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E-book Bishops in Flight : Exile and Displacement in Late Antiquity

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Penilaian

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With the arrival of a so-called Christian emperor, Constantine the Great, Christian leaders gained the long-awaited tolerance of the empire. Christianity’s transition into the favored religious cult of the imperial household and Roman elite involved significant growing pains. The road to conformity was anything but smooth, as a series of controversial ecumenical councils demonstrated. In one effort to force bishops to conform, emperors used exile rather than capital punishment to com-pel episcopal leaders to produce a consensus on Christian practices and beliefs, a tactic that had adverse effects. As Richard Lim has noted, “By promoting the products of the conciliar process as reflecting a consensus omnium gentium, and by exiling opponents who refused to sign on, Constantine and his successors mistak-enly believed they could forestall future ruptures.”1 As we now know, this approach incited more conflict than resolution.At the height of this troubling period between the great councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381), Christian authors would continuously characterize epis-copal exile as a new martyrdom. More often than not, stories of the recent impe-rial persecutions were invoked to discredit the efforts of an opposing party or a particularly troublesome emperor. Accusations of colluding heretics and imperial representatives were rampant. Competing bishops relied on this powerful legacy of imperial persecution even as they argued for the recognition of the Roman Empire. The bishop’s ambivalent relationship with the empire dictated the terms of his own orthodox identity and how he interpreted his experience of exile. Clerical exile then became coterminous with orthodoxy in many complicated and fragile ways. As we will come to see, how Christians defined the experience of exile and its relationship to persecution determined where they fell on the spectrum of orthodoxy. The use of episcopal exile to impose religious conformity points to a consistent dilemma for historians of late antiquity. The mid- to late fourth century saw a significant change in how Christian bishops—the new, rising Roman elite—were dealt with by a post-Constantinian Roman Empire. In this new era, the all-too-frequent outcome of doctrinal disputes among competing clerics was banishment, not martyrdom. It is quite difficult to reconstruct why or even how a particular bishop is exiled, because it is not always clear who takes the initiative to expel ecclesial leaders.2 In some cases, a group of bishops assemble a council with the intent of condemning a particular bishop for his position on a theological issue. In others, emperors are described as personally seeking out a particularly trouble-some bishop. In still other cases, bishops take flight voluntarily. As a prime exam-ple, and one that will occupy us throughout this book, Athanasius of Alexandria appears to have fled into exile five times during his tenure as bishop, but it is not always clear why he was expelled or who enforced his expulsions.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

201 BAR b

Penerbit

USA : University of California Press., 2019

Deskripsi Fisik

224 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

978052030037

Klasifikasi

201

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Religious Mythology

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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