Notes

Preface

1.   This became a semi-technical theological term, which is explained in Chapter 9. The argument was not about whether Mary was the mother of Jesus of Nazareth.

2.   There were of course some borderline cases about which historians argue whether they had any reasonable claim to be Christian, for example, some Gnostic groups who used some Christian terminology or names, but otherwise had no distinctive Christian practices or beliefs.

3.   Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans G.E.M. Anscombe, 2nd ed (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), §66–7.

Chapter 1. From Jesus Christ to the Church

1.   For a brief outline of this character see David Horrell, An Introduction to the Study of Paul (London and New York: Continuum, 2000), pp 12–13. I have omitted from the quotation from Acts any references to the rapid expansion of the community and the Apostles’ miracles, which of course are much more contentious from a historical perspective.

2.   Christopher Tuckett, Christology and the New Testament: Jesus and His Earliest Followers (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001), p 14.

3.   Another highly contested issue. For an introduction to the debate see Horrell, An Introduction to the Study of Paul, pp 26–7. See Paul’s own words: Philippians 3.4–14 and Galatians 1.12–16, especially v.15, ‘called’.

4.   1 Clement 13.2.

5.   For the collections of sayings and the spread of the Gospels see Helmut Koester, ‘Gospels and Gospel traditions’, in Andrew Gregory and Christopher Tuckett (eds), Trajectories through the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), especially pp 30ff.

6.   Polycarp c.69–c.155; Ignatius c.35–107.

7.   Arthur J. Bellinzoni, The Sayings of Jesus in the Writings of Justin Martyr, Novum Testamentum Supplements 17 (Leiden: Brill, 1967), pp 25, 108–11; a view shared by Koester, ‘Gospels and Gospel traditions’.

8.   By ‘choice’ here I do not mean the deliberate decision of a council or similar body; nevertheless, it was not an undeliberated matter of chance for it was vigorously discussed, for example, in Irenaeus’ and Origen’s arguments for a four-fold Gospel.

9.   On the question of Mark’s ending see C.M. Tuckett, OBC, p 922.

10.  For this argument in relation to Paul’s letters see especially the work of Richard B. Hays, for example Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul and The Conversion of the Imagination.

11.  James D.G. Dunn, Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (London: SCM, 1980), p 265.

12.  The seven undisputed letters of Paul, I Thessalonians, I Corinthians, II Corinthians, Galatians, Romans, Philemon and Philippians, were probably written in the 50s CE.

13.  Tuckett, Christology, p 45.

14.  Ibid., pp 43, 45; Donald Guthrie, New Testament Theology (Leicester: InterVarsity, 1981), p 225.

15.  1 Clement 16; Epistle to Diognetus 10.4.

16.  Polycarp’s Letter to the Philippians, 8.2.

17.  On this theme, see David M. Reis, ‘Following in Paul’s footsteps’, in Gregory and Tuckett (eds), Trajectories through the New Testament, pp 287– 305, especially p 294.

18.  For an assessment of what Jesus thought about himself and his understanding of his role see Tuckett, Christology, chapter 13.

19.  Didache 16.

20.  This is described as a realized eschatology.

21.  I Corinthians 13.12.

22.  An example of an exception is the Didache, but that is a collection of moral and liturgical instructions.

23.  For a full and easily accessible discussion of these titles see Tuckett, Christology.

24.  Ibid., pp 218–19.

25.  John 20.16; ‘Rabbouni’ meant ‘teacher’ in Aramaic.

26.  Tuckett, Christology, p 46.

27.  For example, Mark 14.36; ‘Abba’ is the Aramaic form of address for a father.

28.  Tuckett, Christology, p 220.

29.  I Corinthians 15.22; cf. Romans 5.12–14.

30.  Colossians 1.15–20. This passage seems to contain material which predates the composition of the letters themselves. Although they seem to have a liturgical tone, it is disputed whether they were in fact formal hymns as such.

31.  For a discussion of this, with references, see Tuckett, Christology, p 163.

32.  1 Clement 42.1; Epistle to Diognetus 7; Letter of Barnabas 5.

33.  Magnesians 9.

34.  On these two strands in Paul’s thought see Horrell, Introduction to the Study of Paul, pp 56–9.

35.  Barnabas 5.1; see also 1 Clement 12.7: ‘redemption through the blood of the Lord’.

36.  Ignatius, Smyrnaeans 6.1: ‘even angels are condemned if they do not believe in the blood of Christ’.

37.  Ignatius, Philadelphians, preface.

38.  See Luke 24.49–51; John 14.26, 15.26, 16.13.

39.  On Peter see Acts 2.33, 10.38, 44, 47; on Paul see Romans 8.9–17, I Corinthians 12.3–14, Galatians 3.26, 4.4–7, 5.22–3; see also Horrell, Introduction to the Study of Paul, p 64.

40.  For example, Hebrews 8.6, 9.15, 12.24; see also I Timothy 2.5.

41.  1 Clement 59.

42.  Didache, opening of the eucharistic prayer, 9.

43.  See the closing section of the Didache.

44.  John 6.35, 6.48.

45.  See also Carsten Claussen, ‘The Eucharist in the Gospel of John and in the Didache’, in Gregory and Tuckett (eds), Trajectories through the New Testament, for evidence of eucharistic prayers without words of institution.

46.  On this much debated question see, for example, R.T. Beckwith, ‘The Jewish Background to Christian Worship’, in Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey Wainwright, Edward Yarnold SJ and Paul Bradshaw (eds), The Study of Liturgy (London: SPCK, 1992), p 77.

47.  Making present by remembering seems to have been a distinctively Christian development of the purpose of commemoration. See Beckwith, ‘The Jewish Background’, p 77.

48.  In later texts there is evidence of a (rather fluid) distinction between a large community meal (the agape) and a meal-like ritual (the ‘Eucharist’). That distinction did not exist in the first century.

49.  This seems to be the implication of Galatians 3.23–9; see Beckwith, ‘The Jewish Background’, p 73, on the baptism of converts to Judaism.

50.  K.W. Noakes, ‘Initiation: From New Testament Times to St Cyprian’, in Jones et al (eds), The Study of Liturgy, p 119.

51.  Beckwith, ‘The Jewish Background’, p 73.

52.  The Shepherd of Hermas, III.3; cf. I Peter 3.20.

53.  Noakes, ‘Initiation’, p 117.

54.  For the three-fold formula see Didache 9; Matthew 28.19; ‘in the name of Jesus’, Acts 2.38, 8.16, 10.48, 19.5; I Corinthians 6.11. See also Noakes, ‘Initiation’, p 117.

55.  Romans 10.9; Philippians 2.11.

56.  Galatians 3.27; Ephesians 4.22. There is a danger of reading later practice back into the texts here, however.

57.  Noakes, ‘Initiation’, p 118.

58.  David F. Wright ‘The Apostolic Fathers and Infant Baptism’, in Gregory and Tuckett (eds), Trajectories through the New Testament.

59.  Thomas K. Carroll and Thomas Halton (eds), Liturgical Practice in the Fathers, Message of the Fathers of the Church, vol. 21 (Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, 1988), pp 36–7, referring to the Epistle of Barnabas.

60.  This seems to be reflected in Ignatius’ Letter to the Magnesians, for example.

61.  Noakes, ‘Initiation’, p 117.

62.  For example, the pastoral epistles (I Timothy, II Timothy, Titus), 1 Clement.

63.  1 Clement 42.

64.  By finding the term episkopous in the Greek translation of Isaiah 60.17.

65.  Philippians 1.1; Polycarp, Letter 5–6; 1 Clement 42.

66.  On bishops see I Timothy 3.1–2, Titus 1.7; on presbyters see I Timothy 4.14, 5.1.

67.  The evidence for women’s ministry in these texts and others from the early Church is assessed in great detail and with even handedness by Kevin Madigan and Carolyn Osiek (eds and trans), Ordained Women in the Early Church: A Documentary History (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005).

68.  Ibid., p 11.

69.  Possibly because of the designation ‘Apostle’, Junia’s name has often been assumed to be a male one: Junias. But the arguments for this are weak. See C.H. Hill, OBC, p 1107: ‘In short “Junias” is a scandalous mistranslation.’

70.  See Tertullian, The Prescription against Heretics 41.5, discussed by Madigan and Osiek (eds), Ordained Women, pp 174–5.

71.  1 Clement 38.

72.  1 Clement 55.2.

73.  On widows see I Timothy 5.3–16; Madigan and Osiek (eds), Ordained Women, p 5: as they note: ‘liturgical’ does not entail ‘sacramental’, and in this period ‘among the clergy’ does not imply ordination.

74.  A concern for food customs can also be seen in Mark 7.1–23 and Matthew 15.1–20.

75.  See Romans 14.14.

76.  See Ephesians 2.19; I Timothy 3.15; I Peter 4.17.

77.  See Ephesians 4.12. As Christ is the head of the Christian household, he is also the head of the Christian Church as body: Ephesians 5.23.

78.  Ephesians 1.22; Colossians 1.24. See also Daniel N. Schowalter, ‘Church’, in Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan (eds), The Oxford Companion to the Bible (Oxford University Press Inc., 1993), accessed via Oxford Reference Online, Oxford University Press, http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t120.e0144.

79.  See, for example, Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians, preface.

80.  On the feast (linking with the idea of Eucharist) see Matthew 8.11; Revelation 19.9; on the new Jerusalem see Revelation 21–2.

81.  See the discussion of Marcion and Gnostic groups in Chapter 3.

82.  See, for example, Matthew’s Gospel and the introduction to the commentary on Matthew by Dale C. Allison Jr. in OBC.

83.  The concept here is similar to, although not the same as, that used in Stephen Sykes, The Identity of Christianity: Theologians and the Essence of Christianity from Scheiermacher to Barth (London: SPCK, 1984).

Chapter 2. Hopes and Fears

1.   See, for example, Pliny the Younger, Letter to the Emperor Trajan X.96, in which he commented that Christianity in Bithynia (Asia Minor) had spread beyond the cities into the countryside.

2.   Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History IV.7.1. Eusebius was a fourth-century historian commenting here on the reign of Trajan (98–117).

3.   Irenaeus, Against Heresies I.10.1–2.

4.   Against the Jews (formerly thought to be a work of Tertullian) I.7.

5.   David G.K. Taylor, ‘The Syriac Tradition’, in Gillian Evans, The First Christian Theologians (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), p 201.

