Showing posts with label Eusebius of Cæsarea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eusebius of Cæsarea. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 15, 2023

Medieval Christian Vegetarianism

The modern Christian—any modern reader, in fact—might never have thought of vegetarianism as a practice with a Biblical or Classical history. When I think of a Christ-era menu, the story of the feeding of the 5000 with loaves and fishes (John 6:1-14) comes to mind, as well as lamb at a Seder.

Despite hanging out with fishermen, however, and the supposed ubiquity of a fish-based diet, there was a strong strain of vegetarianism in the early Church. It did not originate with Christianity:

As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love. [Pythagoras]

There is a passage in Luke, however, that says this:

34 “But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. [Luke 21:34, English Standard Version

Nothing unusual there. The King James Version uses the phrase "surfeiting, and drunkenness"; the New International Version calls it "Carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life."

If we go back further, however, we find something interesting in the Curetonian Gospels. William Cureton in 1848 published a set of manuscripts from a Syrian monastery in Lower Egypt. These Gospels were in Aramaic and the manuscript dated (it was theorized) from the 5th century CE, a copy of a 2nd century original. It is a version that was never translated to Greek. This very early version has a different reading of Luke 21:34, namely:

Be on guard, so that your hearts do not become heavy with the eating of flesh and with the intoxication of wine and with the anxiety of the world, and that day come upon you suddenly; for as a snare it will come upon all who dwell upon the surface of the earth.

Ebionites—early Judaeo-Christian Gnostics—maintained that Jesus, James the Just, and John the Baptist were vegetarians. Irenaeus and Eusebius, early Christian writers, discuss the feeding of the 5000 and mention bread but do not mention fish. Matthew 16:9 has Jesus saying to the Apostles "Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered?" No fish are mentioned.

It would appear to some that fish were added to the original story, but less-than-meticulous editing forgot to change Jesus' later reference to the event.

What changed? Was there a deliberate attempt to suppress the idea of vegetarianism, and if so, why? I don't believe it was an economical decision to avoid upsetting some early Medieval butchers' guild. We will never know exactly why things were altered to add meat eating (maybe it would be more accurate to say "animal eating"?) to the Christian diet. Maybe it was an attempt to make conversion more palatable to the Roman world? Maybe the idea was to adapt Christian ideas to a European diet?

That last theory, of course, assumes that the European diet was meat-based, which is a good thought to set up the next post ... tomorrow.

Wednesday, April 6, 2022

Edict of Milan

The winds of change blew quickly for christians in the Mediterranean in the early 4th century. Emperor Diocletian had persecuted christians pretty successfully—those who gave in and turned over their copies of Scripture were labeled traditors, and opposition to them became the Donates movement—until he retired in 305CE. After 305, the emperor was Gaius Galerius Valerius Maximianus, who continued the Diocletian persecutions until 30 April 311, when he issued the Edict of Toleration, which declared Christianity as a religio licita ("approved religion")

I should mention that, at this time, the Roman Empire was split in half, with an Eastern and a Western Empire. Though they had distinct cultural differences, they endeavored to stay united as an empire. Therefore, it came as no surprise when Licinius, ruler of the Eastern Empire, came to Milan to Constantia, the younger half-sister of Emperor Constantine of the Western Empire. This happy occasion, in February of 313, was ideal for the two imperial personages to spend time together and discuss business along with pleasure.

Constantine had some business to discuss. Several months earlier, on 28 October 312, he had defeated a rival for the throne at the Battle of Milvian Bridge. According to one chronicler, Eusebius of Caesarea (mentioned most recently here), Constantine saw a cross of light above the sun and the Greek words Ἐν Τούτῳ Νίκα ("in this (sign), conquer"; usually given as the Latin in hoc signo vinces, "in this sign you will conquer."

They painted the chi rho, the first two letters of Christ's name, on their shields. Constantine's forces won, and he declared he would convert to Christianity. Full disclosure: he did not convert until he was on his deathbed, according to Eusebius, who cannot always be trusted; he died 22 May 337.

