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Paganism and Christianity in Procopius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

G. Downey
G. Downey
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D. C.
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Extract

The great historian of the reign of Justinian (A. D. 527–565) was Procopius of Caesarea in Palestine. He wrote a history of the wars of Justinian, an account of the Emperor's building activities, and a slanderous Secret History, designed to be published after his own death, in which he made a vicious attack on Justinian and Theodora.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , June 1949 , pp. 89 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1949

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References

1 The quotations from Procopius' works given here are takes, with grateful acknowledgment, from H. B. Dewing's edition in the Loeb Classical Library (1914–1940). For the bibliography of Precopias, consu1t Moravesik, G., Die byzontinische Quellen der Geachichte der Türkölker (Budapest, 1942), 302–310 (pablication, through 1940)Google Scholar; more recent publications are Jenkins, C., “Procopiana,” Journal of Romen Studies, 37 (1947), 74–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Downey, G., “The Composition of Procopins, De adifieiis,” Transactions of the American Philogical Association, 78 (1947), 171–183CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Patch, H. R., “The Beginning of the Legend of Boethius,” Speculum, 22 (1947), 443–445CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Coster, C. H. and Patch, H. R.. “Precopius and Boethius,” Speculum, 23 (1948), 284–287CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Downey, G., “Procopius, De aediflciis, 1.4.3,” Classical Phililogy, 43 (1948), 44–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grabar, A., “Les monuments de Tsaritchin Grad at Justiniana Prima,” Cahiers archéologiques, 3 (1948), 49–63Google Scholar. A. study by Seyter, G., “Prokop als Gaschichtsschraibar des Vandalen- und Gotenkriegs,” Neue Jehrbür für Anlike und destsche Bildung, 2 (1939), 91–13Google Scholar, I know only from the notice by Enaslin, W. in Byzantion, 18 (1946–1948), 278.Google Scholar

2 Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur, ed. 2 (Munich, 1897), 233–234.Google Scholar

3 Haury, J., Zur Beurteilung des Geschichtsschreibers Procopius von Cäsarea (Progr., Munich, 1896) 13Google Scholar. Bury, J. B., History of the Later Roman Empire (London, 1923) II, 420Google Scholar, note 1, does not accept Haury's suggestion that Procopius was a member of the school of Gaza. The estimate of Procopius given by Geffeken, J., Der Ausgang des griechisch-römischen Heidentums, ed. 2 (Heidelberg, 1929), 191Google Scholar, is disappointingly brief and may even seem superficial.

4 Gibbon, E., The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. by Bury, J. B., 2d ed. (London, 1901), IV, 516.Google Scholar

5 Op. cit. (above, note 1).

6 Speculum, 23 (1948), 286Google Scholar. Note that the passage from the De bell. Goth. of Procopius which Coster cites as “I, i. c3,” from the quotation of it by Gibbon (op. cit., V, 133, note 85)., is actually (as Gibbon writes) from Book I, ch. 3 (=W., 5. 3. 6–9), and that although Gibbon puts the words in quotation marks they are a paraphrase, not a translation, of what Procopius says.

7 W. 2. 11. 28.

8 Ibid., 3. 4. 9.

9 Ibid., 3. 19. 6.

10 Ibid., 7. 21. 10.

11 Anecdota, 3.30; cf.4.42. See also Wars, 1.7.31; 1.25.36,41; 2.4.17,25; 2.11.25; 2.22.2; 2.26.1.ff.; 3.9.13; 3.12,13; 5.28.27; 6.18.22; 6.28.27; 7.8.21–22; Buildings, 1.1.21, 61; 5.6.19–20; Anecdota,5.28, 38; 6.23.

12 Wars, 1.2.6; Buildings. 1.1.25, 71; 1.2.11; 1.4.17, 24; 1.7.5; 2.2.9; 2.3.5, 13; 2.6.6; 2.9.11; 5.3.10; 5.6.19–21; 6.5.6; 6.7.16.

13 Wars, 6.8.1.

14 Ibid., 6.28.2.

15 Ibid., 8.33.24–25.

16 Dewing renders axian “value,” but “dignity” or “standing” seems indicated by the context.

17 See also Wars, 4.1.18; 6.29.41; 7.19.22; 8.21.19; 8.34.1; Anecdota, 1O.9. Tyche sends good as well as evil fortune; her role is not (as one might at first be inclined to think) te bring only adversity which could net be attributed to God.

18 Wars, 3.18.2.

19 Ibid., 7.13.15–19.

20 Ibid., 8.15.33–35.

21 Ibid., 2.9.1. See also Wars, 2.9.13; 3.19.25; 7.25.5; Aneedeta 4.44–45; 10.9–10. Procopius speaks three times of to daimonion as a power in human affairs: Wars, 2.30.51.; 4.14.16; 6.29.32. In the last two passages the phrase appears to mean “Heaven” or “the divine power,” but in the first the context suggests that Preeopius uses it in the sense of “the Evil Spirit,” in which it is used in the Septuagint and Chriskian vriters generally. If Proccpins is veelly incensistent on this point, the inconsistency would be charaeteristie of his eclectie attitude on such matters.

22 The subjects treated in this and the succeeding pargrapha have been so well studied by Cochraue, C. N., Christianity and Classical Culture (Oxford, 1940), 478–500Google Scholar, that I can do no better than reproduce his results. Attention may also be called to a recent study by Ivánka, E., Hellenisches und Christliches un Frühbyzantinischen Geistesieben (Vienna, 1948)Google Scholar.

23 Luke 24:49.

24 Wars, 3.18.2.

25 Ibid., 4.1.18.

26 Ibid., 7.32.9.

27 Ibid., 7.35.11.

28 Ibid., 8.25.13. Procopius' intention to write a treatise on heresies is mentioned also in Anecdota, 11.33; see Dewing's appendix on the subject In his Loeb Classical library edition of the Aneodpta, 362–364. Here Procopius' point of view (as Dewing writes) “was thai of a liberal who was puzzled by the earnestness with which his contemporaries entered into the disenssion of these matters.” From the way in which Procopius speaks of the heresies and Justinian's interest in theological matters, one gets the impression that this treatise would have been a satire, though it might have been Procopius' plan to present the satire in veiled terms. Cf. also Anecdota, 10.15, 11.14–33, 13.7, 18.34, Buildings, 1.1.9.

29 Ware, 1.7.22–23.

30 Ibid., 1.18.13–37.

31 Cochrane, , Christianity and Classical Culture, 274, 279.Google Scholar

32 709 A-B, transl. of R. G. Bury in the Loeb Classical Libray.

33 The corpus of the mosaics is published by Levi, Doro, Antioch Mosaic Pavements (Princeton, 1947)Google Scholar. See also Downey, G., “The Pagan Virtue of Megalopspchia in Byzantine Syria,” Transactions of the American Philological Association, 76 (1945), 279–286CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Hopkins, C., “Antioch Mosiac Pavements,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 7 (1948), 91–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 Downey, G., “Justinian as Achilles,” Transactions of the American Phiological Association, 71 (1940), 68–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Charlesworth, M. P., “Pietas and Victoria: The Emperor and the Citizen,” Journal of Roman Studies, 33 (1943), 1–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bell, H. I., “An Egyptian Village in the Age of Justinian,” Journal of Hellenio Studies, 64 (1944), 28.Google Scholar

35 The Tyche of Antioch appears on coins of Justinus I: British Museum Catalogue, Imperial Byzantine Coins (London, 1908), 1.20Google Scholar. There is good evidence that when Conatantine the Great founded Constantinople he dedicated it to Tyche: Frolow, A., “La dédicace de Constantinople dane la tradition byzantine,” Revue de l'histoire des retigions 127 (1944), 61–127.Google Scholar

36 Wars, 3.12.3.

37 Ibid., 3.10.18–20.

38 Ibid., 7.35.8–4.

39 Ibid., 2.22.5; 3.5.11.

40 Anendeta, 12.14; 12.18; 12.24ff.

41 Ibid., 1.26; 3.2.

42 Ibid., 22.27.

43 See for example Prentice, W. K., “Magical Formulae on Lintels of the Christian Period in Syria,” American Jonrnal of Archaeology, 2d ser., 10 (1906), 137–150CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, Publications of an Amer. Archeological Expedition to Syria in 1899–1900, 3: Greek and Latin Inscriptions (New York, 1908), 17–25.

44 Wars, 5.25.22–25.

45 Buildings, 1.1.61–63.