HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor
HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor
CHRISTIAN BIOGRAPHY: FOUNDATION TO MATURITY 125uflÚn toË ényr≈pou” in heavenly glory. He is dragged to the placeof execution, where he receives the prescribed Jewish punishmentfor blasphemy, viz., stoning. During his execution, Stephen paraphrasesthe words Luke attributed to Jesus on the cross: “KÊrieÉIhsoË, d°jai tÚ pneËmã mou”. Luke constructs these final momentsof Stephen’s life as an imitatio Christi, and he makes the connectionexplicit: the particularity of Stephen’s final moments is subsumedinto the larger paradigm of Christ’s life. The imitation of Christthrough a sacrificial death in which the very language returns us tothe vita Christi is the guarantee of Stephen’s sanctity and the legitimacyfor his cult.The early church revered those who, following the examples ofJesus and Stephen, died as witnesses for their faith. The word martyrused denotatively as a blood witness has a complicated history. Forcenturies, mãrtuw referred to the act of witness in a judicial setting(see Plato’s Phaedrus 244d). 23 By the period of the New Testament,its meaning broadened to include witness as a sign of religious faith.However, save for the instance of Stephen in Acts (Acts 7:56–58), itwas not unambiguously coupled with the idea of blood witness inthe Christian scriptures. Some locate the antecedent of Christiansacrifice in the Semitic tradition, particularly in the depiction ofEleazar, the pious Jew who is killed for refusing to eat pork, and inthe figure of the Maccabean mother and her seven sons, all of whomdied under the rule of the Seleucid Antiochus Epiphanes (4 Macc.5:1–6:3 and 8:3–18:24). 24 Others, like Bowersock, suggest that thedepiction of Christian martyrdom that exists in the Acta Martyrum isa new phenomenon cobbled from a syncretism of hellenized Judaismand played out in an empire whose tradition sanctioned principledsuicide, e.g., Seneca’s despair at being unable to remedy Nero’sexcesses. 25 By the mid-second century, in the Christian communitythe word mãrtuw had ceased to have a legal meaning and referredexclusively to blood sacrifice.Minorities suffer abuse in most societies. The Christian community,like other minorities, also suffered, even though Christians wereindistinguishable from the rest of the citizenry. The anonymous23Liddell and Scott (1968), 1082.24Grabar (1946), 2:20–21; Downing (1963), 279–93.25Bowersock (1995), 1–39.
126 THOMAS J. HEFFERNANChristian Epistle to Diognetus (ca. 150) makes this very point: “Christiansare not distinguished from the rest of humanity by country, languageor custom”. 26 They differed from other citizens, however, by theirrefusal to participate in many public rituals that required sacrificeto the gods and to the genius of the emperor. As the Roman Stategrew in complexity and became ever more ethnically and linguisticallydiverse, the figure of the emperor functioned as a totem to promotepolitical and social stability. Rome’s insistence that Christianssacrifice to the emperor was an effort to legislate Roman customsin an ever-burgeoning and diverse empire. Christians, however, sawresistance to such legislation as a measure of fidelity to their religionand an opportunity to repudiate the values of the state. As long asRomans viewed Christians as apostate Jews, they were well withinthe law regarding the legitimacy of established religions. However,this all changed by the middle of the second century, when sporadicpersecution of Christians became intense. 27In the Laws Cicero remarked: “Let no one have separate gods,either new or foreign, unless they are officially allowed” (II, 19).Such sentiment underscored a traditional hostility for any religionthat would deter individuals from revering their ancestors. ProminentRomans believed that the success of Rome was indebted in part tothe ‘custom of these ancestors’, the mos maiorum. New cults wouldjeopardize not only these revered traditions but also the very stateitself. Tacitus believed that Christians were another eastern cult thatwould undermine the purity of Roman tradition and argued thatfear was the only remedy to hold them in check (Annals, xiv, 445).Juvenal’s comment that “the Syrian Orontes has been pouring intothe Tiber for a good while now” identifies the east as the birthplaceof these superstitions that pollute the quality of life in Rome withtheir unspeakable oriental vices (Satires, iii, 62). In the Martyrdom ofFructuosus (ca. 259), Aemilianus, the Roman governor, makes the connectionamong the gods, the state, and the emperor crystal clear:“If the gods are not worshipped, then the images of the emperorsare not adored”. 28 These sentiments were to harden as the empireexpanded and the eternal city became a world that incorporated26The Epistle to Diognetus V.1–4, ed. J. J. Thierry (Leiden, 1964).27Barnes (1981), 136–39.28Musurillo (1972).
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CHRISTIAN BIOGRAPHY: FOUNDATION TO MATURITY 125uflÚn toË ényr≈pou” in heavenly glory. He is dragged to the placeof execution, where he receives the prescribed Jewish punishmentfor blasphemy, viz., stoning. During his execution, Stephen paraphrasesthe words Luke attributed to Jesus on the cross: “KÊrieÉIhsoË, d°jai tÚ pneËmã mou”. Luke constructs these final momentsof Stephen’s life as an imitatio Christi, and he makes the connectionexplicit: the particularity of Stephen’s final moments is subsumedinto the larger paradigm of Christ’s life. The imitation of Christthrough a sacrificial death in which the very language returns us tothe vita Christi is the guarantee of Stephen’s sanctity and the legitimacyfor his cult.The early church revered those who, following the examples ofJesus and Stephen, died as witnesses for their faith. The word martyrused denotatively as a blood witness has a complicated history. Forcenturies, mãrtuw referred to the act of witness in a judicial setting(see Plato’s Phaedrus 244d). 23 By the period of the New Testament,its meaning broadened to include witness as a sign of religious faith.However, save for the instance of Stephen in Acts (Acts 7:56–58), itwas not unambiguously coupled with the idea of blood witness inthe Christian scriptures. Some locate the antecedent of Christiansacrifice in the Semitic tradition, particularly in the depiction ofEleazar, the pious Jew who is killed for refusing to eat pork, and inthe figure of the Maccabean mother and her seven sons, all of whomdied under the rule of the Seleucid Antiochus Epiphanes (4 Macc.5:1–6:3 and 8:3–18:24). 24 Others, like Bowersock, suggest that thedepiction of Christian martyrdom that exists in the Acta Martyrum isa new phenomenon cobbled from a syncretism of hellenized Judaismand played out in an empire whose tradition sanctioned principledsuicide, e.g., Seneca’s despair at being unable to remedy Nero’sexcesses. 25 By the mid-second century, in the Christian communitythe word mãrtuw had ceased to have a legal meaning and referredexclusively to blood sacrifice.Minorities suffer abuse in most societies. The Christian community,like other minorities, also suffered, even though Christians wereindistinguishable from the rest of the citizenry. The anonymous23Liddell and Scott (1968), 1082.24Grabar (1946), 2:20–21; Downing (1963), 279–93.25Bowersock (1995), 1–39.
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