6.   See Chapter 5.

7.   Acts of the Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne 1.63.

8.   See Tacitus, Annals XV.44.2–8.

9.   Tertullian, Apology 40; see also the spurious letter of Antoninus Pius at the end of Justin Martyr 1 Apology, where it is implied that the local populace are persecuting Christians because their atheism is connected to earthquakes. Even if the letter does not accurately present the emperor’s stance, it is further evidence that Christians at least connected their persecutions to such local issues.

10.  See Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne 1.9.

11.  Ibid., 1.14, 26, 52.

12.  For these see Chapter 3.

13.  Pliny the Younger, Letters X.96.

14.  The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity 5.4.

15.  Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne 1.13–14.

16.  In his letter to Trajan, Pliny thinks it worthy of mention that there had come to his notice Christians of every age and class, both men and women. Letters X.96.

17.  Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne 1.7–8.

18.  Pliny the Younger, Letters X.96.

19.  This question of whether Christians were in fact formally charged with bearing the name ‘Christian’ is very controversial: the spurious letters which Justin Martyr attaches to the end of his 1 Apology addressed to Antoninus Pius and his adopted sons, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, flatteringly present his addressees as rejecting the practice of condemning Christians merely for bearing that name. Whether the letters reflect their practice is very questionable.

20.  Since Augustus, the Roman emperor was traditionally given the title and office of Pontifex Maximus – head of the college of priests in Rome, and so was implicated in Roman religion, even if no personal divine status was imputed to him. The increasing identification of local deities with the Roman pantheon also meant that local loyalties became implicated with loyalties to the Empire. See Stephen Mitchell, A History of the Later Roman Empire, AD 284–641: The Transformation of the Ancient World (Malden, MA, and Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), p 229.

21.  The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity 16.3.

22.  The Martyrdom of Polycarp 11; see also The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity 11.9; in the Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne citizens were beheaded (1.47), with the exception of Attalus, who particularly enraged the crowds whom the governor wanted to please (1.50).

23.  Ignatius, Letter to the Romans 5; cf. I Peter 5.8.

24.  Martyrdom of Polycarp 5: ‘the most admirable Polycarp, when he first heard [that he was sought for], was in no measure disturbed, but resolved to continue in the city. However, in deference to the wish of many, he was persuaded to leave it.’

25.  Martyrdom of Polycarp 4, alluding to Matthew 10.23.

26.  Justin Martyr, 2 Apology 3–4.

27.  Ibid., 4.

28.  Tertullian, On Idolatry 16: ‘One soul cannot serve two masters – God and Caesar.’ cf. On the Military Crown 12.

29.  For example, Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne 2.3–4.

30.  Ignatius, Letter to the Romans 4.

31.  The Martyrdom of Ignatius 2. Note, we have no secure historical account of the circumstances of Ignatius’ arrest. Saturus of Carthage is said to have ‘voluntarily handed himself over for our sake’ (The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity 4.5).

32.  The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity 21.9–10. The Martyrdom of Carpas was rewritten in order to counter accusations of suicide: the original Greek described a female spectator, Agathonice, voluntarily joining a fellow Christian as he was burnt at the stake. The later Latin version had her being arrested, tried and condemned to death.

33.  The word martyria in Greek means ‘witness’.

34.  The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity 17.3; see also Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne 1.45–6 on martyrs strengthening those who were tempted to deny the name of Christ.

35.  Revelation 3.14; see also Revelation 1.5. For this reason the martyrs of Lyons and Vienne eschewed the title ‘witnesses’ (martyres) for themselves, claiming Christ alone as the true martyr.

36.  See the Martyrdom of Polycarp, especially 6–8, where Polycarp is betrayed by a member of his own household (who is compared to Judas); one of the local governors is named Herod; his pursuers are armed as if going out against a robber (cf. Matthew 26.55), and Polycarp is taken into the city on an ass.

37.  Ignatius, Letter to the Romans 4, 6. See I Corinthians 7.22: ‘For whoever was called in the Lord as a slave is a freed person belonging to the Lord, just as whoever was free when called is a slave of Christ.’

38.  John 6.33–5.

39.  A similar bread symbol is found also in Martyrdom of Polycarp 15, where his body at the stake is alleged to smell like bread baking.

40.  See the extraordinary range of images in Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne 1.45–6, 1.49–50.

41.  Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne 1.6, 1.18 and 1.58; The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity 4.7, 4.14.

42.  Martyrdom of Polycarp 17–18; Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne 1.19, 1.36, 1.38, 1.42. The image of the victorious athlete echoes Pauline language, e.g. I Corinthians 9.24–7; Philippians 3.14; Colossians 2.18.

43.  Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne 1.17, 1.23.

44.  The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity 18.8; alternatively the martyrs’ destiny is contrasted with that of those who recanted: Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne 1.25.

45.  As Eric Osborn succinctly put it in Justin Martyr (Tübingen: Möhr, 1973), p 14.

46.  The Latin writer Tertullian, who is often regarded as an apologist but whose writings stretch far beyond this designation, will be treated in Chapter 4.

47.  For example, the biographer, historian and moral philosopher Plutarch studied in Athens in the late 60s CE under a Platonist philosopher; the famous polymath Longinus (c.213–73) taught in Athens for 30 years before spending the last few years of his life in the employ of Queen Zenobia of Palmyra. One of Longinus’ pupils in grammar and rhetoric in Athens in the 250s and early 260s was the Neoplatonist Porphyry. Porphyry then travelled to Rome to study under the Neoplatonist Plotinus (c.205–70), who spent most of his adult life teaching there. The Emperor Hadrian particularly favoured the city of Athens and its culture, endowing it with, amongst many other works, a library. Athens was a centre of the oratorical school known as the second sophistic, but two of its most famous practitioners, Favorinus of Arelata and Herodes Atticus, gained prominence both there and in Rome (the latter being brought to Rome by Emperor Antoninus Pius to teach his adoptive sons, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus).

48.  By which he means an area which is certainly beyond the Euphrates, possibly beyond the Tigris: Tatian, Discourse to the Greeks 42.

49.  A contemporary Syriac work, Bar Daisan’s dialogue Book of the Laws of the Lands, was supposedly addressed to an Antonine emperor, but this is much disputed and it shares little in common with the apologies discussed here.

50.  Athenagoras, Supplication 31: ‘But they have further also made up stories against us of impious feasts and forbidden intercourse between the sexes, both that they may appear to themselves to have rational grounds of hatred, and because they think either by fear to lead us away from our way of life, or to render the rulers harsh and inexorable by the magnitude of the charges they bring.’ See also Theophilus, To Autolycus III.4.

51.  Justin, 1 Apology 14; see also Theophilus, To Autolycus III.1–15.

52.  Theophilus, To Autolycus III.15.

53.  Discourse to the Greeks 23 (note how he cleverly turns back on the pagans their accusations of cannibalism).

54.  Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 2; Tatian, Discourse to the Greeks 3.

55.  Athenagoras, Supplication 11.

56.  Luke 6.27, 28; Matthew 5.44, 45; Athenagoras, Supplication 11.

57.  On myths about pagan gods see Justin, 1 Apology 64; Theophilus, To Autolycus I.9, III.8, Tatian, Discourse to the Greeks 10. On idolatry see Justin, 1 Apology 9; To Autolycus I.10. On demon worship see Tatian, Discourse to the Greeks 19.

58.  Athenagoras, Supplication 4.

59.  Justin, 1 Apology 5.

60.  For example, Theophilus complains that in the Theogony ‘Hesiod himself also declared the origin, not only of the gods, but also of the world itself. And though he said that the world was created, he showed no inclination to tell us by whom it was created. Besides, he said that Saturn, and his sons Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, were gods, though we find that they are later born than the world’ (Theophilus, To Autolycus II.5; see also II.13). Against the philosophers he complains that some deny the existence of any god; others deny divine involvement in the world; others ‘say that all things are produced without external agency, and that the world is uncreated, and that nature is eternal’, and still others ‘maintain that the spirit which pervades all things is God’. The Platonists he accuses of contradiction, for they simultaneously assert that ‘God is uncreated, and the Father and Maker of all things’ and that ‘matter as well as God is uncreated, and aver that it is coeval with God’ (Theophilus, To Autolycus II.5).

61.  For example, Athenagoras, Supplication 15.

62.  Theophilus, To Autolycus II.10, 13 (‘But the power of God is shown in this, that, first of all, He creates out of nothing, according to His will, the things that are made’); Tatian, Address to the Greeks 5 (‘For matter is not, like God, without beginning, nor, as having no beginning, is of equal power with God; it is begotten, and not produced by any other being, but brought into existence by the Framer of all things alone’). See Gerhard May, Creatio ex nihilo: The Doctrine of ‘Creation out of nothing’ in Early Christian Thought (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1994), Chapter 4 and 5. May’s book asserts that Justin did not teach creation ex nihilo, but more recent research disagrees.

63.  See Chapter 5.

64.  Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 61, quoting a Septuagint version of Proverbs 8.21ff.

65.  Ibid., 45.

66.  ‘He is the first-born (monogenes) of the unbegotten (agennetos) God’, 1 Apology 53.

67.  1 Apology 53.

68.  Dialogue 56, 58–9.

69.  2 Apology 10.

70.  2 Apology 10; see also 13.

71.  The Stoic concept of the logos spermatikos and the Platonic notion of different levels of participation in an ideal form.

72.  The Word immanent in God (Logos endiathetos) and the Word expressed by God (Logos prophorikos).

73.  On this see especially Mark Edwards, ‘Justin’s Logos and the Word of God’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 3.3 (1995), pp 261–80.

74.  2 Apology 13; see also Dialogue 17, 111.

75.  This kind of question must have been deliberately offensive given the veneration of the martyrs’ graves and the fact that some of them died from being mauled by beasts in the arena.

76.  Athenagoras, Resurrection 3. The authorship of this text has been disputed; the current consensus attributes it to Athenagoras.

77.  Athenagoras, Supplication 31; Theophilus, To Autolycus I.14; Justin, 1 Apology 43; 2 Apology 9; Dialogue with Trypho 45.

78.  Brian E. Daley, The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of Patristic Eschatology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p 21, citing Justin, Dialogue 28, 32, 40.

