Four
Dialectic, Questioning, and Community in the Anomoean Controversy

Self-appointed Christian apologists were often quick to compare the monolithic universalism of their religion with the plurality of divergent philosophical views and religious practices found among their polytheist competitors.^[1] The force and validity of this contrast required that common consensus be seen as a self-evident marker of truth:

The Greeks at any rate do not acknowledge () the same views, but because they argue () with each other, they do not have the true teaching. But the holy fathers who are the heralds indeed of the truth both agree () with each other and also are not at odds () with their own people.^[2]

This self-congratulatory comment by Athanasius of Alexandria must stand for many like it. For most Christians, this juxtaposition of Chris-

[1] See J. Daniélou, "MIA EKKAHS IA chez les pères grecs des premiers siècles," in lÉglise et les églises: Études et offerts à Dom Lambert Beauduin (Chevetogne, 1954), 1:129-39; idem, "Les pères de léglise et l'unité des chrétiens," SP 7 (1966): 23-32. This claim of universalism was also used to distinguish between "good" and "bad" Christians, as in Irenaeus' treatment of the gnostics; see G. Levesque, "Consonance chrétienne et dissonance gnostique dans Irénée 'Adversus haereses' IV, 18, à 19, 3," SP 16 (1985): 193-96; and L. H. Grondys, "La diversità delle sette Manichee," in Silloge Bizantina in onore di Silvio Giuseppe Mercati (Rome, 1957): 177-87, esp. 183-87.

tian unity with pagan disarray was a compelling demonstration of their monopoly over truth. Adapting a familiar argument proving the existence of the Deity by the intelligent arrangement of the cosmos, Athanasius attributed good social order () to the influence of a ruling principle.^[3]

But such a robust claim was strangely fragile and easy to discredit from within. One of the most damaging effects of the Arian controversy in the Greek east was that it further uncovered the open secret of rampant feuding among Christians.^[4] To many thoughtful Christians, the increasingly prominent and protracted displays of their own institutional fragmentation before nonbelievers compromised their cause incontrovertibly. Ramsay MacMullen muses that "by far the most frequent item of news, and the steadiest influence on the course of historical development, must certainly be the cities' excitement, angry divisions, even bloodshed, and broad involvement in disputes about due worship."^[5] The triumphalist arguments used by Christians against polytheists were turned back against them at a time when their new prominent status exposed their internal feuds to public scrutiny, so that pagans began to comment on the strife, discord, and confusion among them. Socrates Scholasticus attributed to Constantine the statement that, while pagan philosophers disagreed with each other, they were at least—unlike the Christians of the time—socially cohesive within each secta.^[6] This comment is especially ironic given the ancient philosophers' reputation for being quarrelsome.^[7]

To modem scholars, Christian disarray may readily be explained by diverse factors, including considerations of institutional culture and the difficulties inherent in maintaining group solidarity over a long period. To certain late antique Christian minds, however, this fissiparous ten-

[3] See Athanasius, Contra gentes 38.

[4] According to Sozomen, Hist. eccl . 6.36, the philosopher and senator Themistius gave an oration before Valens in which he pointed out that, while Christians were split in their views, polytheist philosophers were locked in endless disputes. On the impact of the Arian controversy on the solidarity of Christian communities, see S. L. Greenslade, "Heresy and Schism in the Later Roman Empire," in D. Baker, ed., Schism, Heresy and Religious Protest (Cambridge, 1972), 1-20. Generally, see now R. Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition (London, 1987).

[5] R. MacMullen, "The Historical Role of the Masses in Late Antiquity," in Changes in the Roman Empire: Essays in the Ordinary (Princeton, 1990), 250-76, 385-93, at 266, focuses on the actual body counts as an indicator of the severity of the problem. His grim characterization. is now challenged by Neil McLynn, who examines the peculiar historical conditions leading to the most dramatic outbursts of Christian violence; see McLynn, "Christian Controversy and Violence in the Fourth Century," Kodai 3 (1992): 15-44.

[6] Socrates, Hist. eccl . 1.7 (PG 67:57A).

[7] See Chapter 1 on philosophical rivalry.

dency was caused by the subtle machinations of the devil himself.^[8] One prevalent explanation held that because the universal church was on the verge of overwhelming its external enemies under the patronage of Constantine, the archslanderer implanted ambition and jealousy among Christians, goading them to contend among themselves for supremacy instead of cooperating for the common good. This paradigm, which placed blame squarely on the shoulders of select individuals, offered a much-needed explanation for the fact of disunity and at the same time deflected criticism from the institutional weaknesses of the church.

To this latter end, the wily poser of sophistic questions, often conflated with the figure of the dialectician, served as a useful foil,^[9] recurring in numerous guises, sometimes even in connection with the devil. Gregory of Nyssa, in an encomium of his brother Basil, painted a literary gallery of infamous "heresiarchs"—Arius, Eudoxius, Aetius, and Eunomius—by means of this associative principle.^[10] Much of this polemical categorization came into the foreground during the so-called Anomoean controversy, a doctrinal debate of great moment in the Greek east during the late fourth century.^[11]

Modem scholars have scrutinized the Anomoean controversy mainly in terms of the competing theological ideas it generated. I wish to argue that the differences and conflicts expressed were social (in a broad sense) as well as theological, for also at issue were the definition and validation of competing habitus among late antique Christians.^[12] To anatomize

[8] See Evagrius Scholasticus, Hist. eccl . 1.1.

