could not convey the cogency and compelling nature of their message without undercutting the fundamental religious claims of others.5

According to the so-called Cologne Mani-Codex ,6 which contains the Manichaean work "Concerning the Birth of His Own Body," an agonistic exchange of words marked the beginning of the rift between Mani and the other Jewish-Christian baptists in Babylonia. The narrative presents a dichotomy between speech (public disputing) and silence (lack of pub-

lic disputing) that is fraught with significance. The hagiographic text emphasizes that young Mani initially refrained from disputing with his fellow sectarians even while receiving revelations of errors in the baptists' religious practices and beliefs.7 At twenty-four or twenty-five years of age, he finally began to make public his doubts: he openly disputed the two central pillars of the sects self-understanding, the tradition of Elchasaius and the value of ablution, by putting forth questions in a public setting. This act understandably failed to endear Mani to the other members of the sect, who are described as becoming especially furious because they were incapable of responding to his questions, and thus were made to look foolish.

In the Mani-Codex , this lopsided debate very nearly ended in mob violence. The shamed and enraged baptists proceeded to threaten Mani with physical harm, an outcome averted thanks to the timely intervention of Patticius, Mani's father and spiritual patron. Afterward, an assembly was convoked to discuss the situation, and the baptists decided to expel Mani. Here we see that, in a sect with no graduated scheme of discipline, expulsion was the only means of dealing with a member who defied the group's central ethos.

After his expulsion, Mani commenced his missionary career by traveling as far east as India.8 In broken lines of Greek, the Mani-Codex discloses the only attested formal public debate involving the charismatic figure. Mani was already far advanced in his public career, having been favorably received at the royal court in Ctesiphon by Shapur shahanshah by the time he arrived at a local village to preach his customary message. His unsolicited attempt to proclaim his kerygma before an assembled religious congregation publicly challenged the authority of local leaders. Accordingly, the leader of the religious sect in question invited Mani to a public debate: "He [the leader of the religious sect] conducted a debate

(

The vanquished leader tried to avenge his public disgrace and temporary exclusion from his social group by uttering incantations (

Mani proclaimed his kerygma openly, emulating his favorite apostle, Paul, but I know of no extant evidence that Mani resorted to public debate as a modus operandi . The noun dialogos and the verb dialegomai are used in the Mani-Codex mainly to describe the act of preaching, not the act of debating.13 Proclamation of the kerygma and the performance of miracles characterized Mani's missionary activities as well as those. of his disciples.14 In this respect, a document such as the Doctrina Addai , which may after all contain Christian anti-Manichaean polemic, can help

us comprehend the historical milieu and expectations governing the interactions between charismatic missionaries and local communities in late antiquity.15

For the advancement of his missionary career, Mani possessed the double gift of special revelation and the aid of a suzugos . His disciples and followers, however, required assistance to ensure the success of their own missionary efforts. The reputed success of the early Manichaeans in public debates may be attributed to the fact that they were equipped with writings specifically intended for use in situations of controversy. When Mani sent his disciples abroad to spread his kerygma, he instructed them to carry his own writings and to study them with care.16

Addas, a disciple who ventured as far as Alexandria, is traditionally thought to have brought with him three of Mani's writings, including the Living Gospel . In a city in which various religious and philosophical groups competed with each other on a constant basis, Addas could expect to become involved in public debates,17 and he needed to be prepared to respond to criticisms.18 Many would wish to subject a novel message to public testing, the more so since its bearer was a stranger without recognized credentials.19

A hagiographic Middle Persian source describes Addas as emerging triumphant from these early encounters, thanks to his use of Mani's writings.20 It further asserts that Addas' fundamental imperative was to

establish communities of the faithful; there was no hint that he deliberately debated in public to gain adherents. Addas did debate with others, according to the source, but because he had to, not because he wanted to. We may surmise that debating in public was an unavoidable aspect of his missionary career rather than his means of carrying out his mandate.

Arising from a biblical tradition, the Manichaeans cherished a specific body of authoritative writings, some of which were at least readily adaptable to, and perhaps specifically designed for, the task of addressing religious controversy. In geographical areas where Christian communities abounded, particularly on the Roman Empire's extensive eastern frontier, Manichaean missionaries quickly discovered that many whom they encountered were especially interested in the status of the Hebrew bible as divine revelation. By initially focusing on this issue, Manichaeans positioned themselves to preach their own distinctive message of the principles of light and darkness to their engrossed listeners.

To exploit this opening, the Manichaeans (like most other religious groups) were not averse to using texts from other traditions. In particular, the Antitheses of Marcion of Sinope (mid-second century), whose teachings were very popular in eastern Syria, were quickly seized upon because they refuted the claim that the Hebrew bible was the work of a benign deity.21 Such documents were sometimes reworked and incorporated into the Manichaean tradition, as was the case with Modios (meaning "small basket" or "dry-measure"), which adapted arguments from the Antitheses and was attributed to the disciple Addas. In an effort to make their writings widely available in local languages, the Manichaeans later translated the Modios into Latin. Considering the cost and labor involved in copying texts, let alone translating them, we may surmise that the arguments contained in the Modios were useful in disputing with Latin Christians.22

Mesopotamia

The apparent ease with which the Manichaeans extended their influence in the Roman Empire caused general alarm among Christians and pagans (such as the philosopher Alexander of Lycopolis), who regarded

with apprehension the new sects success in a zero-sum competition for the scarce commodity of popular allegiance. Christians also perceived the spread of Manichaean beliefs and practices as a series of acts of seduction in which loyal believers were infected by the contagious disease of heresy. Confused and helpless, local groups searched for an antidote, but at first there was no consensus as to the means of combating the disease. Even makeshift treatments were difficult to devise for so elusive an enemy. The virus of Manichaeism was all the more threatening in that it was disseminated within intimate circles in a manner easily overlooked.

When no scientific cure can be found, communal ritual must serve. A collective act of catharsis was needed, one similar to the apopompe or communal expulsion of scapegoats, in order to bring the crisis to the forefront of people's attention and to allay the fear of the unknown.23 Historically, such an act might showcase a dramatic public confrontation with a representative of the Other. If no such representative could be found to take the stand for this purpose, or if the catharsis was meant to extend to several locales, then a written account could be substituted, complete with crisis, confrontation, and resolution. In the case of Manichaeism, local heroes such as Christian bishops and prominent Christian notables were pitted against the heresiarch Mani himself in public debate.

Such was the strategy adopted by the author of the Acta Archelai , a work composed before circa 350 in either Greek or Syriac,24 and surviving only in a Latin translation from 392.25 Incidental details in the fictive account shed much light on Christian perceptions of Manichaean-Christian relations in a sensitive border region of the empire.

According to the Acta , Mani once attempted to extend his influence to a Mesopotamian city called Carchar.26 His plan was to convert one of

the city's preeminent citizens, a man called Marcellus, whose influence would then convert the entire city and the surrounding region: "[Mani] praesumebat enim universam se posse occupare provinciam, si prius talem virum sibimet suadere potuisset."27

Mani wrote personally to Marcellus, recalling the legendary correspondence that King Abgar of Edessa initiated directly with Jesus. The letter, delivered by Mani's disciple Turbo, urged Marcellus to follow his teachings, but instead the notable secured the aid of Archelaus, the local bishop. By directing the spotlight to the local bishop as the primary arbiter in such matters, the author of the Acta may well have been suggesting to his (Christian?) readers that they do likewise were they to come into contact with Manichaeans: rather than take the matter into their own hands, they were to seek the advice of the local ecclesiastical leader. After consultation with Archelaus, Marcellus resolved to entice Mani to Carchar so that he could be defeated by the bishop in a public debate. Marcellus set the trap by inviting Mani to explicate his teachings in person.

Mani crossed the border into the Roman Empire with a retinue of twenty-two electi described as young men and virgins.28 He is portrayed as an utter foreigner, exotically garbed in a manner befitting a doctor from the East. Significantly, he arrived carrying Babylonian books under his left arm. This orientalist image cast Mani as a subversive (non-Roman) barbaros from Persia, a power frequently at war with Rome.29

The debate, although held at the private domus of Marcellus, was nonetheless a town event, as was indicated by the much-trumpeted prominence of the local notables in attendance.30 Four distinguished and learned men were selected to sit as the iudices of the forthcoming debate: Manippus, an expert in grammar and rhetoric; Aegialeus, an archiatros 31 and a nobilissimus vir learned in letters; and Claudius and Cleobulus, both rhetors. That pagans presided in this public debate between two

who were emphatically not pagan, and that these iudices rendered their opinion in a communal voice throughout the dialogue, are particularly noteworthy aspects of this narrative.

The debate held significance for at least three parties: Christians, Manichaeans, and polytheists. In the account, Christians and Manichaeans were competing for the hearts and minds of the pagan elites of the city. This sensibility, expressed through the incidental though instructive detail of pagan participation, may reflect the concern of the Christian writer of the Acta ; it may also be a realistic appraisal of the balance of power in a border town in fourth-century Mesopotamia.

In the ensuing debate, according to the Acta Archelai , Mani was soundly defeated by Archelaus. Having lost the verbal contest, the foreigner was further disgraced by being driven out of town by the assembled turba , which "concitavit se ad effugandum Manen."32 Here we glimpse one possible role of a partisan audience, namely, to impose firm closure on a debate. Mani fled from Carchar but settled in a nearby city to resume his missionary activities. There his influence was soon felt and the local Christians sent for help from their brethren in Car-char, especially from the victorious Archelaus. Interestingly, Archelaus first dispatched the records of the Carchar debate as a means of opposing his rival, and only later went to confront Mani in person for a second time. Predictably, the Acta credits Archelaus with another Success.

The role of stenography was critical in helping to render the defeat of Mani by Archelaus more permanent and more widely known. In the Acta , Marcellus made sure that stenographers were present to record the event: "Quoniam vero placuit Marcello disputationem hanc excipi atque describi, contradicere non potui [Hegemonius]."33 Once the notations were transcribed into legible longhand, the records of the debate could be perused by others long after the original audience had dispersed: "Finita ergo disputatione ista, Archelaus turbas cum pace dimisit ad propria, ego Egemonius, scripsi disputationem istam exceptam ad describendum volentibus."34 The translocal and transtemporal character of written texts was especially important in view of Manichaean mobility: through networks similar to those facilitating the Manichaeans' peripatetic travels, Christians could disseminate writings to distant communities, thus shadowing their opponents' missionary efforts.

Egypt

Located just beyond the Mesopotamian frontier, Egypt seems to have been the major destination of the first Manichaean efforts to penetrate the Roman Empire. The movement met with great success there, as the plentiful Coptic Manichaean texts attest.35 Manichaean influence extended beyond Alexandria and the Nile Delta to Upper Egypt far into the oasis towns of the western desert, as the recent find of a Coptic-Aramaic Manichaean book at Ismant El-Kharab illustrates.36

The Christian bishops of the Hermopolite nome were important landowners in the fourth century, but their privileged socioeconomic status did not necessarily bring with it a facility for argumentation.37 In art area where the Manichaeans had been so successful, rosy optimism of the kind found in the Acta Archelai , with its hero's easy victories over Mani himself, may well have struck Christians contending with actual Manichaeans as unhelpfully simplistic, even incredible. One may even surmise that Manichaeans were not uncommonly favored to carry the day in such debates, as is dear from reports of an incident set in the city of Hermopolis Magna.

Copres, an Egyptian ascetic and leader of a small monastic community of fifty, arrived in Hermopolis one day to find that a Manichaean had been successful in persuading the local people to join his cause.38 From Copres' perspective, the unnamed Manichaean engaged in the deception of the inhabitants: "

debate.39 The phrase "

In this contest, Copres did not enjoy the good fortune that attended Archelaus in his debate with Mani. Even Copres admitted that he utterly failed to convince his opponent, a euphemistic circumlocution implying that he lost the debate. Unperturbed, Copres resorted to a more unsavory means of demonstrating the truth of his faith:

Since (

) I was unable to persuade him in public, I turned and said to the crowds of listeners: "Light a great fire on the open road (

) and we are both going into the fire, and whichever one of us remains unhurt shall be the one who has the noble faith (

)." When this had been done and the crowd zealously lit up the fire, I carried him with me into the flame.40

At this point, the Manichaean blurted out what any clever youngster in a similar bind would say: "Let each of us go in by himself and you should go first since you suggested it." Undaunted, Copres crossed himself in the name of Christ,41 leapt into the fire, and remained there un-

scathed for half an hour, after which the crowd shouted an acclamation (

No doubt elaborated according to hagiographic conventions, this story nevertheless has a peculiar aspect of verisimilitude. If the story were invented out of whole cloth, the author would most likely not have wished to bring attention to the fact that the final victory was achieved only after an initial setback.44 In any case, the observation that the Manichaean could hold his own in a public debate with a Christian holy man is instructive about ancient expectations. The plots further development reminds us that Christians, failing to compete with Manichaeans in public debates for which the latter were normally well-prepared, sometimes altered the nature of the conflict or public demonstration to suit their own particular strengths. Needless to say, the ordeal, as a test of the extent of one's control over his own physical body, was a form of demonstration that dearly favored an ascetic who had made self-mortification his daily practice.45

The easy shift from public debate to ordeal recounted above reminds us of the limitations of the cultural realm within which formal public disputations were appreciated. Illiterate and unlearned audiences found demonstrations of power by deeds more convincing than the ability to spin arguments.46 In encounters between religious rivals, deeds of wonder were commonly, though not necessarily, interpreted as signs of divine favor, whereas skill in argument was viewed as being of human, or even diabolical, origin.47 The report of a miracle of power possessed

wider and more direct appeal as a readily accessible icon for those who could not, or would not, embrace the bewildering complexities of verbal disputation. The ordeal can thus be read as the functional equivalent—a kind of sermo humilis —of the public debate.

Gaza

A story similar to that of Copres and the Manichaean can be found in Pseudo-Mark the Deacon's Vita Porphyrii .48 Porphyry, the bishop of Gaza, was a staunch promoter of Christianity in Palestine and a resolute destroyer of pagan temples.49 In 392, his friend John, bishop of Jerusalem (387-417), had designated him guardian of the relics of the true cross (

Much of a Christian bishop's credibility as a local defender of imperial interests rested on his claim to a solid constituency in his city. Thus it was vital for Porphyry to maintain a sure grip on the allegiance of his own congregation, after which he could expand his power by attracting the support of the court at Constantinople. For this reason, Porphyry dealt swiftly and decisively with any perceived threat to Christian solidarity in Gaza, including the missionary efforts of a Manichaean named Julia circa 402:

confirmed in the holy faith, she, having gone among them, corrupted them through her fradulent teaching (

), and even more through the gift of money. For he who founded the aforementioned godless heresy [i.e., Mani] could not ensnare so many people if not by the furnishing of money.52

The charge of using monetary gifts to seduce the young is intriguing though not unattested in the history of polemical accusations.53 Here we see the charge extended back to Mani, the eponymous founder of the heresy. Such allegations allowed Christians to rationalize the appeal of Manichaean teachings, which Christian polemicists consistently characterized as filled with madness and utterly absurd to those possessing intellect (

Julia's success soon drew the unwanted attention of wary local Christians, who promptly informed Porphyry of the stranger's actions. As a prominent member of the establishment in Gaza, Porphyry was able to have strangers brought before him for public interrogation: "Porphyry, counted among the holy, sent after her and asked her who she was, where did she belong and what manner of philosophical and/or religious view (

Pseudo-Mark recounts that Julia readily professed that she was Antiochene and a Manichaean, which frank and unguarded declarations provoked barely restrained hostility from the audience. This detail suggests that those present were not generally aware of Julia's religious affiliation. Porphyry calmed down the locals and urged them to exhort Julia to revise her position rather than to attack her. He himself approached Julia and said,

"Sister, cut yourself off from this evil belief (

) for it is satanic." But she replied: "Speak and listen, and either persuade or be persuaded." The blessed one said: "Get ready till the dawn and appear here." And she, having been ordered, departed.55

The historical Porphyry of Gaza was more a man of action than an intellectual powerhouse; even the literary Porphyry knew that Julia was likely to outperform him in a public debate. However, as the Vita informs us, the bishop felt he was entering the fray not so much with a human being as with the devil himself. He prepared for the next day by fasting and praying that he might confound the devil, the superhuman adversary behind Julia. Yet Porphyry also readied himself in a more practical manner: he summoned certain Christians, both laity and clergy, to attend the debate, mobilizing a sizeable retinue of partisan supporters. By contrast, Julia arrived the next morning with only four companions:

Two men and as many women. They were young and beautiful, but they were all pale, while Julia was well-advanced in age. All of them steeped in the

of worldly

, though Julia was more advanced than they were. Their countenance was humble and their manner meek. . . .56

After Julia and Porphyry were seated, they began the debate (

The debate was a solemn occasion with the airs of an official judicial inquiry, and the words spoken by the seated protagonists were carefully recorded. Among the local Christians was a certain Cornelius, skilled in brachygraphy and capable of writing down with a few strokes (

of the church of Gaza forthwith so that he could serve as church notary, in which capacity he sat next to Porphyry during the debate.60 Supplementing the efforts of Cornelius, Baruch and Mark the deacon drew up the minutes of the meetings.61 According to the author, the records of this encounter were still extant when he composed the Vita .62

After many hours of debate, Julia remained obdurately and embarrassingly undefeated. As he witnessed Julia, who was inspired by the devil,63 continuing in her utterance of blasphemous. statements, Porphyry was moved by divine zeal (like the biblical Phineas) to call upon the Christian god to shut Julia up,

the punishment (

) followed the statement straightaway. For Julia began to tremble and to change her appearance, and remained outside her body for almost an hour. She did not speak (

),

but she was voiceless (

) and motionless (

), having eyes which were open and fixated on the most holy bishop. Those who were with her, seeing what happened, were very afraid.65

No amount of first aid from her companions could revive Julia, who had lost all speech and the ability to move. Still speechless (

This reported miracle was a powerful demonstration that could be ignored by neither firsthand witnesses nor those who subsequently learned of it. Julia's four youthful companions, and "as many as were corrupted by her," threw themselves at Porphyry's feet crying, "We have erred, we seek repentance."67 Porphyry exploited this reaction by ordering the Manichaean sympathizers to anathematize Mani, which they promptly did. They received catechism, were later baptized, and thus were incorporated (or reincorporated) into the structure of the church of Gaza.

In this as in earlier episodes, the Manichaeans did not conduct public debates as part of their missionary activity. A historical Julia would probably have much preferred to go about her business peacefully and far from the attention of the local bishop. In general, Manichaean teachers stood to gain little from high-profile debates, because they fared splendidly in more intimate settings. However, though Manichaeans did not generally initiate public debates as part of a grand missionary strategy, they rarely avoided public contests with opponents less ready for such encounters. A Manichaean missionary-teacher could not afford to be seen backing down from a contest, however contrived and fraught with peril. Julia did not shrink from Porphyry's challenge even though he packed the audience with his clergy' and laity. The proceedings at Porphyry's church resembled a public trial, an image enhanced by the stenographer sitting at his side.68

As in the Acta Archelai , the pagans in the Vita constituted the silent partner in this confrontation between a Christian and a Manichaean. Our author even claims that Manichaeans were in the habit of acknowledging many gods so as to find favor with pagans.69 This alleged alliance of Manichaeans with polytheists, or at least the ambiguous separation of the two, made it possible for Julia to be identified as a Manichaean in the Greek text of the Vita Porphyrii and a pagan philosopher in the Georgian recension.70 Regardless of whether Julia was a Manichaean missionary or a philosopher, her final experience had, according to the Vita , a broad impact: many polytheists allegedly converted to Christianity after this showing of the bishops might.71

Alexandria

In the mid-fourth century, a certain Aphthonius, identified by our source Philostorgius as a leader (

After Aetius located his intended victim in Alexandria, the two men went at each other "as if in a contest for supremacy (

Roman North Africa

Manichaeism as "Dialectical" Christianity

West of Alexandria, in the cities of Roman North Africa, people gathered around scholae doctorum hominum and debating formed part of the institutional culture.78 It was within this context of intellectual curiosity and exchange that the most famous Manichaean convert took to the precepts of Mani. The searching Augustine discovered that the Manichaeans offered what he and many others regarded as a more rigorously rational form of Christianity.

Such an outlook had great appeal, particularly among young catholic Christians from the middling rungs of society. These ambitious and inquisitive youths, later to rise to positions of considerable authority within the catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy, were attracted by the Manichaeans' disavowal of that unquestioning acceptance of "superstitious" beliefs found in the Hebrew bible which exposed Christians to charges of

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idol worship. Using such well-tried topoi as those contained in Marcion's Antitheses , Manichaeans led the way in attacking the common catholic Christians' uncritical acceptance of the Hebrew bible.79 Thus one Manichaean proudly proclaimed, "Non credo prophetis Hebraeis."80 In a manner arguably more critical than constructive (and hence existing in a dose dialectical relationship with that which they sought to criticize), the Manichaeans offered a religious alternative that many found more philosophically and logically cogent than what their catholic counterparts professed.

