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Prof. Nikos Oikonomides, distinguished Byzantinist and Secretary of the Association Internationale des Etudes Byzantines, died at the age of 66 in Athens shortly after the last Newsletter was released. Prof. Okonomides was a professor at Athens University and until recently Director of the Byzantine Studies Institute at the National Institute for Research (EIE). Prof. Oikonomides' contribution to the international scene, both in terms of his own research and in the preparation of the Bulletin d'Information has been considerable.The Suda On Line Project is looking for new editors. The project completed a major upgrade in June and has passed the 2300 mark for translated entries. As the number of entries grows the need for editorial volunteers to vet the entries increases. The collaborative system empowers editors to verify translations against the original Greek, proofread translations for basic spelling and grammatical errors, improve word choice in the translation and add notes and bibliography as needed. Editing on SOL is not proprietary and so several editors can check the same entries. Each editor's name will appear on the entry in perpetuity, with comments about the changes they made. Editorial status automatically allows one to translate as well. If you are interested in becoming an editor please visit the site (http://www.stoa.org/sol/) and read the "Instructions to Editors". (summarised from a posting to LT-ANTIQ@vm.sc.edu by Elizabeth Vandiver, Managing Editor, Suda On Line: ev23@umail.umd.edu)
The Power and the Glory: The Legacy of Constantine at the Dawn of the Third Millenium.
7-10 August, 2000 St Luke's Campus, University of Exeter.This august gathering, held at the lovely campus of St Luke's, University of Exeter, comprised of historians, theologians and one philosopher (as well as some hybrids). The participants were treated to 25 papers on subjects ranging from imperial art history to Augustine's political activism, with the emphasis firmly on the West in all but a couple of papers. Gillian Clark suggested in her thought-provoking summation of the proceedings that two broad themes could be identified: firstly, that of continuity and reworking of pagan imagery and ideology in the empire of the New Rome: how the past was used to make sense of and to glorify the present; secondly, the theme of practical politics in community, i.e. the working out of the implications of an emerging Christian state for existing religious and political institutions among various social groups. Papers on both themes considered Christian relations with various social and religious groups such as Greco-Roman pagans, Jews, barbarian Goths and Slavs, and others.
These two strands are useful springboards for a (sadly) brief discussion of the six key-note papers, as wide-ranging as they were, and from quite different disciplinary perspectives. Some of the brief communications will also be mentioned in passing, and I have delegated to Roger Scott the task of covering those papers presented in parallel sessions from which I was absent.
Philip Rousseau in his masterful paper entitled 'The Politics of Humility in the Later Roman Empire' and subtitled, 'Less Power, More Glory', showed how Origenist exegesis of scriptural passages dealing with the proper attitude to the acquisition of wealth and authority could be deployed by churchmen of the fourth and fifth centuries, such as Jerome and John Chrysostom. Rousseau concluded that these leaders could encourage modest selflessness even while enjoying every secular advantage without any sense of hypocrisy. The ideal of ascetic virtue was urged upon men and women living ordinary lives in the urban polis. The fourth-century Christian believer was required not to withdraw from urban settings but to behave in a new way in their old setting, preserving the earthly order which was characterised as directed towards a Godly purpose.John Mc Guckin addressed the question of how the Byzantine state sought to model and justify in ideological terms the Christian emperor's role as head of church and state in his paper 'The Thirteenth Apostle: Orthodox Perspectives on Church and State'. Starting with Constantine, he considered five points: the inadequacy of the Gibbonesque term 'cesaropapism', 2. Biblical paradigms for Byzantine political theology, 3. The deficiencies of Dvornik's macro-thesis, 4. Byzantine attitudes to imperium, and the three marks of the emperor: sacrality, apostolicity and symphonia (harmony) between the earthly ruler and God's kingdom. The first two aspects, the emperor's priestly role and apostolic role, were used as honorific curtailments of imperial aspirations. The third aspect, that of symphonia, is the original contribution of Byzantine theory to the idea of the Christian monarch, and is not just a continuation of the Hellenistic tradition, whereby the emperor was accorded economia in everything except what pertained to the substance of the faith.
