PROLOGUE
1.Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Greek A, 1:1–2:4, tr. Elliott.
2.Ibid., 3:1–2.
3.Ibid., 4:1.
INTRODUCTION
1.Epiphanius, The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, Book I, 27.2, 2, tr. F. Williams.
2.For the pipe reference, see Valentinians, in Epiphanius, ibid., 31.7, 3.
3.See W. Schneemelcher (1991), p. 251.
4.Epistula Apostolorum, Ethiopic, 14, ed. Wilson, rev. Schneemelcher. Francis Watson’s translation is similar: ‘When I took the form of the angel Gabriel, I appeared to Mary and I spoke with her. Her heart received me, she believed, sh[e moul]ded me, I entered into her, I became flesh.’ See Watson (2020), 179.
5.Suffer the little children: Matthew 19:14; lunatics . . . or idiots: Acts of Thomas, 12, tr. Elliott.
6.Epiphanius, Panarion, Book I, 24.3, 2. Epiphanius was not a disinterested witness, and, here and elsewhere, what he writes should be treated with due caution; though, in the absence of accounts from the heretics themselves (which have almost all been lost), such hostile sources are almost all that academics have to work with. There is a very plausible suggestion that this Jesus is a misunderstanding of the gnostic conception of Jesus, as seen in the Coptic gnostic Apocalypse of Peter, which told of how the real Jesus watched, ‘glad and laughing’, while nails were driven into the hands and feet of the fleshly body. See Pearson (2005), p. 23.
7.Protoevangelium of James, 20.1, tr. M. R. James.
8.Origen, Contra Celsum, I.50, tr. Chadwick.
9.Ibid., VII.9.
10.E. H. Carr (2018), pp. 5–20.
11.Codex Theodosianus, 16.4.1, tr. Pharr.
12.Ibid., 16.5.20.
13.Julian, Epistle 41, tr. W. C. Wright.
14.G. E. M. de Ste. Croix (2006), pp. 201–2.
15.Liddell and Scott (1996).
16.‘quos partim digessit ecclesia tamquam stercora.’ Discussed in Shaw (2011), p. 339.
17.John Locke, ‘A Letter Concerning Toleration’, in Wootton (2003), p. 390.
18.Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History, vol. 2 (1838), p. 159.
19.The observation is indebted to Mary Beard in Beard (2023), p. 8.
20.Bagehot (1881), p. 4.
21.James (1902).
22.For example, Greek Magical Papyri, XIII.285–95. The story of the statue is dubious (it is in the untrustworthy Historia Augusta) but what is clearly true is that people continued worshipping ancient deities alongside the Christian one, and for a long time.
23.Solomon, Ode 19, Odes of Solomon, tr. J. R. Harris.
CHAPTER ONE: ANTICHRIST
1.Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, I.4, tr. C. P. Jones.
2.Ibid., I.5.
3.Ibid., IV.45.1.
4.Ibid.
5.Ibid., VIII.8. Apollonius was quoting at the time, but the sense remains.
6.Eunapius, quoted in C. P. Jones (1980), p. 193.
7.The estimation of popularity is that of V. Nutton (2013), p. 289; the imperial worshipper Julia Domna.
8.See M. Dzielska (1986), p. 157; also G. R. S. Mead (1901), p. 5, who reflects that ‘the many have been taught to look upon our philosopher not only as a charlatan, but even as an anti-Christ.’ To start a discussion on Apollonius in the way I have here has a long history. It was first done in the third century AD and the majority of authors who write on Apollonius in the modern day will include such a passage in which his life is compared with that of Jesus – see, for example, the excellent Bart D. Ehrman (2012), to which this is indebted.
9.Milton, On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity (1645).
10.E. Gibbon (1909), chapter XV, p. 330.
11.E. H. Gombrich (2005), p. 94.
12.For the snake, see Plutarch, Life of Alexander, 2.6, tr. B. Perrin.
13.Quoted in Macarius, Apokritikos, 3.3, in Berchman (2005), fr. 176.
14.C. S. Lewis (1970); though it has been raised by others before.
15.Quoted in Macarius, Apokritikos, 3.15, in Berchman (2005), fr. 181.
16.Ibid.
17.Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 28.2.
18.Origen, Contra Celsum, II.58, tr. Chadwick.
19.Porphyry, in Jerome, Tractatus de Psalmo 81. in J. H. Gaisser (2008), p. 24.
20.Eusebius, Reply to Hierocles, 2.1, tr. C. P. Jones.
21.Ibid., 2.2.
22.Origen, Contra Celsum, VII.9, tr. Chadwick.
23.Ibid.
24.Ibid.
25.Matthew 24:24, KJV.
26.Origen, Contra Celsum, VI.11, tr. Chadwick.
27.Porphyry, as summarized by Augustine, Epistle 102.8, fr. 112, Berchman (2005), fr. 112.
28.Quoted in Jerome, Epistulae 133, in Berchman (2005), fr. 106.
29.Porphyry, in Macarius, Apokritikos, 4.3, in Berchman (2005), fr. 197.
30.Justin Martyr, First Apology, 21, ANF, vol. 2.
31.Augustine, The City of God against the Pagans, VI.9, tr. R. W. Dyson.
32.Hippolytus, The Refutation of All Heresies, VI.3, ANF, vol. 5.
33.Lucian, Alexander the False Prophet, 8, tr. A. M. Harmon.
34.Lucian, Alexander the False Prophet, 3, tr. A. M. Harmon.
35.Ibid.
36.Lucian, Alexander the False Prophet, 9, tr. A. M. Harmon.
37.Dzielska (1986), p. 32; Bowersock (1970), p. 10; Jones (2005), p. 8.
38.Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, I.4, tr. C. P. Jones.
39.Luke 1:30–2, ESV.
40.Matthew 2:2, KJV; Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, IV.45.1, tr. C. P. Jones.
41.Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, IV.1, tr. C. P. Jones.
42.Matthew 4.20, ESV.
43.Luke 7:12, ESV.
44.Luke 7:13, ESV.
45.Luke 7:14, ESV.
46.Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, VII.41, tr. C. P. Jones.
47.Luke 22.70, ESV.
48.Matthew 27:24, ESV.
49.Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, VIII.9, tr. F. C. Conybeare.
50.John 20:27, ESV.
51.Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, VIII.12, tr. Conybeare.
52.See N. Kanavou (2018), V.32.
53.Dzielska (1986), p. 91. See Raynor (1984) on Philostratus’ view of Moeragenes. For a simple summary of the debate over the way in which Apollonius was seen, see Rives (2008), p. 33ff; for dates, see Hagg (2012), p. 324.
54.N. Kanavou (2018), V.32.
CHAPTER TWO: TO HEAL THE BLIND AND CURE THE LAME
1.Paul, Seven Books, 6,45, quoted in the as ever superb V. Nutton (2013), pp. 302–3, to which this section is indebted.
2.Frier (2000), p. 788 (though he notes the enormous caveats of making assumptions on the scanty data that is available).
3.V. Nutton (2013), pp. 21–2.
4.Pliny, Natural History, 30.8 (22), in Edelstein and Edelstein (1945), T.369.
5.Soranus, Gynaecology, IV.II.9, under the horrifying heading, ‘On Extraction by Hooks and Embryotomy’.
6.Origen, Contra Celsum, I.68, tr. Chadwick.
7.Homer, Iliad, 1.49ff. Plagues, which are dramatic, sudden and affect everyone, are an honourable exception to the lack of medical writing, and they pockmark the history of the era, appearing in the writings of Thucydides and Galen and others, with great detail, zest and abundant use of the word ‘scab’.
8.This estimate is quoted in D. Rohmann (2016), p. 8.
9.V. Nutton (2013), p. 391, n. 21.
10.A. von Harnack (1892), p. 96.
11.Herodas, Mimiambi, IV, 16–19, Edelstein and Edelstein (1945), T.482.
12.Inscriptiones Graecae, IV2, 1, nos. 121–22.9, 35 and 37, in Edelstein and Edelstein (1945), T.423.
13.Suetonius mentions this (Vespasian, 4); the historian Tacitus, writing at about the same time, also noted it. See Tacitus, Histories, V.8.3: ‘the prophecy that this was the very time when the East should grow strong and that men starting from Judaea should possess the world’. Hume would later discuss it and note the reliability of Tacitus.
14.See, for example, Tacitus, Histories, V.13.1.
15.Suetonius, Vespasian, 7, tr. A. Thomson, T. Forester.
16.Ibid.
17.Mark 8:22–5, ESV.
18.Justin, Apologia, 22.6, in Edelstein and Edelstein (1945), T.94.
19.Acts 14:8–13, ESV.
20.For making the mute speak, see Inscriptiones Graecae, IV2, 1, nos. 121–2, in Edelstein and Edelstein (1945), T.423.5; for the story of the lame man and his stolen crutch, see ibid., 16.