[9] See, e.g., Socrates, Hist. eccl . 1.36 on Asterius the sophist; also W. Kinzig, In Search of Asterius: Studies on the Authorship of the Homilies on the Psalms (Göttingen, 1990), 14-21. See the excellent and provocative study of earlier occurrences of these characterizations by A. le Boulluec, La notion d'hérésie dans la littérature grecque (Paris, 1989), esp. 1:136-54 and 2:281-88.

[10] Gregory of Nyssa, Encomium of Basil 9-10; see J. A. Stein, Encomium of Saint Gregory Bishop of Nyssa, on his brother Saint Basil Archbishop of Cappadocian Caesarea (Washington, D.C., 1928), 15-17.

[11] For more comprehensive treatment of the controversy, see E. Cavalcanti, "Studi Eunomiani," OCA 202 (1976), 1-147; T. A. Kopecek, History of Neo-Arianism (Philadelphia, 1979); R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy, 318-381 (Edinburgh, 1988), 594-636. Although terms such as "Anomoeans," "Eunomians," and "Neo-Arians" (the appellation preferred by Kopecek and Hanson) are not entirely satisfactory as labels for a social group, I have adopted the convention of using "Anomoeans" for the period before about 381 and "Eunomians" for thereafter. Although I may sometimes switch between the two, the meaning of the references should be readily perspicuous from the immediate contexts.

[12] Pierre Bourdieu defines habitus as "a system of shared social dispositions and cognitive structures which generates perceptions, appreciations and actions"; Homo Academicus , 279n. 2. A more systematic exposition of the meaning and implications of habitus appears in his Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge, 1977); originally published as Esquisse d' une théorie de la pratique (Geneva, 1972).

the process of "moral categorization" by which the figure of the dialectician was constructed and deprecated,^[13] I will focus on the careers of Aetius and Eunomius, both labeled by their opponents as disruptive dialecticians, and delineate the cultural preferences dashing in the ostensibly dogmatic controversy. The prescribed roles of dialectic and public disputation among eastern Christians will become perspicuous in the course of this discussion; other pertinent aspects will be addressed in Chapter 5.

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

[13] On the significant connections between the categorization of persons/actions and the maintenance of the social order, see L. Jayyusi, Categorization and the Moral Order (Boston/London, 1984).

[14] See G. Bardy, "L'héritage littéraire d'Aétius," RHE 24 (1928): 809-27; M. Jugie, in Dictionnaire de Théologie Chrétienne , 667-79, s.v. "Aétius 3."

[15] See the helpful account in Kopecek, History of Neo-Arianism , 1:61-75.

[17] See Philostorgius, Hist. eccl . 3.15. Kopecek argues that Aetius' father belonged to the poorer and humbler curiales of Antioch on the basis of Philostorgius' witness that he worked in the office of the provincial governor; History of Neo-Arianism , 1:62-63.

[18] See H. C. Youtie, "AG PAMMATOS : an Aspect of Greek Society in Egypt," HSCP 75 (1971): 161-76. On literacy among Christians in Egypt, see E. Wipszycka, "Le degré d'alphabétisation gÉypte byzantine," REAug 30 (1984): 279-96, esp. 288-91.

[19] On the importance of such a mediating role in a society characterized by low literacy, see H. C. Youtie, "AG PAMMATOS : The Social Impact of Illiteracy in Graeco-Roman Egypt," ZPE 17 (1975): 201-21. If such indeed was Aetius' background, he continued in his later career to operate in the capacity of a mediator of knowledge to others: see discussion of his Syntagmation below.

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 man^[27] —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

[21] Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eun . 1.37-46.

[22] This is not an impossibly young age for an accomplished prodigy; see the examples collected by M. Kleijwegt, in Ancient Youth: The Ambiguity of Youth and the Absence of Adolescence in Greco-Roman Society (Amsterdam, 1991): 118-31.

[23] Philostorgius, Hist. eccl . 3.15b.

[24] Kopecek, History of Neo-Arianism , 1:65.

[25] See, e.g., H. Tarrant, Scepticism or Platonism?: The Philosophy of the Fourth Academy (Cambridge, 1985), 69-71.

[26] Philostorgius, Hist. eccl . 3.15b (Bidez and Winkelmann, eds., 46).

[27] Philostratus, Vita Apollonii 1.34. See A. Louth, "Envy as the Chief Sin in Athanasius and Gregory of Nyssa," SP 15 (1984): 458-60.

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

[28] Philostorgius, Hist. eccl . 3.15 (Bidez and Winkelmann, eds., 45).

[29] Philostorgius, Hist. eccl . 3.15; on this episode, see Kaster, Guardians of Language , 3-7.

[30] Kopecek, History of Neo-Arianism , 1:68, wrongly translates this participle as "without being observed."

[31] Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eun . 1.37 (Jaeger, ed., 1:35). Kopecek argues that Athanasius of Anazarbus also taught Aetius the exegesis of scriptures using syllogisms; History of Neo-Arianism , 1:69-70.

[32] See Philostorgius, Hist. eccl . 3.15 (Bidez and Winkelmann, eds., 46). On the Lucianists, see Philostorgius, Hist. eccl . 2.14 (Bidez and Winkelmann, eds., 25); G. Bardy, Recherches sur saint Lucien d'Antioche et son école (Paris, 1936).

[33] Socrates, Hist. eccl . 2.35.

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-

[35] Philostorgius, Hist. eccl . 3.15.