79.  1 Apology 11.

80.  Daley, The Hope of the Early Church, p 21, citing Justin, Dialogue 113, 139.

81.  Richard A. Norris, in CHECL, p 36.

82.  In other words, knowledge is lost as soon is it is gained, draining away like water through the sieve the Danaïds were forced to fill in Hades.

83.  Tatian, Discourse to the Greeks 26.

84.  Eusebius, EH IV.16; Norris in CHECL, p 43.

Chapter 3. Negotiating Boundaries

1.   Justin Martyr, 1 Apology 65.

2.   Peter Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus: The Christians of Rome in the First Two Centuries (Minneapolis: Augsberg Fortress, 1999), p 362.

3.   It is not clear, however, when the Eucharist and the agape became clearly separate; see below.

4.   Tertullian, Apology (c.197); see James Stevenson, The Catacombs: Rediscovered Monuments of Early Christianity (London: Thames and Hudson, 1978), p 9.

5.   Scholars now also reject the once common view that they were hiding places for Christians.

6.   Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus, p 127.

7.   On Graptē (teacher of orphans and widows) see Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus, p 354 (The Shepherd of Hermas II.4.3); on Marcellina, leader of the Carpocratians, see ibid., p 319. According to Irenaeus women presided at the Eucharist of the Marcosian Gnostics (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.13.2f).

8.   Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus, pp 352–3. A similar pattern existed in Carthage: evidence around 200 suggests that there were women who taught and even baptized. The author Tertullian is scandalized by this, but on the other hand shows great respect for widows, who are given a privileged role in the congregation. See Tertullian, The Prescription against Heretics 41.5, discussed by Madigan and Osiek (eds), Ordained Women in the Early Church, pp 174–5.

9.   Justin Martyr, 1 Apology 53.3; Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus, p 102.

10.  Justin Martyr, 1 Apology 67.1 (trans Ludlow). Justin explains that those who are better off give what each thinks appropriate at the Sunday service and it is then distributed by the presiding member of the congregation.

11.  On Marcion’s gift see Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus, p 245.

12.  Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus, pp 298–312.

13.  The Shepherd of Hermas, Commandments 43–5.

14.  Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, AD 200–1000 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), p 54.

15.  See the quotation from Irenaeus at the beginning of Chapter 2.

16.  On baptism and Eucharist for Marcionites see Adolf von Harnack, Marcion: The Gospel of the Alien God (Durham, NC: Labyrinth Press, 1990), pp 93–4. Initially Valentinian reading groups may well have appealed most to the social and intellectual elites, but once they formed their own congregations they probably had a similar social mix to other congregations.

17.  See Harnack, Marcion, p 97; Clarke in CAH, p 617; on the more difficult question of Valentinian attitudes to martyrdom see Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (London: Penguin, 1982), pp 109–11.

18.  Harnack, Marcion, p 96.

19.  Although little is known about Celsus’ life, it is likely that he wrote in Rome or Alexandria. See Henry Chadwick, ‘Introduction’, to Origen, Contra Celsum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), pp xxiii–xxix.

20.  Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus, pp 245–6.

21.  Justin Martyr, 1 Apology 26.4. Lampe assesses this claim, From Paul to Valentinus, pp 250–1.

22.  Tertullian, Against Marcion IV.5.

23.  See the background to the term Christos/messiah, the anointed one, in Chapter 1.

24.  Tertullian, Against Marcion I.14; Harnack, Marcion, p 155, n.13: underlying Marcion’s thought ‘there seems to have been a certain overwrought irritation on Marcion’s part concerning life’s vexatious troubles’.

25.  Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ 4.

26.  Translated by Han Drijvers, quoted in Drijvers, ‘Syrian Christianity and Judaism’, in Judith Lieu, John North and Tessa Rajak (eds), The Jews among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire (London: Routledge, 1994); Eusebius (EH, IV.30.3) says that Bar Daisan wrote dialogues against Marcionites.

27.  For Marcion’s theology see Harnack, Marcion, chapter VI; Christoph Markschies, Gnosis: An Introduction (London and New York: T. & T. Clark, 2003), pp 86–9.

28.  The Greek demiourgos means craftsman; the word does not denote a half-way state between god and world.

29.  As Harnack memorably put it, Marcion, p 69.

30.  Tertullian, Against Marcion IV.7.

31.  Harnack, Marcion, p 96.

32.  I Corinthians 7.29, 31. Tertullian, Against Marcion I.29, implies Marcion used this verse.

33.  Irenaeus, Against Heresies III.11.7–8.

34.  Harnack, Marcion, p 98.

35.  Fragment F. This and subsequent fragments come from Bentley Layton (ed), The Gnostic Scriptures (New York: Doubleday, 1987), pp 229–45.

36.  Fragment D.

37.  Fragment D.

38.  Fragment F.

39.  Fragment H.

40.  Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ 15.

41.  Fragments F and C.

42.  Irenaeus, Against Heresies I.11.1.

43.  Mark Edwards, ‘Gnostics and Valentinians in the Church Fathers’, The Journal of Theological Studies (April 1989) NS 40:1, p 40, referring to II Corinthians 4.4.

44.  Irenaeus, Against Heresies I.11.4.

45.  See Markschies, Gnosis, p 92.

46.  For example, I Thessalonians 5.23: ‘May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.’

47.  Irenaeus, Against Heresies I.25.6; ‘[they] say that the world and what is in it was created by angels much inferior to the ungenerated Father. Jesus was the son of Joseph and was like all other men …’ (I.25.1); he deals with the other groups in Against Heresies I.29–30 (see especially I.29.1). On this issue see Edwards, ‘Gnostics and Valentinians’.

48.  Irenaeus, Against Heresies I.11.1.

49.  The system is ‘monistic’ (Greek monos, ‘single’).

50.  That is, a dualist system.

51.  See the opening paragraphs of Chapter 2.

52.  Eusebius, EH V.20.4–8; Irenaeus, Against Heresies III.3.4: when he was ‘still a boy’ he saw the aged Polycarp.

53.  Robert M. Grant, Irenaeus of Lyons (London: Routledge, 1997), p 39.

54.  Eusebius, EH V.24.

55.  Irenaeus, Against Heresies I.22.1; see also II.28.1.

56.  Irenaeus, On the Apostolic Preaching 1.6 (sometimes also known as Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching).

57.  Ibid., 15.

58.  Ibid., 12.

59.  Ibid.

60.  See Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV.38.3.

61.  That is, all the things reversed by Jesus Christ, Against Heresies II.20.3.

62.  Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV.35.4, III.8.3, III.9.1.

63.  Remember that Logos in Greek can mean both ‘word’ and reason’: to capture the emphatic play on words here, Irenaeus’ words could also be translated: ‘And as God is logical, therefore he made created things by the Logos.’

64.  Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV.20.3.

65.  Ibid., V.1.3, V.6.1.

66.  Ibid., II.28.2.

67.  On Christ’s flesh see ibid. IV.24.1; On the Apostolic Preaching 6; see also Against Heresies I.9.3.

68.  Irenaeus, Against Heresies II.22.4. Irenaeus rejected the idea that Jesus was about 30 when he died (the Valentinians conveniently associated the number with their 30 aeons), arguing that Jesus the wise teacher must have been old or full in years when he died – perhaps around 40 or 50.

69.  My italics; cf. Romans 5.12, 19.

70.  Irenaeus, Against Heresies III.5.1.

71.  Irenaeus, On the Apostolic Preaching 38.

72.  Irenaeus, Against Heresies III.9.1, III.9.3, III.16.6.

73.  Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV.20.2; On the Apostolic Preaching 40.

74.  Irenaeus, Against Heresies III.4.2. His concern was the lack of Bibles in barbarian languages. He does not appear to have considered the possibility of those who have not even had the opportunity to hear the Gospel.

75.  On judgement see Against Heresies IV.4.1, IV.33.1, IV.33.13, IV.36.3 (see also Daley, The Hope of the Early Church, p 30). On punishment of spiritual death see V.27.2, V.22.2, V.11.1.

76.  Irenaeus, Against Heresies V.27.2; trans ANF, vol. 1 (translation adapted by Ludlow).

77.  Ibid., V.29.2.

78.  For a brief discussion of this see Daley, The Hope of the Early Church, p 231, n.8.

79.  Irenaeus, Against Heresies V.31.2.

80.  Polycarp is revered because he was ‘taught by the Apostles’ and established by them in Smyrna to teach others the same truth: Irenaeus, Against Heresies III.3.4.

81.  For example, Justin Martyr, Dialogue 11.

82.  Ibid., 19.

83.  Justin Martyr, 1 Apology 103.

84.  In the early Church, Pascha meant both Passover and Easter. Melito plays on this ambiguity in his claim that Easter fulfils and overrides the celebration of the Passover. Following Hall, I have left the Greek term untranslated.

85.  Melito of Sardis, On the Pascha 72, 81. Melito is using a tradition that ‘Israel’ means ‘I see God’, which was used by Philo (and probably earlier Jewish writers) and which passed into Christian usage. On this see Philo of Alexandria, The Contemplative Life, The Giants, and Selections, ed and trans David Winston, pp 143, 351.

86.  Mark 12.30–1 and parallels (referring back to Deuteronomy 6.4–5; Leviticus 19.18).

87.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue 93. My emphasis.

88.  Palestinian Talmud, c.400; Babylonian Talmud, c.500. For an introduction to Jewish literature of this period see Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, 3rd ed (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2003), pp 431– 513.

89.  Grant, Irenaeus of Lyons, p 31.

90.  Hall, introduction to Melito, On the Pascha, pp xxvi–xxvii; Alistair Stewart-Sykes, The Lamb’s High Feast: Melito, Peri Pascha, and the Quartodeciman Paschal Liturgy at Sardis, Vigiliae Christianae Supplements XLII (Leiden: Brill, 1998), p 64.

91.  Stewart-Sykes, The Lamb’s High Feast, pp 97–9, reporting in particular the views of Jean Daniélou.

92.  There had been Jews in Sardis from at least the second century BCE. The synagogue in Sardis is the largest so far to be discovered. See Stewart-Sykes, The Lamb’s High Feast, pp 8–9.

93.  For all these aspects of Justin’s knowledge of Jews see Judith Lieu, Image and Reality: Jews in the World of the Christians in the Second Century (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996), pp 141–2.

