A Companion to Late Antique Literature

by Scott McGill

  What was “Christian” for Jerome? Interestingly, it seems not to have been synonymous with “orthodox” (against Vessey 2008, p. 43). De viris illustribus includes not only orthodox authors – later called “[Church] Fathers” (cf. Vincent of Lérins, Comm. 27–28; Vessey 2008, p. 43) – such as Athanasius or Ambrose, but also “heresiarchs,” such as Bardaisan, Novatian, and Eunomius, and even Jews, such as Philo of Alexandria (Ceresa‐Gastaldo 1988, pp. 96, 126, 176, 220). Nor did Jerome exclude the Bible from his canon of early Christian theological literature. Saint Paul and the putative authors of the four canonical New Testament Gospels are listed in his catalog as well as, for example, Juvencus, who more than two hundred years after they were first written in humble Koine Greek “rewrote” the Gospels in classical Latin hexameters; or Dexter, an imperial official, who according to Jerome wrote a universal chronicle; or Marius Victorinus, a Roman professor of rhetoric, who converted to Christianity very late in his life and yet wrote several biblical commentaries and theological treatises (Ceresa‐Gastaldo 1988, pp. 190, 206, 228).

  Thus “Christian,” for the period concerned (ca. 250–500), is not co‐extensive with “orthodox” or “theological,” let alone clerical. It refers to a cultural tradition that, as a whole, differs from ancient Classical culture, but that was in itself a hugely diverse phenomenon. At the same time, it is true that during that period a “Christian orthodox” tradition began to emerge, which began to exclude heretical movements, and this tradition as a whole began to be “theologically” grounded, as will be shown below. Interestingly, it was often heretics who initiated theological reflection (Edwards 2009). “Theology,” to be sure, must here be understood very differently from the way it has come to be understood since the Middle Ages, as a scholastic discipline with philosophy as her handmaiden. In this latter sense there was no theology in early Christianity. Rather, the Christian literary culture that Jerome’s De viris illustribus reflects emerged as a “sideline” of ancient classical culture, embedded as it was in the context of higher schools of (literary) grammar and rhetoric––i.e. precisely the γραμματικη` τέχνη mentioned earlier, which Jerome identified as the source of the development of classical litteratura.

  It is these “schools” to which we must look as the birth place of early Christian theological literature. Despite Christian suspicion toward pagan education, early Christians were massively involved in higher education, at least from the second century onward (Markschies 2009). As they developed their teaching from this context, they styled it as a type of philosophy (Löhr 2010). Christians thus had a considerable part in that widespread and profound educational movement called “Second Sophistic,” with its ideal of a rounded paideia (Lechner 2011), which extended so far into late antiquity that some have begun to speak of a “Third Sophistic” dominated by Christian literature and its main producers, church teachers and leaders (Quiroga Puertas 2007). This is why this process has also been referred to as a move “from ‘Sophistopolis’ to ‘Episcopolis’” (Quiroga Puertas 2007).

  Late antique Christian theological literature was thus scholastic in the sense that it originated from a school context, but its scholasticism was based on the study not of a certain type of Aristotelian logic but of literary grammar and rhetoric (Kaster 1988; Chin 2008). Almost all late antique Christian theological writers were at least trained in these disciplines; Many of them were actually teachers, and the genres of Christian theological literature were those of the late antique literary canon or derived thereof.

  The fact that there were genres the live context of which was the church as a community of worship, such as prayers, hymns, creeds, and similar forms, merely underlines the above observation; for as literature such forms are transmitted only in a scholastic or school context, in works formed or at least informed by authors who were active as teachers and/or leaders (cf. Markschies 2009, pp. 136–210).

  One remarkable, common feature of all Christian theological literature was that it was “hermeneutical.” It had not yet itself become canonical, nor had the process of the biblical canon formation been fully completed yet. But from the second century onward the culture of Christian theological literature was, in the words of Reinhart Herzog, one of “global hermeneutics,” in which the world was explained with reference to normative texts rather than represented by normative texts (Herzog 1989, p. 33). In the mid‐second century Lucian of Samosata was still able to mock Christians for writing sacred books and commenting on them at the same time (Lucian, Peregr. 11). From the third century onward no new “sacred books” of this kind were admitted to Christian theological discourse. Whatever was written from then on in terms of theological literature referred back to the books of the Old and New Testament. One dominant genre that emerged in the process of this development was the biblical commentary, the origin of which coincided with that of the philosophical commentary among Aristotelians and Platonists (see Lössl and Watt 2011).