21.For white raiment, see Inscriptiones Graecae, IV, 1, no. 128, 20ff, i, i–ii, 26, quoted in Edelstein and Edelstein (1945), T.296; for being enthroned in the sky, see Aelius Aristides, Oratio L, 56 in ibid., T.302; for ‘saviour’ see Inscriptiones Creticae, I, xvii, no. 24 [2–1st c. BC] in ibid., T.441.
22.Inscriptiones Graecae, IV2, 1, nos. 121–2, in Edelstein and Edelstein (1945), T.423.23.
23.For healing the abscess, see ibid., T.423.27; for the cure for lice, see ibid., T.423.28.
24.Aelius Aristides, Oratio XLVII, 32, quoted in ibid., T.544.
25.Herodotus, The Histories, IV.95, tr. A. de Sélincourt.
26.Ibid., IV.95–6.
27.Monkeys: Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 8.54, tr. H. Rackham; for griffins, see ibid., 7.2.6; for habits of Arabian peninsula, see ibid., 6.32.
28.This observation is indebted, yet again, to V. Nutton (2013), p. 5.
29.Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 7.52, tr. Bostock.
30.Apuleius, Apologia, tr. H. E. Butler, 19.
31.Apuleius, Apologia, 19, 4, ed. and tr. C. P. Jones.
32.Ibid., 19, 5.
33.Ibid., 19, 6–7.
34.Ibid., 19, 8–9.
35.Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 26.8.
36.Clement of Rome, First Epistle to the Corinthians, XXV–XXVI, ANF, vol. 1.
37.Origen, Contra Celsum, II.16, tr. Chadwick.
38.Ibid., II.55.
39.Celsus, De Medicina, 2.6.18, tr. W. G. Spencer.
40.Apuleius, The Golden Ass, II.28.
41.Ibid.
42.Ibid., II.29.
43.Origen, Contra Celsum, II.55.
44.Plutarch, The Cleverness of Animals, 973e–974a, tr. Harold Cherniss and William C. Helmbold; discussed in Winkler (1980), pp. 174–5 and also in the fascinating Bowersock (1997), p. 114, to whom this observation is much indebted.
45.Quoted in Macarius, Apokritikos, 4.24, in R. M. Berchman (2005), fr. 210.
46.Ibid.
47.Codex Theodosianus, 9.17.4.
48.S. Tilg (2010), p. 61.
49.Matthew 27:62–4, ESV.
50.John 20:1–2.
51.Chariton, Callirhoe, 3.3, tr. G. P. Goold.
52.Mark 16:2–5, ESV.
53.Tilg (2010), pp. 59–65.
54.Cicero, Letters to Atticus, 5. XII.15, tr. D. R. Shackleton Bailey.
55.Cicero, Letters to Atticus, vol. 3, XII.36, tr. E. O. Winstedt.
CHAPTER THREE: THE FALSEHOODS OF THE MAGICIANS
1.Pliny the Younger, Letters, III.5.10–13. Like an audiobook of antiquity, the slave could be paused and asked to go back to reread a bit that the listener missed – though this irritated Pliny immeasurably when people did it, as he considered it a waste of time.
2.See D. Favro (1992), p. 73; on the heights of buildings and the darkness, see Strabo, Geography, 5.3.7; for Nero (naturally) brawling in the streets in disguise, see Suetonius, Nero, 26.
3.B. D. Shaw (1984), pp. 9–12.
4.For the rich man and the poor man, see Juvenal, Satire, 3.83–9; for the dripping arches, see Juvenal, Satire, 3.11.
5.In some ways. There is evidence that there was also an increased tendency to eating out later and going out later. For a different discussion of dark and light in Rome, see Dossey (2018).
6.For the pale shades, see, for example, Propertius, Elegies, 4.7.1–2; also, Horace, Epistles, 2.2.209.
7.On figs, see L. Watson (2003), p. 200, and M. Johnson (2012), pp. 5–44, to whom this paragraph is indebted.
8.Horace, Satires, 1.8.16; see also discussion in Johnson (2012), pp. 13–21. For discussion of the location, see T. P. Wiseman (2016), pp. 131–55.
9.Horace, Satires, 1.8.
10.Horace, Epodes, V.
11.CIL vi 19747, quoted in Johnson (2012).
12.Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 28.20, tr. Bostock.
13.Codex Justinianus ix, 16, 7 (8), on the Cornelian law concerning assassins (6 February AD 374), quoted in C. Pharr (1932), p. 288.
14.On attempts to redefine magic by arguing this point, see R. L. Gordon (2017), pp. 122–3. On the correlation between spice and India and magic, see E. A. Pollard (2013), pp. 1–23.
15.Table VIII, 1a in Johnson et al. (2012), p. 11.
16.Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 28.4.19 (‘defigi quidem diris deprecationibus nemo non metuit’).
17.Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 37.14, tr. Bostock.
18.See, for example, Tacitus, Histories, V.13.1.
19.Paulus, quoted in M. Smith (1981), p. 75.
20.Ibid. See also Pharr (1932), p. 280.
21.Acts 19:17–19, ESV.
22.Such as the Philoponoi: the Life of Severus discusses the zeal with which they did this; see an analysis of their actions and the truth of the account in D. Rohmann (2016), chapter 3.
23.For the prohibition of all magic, see Pharr (1932), p. 269 and p. 294. For the changes in book prohibitions brought about by Christianity, see D. Rohmann (2016).
24.H. D. Betz (1996), p. xli.
CHAPTER FOUR: SERPENT’S BLOOD AND EYE OF APE
1.A. D. Nock (1929), p. 219.
2.Greek Magical Papyri, V.70–90 (triangle), VII.300 (circle), II.165–75 (headless human), II.150–65 (dung beetle).
3.Chant: Greek Magical Papyri, III.572–5.
4.Ibid., IV.2346–50.
5.Ibid., I.222–31 (turning invisible), I.100–30 (solidifying rivers and seas).
6.Nock (1929), p. 228.
7.Ibid., p. 219.
8.Greek Magical Papyri, I.222–4.
9.Ibid., I.9–10.
10.Ibid., II.1–64.
11.Ibid., IV.915–20 (cumin), III.390–5 (cardamom), II.70–80 (nightshade and bayberries), VII.995–1000 (figs), III.1–164 (cinnabar ink and drowned cat), IV.2000–5 (serpent’s blood and soot), I.247–9 (peony and eye of ape).
12.For storax, sage, frankincense and myrrh, see ibid., IV.2870–80; for asphodel and wild garlic, see Papyri Demoticae Magicae, xiv 966–9; for myrrh, garlic and gall of gazelle, see Papyri Demoticae Magicae, xiv 961–6.
13.Greek Magical Papyri, I.247–62.
14.Ibid., IV.2875–6.
15.Ibid., XCV.14–18 (epilepsy), XCIV.17–21 (daimon possession), VII.209–10 (swollen testicles); for stopping the flow of blood from a woman, see Papyri Demoticae Magicae, xiv 961–5; for a pregnancy test, see Papyri Demoticae Magicae, xiv 956–60; for an erection, see Papyri Demoticae Magicae, lxi 58–62.
16.Greek Magical Papyri, IV.467–8 (restraining anger), VII.149–54 (bug-free house), VII.423–8 (winning at dice).
17.Ibid., I.247–62 (invisibility), III.479–83 (foreknowledge), VII.505–28 (meeting one’s own daimon), IV.86–7 (guarding against demons), IV.1227–64 (driving out daimons, among others), VI.1–47 (meeting a god (Helios)), XII.14–95 (making a god obey your command).
18.Betz (1996), p. xlv.
19.Greek Magical Papyri, XIa.1–40.
20.Ibid., IV.1227–35.
21.Ibid., IV.3007–86.
22.Betz (1996), p. xlv.
23.Ibid., p. xlvii.
24.Ibid., p. xlviii.
25.E. A. Wallis Budge (1971), p. x.
26.Ibid., pp. x–xi.
27.Ibid., p. xi.
28.Ibid., p. x.
29.Ibid.
30.Betz (1996), p. xliii.
31.Origen, Contra Celsum, I.68, tr. Chadwick.
32.P. Schäfer (2007), p. 55.
33.Origen, Contra Celsum, I.28, tr. Chadwick.
34.Quoted in E. S. Drower (1962), p. 443.
35.Justin, Second Apology, VI, ANF, vol. I.
36.Pistis Sophia: A Gnostic Gospel, 1.25, tr. G. R. S. Mead.
37.Augustine, City of God against the Pagans, X.9, tr. R. W. Dyson.
38.Augustine, City of God, X.9, tr. D. S. Wiesen.
39.Augustine, City of God, tr. Dyson, X.9.
40.Origen, Contra Celsum, II.49, tr. Chadwick.
41.‘Benighted fools’: Eusebius, Reply to Hierocles, 4; for superficiality, see 4.1; for illusions, see 2.2.