94.  Usually dated between the first and third centuries CE, but some estimates place it much later.

95.  For a discussion of this issue see David G.K. Taylor, ‘The Syriac Tradition’, in Gillian Evans, The First Christian Theologians, pp 202–6.

96.  This is a highly contested question. See, for example, the chapters (presenting different views) by Han Drijvers and Michael P. Weitzman, in Lieu et al (eds), The Jews among Pagans and Christians; see also Taylor’s conclusions, ‘The Syriac Tradition’, p 205.

97.  Neither of these methods denied the historicity of the events depicted in the Old Testament: Moses was a type of (prefigured) Christ in his actual historical self, not merely as a character in a literary narrative.

98.  On prophecy see 1 Apology 31–53, see also Dialogue 50–3; on typology see Dialogue 40–3.

99.  Lynn H. Cohick, The Peri Pascha Attributed to Melito of Sardis: Setting, Purpose, and Sources (Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, c.2000), p 150.

100. Drijvers, in Lieu et al (eds), The Jews among Pagans and Christians.

101. For example, Justin Martyr, Dialogue 9, 12, 38, 110.

Chapter 4. Alexandria and Carthage

1.   For the history of the library see R. Barnes, ‘Cloistered bookworms in the chicken-coop of the Muses: The ancient library of Alexandria’, in Roy MacLeod (ed), The Library of Alexandria: Centre of Learning in the Ancient World (London: I.B.Tauris, 2004); Mostafa El-Abbadi, The Life and Fate of the Ancient Library of Alexandria (Paris: Unesco/UNDP, 1990).

2.   El-Abbadi, The Ancient Library of Alexandria, p 49.

3.   Ibid., pp 50–4.

4.   Susan Raven, Rome in Africa, 3rd ed (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), chapter 8, pp 122–31.

5.   Quoted in ibid., p 124.

6.   Barnes, ‘Cloistered bookworms’, p 87.

7.   Eusebius, EH II.16.

8.   Ibid., II.17.

9.   Philo, The Contemplative Life, passim.

10.  David T. Runia, Philo and the Church Fathers: A Collection of Papers (Leiden and New York: E.J. Brill, 1995), p 189.

11.  See Harry Austryn Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968), 4th printing revised, vol. 1, p 141.

12.  See Mark Edwards, Origen against Plato (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), p 54, for example, his comment that ‘the majority of surviving commentaries on Aristotle were composed by scholars resident in the city’.

13.  ODCC, p 364; see especially the relation of this concept to Clement’s writings.

14.  For an account of Origen’s life and background see Eusebius, EH VI.1– 39. Scholars are divided about the degree to which this can be trusted: for judicious assessments see especially J.W. Trigg, Origen (London: Routledge, 1998); Origen: The Bible and Philosophy in the Third-Century Church (London: SCM Press, 1985); Edwards, Origen against Plato.

15.  His father was a Christian, but it is not clear when he converted.

16.  Eusebius, EH VI.23.

17.  Panegyric [Letter of Praise] to Origen, traditionally attributed to Gregory the Wonderworker, 7 and 13.

18.  Ibid.

19.  Origen, Against Celsus IV.15.

20.  Ibid., IV.16; Michel Fédou, La sagesse et le monde: essai sur la christologie d’Origène (Paris: Desclée, 1995), pp 177–9, on Origen’s Commentary on Matthew.

21.  Commentary on John X.2–4.

22.  Commentary on John XXXII.116. On Jesus’ words, ‘If I, your teacher and Lord, have washed your feet …’ (John 13.14): ‘It is by teaching that the dust that comes from the earth and from worldly affairs … is wiped off.’

23.  Origen, Homily 19 on Luke 6.

24.  Origen, On First Principles, preface 2–3, translation adapted very slightly.

25.  See previous chapter, pp 60–1.

26.  Origen, On First Principles, preface 4–8.

27.  Ibid., preface 10.

28.  Ibid., II.11.4.

29.  Ibid.

30.  Ibid., II.11.6.

31.  See previous chapter, p 58.

32.  Origen, On First Principles I.6.4.

33.  Ibid., I.1.2.

34.  For example, Hebrews 1.5.5: ‘For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you?” ’ (citing Psalms 2.7); for other references to Psalms 2.7 see Hebrews 5.5 and Acts 13.33.

35.  Origen, On First Principles I.2.2.

36.  Colossians 1.15: ‘He is the image of the invisible God, first-born over all creation’; Hebrews 1.3: ‘the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of his substance’; Wisdom 7.25: Wisdom is ‘breath of the power of God’; ‘pure effluence of the glory of the almighty’; ‘the brightness of the eternal light and an unspotted mirror of the working of God and an image of his goodness’ (Christ is the ‘Wisdom of God’, I Corinthians 1.24).

37.  Origen, On First Principles I.2.6.

38.  Trigg, Origen: The Bible and Philosophy, pp 251–3.

39.  Origen, On Prayer X.2 (trans p 100); see also XV and XVI.

40.  For example, I Timothy 2.5; Hebrews 2.17, 3.1.

41.  Origen, On First Principles I.6.2.

42.  Most recently by Mark Edwards, Origen against Plato, pp 111–14.

43.  I Corinthians 15.44: ‘It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.’

44.  Origen, On First Principles II.11.2.

45.  See especially On First Principles I.6.2–3; II.10.4–8.

46.  A further controversy surrounds the question of whether, after this universal restoration of creation back to God, there could be further falls. I think Origen did not think this, but the matter is not certain.

47.  Trigg, Origen, pp 5–7.

48.  Edwards, Origen against Plato, pp 136–42.

49.  The Preface to the Commentary on the Song of Songs is an excellent introduction to Origen’s method of reading Scripture.

50.  Origen, On Prayer, pp 164–5.

51.  See Geoffrey Dunn, Tertullian (London: Routledge, 2004), p 67.

52.  For a very useful summary of the evidence and the rival interpretations, see ibid., pp 13–18.

53.  Apuleius, The Golden Ass 9.14 (trans Walsh), p 170.

54.  Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs 12.

55.  Dunn, Tertullian, pp 15, 17.

56.  Tertullian, Apology 39.

57.  Ibid. This passage echoes I Timothy 2.2, but since it was aimed at persuading pagans that Christianity was moral and not a threat to Rome, Tertullian may of course have exaggerated Christian concern for their rulers!

58.  Ibid.

59.  Ibid.

60.  Philo, The Contemplative Life 8–10.

61.  The classic work on the subject is Timothy Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971); again Dunn provides a useful summary of the main issues in Tertullian, pp 3–11.

62.  Barnes, Tertullian, pp 187–210, 22–9.

63.  Ibid., pp 209–10.

64.  Dunn, Tertullian, p 5.

65.  The preaching of homilies was part of a presbyter’s responsibility; the writing of commentaries complemented and aided this task. Origen’s homilies were written after his ordination as presbyter.

66.  Eric Francis Osborn, Tertullian: First Theologian of the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p 9; Dunn, Tertullian, p 29.

67.  Dunn, Tertullian, pp 28, 29.

68.  Tertullian, On the Apparel of Women II.8.

69.  Tertullian, On the Shows; Dunn, Tertullian, p 41.

70.  Tertullian, On Idolatry; see also Dunn, Tertullian, p 42.

71.  Tertullian, On the Military Crown 11.

72.  Ibid., 10.

73.  As implied by On the Military Crown 1.

74.  Tertullian, On the Shows 26, referring to Matthew 6.24.

75.  J.B. Rives, Religion and Authority in Roman Carthage from Augustus to Constantine (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp 278–81.

76.  As Rives points out, Cyprian, the great scourge of schismatics, was a devoted reader of Tertullian; he would surely have known if Tertullian had left the Church. See Rives, Religion and Authority, p 275.

77.  Tertullian, Against Praxeas 27.

78.  Ibid., 2.

79.  On the idea of simplicity and paradox in Tertullian see Osborn, Tertullian, especially pp 1–26, 48–64.

80.  For example, Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ 14.

81.  Ibid., 16.

82.  Ibid., 13.

83.  Ibid., 12.

84.  Ibid., 4.

85.  Uniquely, Mary’s womb was ‘opened’ not by a man entering but by a man leaving it (On the Flesh of Christ 23). Tertullian does not mean that Mary had a sexual relationship.

86.  This view fits with Tertullian’s idea that all human souls were composed of a quasi-material substance and did not pre-exist nor were created by God individually at each conception or birth but were generated along with bodies (in all cases but Jesus’) through sexual intercourse. Technically speaking Tertullian was a traducianist. For a brief summary of this position see J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (London: Black, 1965), p 175.

87.  Tertullian, On the Apparel of Women 1.1. I do not think that the feminist case against Tertullian is empty; it is, however, much more complex than usually presented.

88.  Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ 5, 15–16; On the Resurrection 51.

89.  According to Barnes’s chronology, Tertullian, p 55.

90.  Tertullian, Antidote for the Scorpion’s Sting 1.11; see also Dunn, Tertullian, p 44.

91.  Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ 1: ‘let us examine our Lord’s bodily substance, for about his spiritual nature all are agreed’ (presumably meaning ‘all Christians’).

92.  Tertullian, Against Praxeas 27.

93.  Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ 5, see also Against Praxeas 27.

94.  Tertullian, Against Praxeas 27.

95.  Evans’s introduction to his edition of Tertullian’s Against Praxeas is most helpful on the complex terminology here, especially pp 8–11: Ernest Evans (trans), Tertullian Adversus Praxean liber: Tertullian’s Treatise against Praxeas (London: SPCK, 1948).

96.  Noetus appears to have been the first to propose this idea. Praxeas may have been a pseudonym for an opponent whom Tertullian preferred not to name. ‘Modalism’ and ‘Sabellianism’ are now used to distinguish Praxeas’ ‘monarchians’ from another group of ‘monarchians’ who secured the unity of God by denying the real divinity of the Son. The latter are sometimes called ‘dynamic’ or ‘adoptionist’ monarchians, because they held that the power (dynamis) of God rested on Jesus, thus ‘adopting’ him as the Son of God.

97.  Tertullian, Against Praxeas 1.

98.  Osborn, Tertullian, p 129.

99.  Tertullian, Against Praxeas 8.

100.Ibid., 2.