[36] On Alexandrian Jewish and pagan communities, see C. J. Haas, "Late Roman Alexandria: Social Structure and Intercommunal Conflict in the Entrepôt of the East" (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1988), chs. 4, 5.

[38] See R. A. Mortley, From Word to Silence (Bonn, 1986), 2:131-32, on Aetius' need to defend himself against Neoplatonist philosophers. On the possible impact of a similar concern on Arius, see R. Lyman, "Arians and Manichees on Christ," JTS n.s. 40 (1989): 493-503, at 503: "Arius was not responding to abstract exegetical or philosophical problems alone, but rather . . . to the competitive teachers in the agora . . ."

[39] Philostorgius, Hist. eccl . 3.15; Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eun . 1.42-46 (Jaeger, ed., 1: 36-38).

[40] Sozomen, Hist. eccl . 3.15 (Bidez, ed., 126).

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-

[41] On the iatrosophists in Alexandria, see Eunapius, VS 494-500. On earlier dialectical medicine in the same city, see the interesting description of the physician Thessalus of Tralles (first century), in H.-V. Friedrich, Thessalos von Tralles (Meisenheim am Glan, 1968). He was probably also Thessalus the "magician"; see J. Z. Smith, "The Temple and the Magician," in J. Z. Smith, ed., Map is Not Territory: Studies in the History of Religions (Leiden, 1978); G. Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind (Cambridge, 1986), 161-65.

[43] For the city's intellectual circles, see also F. Schemmel, "Die Hochschule von Alexandria im IV. und V. Jahrhundert p. Ch. n.," Neue Jahrbücher für das klassische Altertum 24 (1909): 438-57, esp. 439.

[44] Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eun . 1.45-46 (Jaeger, ed., 1:37); see also Philostorgius, Hist. eccl . 3.15. Sozomen, Hist. eccl . 3.15 (Bidez, ed., 127), described Aetius as visiting the schools in Alexandria where Aristotle's works were taught, thus contradicting Socrates' statement (Hist. eccl . 2.35) that Aetius learned his Aristotle by reading the Categories without help from an Academic preceptor.

[45] Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eun . 1.45-47 (Jaeger, ed., 37-38).

[47] See Ammianus, Res gestae 22.16.18; V. Nutton, "Ammianus and Alexandria," Clio Medica 7 (1972): 165-76.

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 ().

[48] Eunapius, VS 497-98. See discussion in Penella, Greek Philosophers and Sophists , 111-12, 115-16.

[49] Eunapius, VS 497-98 (Wright, ed., 530-31). I have adapted Wright's translation. See Penella, Greek Philosophers and Sophists , 115-16.

[50] Theophilus Protospatharius, De urinis preface (Ideler, ed., 261); quoted in Penella, Greek Philosophers and Sophists , 111-12.

[51] See Aristotle, De sophisticis elenchis 11.172a (Forster and Furley, eds., 64-65).

[52] Eunapius, VS 497-98.

[53] Libanius, Ep . 843, 1208; Philostorgius, Hist. eccl . 8.10.

[54] On the use of dialectical argumentation and question-and-answer dialogues for ancient medical instruction, see Kudlien, "Dialektik und Medizin," 187-200; Kollesch, Untersuchungen zu den ps.galenischen Definitiones Medicae (Berlin, 1973). See also Westerink, "Philosophy and Medicine," 169-77.

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.

Eunomius

Eunomius' life story is not unlike that of Aetius.^[57] The subsequently much-feared technologos was born circa 335 to farmers^[58] in the small town of Oltiseris on the border between Cappadocia and Galatia, a fact supplied by the snide remark of a later opponent.^[59] Command of basic literacy first allowed Eunomius to acquire the training of a shorthand writer, a tachygraphos .^[60] Aspiring to greater opportunities, the youth followed his dreams to Constantinople on a journey that was to take him far.^[61]

After Constantinople, Eunomius made the rounds of the other cultural centers of the late Roman world. Not surprisingly, he first traveled

[56] Epiphanius, Panarion 76. 11.

[57] The main sources on Eunomius include: F. Loofs, RE , 3d ed., s.v. "Eunomius," 597-601; F Diekamp, "Literaturgeschichtliches zu der eunomianischen Kontroverse," BZ 18 (1909): 1-13; X. le Bachelet, in Dictionnaire de Théologie Chrétienne , 1501-14, s.v. "Eunomius"; L. Abramowski, in RAC 6:936-47, s.v. "Eunomios"; A.M. Ritter, in Theoloische Realenzyklopaedie (Berlin and New York, 1980) 10:525-28, s.v. "Eunomius"; R. P. Vaggione, Eunomius: The Extant Works (Oxford, 1987).

[58] See Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eun . 1.49 (Jaeger, ed., 1:39).

[59] Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eun . 1.34 (Jaeger, ed., 1:33).

[60] Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eun . 1.50 (Jaeger, ed., 1:39). See L. Parmentier, "Eunomius tachygraphe," 238-46. Kaster cites the dose association between the notarius and the autodidact in Guardians of Language , 48.

[61] Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eun . 1.50 (Jaeger, ed., 1:39).

to Antioch, then continued his quest to Alexandria, where he became the secretary and disciple of Aetius. Like his admired teacher, Eunomius was a quick study: it Was during his stay in Alexandria that he allegedly learned the art of eristic disputation and the Aristotelian technical vocabulary.^[62] The two men, sealing an alliance built first on their teacher-disciple relationship, eventually succeeded in establishing for themselves an enduring, though not universally positive, reputation.