42.M. Smith (1981), p. vii.
43.Ibid., p. 6.
44.Ibid., p. vii
45.Ibid., p. 7.
46.P. Lond, 122, quoted in Nock (1929), p. 231, n. 5.
47.Greek Magical Papyri, I.100–110.
48.Ibid., I.120–125.
49.Ibid., I.105–115.
50.Lucian, Philopseudes, 12–13, tr. Harmon.
51.Mark 5:9–13, ESV.
52.Lucian, Philopseudes, 16, tr. Harmon, discussed in M. Smith (1981), p. 56ff.
53.Lucian, Philopseudes, 16, tr. Harmon.
54.Lucian, Philopseudes, 16, tr. H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler.
55.Lucian, Menippus, 6, tr. Harmon.
56.Ibid., 7.
57.Ibid., 9.
58.See, for example, Tillotson (1820), p. 443.
59.Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, VIII.7,10, tr. C. P. Jones.
60.Jerome, Tractatus de Psalmo 81 in R. M. Berchman (2005), fr. 93.
61.Or, in Greek, magos and magoi.
62.Matthew 2:1, KJV.
63.Ebony staff: Greek Magical Papyri, I.335–6; Greek Magical Papyri, IV.2115–16.
64.T. F. Mathews (1999), p. 54.
65.Mathews (1999), p. 57ff. See also D. J. Cartlidge and J. K. Elliot (2001), p. 60, who note, of images of Jesus performing miracles, that, ‘In these scenes he is often holding a wand, a virga. Thus, Jesus is also a magos.’
CHAPTER FIVE: THE PRODUCT OF INSANITY
1.See G. D. Dunn (2007), pp. 467–84, for an outline of the ancient debate and for an overview of the modern debates about whether or not what is being referred to was Mary’s hymen. The debate is complicated, both theologically and biologically (since fitting modern ideas of physiology onto ancient ones rarely goes well).
2.Luke 2:7.
3.Matthew 1:25, ESV.
4.Shoemaker (2008), p. 499, who notes that it formed a ‘regular part of Christian worship’; see also Horn (2018) on its importance in the Caucasus.
5.The figure of 140 comes from Shoemaker (2008), p. 499; the languages are from Elliott (2009), p. 48.
6.Shoemaker (2008), p. 499.
7.For the lack of the ox and the ass in the Bible, see D. J. Cartlidge and J. K. Elliott (2001), pp. 18–19; for Giotto and mosaics, see ibid., p. 23ff.
8.Klauck, quoted in Shoemaker (2008), p. 498. See also Cameron (1994), p. 98, who notes that ‘generations of preachers dwelt so often and so lovingly’ on such texts.
9.Protoevangelium of James, 17:3, tr. Elliott.
10.Ibid., 19:2–3.
11.Protoevangelium of James, 18:3, tr. Walker. The exclamation is an ancient incantation formula of great force.
12.Protoevangelium of James, 20:1, tr. Elliott.
13.Protoevangelium of James, 20:1, tr. M. R. James.
14.The matting, seats and stone are, of course, Larkin’s in ‘Church Going’.
15.Epiphanius, Panarion, Book I, 31.1, referring to the Valentinians; Epiphanius, Panarion, Book I, 24.1, referring to the Basilidians.
16.Epiphanius, Panarion, Book I, 30, 2 and 30.3, 2.
17.Ibid., 44.2, 1.
18.Extract from the Latin Infancy Gospel, in the Arundel Manuscript, Schneemelcher (ed.), p. 466.
19.See Irenaeus, Against the Heresies, III.19 for similar; the quotation is from Epiphanius, Panarion, Book I, 27.2, 2.
20.Epiphanius, Panarion, Book I, 27.2, 2.
21.Basil of Ancyra, The Synodal Letter of the Council of Ancyra, in A. Radde-Gallwitz and E. Muehlberger (eds.) (2017), p. 148.
22.Origen, Contra Celsum, I.39, tr. Crombie.
23.Origen, Contra Celsum, I.28, tr. Chadwick.
24.Tertullian, De spectaculis, 30.
25.P. Schäfer (2007), p. 22.
26.Ibid. See also M. Smith (1981), pp. 26–8, for further discussion of the same point from a Christian perspective.
27.Quoted in Schäfer (2007), p. 24.
28.Epiphanius, discussed in M. Smith (1981), pp. 60–1.
29.Matthew 1:25, ESV.
30.See K. Rahner (1975), pp. 892–8, for a summary of developments.
31.For doors, see Augustine, Sermon 247.2; for fence and seal, see Ambrose, Epistle LXIII, 33. Such euphemisms, combined with a certain vagueness of ancient biology, can make it hard to know precisely what is being discussed, and there are those who argue that this debate is not in fact over the question of Mary’s hymen, but about the more general shape of her vagina after birth. But whatever the precise body part such ancient authors had in mind, the point remains: what is being discussed is the fleshly proof of virginity – or otherwise.
32.Aëtius, Libri medicinales, 16.17, quoted in K. Hopkins (2018), p. 70.
33.From Saint Ephrem the Syrian, The Harp of the Spirit, tr. S. Brock (1983), p. 62ff.
34.Discussed in Cartlidge and Elliott (2001), pp. 82–4.
35.Protoevangelium of James, 13:1, tr. Elliott.
36.Ibid., 13:2–3.
37.Protoevangelium of James, 13:2–3, tr. M. R. James.
38.The Ethiopic Liber Requiei Mariae, 5, 4–6, tr. Shoemaker, quoted in S. J. Shoemaker (2009), pp. 7–8.
39.Ibid.
CHAPTER SIX: WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?
1.Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Greek A, 4.2, tr. Elliott.
2.Ibid., 5.1.
3.Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Greek A, 5.1, tr. James.
4.Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Greek A, 5.2–3, tr. Elliott.
5.Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Greek A, 14.2, tr. Elliott.
6.Ibid.
7.Ibid.
8.Ibid., 7.2.
9.Ibid., 14.3.
10.See W. Elzey (Winter 1975), p. 466.
11.Sheldon (2016), p. 1108.
12.Sheldon, in ibid., pp. 1110–11.
13.Ibid., p. 1101.
14.For chameleon comparison, see T. F. Mathews (1999), p. 115; for Greek god, see L. M. Jefferson (2014), pp. 100–1, who is wary of Asclepius similarities; Mathews (1999), pp. 69–72, who considers them more pronounced; also see F. Flannery (2017), pp. 409–10. For Jesus’ breasts, see D. J. Cartlidge and J. K. Elliott (2001), pp. 64–8, and their observation that much that is considered uncomfortable is dismissed as gnostic. For width, see Epiphanius, Panarion, Book I, 19.4, 1.
15.Acts of Thomas, 12, tr. Elliott.
16.Epiphanius, Panarion, Book I, 26.8, 1, tr. Williams.
17.Acts of John, 93, tr. Elliott.
18.Clement, Stromata, 6.72.1, quoted and translated in P. Ashwin-Siejkowski (2010), p. 99.
19.See Epiphanius, Panarion, Book I, 20.1, 1, tr. Williams; Tertullian, Against All Heresies, I.I.
20.Papias, quoted in Eusebius, History of the Church, III.39.4, tr. G. A. Williamson.
21.B. M. Metzger (2009), p. 262.
22.Luke 2:33, KJV. See also A. Globe (1980), pp. 52–72.
23.Quoted in Macarius, Apokritikos, 2.12 in R. M. Berchman (2005), fr. 169.
24.Luke 24:1; Matthew 28:1–7; Mark 16:1; John 20:1.
25.Matthew 28:2–3; Mark 16:5; Luke 24:4; John 20:12.
26.B. D. Ehrman and Z. Pleše (2014), p. xii.
27.Origen, Homilies on Luke, 1.2.
28.Clement, Stromata, VI.9, ed. Schaff.
29.Fragment 3, quoted in G. Quispel (1996), p. 346. One of the reasons that fasting was considered a sacred act by some in the ancient world was because, soon, such ‘shameful and repulsive’ excretions cease (discussed in Quispel (1996), p. 348).
30.G. K. Chesterton (2007), p. 176.
31.Mark 11:14, ESV.
32.B. Russell (2004), p. 19.
33.Matthew 10:34–6, ESV.
34.Luke 6:24–6, ESV.
CHAPTER SEVEN: ON SARDINES AND RESURRECTIONS
1.Acts 8:9–11, KJV.
2.For ‘craft of Satan’, see Acts of Peter, V, tr. M. R. James.
3.Acts of Peter, VIII, tr. M. R. James.
4.Ibid., IX.
5.Ibid., XII and IX, respectively.
6.Ibid., XII.
7.Ibid., XIII.
8.Ibid.
9.W. Hone (2003), p. 10.
10.Ibid., p. 73.
11.Hone quoted in J. Marsh (1998), pp. 29–31, to whose book this section is indebted.