101. Tertullian, Apology 39.

102. Sometimes translated ‘What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?’ This translation from On the Prescriptions of Heretics 7.9 is in Dunn, Tertullian, p 31. For good assessments of Tertullian’s use of philosophy see Osborn, Tertullian, Chapter 2, and Dunn, Tertullian, Chapter 5.

Chapter 5. Church and Empire

1.   For a very nuanced account see Stephen Mitchell, A History of the Later Roman Empire, AD 284–641: The Transformation of the Ancient World (Malden, MA, and Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), chapter 7.

2.   F. Millar, The Roman Empire and Its Neighbours, p 240: threats over the Danube from the Sarmatians, over the Rhine from the Franks, over the Apennines from the Alamanni.

3.   Ibid., p 240.

4.   See Harry D. Maier, ‘Heresy, households, and the disciplining of diversity’, in Virginia Burrus (ed), Late Ancient Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), pp 224–6 (with illustrations).

5.   Millar, The Roman Empire, p 247; Graeme Clarke, ‘Third-century Christianity’, in CAH, vol. 12, p 591.

6.   Janet Huskinson, ‘Art and architecture, 193–337’, in CAH, vol. 12, p 694.

7.   W.H.C. Frend, The Early Church (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1965), p 104.

8.   Ibid., pp 102, 104.

9.   Millar, The Roman Empire, pp 247–8; W.H.C. Frend, ‘The Winning of the Countryside’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 18:1 (April 1967), p 5.

10.  Frend, ‘The Winning of the Countryside’, pp 4–5.

11.  See Mitchell, The Later Roman Empire, p 240.

12.  That is, eaten some of the flesh of a sacrificed animal. Wording found in papyrus libelli found in Egypt, quoted in J. Patout Burns Jr., Cyprian the Bishop (London: Routledge, 2002), pp 177–8, n.4.

13.  Frend, The Early Church, p 98.

14.  Although they are regarded as martyrs, it is not clear whether these bishops were executed or died in prison (perhaps as the result of torture); contrast e.g. Frend, The Early Church, p 97 and Clarke, in CAH, vol. 12, p 634, on Fabian of Rome.

15.  Clarke, in CAH, vol. 12, p 628.

16.  Ibid., p 641.

17.  Ibid., pp 644–5.

18.  Frend, The Early Church, p 105.

19.  Eusebius, EH VII.11.

20.  G.E.M. de Ste Croix, ‘Why were the early Christians persecuted?’, Past and Present 26 (November 1963), pp 26–7.

21.  As later tetrachs vied for power, some areas (e.g. Spain and the Balkans) passed from one sphere of influence to another.

22.  Mitchell, The Later Roman Empire, p 241: ‘Diocletian’s restoration of the Roman state was based on a systematic reinvention of Roman religion.’

23.  For example, Clarke, in CAH, vol. 12, p 648.

24.  Ibid., p 653.

25.  Ibid.

26.  Ibid., p 652.

27.  Ibid., p 655. Possibly Galerius followed suit, but there is no firm evidence.

28.  Ibid., p 660. Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, was executed in this period.

29.  Averil Cameron, ‘Constantius and Constantine: An exercise in publicity’, in Elizabeth Hartley, Jane Hawkes, Martin Henig with Frances Mee (eds), Constantine the Great: York’s Roman Emperor (York: York Museums and Galleries Trust in association with Lund Humphries, 2006), p 28; and ibid., p 96.

30.  Lactantius, c.250–325; Eusebius of Caesarea, c.260–c.240.

31.  Letter 7.1.1, cited in Rives, Religion and Authority in Roman Carthage, p 294.

32.  Cyprian, On the Lapsed 10.

33.  See previous chapter on Tertullian’s views on the seriousness of post-baptismal sin.

34.  Patout Burns Jr., Cyprian the Bishop, pp 2–3.

35.  Cyprian, On the Lapsed 6.

36.  Ibid., 8, 9, 10.

37.  Ibid., 14.

38.  Ibid., 16.

39.  Ibid., 16–18.

40.  Ibid., 23–6.

41.  See also a similar and contemporary story recounted by Dionysius of Alexandria: Eusebius, EH VI.44.

42.  Cyprian, On the Lapsed 35.

43.  Ibid., 29.

44.  Patout Burns Jr., Cyprian the Bishop, p 5.

45.  Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church 4: ‘Assuredly, the rest of the apostles were also the same as was Peter, endowed with a like partnership both of honour and power; but the beginning proceeds from unity.’

46.  Ibid., 4.

47.  Ibid., 5.

48.  Ibid., 23, 6.

49.  Ibid., 10; on other language of poison, disease etc. see 16, 22.

50.  Ibid., 21, 14.

51.  Patout Burns Jr., Cyprian the Bishop, pp 6–7.

52.  Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church 3, 5.

53.  Bishop, 245–47CE.

54.  Letters 71.1, 74.1–2.

55.  There is thus good evidence for the systematic use of Church councils before Constantine.

56.  Eusebius reports that Fabius ‘inclined a little’ to Novatian’s views, EH VI.44.

57.  Letter from Dionysius preserved by Eusebius, EH VII.7.

58.  ‘Catholic’ comes from the Greek word katholos, meaning whole.

59.  Thus Stephen Mitchell, following Brent Shaw: Mitchell, The Later Roman Empire, p 280.

60.  Letter recorded in Eusebius, EH X.5.

61.  Eusebius, EH VII.30.

62.  Eusebius, Life of Constantine I.28, cited in Mitchell, The Later Roman Empire, pp 257–8.

63.  Mitchell, The Later Roman Empire, pp 257–8.

64.  Mitchell, following M. Weiss: Mitchell, The Later Roman Empire, p 258.

65.  Mitchell, The Later Roman Empire, pp 257–9.

66.  Now in the British Museum. For useful illustrations of the Rome and Hinton St Mary mosaics see Elizabeth Hartley et al (eds), Constantine the Great, pp 86, 205.

67.  For examples see ibid., pp 206, 208, 210, 214, 217, 219, 222.

68.  Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, p 49.

69.  Eusebius, Life of Constantine IV.28.

70.  Ibid., IV.25.

71.  Modern scholars, however, reject the story of the finding of the true Cross. See, for example, Averil Cameron, ‘Constantine and Christianity’, in Elizabeth Hartley et al (eds), Constantine the Great, p 100.

72.  Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, pp 52–3.

73.  The idea of the seal of God on the foreheads of the faithful in the Book of Revelation (e.g. 7.3 and 9.4 etc.) seems to be both picking up on the idea of wearing the words of the Lord on one’s forehead (e.g. Deuteronomy 6.8 and 11.8) and reversing the Roman symbol of slavery and oppression.

74.  Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, p 52.

75.  In the initial phases of the controversy, the debate focused on this relationship, and the Holy Spirit did not become a focus for Trinitarian theology until the 360s–70s.

76.  See my discussion of Origen’s theology in Chapter 4.

77.  The dating of the surviving documents is problematic. This account follows the reconstruction of Rowan Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1987), pp 48–66.

78.  The same Eusebius who wrote the Ecclesiastical History and The Life of Constantine, but not the same man as Eusebius of Nicomedia.

79.  Arius, Letter to Eusebius.

80.  Eusebius, Life of Constantine II.70–1.

81.  See Constantine’s letter summoning the council, NE document 299, p 358.

82.  This council had probably been called for another reason (to debate a disputed succession), but the fact that it felt the need to pronounce an opinion on Arianism showed the growing tensions.

83.  R.P.C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy, 318–381 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988), p 156. Only one bishop from Gaul (Die) attended Nicaea, in contrast with the 16 bishops at Arles; from Germany, none attended Nicaea and two (Trier and Cologne) attended Arles; from Britain, none attended Nicaea and three (York, London and Lincoln) attended Arles (see Clarke, in CAH, vol. 12, pp 590–2).

84.  Arius Letter to Alexander of Alexandria (= Arius’ Confession of Faith), NE, p 346. All quotations from Arius in this paragraph are from that document (some altered in minor respects). Cf. the letter from the Council of Antioch, which says it agreed with what Alexander declared against Arius: it declares belief in ‘One God, Father almighty, incomprehensible, immutable and unchangeable, providential ruler and guide of the universe, just, good, maker of heaven and earth and of all the things in them, Lord of the Law and of the prophets and of the new covenant’, NE, p 355.

85.  Arius, Letter to Eusebius, criticizes those who see the Son as ‘also unbegotten’, NE, p 344.

86.  Alexander, Letter to Alexander, NE, p 348.

87.  Williams, Arius, p 160: ‘Arius’ language is under strain here, and it is not surprising that this led to misunderstanding.’

88.  Arius, extract from Thalia, in Athanasius, On the Councils of Ariminium and Seleucia (De synodis) 15.

89.  Arius, Letter to Eusebius, NE, p 345.

90.  Ibid., p 344.

91.  Ibid., p 345.

92.  The epithet ‘only-begotten’ (monogenes) appears also in John 1.18, 3.16; I John 4.9. The NT and the Fathers read Psalm 2.7 christologically (‘You are my son, today I have begotten you’): Acts 13.33; Hebrews 1.5.

93.  This is a much simplified version of the argument made famous by Robert C. Gregg and Dennis E. Groh, Early Arianism: A View of Salvation (London: SCM Press, 1981).

94.  The phrases allude to Hebrews 1.3, Wisdom 7.26, John 17.3, I John 5.20.

Chapter 6. God and Humankind in Eastern Theology

1.   Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition, p 36; cf. Hanson, The Search, p 244: ‘It is difficult to acquit Athanasius from the charge of having on occasion used equivocation, not to say mendacity.’

2.   He was born c.297.

3.   Frances M. Young, From Nicaea to Chalcedon: A Guide to the Literature and its Background (London: SCM Press, 1983), p 67.

4.   The former, Contra Gentes, is sometimes known as Against the Heathen; the two works are closely related, possibly should even be regarded as two parts of a whole.

5.   Athanasius, On the Incarnation 7.

6.   Ibid., 20.

7.   Corruption is a very important theme in On the Incarnation 4–10 etc.

8.   Athanasius, On the Incarnation 9.

9.   Ibid., 43, 15.

10.  Ibid., 20.

11.  Ibid., 54.3.

12.  For example, Athanasius, Against the Arians I.38, II.19ff, III.25, cited in Rowan Williams, ‘Athanasius and the Arian crisis’, in Gillian Evans, The First Christian Theologians, p 164.