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-

[62] Socrates, Hist. eccl . 2.35 (PG 67:300A).

[63] Ammianus Marcellinus, Res gestae 21.16.18. On the participatory role of Constantius in ecclesiastical affairs, see R. Klein, Constantius II und die christliche Kirche (Darmstadt, 1977); G. Gigli, L'ortodossia l'arianesimo e la politica di Constanzo II (337-361) (Rome, 1949).

[64] See Kopecek, History of Neo-Arianism , 2:299-303.

[65] Philostorgius, Hist. eccl . 4.12 (Bidez and Winkelmann, eds., 64).

[66] Philostorgius, Hist. eccl . 4.12. On a later perception of Athanasius' role at Nicaea, see Socrates, Hist. eccl . 1.15.

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

[67] See Basil, Ep . 94; Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eun . 1.81 (Jaeger, ed., 1:50). Also S. Giet, "Saint Basile et le concile de Constantinople de 360," JTS n.s. 6 (1955): 94-99. Basil himself afterward criticized the council in his Ep . 244 (Deferrari, ed., 3:470-71) to Patrophilus of Aegae.

[68] Philostorgius, Hist. eccl . 4.12 (Bidez and Winkelmann, eds., 64). The assistance of experts at disputations was common at least in the fifth century. Perhaps Socrates, in Hist. eccl . 1.15, accepted Rufinus' characterization because it harmonized with current practices known to him.

[70] Philostorgius, Hist. eccl . 4.12 (Bidez and Winkelmann, eds., 65).

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-

[72] See Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eun. 1.38-39 (Jaeger, ed., 1:35-36).

[73] Basil, Contra Eunomium 1:2.72-73.

[74] See Kopecek, History of Neo-Arianism , 1:61.

[75] See Bowersock, Greek Sophists , 89-100.

[76] See S. L. Greenslade, Church and State from Constantine to Theodosius (Westport, Conn., 1954), 23-35.

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

[77] This peril might have been deliberately underscored in the tradition; see R. Snee, "Valens' Recall of the Nicene Exiles and Anti-Arian Propaganda," GRBS 25 (1985): 395-419.

[78] Socrates, Hist. eccl . 2.35 (PG 67:300B).

[79] Sozomen, Hist. eccl . 7.6 (Bidez, ed., 307).

[80] Gregory of Nazianzus composed her funeral oration; see Oratio funebris in Flacillam Imperaticem . On her influence on ecclesiastical politics, see K. G. Hollum, Theodosian Empresses: Women and Imperial Dominion in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, Calif., 1982), 22-44.

[81] Sesboüé, ed., Contre Eunome , 1:36 (translation mine). See Kopecek, History of Neo-Arianism , 1:75n. 3.

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-

[83] Basil, Ep . 90 (Deferrari, ed., 2:124-25).

[84] Chrysippus and Stoic logic were also cited in connection with Christian doctrinal disputes; see J. de Ghellinck, "Quelques mentions de la dialectique stoïcienne dans les conflits doctrinaux du IV siècle," Abhandlungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie I: Philosophia Perennis (Regensberg, 1930): 59-67.

[85] Later the Monophysites were also accused of basing their error on Aristotle's works, especially his Categories . Anastasius of Sinai (seventh century) equated each of the ten horns of the dragon in Revelation with a heresiarch who based his error on one of Aristotle's ten categories; see L. S. B. MacCoull, "Anastasius of Sinai and the Ten-Horned Dragon," Patristic and Byzantine Review 9 (1990): 193-94. I wish to thank the author for bringing this reference to my attention.

[86] Gregory of Nazianzus, Or . 23.12. Gregory was referring specifically to the use of Aristotelian dialectic and not to other aspects of Aristotle's work such as his ontological research or scientific inquiry. See also Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio 27.10.

[87] On Basil's use of syllogisms in De spiritu sancto 29-30, see J. Coman, "La démon-stration dans le traité sur le saint Esprit de saint Basile le grand," SP 9 (1966): 172-209. In general, see D. Runia, "Festugière Revisited: Aristotle in the Greek Patres," VChr 43 (1989): 1-34. He points out that Festugière has ignored citations concerning dialectic and logic so that "not enough attention is paid . . . to the repeated association of Aristotelian dialectic with the origin and practice of heresy" (3). See K. Oehler, "Aristotle in Byzantium," GRBS 5 (1964): 133-46.

[88] See Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eun . 2.411 (Jaeger, ed., 1:346); A. Meredith, "Traditional Apologetic in the Contra Eunomium of Gregory of Nyssa," SP 14 (1976): 315-19, at 319; L. R. Wickham, "The Syntagmation of Aetius the Anomean," JTS n.s. 19 (1968): 532-69, at 561.

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

[89] J. de Ghellinck, "Quelques appréciations de la dialectique d'Aristote durant les conflits trinitaires du IV sicècle," RHE 26 (1930): 5-42; see 7-8 on the association of the gnostics with dialectic in the works of Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Hippolytus.

[90] E. Vandenbusschen, "La part de la dialectique dans la théologie d'Eunomius 'le technologue,'" RHE 40 (1944-45): 47-72.

[91] See, e.g., E. Norden, Die Antike Kunstprosa (Leipzig, 1898), 2:558-62; L. Méridier, L'influence de la second sophistique sur l'oeuvre de Grégoire de Nysse (Paris, 1906).

[92] Vandenbusschen, "La part de la dialectique," 51: "La technologie ne désigne pas une profession de ce genre; mais ce nom était plutôt réservé à l'orientation philosophique de la formation sophistique. Le technologue est le sophiste-philosophe. Il ne faut surtout pas le confondre avec le philosophe proprement dit." More recently Sesboüé (Contra Eunome , 36), though qualifying Vandenbusschen's claim somewhat, accepts the idea that Eunomius was a sophist-philosopher, both "par goût autant que par formation." It is worth noting that no words bearing the root technolog - appear in Eunapius' VS , where we might indeed expect to find some such reference to sophist-philosophers.

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

[93] See, e.g., Philostratus, VS 484, 486.

[94] See Hahn, Der Philosoph und die Gesellschaft , 46-53. Hahn emphasizes the advantage of seeking the distinction between the two categories in social praxis rather than in stylistic approach or philosophical method.

[95] Daniélou, "Eunome l'arien et l'exégèse néo-platonicienne du Cratyle," REG 69 (1956): 412-32.

[96] H. A. Wolfson, "The Philosophical Implications of Arianism and Apollinarianism," DOP 12 (1958): 3-28, esp. 8. Independently of Vandenbusschen and Daniélou (and two years after the latter's article), Wolfson reasserts the claim that the epithet technologos owes nothing to an association with Aristotle.

[97] Daniélou, "Eunome l'arien," 429: "La caractéristique d'Eunome est donc d'unir à platonisme mystique, influencé par la théurgie, une technique philosophique principalement aristotélicienne." Athens is the fertile ground for this syncretistic mix: "Le néo-platonisme aristotélisant sera le propre de cette école." The spiritual elitism that Daniélou implicitly ascribes to the teachings of Eunomius, and therefore also to his religious practice, by arguing that he should be seen as a mystagogue and hierophant challenges the previous characterization of Eunomius as a sophist; see 430.

[98] Daniélou, "Eunome l'arien," 422.

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

[99] See Daniélou, "Eunome l'arien," 417-18. He argues that Eunomius' sense of the word epinoiai , deriving from the works of Clement of Alexandria and Origen, would require that various aspects of Christ be the result of a real diversity in Christ's person. From this observation, Daniélou concludes that "le système d'Eunome est en fait un système néo-platonicien, une explication de la genèse du multiple à partir de l'Un" (428). Yet others have rightly located the Eunomian circle in a wider context using the evidence from Eunomius' own preface in his Liber apologeticus ; see Diekamp, "Literargeschichtliches zu der eunomianischen Kontroverse," 2.

[100] Daniélou, Platonisme et théologie mystique: Essai sur la doctrine spirituelle de saint Grégoire de Nysse (Paris, 1944), esp. 7.

[101] Daniélou's association of Eunomius with Iamblichus is a thesis that has been examined and rejected by J. M. Rist, "Basil's 'Neoplatonism': Its Background and Nature," in Fedwick, ed., Basil of Caesarea 1:137-220, esp. 185-88.

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

[103] Jayyusi, Categorization and the Moral Order , 28, spells out the relationship between categorization and the construction of a moral social order:
In political debates or polemics between different parties the negatively implicative actions of the opponent are often deprived of explanation-by-grounds and transformed instead into a feature of the opponent's character (in the wide sense of the term), whilst an exactly similar action by one's own party is provided with an occasioned reason .

[104] Jerome, De virus illustribus 109.

[105] Gregory of Nazianzus, Or . 43.23. Both Basil and Gregory would be praised by Severus of Antioch as "all-rounders" in his Homilia 9.6-11; see F. Graffin, ed., Les 'homiliae cathedrales' de Sévère d'Antioche PO 38:2, no. 175 (Turnhout, 1976): 338-41.

[106] P. Rousseau, "Basil of Caesarea, Contra Eunomium : the Main Preoccupations," Prudentia Supplementary Number (1988): 77-94; M. Wiles, "Eunomius: Hair-splitting Dialectician or Defender of the Accessibility of Salvation?" in Williams, ed., The Making of Orthodoxy , 157-72.

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

[107] Rousseau, "Basil of Caesarea, Contra Eunomium, " 86.

[108] See Socrates, Hist. eccl . 4.7 (PG 67:473A-B).

[109] See Vaggione, Eunomius , 132.

[110] Kopecek's conjecture that Eunomius' Liber apologeticus 28 represents the altered Cyzican creed is highly speculative; see History of Neo-Arianism , 2:402-4; see also 2:398-99, esp. 399n. 1.

[111] Eunomius, Liber apologeticus 4 (Vaggione, Eunomius , 36-37). Vaggione argues (131) that the work was produced in connection with events following the Council of Constantinople 381.

[112] See Eunomius, Liber apologeticus 6 (Vaggione, Eunomius , 38-41).

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

[113] See Eunomius, Liber apologeticus 2 (Vaggione, Eunomius , 36-37).

[114] See R. C. Gregg and D. E. Groh, "The Centrality of Soteriology in Early Arianism," Anglican Theological Review 59 (1977): 260-78; idem, Early Arianism: A View of Salvation (Philadelphia, 1981), 50-70.

[115] See M. Anastos, "Basil's KATA EYNOMIOY: A Critical Analysis," in Fedwick, ed., Basil of Caesarea , 1:67-136, esp. 126-27. Anastos shows that Basil's debate with Eunomius over the interpretation of the sharing of ousia by the Son and the Father was not concerned with soteriology.