12.Ibid., p. 30.
13.Hone quoted in J. Marsh (1998), pp. 43–4.
14.The title is that of a reprint, with foreword by Hancock (1863). See M. R. James (2004), pp. xiv–xx, for a typically Jamesian sniff at the work.
15.All quoted in J. Marsh (1998): ‘mischievous and malevolent’ (Archdeacon Butler), p. 46; ‘most dangerous . . .’ etc., p. 44; ‘Systematic disregard’, ‘deep and desperate malignity’, ‘notorious infidelity’ (all quoted by Hone), p. 48.
16.Archdeacon Butler, quoted in Marsh (1998), p. 47.
17.Hone (1820), p. 58; p. 82.
18.Ibid., p. xv.
19.James, M. R. (1924), p. xv.
20.Hone (1820), xv.
21.Acts of John, 60, tr. M. R. James.
22.Matthew 19:24, KJV.
23.Acts of Peter and Andrew, 16, tr. M. R. James.
24.Ibid., 16–18.
25.Ibid.
26.The story doesn’t quite say that he finally gives his wealth away – there is a baptism that intervenes – but it is the clear implication of verses 18–23.
27.Acts of Peter, 28, tr. Elliott.
28.Ibid.
29.For ‘schlock’, see J. A. Fitzmyer (1980), p. 123, quoted in H. Koester (1980), p. 106. See also B. M. Metzger (2009), p. 77, who disdains the Nag Hamamdi texts as ‘tedious and verbose’.
30.‘Preposterous’ in Berchman (2005), p. 211; ‘the absolute stupidity of it all’, p. 206; ‘obscurity and stupidity’, p. 197; ‘no one is so uneducated or stupid’, p. 212. ‘Drunken’ in Origen, Contra Celsum, VI.37.
31.Porphyry, in Macarius, Apokritikos, 3.4, in Berchman (2005), fr. 177.
32.Ibid.
33.Ibid.
34.B. Russell (2004).
35.Origen, Contra Celsum, VI.51, tr. Chadwick.
36.Ibid., VI.54.
37.Ibid.
38.Ibid., VI.50.
39.Mark 9:43; see also Mark 9:45 and Mark 9:47, all KJV.
40.Mark 9:48, KJV.
41.D. J. Kyrtatas (2009), pp. 282–3.
42.There is a list given in the superb article by Kyrtatas (2009), p. 288.
43.Apocalypse of Peter, 23–5, tr. Elliott.
44.Apocalypse of Paul, 38 (for whoremongers); 39 (for virgins and unguents), tr. M. R. James.
45.The words are from the so-called ‘Gelasian Decree’, for a discussion on which, see the typically brisk F. Crawford Burkitt (1913), pp. 469–71. The Latin comes from von Dobschütz (1921).
46.Kyrtatas (2009), p. 288.
47.From Bremmer (2007), p. 314, and Kyrtatas (2009), passim.
48.See, for example, Kyrtatas (2009), p. 288: ‘In fact, it is the Apoc. Pet., not the New Testament, which introduces us to what we have come to recognize as Christian hell.’
CHAPTER EIGHT: FRUIT FROM A DUNGHILL
1.Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 36.105–8, tr. Eichholz.
2.For men sweating in togas, see Quintilian’s image of a sweaty orator, Institutio Oratorio, XI.3; for the carts and the pots on the slaves’ heads, see Juvenal, Satire III.250–9.
3.For the smell of drying lakes, see Strabo, 17.1.7; for dead animals, see Martial, 6.93.
4.For fullers’ jars, see Martial, 6.93.
5.For cinnamon and lavender, see Martial, 6.55; 3.55.
6.For fresh breezes, see Strabo, 17.7, tr. Roller, with slight alteration for modernity.
7.Expositio totius mundi et gentium, VIII, tr. J. Rouge.
8.For transport types, see L. Casson (1954), pp. 101–2, but also passim.
9.Expositio totius mundi et gentium, VIII.
10.Epiphanius, Panarion, Book I, 26.3, 3–5, tr. Williams.
11.Ibid., 26.1, 1–2. Epiphanius refers to the location of this as being ‘the city’. For the fact that the city is Alexandria, see Williams (2008), xiii and Benko (1967), 112. While it suited ancient writers to represent Alexandria as a sink of iniquity, it seems at least possible if not probable that Epiphanius was conflating (mis)information on different gnostic sects here.
12.Ibid., 26.17, 8.
13.Ibid., 26.17, 4.
14.Ibid., 26.3, 3.
15.Ibid., 26 passim.
16.Ibid., 26.17, 6.
17.Ibid., 26.4, 1.
18.Ibid., 26.4, 1–3.
19.Ibid., 26.4, 3.
20.Epiphanius, Panarion, Book I, 26.4, 3, tr. Williams, with small emendation in that ‘agape’ has been translated as ‘love’ for ease of understanding of those who are unfamiliar with the term ‘agape’.
21.Ibid.
22.Acts 9:1, KJV.
23.Acts 9:3–4, KJV.
24.The calculation is that of Ronald Hock, quoted in W. Meeks (1983), p. 16, to which excellent book this paragraph and the next are much indebted.
25.W. Meeks (1983), p. 17.
26.From the fascinating B. D. Shaw (1984), pp. 3–52.
27.Meeks (1983), p. 17.
28.The Digest of Justinian, 39.4.16.7, tr A. Watson.
29.The king was Herod Agrippa, quoted in the excellent Casson (1954), p. 102.
30.T. Hardy, ‘The Roman Road’.
31.Statius, Silvae, IV.3.40–44, tr. Shackleton Bailey.
32.Ibid., IV, prologue.
33.Ibid., IV.3.36–9.
34.B. Ward-Perkins (2006), p. 100, to whose splendid and readable book this paragraph is much indebted.
35.Pliny the Elder, Natural History, XII.41, tr. Bostock.
36.Ward-Perkins (2006), p. 95. And, as Ward-Perkins points out, immediately after Rome fell, they fell back down to levels closer to those of prehistoric times.
37.Ibid., p. 90–2.
38.Procopius, The Secret History, 30.2ff, tr. G. A. Williamson; for the estimate see P. Sabin et al. (2007), p. 9.
39.See Suetonius, Galba, 22. Such systems were for the use of the most privileged of the Empire; but even ordinary people were assumed to be able to travel far, and fast: if you were summoned to court Roman law expected you to turn up and to, if necessary, travel 20 miles a day to get there; if you did not, the case would automatically go against you. See Ausonius, Epistles, XVI.11–15.
40.Juvenal, Satire III.69–71, tr. P. Green.
41.Varro, quoted in Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, VI.16, tr. Rolfe.
42.Ward-Perkins (2006), p. 89.
43.Juvenal, Satire XV.109–13, tr. Green.
44.This observation is indebted to N. Hirschfeld (1990), p. 25.
45.This came from a discussion with Tim Whitmarsh about a forthcoming book he is writing on this era.
CHAPTER NINE: GO INTO ALL THE WORLD
1.The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, 20; 55, tr. W. H. Schoff.
2.All from Cosmas Indicopleustes, The Christian Topography, tr. J. W. McCrindle: for unicorn, see Book XI.335; for pepper tree, see Book XI.336; for dolphin meat, see Book XI.336.
3.Ibid., Book XI.339.
4.Ibid., Book III.178. Though, what Cosmas meant by Persia and what modern readers understand by the term are likely to be quite different.
5.Matthew 24:14, quoted in Ibid.
6.Cosmas Indicopleustes, The Christian Topography, III.178, tr. J. W. McCrindle.
7.Mark 16:15, ESV.
8.See, for example, D. Scott (2008), p. 63.
9.Jenkins (2008), p. 63.
10.A. S. Atiya (1968), p. 261. This paragraph is indebted to Atiya’s magnificent book.
11.The conclusion is that of Atiya (1968), p. 240: ‘It is no exaggeration to contend that, in the early Middle Ages the Nestorian Church was the most widespread in the whole world.’
12.Peter Frankopan’s lovely book – The Silk Roads (2016) – is one modern attempt to redress the balance. Other thoughtful scholars have, to their credit, been pointing this out for decades. The scholar F. Burkitt made a similar point in his 1899 lectures, ‘Beyond the Roman Empire’.
13.Atiya (1968), p. 13.
14.Jenkins (2008), pp. 52–3.
15.See A. A. Barrett (1991), pp. 11–12.
16.Strabo, Geography, 4.5.1–4, tr. D. W. Roller.
17.See B. Bawer (2001), pp. 685–92.
18.The Book of Enoch, 8.1–2, tr. R. H. Charles.
19.Or at least according to Epiphanius, anyway. Epiphanius, Panarion, Book I, 37.1 and 37.6.5.
20.Ibid., 37.1 and 37.6, 8.
21.Ibid., 37.5, 8.
22.Ibid., 27.6, 9–10.