Hal Drake's and Tim Barnes' papers on Constantine the Great illustrated how differently one can interpret the rule of the first Christian emperor with regard to his tolerance of outsiders/non-believers. Barnes' paper, 'From Toleration to Repression: the evolution of Constantine's Religious Policies', concentrated on differences in legislation on public sacrifices and property confiscation in different parts of the empire under different emperors, highlighting Constantines' repressive anti-pagan measures after 324. Drake, on the other hand, in 'The Legacy of Constantine' suggested Constantine's truly Christian tolerance and concern for public opinion had been much under-rated hitherto. Constantine, he claimed, had learnt from the failure of Diocletian's persecutions that coercion does not work as a tool of unification. He saw the moral cost of coercion as a means of achieving religious uniformity and rejected it in favour of the persuasion of rhetoric, as in his Oration to the Saints. The very different approaches of the two papers can perhaps be summed up in Keith Hopkins' question following the paper: "How much is your Constantine you?"
Robert Dodaro's paper, 'Between the Two Cities: Augustine's Political Activism' (read in his absence) outlined five aims and strategies adopted by the great Bishop of Hippo to promote social justice: 1. He showed himself respectful to the existing political order but not complacent; 2. He respected laws already in practice; 3. His activity was not programmatic but bound by theological principles; 4. He was driven by pastoral concerns and made use of the expertise of others (e.g Eustachius for legal advice); 5. His letters and memoranda are of paramount importance. His political activism was joined with political criticism; his style of political reform opposed injustice with non-violence.
Staying with the subject of Augustine, John Milbank (representative of Radical Orthodoxy) in 'Freewill and Evil: Augustine versus Kant and Postmodernity', used Augustine's doctrine of free will and of evil as privatio boni (lack of the good), with its philosophical implications for human responsibility for good and evil, as a corrective of the Kantian ontodicy of evil.
Minor communications on the first theme, that of fourth-century continuity and reworking of classical culture, included Jas Elsner's presentation (generously supplied with slides) on 'Imperial Iconography in Fourth-Century Constantinople', which focussed on the recutting of imperial iconography to give the glories of the pagan past a new Christian setting; James Francis' entertaining paper, 'People as Pictures: the development of Living Icons in Later Antiquity', dealt with the portrayal in Late Antique literature of holy men as icons; and F. Trombley's 'Demographic Aspects of Adhesion to Christianity under the Constantinian Dynasty (c. 306-363 CE), discussed the difficulties of identifying adhesion (rather than conversion) to Christianity in this period, judging by wide-spread epigraphic evidence of the survival of pagan cult in the Greek East. (he got the prize for Private Passions Publicly Aired.)
On the second theme, of practical politics in community, we heard papers from Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe, 'The Rehabilitation of Kingship at Rome' in the writings of Ambrosiaster; Armando Anfosso, 'Religion as a Policy on the Roman Eastern Frontier in the IV Century CE' which looked at the political implications of religious affiliation for Christians in the Persian empire of Shappur; and finally Michelle Salzmann, who spoke on 'Constantine and the Conversion of the Roman Aristocracy in the IV Century: the Limits of Imperial Influence,' a precursor to her forthcoming book, The Process of Christianization (Harvard University Press). And you will be pleased to hear that yours truly got the prize for note-taking! (penance for not giving a paper of my own.)
Bronwen Neil
BrisbaneAppendix
Roger Scott, who also attended the conference, writes: "And I think Bronwen should explain that Hopkins gave her the prize because she was the only person to continue taking notes on Milbank after 10 minutes and she lasted for the whole one hour and twenty minutes, a remarkable achievement!"
Benet Salway, who won Keith Hopkins' prize for intellectual economy for putting his conclusion in his title: 'Constantine Augustus (not Sebastos)' drew our attention to the adoption of a new imperial title by Constantine the Great from 325, so following the final victory over Licinius, and so tying in with Tim Barnes' claim that it wasn't till then that Constantine was able to exert pressure. The new nomenclature stays in the East from then on for many centuries.
Other short papers. T. Elliott argued that Constantine gave up the 'invicto comiti' supposed pagan coins after the 316/7 victory over Licinius, the later instances only coming from eastern mints under Licinius' control. He linked it to a tradition of following Gibbon who went astray by failing to follow Tillemont and du Cange here in favour of Ammianus and Zosimus (Elliott's book on Constantine argues he was born a Christian because his Dad was a Christian). Prof R. Staats (Kiel) argued that Constantine saw himself as a second Paul, drawing parallels between the two conversion stories. This tied in nicely with John McGuckin's remarks on the apostolicity of the Christian emperors, starting with Constantine. David Woods - who shared the prize with Trombley - argued passionately that Richard Burgess' recent book reconstructing the supposed continuator of Eusebius' Historia Ecclesiastica is completely wrong.
Roger Scott
Melbourne