But back to the Edict: Constantine and Licinius issued a joint statement that according to some reports (an actual document does not exist) says:

When we, Constantine Augustus and Licinius Augustus, met so happily at Milan, and considered together all that concerned the interest and security of the State, we decided ... to grant to Christians and to everybody the free power to follow the religion of their choice, in order that all that is divine in the heavens may be favorable and propitious towards all who are placed under our authority.

Emperor Constantine is often described as having made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. This document does not do that. He did try to make sure Christianity was uniform and understandable, so in 325CE he called the first Council of Nicaea which established the Nicene Creed as opposed to Arianism. Also, his mother did all she could to promote Christianity. It would be another 43 years before Christianity pushed out the Roman religion, but that's a story for tomorrow.

Monday, January 17, 2022

The True Cross—Found!

Empress Helena of Constantinople went to Palestine from 326-328CE to find Christian relics, consistent with her recent conversion to Christianity. Among other acts, she tore down a temple built by Emperor Hadrian in the 130s. Excavating under it, she found three wooden crosses.

As excited as she may have been to find three crosses, Helena wanted absolute proof of their authenticity. She tested the crosses by having a dying woman brought to the site, having her touch the crosses. Touching the first two produced no change in her condition, but touching the third cross resulted in a sudden recovery. This provided Helena the proof she wanted, and she declared the third cross the True Cross, used to crucify Jesus Christ.

On the site was built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a version of which exists today.

This story of the dying woman comes down to us from a monk Rufinus (344-411CE), who was a translator of Greek Christian writings into Latin. He tacks this story onto his translation of an Ecclesiastical History by Eusebius. Strictly speaking, there is no contemporary account of this. Eusebius, who died in 339CE and was therefore a contemporary of Helena, wrote a Life of Constantine (Helena's emperor son) in which he mentions the destruction of Hadrian's temple and the construction of the church on the site, but does not mention anything about the finding of the True Cross.

Nevertheless, many later records purporting to be accurate histories of the finding tell variations of the above story. Relics of the True Cross were spread all over Christendom, and even inspired a well-known Old English poem. I'll tell you about it tomorrow.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

The Leap Saint

Following on the heels of yesterday's discussion of Leap Day, I thought we should give some attention to the poor saint whose feast day happened to fall on a day that only appeared in the calendar every four years.

Matthias, from the workshop of the
Italian painter Simone Martini (c.1284-1344)
St. Matthias was not a medieval saint. He was one of the Apostles, and is thought to have died in 80 CE. That is the only quantitative piece of data that is agreed upon. He died in either Jerusalem or Judea or Colchis. Chosen by lot to replace Judas, he was called either Matthias (Acts 1:24-25) or Zacchaeus (by Clement of Alexandria), or Tolmai (by Eusebius), or Barnabas (by literature ascribed to Pope Clement I); and a 19th century German scholar thinks he is the Nathanael in the Gospel of John.

One thing that is not in dispute, however, is that his feast day was 24 February. To modern readers, that does not ring any bells. In the Classical Era and the Middle Ages, however, this put him in an unusual spot in the calendar: Leap Day.

That's right: Leap Day used to be 24 February, which you can read about here. The unusual thing about 24 February being the extra day in a Leap Year wasn't so much that it was not placed at the end of the month, but that—it being an "extra" day of the year—it was treated as a "bonus" and was simply repeated; that is, 24 February appeared twice in a row in Leap Years.

Does that mean that the feast day of St. Matthias was celebrated twice? Yes. The Smithfield Decretals, an expansive book on ecclesiastical law, explains:
A standard solar year has 365 days and six hours, so in four years’ time these hours make 24 extra hours, which must be added as a new day to every fourth year. This additional day is what we call “double-sixth-day”, because, although it is counted as an addition, it stands under the same number as the previous day in the calendar, so that the two days are regarded as one and the same. The extra day is inserted in the calendar after 24 February (six days before the first day of March) so that we celebrate the memory of St Matthias the Apostle (24 February) on the next day, too. [link]
Lucky Matthias! Little is known about him, but he gets to be venerated two days in a row! Well, not anymore. The Church of England has kept him at 24 February, but in 1969 the Roman Catholic Calendar moved him to 14 May so that he could be celebrated outside of Lent and on a post-Easter day that would be closer to what would have been the day of his choosing.

Thursday, January 9, 2014

The Leiden Glossary

You can get your own copy here
The Leiden University Library in the Netherlands, founded in 1575, was an important part of the Enlightenment (late 17th to early 18th century), due to its enormous collection of texts that include 2500 medieval manuscripts. One of their medieval manuscripts, the Leiden Glossary, preserves a document from 9th century England that might otherwise be lost to us.

A "glossary" is a collection of "glosses," or explanations of a word or term. The Leiden Glossary contains glosses and commentaries by two priests and scholars, Adrian of Canterbury and Theodore of Tarsus (mentioned here), who were both at St. Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury.

The 48 chapters are lists of sayings and phrases used by Adrian and Theodore in their teaching, as well as commentaries they made on other works: think of it as a teacher's handout to his students so they don't have to take notes. There are, for instance, 8 chapters by Theodore with glosses on the "Pastoral Care" of Pope Gregory I (Gregory has been mentioned here).

There are also glosses from different people. For instance, there are three glosses on the same subject of the Historia Ecclesiastica ["History of the Church"] of Eusebius. The three are of differing quality, as if the book records the attempts by three different scholars—maybe students— to explain the passages in Eusebius. One of them echoes a different commentary found elsewhere that is known to be by Aldhelm, so it may have been Aldhelm himself who contributed it to the Leiden.

The Leiden is a mixture of glosses in Latin and Anglo-Saxon, another indication that the original glossary must have come from England. The Leiden Glossary was made in the library at the Abbey of St. Gall, presumably from that original. One of the things that we learn collaterally from the Leiden Glossary—because of the manuscripts about which the glosses have been written—is that the library at St. Augustine's Abbey must have been extensive. Alas, it did not survive the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII.

Monday, January 7, 2013

A Church Historian

Until the beginning of the fourth century historiography remained a pagan science. With the exception of the Acts of the Apostles and its apocryphal imitations, no sort of attempt had been made to record even the annals of the Christian Church. [Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers]

The situation described above changed with Eusebius of Cæsarea (c.263-339), first mentioned about the finding of the True Cross. Eusebius decided to write a history of the Church from its start to his time, earning him the title "Father of Church History." He did such a commendable job that none of his contemporaries bothered duplicating his work. There were, however, attempts to continue it, which brings us to Socrates Scholasticus.

Socrates Scholasticus, also called Socrates of Constantinople because he lived there and was very proud of his city, leaves us very little biographical material to go on. His continuation of Eusebius ends in 439, which is presumably the date of his death. We can only guess at his birth, and then only if we make assumptions about whether he was an eye witness to any of the events about which he writes.

But we can tell a few things about him. He was very proud of his city, Constantinople, praising it and describing changes to it. Although he holds bishops in high esteem for their position and monks for their piety, he is able to criticize prelates and decisions without hyperbole.

Also, as much as he clearly is devout about the Church, he gives details of offshoots without condemnation. Therefore, he writes simply and without hostility about Arianism and the divergent practices of Macedonians, Eunomians, and others who were considered heretics. Socrates' desire to be complete with his history makes him one of the prime sources for updates on a 3rd-century schism first mentioned by Eusebius. In fact, he offers so much detail on Novationism that some scholars think he was a Novationist himself. What was a Novationist? A follower of Novation, one of the first people to deliberately set himself up as an anti-pope.

But that's a story for another day.