13.  On characteristics see To Serapion I.22–7; on actions see ibid. I.9, I.19–20, I.24; II.4, II.7.

14.  Athanasius, Against the Arians I.40.

15.  Modern ‘kenotic’ theology develops the idea in a rather different direction from Athanasius’ theology.

16.  For example, Against the Arians II.70, III.15, III.27.

17.  Eusebius of Nicomedia had been in correspondence with Arius in the earliest phase of the controversy.

18.  Joseph T. Lienhard, ‘Ousia and hypostasis: The Cappadocian settlement and the theology of “one hypostasis” ’, in Stephen Davis, Daniel Kendall SJ, and Gerard O’Collins SJ (eds), The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp 112–13.

19.  Hanson, The Search, pp 224ff, for an account of Marcellus’ theology.

20.  See Chapter 4.

21.  For the complex relationship between Athanasius and Marcellus see Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp 96–7, 106–7.

22.  A crucial point here is the difference between the Greek prefixes homo- (‘same’) and homoi- (‘like’ or ‘similar’). These have entered English in words such as homosexual (sexual attraction to someone of the same sex) and homoeopathy (treatment of a disease by inducing similar symptoms to those produced by the disease, in the hope of stimulating the body’s own immune system).

23.  But see Ayres on Basil of Ancyra: the word homoiousios is not found in Basil of Ancyra’s extant writings: Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, p 150.

24.  On the Council of Nicaea (= On the Nicene Definition), Latin title De decretis.

25.  Athanasius, Against the Arians I.4, I.16, I.9, I.34, III.5.

26.  On image see Colossians 1.15; on radiance and expression see Hebrews 1.3; on truth see John 14.6.

27.  Athanasius, Against the Arians III.15–16.

28.  Ibid., I.19.

29.  Ibid., I.21, I.40.

30.  Ibid., I.58.

31.  For example, ibid., I.13.

32.  Ibid., I.58.

33.  Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Macrina, trans Callahan, p 167.

34.  Gregory of Nazianzus is so-called after his birth-place, Nazianzus, which was also the place where he first served as priest, helping his father who was bishop there.

35.  The terminology of ‘left’ for the ‘Arian’ (extreme subordinationist) position is long standing, but is not to be given any modern political connotations.

36.  Ayres prefers the term heterousians: see Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, pp 139ff.

37.  Hanson, The Search, p 183.

38.  I am not here suggesting that this formula from Antioch was the direct cause of the Cappadocians’ concept, but merely using it as an example of the possibilities of the use of hypostasis before their writings.

39.  For an introduction to this aspect of Cappadocian theology see Anthony Meredith, Gregory of Nyssa (London: Routledge, 1999), pp 11–15.

40.  Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 29 (Third Theological Oration), 10.

41.  Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius (GNO I.466–9), trans NPNF I.33, p 78.

42.  Ibid.

43.  Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit VI–VIII.

44.  Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 31.10.

45.  Ibid., 31.7.

46.  Gregory of Nyssa, On ousia and hypostasis (= ‘Basil’ Letter 38), trans Wiles and Santer, pp 31–5.

47.  Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Humanity 22.3, NPNF 2, vol. 5.

48.  Gregory of Nyssa, To Ablabius, NPNF 2, p 334.

49.  Gregory of Nyssa, On ousia and hypostasis, previously thought to be Basil’s Letter 38, in Collected Letters of St Basil, trans R. Deferrari, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: Harvard University Press, 2003), p 211.

50.  Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 29.2.

51.  Ibid., 40.31.

52.  Hanson, The Search, pp 816–17.

53.  Quoted in Lienhard, ‘Ousia and hypostasis’, p 100.

54.  The first concern seems to have been developed in response to Diodore of Tarsus’ theology, which informed later Antichene Christology.

55.  The ‘Logos-Sarx’ / ‘Logos-Anthropos’ terminology was used especially by Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition. Vol. 1: From the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon (451) (London: Mowbray, 1965).

56.  Gregory of Nazianzus, Letter to Cledonius 9; cf. 5 for the more famous quote, ‘the unassumed is the unhealed’.

57.  Ibid., 8.

58.  ‘As a result, these [natures] no longer [i.e. after his resurrection] seem to exist separately on their own, according to some kind of distinction, but the mortal nature, mingled with the divine in a way that overwhelms it, it made new, and shares in the divine nature – just as if, let us say, the process of mixture were to make a drop of vinegar, mingled in the, into sea itself, simply by the fact that the natural quality of that liquid no longer remained perceptible within the infinite mass that overwhelmed it.’ Against Eunomius (GNO II, 132.26–133.4), trans NPNF vol. V, III.3.68–9 (this translation, Brian Daley, ‘ “Heavenly Man” and “Eternal Christ”: Apollinarius and Gregory of Nyssa on the personal identity of the Saviour’, Journal of Early Christian Studies, 10:4 (2002), pp 481–2).

59.  For a discussion of the debate, see Morwenna Ludlow, Gregory of Nyssa, Ancient and (Post)modern (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), Chapter 5.

60.  For example, in On the Soul and the Resurrection he is careful to deny the idea of pre-existent souls.

61.  Morwenna Ludlow, Universal Salvation: Eschatology in the Thought of Gregory of Nyssa and Karl Rahner (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp 82–5.

62.  Ibid., p 36.

63.  Ibid.

64.  The best introduction to Ephrem is Sebastian P. Brock, The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1992); see also his ‘Introduction’ to Saint Ephrem. Hymns on Paradise, trans Brock (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1990); for a good brief summary see also David G.K. Taylor, ‘The Syriac tradition’, in Gillian Evans, The First Christian Theologians.

65.  Quoted in Brock, The Luminous Eye, p 168.

66.  Ephrem, Hymns on Virginity, quoted in Brock, The Luminous Eye, pp 152–3.

67.  Philippians 2.6–11; I Corinthians 15.22; see also Brock, The Luminous Eye, p 31, 154.

68.  Brock, The Luminous Eye, p 86.

69.  Ephrem, Hymns on the Nativity 1.43, quoted in Brock, The Luminous Eye, p 88; cf. pp 42–3.

70.  Ephrem, Unleavened Bread 17.10, quoted in Brock, The Luminous Eye, p 89.

71.  See Brock, The Luminous Eye, p 30.

72.  Ibid., pp 77, 147.

73.  Ephrem, Hymns on Faith, 5.17, quoted in Brock, The Luminous Eye, p 154.

74.  For the sacraments, see Robert Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), p 21.

75.  For the quotation see Brock, The Luminous Eye, p 92. The interpretation is my own.

76.  Ephrem, quoted in Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom, p 318.

77.  Brock, The Luminous Eye, p 90.

78.  Ibid., p 94.

79.  Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom, pp 80–1, quoting Ephrem, Hymns on Faith 74.

80.  Ephrem, Hymn on the Nativity 22.39, quoted in Brock, The Luminous Eye, p 93; Hymn on the Nativity 16.11, quoted in Brock, The Luminous Eye, p 89; see also pp 85, 88, 91.

81.  Brock, The Luminous Eye, p 37.

82.  Ephrem, Hymn on the Nativity, 52.4, trans Kathleen E. McVey.

83.  Ibid., 52.9.

Chapter 7. Saints and the City

1.   Jerome, The Life of Paul the Hermit, in Carolinne White (ed and trans), Early Christian Lives (London: Penguin, 1998), p 75.

2.   Athanasius (attributed to Athanasius), Life of Antony 2.

3.   See, for example, the Protoevangelium of James.

4.   The Long Rules and Short Rules are presented in a question-and-answer form.

5.   This is one of the overarching themes in Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (London: Faber and Faber, 1989).

6.   See, for example, Gregory’s Life of Macrina, trans Callahan, pp 167–73.

7.   Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius III.10.12 (GNO II, 294.3–4); cf. Gregory of Nyssa, Antirrheticus against Apollinarius: ‘[the Logos] mingled with what is human and received our entire nature within himself, so that the human might mingle with what is divine and be divinized with it, and that the whole mass of our nature might be made holy through that first-fruit’ (GNO III:1, 151:16–20, trans Daley in his article ‘ “Heavenly Man” and “Eternal Christ” ’, p 479).

8.   Tertullian, Apology 39.

9.   See, for example, Clement of Alexandria’s Who Is the Rich Man Who Will Be Saved?

10.  See Tertullian in Chapter 4.

11.  Enkratite comes from the Greek enkrateia, ‘self-control’.

12.  Athanasius, Life of Antony 10; presumably the story is also a reference back to the story of Elijah: I Kings 17.1–11.

13.  Protoevangelium of James 6.3, 8.2.

14.  Ibid., 14.14–21.

15.  See the discussion of this in Chapter 4.

16.  Brown, The Body and Society, p 92.

17.  See especially Brown, The Body and Society, passim.

18.  Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity 3.

19.  Women were not priests, but there is evidence of double monasteries where men and women lived in separate quarters but were part of the same worshipping community; women were sometimes sole leaders of such double monasteries. See Daniel F. Stramara, ‘Double monasticism in the Greek East, fourth through eighth centuries’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 6:2 (1998), p 276.

20.  For a discussion of this kind of question see, for example, Rosemary Radford Ruether, ‘Misogynism and virginal feminism in the fathers of the Church’, in Ruether (ed), Religion and Sexism: Images of Women in the Jewish and Christian Tradition (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974), pp 150–83; and Elizabeth A. Clark, ‘Devil’s gateway and bride of Christ: Women in the early Christian world’, in Elizabeth A. Clark, Ascetic Piety and Women’s Faith: Essays on Late Ancient Christianity (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1986), pp 23–60.

21.  See, for example, Benedicta Ward (ed and trans), The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (London: Penguin, 2003), Chapter 5.

22.  Although Mani was not strictly speaking a Christian, he was strongly influenced by Christian asceticism.

23.  Athanasius, Life of Antony 3.

24.  Ibid.

25.  Some of Cyprian’s problems, for example, stemmed from the view that martyrs could intercede with God on behalf of sinners on earth. Thus confessors in prison were being plied with prayer requests in the expectation that they would soon die. See Chapter 5.