[116] See T. A. Kopecek, "Neo-Arian Religion: The Evidence of the Apostolic Constitutions, " in R. C. Gregg, ed., Arianism: Historical and Theological Reassessments (Philadelphia, 1985), 153-55.

[117] Sozomen, Hist. eccl . 6.26, stated that fifth-century Eunomians had one immersion into the death of Christ and not three immersions into the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The practice of the single immersion, however, is explicitly explained as beginning with Theophronius and Eutyches, Eunomius' disciples.

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 ,

[118] See Epiphanius, Panarion 76.54.32.

[119] The parental imagery shows strongly in the Anomoean redaction of the Apostolic Constitutions ; see C. H. Turner, "Notes on the Apostolic Constitutions," JTS 16 (1914-15): 54-61.

[120] See Wickham, "Syntagmation of Aetius," 540 (Greek text), 544-45 (English).

[121] Sozomen, Hist. eccl . 7.6 (NPNF, 379; Greek text in Bidez, ed., 307).

[122] See Aetius, Syntagmation 37, in Wickham, "Syntagmation of Aetius," 544 (Greek text), 549 (English).

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

[124] See Sextus Empiricus, Pyrr. hypotyposes 2.205, on the Dogmatics' use of technologia , the systematic treatment of logical definitions.

[125] Socrates, Hist. eccl . 2.35 (PG 67:297B).

[126] Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eun . 1.181 (Jaeger, ed., 1:80).

[127] Socrates, Hist. eccl . 5.24; Sozomen, Hist. eccl . 7.17 (Bidez, ed., 325).

[128] See Wickham, "Syntagmation of Aetius," 561-62, 561n. 1. Note the judicious caveat against accepting the Aristotelian connection too readily because of its polemical usage. Wickham's argument that the propositions in Aetius' Syntagmation do not strictly qualify as syllogisms (534) may be due to an overly stringent application of technical criteria, a noted modem tendency; see Lee Tae-Soo, Die griechische Tradition der aristotelischen Syllogistik in der Spätantike: Eine Untersuchung über die Kommentare zu den analytica priora von Alexander Aphrodisiensis, Ammonius und Philoponus , Hypomnemata, Untersuchungen zur Antike und zu ihrem Nachleben 79 (Göttingen, 1984), 95.

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-

[129] Aristotle, De sophisticis elenchis 34.183b-184a (Forster and Furley, eds., 154-55).

[130] Wickham, "Syntagmation of Aetius," 540 (Greek text), 545 (English).

[131] See Wickham, "Syntagmation of Aetius," 532-69.

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

[132] Wickham, "Syntagmation of Aetius," 535.

[133] Mentioned in Pseudo-Athanasius, Dialogus de sancta trinitate 2.6 (PG 28:1165A-B); see Vaggione, Eunomius , 166-67. It is of course not certain that the Syntagmation is the specific text that Eunomius commented on.

[134] PG 28:1115-1201; see A. Heron, "The Two Pseudo-Athanasian Dialogues against the Anomoeans," JTS n.s. 24 (1973): 101-22. Compare Theodoret's Eranistes , particularly the preface.

[135] Aetius, Syntagmation 12, in Wickham, "Syntagmation of Aetius," 541-42 (Greek text), 546 (English).

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.

[136] Eunomius, Liber apologeticus 8 (Vaggione, Eunomius , 40-43).

[137] Hadot, "Philosophie, dialectique, rhétorique dans l'antiquité," 140.

[138] See Eunomius, Liber apologeticus 24 (Vaggione, Eunomius , 66-67).

[139] Eunomius, Liber apologeticus 27 (Vaggione, Eunomius , 72-73).

[140] Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eun. 1.11 (Jaeger, ed., 1:25).

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"

[141] Aristotle, Topica 160a18-34.

[142] Lines of poetry (otherwise unknown) cited by Phaedimus when confronted by a challenge to debate by Aristotimus, in Plutarch, De sollertia animalium 23 (Cherniss and Helmbold, eds., LCL, Moralia 12:415).

[143] See Plutarch, De sollertia animalium 23.

[145] See Basil, Ep . 235 (Deferrari, ed., 3:376-85), to Amphilochius on faith and knowledge. Deferrari, editor of the LCL edition, believes this letter to be directed at gnostics because the word gnosis IS mentioned. However, from the context of this correspondence it seems quite clear that the letter concerns dialectical questioners.

[146] Basil of Caesarea, Ep . 234 (Deferrari, ed., 3:370-71). See discussion in C. G. Bonis, "The Problem Concerning Faith and Knowledge, or Reason and Revelation, as Expounded in the Letters of Basil the Great to Amphilochius of Iconium," Greek Orthodox Theological Review 5 (1959): 27-44, esp. 37-41.

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-

[147] Basil of Caesarea, Homilia 16.1 (PG 31:473B-76C; trans. from P. J. Fedwick, The Church and the Charisma of Leadership in Basil of Caesarea [Toronto, 1979], 58-59).

[148] Isidore of Pelusium, Ep . 1.241 (PG 78:329-30C).

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 Constantinople^[152] 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

[149] See M. Meslin, Les ariens d'occident 335-430, Patristica Sorbonensia 8 (Paris, 1967), 69-70, 294-99. Text of the Altercatio Heracliani in C. Caspari, ed., Kirchengeschichte Anecdota nebst denen Ausgaben patristicher und kirchlichmittelalterlicher Schriften (Christiania, 1883), 1:133-47. Germinius prevailed nonetheless thanks to his episcopal authority, an outcome that underscores a vital difference between eastern and western constructions of authority.