  But it would be wrong to reduce late antique Christian theological literature to biblical commentary. As Thomas Graumann (2009) has pointed out, new forms of canonical literature emerged in the fourth and fifth centuries – for example, the Nicene Creed, accompanied by a multitude of hermeneutical literature, treatises, letters, canons, memoranda, minutes of church synods and councils, and others. Graumann described this process as “conduct of theology,” the “playing out” of (rhetorical) theological performance in the arena of councils, synods, and other types of meetings (e.g. at imperial courts or in worship), the forms of oral and written communication this involved and the forms of literature produced in this process. Again, traditional approaches to the study of literature may ask if we can speak here of “literature” at all, yet for a study of Christian theological literature in late antiquity, which is concerned less with aesthetically defined, “finished” products than with the culture in which these products emerged (Vessey 2008, p.57), they will be of the utmost interest.

  20.2 Approaching Late Antiquity: The Emergence of Christian Theological Literature

  In classical antiquity the word “theology” had an ambiguous ring. “Theologians” were basically “mythologizers,” authors such as Homer or Hesiod, who explained natural events and processes in mythological terms. This is how the expression is used, for example, by Aristotle (e.g. Mete. 353a35) in a disparaging fashion. But elsewhere Aristotle also concedes that the question of the nature and origin of the universe as a whole can only be addressed through what amounts, ultimately, to a form of “theology” (Met. 983b27‐32). Aristotle seems here to refer to Plato, who sometimes addressed transcendental questions through myths. In late antiquity, the rationalizing exegesis of (the Homeric and Hesiodic) myths became a central activity of (especially Platonic) philosophy (Lamberton 1986; Brisson 2004), and although Christian theologians vehemently distanced themselves from their pagan counterparts by claiming their religion to be essentially different, their techniques of interpreting the biblical narratives and the core doctrines of their religion bore a striking resemblance to those employed by pagan philosophers and sophists. The cultural context from which this tradition emerged was, as already mentioned, that of the schools of grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy in the Roman Empire from the second century onward.

  The beginnings of Christian theological writing in this sense thus predate late antiquity. They go back to the second century. In terms of theological (doctrinal) content, the main problem with which they were grappling could be summarized as follows (see Lössl 2010, pp. 159–163): “How can Christians claim to believe in and worship only one God, and yet claim at the same time that the man Jesus Christ is also God?” Christian writers addressed this question (a) by formulating their own positions (in a rational and “confessional” way) and (b) by demarcating their own positions against those of pagan, Jewish, and also other Christian opponents (so‐called heretics). The earliest form in which this kind of theological writing was cast was the apology (see Vessey 2008, p. 50 with reference to Ov
erbeck 1882, p. 423). The early Christian apology of the second century, as represented, for example, by authors such as Quadratus, Aristides, Justin Martyr, or Athenagoras, was in some sense a continuation of Jewish apology, which emerged from the “war of books” between Greek and barbarian cultures during the Hellenistic age (Droge 1989, p. 7). Although they do not constitute a literary genre as such and are not exclusively Christian (cf. Edwards, Goodman, and Price 1999), apologies contain (besides other things) the first substantial pieces of Christian theological writing and were continued from the mid‐second century until long into late antiquity (Fiedrowicz 2006). Their importance lies in their interaction with pagan, Jewish, and heretical ideas and their reflection of a wider cultural‐intellectual trend at the time toward a more “monotheistic” outlook in philosophically informed types of religion (Edwards 2004; Potter 2004, pp. 173–214; Trapp 2007; Mitchell and van Nuffelen 2010; van Nuffelen 2011).

  It was in the late second and early third century, with authors such as Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian, that Christian theological writing reached a new point of departure. Seminal works from this period (ca. 220–250) include the Refutatio [= elenchos] omnium haeresium, also known as Philosophoumena, traditionally attributed to Hippolytus (cf. Moreschini and Norelli 2005, I, pp. 232–239, also on the question of the author’s identity), and Origen’s De principiis (Peri archōn) and Contra Celsum. David Potter has called the Refutatio “a truly astonishing book” (2004, p. 211). Although only partially extant, its vast scope can still be appreciated. It demarcates what the author perceives as the true Christian doctrine from all heresies, which are demonstrated to derive from Greek philosophy and ancient pagan (including Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian and South Asian) religion. It is exceedingly learned and draws on a vast amount of earlier sources on philosophy and the history of religions. Ironically, this makes the Refutatio less a source for Christian theology than for all that its author refutes as not being Christian theology.

  Origen’s De principiis, written around the same time (mid‐220 s) and also only extant in fragments, is a very different work. It, too, is in some sense apologetic. It refutes the view that the Christian faith is superstitious, irrational, and uneducated. But it does so positively, by demonstrating the main tenets of the Christian faith, that is, belief in one God, creation, divinity of Christ, incarnation, Holy Spirit, Trinity, and salvation, as a set of coherent, systematic teachings derived, by way of a very specific exegetical method (not unlike that of the Neoplatonic philosophers), from the biblical writings (Crouzel and Simonetti 1978–1984). De principiis is also of importance for the reception and repeated condemnation of Origen’s teachings in late antiquity (in 400 and 553; cf. Clark 1992; Hombergen 2001; Perczel 2001). Its precise content is disputed, because it is only extant in fragments and a Latin translation (by Rufinus), which were used and partially distorted by accusers as well as defenders of Origen. In the course of these controversies, Origen became also accused of preparing the way for the Arian heresy, although it was he who in De principiis 1.2.2/9 first coined one of the main tenets of the Nicene faith: That God Father and Son were co‐eternal in the sense “that there was no time when the Son was not” (cf. Dünzl 2007, pp. 35–40; Lössl 2010, pp. 170–171; Ramelli 2012).

  Contra Celsum is apologetic in a way similar to Hippolytus’s Refutatio. It gives a lot of space to a work by the pagan philosopher Kelsos entitled True Teaching (Alēthēs logos), dating from the late 170 s. It cites this work almost in its entirety, refuting it in turn. Yet this refutation consists not only of negative polemic but also of a positive theology centered on the figure of Jesus Christ, Logos and Son of God and focus of the biblical prophecies and the life of the Christian church. The latter, according to Origen, has created a new cultural reality and replaced the old social and political order subscribed to by Kelsos (Moreschini and Norelli 2005, I, pp. 290–293).

  Origen’s lifetime (ca. 186–254) was divided between Alexandria (until 231) and Antioch, Athens, and Caesarea in Palestine, where he lived until his death in 253/254. One of his heirs in the latter city was Eusebius, whose Church History, as already mentioned, was one of the main sources for Jerome’s De viris illustribus. Caesarea was a center of early Christian learning that radiated across the crisis of the third century into the revival period of the Tetrarchy and that also saw the renewal of higher (rhetorical) education across the empire, as manifest, for example, in the Latin Panegyric of Eumenius, which attests to the reestablishment of a rhetorical school in Gaul (Nixon and Rodgers 1994, pp. 145–177). During this period, especially under the new regime of the emperor Constantine, there emerged also a new breed of Christian theological writers creating new types of Christian theological literature.

  Among the first of these, leaving aside Eusebius, were Arnobius and his pupil Lactantius. Both were professors of rhetoric and wrote in the early fourth century, Arnobius in Africa and Lactantius in Nicomedia and later in Trier, where he seems to have remained until his death around 325. Lactantius’s main work, the Divinarum institutionum libri vii, is clearly modeled on Quintilian’s Institutionis oratoriae libri xii, a comprehensive handbook of rhetoric. Lactantius’s Divine institutes is aimed at demonstrating in a systematic and comprehensive way the exclusive and unique truthfulness (veritas) of the Christian religion (religio) against the entirety of the pagan cultural setup (Moreschini and Norelli 2005, I, pp. 399–402). Lactantius was already able to draw substantially on earlier Latin Christian writers such as Tertullian and Cyprian of Carthage and to demonstrate that Christian intellectual culture was a force to be reckoned with.