Given the centrality of disputation to the legitimacy and appeal of the Manichaeans, it is not surprising that they often invited discussion by posing challenging questions in public.81 One of their famous opening lines was "Whence evil (unde malum )?"82 This loaded question confronted catholic Christians with the difficult theological task of reconciling evil, free will, divine omnipotence, and providence.83 But the Manichaeans did not throw out such questions casually; they were trained to deal with the likely responses of their interlocutors.84 By anticipating probable responses and counter-responses, Manichaean debaters, like experienced chess players, could comfortably and predictably disarm the opposition. This aspect of the Manichaean movement in North Africa has been aptly described as a cult of "knockabout rationalism."85 It was in this cult that Augustine discovered his spiritual home during his youth in Carthage.

In antiquity, ambitious and educated youths warmed naturally to the dialectical art.86 It not only afforded one who was cupidus veri a straight path toward truth but also provided a set of intellectual weap-

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ons with which to demonstrate his superiority over others, to be superbus et garrulus :87 as training in the asking and answering of questions, dialectic furnished both weapon and armor. It was especially suited to the young and impetuous because it was freely accessible to those who possessed talent and ambition but lacked institutional authority. Handbooks outlining the system could be acquired and read. Enterprising individuals could teach themselves the art in a relatively short time, as did Augustine when he mastered Aristotle's Categories with little or no help from preceptors.88 An autodidact could thus avoid a long, socializing apprenticeship to a master.

In late antiquity the practice of dialectic was closely associated with clever and hotheaded youth, among whom were Aetius, Eunomius, and Augustine. Augustine recalled that the two bonds tethering him to the Manichaeans were social familiarity and the dizzying success he experienced when debating others with Manichaean arguments:

I used to almost always enjoy a certain harmful victory (noxia victoria ) in debates while discoursing with inexperienced Christians who nevertheless eagerly endeavored to defend their own faith, each as he could. . . . Thus from their [Manichaeans'] arguments (sermones ) a burning zeal for disputations (certamina ) was daily renewed; from the outcome of the disputations (ex certaminum proventu ) love for them was daily renewed.89

The association of dialectic with the arousal of an unsuitable "ardor of youth" was recognized as a difficulty in philosophical circles as early as Plato's time.90 Later, Diogenes Laertius related a relevant story about Zeno of Citium. When the Stoic philosopher heard a young boy posing a certain philosophical question (

) with rather more reckless

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zeal (

) than seemed proper, he was troubled. He stood the young boy before a mirror and asked, "Is it seemly for someone who looks like this to ask these sorts of questions (

)?"91

This intimate vignette captures the ambivalence surrounding the posing of questions in antiquity. Excessive ambition, as culturally defined, was frowned upon, especially when manifested by the young. Dialectic was not a tool for showing off one's superiority but rather a science for the mature, to be cultivated as a part of one's progress in a philosophical life of virtue. But the ideal of a soul freed from passion was not necessarily shared by all, especially the young and others who stood to gain from open competition.

Augustine's reconversion from "super-rational" Manichaeism to the catholic Christianity of his boyhood coincided with the shedding of his youth. Or so he said. In later years, the Manichaeans who previously had been so dear to him became "false and deceitful men."92 The mature Augustine decisively reconstructed and renounced his youth as a champion dialectician, commenting on the puerile nature of the Manichaean competitive ethos he had once loved:

They consider that they reign supreme (regnare se putant ) in this question, as if to ask were to know. Would that this were so! Then no one more knowledgeable than I would be found. But somehow the propounder of a great question in a controversial situation (in altercando ) always puts on the appearance (personam ostentat ) of a great teacher while for the most part he himself is more unlearned in the issue concerning which he would overawe another than the person whom he would overawe.93

Philostratus' Apollonius of Tyana and the Syrian Bardaisan were among those who expressed the view that posing questions was a typical preoccupation of youth, whereas answering them was the duty of the mature who had acquired a measure of wisdom.94 Augustine likewise considered himself much more serious than in his heady days as

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a brash Manichaean auditor. He did not reject the gravity and relevance of the "great question" that the Manichaeans were in the habit of bandying about; instead, he insisted that this question was "one that needs much calm discussion among those who are the most learned (doctissimos )."95

This emphasis on learning derived partly from the reflections of a more mature person.96 Still, there is an element of "credentialism" in Augustine's approach to Christian theological speculation. One's ability to speak persuasively depended, he argued, on the mastery of a large body of complicated knowledge, a vast and deep scientia requiring years of immersion in learned tomes. In contrast, the mastery of dialectic alone was a "short-cut" to knowledge. There is no doubt that Augustine's interests in a more philosophically sophisticated anthropology and epistemology reflected the changed interests of an inquiring intellect. Nevertheless, his insistence that Christians pay attention to what he conceded were "obscure and recondite things (rebus obscuris abditisque )" deflected questions from certain common topoi of theological discussion that Manichaeans were accustomed to exploiting.97 Most important, Augustine could argue a fortiori that since most Christians were unable to master even the knowledge of things terrestrial, they had no business trying their hands at the knowledge of things divine.98

Yet Augustine's caveat about public debate applied only to what he characterized as recklessly critical dialectical disputations. It did not prevent him from engaging the Manichaeans in a series of staged disputations that have come down to us in versions recorded by the winners, the catholic Christians. These debates between Augustine and various Manichaeans provide valuable insights into the nature of religious contact and conflict in proconsular Africa.99 This body of well-known material includes the Contra Fortunatum (392), the Contra Felicem (404), and the long treatise Contra Faustum (397-98).

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The Narrowing of the Horizons

When the first Manichaean missionaries arrived in the Roman Empire, they brought with them written texts designed to aid them in sectarian religious controversy. Their ability to convince, as our sources inform us, depended on their grounding in these writings. Manichaeans developed a repertoire of topics certain to interest Christians, and from such opening gambits they moved on to the Manichaean gospel of the two principles.

The use of formal public disputation as part of the Manichaean missionary effort is almost unattested. Instead we find an emphasis on aporetic disputation using such questions as "Whence evil?" Their purpose was not to draw listeners into debate, though this sometimes happened, but to allow them to appreciate the Manichaean kerygma as the solution to real theological problems.156 In the fictive Acta Archelai , we recall, Mani singled out the local notable Marcellus for conversion through the private suasion of an exchange of letters. It appears that neither Mani nor his disciples wanted to come into town to engage in formal disputation. The debate in the Acta Archelai was thrust upon Mani by his opponents, just as most staged public debates involving Manichaeans were initiated by local catholic and other Christians as a means of countering the missionaries' local influence. Although Manichaeans were notoriously mobile, subsequent records of the debates followed the Manichaeans, shadowing them with the effects of one decisive loss.

The early history of Manichaeism and the stories about debates between Manichaeans and other religious figures depict a world of relative religious diversity and fluid frontiers. From the late fourth century onward this picture was turned on its head. "To study Manichaeism is to study the fate of a missionary religion in a world of shrinking horizons."157 With increasingly powerful local bishops acting as religious police to enforce their own interests, and a hostile imperial legislation to back the bishops up, Manichaeans, like many other religious groups,

could no longer compete as equals in the religious market of late antiquity. One stunning change was that Christians no longer had to debate Manichaeans on equal terms; they could demand a written abjuration from suspected sectarians.158

Writing played a central role in this new world of rising religious authoritarianism. The career of Augustine attested to the developing use of stenography and its relationship to power.159 In November of 386, Augustine had engaged stenographers to take down his dictation at Cassiciacum when he was composing his Skeptical Contra Academicos as part of the stock exercise of late antique intellectuals to defend their views against competing models of truth.160 In 392, the young priest made good use of stenography in his debate with Fortunatus in Hippo, and in 404 he again used stenography, this time to secure the binding, written anathema of Felix. Finally, in 411, he used stenography to its best advantage at the celebrated anti-Donatist Council of Carthage, which he dominated. Augustine of Hippo had learned over the years that stenography, a friend to the Roman imperial government for centuries, could be an equally loyal and useful friend to a Christian bishop.

In addition, the Christian bishop increasingly resembled an imperial official in terms of the coercive power lie possessed. The gist of the ominous anti-Manichaean leges referred to by Felix in 404 can be discerned by reading the Theodosian Code .161 Knowing that the local catholic bishop

could invoke such laws made the Manichaeans more timid, at least in public.162 Yet Felix's plight was not quite the unhappiest predicament in which a Manichaean would find himself in the Christian empire. That distinction must be reserved for the Manichaeans involved in two incidents during the reign of the emperor Justinian.

John of Ephesus related one of the incidents, the date of which is unknown, though the account precedes a story dated to the nineteenth year of Justinian's reign, or 546.163 According to John, Justinian called before him the Manichaeans that had been arrested in pogroms initiated by the emperor himself, and then proceeded to personally attempt their conversion by means of debate.164 His prisoners, many of them noble women and senators, refused "with satanic obstinacy" to alter their religious allegiance, even at the cost of martyrdom. The emperor obliged them, taking the unusual (though perhaps prudent) step of burning their corpses at sea so that the waves might take their remains.

The other incident concerns a disputation sponsored by the emperors Justin and Justinian. Not long after the enactment of the anti-Manichaean law of 527, which saw the public execution of prominent individuals known to be Manichaeans, a staged disputation (

The debate lasted four days, The arguments relied heavily on Aristotelian dialectic; the Manichaean also attempted the familiar attacks on the Hebrew bible. Finally, after Paul successfully answered a baiting question from Photinus about whether Christ upheld or destroyed the Mosaic commandments, the Manichaean grew silent: "

Throughout this disputation, Photinus was hardly on an equal foot-

ing with Paul: he was in chains and probably under guard. Lieu is justified in characterizing Paul as less a partner in debate than an "inquisitor."167 Photinus was relegated to the role of a disciple posing questions to his teacher.168 Furthermore, in accordance with standard procedure, the emperors chose Theodore Teganistes, "the Frier," as the secular dignitary assigned to supervise the religious debate. Theodore had already been prefect of Constantinople four times by 527.169 Bearing the court title of ho endoxotatos , he was one whose presence at the debate guaranteed the carrying out of imperial wishes.170

The ideological shift brought about by the outlawing of Manichaeism was derisive. With the rise of catholic and orthodox Christianities to a central position in the Roman Empire, increased social closure was needed to reflect the new imperial identity. In Max Weber's view, such social closure was achieved by increasing rigidity in group boundaries, curbing freewheeling competition, and preventing individual movement across boundaries. Public debates became no more than showcases exhibiting, for the edification of all Christian subjects as well as the marginalized Other, the wide gulf between sanctioned and illegitimate religious self-identifications.

Gradually, the division between. things Manichaean and things Christian became less murky, and the polemical literature contributed to this process of differentiation. In John of Damascus' Dialogus contra Manichaeos , we find what might be called a template debate.171 The genre was that of Leontius of Neapolis' Apologia contra Judaeos (surviving in quotations by John of Damascus), which was assembled out of adaptable florilegia of prooftexts.172 The two interlocutors in this dialogue were referred to as "the Orthodox" and "the Manichaean." This dear-cut juxtaposition of their differences was reassuring to those ideologically committed to maintaining a definition of the Christian church based on

doctrinal purity and communal solidarity. After definitions of truth and falsehood had been established using dialectical arguments, the discussion opened with a variation of a Manichaean classic: "Do you say that there is one first principle (

The conflict between orthodox Christianity and Manichaeism was now conducted more and more through anonymous pamphleteering.175 The Manichaean debater had by the sixth century become a shadowy figure in the Roman Empire, with no life of his own.176 Yet this process was only the flip side of the crystallization of an orthodox tradition, for the Christian refutations of Manichaeism also assumed a nameless and timeless quality: the short anonymous pamphlet Syllogismi sanctorum patrum lists thirteen useful anti-Manichaean arguments in the form of pithy syllogisms culled from the works of Didymus the Blind and Gregory of Nyssa.177

Further afield, in the less structured and more welcoming environment of Central Asia, Manichaeans retained their traditional skill in arguing from set texts. In the Chinese Manichaean Compendium from Tunhuang, being "well versed in the seven scriptures and eminently skilled in debate" normally entitled one to respect within the Manichaean monastic community.178 Yet even here, new social pressures had overtaken the glamorous Manichaean debater. The Compendium makes dear that the monastic virtue of obeying Manichaean precepts was considered

much more important than charismatic authority stemming from eloquence and learning:

The routinization of charisma took place among the Manichaeans wherever their communities assumed the form of hierarchical monastic institutions. A similar process was at work in the later Roman Empire within Christian communities, which increasingly gravitated toward their local bishops. As a result of this growing monopoly over authority, groups such as the Anomoeans and the Manichaeans, once existing in symbiotic dialectical relationship with orthodox and catholic Christians, were dramatically and forcibly redefined as the alien Other. Within this new context, in which unsupervised debate between individual Manichaeans and Christians manifested an undesirable lack of closure, emphasis was placed instead on the authority of written documents—many of which were closely connected with controversy, such as the acta and catenae of prooftexts—and on carefully controlled public disputations conducted by Christian authorities.

Like the classical Greeks, Christians in the later empire discovered that the written word lettered the dynamic logos and the dialectical element of speech.180 Yet while the Greeks viewed such a constraint negatively, Christians, with their belief in revealed truth and their need to achieve social closure, found in the written word a god-sent gift.

The Anomoeans: the Social Construction of Troublemakers

Aetius the Syrian

Aetius was born in Antioch on the Orontes circa 313.14 His colorful career represents a classic study in upward social mobility in the later Roman Empire.15 His opponent Gregory of Nyssa asserted, maliciously but not without some plausibility, that Aetius' involvement in dogmatic controversy derived from his need to earn a living.16 Indeed, talent, ambition, and opportunity together elevated this son of humble parents to prominent ecclesiastical roles in the company of imperial princes.17

Aetius' career was made possible by his possession of the gift of basic literacy.18 As a boy, he acquired sufficient rudimentary skills to conduct business and to draft contracts in his native city.19 By 326, his

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natural aptitude for learning had turned him from his trade to the study of logical argumentation under the bishop Paulinus of Antioch.20 After his mother's death had freed him from having to work as a craftsman to support the family (his father died when he was very young), Aetius devoted himself wholeheartedly to the 'logical studies" in which he soon came to excel.21

The young Aetius distinguished himself in public contests of words (

), successfully becoming the darling of the masses while a stripling of thirteen years.22 The Suidas tells us that these public debates were conducted on specific questions or zeteseis and that Aetius performed so well that he won the general audience (

) to his side.23 Kopecek interprets the zeteseis as exegetical questions about scriptures based on the entry in Lampe's Patristic Greek Lexicon .24 However, the word zetesis enjoyed a much broader semantic range in antiquity, including proposed questions and dialectical premisses (whether based on scriptures or not) in public disputations.25 The latter interpretation accords much better with the train of Philostorgius' narrative, which by this point has already established Aetius' facility with logic, but has yet to mention him engaging in scriptural studies.

Aetius' youthful triumphs were so resounding and achieved so rapidly that he aroused the jealousy or phthonos of others. According to the Suidas, the resentment of his competitors was amplified by the fact that they were beaten by a young lad (

) and erstwhile craftsman (

).26 Philostorgius repeatedly employs a topos depicting Aetius as pursued by phthonos wherever he went—itself a gentle echo of Philostratus' dictum that phthonos ever assailed a wise man27 —and for all its glibness such a characterization is consistent with Aetius' likely impact on others. The implacable Aetius was not one to spare others' feelings

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even as an adult; as a brash young man, he could easily have made numerous enemies.

Aetius' position remained secure so long as his patron and teacher Paulinus offered him protection. After Paulinus died, Aetius' enemies prevailed on the new bishop Eulalius to expel his predecessor's protégé. In the words of Philostorgius, "Jealousy (

) moves Eulalius to drive Aetius from Antioch."28 Compelled to leave his native home in 327, Aetius traveled up to the city of Anazarbus in Cilicia Secunda to seek his fortunes.

There Aetius studied briefly with a local Christian grammarian, who took him in and taught him basic literary skills in exchange for domestic help.29 When Aetius refuted (

) and rebuked his patron in public (

) for what he perceived to be a fallacious interpretation of scriptures, the grammarian threw him out. Fortunately for Aetius, who in one stroke was expelled (

)30 from classroom and home, the local Arian bishop Athanasius, a student of Lucian of Antioch, saw fit to take him in and even taught him how to read the gospels.31 Aetius' subsequent study with two other Lucianist teachers—Antoninus in Tarsus and Leontius in Antioch—completed his training in biblical studies.32 In emphasizing the scriptural focus of Aetius' education, the partisan Philostorgius was probably responding indirectly to the charges advanced by critics such as Socrates, who accused Aetius of being unschooled in scriptural learning (

) and expert solely in the art of refutative argumentation (

).33

According to Philostorgius, Aetius, once again the target of jealousy, was forced to leave Antioch a second time. He again undertook a journey to Cilicia, and there met a purported member of the gnostic Borboriani sect, who engaged him in a (presumably public) contest of words. Philostorgius described the dramatic humbling of his hero with but a

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few words: "A certain member of the Borboriani, having agreed on debates with him in defense of his own opinion, brought about an ultimate defeat."34 Aetius the proud Christian dialectician-philosopher was soundly beaten by his gnostic opponent and, unaccustomed to such reversals of fortune, fell into a mood of deep despair (

) over what he considered the victory of falsehood over truth.

Not long after his upset, Aetius received word from Alexandria that Aphthonius, a Manichaean leader, was acquiring a formidable reputation in that city by his debating skill. The Syrian resolved to secure a contest with the Manichaean to reestablish his own adequacy. "Drawn by his [Aphthonius'] fame," Aetius descended on Alexandria, challenged the Manichaean to a debate,35 and definitively refuted his opponent by reducing him to virtual speechlessness (see ch. 3).

Late Roman Alexandria was a teeming cosmopolis of competing religious and philosophical groups.36 Its cultural diversity gave rise to struggles for place, and its abundant stores of intellectual resources offered the tools for responding to such competitive situations.37 Aetius' own career path intersected with those of Christian, gnostic, and pagan intellectuals, as had the paths of Origen and Plotinus before him. Inhabiting the interstices between these competing groups, he articulated a set of Christian beliefs that could hold its own against anticipated challenges from religious and philosophical rivals.38

Both Philostorgius and Gregory of Nyssa identified Aetius as a student of medicine who learned the traditional specialty of Alexandria from a certain Sopolis, a physician.39 Aetius himself was known to Sozomen as a physician.40 Aetius' studies in Alexandria probably did in-

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clude both medicine and Aristotelian learning, for the two branches of knowledge were commonly combined.41 Certainly his familiarity with the use of Aristotelian dialectic and syllogisms was later a common charge against him. He may even have visited with the city's various Aristotelian didaskaloi , though the tradition is divided on this point.42 This association was perhaps a natural one for ancient authors to make because the city maintained throughout late antiquity a reputation for logical training and dialectical disputation.43

Ancient physicians were known to have broad intellectual interests. Gregory of Nyssa reported that, in the mid-fourth century, the medical schools of Alexandria served as hotbeds of philosophical and theological discussion, often involving dialectic.44 When Aetius posed his astounding thesis of the "dissimilarity" of divine ousiai , he exploited the love of innovation among members of the Alexandrian medical scholai .45 In a similar vein, Epiphanius noted that Aetius practiced daily the dialectical skill with which he discoursed about God.46

The art of posing philosophical questions was a powerful and useful tool for establishing someone's reputation in the city's preeminent medical circles.47 Magnus of Nisibis, a student of the iatrosophist Zeno of Cyprus, established a school of instruction (

) in Alexan-

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dria.48 When he held discussions with physicians who excelled at healing the sick, he turned to his philosophical knowledge to gain a competitive edge:

In order to lend force to his words (

), he dragged in Aristotle in connexion with the nature of bodies . . . and so compelled the doctors to keep silent in the matter of rhetoric, but he was thought to be less able in healing than in speaking (

).49

Elsewhere, Magnus was described as "a physician in regards to words, yet an inexperienced practitioner in regards to deeds."50 By introducing what Aristotle would have considered false figures from a general to a specific field,51 he managed to maintain professional credibility, even to acquire a considerable reputation, despite his supposed deficiency in therapeutic praxis. By carefully emphasizing his Aristotelian learning, he "still got the better of the doctors in the matter of talking and putting questions (

),"52 and became a celebrated figure enjoying sufficient prominence to be mentioned years later by Libanius, Eunapius, and Philostorgius.53 Such a deliberate professional strategy could only succeed if the other physicians conceded a greater value to the art of posing questions than to the craft of healing. This concession may be explained by the longstanding intimate relationship between ancient medicine and dialectic; medical training had long been transmitted through a dialectical procedure of questions and answers.54

After his Alexandrian sojourn, Aetius returned to his native Antioch, where he began to teach circa 350. He made an immediate and decisive impact on that city:

Straightaway he began to shock those whom he met with the strangeness of his expressions (

).

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And this he did trusting in the Aristotelian categories; indeed Aristotle had a book written on the subject. Aetius was engaged in disputation by drawing upon the categories (

) and did not realize that he was fashioning sophistic reasoning for himself. Nor did he learn the skopos of Aristotle['s ideas] from wise men.55

I shall explore such characterizations of the Syrian's dialectical genius later. By this time Aetius had already established himself as a valuable player in the intricate game of ecclesiastical politics favored by eastern prelates. He became a valued client of the Cappadocian George, the forceful and ill-starred bishop of Alexandria, who appointed him a deacon circa 348 in that city.56 It was there that Eunomius, Aetius' famous disciple, came to join him.

The Anomoeans' Reputation as Dialecticians

Returning to Antioch from Alexandria, Aetius and Eunomius were instrumental in the victory of the Arian party at the Council of Antioch in 358. Their powers. of speech again found expression at a council held in Constantinople in 360, a meeting called by Constantius after a 359 council at Seleucia had failed to resolve the outstanding disputes in the Christian east. Constantius was known as an active mover in the world of ecclesiastical politics; Ammianus Marcellinus faulted the emperor for multiplying councils and thus adding to, rather than ameliorating, ecclesiastical tensions.63

The meeting in Constantinople was convoked so that bishops who favored a homoiousian creed (

) could settle their differences with those endorsing an Anomoean definition.64 Aided by Constantius' offer of the use of the cursus publicus , a stream of bishops, mostly from the eastern cities, began to rush into the capital. Among them were Basil of Ancyra and Eustathius of Sebaste, leaders of those who favored the homoiousion. On the journey to Constantinople, Eustathius recruited a promising young reader, Basil of Caesarea, to assist at the council's formal debates; he duly arrived in the capital with his bishop, Dianius. In the opposing corner stood Aetius, whose "shieldmate" (

) was Eunomius.65

Philostorgius, whose History stands as our main source for this encounter, placed Basil and Eunomius in the auxiliary role (

) attributed to Athanasius at the earlier Council of Nicaea.66 Yet for reasons that may have involved a preliminary assessment of his adversar-

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ies' support in the council, Basil chose to retire from the impending fray and to repair to his native Cappadocia.67 As it was widely believed that the help of professionals skilled in the art of elenchic disputation—those who possessed

—was essential to open theological debate, the departure of Basil foreshadowed the imminent defeat of the homoiousian cause.68

Left to their own devices, the homoiousian bishops became especially apprehensive of Aetius' "power in words." They tried to neutralize his advantage by proposing that bishops had no need to discuss dogma with mere deacons. But this evasive tactic was overruled by the council majority, who expressed the view that considerations of ecclesiastical rank were of no concern in an impartial quest for the truth:

Since they feared his power in words (

), they said that, being bishops, it was not necessary for them to be set against a deacon in disputations (

). But after those who dissent from this view replied that the occasion was not a trial of ecclesiastical rank, but a quest for the truth, the party of Basil [of Ancyra] unwillingly accepted the contest (

).69

The homoiousian prelates, thus forced into the doctrinal contest (

), were soundly beaten, vanquished above all "by the power in Aetius' tongue (

)." To complete their disgrace, they were compelled to confess in writing (

) an Anomoean dogmatic formulation.

The outcome of this council was partially overturned by Constantius after a private audience with Aetius, whom he exiled to Pepuza in Phrygia.70 But the dialectical prowess of Aetius and Eunomius left an indelible impression on their contemporaries. Aetius' fame as a public debater was such that a story of his defeat of Basil of Ancyra and Eustathius of Sebaste appears in Philostorgius' Historia ecclesiastica . Yet this

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tradition is probably a dim echo of the events at Constantinople in 360 rather than a unique reference to an encounter unattested in any other source.71

Those with the charismatic gift of eloquence were courted by ecclesiastical politicians, who were constantly in search of exceptional talent to support their own causes. Aetius was himself patronized by the powerful George of Cappadocia.72 While Aetius was in exile from Constantinople after 360, Eunomius was made bishop of Cyzicus by Eudoxius of Constantinople, an appointment Basil of Caesarea considered a reward for impiety, that is, for contributing to the cause of Eudoxius.73 Socrates Scholasticus attributed the decision more plausibly to Eunomius' impressive powers of persuasion. The two explanations are not mutually exclusive: Eunomius' argumentative skills would certainly be needed to win over a congregation still brooding over Eudoxius' deposition of their beloved Eleusius.

Both Aetius and Eunomius could count on the friendship and support of powerful bishops of established sees, among them George of Cappadocia, bishop of Alexandria, and Eudoxius, bishop of Antioch and later Constantinople.74 But their circles extended beyond the boundaries of the increasingly significant ecclesiastical domain. The pair enjoyed a mobility not available to bishops after Nicaea, with opportunities for exerting influence in even the highest circles. Their ease of movement recalls the urbane world of the Greek sophists during the High Empire, when charismatic rhetors won renown in the metropolitan cities and collected coteries of like-minded admirers.75

Other Christians' fear of the Anomoeans' influence was due in no small measure to their access to court. Having endured the vicissitudes of the reigns of Constantius and Julian, orthodox Christians were only too keenly aware of the precariousness of their situation.76 Privileges granted by imperial fiat could be withdrawn by the same means; imperial support, won by select individuals with access to court, could have dire consequences for the delicate balance of power in ecclesiastical poli-

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tics.77 Aetius wrote letters to Constantius in which, according to Socrates, he employed involved sophistic arguments.78 He later made a favorable impression on Gallus, who sent him to his brother Julian in the hope that Aetius' influence might turn the future apostate emperor away from his emerging polytheistic inclinations.

The rivals of Eunomius feared his broad appeal and the possibility that he might succeed in captivating the imperial ear. Sozomen recounted how the orthodox shuddered at the thought that Eunomius might gain influence at court on account of his "skill in dialectical debates (

)."79 This fear was not groundless: Eunomius almost succeeded in obtaining an audience with Theodosius, who would no doubt (as Sozomen thought) have been swayed to the bishops cause. A disastrous reversal of the recently rising fortunes of orthodox Christians was averted only at the last minute thanks to the offices of Empress Flacilla, a devotee of the orthodox cause.80

The Anomoeans and the Questioning of Authority

Eunomius as Technologos

Il est un point sur lequel tousles contemporains et les historiens anciens sont d'accord, même s'ils l'apprécient différemment: Eunome était 'le technologue' par excellence.

It is a point on which all contemporaries and ancient historians agreed, but which they evaluated differently: Eunomius was the technologos par excellence.81

In the late fourth century, the Cappadocians charged Eunomius and his associates with being technologoi , opening a new chapter in the already complicated history of intra-Christian polemics. Theodoret of Cyrus said Eunomius "turned theologia into technologia. "82 Earlier, Basil

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cited theologein and technologein as the two activities dividing the Christian community: "

."83

In attempting to untangle the significance of this potent, dearly negative, but also very ambiguous characterization, scholars have followed ancient witnesses in associating to technologein and hoi technologoi with the Anomoeans' reliance on Aristotelian dialectic. In fact, the Stagirite was deeply implicated in the polemical literature against the Anomoeans and their enterprise:84 Christian controversialists went so far as to pin the blame for the disturbances within the churches on the baneful influence of his Categories and syllogisms. Such a charge was to enjoy a long and fruitful life, especially although not exdusively in the Greek east.85

Aristotelian dialectic and syllogisms epitomized for some Christians an artful subtlety that was antithetical to their preference for plain speech. Gregory of Nazianzus insisted with thinly veiled ire that Christ came to save Christians through the simplicity of fishermen and not in an Aristotelian manner: "

."86 Yet this charge was not as straightforward as it may seem at first glance because the Cappadocians themselves relied heavily on the works of Aristotle.87 Eunomius himself once called Basil an Aristotelian.88 In order to identify and clarify the issues more precisely, it is worthwhile to re-

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hearse the scholarly debate and shifting interpretations of these vague accusations.

In 1930, de Ghellinck argued in a pioneering article that the polemics against the Anomoeans and the negative evaluation of philosophical dialectic should be seen as a manifestation of the fundamental opposition between Christianity and Greek paideia .89 Reservations about the Aristotelian heritage were thus part and parcel of the Christian rejection of polytheistic Graeco-Roman culture. Unfortunately, the a priori dichotomy between Christianity and Greek culture posited by this stance is not so easy to discern. Moreover, because both sides of the Anomoean dispute employed philosophical dialectic and rhetoric, one must ask why boundaries were drawn on either side of certain intellectual constructs and social practices at given moments.

Vandenbusschen's examination of the technologos charge against Eunomius turns the debate to a new direction.90 To begin with, he correctly notes that the evaluations of Eunomius in Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomen, and Theodoret can be traced to initial treatments of the same figure by the Cappadocians—Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa. Thus the latter were primarily responsible for creating the influential image of their opponent as a disruptive, heretical technologos .

Vandenbusschen equates the term more or less with "dialectician"; in his view, calling Eunomius ho technologos was another way of focusing attention on Eunomius' reliance on the ars dialectica . Vandenbusschen skirts de Ghellinck's solution by rejecting the latter's attempt to characterize this debate as a sideshow of the fundamental opposition between Christianity and paideia ; instead, he locates the reason for the conflict in the perennial opposition between philosophers and sophists.

Drawing on the works of students of literary style,91 Vandenbusschen suggests that characterizing Eunomius as a technologos was tantamount to labeling him a sophist dabbler in philosophy.92 But because the

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term "sophist" was mostly used as a slight devoid of specific content—and Vandenbusschen represents no exception here—we should proceed with caution. The conclusion that Eunomius was a sophist is based on observations of his literary and rhetorical style, which was heavily dependent on the Second Sophistic. This bizarre philological method of labeling as a sophist one who never so identified himself derives from good ancient authority: Philostratus used it to distinguish between sophists and philosophers in his Vitae .93 Still, it is scarcely necessary to point out the methodological difficulties involved in deriving social categories from literary style. Even should this reading be adopted, it provides little insight into the fourth-century conflict; as a construct, the distinction between philosophers and sophists was as much an explanandum as that which it was supposed to elucidate.94

Daniélou resumes the discussion by proposing another course of inquiry.95 In "Eunome l'arien et l'exégèse néo-platonicienne du Cratyle," he carefully cites the Neoplatonist elements of Eunomius' thought, thereby proposing to reject the theory that Aristotle was the only primary inspiration behind the technologos .96 For him, Eunomius was above all an Iamblichan Neoplatonist.97 This conclusion is based on an analysis of the Eunomian theory of naming, which proposed that linguistic labels were created according to the nature of the thing (

). In contrast, Basil and Gregory shared a more common syncretistic attitude of the period, which held that language was fashioned according to human convention (

), though not in complete disregard of the thing itself.98 From this observation about Eunomius' strong nominalist

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position, Daniélou extrapolates an entire Neoplatonist philosophical program.99

Given the eclectic nature of individual allegiance to philosophical systems throughout late antiquity, this attribution of philosophical genealogy remains a highly questionable procedure. Moreover, Eunomius' theory of naming had been developed during a running debate with the Cappadocians as ad hoc support for his argument that human language was adequate to describe the divine.

Daniélou's thesis is all the more surprising in that twelve years earlier he has published a weighty tome contrasting Gregory of Nyssa's mysticism with Eunomius' extreme intellectualism.100 In the more recent essay, he characterizes the opposition between Eunomius and the Cappadocians as the conflict between two parallel yet hostile traditions: Eunomius represented late Hellenism, noted for its lack of interest in scientific knowledge and the visible world in general (similar to the mystery religions), while Gregory of Nyssa championed a classical (read "pure") Greek philosophical tradition uncontaminated by the excesses and passions associated with Neoplatonist mysticism. The triumphalism of this analysis, hinting at a Christian monopoly over classical rationalism, ought to inspire skepticism toward a link between Eunomius and Iamblichus.101

It is time to pause and examine the fundamentals of this scholarly debate, which until now has focused on the meanings of labels that rivals used against each other. By making the exercise of the dialectic method a personal attribute—that is, in constructing a category of persons who have the attribute of using dialectic as part of their "nature"—the opponents of Eunomius were in fact playing a game of "moral categorization."102 In this view, approved Christians employed dialectic as

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a tool to wage war for a just cause, but theft opponents did so out of single-minded ambition.103

This observation may explain why orthodox Christians such as the Cappadocians were not shy about claiming expertise in dialectic on occasion: they simply characterized their mastery, and that of theft partisans, as one of numerous admirable qualities. Thus Jerome praised Didymus the Blind for the breadth of his learning, mentioning dialectic as one of a long list of accomplishments.104 Gregory of Nazianzus eulogized his friend Basil in a similar manner.105

By contrast, the same parties portrayed the Anomoeans as narrowly focused specialists who knew nothing except the art of dialectical argumentation. In antiquity, a certain amount of opprobrium was attached to specialization and typecasting was a common technique used to undercut the legitimacy of one's rivals. In this case, Eunomius was cast in the type of dialectician, and the effectiveness of the strategy may have been much enhanced by the invocation of a novel (but vaguely disreputable) personal category.

In the past, the Anomoeans have been treated with scant sympathy by scholars who regarded them as haft-splitting rationalists lacking in true religious feeling. Theft intellectualist approach to faith is cited as evidence for this deficiency. In line with a current movement to reinstate the Anomoeans, especially Eunomius, scholars such as Rousseau and Wiles argue that the celebrated controversy between Eunomius and Basil over epistemology should be read as a veiled debate over ecclesiology or even soteriology.106 Eunomius was, in this view, as much a

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spokesman for a particular religious community as was Basil. Rousseau asserts that "Eunomius was a churchman as well as a theologian: he, too, had pastoral motives. He was a bishop, and he took his religion seriously."107 We must note that Rousseau's various propositions are not necessarily interdependent and that much hinges on the definition of what is taken to constitute "religion." To support this construct, a number of arguments have been advanced that fail, on closer inspection, to bear the weight of the edifice.

The claim that Eunomius represented a functioning religious community because of his tenure as bishop of Cyzicus is not convincing. Eunomius' abortive tenure in Cyzicus was not sufficient occasion for him to develop a set of pastoral concerns that then influenced his stance on epistemology. Not only the brevity of his stay but also the hostility of local clergy and laity militate against this position.108 It is difficult to imagine that the congregation in Cyzicus, which eventually brought accusations against him before Eudoxius and the emperor, was in fact the religious community whose values Eunomius rose to defend.

Likewise, it is unsatisfactory to argue from his Expositio fidei (Explanation of the creed) that Eunomius' overriding concern was for the coherence of a worshiping religious community. The credal statement was most likely composed as an apologetic and missionary document.109 It may even have been part of the material Eunomius read aloud to the audience of friends and foes who sought him out at his private estate in Chalcedon following his exile.

There is no evidence that the Expositio fidei was ever used as the baptismal creed of the Christian community in Cyzicus.110 According to Eunomius, the credal statement was not a group charter but a protreptic device for those, including the emperor Theodosius, "who wish to . . . acquire an easy and convenient knowledge of our opinion."111 Eunomius knew that a credal statement alone could never safeguard orthodoxy, as he observed in connection with controversies associated with Sabellius, Marcellus, and Photinus.112 Static dogmatic statements were

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susceptible to misinterpretation, whether deliberate or not. It was safer to anchor one's belief by employing one's trained reason to form personal judgments from basic principles.113

The revisionist readings of Eunomius clearly indicate a feeling among modern scholars that, in order to rehabilitate Eunomius as a credible Christian figure, they must whitewash his ultra-rationalist image and recast him as a latter-day Arius who has finally been "reinstated" through sympathetic studies that depict him as a charismatic ascetic grappling in earnest with questions about the relationship between christology and soteriology.114

The new emphasis on Eunomius as church leader is an improvement over the acceptance of orthodox polemics at face value, but completely inverting the orthodox characterization of Eunomius is not entirely satisfactory because the debate remains entirely within the parameters of the evaluative framework set up by Basil and others, who focused on the presence of so-called legitimate religious concerns (i.e., issues related to ecclesiology and soteriology) as a criterion for judging the legitimacy of religious leaders.115 This stance derives from a preconceived notion of a "religious community" as being held together mainly by adherence to a credo and a defined set of religious practices.116 To avoid the need to argue for the presence of a Eunomian worshiping community in the fourth century that was similar to the orthodox churches in almost every regard except in credal formulation and baptismal rite,117 we must explore other plausible social models of the Anomoean movement that would adequately account for the prominence of debate in its midst.

Aetius' circle resembled a philosophical coterie. In the minds of contemporaries, the Anomoeans operated as a diadoche , along the same

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principles that characterized many late antique philosophical circles.118 Aetius sometimes expressed his relationship with his readers as that between father and children.119 The readers of his Syntagmation , disciples (

) as well as colleagues, were also "heroes and heroines in the contest of true religion."120 Although Eunomius later took steps to form a separate church hierarchy, that aspect of the movement was not a central preoccupation. More important was the dynamic relationship between the charismatic teacher and his zelotai and akroatai , recalling the Neoplatonist circles described by Porphyry and by Eunapius. After Eunomius departed from Cyzicus, he retired to an estate where "multitudes (

) resorted to him; some also gathered from different quarters, a few with the design of testing his principles (

), and others merely from the desire of listening to his discourse."121

For the most part, Aetius and Eunomius presided over a broad confederation of like-minded people rather than a discrete organization or community. Such a "movement" may be characterized as elitist, though not necessarily in a socioeconomic sense, but in terms of its exacting emphasis on the insoluble link between correct understanding and worship.122 I suggest instead that the solidarity of such groups came from disputing and questioning rather than adherence to set beliefs. These groups could flourish only at the margins of more stable communities, with which they shared a symbiotic relationship.

The Popularization of the Logos: Technologia and Techne

Both Eunomius and Aetius insisted that theological discourse required a strict, systematic method that could be studied and mastered. In this sense, association of the technologos with Aristotelian philosophy and with sophistry need not be mutually exclusive. Sozomen called Eunomius a technites logon who was contentious and who delighted in the use of crafty syllogisms.123 Perhaps another reason why Eunomius was called ho technologos was because he made theological discourse a techne ,

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an art that others could master through careful study of a manual—he techne could connote both an art and the handbook explaining its workings to aspiring learners.124

Socrates Scholasticus charged Aetius with deriving his astounding theological views from teachings in Aristotle's Categories .125 Gregory of Nyssa accused Eunomius with first relying on the Categories and then failing to interpret it correctly.126 This association of the Anomoeans with the Categories was reiterated when Theophronius of Cappadocia, a disciple of Eunomius, was said by both Socrates and Sozomen to have based his own novel interpretation of the standard Eunomian line on his reading of Aristotle's Categories and On Interpretation .127 From these he composed a work, now lost, called Peri Gymnasias Nou (On the exercise of the intellect).

Collectively, these claims are not a priori incredible. The rules of deduction in Aetius' Syntagmation do appear to have been based on Aristotelian and Stoic categories.128 Eunomius' Liber apologeticus and Apologia Apologiae likewise reveal a reliance on concepts from the Categories , as Gregory of Nyssa pointed out. However, if we trust the testimony of Socrates and Sozomen, then it appears that the Categories was not commonly read in Anomoean circles, since the fact that Theophronius read and relied on it was considered a significant enough detail to emphasize.

Attempts to forge a direct connection between the Anomoeans and the Categories bespeak the tendency of those engaged in heresiological discourse to look for ultimate origins. Instead of reading Aristotle's works directly, many probably familiarized themselves with the written works of Aetius and Eunomius into which the philosophical insights had been integrated and adapted to the context of Christian theological discourse. These texts were eminently more useful and, to borrow a current idiom, more user-friendly.

The memorization of texts by rote as preparation for situations of

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verbal contest was long a common feature of the Greek system of learning and education. This was especially prevalent in rhetorical training. According to Aristotle, the teachers of eristics

gave their pupils to learn by heart speeches which were either rhetorical or consisted of questions and answers, in which both sides thought that the rival arguments were for the most part included. Hence the teaching which they gave to their pupils was rapid but unsystematic; for they conceived that they could train their pupils by imparting to them not an art but the results of an art (

).129

Aetius' Syntagmation was laid out in the form of alternating question (

) and answer (

) for explicit, pedagogical reasons: "On grounds of clarity and ease in grasping the points of the proofs, I have set them out in the form of alternating problems and solutions. . . ."130 Aetius' readers could pick and choose what they needed from the Syntagmation , adapting deductive syllogisms for use in disputes both offensively and defensively. In fact, Aetius complained in the preface to the second edition that the work was tampered with earlier and that the order of the demonstrations had been altered. He did not say that this was done by enemies; perhaps certain well-meaning persons freely adapted his syllogisms and circulated the Syntagmation in a form that they found most useful.

The circle of the Anomoeans, as a social phenomenon, acquired its cogency through a common theological method disseminated by means of a body of written texts and some oral teaching. The Syntagmation , judging from the preface to the revised version, was widely circulated among those whom the author considered to be like-minded individuals and was not directed at any specific community.131

With the aid of the proofs in Aetius' Syntagmation , kindred spirits were encouraged to refrain from sustained argument against an opponent in a disputation. They had no need to invent their arguments de novo . Instead, they could simply reiterate one of the powerful proofs—of which Epiphanius claimed there were originally three hundred—which have been aptly described as

withering retorts with which the student is to stop the mouth of his adversaries. For this purpose what could be better than short deductive proofs, especially if they echo, as they often appear to do, something an opponent might be presumed to say? The sarcastic tone which cer-

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tain of these arguments exhibit (e.g., § 12) reveals something of the contentious character of their author and of the movement he led.132

That this text, deliberately controversial in the most literal sense, commanded respect is underscored by the fact that Eunomius composed textual commentaries or scholia to it.133 The perceived threat of the Syntagmation was so great that Epiphanius devoted to its refutation a lengthy and detailed treatise to which we owe the survival of the original text. Even more interesting are the dialogues by Pseudo-Athanasius in which an orthodox Christian interlocutor and various heretics, including Anomoeans, became engaged in theological debate when the claims of Aetius' Syntagmation were cited and refuted point by point.134

An Oppressive Logos?