[150] For a comprehensive discussion of this episode, see Kopecek, History of Neo-Arianism , 2:437: "It was not enough to agree with the Neo-Arians; one had to agree with them for the right reasons. The Neo-Arians were extremely precise about their doctrinal demands."

[151] Philostorgius, Hist. eccl . 9.14.

[152] See Sozomen, Hist. eccl . 7.17 (Bidez, ed., 325).

[153] Sozomen, Hist. eccl . 7.17 (Bidez, ed., 325-26).

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

[154] See Epiphanius, Panarion 76.3.7.

[155] See Meyer, "Dialectic and Questioning," 281-89.

[156] On the relationship between wealth, leisure, and intellectual pursuits in antiquity, see J.-M. André, L'otium dans la vie morale et intellectuelle romaine, des origines à l'époque augustéenne (Paris, 1966).

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 ()?

[157] See I. Karayannopoulos, "St. Basil's Social Activity: Principles and Praxis," in Fedwick, ed., Basil of Caesarea , 1:375-91, at 381: "We must, therefore, draw a line between the classical paideia and education that the rich gave their children, and the study of rhetoric by those who learned it in order to become professional teachers." On the relationship of training to official positions, see F. S. Pedersen, "On Professional Qualifications for Public Posts in Late Antiquity," Classica et Mediaevalia 31 (1975): 161-213.

[158] See K. Hopkins, "Social Mobility in the Later Roman Empire: The Evidence of Ausonius," CQ n.s. 11 (1961): 239-49; idem, "Elite Mobility in the Roman Empire," in M. Finley, ed., Studies in Ancient Society (London, 1974), 103-120; Ramsay MacMullen, "Social Mobility and the Theodosian Code," JRS 54 (1964): 49-53; Kaster, Guardians of Language , 32-95.

[160] A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire 284-602 (Oxford, 1964), 2:925-29. See the conclusions of the prosopographic studies of fourth-century bishops: F. D. Gilliard, "The Social Origins of Bishops in the Fourth Century" (Ph.D. diss., University of California at Berkeley, 1966); T. A. Kopecek, "The Social Class of the Cappadocian Fathers," Church History 42 (1973): 453-66, esp. 460-61; and A. Rousselle, "Aspects sociaux du recrutement ecclésiastique au IV siècle," Méanges d'Archéologie et d'Histoire de l'École Française de Rome 89 (1977): 333-70.

[161] See Van Dam, "Emperors, Bishops, and Friends."

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

[162] Gregory of Nazianzus, Ep . 249.32. See M.-M. Hauser-Meury, Prosopographie zu den Schriften Gregors von Nazianz , Theophaneia 13 (Bonn, 1960), 94-95, s.v. "Helladius I"; P. Devos, "S. Grégoire de Nazianze et Hellade de Césarée en Cappadoce," AB 79 (1961), 91-101; Kopecek, "Social Class of the Cappadocian Fathers," 453-66, esp. 455, 455n. 16. In general, see E. F. Bruck, Kirchenväter und soziales Erbrecht (Berlin/Göttingen/Heidelberg, 1956), esp. 3, 17-18. On Gregory's family, see J. Bernardi, "Nouvlles perspectives sur la famille de Grégoire de Nazianze," VChr 38 (1984): 352-59; P. Gallay, La vie de saint Grégoire de Nazianze (Lyons/Paris, 1943), 250-51.

[163] See R. Van Dam, "Emperors, Bishops, and Friends in Late Antique Cappadocia," JTS n.s. 37 (1986): 53-76.

[164] See the delightful essay by G. E. L. Owen, "Philosophical Invective," Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 1 (1983): 1-25.

[165] See W. Süss, Ethos (Leipzig, 1910), 247-54.

[166] Socrates, Hist. eccl . 4.26; Sozomen, Hist. eccl . 6.17.1.

[167] See R. R. Ruether, Gregory of Nazianzus: Rhetor and Philosopher (Oxford, 1969), 111. On the psogos, see Rhetores Graeci (C. Walz, ed., 9:402-3).

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-

[168] Gregory of Nazianzus, Or . 21.16; see Kopecek, History of Neo-Arianism , 1:138-45.

[169] Cicero, De oratore 2.43.182: "Valet igitur multum ad vincendum probari mores et instituta et facta et vitam eorum, qui agent causas, et eorum, pro quibus, et item improbari adversariorum, animosque eorum, apud quos agetur . . . conciliantur autem animi dignitate hominis, rebus gestis, existimatione vitae, quae facilius ornari possunt, si modo sunt, quam fingi si nulla sunt. " Emphasis mine.

[170] On the wealth and power of the Alexandrian patriarchs, and the use of such resources as bribes at the imperial court, see P. Batiffol, "Les presents de saint Cyrille à la cour de Constantinople," in Études de liturgie et d'archéologie chrétienne (Paris, 1919), 154-79.

[171] Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eun . 1.38 (Jaeger, ed., 1:35). Gregory could not resist making Aetius a swindler as well; see Contra Eun . 1.40-41 (Jaeger, ed., 1:36).

[173] See Kaster, Guardians of Language , 11-14. Aetius' deficiency in breeding and comportment would become more exaggerated in later traditions; see R. Vaggione, "Some Neglected Fragments of Theodore of Mopsuestia's Contra Eunomium," JTS n.s. 31 (1980): 403-70, esp. 408-19.

[174] Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eun . 1.49-50 (Jaeger, ed., 1:39).

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]

[175] See Eunomius, Liber apologeticus 27 (Vaggione, Eunomius , 72-73).

[176] Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eun . 1.11ff. (Jaeger, ed., 1.25ff.).

[177] Aristotle, De sophisticis elenchis 11.171b (Forster and Furley, eds., 62-63).

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]

[178] Eunomius, Liber apotogeticus 2 (Vaggione, Eunomius , 36-37).

[179] See Van Dam, "Emperors, Bishops and Friends," 53-76.

[180] Sozomen, Hist. eccl . 4.24 (Bidez, ed., 178).

[181] An admirable description of the mores of paideia is given by Faster in Guardians of Language , 60-61, where he interprets the meaning of verecundia in Macrobius' Saturnalia :

One of the cardinal virtues, verecundia can be translated as 'modesty'; more accurately (if more cumbersomely), it names the sense of propriety deriving from a regard for the opinion of other men and an awareness of one's own position (especially one's hierarchical position) relative to others in a given context. . . . Verecundia is the virtue of knowing one's place, the virtue par excellence of the status quo , an abundantly social virtue, regulating the behavior of men in groups.

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]

[182] Sozomen, Hist. eccl . 6.26 (Bidez, ed., 275-76).

[184] Eunapius, VS 500.

[185] See E. Cavalcanti, "Y a-t-il des problèmes eunomiens dans la pensée trinitaire de Synésius.?" SP 13 (1975): 138-44.

[186] Synesius of Cyrene, Dion (PG 66:1128A). See C. H. Coster, "Synesius, a curialis of the Time of the Emperor Arcadius," Byzantion 15 (1940-41): 10-38.

[187] See Sozomen, Hist. eccl . 7.6 (Bidez, ed., 307-8).

[188] See Isidore of Pelusium, Ep . 5.171.

[189] A wise person gives good, uninterested advice, whereas a clever person calculates for his own advantage; see Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 6.13.1144a.

[190] Basil, Ep . 42 (Deferrari, ed., 1:248-49).

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,

[191] Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eun . 1.10 (Jaeger, ed., 1:25).

[192] On Basil's activities as a benefactor, see S. Giet, Les idées et l'action sociales de saint Basile (Paris, 1941), esp. 419-23; B. Gain, L'Église de Cappadoce au IV siècle d'après la correspondance de Basile de Césarée 330-379, OCA 225 (Rome, 1985), 277-87.

[193] See Jerome, De viris illustribus 23. In the competition between Justin Martyr and Crescens, gluttony and the fear of death were two faults that discredited a philosopher from consideration.

[194] Sozomen, Hist. eccl . 6.26 (Bidez, ed., 272-73).

[195] See Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eun . 3.1-2 (Jaeger, ed., 2:3-4) on people's natural suspicions toward those who were clever in speech. This was already a tired topos; see Socrates' claim not to be deinos legein in Plato's Apologia 1. See M. Girardi, "'Semplicità' e ortodossia nel dibatitto antiariano di Basilio di Cesarea: la raffigurazione dell'eretico," Vetera Christianorum 15 (1978): 51-74.

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

[196] See D. Amand, L'ascèse monastique de saint Basile (Paris, 1949); M. Simonetti, La crisi ariana nel IV secolo (Rome, 1975), 411-18.

[197] See G. Geutz, RE 20:119-22, s.v. "Philostorgius 3."

[198] See Philostorgius, Hist. eccl . 9.8-9.

[199] Photius, Bibliotheca 137-38.

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,

[200] See Philostorgius, Hist. eccl . 2.6; 3.4-5.

[201] See Philostorgius, Hist. eccl . 2.8.

[202] Bidez and Winkelmann, eds., cxii-cxiii. See C. A. Frazee, "Anatolian Asceticism in the Fourth Century: Eustathios of Sebastea and Basil of Caesarea," Catholic Historical Review 66 (1980): 16-33; L. Lèbe, "Saint Basile et ses règles morales," Revue Bénédictine 75 (1965): 193-200.

[203] Sozomen, Hist. eccl . 8.12 (Bidez, ed., 366).

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 humiliation^[209] 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.

[204] Philostorgius' Hist. eccl . 9.14, 9.14a; contrast Sozomen, Hist. eccl . 6.27, where the author explained that he neither understood well nor could easily explain the dogmatic controversies.

[205] See Bidez and Winkelmann, eds., cix.

[206] See Philostorgius, Hist. eccl . 3.15.

[207] See R. C. Blockley, The Fragmentary Classicising Historians of the Later Roman Empire: Eunapius, Olympiodorus, Priscus and Malchus , ARCA. Classical and Medieval Texts, Papers and Monographs 6 (Liverpool, 1981), 86-94.

[208] Philostorgius, Hist. eccl . 10.10.

[209] According to Parastaseis syntomai chronikai 39, Theodosius II erected in the forum of Constantinople statues of Eunomius, Arius, Sabellius, and Macedonius, so that passersby could "shit, piss, and spit" on them. These were still visible in the eighth century.

[210] E.g., Codex Theod. 16.5.17, 21-23, 25, 27, 31-32, 34, 36, 49, 58, 61, 65; 16.6.7. On the implications of the imposition of infamia on individuals, see A. H. J. Greenidge, Infamia: Its Place in Roman Public and Private Law (Oxford, 1894), 144-53, 186-99.