Showing posts with label Diocletian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Diocletian. Show all posts

Monday, January 8, 2024

Paganism and Christianity, Part 1

Paganism is a catch-all term to refer to countless religions that existed during the Classical Era and the Middle Ages (and experiencing a revival in the Modern Era). A lot of people are familiar with the story of Emperor Constantine "making Rome Christian." What he really did was simply enforce tolerance of Christians who wished to practice their faith openly in the Roman Empire. The illustration shows Constantine defeating his rival, Maxentius, at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312.

Shifting a culture from paganism to Christianity was not a one-step, black-and-white process. The Christianization of Europe involved wars and mass baptisms, surely, but followed by natural (and slow) evolution away from older habits.

The clash of Christianity with paganism is seen as early as the 1st century: in Acts 19 in the New Testament, silversmiths in Ephesus who crafted images of Artemis rioted against Paul's proselytizing, because his success meant the loss of their livelihood.

The persecution of Christians in early Rome was not unique to Christians. Roman officials in 186CE persecuted followers of Dionysius and the practice of Bacchanalia, which took place at night. Gatherings taking place "under cover of darkness" were suspicious, because that is how anyone plotting against the emperor would act. Bacchic groups were disbanded and their leaders arrested. Other groups who were deemed suspicious by Roman imperial authorities and outlawed were druids, Jews, astrologers, the cult of Isis, some philosophers, as well as Christians.

Christians, originally seen as a sect of Judaism, was by the 2nd century seen as its own group, but just one of the many religious groups that Rome needed to keep an eye on. As early as 64, however, with the fire that destroyed much of Rome during Nero's reign, Nero chose to blame the Christians, whom Suetonius (writing later) described as men following a "new superstition."

Although mocked and abused in the Roman Empire, Christian persecution was not a state practice until Decius (emperor from 249-251). Decius decreed public sacrifices with mandatory participation; those who refused were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and sometimes executed. Emperors Diocletian (284-305) and Galerius (305-311) continued the persecutions, until Galerius relented with the Edict of Milan, promoting tolerance. Constantine who followed Galerius legalized Christianity in 313.

Constantine did not, however, "turn the Roman Empire Christian." Paganism was still practiced and tolerated...for a time. We will continue this discussion tomorrow.

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Problems in Gaza

Gaza is currently the largest city in Palestine with over a half-million inhabitants. Its history stretches back more than 3000 years, its government having passed from Egyptians to Philistines to Romans to Byzantines and more.

At one stage in its history it was converted to Christianity, and the person given credit for that conversion is known as Saint Porphyry of Gaza. His story comes to us from the Vita Porphyrii ["Life of Porphyry"] by Mark the Deacon, an Egyptian monk who was a contemporary and assistant to Porphyry.

Gaza had been in Roman hands at the time—with several temples consecrated to the Roman gods—and the hostility of the Byzantine Emperor Diocletian (303-313) and Emperor Julian (362-363) to Christians created an environment that led to many Christian martyrs and the destruction of their places of worship. According to the Vita, a 45-year-old Porphyry was made bishop of a Gaza with fewer than 300 Christians and an atmosphere so unfavorable to them that their church had been built far outside the walls of the city. A drought the following year was even blamed on Porphyry's presence.

In 398, therefore, Porphyry sent his deacon, Mark, to Constantinople to ask the (now friendly to Christians) Emperor Arcadius for help. Soldiers arrived to close the pagan temples, but a bribe to their leader caused them to leave the major pagan temple open. Also, just closing the temples did not do anything to change the attitudes of the pagans toward the Christians. Discrimination continued, so Porphyry himself went to Constantinople and convinced Arcadius' Empress Eudoxia to get from Arcadius an order to destroy the pagan temples in Gaza. This time the destruction of pagan temples and pagan artifacts—including personal effects from homes—was total.

Discrimination continued; whomever was in power in the ensuing centuries oppressed the native inhabitants, who fought back against the authority.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Cross-referencing an Eclipse

Diagram of an eclipse from a modern translation of Hipparchus
It is not always easy to figure out dates from classical or medieval writings. Chroniclers did not necessarily strive for the kind of historical accuracy which 21st-century audiences expect. When they wanted to be precise, they often expressed themselves in ways that do not provide a proper context for the modern scholar.

Consider, for instance, Pappus of Alexandria, whom the Encyclopedia Britannica calls "the most important mathematical author writing in Greek during the later Roman Empire." [source] He wrote many important texts, but we knew little of his life.

I mentioned the other day how Suidas' Lexicon gives us data on works and events otherwise lost to history. The entry for Pappus reads:
Alexandrian, philosopher, born in the time of the elder emperor Theodosius, when the philosopher Theon also flourished, the one who wrote about Ptolemy’s Canon. His books [are] Description of the Inhabited World; Commentary on the 4 Books of the Great Syntaxis of Ptolemy; The Rivers in Libya; Dream-Interpretations. [source]
We know that Theodosius reigned from 372-395 CE, so it gives us a time frame for Pappus. This creates a small head-scratcher, however. Pappus claims to have calculated and observed an eclipse in the month of Tybi (the fifth month of the Coptic calendar). There is a problem with this dating: no eclipse occurred during the month of Tybi during the reign of Theodosius that Pappus could have observed! Could the Suidas be wrong? Certainly. But then... what is right?

There is, as it turns out, a 10th century copy of a work by Theon of Alexandria (the one mentioned in the Suidas entry) that has a marginal note next to an entry on the Emperor Diocletian (who reigned from 284-305 CE), stating "at that time wrote Pappus." Is it possible that the composer of Suidas had access to that work and assumed that it meant Pappus flourished when Theon did? If we look closer to the reign of Diocletian, we discover that there was an eclipse in the month of Tybi which would place it (using the modern method of dating) on 18 October 320 CE. If Pappus observed it himself in 320, it isn't likely that he was flourishing over 50 years later. This places him firmly in the earlier part of the 4th century.

Pappus is far more important than as an example of the care with which modern historians must date historical events. Some of his eight-volume work on mathematics is extant; and deals with many facets of geometry and carefully lays out the mathematical findings of his predecessors and how their work builds on each other over time. He also worked on several problems such as inscribing regular polyhedrons inside a sphere, conic sections, trisecting an angle, and many more. He has a theorem named after him, as well as the Pappus chain, the Pappus configuration, and the Pappus graph.

His commentary on Ptolemy provides us with insight into some lost works of classical astronomy, such as an astronomical work by Hipparchus on eclipses (illustrated in the above figure).

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

St. Menas

In 1905, C.M. Kaufman of Frankfort led an expedition into Egypt and made excavations that unearthed the legacy of St. Menas. He found the ruins of a monastery, a well, a basilica, many inscriptions asking the saint's aid, and thousands of miniature water pitchers and oil lamps.

Based on the inscription on the vessels found by Kaufman (Eulogia tou agiou Mena = Remembrance of St. Menas), the vessels were intended as souvenirs of the saint. The location excavated was one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in the 5th and 6th centuries, and flasks like those found by Kaufman had been found for years in Africa, Spain, Italy, France and Russia. It was assumed that they contained oil, but now it is thought that they probably held water from the local well, and likely were supposed to have curative powers.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Menas was martyred under Emperor Diocletian in 295 (other sources say 309—there was more than one Menas in the first few centuries of the Common Era, and it is difficult to reconcile all the records). An Egyptian by birth, Menas had actually served in the Roman army, but left the army when he learned of the poor treatment of Christians by the empire. He went into retreat, engaging in fasting and prayer. He came out of retreat to proclaim the Christian faith in the middle of a Roman religious festival. He was dragged before the authorities, scourged and beheaded. Here is where the legend truly begins: supposedly, his body was to be burned, but the flames worked on it for three days without destroying it.

"Menas flask" in the Louvre
The martyr's body was brought to Egypt and placed in a church, and his name began to be invoked by Christians in need. Then an angel appeared to Pope Athanasius, telling him to have the body transported into the western desert outside Alexandria. While being transported, the camel carrying it stopped at one point and would not move. The followers buried the body in that spot.

Later, the location was forgotten, but a shepherd noticed that a sick sheep fell on a certain spot and rose up cured. The story spread that this spot cured illnesses. When the leprous daughter of the Emperor Zeno (c.425-491) traveled there for a cure, she received a vision at night from St. Menas, telling her that it was his burial place. Her father had the body exhumed, a cathedral built, and a proper tomb prepared for St. Menas. A city and industry sprang up, since so many people came to be cured. Water from the well dug in that location began to be bottled for pilgrims and supplicants. These flasks were found in several countries, but it wasn't until Kaufman's 1905 expedition that their true origin was uncovered.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

He Who Would Be Santa

15th century woodcut of Nicholas
In the introduction to Arian Christianity I mentioned how discussion at the Council of Nicaea in 325 became so heated that Bishop Nicholas of Myra slapped Arius' face. Much of what we think we know about Nicholas is difficult to substantiate, but this has not stopped historians from talking about him. In fact, it is the least-documented information we have that has developed his reputation the most.

Nicholas (c.270-6 December 343) was born at Patara, in Asia Minor. As a young man he made a pilgrimage to Egypt and Palestine; upon his return he was made Bishop of Myra, not far from his city of birth. During the reign of the Emperor Diocletian, Nicholas was imprisoned, but freed once the Christian Emperor Constantine came to power.

He attended the first ecumenical council of the new Catholic Church in 325, which was called by Constantine in order to determine the (in)validity of Arianism (see the link above). Nicholas is counted among the numerous men who assembled there, and (as mentioned) became passionate about the debate.

Well, that's the story anyway. There are some lists of participants on which his name is not found, casting doubt on his presence at Nicaea. But his importance to legend is unquestioned. His popularity as a saint in Greece and Russia began early. Emperor Justinian I (483-565) built a church to Nicholas at Constantinople. He was revered in Germany during the reign of Emperor Otto II (955-983).

And you know you're an important person when they dig up your body in order to keep it safe (as monks had done in England with St. Cuthbert). In 1071 the Turks took control of most of Asia Minor. Among other things, this meant losing control of the burial site of Nicholas. Byzantium regained control under Emperor Alexios I Comnenus, but sailors from Bari in southern Italy took it upon themselves to save the saint's bones. They brought the relics to Bari in 1087, where they have remained. (Actually, they brought the major bones, leaving fragments. Venetian sailors during the First Crusade brought the remainder to Venice where they were put in a church. Scientific investigation in the 1990s proved that the bones in Bari and Venice belong to the same man.)

Traditional pawnbroker sign
The chief story of his giving nature—the story that eventually gave rise to the legend of Santa Claus—is about a man with three daughters for whom he did not have enough money for dowries. Without a dowry, marriage was unlikely, and the fear was that they would wind up as prostitutes in order to support themselves. Nicholas passed by on three consecutive nights and each night threw a bag of gold in the window, saving the future of the daughters. Because of this he has been made the patron saint of (besides children and sailors, etc.) pawnbrokers; some think the traditional image of three golden balls for a pawnbroker shop is because of the three bags of gold. A 15th century woodcut now in the British Museum (see image above) shows Nicholas laying three gold balls instead of bags into the girls' bed. (An alternate theory has the three balls connected to the Medici family heraldry.)

His feast day is today, December 6. In some countries, children put their shoes outside their doors on the evening of the 5th, and on the morning of the 6th find chocolate, coins, or trinkets.