  Around the same time as Lactantius wrote his Divine institutes, i.e. some time within the first two decades of the fourth century, Eusebius too wrote two works of monumental scope, the Praeparatio evangelica in 15 books and the Demonstratio evangelica in 20 books: the first to demonstrate the superiority of the biblical (Jewish) over the classical (pagan) tradition; the second to show that the Christian Gospel and church tradition was the appropriate fulfillment of the former.

  Together with Origen’s De principiis these and similar works formed the basis and core of Christian theological writing in late antiquity.

  20.3 The “Long Fourth Century”: Toward an Orthodox Theology of the “Fathers”

  One aspect that must not be overlooked in the works of Lactantius and Eusebius is their new outlook on history under the impression of the coming to power of the emperor Constantine in 312 in the Latin West and in 324 in the Greek East. This impression, and the questions it raised with regard to Christian loyalties were still resonating a century later, especially after the sack of Rome in 410, in, for example, Augustine’s De civitate dei (City of God) and Orosius’s Historiarum adversus paganos libri vii (Seven Books of Histories against the Pagans) both written within a decade of 410: Was a Christian Roman Empire the last word in history, as Orosius stipulated (van Nuffelen 2012), or was Rome merely one worldly regime among many more to come before the end‐time, as Augustine surmised (O’Daly 1999)?

  But regardless of a new historical outlook in Christian theology, Constantine’s coming to power had also a more immediate impact on the making of Christian theological literature. For Constantine immediately (from 313 in the west and from 324 in the east) summoned (!) bishops to meet in synods and councils to make decisions regarding doctrine and governance (see Brennecke 2007, pp. 25–48). This also resulted in new forms of theological literature and new ways in which this kind of literature was produced and transmitted. “Creeds,” for example (cf. Graumann 2009, pp. 543–547; Kinzig and Vinzent 1999; Kelly 1972), confessional statements of faith, had existed in the early church before, but the Nicene Creed, produced by the Council of Nicaea held in 325, turned out to be of a different category. As its opponents continued trying to refine its wording and produced numerous further creeds (Hahn 1897), its defenders elevated it and the council that produced it to canonical status (Athanasius, De synodis13.2‐4; Graumann 2009, p. 545). The literature
produced in the process – letters, treatises, acts, canons, commentaries, histories, even poems – forms the core of what until today remains Orthodox, or Patristic, Christian theological literature, both in Greek and in Latin (for “Patristic” as “relating to the Fathers of the Church,” see Graumann 2009; a historical overview is provided by Hanson 1988; conciliar texts are collected in Schwartz and Straub 1914–1984).

  While the Creed itself was not produced by an individual author but reflects the position of those who confess to it both individually and collectively, many individual authors can be identified in the fourth and fifth centuries who produced theological literature attacking and defending a variety of positions related to the Creed or systematically extrapolating and commenting on its main tenets, such as God, the Trinity, the nature and Incarnation of Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Church and Salvation. It is this kind of literature that could be more narrowly defined as “theological” during this period. Some of the main authors (and works, in so far as they are extant) include Arius (Thalia), Asterius (Syntagmation), Athanasius (Contra Arianos, Contra gentes, De incarnatione), Apollinaris of Laodicea (who wrote many works that were later attributed to Athanasius), Hilary of Poitiers (De synodis, De Trinitate, the latter also known as Contra Arianos or De fide), Marcellus of Ancyra (whose thought is chiefly known from works against him), Gregory of Nazianzus (Orationes, better known as “Theological Orations”), Basil of Caesarea (De spiritu sancto, Hexaemeron), Gregory of Nyssa (Hexaemeron, Contra Eunomium), Marius Victorinus (works against Arius and on the Trinity) and Ambrose of Milan (Explanatio symboli, De sacramentis, De mysteriis), to name but a few (see Moreschini and Norelli 2005, II, pp. 20–56, 81–135, 236–288).