26.  Cited by Christoph Markschies, Between Two Worlds: Structures of Early Christianity (London: SCM, 1999), p 152.

27.  For this account I am indebted to Sebastian Brock, ‘Introduction’ to Saint Ephrem. Hymns on Paradise (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1990), pp 25–33. See also his The Luminous Eye, pp 131–41.

28.  Brock, The Luminous Eye, chapter 7.

29.  Brock, ‘Introduction’ to Saint Ephrem. Hymns on Paradise, p 30; Luke 20.35–6. This idea of asceticism mirroring the angelic life is also found in Cappadocian writing on monasticism: Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Macrina, trans Callahan, p 171.

30.  Aphrahat, Demonstrations VI.4.

31.  The term ‘anchorite’ (someone who withdraws) is usually applied to this kind of ascetic, although strictly it can also apply to a member of a cenobitic community.

32.  Quoted by Susanna Elm, ‘Virgins of God’: The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, c.1994), p 303.

33.  Ibid., pp 304-5.

34.  Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Macrina, p 168.

35.  Ibid., p 171.

36.  Basil of Caesarea, Letter 94.

37.  Gregory of Nazianzus, Funeral Oration on His Brother Basil, Oration 43.63.

38.  Basil of Caesarea, Long Rules and Short Rules.

39.  See Chapter 10.

40.  Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Macrina, pp 165–7.

41.  Kelly, Jerome, p 48.

42.  Jerome, Letter 22.

43.  See Kelly, Jerome, chapters XII and XIII.

44.  See Theodoret’s Life of Simeon Stylites and, for an introduction, Markschies, Between Two Worlds, pp 107–10.

45.  Theodoret, Life of Simeon Stylites 6.

46.  Markschies, Between Two Worlds, p 109 and also fig. 2 for picture of a badge.

47.  See John Chrysostom’s sermons, e.g. On Saint Phocas and On the Holy Martyr Ignatius.

48.  Possibly Gregory of Nazianzus visited it. See John McGuckin, St. Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography (New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001), pp 229–30.

49.  Egeria, Travels.

50.  Gregory of Nyssa, Letter 2.

51.  Augustine, Confessions IX.vii.14–15.

52.  Ibid., VI.iii.3.

53.  Gregory of Nazianzus’ poem On His Own Life, ll.1680ff, trans White, p 133.

Chapter 8. God and Humankind in Western Theology

1.   By this period, emperors no longer had permanent capitals. Valentian I was in Milan for a whole year in 364.

2.   Neil B. McLynn, Ambrose of Milan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1994), p 28; Boniface Ramsey, Ambrose (London: Routledge, 1997), p 21. Both books are excellent guides to Ambrose’s career.

3.   McLynn, Ambrose of Milan, pp 40–1.

4.   So suggests Ramsey, Ambrose, p 16.

5.   375 or 378 synod in Sirmium; 381 council at Aquileia.

6.   McLynn, Ambrose, pp 24, 26.

7.   Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, p 182.

8.   Augustine, Confessions I.xi.17.

9.   Ibid., III.i.1–III.ii.2.

10.  Ibid., III.iii.6.

11.  Ibid., III.iv.8.

12.  Ibid., III.v.9.

13.  Goulven Madec, ‘Christian Influences on Augustine’, ATA, pp 151–6.

14.  Augustine, Confessions V.iii.3, V.vi.10.

15.  Ibid., V.xiii.23.

16.  Ibid., VII.x.16.

17.  Ibid., VIII.vii.17.

18.  See Mitchell on Augustine’s conversion: Stephen Mitchell, A History of the Later Roman Empire, pp 268–9.

19.  Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis 50.

20.  Literal Meaning of Genesis IV (2) 6.

21.  Ibid., I (6) 12.

22.  Most of On Christian Teaching was written around the same time as Augustine’s Confessions; however, Augustine seems to have put it down approximately three-quarters of the way through and completed it only in 426/27, a couple of years before his death.

23.  Preface, trans Green, p 7.

24.  See Augustine, Confessions III.v.9.

25.  Ibid., XII.xiv.1.

26.  This explanation necessarily exaggerates the difference between Origen’s and Augustine’s exegesis even more than Augustine did himself; however, it does reflect some of Augustine’s anxieties about the potential of Origen’s theory to mislead.

27.  Michael Cameron on ‘Sign’, in ATA, p 795.

28.  See Chapter 5.

29.  On the Trinity I.1.4.

30.  In what follows, my reading of On the Trinity has been greatly aided by Gareth B. Matthews, ‘Introduction’, to Gareth B. Matthews and Stephen McKenna (eds and trans), Augustine: On the Trinity Books 8–15 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Michel René Barnes, ‘Rereading Augustine’s theology of the Trinity’, in Stephen Davis, Daniel Kendall and Gerard O’Collins (eds), The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp 145–76; Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, pp 364–83; Cyril C. Richardson, ‘The enigma of the Trinity’, in R.W. Battenhouse (ed), A Companion to the Study of St Augustine (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp 235–55.

31.  On the Trinity XV.46.

32.  Ibid., XV.51 (epilogue).

33.  This and the following quotations in this paragraph are from On the Trinity VII.7.

34.  Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, p 183.

35.  Ibid., p 184.

36.  On the Trinity VII.7.

37.  Ibid., VIII.6.

38.  Ibid., VIII.14.

39.  Ibid., IX.3.

40.  Ibid., IX.4.

41.  Augustine wrote, ‘And whatever else they are called in respect to themselves, they are spoken of together, not in the plural but in the singular. But they are three in that they are mutually referred to each other. And if they were not equal, not only each one to each one, but each one to all, they would certainly not comprehend each other. For not only is each one comprehended by each one, but all are also comprehended by each one.’ On the Trinity X.18.

42.  See, for example, XIII.26, XIV.11, XIV.18.

43.  Eugene TeSelle, in ATA, p 633.

44.  Augustine, Confessions X.xxix.40.

45.  See Chadwick’s footnote, Augustine, Confessions, trans Chadwick, pp 202– 3.

46.  Augustine, quoting Pelagius, in Henry Bettenson (ed), The Later Christian Fathers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), p 194.

47.  Bettenson (ed), The Later Christian Fathers, p 193.

48.  Ibid.

49.  Pelagius, Letter to Demetrius, in ibid., p 194.

50.  For Pelagius’ views on divine judgement see Gerald Bonner, St Augustine of Hippo: Life and Controversies, rev ed (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1986), pp 335–6.

51.  Most commonly known as the ‘many mansions’ of the King James’ version.

52.  Serge Lancel, Saint Augustine (London: SCM Press, 2002), p 343.

53.  Eugene TeSelle, in ATA, p 633.

54.  Augustine, City of God XIV.1.

55.  Ibid., XXI.12.

56.  Ibid., XV.1, referring to Genesis 4.1–2, and quoting I Corinthians 15.46 and Romans 9.17.

57.  Ibid., XIV.11.

58.  Ibid.

59.  Expressed succinctly in Latin: posse peccare, non posse non peccare, non posse peccare.

60.  ‘Anyone, therefore, who desires to escape everlasting punishment requires not only to be baptized but also to be justified in Christ, and so to pass over to the devil to Christ’. City of God XXI.16.

61.  Augustine, City of God XX.9.

62.  For example, ibid., XIX.27–8.

63.  Ibid., XIX.28.

64.  Ibid., XIV.28.

65.  Ibid., XIV.28, quoting I Corinthians 15.28.

Chapter 9. Christology: A Tale of Three Cities

1.   Libanius, Oration 11, On Antioch 16, 128, 133–4.

2.   John Chrysostom, Homily 17, On the Statues, trans Allen and Meyer, pp 115– 16.

3.   Libanius, Oration 11, On Antioch 41, translation slighted altered.

4.   For an introduction to Antioch in the fourth to fifth centuries see J.N.D. Kelly, Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom, Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop (London: Duckworth, 1995), Chapter 1.

5.   John Chrysostom, Homily 17, On the Statues, p 112, quoting Acts 11.26.

6.   John Chrysostom, Against the Jews, Oration 1, trans Allen and Meyer, p 154.

7.   John Chrysostom, Homily 17, On the Statues, p 107.

8.   For this interpretation of Chrysostom’s asketerion see especially Kelly, Golden Mouth, pp 18–23.

9.   Chrysostom’s period of ascetic retreat into the hills around Antioch seems to have taken place after his membership of Diodore’s community.

10.  Basil of Caesarea, Homilies on the Hexameron XII.1.

11.  Theodore of Mopsuestia, On the Lord’s Prayer.

12.  Diodore also had argued with Apollinarius. See Young, From Nicaea to Chalcedon, pp 194–9.

13.  On this period see Kelly, Golden Mouth, Chapter 1.

14.  Ibid., p 12.

15.  While John Chrysostom never offered explicit support to the Egyptian monks (the ‘Long brothers’), their presence in Constantinople for two years aroused suspicion. Theophilus was an important member of the ‘Synod of the Oak’ which deposed Chrysostom. On these episodes see Kelly, Golden Mouth, chapters 14–16.

16.  The Assyrian Church of the East, which had commonly been described by Westerners as ‘Nestorian’, has always stressed its indebtedness to Theodore of Mopsuestia and has tended to minimize the influence of Nestorius. One consequence of this is the occasional denial of a direct connection between Theodore’s and Nestorius’ theologies.

17.  See R.A. Norris, The Christological Controversy (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980) for easy access to some key texts. For the Bazaar of Heraclides see the translation of G.R. Driver and Leonard Hodgson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925), available online at http://www.ccel.org/p/pearse/morefathers/nestorius_bazaar_0_intro.htm.

18.  S.G. Hall, Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church (London: SPCK, 1991), pp 212–13.

19.  Theologians who had previously used the term included Origen, Bishops Peter, Alexander and Athanasius of Alexandria, Eusebius of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa (the latter using Theotokos together with anthropotokos – ‘man-bearer’). See John McGuckin, Saint Cyril of Alexandria: The Christological Controversy: Its History, Theology, and Texts (Leiden and New York: E.J. Brill, 1994), p 22.

20.  Nestorius, First Sermon on the Theotokos, in Norris, The Christological Controversy, pp 124–5.

21.  Literally ‘God-bearer’/‘human-bearer’, but I follow the alternative translation because the English term ‘bearer’ is ambiguous: it can refer to a mother’s bearing/carrying a child, or more generally to someone carrying something in a less intimate sense. The Greek word specifically refers to the act of giving birth.