Aetius and Eunomius appealed in their writings to people like themselves who were disposed to believe in an insoluble link between precise theological formulation and correct worship. Stated in general terms, this is not a controversial thesis: in order to pay proper tribute to God, one had to understand the nature of God and the true import of his attribute as the Unbegotten One (

). To Aetius, the name could not be an arbitrary human attribution because

if ingeneracy does not represent the substance of the Deity, but the incomparable name is of human imagining (

), the Deity is grateful to those who thought the name up, since through the concept of ingeneracy he has a transcendence of name which he does not hear in essence.135

This central point was also emphasized in Eunomius' definition of the Father as the Unbegotten One; he explained why this point was so significant to Christian worship:

When we say "Unbegotten," then, we do not imagine that we ought to honour God only in name, in conformity with human invention (kat '

); rather, in conformity with reality (

), we ought

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to repay him the debt which above all others is most due God: the acknowledgement that he is what he is.136

Fallible human conceptions were of no use in finding a name that accurately and sufficiently described God as who he is: a sovereign philosophical method was needed to progress toward true knowledge of him. The Aristotelian categories provided an analytical terminology for nouns and adjectival predicates (e.g., Father, Son, Generate, Ingenerate); the syllogistic method served as a means to put these terms together into tightly built logical propositions. Favoring a dialectical method in one's discourse meant adopting the notion that it was always possible to argue from a given premiss to a set conclusion: "A partir du moment off l'on admet un certain point de départ, l'enchaînement né-cessaire des syllogismes mènera inexorablement à la conclusion."137 For certain Christians, this method enabled the development of a theological discourse rooted in divinely endowed reason.

Those who refused to be persuaded by the systematic application of such implacable reasoning could be accused of acting in a contentious manner (

).138 Resting on the authority of the dialectical method, Eunomius even turned the language of his accusers against themselves in an appeal to his sympathizers:

Don't be afraid of human censure; don't be deceived by their sophistries or led astray by their flatteries. Give a true and just verdict on the issues of which we've spoken; show that the better part has clearly won out among you all. Let fight reason prevail over these troublemakers and flee all the traps and snares laid for us by the devil; he has made it his business either to terrify or entice the many who fail to put what is right before what is pleasurable.139

One person's belief in invincible reason is another's tyranny. Those who wished to resist the authority of the dialectical method were faced with an even more unsettling belief: that questioners need not know their subject, or the answer to their question. Culturally, this license was the prerogative of the young; not surprisingly, the Anomoeans were often thought to act like irresponsible youth (

).140

The popularization of dialectical questioning placed great strain on those in authority, who frequently would have been called to account.

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When so challenged, those in authority could choose silence at the risk of being considered stupid or uneducated, or they could venture a response that might make matters worse. Aristotle allowed respondents to questions involving obscure and multivalent terms to say, "I don't understand,"141 but doing so meant forfeiting one's claim to gnosis and severely compromising one's social standing among the educated. This was equivalent to throwing off one's shield and running away in battle:

To excuse oneself when combat is offered Has consigned valour to deep obscurity.142

One might also beg for a brief respite,143 as Amphilochius of Iconium apparently did when faced with such questions.144 The answers Amphilochius devised in this breathing space were evidently ineffectual. Finding himself hard-pressed, he sought advice from a learned friend experienced in such controversies. In a series of letters in 376, Amphilochius anxiously requested Basil of Caesarea's help in framing credible responses to a series of questions.145 in one letter, the Caesarean wrote eloquently of the perceived threat of dialectical questions, citing the celebrated question Anomoean sympathizers were prone to ask: "Do you worship what you know or what you do not know?"146 Basil wisely declined to answer this question in an ad hoc manner, as he often did elsewhere; instead, he objected to the sophistry of dialectical questioning sui generis .

The question is a fine specimen of the carefully crafted "yes or no"

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proposition. In ideal circumstances, either response would provide the other side with a dialectical premiss to refute. But the popularization of argumentative techniques and ready-made controversial texts ensured that Amphilochius would be confronted with a series of prepared retorts.

Basil regarded the question to be a baited sophism because its terms lacked precision. If Amphilochius had answered that he did not know what he worshiped, the concession would have rendered him an object of ridicule; if he had said that he did know, he could expect this retort (

): "What is the substance (

) of that which is adored?" The implied assumption—which should have required demonstration but was accepted as a premiss—was that "to know" something meant to fully grasp its essence; yet it was precisely the articulation of the divine essence that constituted the crux of contemporary doctrinal disputes.

It was difficult to find satisfactory responses to such questions. Elsewhere, Basil coached other Christians with painstaking care in responding to syllogistic propositions posing as invitations to debate:

Hold fast to the text, and you will suffer no harm from men of evil arts. Suppose your opponent argues, "If He was begotten, He was not"; you retort, "He was in the beginning." But, he will go on, "Before He was begotten, in what was He?" Do not give up the words "He was." Do not abandon the words "In the beginning." The highest beginning point is beyond comprehension; what is outside beginning is beyond discovery. Do not let any one deceive you by the fact that the phrase has more than one meaning. . . . Never give up the "was" and you will never give any room for vile blasphemy to slip in. Mariners laugh at the storm, when they are riding upon two anchors. So will you laugh to scorn this vile agitation which is being driven on the world by the blasts of wickedness, and tosses the faith of many to and fro, if only you will keep your soul moored safely in the security of these words.147

Isidore of Pelusium similarly aided a certain Synesius in framing a response to the questioning of others. In a letter cited in the Patrologia Graeca as a letter on Arians and Eunomians, he offered the following: "What you want to learn is brief but nonetheless secure. If God is always the same, if he never acquires anything, he is always the Father. And if he is always the Father, he always has the Son. Then the Son is ever coexisting with the Father."148

Neither the ecclesiastical position nor the elevated social status of Amphilochius, Basil, or Synesius shielded them from difficult ques-

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tions; dialectical questioning was no respecter of persons. The challenge that skill in debate posed to episcopal authority was not monopolized by those who opposed the Nicene position. Germinius of Sirmium, a bishop who espoused a homoian position and who enjoyed the favor of the Arian emperor Valens, debated a layperson who upheld the Nicene formulation on 13 January 366. The Altercatio Heracliani , derived from the stenographers' notes from the proceedings, depict an extraordinarily embarrassing scenario in which Germinius was reduced to speechlessness by Heraclian for more than an hour.149 Even subscribers to Arian theology were vulnerable to pressures from those who were nominally on their side. Local Anomoeans (though not Aetius or Eunomius) used to harass Demophilus, the Arian bishop of Antioch, not because they disagreed with his dogma but because he had managed to arrive at their shared convictions without going through a process of dialectical reasoning.150 Getting the intermediate steps right counted at least as much as having the proper answer at the end. Demophilus' inability to construct a logical theological discourse later received scathing comment from the Eunomian historian Philostorgius.151

The situation is further complicated by evidence that even Eunomians felt pressured by this stubbornly methodological exercise of dialectic. After the death of Eunomius, his disciple Eutyches made a bitter enemy of the new nominal head (

) of the Eunomian group in Constantinople152 with dialectical questions. The new head even went so far as to refuse to commune with Eutyches because, according to Sozomen, the two clashed over the internal hierarchizing principle to be accorded most value within the group. The leader felt resentful "because he was not able to answer Eutyches' question (

), and found it impossible to solve his proposed difficulty (

)."153 The episode hints at the principle of routinization already at work among the Eunomian followers after the first generation; it also

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shows that the individualistic, competitive outlook behind the culture of questioning was not confined within particular sectarian boundaries.

It is important to emphasize that the threat posed by the popularization of dialectical questioning was felt especially by those in authority. The Anomoean promotion of theological discourse as a "precise science" or akribologia 154 through the dissemination of writings brought into being a generation of dialectical questioners, who in turn magnified the threat to established authorities by asking questions which, because they were based on a culturally established method, demanded a response.

Such challenges were understandably disagreeable to people who felt they alone were fit to wield ecclesiastical authority. Similar disorder in civic life would have been quickly labeled a stasis , an insurrection. On the one hand, few leaders, whether secular or ecclesiastical, would have actually enjoyed justifying their social positions on a daily basis through adversarial proceedings, especially with social inferiors.155 On the other hand, as few would have been willing to forgo a pretense to knowledge. Forced to compete for consideration on a level playing field, the leaders became vulnerable to public disgrace in this "language game."

To resist this pressure and to place dialectical questioning back within tolerable limits, those most affected, took evasive measures, including the elevation of an ascetic way of life as an exemplum of values antithetical to those of dialectical questioners. In the remainder of this chapter, I explore this tactic of turning the contest into one of rival habitus as a social construction involving the original connection between dialectic, upward social mobility, and notions of social order.

Opposing Ways of Life: The Dialectician and the Monk

Paideia and Prejudice

The notion of paideia , allied with the strict moral code that traditionally accompanied inherited wealth and leisure, distinguished the well-born few from the common man.156 The Graeco-Roman cultural ideal created a universal linguistic and moral code for the scions of late Roman elites from Spain to Syria, but few progressed beyond rudimentary paideia to

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attain greater mastery and professionalism in chosen fields.157 A formula tethering paideia to the mores of the landed aristocracy only served to reinforce social prejudices and boundaries at a time when a greater number of careers were in theory ouvertes aux talents .158

For many, paideia served as a means of exhibiting status, not a way to acquire it. The elder Iamblichus expressed a conventional view when he explained that paideia did not aim to prepare an individual for a specific goal in life.159 To specialize prematurely in one field for the sake of professional advancement without first securing a firm grounding in all-round education or egkuklios paideia was likely to provoke scorn.

Prosopographical studies of the later empire have shown that, in the latter part of the fourth century, a solid core of middling elites, consisting mostly of curiales and local decurions, occupied the highest rungs of the ecclesiastical positions in eastern cities.160 These Christians brought to their vocation the traditional social values of the upper classes and required little by way of christianization to become immediately acceptable.161 It is thus not surprising that Christian writers should echo the known, established prejudices of the secular elites.

It was in people's descriptions of themselves and others that these underlying views were expressed. Gregory of Nazianzus, for example, compared himself to his rival Helladius of Caesarea (who was either a curialis or a principalis ):

Should certain people view us naked and judge between us two our suitability for the priestly office, what would one possess which is superior to what the other has? Birth (

)? Upbringing (

)?

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Free association with the mighty and the famous? Knowledge of theological matters (

)? All the qualities are found among us in more or less equal measure.162

This juxtaposition highlights the patches of common ground on which were based the alliances of late antique ecclesiastical and secular elites.163 Birth to a prominent family, a proper upbringing, friends and relations in high places, a modicum of learning, even gnosis: these were the qualities that entitled a man to the consideration of his peers and the devotion of the less fortunate.

The creation of this common culture, of course, entailed acts of social exclusion. Even among pagan philosophers, the language of social prejudice was frequently mobilized against a rival with devastating effect.164 As is well known, using ethos as both defense and offense was a venerable part of Greek rhetorical tradition dating at least to the time of the Attic orators.165 Classically trained Christians like Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus, both of whom had studied under the sophist Prohaeresius in Athens, were no strangers to this tradition of ethical invective.166

Gregory was thoroughly familiar with the polished rhetorical styles of the Second Sophistic and knew well how to compose a psogos , a negative biographical characterization.167 In a famous example, he methodically defamed a fellow countryman, George of Cappadocia, the Arian bishop of Alexandria and erstwhile mentor of Aetius. George, later lynched by an angry pagan mob in Alexandria for his attacks on temples, was unkindly described by Gregory as having been born near the border of Cappadocia (a slight to proud Cappadocians), the result of a half-servile union (i.e., like a mule's mixed progenitors), and as having risen

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from menial labor without a liberal education.168 Though these slights should not be accepted at face value, it is important to remember that ancient rhetors, to assassinate character most convincingly, preferred accentuating existing defects to inventing nonexistent ones.169

For people with reputations as arrivistes , avarice and ambition usually featured prominently in the catalogue of their vices. Gregory of Nazianzus related with relish a rumor that George embezzled funds destined for the relief of the poor in Alexandria and used them instead for bribery in high places.170

Similar ad hominem attacks were made against Aetius and Eunomius. Gregory of Nyssa coldly observed that Aetius had once been a hired manual laborer engaged in a degrading menial trade (

,

).171 The Syrian was further upbraided by Epiphanius of Salamis for not having had the benefit of a proper education in his youth.172 Characterization of someone as apaideutos had implications beyond the lack of formal education; it distinguished a successful barbarian general or nouveau riche merchant from the ranks of the established aristocracy. The charge thus suggested that Aetius lacked the moral formation that was normally nurtured through early association with a grammarian.173

Gregory of Nyssa stated that Eunomius was known to have once been a pedagogue, a position customarily staffed by slaves.174 Interestingly, at times Eunomius seemed to accept his opponents' characterization of his lowly origins. Here we see the two sides engaged in a kind of ritual dance: as the Cappadocians resorted to a language of social condescension, Eunomius willingly became the social outsider, casting him-

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self in the role of the humble champion of truth, whose opponents stood in error regardless of their worldly wealth and rank.175

It is arguable that this social gulf separated the Cappadocians and Eunomius more effectively and irreconcilably than any amount of theological and philosophical disagreement. In such matters, style was of supreme importance. Gregory of Nyssa, referring to his Contra Eunomium , requested that his readers devote special attention to the parts in which he demolished the arguments employed by Eunomius in his Apologia Apologiae to justify the trial imagery used in his Liber apologeticus ; but here substance, while important, is somewhat eclipsed by the duel between the two over the issue of prose style.176 Eloquence of language, an attainment emblematic of one's paideia , became part of the contest because even the educated person with little interest in theological learning appreciated the cadences of well-balanced phrases.

Although more accomplished than that of Aetius, Eunomius' prose revealed to trained eyes many belabored rhetorical devices and the tortuous style of the much-maligned Second Sophistic, though he was dearly able to compose in good Attic Greek. Eunomius' rhetorical ploy was attributed by his enemies to an excessive desire to impress his audience. His baroque presentation betrayed an obsession with scoring points (

) and the inability to admit defeat or show proper deference.

Using the language of a wrestling match—deliberately adopted to answer Eunomius' earlier interpretation of his appointment to the bishopric of Cyzicus as an athlos , a prize for victory—Gregory of Nyssa called Eunomius a "bad sport" for not admitting defeat in argument. An explicit analogy between athletic contest and verbal argumentation can be traced to ancient works, including Aristotle's De sophisticis elenchis :

For just as unfairness in an athletic contest takes a definite form and is an unfair kind of fighting, so contentious reasoning is an unfair kind of fighting in argument; for in the former case those who are bent on victory at all costs stick at nothing, so too in the latter case do contentious arguers. Those, then, who behave like this merely to win a victory, are generally regarded as contentious and quarrelsome, while those who do so to win a reputation which will help them make money are regarded as sophistical. . . . Quarrelsome people and sophists use the same arguments, but not for the same reasons; and the same argument will be sophistical and contentious but not from the same point of view. If the semblance of victory is the motive, it is contentious; if the semblance of wisdom, it is sophistical: for sophistry is an appearance of wisdom without the reality.177

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Viewed in this light, Eunomius and those like him were at once contentious and sophistic. To a well-born male in late antiquity, this kind of unsporting behavior was to be expected only of someone who was not a gentleman. A clever person who would violate the rules of a sport could not be relied on to uphold social peace and the greater good, but instead would most likely stir up trouble for the sake of self-aggrandizement. All in all, it was far better to affect simplicity and detachment than to become too clever and obsessed with victory.

Eunomius was, to be sure, sensitive to such criticisms. He maintained that he did not advance his self-consciously controversial theological views out of ambition (

) or a love of rivalry (

). Using the rhetoric of outsiders, he pronounced that true judgment transcended social considerations, even the powerful claims of kinship, "which so often darken the soul's power of judgement."178 Yet his radical subordination of philia to personal philosophical judgment certainly undermined the very basis of the authority of ecclesiastical elites, who depended on philia to knit together their privileged social worlds.179

What was outrageous about Aetius, Eunomius, and their sympathizers was not so much their theology as the manner in which they sought to propagate it. According to Sozomen, Aetius was deposed from the diaconate

because he wrote in a combative manner (

) to demonstrate a philosophical position (

) which diverged from the expressed ecclesiastical position, and because he constructed arguments in a dishonorable fashion (

), and because he was the cause of the uproar and factionalism in the churches (

).180

Thus Aetius was accused of recklessly bringing about with his dialectical art what elites in the ancient world feared most, confusion and strife, tarache and stasis . This he did because he was not properly formed in paideia . The cultivation of paideia was a process of socialization that ideally enabled a person to know how to act responsibly in public.181

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These social virtues, the fruits of prescribed moral formation, were said to be lacking in the Anomoeans, who spoke with misplaced parrhesia .182 Gregory of Nyssa accused them of not knowing when to speak and when to remain silent.183 By contrast, the philosopher Chrysanthius, who belonged to the senatorial rank, knew, according to Eunapius, what to say and what to leave unspoken (

).184 Synesius,185 a leading citizen and later bishop of Cyrene, claimed that only properly educated persons knew how to act responsibly in public by adhering to the middle course; "the uneducated fellow, on the other hand, normally fell prey to one of two extremes: either to stay silent altogether or to speak aloud on matters that one customarily kept silent on (

)."186

Paideia and Ascetic Virtues

Ancient paideia was not merely a program of education. Most of all, it was a process of moral formation and a way of life. In this respect, the marks of traditional paideia , including the cultivation of philanthropic and ascetic virtues, came to represent useful defenses against the demanding claims of the dialectical questioners. In stark contrast to the individualistic and confrontational tendencies of the latter ethos , the ascetic way of life shunned dissension. Though an ascetic could periodically exercise his parrhesia on behalf of the just,187 or to correct those who had lapsed into error,188 he was normally someone who stood above unseemly sectarian rivalry.189 When Basil of Caesarea advised Chilo on the proper behavior for a Christian ascetic, he cautioned him especially about the need to shun controversy because someone who wished to find God must be "quiet of demeanour, not hasty in speech, nor contentious (

), quarrelsome (

), vainglorious, nor given to interpreting of texts (

)."190

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The strong opposition between the values of dialectician and ascetic was frequently invoked in the polemic against the former. In his Contra Eunomium , partly an apologia defending his brother Basil against Eunomius' accusations that the Caesarean prelate was lacking in intelligence, Gregory of Nyssa asked his readers to compare the characters of his brother and Eunomius and then to choose between them.191 The manner in which the choice was presented left no doubt as to how his readers ought to make their selection: Basil, when not yet a priest, had distributed his inheritance to the poor, while Eunomius had disgraced himself by living a dissolute life in Constantinople;192 Basil cultivated an austere and sober way of life, while Eunomius indulged his appetites.193 Sozomen later pronounced his judgment that Eunomians in general did not practice philosophy in deed, for they

were not in the habit of praising a good way of life (

) or manners or mercy toward those in need—unless they should extol the same deeds—as much as someone who would discourse in an eristic fashion and would appear to triumph in syllogistic reasoning. Such a person is considered pious (

) above all others.194

This portrayal unmistakably served the polemical purpose of deprecating the Anomoeans before an audience unsympathetic to their obsessive cleverness and lack of concern for Christian works.195 It would, however, be rash simply to pass by this comment as an entirely unfounded accusation, for ancient polemic often contained a kernel, however small, of truth. Furthermore, I suggest that this alleged social attitude harmonizes with a particular cultural model that can adequately describe the Anomoean movement.

Even within fairly homogenous cultures, people seldom ascribe the same degree of worth to an identical set of cultural values. Thus we cannot assume that the vast majority of late antique Christians appreciated the kinds of "Christian works" cited by Sozomen to an equal extent,

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or that their definitions of a eusebes , a pious person, necessarily agreed. The Anomoeans exemplified a culture of great upward social mobility, particularly in the persons of Aetius and Eunomius, whose status was achieved by the charismatic authority derived from their verbal skills. Their eristic abilities could only be validated in open contests with others: the agon was therefore a necessary part of their world.

The centrality of dialectical prowess to Anomoean culture could in theory find expression in venues less confrontational than out-and-out debates, but this redirection often did not occur during the pioneering generation. Subsequent generations usually took up the agenda of cultivating the aristocratic reserve and philanthropy expected of the upper classes. Further, it is likely that Eunomius and his associates did not sympathize with monastic ideals because the cenobitic form of Christian asceticism had been propagated in Asia Minor by their inveterate enemies, Eustathius of Sebaste and Basil of Caesarea.196

This convoluted conflict continued into the fifth century. In contrast to the orthodox responses in adversarial sources already discussed, the writings of Philostorgius present the Eunomian case.197 Philostorgius' family, originally from Cappadocia, embraced the teachings of Eunomius when his father Carterius converted his mother, uncles, and grandfather from a Nicene theological position.198 The family's self-conscious choice to depart from the stance of Basil of Caesarea, under whom Carterius' father-in-law served as priest, is a testament to the vital appeal of this sectarian alternative in fifth-century Cappadocia.

As a young man of about twenty, Philostorgius had been deeply impressed by Eunomius during a visit to his estate, to which he had retired from 387 to 390, and had eventually written a laudatory biography (now lost). Later the historian became a partisan in the losing battle against imperial orthodoxy. Indeed, his Historia ecclesiastica , characterized by Photius of Constantinople as an encomium of heretics,199 omitted mention of many prominent figures who were unsympathetic to Eunomius' cause, including John Chrysostom, as if to impose on these figures the penalty of damnatio memoriae .

Refuting the charge that Eunomians harbored no love for good deeds or an ascetic way of life, Philostorgius expressed open admiration for certain ascetics who were not Eunomians. His glowing portrayal of

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Theophilus Indus, a monk supposed to have converted many inhabitants of India to Christianity, may be attributed to his appreciation for Theophilus as a seasoned traveler and as a successful missionary.200

Philostorgius followed this account by saying that Eunomians too were willing and able to convert others. He pointed to certain early fifth-century Eunomians who were known as rigorous ascetics and performers of miracles. Among his examples was Agapetus, a Eunomian who performed many paradoxa erga , miraculous wonders, causing witnesses to convert to Christianity.201 We may reasonably surmise that this decidedly apologetic emphasis arose, at least partly, as a response to criticisms of Anomoeans reviewed earlier.

But Philostorgius' interest in asceticism did not extend to the institution of organized monasticism featured prominently in the accounts of Theodoret, Socrates, and Sozomen. The modem editors of Philostorgius' Historia ecclesiastica , comparing Theodoret's exaggerated reverence toward monks, propose convincingly that Philostorgius should not be expected to approve of an institution that received its impetus from Eunomius' enemies, Eustathius of Sebaste and Basil of Caesarea.202

Monks were drawn predominantly from the ranks of the humiliores ; these unkempt souls found little favor with urban elites. Pagan disdain for illiterate black-robed monks was faintly echoed by the lay Christian Sozomen, an admirer of ascetics who nevertheless recognized their ignorance of civilized conduct, including the settling of differences. In his account of the Origenist controversy, Sozomen related that

a certain terrible conflict (

) reigned among the monks out of this. They did not think that they should persuade each other by conducting debates (

) among themselves in an orderly fashion (

), but they turned to deeds of outrage (

).203

The crude, barbaric "simplicity" of the desert monks did not commend itself to Philostorgius. Like Socrates and Sozomen after him, he was an educated layman who valued culture. Judging from his work, both his learning and his range of interests exceeded those of his anti-Eunomian counterparts. Philostorgius was conversant in biblical studies and was keenly interested in the intricacies of dogmatic controversies,

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which he described with a familiarity noticeably missing from Socrates' and Sozomen's narratives.204

Philostorgius possessed many other admirable qualities. Like Cosmas Indicopleustes, he was a sectarian layman well-traveled and well-informed about contemporary scientific theories regarding earthquakes, meteorites, astronomy, cosmography, and similar phenomena.205 He also had some knowledge of medicine.206 Allusions in the Historia ecclesiastica indicate a grasp of ancient learning comparable to that of the classicizing historians writing at around the same time.207 Yet at heart Philostorgius was resolutely Christian, to the extent of composing refutations to Porphyry's attacks on Christianity.208

It is remarkable that the Eunomian interpretation of Christianity continued to attract strong devotion within the intellectual circles of an imperial state that had tried repeatedly to stamp it out through public humiliation209 and stiff legal penalties, including the imposition of the infamia of an intestabilis , the deprivation of one's competence to make a legally binding testament.210 Clearly, the intellectual rigor of Eunomian Christianity appealed to Philostorgius and many like him.

In Philostorgius the new wine had aged in the span of a generation. Skill in debate still figured significantly in his work, but the charisma of being deinos legein now stood as one among many virtues. The uncompromising sharpness of the first generation of dialectical questioners had mellowed into a culturally more established, and more rounded, form of habitus . It may not be too much to say that in Philostorgius a synthesis was achieved between the values of the Cappadocians and those of the early Anomoeans.

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A Debate Over the Logos

The appreciation of the human logos (here meaning "discourse" or "rational principle") was a central issue for those concerned with rampant discussion. Before Constantine, many Christian apologists had taken pride in the fact that even uneducated and nearly illiterate Christians were able to discuss supramundane topics, hitherto the exclusive preserve of upper-class philosophers.8 Now the via universalis had become problematic for many Christians. What shaped the acceptability of pervasive discussion was not so much the subject matter at hand but the outlook of those threatened by such activities. Whereas in earlier days those most affected had been outsiders such as the pagan Celsus, as Christianity encompassed a larger share of the population and a wider spectrum of society, many of those troubled became fellow Christians.

In a culture that gave privileged consideration to rational speech, human logoi furnished a basis for dose mutual scrutiny through demands and counterdemands for statements of belief. Among Christians, the growing reliance on a precise technical theological vocabulary adapted from the Greek philosophical tradition meant that many were in a position to require from others a high degree of accuracy in the expression of their dogmatic views. To discrete terms and adjectives was imputed the greatest significance. In a language game that allowed for the dear articulation of nuances, people pressured each other to profess their beliefs in the middle of a controversial minefield, the features and contours of which were just beginning to be mapped.9 With the devel-

oping sophistication of Christian theological speculation, there came to be less and less room for "fudging," because "the absence of ambiguity is a basic requirement for all scientific discourse."10

Even exalted late Roman emperors found themselves vulnerable to this exacting pressure. In an autocratic society with a state religion (after the Theodosian settlement had established an orthodox faith for the empire), it was important to assure his pious subjects that the emperor himself held the correct theological views. In the Vita sancti Danielis , the assembled citizenry demanded a clear profession of faith from Anastasius' predecessor, Zeno.11 "Let us hear what your faith is, Emperor!" they shouted. The emperor's counselors advised him to yield, and he eventually did so for the sake of political expedience, signing a statement of orthodoxy in tradition.12 Anastasius I (491-518) was probably the first emperor from whom a written profession of faith was demanded upon his accession.13 This is not surprising, though, for he had been known as a Monophysite with rumored Eunomian leanings.14

Behind such demands for a profession of belief stood the potential threat of popular outrage and perhaps even violence, although the likelihood of high melodrama is often overemphasized in modem accounts. This aspect of late Roman social life rendered clear and forthright speech in doctrinal matters a risky proposition. In such a charged environment, guarded silence or deliberate obfuscation was often the safest course.

Basil of Caesarea was known to have deliberately refrained from publicly stating his theological position on the Holy Spirit for fear of needlessly antagonizing some and alienating others, not to mention running the risk of being driven out by detractors.15 The prominent Meletius of Antioch at first held back from discoursing openly on doctrinal matters, preferring to devote his sermons to less problematic moral themes.16 His tactic of theological abstinence appeared especially prudent in hindsight because, as soon as he broke silence and began to expound on issues of doctrine, he found himself in a "sticky situation," having alienated many of his listeners.

Even the most seemingly well-meaning audience could contain spies sent by one's rivals to exploit moments of weakness, or imperial informers eager to challenge and to accuse. Gregory of Nazianzus summed up the anxiety of many late antique bishops when he exclaimed that, at a time when the entire cosmos had become a contested theological battleground, the dignity of the bishop's throne gave neither pleasure nor satisfaction.17

Though knowing one's audience was of supreme importance to would-be propounders of theological views, church leaders did not always have this luxury, especially when newly appointed to a post in a strange city where the mood was uncertain or openly hostile. This was the case with Cyrus Panopolites, a famed Egyptian poet, high imperial dignitary, and appointee to the episcopal seat of the small Phrygian town of Cotyaion in the 440s.18 When he arrived at his new see, he was greeted by a suspicious crowd, which compelled him to speak because they thought he was a Hellene, that is, a pagan. The audience immediately demanded to know his theological views.19 Cyrus reluctantly complied with their wish (which was probably expressed through acclamations), and allegedly declaimed as follows: "Brothers, let the birth of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ be honoured in silence (

Following this address, Cyrus was acclaimed by a delighted crowd and was given leave to live at peace in the city.21 The difficult situation had called for a tactful solution, and Cyrus, by resorting to apophatic obfuscation, succeeded in extricating himself from a tight corner.

Timothy Gregory has argued that this pithy sermon was not "an expression of simple, uneducated Christianity" suggesting the futility of theological speculation22 "but a clever—one might even say wily—statement of orthodox theology."23 Yet Gregory's subsequent reasoning assumes that the Cotyaion locals were intimately familiar with sermons preached in Constantinople by the bishops Proclus and Atticus, by which they then understood Cyrus' own address.24 This interpretation has merits, but is unnecessary. The significance of this widely reported story lies in the fact that Cyrus managed not to strike the wrong note with his audience. He succeeded in not offending his listeners by choosing to give a brief and seemingly orthodox statement, thereby avoiding the perils of a lengthy exposition. If his address had conveyed a deeper message, it would have eluded all but a very small handful of listeners or readers, then as now. His exhortation to honor Christ in silence (

As this vigorous verbal culture thrived in the cities of the Greek east, another development was gaining momentum and would eventually re-mold significant elements of the classical tradition to its Byzantine form. By the later fifth century, Byzantine mystical theology had reached maturity in the corpus of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.26 These works

had intellectual roots reaching back to Proclus and Iamblichus27 and perhaps to Philo of Alexandria,28 or even to the Parmenides of Plato's dialogue.29

Pseudo-Dionysius' mystical construct was founded on a pyramidal hierarchy of divine and human beings not unlike the steep social order of the later empire. The gradus of this structure of beings was maintained by the dear differentiation of authority and power, including the capacity for knowledge. For instance, only a higher being could grasp the nature of reality sufficiently to correctly name a lower being.30 The necessary corollary was that lower beings could only attain limited knowledge of those above them. Intermediary signs (

Though Pseudo-Dionysius is credited with the classic formulation of Byzantine mystical theology, it is important to scrutinize the historical and social circumstances that propelled this intellectual current to the forefront of attention.32 To do so we must examine the function of apo-

phatic language in the formative period of the late fourth century, when Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa gave impetus to the crystallization of an ideological scheme effectively shielding divine essence from human cognition.33 Theirs was no mere passive reception of earlier philosophical and theological traditions.34 At the time when these figures sought to formally delegitimize human logoi as a means for achieving certain knowledge of the divine, they were involved in serious debates among Christians over the possibility of a popular and rational theological discourse.35 Gregory of Nyssa's "mysti-

cal" epistemology, for example, articulated in his Contra Eunomium , was specifically aimed at that bitter rival:

Gregory's opponents, especially Eunomius and his supporters, regarded human language as sufficient for divine contemplation and description. In their view, the names of things were created in reference to the nature of the things themselves (

Given that the orthodox Christians sought to circumscribe human understanding of the divine in a controversial setting, their claims cannot be read as statements of detached reflection. A fuller understanding of the historical setting is particularly necessary because the mystical theological stance was championed not just by intellectual system builders but by preaching priests and bishops. To bring this argument into sharper focus, I will examine two sets of public sermons directed not just at the intelligentsia but at general audiences,38 and which greatly influenced the development of mystical theology: Gregory of Nazianzus' Orations 27 through 31, and five of John Chrysostom's sermons on the incomprehensibility of God.

Gregory of Nazianzus' "Theological Orations" (Constantinople, 380)

Until the early 380s, the orthodox Christian community in New Rome had managed to survive, albeit in a precarious state, despite being eclipsed by other Christian groups. In 379, Gregory of Nazianzus, invited to lead this congregation, arrived to find a small and embattled group distinguished by its stubborn loyalty to the Nicene settlement39 and living alongside more confident and impressive congregations, including those headed by rival Arian bishops. At the time, the Arians had established themselves in the main basilica of the capital and catholic Christians had to meet in a modest structure converted from a private house. A grander edifice was later built and dedicated on the site of the domus and named Anastasia to commemorate Gregory's tenure as the turning point for the rebirth of orthodox Christianity in Constantinople.40 The process of "regeneration" did gain strength under Gregory, but we must not overestimate his immediate success. Although later traditions magnified the impact of his "patriarchate," Gregory's own feelings on the subject were mixed, and often colored by disillusionment and powerlessness.41 To him, the bishop's throne represented not power or prestige but careworn anxiety.42

Yet this retiring man, who had assumed both priesthood and episcopate with ambivalence and who until recently had lived in the shadow of his friend Basil of Caesarea, found renewed vigor in rallying his new congregation.43 He later reflected on these difficulties in his Carmen de vita sua .

Gregory of Nazianzus eventually became known in the Byzantine tradition as "the Theologian" (

In these sermons, the new leader forged with the fire of rhetoric a set of dogmatic views about the Trinity, a subject he claimed had previously been neglected by his congregation. More importantly, he examined afresh the very notion of theology, articulating the qualifications of a Christian theologos and defining the enterprise of philosophizing concerning God. He undertook these labors not out of a passion for philosophy but to develop a polemic against the Constantinopolitan enthusiasm for disputation over points of doctrine.

Thus from the outset his definitions of the theologian and theology were restrictive and prescriptive. He began by proposing a strict limit on the discussion of theology:

Discussion of theology (

) is not for everyone, I tell you, not for everyone—it is no such inexpensive or effortless pur-

suit. Nor, I would add, is it for every occasion, or every audience; neither are all its aspects open to inquiry (

). It must be reserved for certain occasions, for certain audiences, and certain limits must be observed. It is not for all men, but only for those who have been tested and have found a sound footing in study, and, more importantly, have undergone, or at the very least are undergoing, purification of body and soul.46

The irritation evident throughout Gregory's orations is especially noticeable here. With whom was Gregory conducting this indirect debate? Most scholars have assumed that Gregory's remarks were aimed at the supporters of Aetius and Eunomius, that is, "heretics" and religious outsiders. This is a fair and reasonable assumption in light of suggestive, though inconclusive, ancient testimonia .47 Also, the internal evidence of a number of Gregory's theological arguments may suggest such an identification.48 Finally, the well-attested presence in Constantinople of those called Eunomians by their detractors is often noted in later histories and in a number of imperial laws in the Theodosian Code .

However, I argue that the question of the putative audience to whom Gregory addressed his admonition ought to remain an open

one.49 Nowhere in the orations do we find a direct reference to an enemy group defined by a common dogmatic position or by a religious label.50 Instead, Gregory's target audience comprised those who delighted in public disputation of theological issues. Though Eunomius' associates may have formed part of this group, they hardly accounted for the entire category. Gregory would not have been so concerned if the group boundaries were so unambiguously delineated. I acknowledge the many connections between "Eunomians" and Constantinople in later historical works and imperial laws, but maintain that the process of labeling a "heretical" group is highly problematic. The question that instigated the controversy between Basil and Eunomius—do the names of things signify their essences?—might well be asked of doctrinal labels and social entities. Modem historians who rely overmuch on the compendious catalogues of doctrinal tags generated by heresiologists such as Epiphanius, Filastrius, and Augustine run the risk of confusing these labels with social groups.51

Though the associates of Aetius and Eunomius epitomized for many orthodox Christians the trait of excessive dialectical questioning in matters of the divine, they were not alone in exhibiting intellectual curiosity and posing theological questions. According to Gregory, his Oratio 27 was addressed to those whose "cleverness is in words (

Gregory did not call these people Eunomians or Anomoeans, or invoke any other doctrinal label. Was he simply being circumspect, or was he most concerned with their deeds and traits? These people formed a cohesive social group insofar as they participated in the distinctive praxis of disputing; they also exhibited certain common character flaws. Gregory characterized these objectionable men as eloquent and proud to the point of hubris.53 Loquacious dialecticians,54 they devoted their time and energy to

setting and solving conundrums. They are like the promoters of wrestling-bouts (

) in the theaters, and not even the sort of bouts which are conducted in accordance with the rules (

) of the sport and lead to the victory of one of the antagonists, but the sort which are stage-managed to give the uncritical spectators (

) visual sensations and compel their applause.55

Like the promoters who moved wrestling from the palaestra into the public theaters (probably as a form of mud wrestling),56 these "questioners" showed no respect for rules and boundaries proper to the game. And like a gymnasiarch, a devoted guardian of the dignity of, the sport, Gregory railed against such activity spilling out into the streets. His fear that the social order was being upset by the improprieties of the questioners demonstrated a strong locative awareness of established boundaries:

Every square (

) in the city has to buzz with their arguments (

), every party must be made tedious by their boring nonsense . . . Even women in the drawing-room, that sanctuary of innocence, are assailed, and the flower of modesty is despoiled by this rushing into controversy (

).57

For Gregory, the popularity of debate opened up a Pandora's box in a city already known for the fluidity of its social boundaries, especially given the fact that the new aristocracy boasted diverse backgrounds and religious affiliations. Wanton disputing completely overturned this

fragile social order, even to the point of violating the sanctity of the female quarters!58

Thus dialectic questioning, a critical intellectual activity to some, was to others a disruption of the community's solidarity and sense of decorum.59 Questioners lured others into arguments by phrasing their questions (

After lamenting this social trend, which he felt powerless to stop, Gregory rhetorically asked his audience: "Why do you conjure up a crop of dialecticians (

The bishop attempted his own analysis of the origins of this phenomenon, attributing it to idle curiosity and a spirit of meddling, and accusing the perpetrators of polupragmosune . But meddlesome curiosity was in the eye of the beholder.62 What was he polupragmosune to one late antique Christian might have been legitimate theological inquiry to another, and historians should be wary about taking sides prematurely.

In a fiercely competitive environment that valued innovation and agonistic excellence, differing claims to knowledge were a means of structuring a dynamic community of individualists.63 Whether one ac-

cepted or tolerated these activities depended largely on one's social position and openness to competition. Claims to knowledge, especially to knowledge about the divine world, conferred authority on those who successfully established them.64

In terms of method, the explananda of this complex scenario are not why so many people were discussing the nature of God in a freewheeling fashion, but rather why some were particularly troubled by it and why they addressed the situation the way they did. In examining some of the strategies Gregory adopted to curb the phenomenon, we must note that, while the short-term effectiveness of his measures is far from clear, they made significant contributions to the subsequent Byzantine evaluation of the rational logos .

Credentialism

At issue between Gregory and those he criticized were the definition and validation of the Christian paideia that entitled one to philosophize authoritatively about the divine. Gregory imagined that the people he addressed styled themselves the true possessors of paideia , and that their misplaced smugness resulted from a deluded sense of their own accomplishments. He argued that the questioners possessed no credentials of serious education, that is, true paideia ; instead they asked difficult questions, an ability easily gained through cursory study of doctrine and philosophy.

Gregory opposed those who acquired for themselves, and who also helped others to acquire, the ability to ask acute theological questions not through a systematic training in philosophy but through the use of manuals and other shortcuts. They circumvented a system of long and difficult apprenticeship that cultivated a student's sense of social responsibility. Gregory asked these questioners why they interfered so willingly in the lives of others:

Why do you then try to mold other men into holiness overnight, appoint them theologians (

),65 and as it were, breathe learning into them (

), and thus produce ready-made any number of Councils of ignorant intellectuals? Why do

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you try to entangle your weaker brethren in your spider's webs, as if it were some brilliant feat?66

For Gregory, words were cheap when uttered irresponsibly. He therefore urged the adoption of bios , one's deeds or way of life, as a measuring stick for determining one's worthiness to philosophize about God. According to Gregory, the questioners were concerned only with words and cared little for the performance of "true Christian works" such as hospitality, fraternal affection, marital love, virginity, love of the poor, chanting of the Psalms, vigils, fasting, and prayer. In this regard, praxis compared favorably With vain discussions.67

In effect, Gregory was asserting that Christian philosophers must also be practicing ascetics. Purification of soul and body through meditation became a prerequisite for the contemplation of the divine, as they had been in the traditional training of philosophers. Because spiritual askesis or exercise required much leisure, the philosophizing of the divine fell to those who enjoyed otium or gentlemanly retirement:68 "

."69

Catechesis

No matter how persuasive his orations were, Gregory could not hope to triumph over this social tendency toward disputing by preaching alone. The true test came after the services when, in Christian homes, in the agora, and in the streets, people were confronted with "small questions" and tempted to enter into debates about the divine nature.