23.Ibid., 28.1, 1–2.
24.They are also attested in the work of an earlier Syrian writer, and mentioned in a later law outlawing them (Codex Theodosianus, 16.5.65.2) and other places. They were known by many other names, including the Phibionites. On Epiphanius’ broad spectrum of names, see S. Benko (1967), pp. 103–19.
25.Epiphanius, Panarion, Book I, 26.4, 3.
26.Ibid., 26.9, 6–9.
27.Ibid., Book II, 43.1, 4.
28.See R. S. Kraemer (1992) and V. Burrus (1991), pp. 229–48.
29.Echoes of which can be heard in Pliny the Younger’s letters to Trajan. See Pliny the Younger, Letters, X.96.
30.Epiphanius, Panarion, Book I, 26.5, 4.
31.See B. M. Metzger (1980), p. 27. The whole of the chapter, which is titled ‘Names for the Nameless in the New Testament’, is fascinating.
32.Ephraem, Madrash 1.18, quoted in W. Bauer (1972), pp. 29–31.
33.John 14:26, as discussed in the very old, but very elegantly written, F. Crawford Burkitt (1899), pp. 37–8.
34.Quoted in S. H. Moffett (1998), p. 53.
35.Burkitt (1899), pp. 61–2.
36.Aphraates, quoted in ibid., pp. 38–9.
37.The Gospel According to the Hebrews, quoted in Origen, On John 2.12, tr. Elliott.
38.Solomon, Odes of Solomon, Ode 19, tr. J. R. Harris. Almost everything about these odes is debated, but that they were originally composed in Syriac seems likely, and a date of the second century is probable.
39.For the hymn, see Moffett (1998), pp. 52–3; for the music, see W. Dalrymple (1997), pp. 175–6.
40.Atiya (1968), p. 55.
41.D. Brakke (1994), p. 401.
42.See ibid., p. 407.
43.Acts of Thomas, 1, tr. Elliott.
44.For the modern location of this kingdom, see R. E. Frykenberg (2008), pp. 94–5, to whom these paragraphs are much indebted. The modern translation offers ‘carpenter’; in truth, ‘builder’ would be more accurate.
45.Acts of Thomas, 2–3, tr. Elliott.
46.Ibid., 11.
47.Ibid., 12.
48.Ibid.
49.Brown (1982), pp. 49–51, quoted in Frykenberg (2008), p. 99, n. 10.
50.G. F. Snyder (2003), pp. 60–1, who also discusses the possibility that certain things may be considered to be crosses (or have been argued to be).
CHAPTER TEN: IN EDEN
1.W. Thesiger (2007), p. 60.
2.Ibid., p. 23.
3.Ibid.
4.Ibid.
5.Quoted in E. S. Drower (1962), pp. 441–2.
6.Quoted in ibid., p. 443.
7.Quoted in ibid., p. 442.
8.Quoted in ibid., p. 441–2.
9.G. Russell (2015), p. xix.
10.Herodotus, The Histories, 1.1, tr. A. de Sélincourt.
11.H. G. Snyder (2013), p. 184.
12.For this date, see P. Piovanelli (2003).
13.Book of the Cock, tr. M. R. James. For a discussion of the history and transmission of this text, see Piovanelli (2003).
14.For the history of the Western ‘discovery’ of the Book of the Cock, see Piovanelli (2003), p. 428.
15.Quoted in R. E. Frykenberg (2008), p. 1021, n. 15, to whom these paragraphs on Thomas Christians are much indebted.
16.Jesus Messiah Sutra, 3, tr. Saeki, quoted in the fascinating D. Scott (1985), p. 92.
17.Jesus Messiah Sutra, 87, tr. Saeki, quoted in Scott (1985), p. 93.
18.For a roundup of Prester John and the background to his letter, see K. Brewer (2015), pp. 1–12.
19.For date, see ibid., p. 3.
20.Ibid., p. 68.
21.Ibid.
22.Ibid., p.72.
23.Ibid., p. 71–6.
24.Ibid., p. 82, taking Brewer’s suggestion of ‘centaurs’ for ‘archers’.
25.Lobo, Voyage to Abyssinia, quoted in the fascinating P. Jenkins (2008), p. 147, to whom this and the next observations are indebted.
26.From Korschorke, Ludwig and Delgado (eds.) (2007), p. 28.
27.Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo, tr. R. E. Latham.
28.This observation is indebted to S. Lieu (1980), p. 71.
29.Marco Polo (1982), tr. Latham.
30.Ibid.
31.Lieu (1980), p. 79. See also S. Lieu et al. (2012), pp. 25–52 and 208–211 and S. Lieu (2023), pp. 329–60.
32.Klimkeit (1993), p. 16.
33.Ibid., p. 264, Ten Commandments for Auditors.
34.Ibid., p. 266.
35.Ibid., p. 267.
36.Discussed in ibid., p. 7; quotation from ibid., p. 181.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE BIRTH OF HERESY
1.Quoted in Historia Albigensis, tr. W. A. Sibly and M. D. Sibly, p. 64.
2.Ibid.
3.Ibid., p. 84.
4.Chanson de la Croisade, 18.430–40, quoted in Z. Oldenbourg (2000), p. 114.
5.The figure of 15,000 is from the Chanson; the hour comes from Historia Albigensis, p. 90.
6.Quoted in Oldenbourg (2000), p. 114.
7.The not wholly reliable number is from Historia Albigensis, p. 91.
8.Ibid.
9.Ibid., p. 90.
10.Ibid., p. 91.
11.Caesarius, 5.XXI, tr. H. Von E. Scott and C. C. Swinton Bland.
12.Ad extirpanda, quoted and translated in Prudlo (2019), p. 97.
13.C. Murphy (2012), pp. 4–5, to whom this is much indebted. These were afternoon meetings; there were others in the mornings.
14.Ibid.
15.The full sentence of the Inquisition is quoted in Russell (2017).
16.The observation is indebted to Kynaston (2007), p. 242.
17.It is in the middle form that it means ‘choose’ – as in, ‘I take for myself’. So, strictly speaking, the first-person singular is haireomai. But that is more of a mouthful.
18.I am, here and in this entire paragraph, indebted to the hugely interesting M. Simon (1979), p. 110.
19.Simon (1979), p. 115.
20.This observation is indebted to Simon, ibid.
21.Ignatius of Antioch, Trallians 6, tr. Grant.
22.Epiphanius, Panarion, Book I, 1–2 (poison); Codex Theodosianus, 16.5.20 (polluted contagion), 16.5.64 (criminals); Augustine, Sermo ad Caesariensis plebem, 8, quoted in B. D. Shaw (2011), p. 330 (whore); Epiphanius, Panarion, Book I, Proem I.2,3 (frauds, tramps, wretches). Both Panarion and the Theodosian Code provide a wealth of other mouth-filling insults to hurl at heretics. This paragraph is much indebted to Shaw.
23.The following are all from Epiphanius – chosen because he provides the supreme example of the genre. Epiphanius, Panarion, 26.1, 1 (swarms of insects), 38.8, 6 (dung-beetles), 26.5, 1 (swine), 27.33, 3 (wolves), 27.5, 1 (wild beasts).
24.Epiphanius, Panarion, passim, but especially: 26.3, 8 and 21.7, 2.
25.Augustine, Sermo 5.1, in Shaw (2011), p. 339.
26.Optatus, Against the Donatists, I.III, tr. Vassall-Phillips.
27.Irenaeus: Against the Heresies II, pp. v–vi.
28.The famous account of the Bacchic scandal is, of course, Livy’s, see The Early History of Rome, 39.8. This list and discussion are indebted to J. A. North (1979), pp. 85–6.
29.Edict of Diocletian, AD 302, tr. Hyamson (1913), rev. S. Lieu, quoted in Lieu and Gardner (2004), p. 116.
30.Roman writers were apt to launch into long and contemptuous descriptions of foreign religions. The reliably cantankerous Roman writer Juvenal, for example, satirized women who would at one moment become a frenzied acolyte of Cybele, the Mother of Gods; then head off to Egypt to get water to splash around in the temple of Isis; then visit a Jewish soothsayer or an Eastern fortune-teller. See Juvenal, Satire VI.508–91.
31.Herodotus, The Histories, III.38, tr. A. de Sélincourt.
32.Origen, Contra Celsum, V.34, tr. Chadwick.
33.Symmachus, Memorandum, 3.8–10, quoted in Lee (2000), p. 116–17.
34.John 14:6, ESV.
35.Julian, Against the Galileans, Book I.115, tr. W. C. Wright.
36.Ibid.
37.Chrysostom, Homily 1, in First Timothy, 2, quoted and discussed in the superb D. Rohmann (2016), p. 87.
38.Plato, Apology, 21d, tr. H. N. Fowler.
39.Epiphanius, Panarion, Book I, 4.2,8, tr. Williams.
