Saints and Sophists: 383-388

Having written about the high politics during the period between the deaths of Gratian and Maximus, I would like to focus a little more on the three personalities I called "private views" in that post. Except I suppose for the "modern histories" area, my choice here involves more discretion than those areas that are consciously written as histories. In the notes to some of the better annotated books, or in Gibbon, I often see references to other writers of the era, who might just as well have been a part of my reading. By this point in time, many letters and sermons by churchmen are still extent, including Ambrose. For the time being at least, the two Christian leaders I am reading are Jerome and Augustine; again they too have numerous writings, and I would have liked to read Jerome's historical writings if they were more easily available, but I am focusing on the two works I have already mentioned. The other writer I am reading is Libanius, who was a pagan teacher in Antioch, Syria. A. F. Norman translated the Autobiography and Selected Letters in two volumes and Selected Orations in another two volumes for the Loeb Classical Library. The legal code of Theodosius (which seems to have begun before his reign) is heavily referenced in the notes to Libanius, and in Gibbon, because it provides dates for a lot of events.

The years specifically under discussion here are the ones when Augustine converted from the profession of sophist, like Libanius, to a Christian thinker (and future saint of the church), like Jerome. While Augustine later had correspondence with Jerome—including through Orosius—I don't think he ever communicated with Libanius. Despite my criticism of Jerome's words on Syriac, he clearly had facility with several languages, while Augustine and Libanius were not very comfortable with the other's tongue (Latin for Augustine and Greek for Libanius).

Antioch had been the capital of the Hellenistic-Seleucid Kingdom of Syria, and once fully absorbed into the Roman Empire in the 60s BCE, was a leading city of the eastern half of the empire. From the 50s BCE, under Crassus, and on through Julian more than 400 years later, the city maintained its importance as a kind of staging ground for the army before campaigning against Parthia or Persia, although its power was eclipsed once Constantinople become the second capital. Libanius came from an established family of the city, and after some experience teaching in some other Greek cities, had become the official sophist of Antioch by this time. Like the sophists Plato had Socrates rail against some seven or eight centuries earlier, sophists taught rhetoric, and were more concerned with persuasion—or manipulation—than truth. The position doesn't have an exact modern equivalent, but the closest analogy would be a superstar law professor, who also regularly had monologues on radio or television. In addition, he was something of an official spokesman for the city. Emperors from Constantius II to Theodosius paid attention to him; unsurprisingly, his best relationship was with Julian. By the 380s, he was an old man weighed down with migraines and gout, and his main concerns were the security of his illegitimate son, the welfare of the people and city of Antioch, and the protection of the rites of traditional (pagan) religion. His writing gives an interesting perspective of what life was like outside the imperial presence; as a judge of the major figures of his time, though, he consistently shows himself obsequious when they're in power, but much more critical when they're time has passed.

I should note that Antioch had been suffering from drought conditions—near famine if they had been isolated—since the summer of 381 or 382, and continued throughout the years under consideration here. Libanius' 50^th oration was written about 384, and is entitled "For the Peasantry, About Forced Labor." I quite enjoyed this oration's message, in which Libanius complained that magistrates were impressing privately owned animals into carrying material without compensation. He is quite passionate about the importance of rule of law and private property—that if officials were allowed to do this for the government's service, nothing is stopping them from imposing even more onerous burdens—as well as a rather sophisticated idea of economic costs: even if these animals weren't carrying anything for their owners at the time, the animals are still weakened for future use. Like many of his speeches, it is written as an appeal to the emperor, though he almost certainly hoped that by using his name the closer officials would listen and make things right themselves. Oration 30, written about 386, is entitled "Pro Templis" and is a request that the emperor protect the ancient pagan temples. He holds a traditional view that worship of the g-ds had led to the greatness of the Roman Empire, the view against which Orosius argued. Thus, allowing harm to come to the temples would go against the emperor's political interests—even though Theodosius was a Christian and thus didn't believe in those g-ds—and, in addition, the temples were imperial property and should be preserved as art even if not for religion's sake. The threat was coming not so much from legal means—although the law was ever more constricting the scope of pagan religious freedom—but from the enthusiastic violence of monks.

Orations 19 to 23 (the 23^rd is actually the earliest) describe an event in Antiochene history important enough that Zosimus was confused by it, and Gibbon synthesizes a portrait meant to characterize the clemency (at least in this case) of Theodosius. In 387, Antioch was still suffering from the near famine conditions, but the imperial taxes were increasing due in part to the coming 10^th anniversary of Theodosius becoming emperor (when he would be expected to give liberally to his soldiers), and also likely the preparations for the war against Maximus. Some men of Antioch, in frustration, had defaced statues in the city of the imperial family, an act akin to treason. As punishment, the emperor stripped Antioch of many of its privileges; fearing worse, many of the men and women of the city fled. Libanius chided the exiles for their pessimism, while appealing to Theodosius for rescinding the punishment. Along with John Chrysostom—at this time a Christian priest in the city whose sermons from the time survive, and later archbishop of Constantinople—his pleas were successful.

A very limited selection from Libanius' works are linked to at Wikipedia.

Jerome paints a far different picture of Christian zeal. The main idea he writes about in the letters I read from the mid-380s, especially in the very long Letter 22 to Eustochium, is asceticism, primarily through celibacy. Indeed, all the letters of the period in this Loeb collection are to women: he believes virginity superior to marriage, and widowhood superior to remarriage. In Letter 38 to Marcella, he commends reading constantly as a way to drive out sensual desires. In Letter 22, Jerome describes the rules that then existed for (male) monks, either as hermits or in groups, but the development of cloisters or convents for women happened later.

Augustine was, along with Paul and Constantine, the most significant of converts to Christianity. Like Paul, he furthered the development of Christian theology for future generations. Like Constantine, he had a Christian mother, Monica. However, unlike the other two, he did not claim a miraculous moment of epiphany that inspired his conversion. Instead, he describes his mental process over many years from Manichaeism to Neo-Platonism to Christianity. In addition, Augustine had been educated for and was now practicing as a teacher of rhetoric; also like Libanius, he had an illegitimate son—unlike Libanius, he believes this holds him back from his great temporal ambitions. In 384, he moved from Rome to Milan, which was arguably a step up because, as we saw in the post below, Emperor Valentinian II was staying at Milan. Soon, Monica arrived there from her home in North Africa, as well. It is she who emerges as the real hero of this portion of the Confessions, constantly praying for her son. Yet, even as Augustine admits to a changing understanding of Christian ideas, as he moved from being a Manichee "hearer" to a Neo-Platonist around the time he moved to Milan, he maintains an idea that to be Christian he must be an ascetic, like Jerome prescribes, and because of his lusts he cannot do that. It is hard to reconcile that need, however, because of the great importance of his mother, whose influence was through fertility not chastity. I cannot help thinking that rather than his eventual conversion suppressing his ambitions, as he wants us to think, they merely transferred them to a spiritual nature; Jerome, following Paul, had allowed that one needn't be celibate to be Christian, but Augustine knew that celibacy did make it a lot easier to be a saint. Eventually, he came to a state of mind that he no longer had the same sexual needs and had intellectual approval of Christianity—though still through a very Neo-Platonic lens—and Ambrose baptized him on Easter Day, 387. He resigned from his teaching post, where he had to tell lies, and soon after his mother passed away.