Because Gregory could not chaperon his listeners in all situations of controversy, nor realistically hope that they Would hold on to the pistis , credal formulation, and refuse to enter into controversy, he furnished them with ready-made replies.70 In Oratio 29, Gregory furnished his audience with precise statements, including syllogistic formulations, by which they could confound those who asked theological questions: "Yes, these are the replies one can use to put a brake upon this hasty

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argumentativeness (

), a hastiness that is dangerous in all matters, but especially in theological topics. To censure, of course, is a trivial task—anyone so minded can do it quite easily."71

Gregory took his catechetical task seriously, and exhorted his audience to comet his words to memory As Simonides of Ceos, poet and father of ancient mnemonics, had long ago pointed out, a well-ordered structure is salutary to retention;72 thus Gregory tried to make memorization easier for his listeners by keeping his statements concise and by building in some basic mnemonic deuces: "You want brief explanations here to avoid berg swept away by their plausible arguments, and we shall group these explanations in numbered sections (

) to aid the memory (

)."73

Even if Gregory felt confident that he could successfully fortify his community against the subversive potential of theological debates, he nevertheless lamented the situation. He wished that his catechetical instructions had not become necessary, because true Christians ought to find no delight in logical controversy:

This is the answer we make perforce to these posers of puzzles (

). Perforce—because Christian people (

: not just Christians, but the upholders of the

) find long-winded controversy (

) disagreeable and one Adversary enough for them. . . But may he who "expounds hard questions and solves difficulties," who puts it into our minds to untie the twisted knots of their strained dogmas, may he, above all, change these men and make them believers instead of logicians, Christians instead of what they are currently called (

).74

Though he too made use of logical arguments, Gregory did not want to be confused with dialecticians, whom he characterized as radical, self-seeking individualists. Further he reminded his audience that their

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pistis remained their best argument and last resort: here the double valence of the noun pistis , connoting both faith and credal formula, served Gregory's point. Holding on to the pistis was particularly important because debaters were deceptive to the point of robbing the bible for proof-texts (ten of which Gregory cited and refuted).

Learning

Throughout his orations, Gregory conceded grudgingly that curiosity and debate were a part of human nature. Activities expressing en-grained human traits could not be stopped in toto, only diverted like a flood.75 For Gregory, certain kinds of discussions were less perilous than others; to his restless Constantinopolitan audience he recommended speculating about the nature of the world, or the worlds, a relatively benign topic:

Do you continue to speak even after these charges? Can it be that nothing else matters for you, but your tongue must always rule you, and you cannot hold back words, which, once conceived, must be delivered? Well, there are plenty of other fields in which you can win fame. Direct your disease there, and you may do good. . . . [Y]ou wish to move in your own field, and fulfill your ambitions there: here also I will provide you with broad highways. Speculate about the Universe—or Universes, about Matter, the Soul, about Natures (good and evil) endowed with reason. . . . In these questions to hit the mark is not useless, to miss it is not dangerous.76

In Oratio 28, Gregory specifically drew a connection between the incomprehensibility of God and the natural world as an aide-mémoire prompting the beholder to praise God. In fact, the strategy of launching into an ekphrasis of the wonders of the cosmos was a deliberate diversionary strategy used to counter meddling.

It is noteworthy that Gregory drew much of his imagery in Oratio 28 from Basil's Hexaemeron , a set of sermons about the six days of creation delivered in Caesarea a few years earlier. This connection may explain why the genre of hexaemera gained popularity from the late fourth century onward.77 The rationale for introducing sophisticated scientific discussions of elements of the visible world, including man himself, into

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the ongoing Christian discourse had much to do with the concern over polupragmosune as curiosity and debate about theology were thought to generate conflicts and divisions among Christians. The Cappadocians, pushing to restrict understanding of human capacities, insisted that if people wanted to grasp the divine nature, they must first grasp the nature of created things.78 In a letter wrongly attributed to Basil, the author (probably his younger brother Gregory of Nyssa, who also wrote De opificio hominis ) argued against those who claimed to possess the way and method (

and

) for gaining divine knowledge (

). Arguing that the normal progression of knowledge was from lower forms to higher, he fashioned a test for those who claimed to know the supramundane: "Now let him who boasts of having apprehended the nature of things actually existing interpret the nature of the most insignificant of phenomena. For instance, let him tell what is the nature of the ant. . . ."79

To know God one must first know his creation. This emphasis on scientific knowledge as a prerequisite (though not the only one) for speculation about the divine effectively curtailed debate. Elsewhere, Basil of Caesarea even more forcefully attempted to dampen curiosity concerning the divine essence:

To know God is to keep His commandments. Surely you do not mean, then, that the essence of God should be investigated thoroughly? Or supramundane things searched out? Or the invisible objects pondered over? "I know mine and mine know me." It should be enough for you to know that there is a good shepherd who gave his soul for His sheep. The knowledge of God is comprised within these limits. How big God is, what His limits are, and of what essence He is, such questions as these are dangerous on the part of the interrogator; they are as unanswerable on the part of the interrogated. Consequently they should be taken care of with silence (

).80

Mystification

For Gregory, polupragmosune or "meddlesome curiosity" was a moral flaw that ran the danger (

) of turning the divine musterion into a technudrion or a "little finicking profession,"81 a flaw that he feared was

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not curable by friendly persuasion.82 Thus he represented the nature of the divine essence as a mystery ringed by taboos. Enumerating the necessary qualities of a theologian, he remarked that "for one who is not pure to lay hold of pure things is dangerous (

), just as it is for weak eyes to look at the sun's brightness."83 Like the emperor Theodosius I, Gregory asserted that theological discussion was an activity fraught with danger:84 failure to do justice to the exalted topic could incur divine punishment.85

In Oratio 28, Gregory employed the analogy of Moses' ascent of Mount Sinai to spell out the perils of divine contemplation:

I eagerly ascend the mount—or, to speak truer, ascend in eager hope matched with anxiety for my frailty—that I may enter the cloud and company with God (for such is God's bidding). Is any an Aaron? He shall come up with me. He shall stand hard by, should he be willing to wait, if need be, outside the cloud. Is any a Nadab, an Abihu, or an elder? He too shall ascend, but stand further off, his place matching his purity. Is any of the crowd, unfit as they are, for so sublime contemplation? Utterly unhallowed?—Let him not come near, it is dangerous (

).86

The locus of the divine was a sanctum, a place both holy and inspiring of dread. It could not be approached (

) by those who were not worthy of its glory.87 At the center of this vortex of holiness was a cloud endowed with numinous presence,88 the composition of which no one could presume to know.

Note also the hierarchical principle implicit in Gregory's portrayal of the ascent. In the past, the prophets and high priests had constituted the privileged few worthy to approach the sanctum; in late antiquity, the bishops and priests were the chosen elite.89 This new priestly caste coveted the control of the access to the divine: if they themselves could not reach the heights, then neither could those less worthy.

Throughout these orations, concern about the popularity of theo-

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logical discussion overlaid Gregory's ideas about the mystery of the divine essence. He made it plain that, by outstripping the traditional apophatic claims of philosophers, he deliberately increased the odds against speaking about God:

To know God is hard, to describe him impossible (

), as a pagan philosopher taught—subtly suggesting, I think, by the word "difficult" his own apprehension, yet avoiding our test of it by claiming it was impossible to describe. No—to tell of God is not possible (

), so my argument runs, but to know him is even less possible (

).90

Clearly, Gregory was not immediately successful in propagating his views, although eventually his stand prevailed. He made other appeals—for instance, reminding his audience that, with the victorious and threatening Goths roaming not very far from the imperial city, Christians ought to forsake divisiveness of all kinds,91 including freewheeling theological discussion motivated by meddlesome curiosity.92

The unsettled state of affairs, and the rampant theological controversies that it aggravated, saddened a man who preferred to distance himself from the center of intrigues and power struggles. After his deposition in 381, Gregory retired to Cappadocia to a simpler and friendlier world, away from a city polluted by the din of disputation. He professed to have found peace at last in a retreat safe from "evil assemblies and arguments."93 In a letter to his successor Nectarius (dated late 382)—a polite personal commendation bearing little news—Gregory reflected

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with satisfaction on the calm life he rediscovered outside the maelstrom of Constantinople: "Affairs with us are as usual: we are quiet without strife and disputes, since above all else we honor the privilege of silence which is without peril (

)."94

Gregory had come to prize quiescent silence. In words that summarized his long and bitter experience with controversy, he said, "It is better to remain silent, than to speak with malice."95

John Chrysostom on the Incomprehensible God (Antioch, 386/87)

Gregory's advice and bitter. experience were perhaps not lost on Nectarius, an eastern senator and Constantinople's urban prefect when he was appointed orthodox bishop in 381.96 Nectarius' episcopate lasted considerably longer than Gregory's, ending with his death in 397. It is attractive to imagine that his longevity had to do with his much maligned "mediocrity": having said and done nothing worthy of note, he thus occasioned no controversy.

His successor John Chrysostom was not a man of few words, nor one to adopt a stance of silent neutrality. Nicknamed "the golden mouth," he had delivered sermons on the subject of the incomprehensibility of God, twelve of which are extant.97 He had already aired some of his views on the mystical transcendence of the divine essence prior to his

stay in Constantinople, having done so while still a priest in Antioch (he was ordained in 386). It is likely that a number of his sermons on the incomprehensibility of the divine essence were preached in the small local churches of Antioch in 386 and 387, only a few years after Gregory of Nazianzus had delivered his so-called "Theological Orations" in Constantinople.98 Other sermons by Chrysostom on the same topic have been associated with the time of his eventful tenure as patriarch of Constantinople eleven years later.99 It is the former, Antiochene corpus that I examine in this chapter because there the basic patterns of arguments were established.

At the beginning of the first sermon addressing the topic of divine mystery, the priest Chrysostom commended his audience repeatedly for their fine, orderly behavior (

To whom was Chrysostom directing this diatribe? He rarely made reference in his sermons to adversaries except in rhetorical fashion: "What do you have to say? (

sumptuous individuals to be exclusively Anomoean, he was reticent to say so.107

Chrysostom was not addressing strangers. He revealed that those who claimed gnosis regularly attended his services because they enjoyed the oratory.108 This flattering fact may have inclined Chrysostom to moderate his criticisms. He also said that if he were harsher and more pointed in his remarks, those whom he wished to persuade would simply stay away from church.109 He thus avoided directly condemning them, instead underscoring the fact that he meant to inflict no harm but to heal their sick, diseased minds.110

Chrysostom exhorted the whole audience to exercise restraint in its dealings with the questioners, whom he proposed ought to be treated with care as if afflicted patients.111 Right-thinking Christians might even attempt to approach their sick peers for conversation, with a view to saving them from the disease of error, like wise and competent physicians (

The virtue of headlong flight was a constant refrain of Chrysostom's. Christians were to flee the craze of disputing: "

must call upon God's mercy116 rather than yield to the temptation of defending his beliefs. He must run away—"

Meddling versus Faith

Like Gregory of Nazianzus, Chrysostom expressed deep concern about a widespread tendency to meddle (

) in forbidden knowledge of the divine nature.119 For Chrysostom, pistis alone protected against such prying curiosity because it set boundaries without which an investigation could easily degenerate into an infinite regress of questions and responses:120

For they invent and meddle (

) in everything so that

is excluded from the understanding (

) of their listeners. . . . [W]henever God reveals something, it is necessary to accept what is said in faith (

), not to pry impetuously (

).121

Elsewhere, Chrysostom repeated these themes:

While (

) you would find few people anxious (

) about faith (

) and political constitution (

), most of them instead (

) are meddling (

) and investigating (

) into questions which one cannot discover and which vex God.122

Such unchecked curiosity angered God and brought down chastisement (

) in the same way that the disbelief of Zachariah was punished by the affliction of blindness.123 The asking of how and why—like the use of sophistic devices, syllogistic reasoning, and the posing of zeteseis —was not conducive to advancement in the faith but rather obscured the anagogical path.124

Yet to advocate strict adherence to the words in the pistis was to risk the mistaken notion that merely grasping a credal formula, whether

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orthodox or not, made one a Christian.125 Chrysostom faulted the questioners for paying too little attention to correct living, which he thought ought to accompany the profession of the correct pistis .126 Virtue was to be pursued by the performance of deeds (

), not by arguing:127 exercise of reason wrought social fractiousness, whereas charity fostered harmony.128 Chrysostom urged Christians to become "fools for the sake of Christ" (I Corinthians 4:10): "Restrain our own reasoning, and empty our mind of secular learning, in order to provide a mind swept dean for the reception of the divine words."129

At another place, Chrysostom explained why pistis provided a safe haven: "

."130 Here, as in Gregory of Nazianzus' orations and elsewhere, the multivalence of the word pistis as either an attitude of holy submission or a professed creed must be kept in mind.

Chrysostom, again like Gregory of Nazianzus, was keenly aware that the value of his exhortations rested on events that were to take place beyond the walls of the church, where his listeners faced challenging questions in the course of their daily lives.131 He too provided solutions to a number of especially popular conundrums in phrases conducive to easy memorization. And he too apologized for arguing back, explaining that the verbal weapons he provided were hurtful only to those who refused to demonstrate goodwill and were already inclined to contentiousness.132

The Incomprehensible God and Liturgical Worship

The priest Chrysostom tried every available means to combat rampant theological discussion. He elaborated the idea that knowledge of the

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mysterious divine essence was beyond the limits of human cognition.133 Only the Son knew the Father; other divine beings (

), including angels, did not have complete knowledge of God's ousia .134 In this present context, this statement can only be read as an attempt to deflect curiosity from the subject and to deny competence from people who might otherwise be tempted to discuss and debate the issues.135

Chrysostom presented a paradox to strengthen his case: while angels and other divine beings superior to human beings collectively glorified and worshiped God with fear and trembling, men below impiously tried to pry into the secrets of the divine.136 Chrysostom painted a striking, hyperbolic contrast:

Did you see how great is the holy dread in heaven and how great the arrogant presumption (

) here below? The angels in heaven give him glory; these on earth carry on meddlesome investigations (

). In heaven they honor and praise him; on earth we find curious busybodies (

). In heaven they veil their eyes; on earth the busybodies are obstinate (

) and shamelessly try to hold their eyes fixed on his ineffable glory. Who would not groan, who would not weep for them because of this ultimate madness and folly of theirs?137

For Chrysostom, the only proper attitude to assume when approaching the divine presence was humility to the point of fear and trembling.138 At a minimum, he expected an appropriate spirit of deference before God's superior holiness and wisdom.

A significant aspect of this viewpoint was the implicit comparison between the clergy and the mediating angels,139 whose exalted status insulated them from the criticism of those below.140 Priests, like angels,

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mediated between God and ordinary mortals, making possible the spiritual ascent by stages of the faithful.141

The dread inspired by the numinous presence was a commonplace in Chrysostom's sermons.142 Along with other fourth-century leaders such as Cyril of Jerusalem, he gave this theme—rooted in speculation about the heavenly temple in the Jewish tradition—decisive impetus in Christian eucharistic services.143

In the face of the overwhelmingly unknowable divine presence, human beings were not entirely bereft of response. They could react most fittingly through common worship. Chrysostom stressed the importance of group prayer and worship, which angels and divine beings continually rendered to God, and which moreover beautifully exemplified. communal harmony. The edifying image of humble, united worship was a potent antidote to arrogant, individual questioning.

A Disciplined Logos ?

Had Gregory of Nazianzus delivered his "Theological Orations" after Theodosius I issued his edict cunctos populos to the people of Constantinople on 28 February 380, he would have received the authority to take concrete actions against his theological rivals, perhaps even to take possession of their churches with the help of the imperial soldiery.144 But even the state's coercive powers would not have helped Gregory realize these goals145 because the questioners were not confined to a rival group with a distinct institutional presence.146 Gregory's complaint was addressed to an all-pervasive social practice: even rescripts against specific

"heresies" obtained from well-disposed emperors were of little use in putting an end to curiosity and debate. The only maneuver he could make in this regard was to label the phenomenon as categorically and exclusively Eunomian, and hence heretical, regardless of whether all who posed questions saw themselves as Eunomians.

It is instructive to contrast the concreteness of the concern about debate with the abstract and moral—one might even say ideological—way in which the issue was argued. Ideological mystification was suited to those in a weak position to enforce their will, that is, those whose prescriptive vision was not matched by their real disposable resources.

Gregory's orations, Chrysostom's sermons, and the phenomena discussed in Chapter 4 illustrate the porosity of the boundaries that separated the so-called questioners from orthodox Christians. For some, the issue at hand was the reality of constant "defections": to secure the border regions against "attacks" and "subversion," and to shore up the gradual erosion of dogmatic solidarity, Chrysostom used the only effective means he possessed, ideological mystification. Elsewhere, he rhetorically demonized Jews and Judaism when he found himself powerless to stop his parishioners from attending synagogue services. He likewise preached against public spectacles or theoria when sermon attendance dropped because of the theater and hippodrome.

Although the Byzantine tradition later bestowed great authoritative status on Gregory and Chrysostom, their sermons initially were issued from a position of weakness. Many of the advocates of divine mystery were preaching priests and bishops engaged in the task of maintaining the day-to-day solidarity of communities against the threats of those whose claims to knowledge created a two-tiered system of elites and the masses.147 As a form of sermo humilis , the mystification of the divine essence helped to delegitimize a brand of discursive reasoning considered socially divisive.148 The philosopher Themistius, according to

Sozomen, expressed the matter somewhat differently.149 In an oration before the Arian emperor Valens, he argued that the Deity had made Himself not so easily known so that people, robbed of clear understanding, would respond with pious fear and the glorification of divine greatness and providence.

Ideological inculcation was superior to physical coercion because an internalized belief need not be policed from without. A transcendent God shrouded in mystery naturally deflected meddlesome curiosity, because when people realized that they could not know Him they would stop inquiring. Such a belief also helped to preserve social solidarity and order by undermining the legitimacy of any differential claim to precise knowledge about the divine essence; as Gibbon well knew, "Where the subject lies so far beyond our reach, the difference between the highest and the lowest of human understandings may indeed be calculated as infinitely small."150 Henceforth, claims to virtue and consideration within Christian communities were to be based on the hierarchical factors of birth and ecclesiastical rank.

By emphasizing the vertical gulf between man and his creator, human weakness could be turned into the social glue of earthly communities. The visible manifestation of this came through in liturgical worship, art, and architecture, where the contemplation or theoria of the divine was displaced by a communal theoria of the created cosmos.151

The Cappadocians' insistence on the value of the visible universe for divine contemplation arose from a specific controversial situation, but later led to the worship of icons, which were believed to have anagogical value, especially for the illiterate.152

In the high politics and theology of late antiquity, the loci of the exalted increasingly receded from the grasp of the common man. The inner sanctum of the heavenly temple was described with the same language as was applied to the innermost chambers of the palace (guarded by soldiers from the imperial scholae ) in the so-called "Vision of Dorotheus" contained in Papyrus Bodmer 29.153 God, like Rome and the emperor himself, was presented as the object of worship and not as the object of theoretical speculation.154 When access to God and emperor became something only granted through the condescension (

"All of us together, for one alone is hopeless," The congregation acted out its appointed role in the liturgical service by following and

responding to the words of the celebrant, its unity of purpose manifest in its unity of action.

The intellectual or philosophical theoria by which individuals strove to grasp the divine had given way to a more edifying communal theoria . Christians rallied unreservedly behind their bishops, worshiping God in humility, together offering up prayers, chants of antiheretical doxologies, and burnt incense. Beyond the narrow walls of the church, in the broader world still ruled over by tyche rather than by divine providence, other forms of theoria flourished, resoundingly deaf to Christian protestations. There charioteers skillfully piloted their horses around the spina in the hippodrome, cheered on by energetic and devoted crowds, and the spectacles of the theater remained a staple of public life.157 There too the rational logos lingered, marginalized, undefeated.

Toward the Council of Nicaea

Soon after Constantine established himself as the sole master of the oikoumene after defeating Licinius in September 324, he called for a congress of his Christian subjects, particularly those from the newly incorporated Greek east. This first universal council, originally planned to meet in Ancyra, eventually took place in the Bithynian city of Nicaea. Though it would be speculative to wonder whether Constantine anticipated the subsequent import of the council and its enduring reputation

as a touchstone of orthodoxy, it is easy to see that the emperor had more immediate concerns. He called for the council to meet in May 325, just two months prior to the celebrations of his own vicennalia , the twentieth year of his accession, which were scheduled to occur at nearby Nicomedia, the civic rival of Nicaea.1

Many Christians journeyed to the council at public expense using the cursus publicus both to greet their new patron and to celebrate the good fortunes of church and state, as the council was to last until the end of July and overlap with the vicennalia .2 Though some rancor existed among the participants in the opening days of the council, a more festive mood soon prevailed when, at Constantine's promptings, most attempted to demonstrate goodwill in public. In an irenic gesture, Constantine publicly burned the libelli that many Christians had brought for the purpose of accusing each other before their sovereign.3

Somber though the business of confronting Christian "heresy" was, it constituted only a portion of the council's agenda. Neither the Arian party of Eusebius of Nicomedia nor the partisans of Alexander of Alexandria dominated the council of more than three hundred bishops, the vast majority of whom, especially those from the Latin west, were not as well-schooled as these two camps and had no strong interest in the prevailing theological controversies. Further, this council, unlike later imperial councils with extant invitation lists, included not only bishops and priests but also those outside the ecclesiastical hierarchy, such as confessors bearing the stigmata of persecution and other lay Christians.4 It is conceivable that pagan philosophers such as Iamblichus' student Sopater (who visited the court of Constantine in 327) also attended the meeting. In the final tally, nonpartisans were a significant presence at the council.5

In Constantine's imperial summons, the reason for the council was vague, perhaps deliberately so.6 The emperor indeed sought to reconcile the feuding parties in the so-called Arian dispute, but it is not dear how he thought the council could contribute to this goal. We can guess more confidently what the council was not supposed to do. In earlier attempts to mediate the controversy, the emperor had expressed deep dissatisfaction with philosophical dialectic as a sophistic technique that allowed the worse argument to prevail over the better one. From this we may reasonably deduce that he ruled out open dialectical debate on the contested issues from the councils program.7

Perhaps confusion as to the aims of the council explains why no detailed stenographic records of the proceedings appear to have been kept, as was done at other important church synods.8 The precedents of previous ecclesiastical and secular proceedings, together with the dictates of practical wisdom, would have demanded that some record be maintained, even published, had the predominant goal of the council been to secure a formal refutation of a particular theological position.9 Thanks largely to the tireless and painstaking efforts of Otto Seeck, Hans Opitz, and other modem scholars engaged in the task of historical reconstruction, we now possess fuller and much more critically assessed knowledge about the Council of Nicaea than has been available since

the mid- to late-fourth century.10 Yet even now the exact procedure at Nicaea remains a vexed, and seemingly insoluble, question.11

It was certainly not for lack of interest that contemporaries neglected to consult and pass on the records of this council. Many factors contributed to the fact that the meetings proceedings quickly became obscure even as its outcomes proved (historically and juridically, if not theologically) important.

Though Arius' position and a handful of lesser bishops were condemned, there were few clear winners at Nicaea.12 Afterward, the dissatisfied parties gave their own conflicting interpretations of the council to promote their own interests.13 Much of this partisan literature was too deeply invested with immediate polemics and apologetics to be relevant to posterity.14

Because the council arose from the failure of discussion, persuasion, and the normative exercise of authority to achieve peaceful resolutions to disputes in a number of important eastern congregations,15 subsequent overemphasis on unity rendered a set of acta unnecessary and undesirable. By contrast, the "products" of the council, the canons even more so than the symbol, were seen by some (especially those who championed a consensual process of decision making) as infinitely more important than the precise processes that led to them because they stood for unity and order.16

Even so, the Nicene symbol,17 which subsequently became the cornerstone of orthodox definition, was not fully crystallized until the

Council of Constantinople in 381.18 Furthermore, the reaffirmation of the Nicene formulation as a criterion for orthodoxy in 381, after the promulgation of more than a dozen anti-Nicene creeds between 341 and 360,19 obscured the less edifying aspects of the first general council (the effects of which were effectively annulled after Constantine's death in 337) by focusing on Nicaea's product rather than on its context and process. The reinterpretation of Nicaea 325 in light of Constantinople 381 was echoed by the recasting of Constantine, the patron of the first general council, into the image of Theodosius I, the patron of the second council.20 Because of this dialectical relationship, the history of the early fourth century can only be seen through the refracting lens of the late fourth.

By the last quarter of the fourth century, the ranks of the antagonists of the earlier controversies and those who attended Nicaea had been considerably thinned by old age and sickness. The death of Athanasius, who attended the council as a young priest at the side of his bishop Alexander, marked the advent of the post-Nicene age. With all eyewitnesses dead, legends about Nicaea began to emerge.

At the time of the death of Theodosius I in 395, a new generation of Christians born after 325 had already grown to a ripe old age in an empire largely tolerant, if not always decidedly supportive, of the Christian cause. Local traditions, sacramental and liturgical practices, and theological tracts probably kept alive fragmented memories of this past, but there existed no coherent account like Eusebius' Historia ecclesiastica to detail the perceived triumph of Christianity under the reign of Constantine.21

After Eusebius brought his grand processional narrative to a dose with Licinius' defeat by Constantine in 324, the genre of ecclesiastical

history was left largely untended for two to three generations.22 Then, from the end of the fourth century into the fifth, a blossoming of historical writings interweaved the story of the Christian church with affairs of state and the formerly fallow field yielded an abundant harvest.

The obvious point of departure for these new histories was the reign of Constantine, the Augustus who had done so much to end official persecution against Christians and to promote their interests. Eusebius, having somewhat compromised himself with questionable theological views and by his involvement in the proceedings at Nicaea, had prudently stopped short of the early Arian disputes in his Historia ecclesiastica . Thus to others fell the task of explaining why, as the Christian church approached its moment of triumph, bitter divisions arose within its ranks, with the consequences that remained dear to any casual observer in the fifth century.

One of the first of this new generation of histories was Gelasius of Caesarea's Historia ecclesiastica , composed circa 386-400. It is no longer extant, but fragments have been gleaned from later works.23 Gelasius' history quickly became the basis for a number of other works, notably the tenth and eleventh books of Rufinus of Aquileia's Historia ecclesiastica , which augmented his translation into Latin of Eusebius' history. Other works soon followed.

Because Nicaea was where Christian leaders from throughout the newly united empire met their patron and self-proclaimed koinos episkopos ,24 the council naturally became a focal point for later Christians attempting to understand their past. These legends about Nicaea are inherently interesting to the modem historian, not because accurate information can be mined from them but because they tell us much about the period in which they arose and circulated.

In the following pages, I examine the multiform story of an encounter between a confessor and a philosopher at Nicaea. In the four major versions of the story contained in the later histories (dating from the late

fourth to the fifth century), a "debate" occurs either during or before the formal session of the council. Discounting slight variations for the moment, I can summarize the story as follows: There came to pass a hotly contested debate between a polytheistic philosopher and the assembled bishops at Nicaea. The philosopher was extremely adept at dialectical disputation, and none of the bishops was able to gain advantage over him. After a long series of exchanges, the precise nature or content of which is not given in any of the sources, the stalemate was finally ended when an unlearned and elderly confessor stepped forward to confront the philosopher with a terse credal formula, and simply asked his stunned opponent whether he believed the statement or not. The philosopher assented to the truth of the old man's words, admitted defeat, and (in some versions) accepted baptism at the confessor's hands.

The story appears for the first time in an extant source in Rufinus' Historia ecclesiastica , but is conspicuously absent from more contemporary accounts such as the writings of Eustathius of Antioch,25 Eusebius' Vita Constantini and Letter to His Community about the Council of Nicaea, 26 and Athanasius' slightly later Epistula de decretis Nicaenae synodi. 27 Thus, when we approach this episode in Rufinus, and later in the writings of Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomen, and Gelasius of Cyzicus, we are faced with a complicated historiographical and historical problem.

The story is almost certainly spurious—our first extant attestation is a Latin source composed seventy years after Nicaea—yet it is significant because it crystallized and foregrounded a profound bias against the adoption of public dialectical disputation as a means of settling Christian theological differences. Socrates Scholasticus, whose version departs most significantly from the others', blamed the public discussion of theology for the divisions within the church of his time.28 Though I do not rule out the stated arguments against debate in these various accounts, I propose that the polemic must be read in light of such post-Nicene developments as the Anomoean controversy and the social and urban conditions of the late fourth (Rufinus), mid-fifth (Socrates, Sozomen), and late-fifth (Gelasius of Cyzicus) centuries.

I will show that, partly because of its placement within the larger works and partly because of the elevation of certain forms of authority

at the expense of others, the story functioned to valorize particular social processes tied to particular social structures and assumptions about power. The story expressed the decisive rejection of a certain form of social contact with religious outsiders, and the preference for the irenic ideology of the mia ekklesia , the unified church of Christ, where disputes were alien and diabolical intrusions.29

My examination of how this debate was narrated by the four writers secures a framework for discussing the way this bias operated in the larger context of their histories. Most of the fifth-century histories picked Up the thread of the story where Eusebius' Historia ecclesiastica left off, and the opening narratives of the council effectively framed the rest of the accounts. By weaving the story of this debate into their reports of a council where many charismatic Christian heroes and bishops came together to express Christian unity (

The only previous study of this episode that examines all the variants is E. Jugie's eight-page article, "La dispute des philosophes païens avec les pères de Niche," published in 1925.30 As the title implies, Jugie is primarily interested in the account in Gelasius of Cyzicus' Syntagma (see later in this chapter) and describes the other versions only in passing. This is unfortunate, for the shifting shape of the multiform story reveals much about how fifth-century people in different stations of life used the context of Nicaea, around which a tradition had already grown up,31 to discuss their reception of public dialectical disputation in a Christian culture.

The Historiae Ecclesiasticae of Gelasius of Caesarea and Rufinus of Aquileia

Rufinus says in the preface to his Historia ecclesiastica that he translated the Historia ecclesiastica of Eusebius into Latin at the urgings of Chromatius of Aquileia, with the hope that the product would comfort fellow

Christians at Aquileia, who at that time (circa 401) were threatened by Alaric's Gothic incursions.32 Scholarly discussion of the relationship between Rufinus' rendition and Eusebius' original is involved and need not be rehearsed here at length.33 The options of source dependency are best laid out in E. Honigmann's "Gélase de Césarèe et Rufin d'Aquilée," though his own hypothesis of an independent Rufinus-Gelasius source (based on Gelasius of Cyzicus' attestation of

simplicity.35 However, any solution to the source dilemma must assume a number of intermediate compilations and sources now lost, a fact that suggests a greater contemporary demand for the history's information than would be the case if one assumed a single line of transmission.

As Rufinus wrote in Latin some seventy-five years after Nicaea,36 it is tempting to dismiss the story as a spurious invention. But there are some indications that Rufinus may have adapted the story from an earlier, and therefore potentially more reliable, source, namely, Gelasius of Caesarea's Historia ecclesiastica .37 Interestingly, this Gelasius, the uncle of Cyril of Jerusalem, was also the author of a work against the Anomoeans (now lost), according to Photius.38

In the present discussion, I set aside the question of source dependency to examine Rufinus' redactional Tendenz , which is significant even if his version was lifted from traditional material. As I will illustrate later, there are many resonances between the way Rufinus redacted Eusebius' Historia ecclesiastica and his treatment in the tenth and eleventh books of his own Historia ecclesiastica .

Books 10 and 11 of Rufinus' Historia Ecclesiastica

Book 10 of Rufinus' Historia ecclesiastica began with the circumstances leading to the Council of Nicaea. The episode of the convocation of the council hinged on the underlying assumption that the protagonists were divided into two camps: Christian priests on one side, and distinguished philosophers and dialecticians—whether all pagans or Christians is not dear from the text—on the other. Immediately, Rufinus explicitly advertised his wish to illustrate the virtue of simplicity in matters of faith:

Françoise Thélamon, whose exemplary reading of this story from Rufinus' Historia ecclesiastica appears within the context of her broader study of the relationship between pagans and Christians, sees this episode as a complete fabrication as well as a typological drama: "All the actors are nameless, none of the protagonists has real existence inasmuch as each represents a type: the confessor, the pagan philosopher, the bishop-dialectician" (Tousles acteurs sont anonymes, chacun des protagonistes n'a d'existence, qu'autant qu'il représente un type: le confesseur, le philosophe païen, les évêques dialecticiens).41 For her, the tale is a moral one about the encounter of simplicitas fidei and ars dialectica .

Indeed, Rufinus throughout portrays skill in dialectic as a moral flaw associated with other value-laden words: dolus, fraus, callidior, simulatio .42 But Rufinus did not brand dialectic as categorically un-Christian, because he asserted that many of the bishops debating with the philosophers were themselves well versed in the dialectical art.43

For Rufinus, the proper use of dialectic depended on the practitioner's mental attitude, his way of life, and the immediate context of the debate. Rufinus' praise of Didymus the Blind openly proclaimed without apology the dialectical art as one of the many skills in which the Alexandrian excelled.44 Similarly, though Rufinus in his Apologia (401) criticized Jerome for his use of Porphyry's Eisagoge , he did not deny his own expertise in the matter45 but emphasized that knowledge of dialectic should be balanced by the virtue of asceticism.46

A proper understanding of Rufinus' version of the episode lies partly in Eusebius' Historia ecclesiastica : the two more books that Rufinus appended to his translation of Eusebius' work not only advanced the narrative to the end of the reign of Theodosius I, but also served as a commentary on the Constantinian past for a late-fourth-century Latin-speaking audience that did not have access to the original. In particular, book 7 of Eusebius' Historia ecclesiastica containing the famous description of the debate between Paul of Samosata and Malchion in Antioch provides a relevant basis for comparison.47

According to Eusebius, after a number of preliminary meetings of bishops gathered from every direction, a final council was held.48 There Paul of Samosata, derided by Eusebius as no bishop but a sophist and a quack (

The above is my translation based on the Greek text of Eusebius' Historia ecclesiastica . Rufinus' Latin translation, apart from stylistic differences, contains two main changes that are noteworthy and telling,51 shown here in italics:

While Rufinus used the ablative absolute (excipientibus notariis ) to render Eusebius' genitive absolute (episemeiomenon tachugraphon ), his placement of the phrase significantly understates the importance of this measure to Malchion's eventual success. Rufinus instead chose to augment Eusebius' account in ways that conform to the Tendenz already established in his treatment of the Nicene debate discussed earlier. First, Rufinus consistently underscored the vital importance of moral character and ascetic attainments (omnibus virtutibus adornato ); second, he made it seem that permission to refute erroneous views must be obtained from proper episcopal authority: "The disputatio with Paul is thus granted (permittitur ) by the entire council of bishops."52

This implicit restriction on the freedom to debate even a known heretic bespeaks the deep gulf between Rufinus' hierarchizing ecclesi-

astical world in the late fourth century and the more autonomous, fluid Christian communities of Origen's and even Arius' time described so well recently by Rowan Williams—when the importance of charismatic figures considerably overshadowed that of church officeholders.53 Indeed, we certainly do not expect to find debates in which anyone could intervene at will, although Rufinus' confessor at Nicaea requested the floor from all present (poscit ab omnibus locum ) less in obedience to the protocols of church disputations than in acknowledgment of his own unsuitability for agonistic public debate.

A disputation was a war of words in which a simplex vir was normally a source of embarrassment and a liability: this presupposition was stressed in Rufinus' account as well as in later versions of the story. That a theological debate was an event appropriate only for a select few, preferably ordained and educated priests, would have struck a familiar chord with the Aquileian Christians to whom Rufinus was writing. The imposing Ambrose of Milan, the prime mover behind the Council of Aquileia of 381, frustrated his opponent Palladius by arranging for a restricted debate in which only priests were allowed.54

Returning to the debate between Paul and Malchion and the light it might shed on the Nicene debate, we note that an important theme of both accounts is the impossibility of defeating even indubitably erroneous opponents by logical argumentation alone. No elenchos came about at Nicaea because of the philosopher's crafty ability to argue himself out of fight spots: "Ubi maxime putaretur adstrictus, velut anguis lubricus elaberetur." The eventual outcome was all the more ironic and meaningful in that it required the unlooked-for intervention of a humble confessor, who prevailed because of, not despite, his sancta simplicitas. 55

This, therefore, was a poignant story for readers who might find themselves tempted into disputing with other Christians or pagans using the art of dialectic. Fancy rhetorical tricks were not only inappropriate tools for the settling of differences among Christians but also unreliable weapons with which to confront heretics or unbelievers even for skilled practitioners like Malchion and some of the bishops at Nicaea. Jerome, in 383, before his bitter falling out with Rufinus, regarded so-

phistic arguments and logical acumen as no real defense against the attacks of heretics.56

For Rufinus, even records of discussions between Christians were unedifying for Christian readers. In Eusebius' Historia ecclesiastica , Malchion specifically arranged to have his debate with Paul noted by stenographers, presumably so that the exchange could be transcribed and disseminated later on. But Rufinus was altogether reluctant to report debates, and not only the understandably embarrassing intra-Christian ones. For example, in his Historia monachorum he pointedly left out the discussions of his friend Evagrius of Pontus with pagan philosophers in Alexandria, discussions that clearly existed in his main source, the anonymous Greek Historia monachorum. 57

Guillaumont's analysis of Rufinus' description of Evagrius, based on a comparison of the Greek and Latin texts of the Historia monachorum , reveals a consistent editorial bias: "Rufin met moins l'accent sur la science et les activités philosophiques d'Evagre et insiste d'avantage sur ses vertus."58 Rufinus legitimized his narrative of the Council of Nicaea by enveloping it in the palpable presence of divine pleasure in men of God such as Paphnutius and Spyridon, whose virtutes were visibly exhibited in the mirabilia that they effected.59

Here we witness a shift of emphasis in the definition of virtue. Rufinus' cultural hero was no longer Eusebius' learned, shrewd but faithful Christian presbyter; instead, he was the inexperienced and hence faithful confessor: a simplicissimae naturae vir. 60 The confessors simplicity was singled out as a moral exemplum for other Christians to contemplate. Implicitly, Rufinus argued that simplicitas was not only a noble trait but

a pragmatic one, an effective response to opponents and questioners. The best answer to others' taunting challenges was also the simplest one: to recite the words of a creed and ask one's opponent to assent to its truth. One was not to debate but to preach, repeating after the confessor: "O philosopher, in the name of Jesus Christ, listen to the truth."

The lack of reciprocity between what the philosopher was asking and what the confessor said in response is almost absolute. The confessor was decidedly not adhering to the rules of disputation. Thélamon observes that, at this point, "on est passé d'une démarche intellectuelle àune experience religieuse, de la discussion à la conversion."61 Whether her implication that the philosopher underwent a religious conversion can find support in Rufinus' description is not clear—it can be read as intellectual enlightenment as well. Even so, the eventual conversion of the philosopher became a feature that emerged with marked emphasis in later variants.62

Rufinus' portrayal of this scenario is consistent with his advice to Christians concerning the unshakable core of religious belief, the kernel of truth that a Christian must accept without question: "That God is the Father of His only Son Our Lord is something we ought to believe in rather than debate on. Nor is it permitted for a slave to debate the origins of the Master." (Credendus est ergo Deus esse Pater unici Filii sui Dominis nostri, non discutiendus. Neque enim fas est seruo de natalibus domini disputare ).63 In contrast, busybody meddling into the secrets of the divine mystery was a tricky and dangerous business: "De Deo etiam uera dicere periculosum est."64 One did better to embrace the virtues of humility and simplicity of heart. When interrogated by a polytheist as to the precise manner in which one believed in Christ, one ought to respond simply and straightforwardly, without apology or embarrassment. This was the advice given to Palladius at the Council of Aquileia in 381: "But you will have to declare the liberty of your faith in simplicity. If a nonbeliever were to demand from you in what manner you

believed in Christ, you ought not to feel embarrassed to confess it" (Sed deb[e]bis fidei tuae simpliciter prodere libertatem. Si ate gentilis exigeret quemadmodum in Cr(istu)[m cr]ederes, c]onfiteri erubescere non deb[eres]).65

This simplicitas christiana was based on steadfast adherence to a recited creed,66 and entailed the good sense to know which topics were fit for discussion and which were out of bounds. Even when challenged, common Christians were not to be lured into debate over the central axioms of the faith. In this respect, ordinary Christians had much to learn from the athletes of God, whose presence in Nicaea was treated as a central theme in Rufinus' Historia ecclesiastica as well as in later histories. Among these living exemplars, Paphnutius and Spyridon stood out; they also dominated Rufinus' Nicene narrative to an extent that can only be partly explained by Rufinus' profound interest in heroic Christians, or by his reliance on received traditions.

Rufinus regarded credal statements as immutable truths rooted in local traditions reaching back to the apostolic age.67 This authority and the charisma of heroic confessors were a winning combination, not only historically—though I think that may be shown—but particularly in a narrative.68 When interrogated, neither one ventured far from rehearsed formulae (as in aporiae literature) to explain theological minutiae.69

Thus for Rufinus, hagiography took on the additional role of a polemic against heretics, a perspective (or bias) that unexpectedly reintroduced dogmatic controversies into the mainstream of everyday life, into

the heart of the social debates over different forms of authority and the institutions they supported. This story opens up to us a world in which people were expected to find the urbane utterances of sophists and orators not only uninteresting but alien and repugnant. Rufinus was probably correct in supposing that the Christians of northern Italy, living apprehensively in the shadows of pillaging Goths, would prefer the tangible power of charismatic confessors to the subtle verbal power of philosophers. After all, the latter was prized only in a very limited cultural context, a context essentially coterminous with the domain of the classical polis .70

Socrates Scholasticus' Historia Ecclesiastica

The next extant variant of our story is found in Socrates Scholasticus' Historia ecclesiastica , a work that resumes where Eusebius' history leaves off and that continues to 439. The author was born and raised in Constantinople, where he met an elderly Novatian priest who claimed to have been present at the Council of Nicaea.71 Yet, for his description of the council, Socrates did not rely solely on this oral tradition, but drew liberally from Rufinus' Historia ecclesiastica . The first two extant books of Socrates' history come from his revised second edition (circa 440), which he composed after reading Athanasius' writings and becoming dissatisfied with his own previous overindebtedness to Rufinus.72 Knowing this, we can examine the differences between the treatment in the two books and the treatment in their known precedent to uncover a particular critical reception of Rufinus' Historia ecclesiastica in late antiquity.

After encomiastic descriptions of Paphnutius and Spyridon, Socrates digressed to recount our story, contrasting the two charismatics with the simple confessor. Socrates placed the debate prior to the formal session of the council, contradicting his model Rufinus, who had placed it in the midst of the full session. It is unclear whether Socrates made this change on the basis of new information, but rather than postulate unknown sources it is more sound to suppose that he had difficulty accepting Rufinus' attribution of this episode to the formal proceedings of

the council. His own experience with the procedures of ecclesiastical councils—procedures by then well established—may have suggested that such a debate was too incompatible with the nature of imperial councils to have been authentic.

