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.