40.Tertullian, De Praescriptione Haereticorum, 9.4, quoted and discussed in Simon (1979), p. 115.
41.Prudentius, The Divinity of Christ, tr. H. J. Thomson, pp. 203–4.
42.Gregory Nazianzen, Oration, 5.28, translated in Rohmann (2016), p. 59. The observation is Rohmann’s.
43.Ibid., Book I.
44.Julian, Against the Galileans, 230A–239E, tr. Wright.
45.Origen, Contra Celsum, 3.12, tr. Chadwick.
46.Ibid.
47.Augustine, De utilitate ieiunii, 7.9: ‘et illi sub multis falsis non habent divisionem, nos sub uno vero non tenemus unitatem’, Patrologia Latina XL, ed. Migne (1844).
48.Ammianus Marcellinus, The Later Roman Empire, 22.5, tr. W. Hamilton.
49.All Codex Theodosianus: (feral) 16.5.7.3; (insanity) 16.5.18, but also passim; (contagion) 16.5.56, but also passim.
CHAPTER TWELVE: ON LAWS
1.Virgil, The Aeneid, I.279, tr. H. Rushton Fairclough.
2.Horace, Odes, II.11.
3.Pliny the Younger, The Letters of the Younger Pliny, I.6, tr. J. B. Firth.
4.Horace, Satire 1.2, 114–19, cited in C. Williams and M. Nussbaum (2010), p. 33.
5.Augustine, Confessions, tr. F. J. Sheed: 10.35 (sunlight), 9.8 (thirst). This observation is indebted to Peter Brown and his wonderful Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (2000).
6.Augustine, Ep. 7.3,6, tr. NPNF, vol. I; the bowl point is indebted to Lane-Fox’s biography.
7.Augustine, Confessions, 2.3, tr. Sheed.
8.Ibid., 8.7.
9.I wrote about this first in an Economist article, ‘To understand the Roman Empire, read Pliny the Younger’, 29 January 2022.
10.Codex Theodosianus, 9.12.1.
11.Ibid., 9.15.1.
12.Ibid., 9.24.1.4.
13.Ibid., 9.24.1.5, interpretation.
14.Ibid., 9.9.1.
15.Ibid., 9.30.1–3 (horses), 10.21.1–2 (colours), 15.7.11 (gems). For fabrics, see below.
16.Ibid., 14.10.4 (hair), 14.10.3 (trousers).
17.Ibid., 10.21.2.
18.The law is ibid. 15.7.12: ‘actresses of mimes and other women who acquire gain by the wantonness of their bodies shall not publicly wear the dress of those virgins who are dedicated to God.’
19.In tone, topic and status, it should be noted that these laws are a breed apart from bread prices and slave beatings – not quite civil law, they are something else again. On the separation of the laws of Book 16 from the rest of the code, see Shaw (2011), p. 223. The licence imagery is frequently used, but originated with MacMullen.
20.Eusebius, Life of Constantine, tr. A. Cameron and S. G. Hall (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), I.28.2.
21.Panegyric of Constantine, IV.21.4, tr. C. E. V. Nixon and B. Saylor Rodgers.
22.Hal Drake (particularly in his 2017 book A Century of Miracles) is characteristically excellent on this, both at summing up the (endless) controversies over it and in suggesting a sensible way to understand it.
23.Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, Augustus, 95, tr. Graves.
24.Historia Augusta, 18.25, tr. D. Magie, rev. D. Rohrbacher.
25.Though the information about its celebration comes later, from the Chronography (or ‘calendar’) of 354. See S. Hijmans (2003) for a discussion of when it started to be celebrated on that date.
26.Tertullian, referenced in R. M. Jensen (2000), p. 42.
27.See ibid., pp. 42–3.
28.Historia Augusta, 17.3.4, tr. Magie. For a hugely entertaining account of this supremely eccentric emperor, see Harry Sidebottom’s The Mad Emperor.
29.J. H. Saleh (2019).
30.See A. D. Lee (2005), p. 172: ‘There can be no doubt that Constantine’s pronouncements from 324 onwards sometimes indicated a more critical attitude against traditional religions.’
31.Codex Theodosianus, 16.5.1.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE BREEDS OF HERETICAL MONSTERS
1.Eusebius, The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine, 10.1, tr. G. A. Williamson.
2.Ibid., 10.9.
3.Ibid.
4.Ibid.
5.Codex Theodosianus, 16.5.5.
6.Codex Theodosianus, 16.5.34.
7.Fines, varying according to social rank, stipulated in ibid., 16.5.52.
8.Ibid., 16.5.53; for a discussion of the tone of the law, see P. Brown (2015), pp. 638–9.
9.Codex Theodosianus, 16.5.21.
10.Novels of Theodosius, 3.1.4.
11.Codex Theodosianus, 16.5.9.
12.Ibid., 16.5.13.
13.Ibid., 16.5.15.
14.Ibid., 16.5.34.1.
15.Ibid., 16.5.34.1.
16.Ibid., 16.1.3 (malicious subtlety), 16.6.3 (madness, but there are many other examples), 16.8.1 and passim (‘feral’ and ‘nefarious’ Jews). This book does not deal with the Christian Church’s vicious attitude to Judaism in these years – not because it was not vicious, but because it would deserve an entire book to itself.
17.Ibid., 16.4.1, 16.4.3.
18.Ibid., 16.5.6.1, AD 381.
19.Hopkins (2017), p. 442.
20.Novels of Theodosius, 3.1.9–10.
21.Julian, letter to a priest, tr. W. C. Wright.
22.G. E. M. de Ste. Croix (2006), p. 201, gives the example of the (then) current edition of the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church.
23.Ibid.
24.Vermaseren (1956–60), quoted in Lee (2005), p. 161.
25.For this being the earliest ‘Eleousa’, as this image is called, see Werner (1972), p. 5.
26.B. D. Shaw (2011), p. 223. For ‘juggernaut’, see King (1969), p. 54, paraphrased in Shaw.
27.Codex Theodosianus, 16.10.4.
28.Eusebius, Life of Constantine, III.54ff, tr. Cameron and Hall.
29.Codex Theodosianus, 16.10.4.
30.Novels of Theodosius, 3.1.8.
31.See Brown (2015), p. 657: ‘A thousand persons might be initiated every year at Easter in any large city.’
32.This paragraph and its observation is indebted to Brown (2015), p. 657, referencing Dialogue of Palladius concerning the Life of St John Chrysostom, IX.
33.Codex Theodosianus, 16.5.25.
34.Ibid., 16.5.29.
35.Ibid. See discussion in the lucid M. R. Salzman (1993), p. 375ff. Also, her observation about how little the Code has been used as a method of studying conversion.
36.Russell, B., ‘Free Thought and Official Propaganda’ in Russell (2000), p. 359.
37.Codex Theodosianus, 16.5.56, also issued in AD 410.
38.Ibid., 16.5.54.
39.Codex Justinianus, 1.5.4.
40.Ibid.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: LIKE GRAINS OF SAND
1.J. Doresse (1950), p. 435. See the detailed analysis in J. Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Story (Leiden: Brill, 2014), to whom these paragraphs are indebted: p. 13ff (for graves); pp. 28–9 (for animals and properly cut tombs).
2.Doresse, quoted in Robinson (2014), p. 9.
3.The Life of Saint Pachomius and His Disciples. Pachomian Koinonia, tr. A. Veilleux, vol. 1, p. 15.
4.For a discussion of this and the role of the holy man in these years, see P. Brown (1971), pp. 80–101.
5.Rules of Pachomius, I, tr. Schodde, p. 682.
6.Ibid., I, pp. 682–3.
7.Ibid., I, p. 683.
8.Ibid., II, p. 684.
9.Ibid., II, p. 684.
10.Ibid., II, p. 685.
11.Ibid., III, p.686.
12.Ibid., II, p. 685.
13.Ibid.
14.Or such, anyway, are the figures given by ibid., I, pp. 680–1.
15.Robinson (2014), pp. 35–6 (for the traditional telling of this story, including the date), pp. 95–7 (for the dating of one of the codices). On what the men were digging for (sabakh) and its use – and the tendency of disrupting sites when digging it up – see A. T. Quickel and G. Williams (2016), pp. 89–108. For criticism of the tale, see N. Denzey and J. A. Blount (2014), pp. 399–419.
16.Described by Robinson (2014), p. 35.
17.Opinion differs on how many there were. Some think twelve, others thirteen. Doresse originally reported eleven complete books and two part books: see Doresse (1950), p. 70. Robinson comes to the distressing conclusion that ‘it will be prudent to continue referring to the discovery as consisting only of thirteen codices, and to mean by this twelve codices’: Robinson (2014), p. 39.
18.Doresse (June 1950), pp. 70–1.
19.This is indebted to Pagels’ superb summary: E. H. Pagels (2006), p. 14. The whole book is a wonderful read.
20.The Gospel of Thomas, prologue, tr. M. Meyer.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: ON THE OTHER ORIGIN OF THE WORLD
1.Genesis 1:1–3, ESV.
2.Isaiah 45:5, ESV.
3.Exodus 20:3, ESV.
4.Exodus 20:5, ESV.
5.Isaiah 6: 1–3, ESV.
6.Genesis 1:1–25, KJV.
7.On the Origin of the World, Yaldabaoth Creates Heaven and Earth and Produces Sons, 100.29–101.23, tr. M. Meyer.
8.Ibid., Yaldabaoth Boasts that He is God, 103.2–32.
9.Ibid.
10.Ibid.
11.Ibid., Yaldabaoth Is Distressed About His Mistake, 107.17–108.5.
12.E. M. Yamauchi (1987), p. 428. See also M. W. Meyer (2009), p. 137; E. H. Pagels (2006), p. 17.
13.The Nature of Rulers, Eleleth’s Story of Creation (93,32–95,13), tr. Meyer.
14.Ibid.
15.Ibid. See discussion in D. Brakke (2010), p. 61: ‘their craftsman god is ignorant and even malicious.’
16.Secret Book of John, Yaldabaoth’s World Order, 10,19–13,13, tr. Meyer.
17.Genesis 2:17, KJV.
18.Genesis 3:3, KJV.
19.Testimony of Truth, Midrash on the Biblical Snake, 45,23–49,10, tr. Meyer; date from Meyer (2009), p. 616.
20.Testimony of Truth, Midrash on the Biblical Snake, 45,23–49,10, tr. Meyer.
21.Cf. Paradise Lost, IX.529–31.
22.Testimony of Truth, Midrash on the Biblical Snake, 89,17–90,12, tr. Meyer.
23.Secret Book of John, The Creation of Eve, 22,28–23,35, tr. Meyer.
24.Ibid., The Creation of Adam, 15,1–19,10, passim.
25.See the wonderful discussion of this in the superb and lucid Pagels (2006), p. 71ff.
26.Secret Book of John, The Fall of Sophia, 9,25–10,19, tr. Meyer.
27.On the Origin of the World, Jesus the Word, 125,14–32, tr. Meyer.
28.Secret Book of John, Barbelo Appears, 4,19–6,10, tr. Meyer.
29.On the Origin of the World, Eve Gives Adam Life, 115,30–116,8, tr. Meyer.
30.Ibid., Song of Eve, 114,4–24.
31.Pagels (1976), p. 293.
32.Apocalypse of Peter, Others, Who are Martyrs, Bishops, and Deacons, Are Dry Canals, 78,31–79,31, tr. Meyer. N.44 on the page suggests that this is directed against ‘the profession that salvation comes only through the church – i.e., the emerging orthodox church.’
33.Ignatius, Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, VI in ANF, vol. 1.
34.Ibid., V.
35.P. Brown (2015), p. 661.
36.H. Jonas (1992), p. xxxi.
37.The Nature of the Rulers, 93,32ff, tr. Meyer.
38.Jonas (1992), p. xxxi.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: TO UNWEAVE THE RAINBOW
1.James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, pp. 91–5.
2.Obituary, The New York Times, 11 March 1893.
3.Obituatry, The Critic, vol. 19, 1893, p. 170.
4.Plutarch, On the Delay of the Divine Justice, 22, tr. Peabody.
5.Ibid.
6.Ibid.
7.Ibid.
8.Ibid.
9.Virgil, The Aeneid, VI.557, tr. H. Rushton Fairclough.
10.Plato, Phaedo, 112e, and 113a–c, tr. D. Gallop. They would then be re-born.
11.Ibid., 112a–114c.
12.Lucian, True History, 93, tr. F. Hickes.
13.Plutarch, On the Delay of the Divine Justice, 22, tr. Peabody (1885).
14.Ibid., p. xiv.
15.Ibid., p. xv.
16.Ibid.
17.W. James, The Varieties of Religious Experience.
18.R. MacMullen (1981), p. 206, n. 16. See also M. Smith (1981).
19.Vielhauer (1975), p. 282, quoted in Koester (1990), pp. 25–6.
20.Clement, Stromata, ANF, 2.1.
21.Ibid., V.5.
22.Virgil, Eclogues IV.I.16, tr. H. Rushton Fairclough.
23.Epist. 53, chap. 7, quoted in E. Bourne (1916), p. 393.
24.Or rather, in a splendidly Ciceronian praeteritio, he said that he wasn’t going to comment: ‘Taceo si quid divinius ac sanctius (quod credo equidem) adhaeret istis auguriis’: Keble, quoted in Bourne (1916). It wasn’t just Virgil: schoolboys were taught that the final words of Cicero were Causa causarum, miserere mei. It is a sadness that Cicero never knew this; his response would have been one to savour.
25.Y. I. Finkel (2014), pp. 2–3. Finkel writes that he has often wondered if the cause of this might have been a minor epileptic response to the discovery.
26.S. Dalley (2008), p. 3.
27.Genesis 2:7, ESV.
28.Atrahasis, I.OBV, tr. Dalley.
29.Genesis 1:26, KJV.
30.Atrahasis, II.V.i; cf. Atrahasis, II.SBV.iii and iv, tr. Dalley.
31.Gilgamesh, Tablet XI.i.
32.Genesis 6:5–7, KJV.
33.Atrahasis, III.OBV.i–ii, tr. Dalley.
34.Gilgamesh, Tablet XI.ii.
35.For Noah being righteous, see Genesis 6:9, ESV; for details of the boat, see Genesis 6:14–21, ESV.
36.Gilgamesh, Tablet XI.iii; Genesis 7:4; Atrahasis, III.OBV.iii, tr. Dalley.
37.Dalley (2008), p. 7.
38.Genesis 6:9.
39.Justin, Second Apology, VII, ANF, vol. 1.
40.Origen, Contra Celsum, IV.41, tr. Chadwick.
41.Berossus, quoted by Alexander Polyhistor, in Cory’s Ancient Fragments of the Phoenician, Carthaginian, Babylonian, Egyptian and Other Authors (1876).
42.Ibid.
43.Caesar, The Gallic War, 6.17, tr. Edwards.
44.Symmachus, Relat.3.10 in Lee (2015), p. 122.
45.The inscription dates to 9 BC and is quoted in H. Koester (1990), pp. 3–4.
46.L. Kreitzer (1990), p. 213. Though Augustus’ numen was worshipped (rather than him himself) during his lifetime, full deification took place only after his death in AD 14.
47.Justin, Dialogues, 69.3, in Edelstein and Edelstein (1945), T.95.
48.For Asclepius as a demon, see Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, II.5; for Asclepius as a beast, see Tertullian, Ad Nationes, II.14, in Edelstein and Edelstein (1945), T.103.
49.Eusebius, Life of Constantine, III.56, tr. Cameron and Hall.
50.Justin, First Apology, 1.66, ANF, vol. 2.
51.Vermaseren (1956–60), quoted in Lee (2005), p. 161.
52.Justin, First Apology, 1.66, ANF, vol. 2.
53.Tertullian, De Praescriptione Haereticorum, 40.2–4, ANF, vol. 3.
54.Augustine, Homily 7, John i.34–51.
55.The analogy is a little longer than that, and is superb. For the full quotation, see A. D. Nock (1964), p. 58 (who is nodding to Cumont).
56.Eusebius, Life of Constantine, III.55.5–56, tr. Cameron and Hall.
57.Huetius, Demonstratio Evangelica, in the detailed summary in M. Dzielska (1986), p. 203, to which this paragraph and the following are much indebted.
58.Discussed in Dzielska (1986), 200–201. The innocence of his life was, wrote Godeau, one more ploy.
59.Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemon (1702), p. 2.
60.Pierre Jean-Baptiste Legrand d’Aussy (1807), p. xxxiv; censorship and Bastille dungeons quoted in Dzielska (1986), p. 208.
61.G. Bowersock (1970), pp. 20–1.
62.The famous footnote is in Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (vol. 2), chapter XI, p. 87, n.70.
63.Dzielska (1986), p. 58.
64.Ibid., p. 182.
65.Keats, ‘Lamia’, Part 2, lines 231–5 and 237.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: ST AUGUSTINE AND THE SPIDER
1.Pliny the Elder, The Natural History of Pliny, 11.28, tr. J. Bostock and H. T. Riley.
2.Aristotle, Historia Animalium, vol. IV, V.27.
3.Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, 1.931–2, tr. W. E. Leonard.
4.Ibid., 3.381–95.
5.Augustine, Confessions, X.35, tr. R. S. Pine-Coffin.
6.Ibid.
7.T. E. Mommsen (1942), p. 227.
8.Ibid., quoting Petrarch using the term in its old sense – on that occasion, of Cicero.
9.See ibid., p. 227.
10.R. MacMullen (1990), p. 143.
11.Ibid., p. 144.
12.Ibid., pp. 145–6.
13.Ibid., p. 155.
14.John Malalas, The Chronicle of John Malalas, Book 1.1–6, tr. E. Jeffreys.
15.Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, I.1–10, tr. L. G. M. Thorpe.
16.Bede, A History of the English Church and People, 1.2 and 1.4, tr. Leo Sherley-Price. It’s best not to press Bede too closely on dates or Roman history. Or, indeed, names.
17.Bede, The Reckoning of Time, 47, tr. F. Wallis.
18.Augustine, City of God, tr. M. Dods (1913), contents.
19.Ambrose, On the duties of the clergy, 20.
20.Plutarch, Moralia, vol. 2, tr. F. C. Babbitt: On Having Many Friends, 2; On Eating Meat, 3; Advice to Bride and Groom, 16.
21.Ibid., 16.
22.Plutarch, ‘Whether Land or Sea Animals Are Cleverer’, 18, tr. H. Cherniss, W. C. Helmbold.
23.Aristotle, On the Heavens, 13.297a–14.298a, tr. W. K. C. Guthrie.
24.Plato, Timaeus, 63a, tr. Bury.
25.Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 2.LXV, tr. H. Rackham.
26.Ibid., 2.LXIV–V.
27.For whether (or not) these were more widely accepted as the Roman Empire became Christian, see the discussion in McCrindle (2010), p. 108, who concludes that: ‘Although the idea of inhabited Antipodes seems to have been generally endorsed in the ancient world, in Christian circles it found less favor and was largely rejected from the patristic period right up to the rise of scholasticism.’
28.Cosmas Indicopleustes, The Christian Topography of Cosmas, an Egyptian Monk, Prologue I, tr. J. W. McCrindle.
29.Ibid., Book IV.186.
30.Ibid., Book IV.191.
31.Ibid., Book VI.265.
32.Ibid., Book I.117.
33.Lactantius, ‘Divine Institutes’, III.XX–XXI, ANF, 7.
34.Ibid., III.XXVI.
35.Augustine, The City of God against the Pagans, XVI.9, tr. R. W. Dyson.
36.Ibid.
37.Ibid.
38.Ibid.
39.Ibid.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: TO EXTIRPATE THE ADVERSARIES OF FAITH
1.The underlying heretical basis of the dispute was over the treatment of bishops in the wake of Athanasius. See the Collectio Avellana, document 1,1 – a document to be treated with some suspicion.
2.Ammianus Marcellinus, The Later Roman Empire, 27.3, tr. W. Hamilton.
3.The ‘Cadaver Synod’ is described and discussed in Nash (2019), pp. 18–21.
4.Blood: see A. Wiseman (1965), pp. 219–26.; milk and prostitutes: G. Noel (2016), pp. 70; 161.
5.See the superb Rapp (2013), p. 5ff, for a description of the evolution of the role of bishop.
6.For the list of perks, see Augustine, Epistle 23.3, who characteristically disavows this glitter; for the rioting, there are numerous sources, but a good starting guide is G. Fowden (1978), pp. 53–78; Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 42, 7. He goes on, the gold ‘which you did, in part pour forth like water, in part treasure up like sand.’
7.Nazianzen, Oration 42, tr. Browne and Swallow.
8.Augustine, Epistle 23.3.
9.The comment was allegedly addressed to Damasus himself. Quoted in E. D. Hunt (1985), p. 191, n. 32.
10.Ammianus Marcellinus, 27.3, tr. Hamilton.
11.Ibid.
12.Codex Theodosianus, 16.2.42.
13.Chrysostom, First Letter to Pope Innocent, quoted in M. Gaddis (2005), p. 275.
14. Collectio Avellana, document 1, 2–7.
15.Ibid.
16.Ammianus Marcellinus, 27.3, tr. Hamilton.
17.As Averil Cameron has put it: ‘The term the “peace of the church”, used by Christians to denote the ending of persecution, is something of a misnomer in light of the violent quarrels which followed during the rest of the fourth century and after.’ See Cameron (2008), p. 538ff.
18.Julian, Epistle 41, tr. W. C. Wright; ‘slaughtered’ etc. in Against the Galileans, I.206, tr. W. C. Wright.
19.Ibid.
20.Habetdeum, GCC 3.258, quoted in B. D. Shaw (2011), p. 147.
21.P. Brown (2015), p. 642.
22.Passio Maximian, 5, tr. M. A. Tilley.
23.Ibid., 12–14. For whether this was a true story or whether it is too close to a well-known formula, see Shaw (2011), pp. 176–8.
24.Discussed in Shaw (2011), p. 160, to whom these paragraphs are indebted.
25.Eusebius, Life of Constantine, II.60.1. Discussed in A. D. Lee (2005), p. 173. See also H. A. Drake (2002), who presents an always nuanced and interesting view of Constantine.
26.Epiphanius, Panarion, Book I, Proem II.3.4.
27.Life of Rabbula, 40, tr. R. Phenix and C. Horn.
28.Ibid., 41.
29.Ibid., 27.
30.Ibid.
31.Ibid., 40, 41.
32.W. Bauer (1972), p. 27.
33.Ibid., p. 26.
34.Ibid., p. 28.
35.Life of Rabbula, 41, tr. Phenix and Horn.
36.Ibid.
37.Ibid., 42.
38.See, for example, Augustine, Letter 185.9.35: ‘As to the charge that they bring against us, that we covet and plunder their possessions, I would that they would become Catholics, and possess in peace and love with us, not only what they call theirs, but also what confessedly belongs to us . . .’ And so on.
39.Augustine, De Hares, 87, quoted in Shaw (2011), p. 310.
40.Ibid.
41.Ibid.
CHAPTER NINETEEN: THAT NO MEMORIAL BE LEFT
1.For date and place, see M. A. Tilley (1996), p. 77.
2.Passio Marculi, 2, tr. Tilley.
3.Ibid.
4.Ibid., 1.
5.Ibid., 4.
6.Ibid., 5.
7.Ibid.
8.Ibid., 11.
9.Ibid.
10.G. E. M. de Ste. Croix (2006), pp. 201–2.
11.A similar point has been made by academics to explain the widespread amnesia towards early Christian attitudes to ‘pagan’ religions. I discuss this in my first book, The Darkening Age.
12.Ovid, Tristia, II.207.
13.C. Murphy (2012), p. 102.
14.R. Vose (2022), p. 173.
15.Eusebius, Life of Constantine, I.46, tr. Cameron and Hall.
16.Ibid., III.66.1–3. The ‘letter’ underplays this slightly; it was a piece of imperial legislation.
17.It was more complicated than this, but, for a simple summary, see Socrates, The Ecclesiastical History, 1.5. The Church took the opposite view.
18.According to Parastaseis syntomoi chronikai, 39, quoted in R. Lim (1995), p. 148, n. 209.
19.Another Epistle of Constantine in Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 1.9, translated and discussed in D. Rohmann (2016), pp. 34–5.
20.Ibid.
21.Epistle of Constantine, in Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 1.9, translated and discussed in Rohmann (2016), pp. 34–5.
22.Novels of Theodosius, 3.1.8, but using the slightly more poetic translation that Pharr offers on p. 10 of his introduction, The Theodosian Code and Novels: And the Sirmondian Constitutions (1952).
23.Tertullian, Apology, 40, tr. T. R. Glover, G. H. Rendall.
24.Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, V.828–31, tr. W. H. D. Rouse.
25.Novels of Theodosius, 3.1.1.
26.Novels of Theodosius, 3.1.8.
27.On how what happened next in the empire was related to the old imperial role of ensuring pax deorum, see Drake (2007), p. 421, who concludes that ‘ironically this failure to break with political thought is what opened the door to conversion!’
28.Codex Justinianus, 1.5.8.12, tr. Rohmann, quoted in Rohmann (2016), p. 100.
29.The law is that of Theodosius II and Valentinian III, but contained in Codex Justinianus, 1.5.16.3, quoted and discussed in Rohmann (2016), p. 101, to whom this paragraph is indebted.
30.Codex Theodosianus, 16.5.66.
31.Rabbula, Collection of Canons, 3.3.1.10 and 3.3.2.50, tr. R. Phenix and C. Horn.
32.Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, III.15, tr. C. D. Hartranft.
33.Eusebius, The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine, 8.2, tr. G. A. Williamson.
34.Acta conciliorum oecumenicorum 1.54, quoted in M. Gaddis (2005), p. 306.
35.Stephen of Ephesus, quoted in ibid.
36.Tilley (1996), p. viii.
37.Passio Marculi, 12, tr. Tilley.
EPILOGUE
1.Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo, tr. R. E. Latham: robbers, p. 65; concubines, p. 122; rain in India, p. 267.
2.Ibid., p. 58.
3.All from Marco Polo, The Travels, tr. N. Cliff, pp. 29–31.