Socrates' story also differs radically from Rufinus' in its treatment of details. His narrative is shorter and accords the debate less symbolic weight as a paradigmatic confrontation of good versus evil; it is less an anecdotal, almost folkloric, moral tale. He specifies that the participants in the debate were Christians, but does not associate them with particular doctrinal positions. For Socrates, the precise cognitive (i.e., theological) nature of the issues debated was less important than the form of the debate:

There were also present among each party (

) many laypeople skilled in dialectic who were eager to plead for their own side. But while Eusebius of Nicomedia (whom I mentioned earlier), and Theognis and Maris (the first was the bishop of Nicaea while the latter, Maris, was the bishop of Bithynian Chalcedon) were in support of the opinion of Arius, Athanasius, who, while still a deacon in the church of Alexandria, was esteemed highly by the bishop Alexander (which made him the target of envy, as we shall narrate), nobly contended (

) with them. Just before (

) the unified meeting of the bishops, the dialecticians conducted preliminary contests of words (

) before (

) many people.73

Casting Athanasius as the hero of Nicaea was anachronistic, though understandable. Socrates did not indicate whether the dialecticians who engaged in preliminary logical skirmishes were connected with Eusebius of Nicomedia or with Athanasius, but the lack of such a distinction hardly lessened the impact of Socrates' story, with its genetic and timeless quality. Next, the confessor entered the fray:

When many were drawn by the lure of the reasoning (

), a certain one of the confessors, a layman and an old man who has good judgment (

), opposed the dialecticians, and said to them: "Did Christ and the apostles hand down to us the dialectical art? . . ."

In this version, the confessor not only enjoyed the respect due his advanced age but was deemed in possession of good judgment, no doubt precisely because he spoke against the exercise of dialectic in Christian debates. Because all the participants were already Christians, Socrates ended this episode not with a conversion but by stressing the confessors success in putting a felicitous end to harmful disputations.

The old man's intervention had a decisive outcome: "Then the disruptive uproar (

A negative evaluation of disputation shaped Socrates' narrative throughout his Historia ecclesiastica . For him, the preeminent cause of the controversies that lasted until his own time was the practice of dialectical debate among Christians. He said that one of his reasons for composing the history was to combat the "dialectical and vain deceit [that] confused and at the same time dispersed the apostolic faith of Christianity"; he wished to narrate in a continuous fashion the historical progress of orthodoxy, so that his readers would not be so easily swayed by the sophistry of the moment.75

Socrates' conviction that disputation was the chief cause of Christian theological controversies pervaded his treatment of historical material. According to Socrates, the early Arian dispute began when Alexander of Alexandria attempted to publicly explain the Trinity with more precision than his theological acumen warranted.76 His imprudent words aroused in Arius, "a man not unlearned in the dialectical art," a spirit of contentiousness (

The most striking evidence that Socrates considered disputation a major cause, and not just a manifestation, of Christian controversy lies in his narrative of events following the Council of Constantinople in 381.79 Socrates praised Theodosius for convoking the synod, noting that the emperor innocently supposed that a fair and open examination of the disputed matters would result in universal agreement. But however noble Theodosius' motives, the proposed discussions would not further the cause of unity. Or so thought Socrates, who demonstrated his skepticism by the manner in which he narrated the episode.

Nectarius was then the orthodox bishop of Constantinople and The-

odosius' confidant.80 Informed of the emperor's intentions for the council, the bishop grew uneasy, in part because he lacked the experience to preside over such an event. He conferred with Agelius, the bishop of the Novatian Christians in the city, who confessed that he too was not fit to oversee such a debate because of his ignorance of the art of disputation.81 He, however, had a reader Sisinnius (who later succeeded him as Novatian bishop) who was well versed in both philosophical knowledge and scriptural exegesis. When consulted, this reader expressed the opinion that "debates (

The emperor's original designs were represented as commonsensical but misguided. Sisinnius proposed to Theodosius (via Nectarius) that the bishops at the forthcoming council "ought on the one hand to avoid dialectical combats (

Theodosius assented to this wise counsel, and asked the leaders of the sects appearing in Constantinople in June 383 to submit to the views of "those teachers who lived previous to the dissension in the church."85 This request may be regarded as part of the germinating ideological justification for the patristic florilegia that would play a large role in

Christian councils. Here, the reaction of Theodosius to Christian controversy recalls Socrates' earlier characterization of Constantine's attitude toward the disputing parties during the opening phases of the Arian controversy.86

The emperor's decision put the disputing parties in a quandary, for they had come with their champions in dialectical disputation (

In this manner, the creed from the Council of Nicaea, after a number of setbacks at regional councils, again received its formal reinstatement at Constantinople. The happy outcome was attributed strictly to the agency of a pious emperor who, praying to God for the wisdom of discernment, had the good sense to halt destructive theological debates.91

Socrates' distrust of verbal disputation was probably informed by his perspective as a professional lay Christian.92 Ammianus Marcellinus,

an army officer and a polytheist, shared Socrates' view to a remarkable degree when he criticized Constantius for importing complexity and subtlety into Christian quarrels, arguing that the frequent meetings of the bishops made a bad situation worse.93 On his part, Socrates was aware of pagan criticisms of Christian disunity and sought to rebut them in his work.94

Socrates believed in a bond of cosmic sympathy between the affairs of state and church, and that Christian quarrels could bring down on the empire such calamities as barbarian invasions. This theory does much to explain Socrates' wish for peace and eutaxia in the church: he was troubled by Christian factionalism not only for sectarian reasons but because it affected the very well being of Rome and its people.95 Belief in a dose causal connection between ecclesiastical unity and the manifestation of pax Dei could easily lead to a totalitarian vision of ecclesiastical affairs. Surprisingly, Socrates was one of the most tolerant of late antique church historians in his treatment of those ordinarily considered unorthodox.96

We must remember that, according to the prevailing orthodoxy of his time, Socrates himself belonged to a schismatic sect, the Novatians. He pleaded not for the forceful suppression of religious dissidents but for a consensus gentium that was moderate, tolerant, and conducive to the common good of the Roman world. The goal of polite coexistence was often hurt when opposing sides articulated their differences dearly and publicly, whereas a measure of mutual ignorance could help the cause of peace. This profoundly pragmatic and secular perspective left little room for debates on complex theological issues, which our author confessed not to understand in any case. A peace-loving attitude counted for more than precise knowledge: the new emperor Jovian, besieged by bishops competing for his favor, declared his hatred of contentiousness, adding that he would favor those individuals who promoted concord.97

A trained scholastikos in the late Roman Empire, Socrates had little reason to regard argumentation as a necessary, let alone healthy, component of sound government, whether secular or ecclesiastical.98

Sozomen's Historia Ecclesiastica

Salamanes Hermeias Sozomenos began writing his ecclesiastical history circa 439 and dedicated the completed work to Theodosius II in 443-44.99 He was born in Bethelea near Gaza circa 380, and later moved to Constantinople.100

For Sozomen, monks and confessors represented the ideological antithesis to reliance on eloquence and dialectic for authority by earning their claim to respectful consideration through ascetic practices and suffering. Their virtuous deeds guaranteed the truth of their beliefs, making verbal articulation or defense unnecessary.101 Sozomen prefaced his discussion of the controversies of the church by describing the edifying lives of these ascetic Christians, who demonstrated

the truth of their doctrines by their virtuous way of life. In fact the most useful gift that man had received from God is their philosophy. They ignore many aspects of mathematics and the contrived argumentation of the dialectical art (

) because they viewed such pursuits as meddling (

), and a profitless waste of time since they contribute nothing to living uprightly. . . . For they do not

use demonstration to show their virtue (

), but they practice it, dismissing as nothing the reputation before men.102

Sozomen's preface to his Nicene account describes the lives and deeds of confessors and monks more fully than did the work of Socrates.103 This may be seen as a function of Sozomen's general belief, expressed later in his discussion of the Anomoean controversy, that all the "monk-philosophers" were faithful supporters of the Nicene creed. It was through the widely admired, heroic, and god-loving Christians that the common people also came to hold the right belief.104

Sozomen also told a story about Spyridon not found in Socrates' Historia ecclesiastica . At a meeting of the local bishops on Cyprus, a certain Triphyllius,105 the bishop of the Ledri and a scholastikos , quoted the scriptural phrase "Take up the bed and walk" but substituted the literary word for "bed," skimpous , for the humbler krabbatos in the original. Hearing this, Spyridon flew into a rage and reproached Triphyllius for daring to improve the scriptures. He made this outburst so that all present might learn a lesson, for according to Sozomen,

he was teaching them to keep a man who was proud in words within bounds (

); and he was worthy to give this rebuke because he was reverenced and enjoyed the highest reputation from his deeds, also at the same time he happened to be more advanced in age and in priestliness.106

Eloquence was not in and of itself an evil art,107 unless employed in a spirit of contention or in the persistent investigation of out-of-bounds topics. For Sozomen, the close examination of a subject by its very nature led to differences: "

Writing his Historia ecclesiastica about a decade after Socrates had finished his, Sozomen often used his description of theological debates to emphasize the superiority of the Christian life and the manifestation of divine grace.110 Sozomen either deliberately chose not to use Socrates' idiosyncratic second edition, or he based his work on the latter's unrevised books 1 and 2, which may have represented the debate at Nicaea much as in Rufinus' version. In effect, Rufinus' version resurfaced in Sozomen's work; Sozomen also developed one of the potential trajectories of Rufinus' story into an exemplary demonstration of Christian arete by linking the confessors triumph over the philosopher with another story in which a pious Christian confounded pagan sophistry.

At a meeting before the day the council was to be formally convoked, many bishops and their accompanying clergy, all of them skilled in debate (

While these disputations were being carried on, certain of the pagan philosophers became desirous of taking part in them; some, because they wished for information as to the doctrine that was inculcated; and others, because, feeling incensed against the Christians on account of the recent suppression of the pagan religion, they wished to convert the inquiry about doctrine into a strife about words, so as to introduce dissensions among them, and to make them appear as holding contradictory opinions (

).112

Of Sozomen's two explanations for the presence of pagan philosophers at a Christian convention, the first—sheer curiosity about the upstart religion—seems reasonable enough, although mere plausibility

does not prove its authenticity. The second explanation—a scheme to undermine Christian unity and discredit the religion by introducing dialectical disputation—appears much more insidious, as it reiterates a prejudice against philosophical reasoning as the primary cause for discord within the church catholic. Following this expository introduction, Sozomen adhered more closely to his source, Rufinus' Historia ecclesiastica , in depicting the confrontation between the philosopher and the confessor:

It is related that one of these philosophers, priding himself on his acknowledged superiority of eloquence (

), began to ridicule the priests, and thereby roused the indignation of a simple old man, highly esteemed as a confessor, who, although unskilled in logical refinements and wordiness, undertook to oppose him. The less serious of those who knew the confessor, raised a laugh at his expense for engaging in such an undertaking; but the more thoughtful felt anxious lest, in opposing so eloquent a man, he should only render himself ridiculous (

); yet his influence was so great, and his reputation was so high among them, that they could not forbid his engaging in the debate.113

The confessor stepped into the fray, recited his credo, and exhorted the philosopher not to waste his time in attempting to understand what could only be grasped with humble, unmeddling faith (

It is significant that Sozomen chose to reject Socrates' shorter and more idiosyncratic variant in favor of Rufinus'.115 But unlike Rufinus' story, which Thélamon characterizes as a typological drama, Sozomen's account was transformed by the second "miraculous" story into a folk tale.

Sozomen introduced the second tale as a similar marvel (

virtuous man (

From dialectical debate to quiet virtue to the silencing of adversaries: this movement was for Sozomen the outline of a Christian miracle and triumph.119 His high regard for the self-chosen ignorance and virtuous silence of Christian ascetics informed Sozomen's choice to favor Rufinus' version as well as the particulars of his own treatment of the story.120

Sozomen's respect for asceticism was born of close personal involvement. The entire city of Bethelea, where Sozomen's family was among the first of the aristocratic families to become Christian, had been converted when Hilarion, an anchorite from the Egyptian desert, cast a demon out of Alaphion, a citizen of Bethelea and possibly Sozomen's relative.121 To one who grew up in a tradition validating the miraculous power of charismatic Christian ascetics, the power of persuasion naturally paled by comparison.122

Gelasius of Cyzicus' Syntagma

Gelasius of Cyzicus' version of the episode in his Syntagma , written circa 475-76, contains two separate confrontations between philosophers and

bishops.123 The first is the multiform story we have been examining; the second, more substantial segment is a dialogue between a philosopher named Phaidon and a number of bishops at Nicaea. The connection between the debate and the dialogue is one of the two major textual questions of this tradition; the other is the relationship of the versions of Rufinus and Gelasius of Caesarea. Gelasius of Cyzicus claimed that his detailed book 2 derived from a record made of the Council of Nicaea by Dalmatius, the bishop of Cyzicus who had attended the meeting. The Liber Dalmatii , purportedly transcribed from the stenographic notes of the proceedings at Nicaea, later passed into the keeping of Gelasius' father, a presbyter of the Cyzican church.

The question of whether a set of stenographic acta at Nicaea ever existed is too complex to be treated here. Suffice it to say that while Loeschcke,124 the editor of Gelasius' Syntagma , is inclined to acknowledge the authenticity of the dialogue fragment, the majority of scholars have decided against this judgment.125 The strongest arguments against its authenticity are the lack of attestation of the existence of stenographic records from the Nicene proceedings, and the fact that the theological content of the dialogue dearly indicates a polemic against both Anomoean and Macedonian views, suggesting a date of redaction, if not outright composition, in the late fourth or early fifth century. The dialogue records verbatim a series of acerbic interchanges between a pagan philosopher named Phaidon and a number of prominent bishops, including Eustathius of Antioch, the council president Ossius, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Leontius of Caesarea. While not impossible, it is highly imaplausible that a pagan was chosen as spokesman for the Arian "opposition" and engaged so many famous bishops in a lengthy debate based on scriptural premisses. Furthermore, the assertion that the bishops spoke on behalf of the entire synod has the air of an ex post facto

conception of what Nicaea was all about: the unified consensus of the fathers in stout opposition to the provocations of self-seeking and wrong-thinking individuals.

The dialogue itself is an exegetical contest, with both sides pitting scriptural arguments (martyria ) against each other. Thus even a pagan philosopher accepted scriptural proofs as adequate premisses for his apodeixeis . One rather suspects the adaptation of one or more florilegia or patristic catenae to a dialogue form bearing greater resemblance to question-and-answer dialogues (eroteseis kai apokriseis ) than to literary or philosophical ones. The level of the reasoning is not very high: the coup de grâce that brought the philosopher to confess Christ is a clumsy analogical argument comparing the persons of the Trinity to fire, emanation, and light.

Thus it is understandable that the scholarly consensus questions the authenticity of Gelasius of Cyzicus' Syntagma , particularly the Liber Dalmatii , and its value as an independent source for Nicaea.126 Most recently, Ehrhardt has argued that Gelasius' Syntagma , though worthless as a source for the fourth century, is useful as a document about more contemporary controversies.127 This conclusion is sufficient here because we are primarily interested in the document as evidence for the reception of Nicaea in the fifth century.

The multiform story opens with a new characterization of the philosopher as a hireling (

A certain person, among those who were in the hire of Arius, was a philosopher admired above all others. He stoutly maintained many and numerous contentions for Arius' sake against our bishops for a good number of days in front of all the rest who were exceedingly astounded. This resulted in a large audience every day on account of the encounter (

) of words (

), with the majority of the assembled crowd thrown into confusion, while the philosopher was advancing the impious blasphemies of Arius against those who were arguing on behalf of the holy synod, and saying concerning the Son of God that "there was a time (

) when he was not" and "he is a fashioned and created being made out of nothing and from other substances (

) and hypostases ." He put forth [lit., "there was to him"] a great contest (

) for the sake of the polluted teachings of Arius and showers of speeches (

). He fought against the Son of God and inveighed against the

of those saintly priests.128

The implicit connection in Rufinus' Historia ecclesiastica between the philosopher and the Arian cause has now been made explicit.129 This description mobilized in one stroke two deeply ingrained late Roman prejudices against the philosopher and his cause: he acted on the base motive of material gain, and his position as a hireling suggested a low social station.

During the debate, the philosopher abandoned all sense of decorum, behaving like a Corybant, with the abandon normally associated with frenzied females in Greek culture. This portrayal discredited the philosopher as lacking the self-restraint so important to late antique elites, and tarnished the practice of disputation itself as conducive to a loss of self-control.130

The philosopher's zeal was insufficient for helping him carry the day. As in the other versions, the philosopher was destined to be worsted by the confessor. Struck dumb and humbled, he conceded defeat and was led by the old man to a church to be baptized.131 Faced with this felicitous and unexpected outcome, "the entire synod rejoiced" (

From the typological drama of Rufinus to the miracle story of Sozomen, this story had evolved almost imperceptibly133 into an account of exorcism in Gelasius' Syntagma . Here the word dynamis was given back one of its concrete meanings as the power to effect miracles; God, "in order to show that his kingdom consists not in speech (

This episode marked the complete demonization of the process of verbal argumentation, now termed the "diabolical skill of words (

vine power (

Some Later Traditions

As authentic records of the events that took place at Nicaea, the above traditions contain little to commend themselves. However, as records of the reception of Nicaea and of the conciliar process in general, they speak volumes about how particular authors construed the role of disputation in settling Christian theological differences.137

Our multiform story was to enjoy a long and varied life beyond the fifth century. It resurfaced in various compilations, including Theodore the Reader's Historia tripartita , an "ecclesiastical history from the time of Constantine to the reign of Justinian," according to the Suidas.138 In this writing, Sozomen's second story has completely usurped the place of the Nicene debate: Alexander, the bishop of Byzantium, confronted by one of several philosophers who wished to debate (

In the Chronicon of Georgius Monachus the Sinner (

in the illuminated manuscript of the London Psalter.141 In the Chronicon , Spyridon commanded the philosopher to listen, "in the name of Jesus Christ," to the doctrines of truth (

The identification of the simple confessor with Spyridon only made concrete a connection hinted at in Rufinus' Historia ecclesiastica , where the debate was placed adjacent to stories of charismatic confessors, signifying the natural alliance between Christian virtue and holy simplicity against the empty sophistry of words. In contrast, Spyridon's status as a bishop suggests a shift from a world of freewheeling charismatic Christians to a more settled and hierarchical Christian empire.

In the west, the story was preserved not only through Rufinus but also in Cassiodorus' Latin Historia tripartita , comprising excerpts from the works of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret. Understandably, Cassiodorus juxtaposed Sozomen's two stories with Socrates' markedly different version without trying to harmonize them,142 separating them by "fertur enim et aliud."143

Why is this interesting episode absent from Theodoret's Historia ecclesiastica , and what can explain his decision to omit it from his account of Nicaea? It may be that he was suspicious of the story's authenticity; more likely, he did not share the bias against public debate that was a hallmark of all versions of the story. Theodoret, the author of a treatise that demonstrated the truth of Christian dogma with syllogisms, reported that Eustathius of Antioch attributed the Council of Nicaea's failure to condemn the Eusebians to the absence of thorough discussion.

This was because, we are told, crypto-Eusebians at the council, "under the pretext of maintaining peace, silenced all who were deemed to be the best speakers (

The many versions of this Nicene tradition on be explained in part by the authors' different narrative strategies and redactional biases. Yet a remarkably consistent theme emerges—a matrix linking the Christian bias against public disputation to stories about charismatic ascetics, to irreducible credal formulations, and to the ideology of Christian unity (

Another consistent theme that surfaces in these variants is a hint that perhaps theological and philosophical differences were given insufficient opportunity for discussion at Nicaea. Such a suspicion would certainly not be unjustified in light of Constantine's opening address urging unanimity and harmony: "Having forsaken contentious dispute (

Even our incomplete records make dear that the Council of Nicaea was no meeting of a debating society; as Mushy points out in his study on Rufinus, debates most likely did not take place at Nicaea in a "democratic" fashion.146 Subsequent councils were even less "democratic," the more so because they emulated traditional Roman senatorial proceedings with their emphasis on correct procedure, seniority in the offering of sententiae, written documents such as creeds and hupographai , traditional authorities, and even acclamations.147

The fear that a single dialectician could disrupt imperial Christian council by engaging the assembled bishops in disputation may well have

appeared reasonable in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, a transitional period when much was uncertain. Once a consensual conciliar tradition was firmly rooted, the bishops were able to hold their own, and the temporary services of a charismatic confessor were no longer required to confront an equally charismatic dialectician-philosopher. In this respect, one might say that, although the bishops in the story lost, the victory ultimately belonged to them. As if to drive this point home, a letter of Ambrose, himself a vocal advocate of the dangers of relying on dialectic in Christian disputes,148 was read at the Council of Ephesus in 431 as part of the patristic testimonia . In it, the bishop of Milan freely paraphrased I Corinthians 2:4: