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The Extinction of Paganism and the Church Historian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Gerald Bonner
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Any period of history which later ages deem to have been significant is apt to gather to itself a mythology. To the medieval Church the first three Christian centuries appeared as a period of continuous slaughter, in which legions of martyrs preferred to perish rather than deny their faith in Christ. With such an assumption it was inevitable that the extinction of paganism during the years which followed the conversion of Constantine should be seen as a pious work undertaken in conformity with God's will – gesta Dei per Christianos – and when Julian the Apostate attempted to turn back the tide, he was duly slain by two warrior saints sent for the purpose from heaven – a legend which had sufficient vitality eventually to find its way into the Ethiopic Miracles of the Virgin Mary, with Julian transformed into a gigantic artisan named Gôlyâd, who threatens to destroy a monastery and is slain by a martyred knight raised by Our Lady to that end. On the pagan side we have the well-known story of how Serena, wife of Stilicho and favourite niece of Theodosius the Great, took a necklace from the image of the Great Mother for her own adornment and mocked and humiliated an aged vestal virgin who denounced her. At a later date, when Alaric the Goth threatened Rome, Serena was suspected of treachery and strangled. To the pagan historian Zosimus her fate was the reward of her impiety, and it seemed fitting that the neck which had usurped the goddess's ornament would at the last be encircled by the executioner's rope. The factual truth of these stories is not, for our purposes, important. What matters is the witness that they provide to the mythological – or, if you prefer it, the theological – interpretations which were early given to the victory of Christianity.

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Articles
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , July 1984 , pp. 339 - 357
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

1 Baynes, N. H., ‘The death of Julian the Apostate in Christian legend’, Byzantine Studies and Other Essays, London 1955, 271–81.Google Scholar

2 One Hundred and Ten Miracles of Our Lady Mary, trans, by Budge, E. A. Wallis, London 1933, 220–1.Google Scholar

3 Zosimus, Hisloria Nova, v. 38.

4 Julian's religious tendencies seem to have been essentially of an occultist character. See Dodds, E. R., The Greeks and the Irrational (Sather Classical Lectures, vol. 25), Berkeley, California 1951, appendix n, p. 288.Google Scholar

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6 ’ Socrates, H.E., v. 16. On the other hand, Helladius was apparently prepared to teach Christian pupils, including Socrates himself.

7 On this word, see Gregoire, H., Orgels, P., Moreau, J. and Maricq, A., Les Persécutions dans I'Empire roman, 2nd edn, Brussels 1964, 188–220Google Scholar, and Kaegi, W. E., Byzantium and the Decline of Rome, Princeton, N.J. 1968, 62 n. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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9 Isidore of Seville, Sententiarum Liber, iii. 13. 1: ‘Ideo prohibetur Christianis figmenta legere poetarum, quia per oblectamenta inanium fabularum mentem excitant ad incentiva libidinum. Non enim solum thura offerendo daemonibus immolatur, sed etiam eorum dicta libentius capiendo’. P.L., lxxxiii. 685A–686B.

10 See Markus, R. A., ‘Paganism, Christianity and the Latin classics in the fourth century’, in Latin Literature and the Fourth Century, ed. Binns, J. W., London 1974, 7–8Google Scholar: ‘To read the various formal set pieces, the contra paganos type of literature from the pens of Christian apologists, is to enter a world of almost total unreality. We are the spectators of shadow-boxing’.

11 This is the burden of the complaint of the pagan grammarian, Maximus of Madaura apud Augustine, Ep. 16.

12 Julian, Caesares, 336 A B.

13 Zosimus, H.N., ii. 29.

14 Salutius, De Diis el Mundo, 1. I (Rochefort, p. 4).

15 Celsus apud Origen, C. Celsum, iii. 44 (trans. Chadwick, p. 158)

16 Eusebius, H.E., viii. 14. 9; ix. 4. 2–5. 2; Lactantius, De Mort. Persecut., 36.

17 On this edict, see J. Moreau, Lactance, De la Mort des Persecuteurs (Sources Chrétiennes, no. 39), ii. 388–95.

18 Tert., Ad Scapulam, 2: ‘Nos unum deum colimus, quern omnes naturaliter nostis, ad cuius fulgura et tonitrua contremiscitis, ad cuius beneficia gaudetis. Caeteros et ipsi putatis deos esse, quos nos daemonas scimus. Tamen humani iuris et naturalis potestatis est unicuique, quod putaverit, colere; nee alii obest aut prodest, alterius religio. Sed nee religionis est cogere religionem, quae sponte suscipi debeat, non vi: cum et hostiae ab animo libenti expostulentur’. P.L., i. 777AB.

19 See Tertullian's comment, quoted above. Cf. Ambrose's reply to Symmachus:’ Uno, inquit, itinere non potest perveniri ad tarn grande secretum. Quod vos ignoratis, id nos Dei voce cognovimus’. Ep. 18. 8. Text in Wytzes, J., Der Streit urn den Altar der Viktoria, Amsterdam 1936, 78. 25–80. 2.Google Scholar

20 Firmicius Maternus, De Errore Profanarum Religionum 16. 4: ‘nolunt quidam et repugnant et exitium suum prona cupiditate desiderant, sed subvenite miseris, liberate pereuntes: ad hoc vobis Deus summus commisit imperium, ut per vos vulneris istius plaga curetur. facinoris eorum periculum scimus, erroris notae sunt poenae, sed melius est ut liberetis invitos quam ut volentibus concedatis exitium’. C.S.E.L., ii. 100.

21 See Arnheim, M. T. W., The Senatorial Aristocracy in the Later Roman Empire, Oxford 1972, 72–3Google Scholar: ‘Perhaps it would not be altogether unreasonable to suggest that the appointment of nobles to high office was an attempt to mollify their hostility to the advent of an emperor with pro-Christian leanings. Would it be surprising if Constantine preferred to have these possessors of landed wealth and local influence on his side rather than against him?’; 73, n. 1: ‘…Far from giving him a firm basis of support, Constantine's Christianity placed him in a weak position; hence the need to placate the rich, influential and very pagan senatorial aristocracy’.

22 Codex Theodosianus, xvi. 10. 2 (hereafter cited as CT).

23 Geffcken, J., Der Ausgang des griechisch-römischen Heidentums, 2nd edn, Heidelberg 1929. 97–24Google Scholar

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25 CT, xvi., 10. 4. For the date, see Noethlichs, op. cit., 273 n. 389.

26 Noethlichs, op. cit., 65.

27 CT, xvi. 10. 3.

28 One may note that even before the Peace of the Church, Africans like Purpurius of Limata and Silvanus of Cirta were prepared to rob a temple of Serapis (Gesta apud Zenopkilum in Optatus, ed. Ziwsa, app. 1. C.S.E.L., xxvi. 195–6).

29 Sozomen, H.E., iv. 30. 2; Theodoret, H.E., iii. 18; Amm. Marc., xxii. 11. 3–11; Julian, Ep. 60 (Bidez-Cumont).

30 Sulpicius Severus, Vila Martini, 13–15. C.S.E.L., i. 122–5. See Mâle, É, La Fin du paganisme en Gaule, Paris 1950, 33–48.Google Scholar

31 Sozomen, H.E., v. 14.

32 Augustine, Ep., 50 (for date, see Goldbacher, C.S.E.L., lviii. 18).

33 Socrates, H.E., v. 14.

34 Nectarius, apud Aug., Ep. 90.

35 Apud Aug., Ep. 232 (post 407): ‘Optamus te, domine, indeoet Christoeius permultos annos semper in clero tuo gaudere’. C.S.E.L., lvii. 512.

36 See Van der Meer, F., Augustine the Bishop, Eng. trans, by Battershaw, B. and Lamb, G. R., London 1961, 29.Google Scholar

37 Guignebert, C., ‘Les Demi-Chrétiens et leur place dans I'Église antique’, Revue de I'Histoire des Religions, lxxxviii (1923), 65–102.Google Scholar

38 Dölger, F. J., ‘Antike Parallelen zum leidenden Deinocrates’, Antike und Christentum, ii (1930).Google Scholar

39 E. R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety, Cambridge 1965, 52.

40 See Marrou, H.-I., ‘Survivance païennes dans les rites funeraires des donatistes’, in Hommages à Joseph Bidex et à Franz Cumont (Collection Latomus, vol. n), Brussels 1949, 193–203.Google Scholar

41 Ibid., 195.

42 Dodds, The Greeks, 136.

43 Faustus apud Aug., C. Faustum xx. 4:… sacrificia vero eorum vertistis in agapes, idola in martyres, quos votis similibus colitis; defunctorum umbras vino placatis et dapibus, sollemnes gentium dies cum ipsis celebratis, ut Kalendas et solstitia. de vita certe mutastis nihil: estis sane schisma a matrice suo diversum nihil habens nisi conventum’, C.S.E.L., xxv (1). 538. Cf. Julian's gibe, representing a pagan view of the matter: ‘You have filled the whole world with tombs and sepulchres, and yet in your scriptures it is nowhere said that you must grovel among the tombs and pay them honour’ (C. Galil., 335C).

44 Aug., Conf., viii. ii. 3–5.

45 Ibid., ii. iii. 6.

46 A. Cameron, ‘Claudian’, in Latin Literature of the Fourth Century, 155.

47 Aug., De Civ. Dei, v. 26; Orosius, Hist. adv. Paganos, vii. 35. 21.

48 Waddell, Helen, The Wandering Scholars, London 1927, 7.Google Scholar

49 See W. H. C. Frend, ‘The two worlds of Paulinus of Nola’, in Latin Literature of the Fourth Century, 100–33; but note the genuine affection shown by Paulinus for Ausonius in Carm., xi: ‘Ego te per omne quod datum mortalibus’.

50 Eusebius, H.E., x. 17. Professor Markus reminds me that this view was shared by the whole Theodosian dynasty, Socrates, Sozomen, and almost everyone in the fifth century and probably later. This observation seems to me to be further confirmation of the pervasive effect of pagan thought upon men who had been brought up as Christians in a society where Christianity was apparently dominant.

51 Guignebert, ‘Les Demi-Chretiens’, 69.

52 Council of Elvira, canons 2, 3, 5, 6; Council of Ancyra, canon 24; Council of Neo-Caesarea, canon 12 (Stevenson, J., A New Eusebius, London 1963, nos. 265, 267, 268, pp. 305–6; 312–3Google Scholar).

53 Julian, Ep. 79 (Bidez-Cumont).

54 For Hecebolius, see Socrates, H.E., iii. I, 13, 23; Guignebert, art. cit., 73.

55 CT, xvi. 7. 1–3. Valentinian m was forced to renew previous legislation against apostasy, CT, xvi. 7. 6.

56 Nock, A. D., Conversion, Oxford 1933, 158–9.Google Scholar

57 Carmen, lines 78–83:

christicolas multos voluit sic perdere demens qui vellent sine lege mori, donaret honores oblitosque sui caperet quos daemonis arte muneribus cupiens quorundam frangere mentes aut alios facere prava mercede profanos mittereque inferias miseros sub Tartara secum.

On the Carmen, see Matthews, J. F., ‘The historical setting of the Carmen contra Paganos’, Historia, xix (1970), 464–79.Google Scholar

58 CT, xvi. 10. 10 (24 February 391). See Noethlichs, Die gesetzgeberischen Massnahmen, 173–82.

59 In Gaul Caesarius of Aries found it necessary to continue the work of Martin of Tours. See Césaire d'Arles, Sermons au Peuple, torn. 1, ed. M.-J. Delage (Sources Chretiennes, no. 175). 138–42. In the year of Caesarius' death (542) John of Ephesus was appointed as an official missionary to the pagans of Asia, Caria, Lydia and Phrygia. See Constantelos, D. J., ‘Paganism and the state in the age of Justinian’, Catholic Historical Review, lx (1964), 372–80Google Scholar; Jones, A. H. M., The Later Roman Empire, Oxford 1964. ii. 939.Google Scholar

60 Prohibited in the East by Constantine in 326 (CT, xv. 12. 1) and in the West by Honorius in 404 (Theodoret, H.E., v. 26).

61 See Jones, op. cit., ii. 977, 1020–1. 8

62 CT, ii. 8. 20 (393); ii. 8. 23 (399); ii. 8. 24 (405).

63 On this, see Laistner, M. L. W., Christianity and Pagan Culture, Ithaca N.Y. 1951Google Scholar, pas sim, and the Homily by John Chrysostom, On Vainglory and the Right Way for Parents to Bring up Their Children, translated therein 85–122. Riché, Pierre, Education et culture dans I'Occident barbare 6e–8e sitèle (Patristica Sorbonensia 4), Paris 1962, 48–9Google Scholar, draws attention to the fact that Christianity, by following the teaching of Christ, might have changed the spirit of ancient education. Its failure to do so indicates the tenacity of the ancient system.

64 Cameron, Alan, ‘The last days of the Academy at Athens’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philogical Society, no. 195 (New Series, no. 15) (1969), 7–29Google Scholar, questions the effectiveness of Justinian's decree, arguing that the Academy continued to function. This, if true, does not affect my argument.

65 Laistner, op. cit., 23–4.

66 Danielou, J., Platonisme et théologie mystique, Paris 1944.Google Scholar

67 On Synesius see Marrou, H.-I., ‘Synesius of Cyrene and Alexandrian Neoplatonism’, in The Conflict between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century, ed. Momigliano, A., Oxford 1963, 126–50Google Scholar; Geffcken, Der Ausgang des griechisch-römischen Heidentums, 218, 242.

68 ‘Paganism was not a heroic faith, and could boast few martyrs… Nevertheless passive resistance was widespread, and pagans were prepared to pay, if not to suffer, for their faith’ (Jones, The Later Roman Empire, ii. 943). MacMullen, Ramsay, Paganism in the Roman Empire, New Haven and London 1981, 134Google Scholar, draws attention to the fact that ‘the enormous thing called paganism…did not one dayjust topple over dead’ and to the mysterious character of its demise. This supports my own view that the conversion to Christianity was essentially an evolutionary process.

69 Dodds, The Greeks, 244.

70 Ibid., 179.