22.  Theodore, On the Incarnation, fragment 11, in Norris, The Christological Controversy, pp 121–2.

23.  See Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, p 370, and the evidence of Cyril’s Letter to the Monks of Egypt, in McGuckin, Saint Cyril of Alexandria, pp 245–61.

24.  McGuckin, Saint Cyril of Alexandria, pp 24–5.

25.  Ibid., p 6.

26.  For this early period of Cyril’s life see ibid., Chapter 1.

27.  Ibid., p 10.

28.  Ibid., p 5.

29.  Norman Russell, Cyril of Alexandria (London: Routledge, 2000), p 130.

30.  Cyril of Alexandria, Second Letter to Nestorius, in Norris, The Christological Controversy, p 132.

31.  Nestorius, Second Letter to Cyril 6–7.

32.  Cyril, Third Letter 2.

33.  Hall, Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church, p 217.

34.  Russell, Cyril of Alexandria, p 175.

35.  Documents from the Council of Ephesus.

36.  Gillian Evans and Morwenna Ludlow, ‘Patristics’, in Gareth Jones (ed), The Blackwell Companion to Modern Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), p 114, citing M.F. Wiles, ‘Patristic appeals to tradition’, in M.F. Wiles, Explorations in Theology 4 (London: SCM, 1979).

37.  McGuckin, Saint Cyril of Alexandria, pp 117–18.

38.  Found in Cyril’s Letter to John of Antioch, in Norris, The Christological Controversy, pp 140–5.

39.  Cyril of Alexandria, Letter to Succensus. This precise phrase came from a text by a follower of Apollinarius which was falsely circulating under the name of Athanasius. It expressed for Cyril a crucial emphasis on the incarnate unity of Jesus Christ, but although Cyril’s theology shows some general similarities to that of Apollinarius, the use of this phrase in itself of course does not mean that Cyril was ‘an Apollinarian’, any more than Nestorius was an Arian or adoptionist.

40.  Theodore of Mopsuestia, fragment 2, in Norris, The Christological Controversy, pp 114–15.

41.  See the Third Letter 4: ‘we recognize that “being made flesh” is not to be defined by us as meaning a residence of the Word in him precisely comparable with his residence in the saints. No, he was actually united with flesh, without being changed into it, and brought about the sort of residence in it which a man’s souls can be said to have in relation to its body.’

42.  Cyril of Alexandria, An Explanation of the Twelve Chapters, trans Russell, in Cyril of Alexandria, pp 183–4. The ambiguity of the English verb to ‘bear’ is confusing here: ‘God-bearing man’ in this context means ‘taking on’ or ‘carrying’ God, not ‘bearing God’ in the sense that Mary was ‘ God-bearer’, giving birth to God.

43.  All quotations from Nestorius in this paragraph come from his First Letter against Cyril, in Norris, The Christological Controversy, pp 125ff.

44.  Cyril of Alexandria, Second Letter to Nestorius, in ibid., p 133.

45.  Ibid.

46.  Ibid., p 134.

47.  Nestorius, Second Letter to Cyril, trans McGuckin, p 365.

48.  Cyril of Alexandria, Third Letter to Nestorius 3.

49.  Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, p 383.

50.  The Greek words henōsis and henotēs are more obviously close in sound to the word for ‘one’ (hen), than are the English words ‘union’ and ‘unity’, which are usually used to translate them.

51.  All phrases from Cyril of Alexandria’s Second Letter to Nestorius.

52.  Second Letter of Cyril to Succensus, trans McGuckin. For the phrase see 2.

53.  Ibid., 6, p 354.

54.  Ibid.

55.  McGuckin, Saint Cyril of Alexandria, p 355, note.

56.  Cyril of Alexandria, Second Letter to Nestorius, trans Norris, The Christological Controversy, p 133, slightly adapted.

57.  In this interpretation, I am adapting the very helpful analysis of McGuckin, p 212, from which all quotations in this paragraph derive.

58.  George Leonard Prestige, Fathers and Heretics: Six Studies in Dogmatic Faith with Prologue and Epilogue (London: SPCK, 1963), p 125.

59.  Nestorius extract, in Norris, The Christological Controversy, pp 127–8.

60.  Norris, ‘Introduction’ to The Christological Controversy, p 24.

61.  Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, p 340.

62.  Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, p 331.

63.  Hall, Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church, p 230.

64.  The Council of Chalcedon’s ‘Definition of the Faith’, in Norris, The Christological Controversy, p 158.

65.  Ibid., p 159.

66.  Although, as Hall points out, it was a Roman version of the Creed, related to the Apostles’ Creed, not Nicaea that Leo naturally turned to, in order to expound his theology. See Hall, Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church, p 227.

67.  Leo, Letter to Flavian, in Norris, The Christological Controversy, p 151.

68.  Hall, Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church, pp 227–8, 231.

69.  Leo, Letter to Flavian, in Norris, The Christological Controversy, p 146. I am indebted to conversations with Dr Bernard Green on the subject of Leo’s Christology; my final interpretation of the evidence is my own.

70.  Ibid., p 146.

71.  Ibid., p 148.

72.  Ibid., pp 148, 152. My emphasis.

73.  Ibid., p 150.

74.  Ibid., p 150, 149.

Chapter 10. Epilogue

1.   From The Book of Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis), ed Davis, p 39.

2.   Of course the term ‘barbarian’ was used deliberately by Greeks and Romans to accentuate or create differences between them and those they considered ‘other’. For the notion of ‘barbarian’ see Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom, pp 43-8, 99–106.

3.   For the complex mix of ‘Roman’ and ‘Gothic’ culture exemplified by Theoderic see Stephen Mitchell, A History of the Later Roman Empire, pp 215–21.

4.   For delineation of some of these see Brown, ‘Introduction’, in The Rise of Western Christendom.

5.   Adapting Brown’s metaphor of Leo as ‘tie-breaker’, The Rise of Western Christendom, p 115.

6.   The date of Clovis’ conversion is disputed; see Mitchell, A History of the Later Roman Empire, pp 212–13.

7.   A thesis proposed by Pirenne, discussed by Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom, pp 9ff.

8.   Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom, p 12 (on southern Gaul) and p 21 (on Rome, citing Horden and Purcell).

9.   On the rise in population see Mitchell, A History of the Later Roman Empire, p 137.

10.  North Africa fell in 534; Naples, Rome and Ravenna fell in 536–38.

11.  Mitchell, A History of the Later Roman Empire, p 138.

12.  For these events see Mitchell, A History of the Later Roman Empire, pp 372–7, on Hagia Sophia see ibid., pp 139–40.

13.  For a challenge to the ‘cataclysmic’ interpretation see Mitchell, A History of the Later Roman Empire, pp 327–8.

14.  Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom, pp 15–16 (Brown uses the concept of ‘symbolic goods’).

15.  Graeme Clarke, ‘Third-century Christianity’, in CAH, vol. 12, pp 590–2.

16.  At Derry, Durrow and Kells.

17.  That is, the fifth or the sixth. See Dauvit Broun, ‘Ninian [St Ninian] (supp. fl. 5th–6th cent.)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20198 (accessed 27 February 2008). Whithorn lies on the south-west coast of Scotland, roughly due north of the Isle of Man.

18.  For this distinction see Chapter 7.

19.  Máire Herbert, ‘Columba (c.521–597)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/6001 (accessed 27 February 2008).

20.  Boniface Ramsey, ‘Cassian’, in ATA, pp 133–5.

21.  See George Lawless, ‘Rules’, in ATA, p 739.

22.  Lawless, ‘Regula’ and ‘Rules’, in ATA.

23.  For a summary of their content see W. Stewart McCullough, A Short History of Syriac Christianity to the Rise of Islam (Chico, California: Scholars Press, 1982), p 73.

24.  Ibid., p 73.

25.  The distinction here is between the Greek mia (the simple number ‘one’) and monos (‘single’ or ‘only one’). While, literally speaking, both accurately describe the anti-Chalcedonian position that Jesus Christ had one nature, they differ in tone. ‘Monophysite’ derives from the phrase monē physis (‘only one nature’, ‘a single nature’) which appears to imply that there could or should be two natures in Christ – just as the description of someone as ‘single’ can in some social circles pejoratively imply that adults are meant to live in couples. ‘Miaphysite’ derives from the neutral phrase ‘one nature’ (mia physis), which does not imply there are, ought to be or could be two natures.

26.  See Chapter 9.

27.  At least some of the disruption of this period can be traced to the varying imperial policies with regard to Chalcedon (a situation which echoes imperial vacillation in the fourth century over the doctrine of the Trinity): Zeno wanted to bring the miaphysites and Chalcedonians together; Anastasius was miaphysite; Justin I was Chalcedonian; Justinian was moderately Chalcedonian, but his influential wife had sympathies with the miaphysites.

28.  A point made by Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom, p 185.

29.  The Church of the East supported the theological settlement of Chalcedon, although they continued to object to its anathematization of Nestorius, which they believed went too far.

30.  Christian Topography, Book III.

31.  David G.K. Taylor, ‘The Syriac tradition’, in Gillian Evans, The First Christian Theologians, p 215.

32.  Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom, pp 14–15.

33.  Even Marcion read the Pentateuch and the Prophets (whilst rejecting them as part of the Christian canon), and even he included one Gospel.

34.  McCullough, A Short History of Syriac Christianity, p 87.

35.  This is not to say that this was the only source or model for Christian commentary on Scripture.

36.  See Chapter 6.

37.  Eusebius, EH VII.30.

38.  Augustine, Confessions 7.7.15.

39.  Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History VIII.8.

40.  Socrates, Ecclesiastical History VI.8. My thanks to Dr Peter van Nuffelen for supplying me with these references to hymnody.

41.  Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom, p 187.

42.  The Poemata arcana (‘Poems on the mysteries’). Very roughly speaking, these are the poem versions of his theological orations. For a selection in translation see Gregory of Nazianzus, On God and Man, trans Peter Gilbert (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001).

43.  ‘A morning prayer’, ‘A prayer the next morning’ translated by Brian Daley in his Gregory of Nazianzus (London: Routledge, 2006), pp 170–1.

44.  Prudentius, Cathemerinon 9, trans C. White. White’s collection is a wonderful introduction to the fantastic variety and inventiveness of Christian Latin verse in this period.

45.  See the mosaic from Ravenna on the cover of Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom.