holy men. The combination of these three kinds of authority—spiritual, ascetic, and pragmatic—provides the analytical tools that allow the study of bishops and holy men within the same cultural, religious, social, and political context.
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This book aims to assert and explain the importance of ascetic authority as the focal point at the intersection between spiritual and pragmatic authority. It owes its inspiration to both the German and the Anglophone strands of scholarship, as is perhaps inevitable for an author who moved from Germany to England and then to the United States in the course of her academic and intellectual formation. I became aware of the importance of the spiritual-ascetic-pragmatic nexus while working on my doctoral dissertation on the Vita of Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in Cyprus. This well-known champion of orthodoxy and author of antiheretical works died in 402; his Life was composed sometime between 430 and 475. Epiphanius is thus one of the earliest bishops who was considered holy and who was honored and immortalized in a saint’s Life. He is joined by a few others: Martin of Tours, who died in 397 and was celebrated in a saint’s Life by Sulpicius Severus; Ambrose of Milan, who died the same year and whose Life was written by his disciple Paulinus; Porphyry of Gaza in Palestine, who died in 420 and whose Life poses particular historical problems; and Augustine of Hippo, who died in 430 and was honored in a Life by his disciple Possidius. The Lives of these bishops were composed around the middle of the fifth century. They were not the last bishops to be honored in this manner. From this time, bishops became the subject of hagiographical literature, where previously only martyrs and ascetics had received such treatment. In contrast to the glorification of those who had attained their spiritual perfection through rejection or avoidance of the world, the Lives of bishops propagate a very different ideal. They celebrate the attainment of holiness by ecclesiastical officeholders in an urban setting and in continued exposure to worldly affairs. How can this new direction in the appreciation of what “makes” a holy man be explained? And how do the hagiographers respond to the challenge posed by the novelty of their topic? These are the central questions that form the undercurrent of the present study.
The book is divided into two major parts. The first part juxtaposes bishops and holy men and deals with the nature of Christian authority and its spiritual roots. The second part compares bishops and civic leaders and addresses the realities of the episcopal office. Following these treatments of what it meant to be “holy” and what it meant to be a “bishop,” an epilogue discusses the hagiographical treatment of “holy bishops.” The chronological framework of this inquiry extends from the third to the sixth century. This time frame was chosen to bracket the reign of Constantine and to allow a thorough reassessment of its consequences for the leadership role of bishops in their cities. The geographical scope expands and contracts depending on the demands of the subject matter, and on the spread of the available source material. The more theoretical analysis includes relevant texts from the Latin West and the Greek East, while the in-depth historical study of the bishop’s activities in the urban context is centered on the cities of the Levant, where the evidence for our period is more plentiful and only occasionally draws on supplementary evidence from the West.
Part 1 is largely based on the writings generated by men of the church. Its subdivisions follow the explanatory model outlined above, discussing pragmatic, spiritual, and ascetic authority in turn. The second chapter serves as an introduction to the history and development of the idea of the episcopate. It shows how the concrete or pragmatic authority of bishops within the church has its roots in an appreciation of a bishop’s spiritual abilities. It begins with an overview of the early church orders that describe the various tasks of the bishop within the community. These texts also emphasize that it was the most outstanding Christian in the community who should be elected to the episcopate. This nexus between pragmatic authority and its justification by ascetic authority is pursued further in a detailed study of the late antique comments on the only passage in the New Testament that describes the role of the bishop in detail, 1 Timothy 3:1–7. Chapter 3 illustrates the concept of spiritual authority with reference to its most eloquent postapostolic spokesmen, Clement of Alexandria and Origen, and their remarks on bearers of the Spirit (pneumatophoroi) and bearers of Christ (christophoroi). The next segment gives a direct snapshot of spiritual authority at work. Exclusively based on documentary, not literary, sources, it shows how spiritual men were appreciated by their contemporaries for the power of their intercessory prayer. This kind of prayer is then investigated further, as it was performed on behalf of sinners by martyrs and holy men as much as by priests and bishops, all of whom could make claims to spiritual authority. Ascetic authority is the subject of chapter 4. It is addressed only inasmuch as it has particular bearing on our understanding of the episcopal role. Special emphasis is placed on the importance of the desert—a symbol of total withdrawal and rejection of the world—as a training ground for those who aspire to ascetic authority. The insistence on the physical desert setting as most beneficial for spiritual progress, it is argued, was soon augmented by the notion that the soul could achieve complete inner detachment regardless of its surroundings. This expanded understanding of the significance of the desert as an internalized state of mind made the monastic ideal accessible to those who, like bishops, lived in cities and were active in the public life. The biblical model for bishops who follow the desert ideal while being active on behalf of others is Moses, as discussed in the following section of chapter 4. He was the divinely appointed leader who proved himself worthy through his deeds to hold pragmatic authority over the people of Israel. The complex nature of episcopal leadership as a combination of pragmatic, spiritual, and ascetic authority provides an explanation for the frequent rejection of ordination by monks, which is investigated next. This rejection is occasioned by the notion that ordination is a confirmation of personal virtue and thus should not be coveted by a truly humble person. Yet there was a growing trend to validate the ascetic ideal through honorific ordination, or indeed to attract monks to active service in the clergy. Ascetic authority was the supreme qualification for obtaining the pragmatic authority of office and, for those who lacked ascetic training, the best validation for a successful tenure in office.
Part 2 deals with the realities of episcopal office and is mainly based on historical writing and legal and epigraphic sources. The problematic relation of worldly criteria and spiritual qualifications in the appointment of bishops and in their discharge of office is exemplified in chapter 5, which begins with a comparison between the episcopal careers of Synesius of Cyrene and Theodore of Sykeon, the former a pagan man of leisure in the late fourth century, the latter a seventh-century monk given to ascetic excesses. As these examples show, late antique bishops had ample leeway to define their role and range of activities. Contemporary attitudes were opaque, and theologians sensed the need to defend the nature of the episcopate as work and service, not as an honor.
Chapter 6 offers a detailed overview of the patterns of recruitment to the episcopate, which reveals that wealthy and locally prominent men were increasingly at an advantage as candidates for this ministry. Not surprisingly, many status-conscious urban citizens were eager to attain the episcopate as an additional distinction at the end of their careers.
Chapter 7 examines the role of the bishop within the context of his city. It aims to bring out the concrete manifestations of the pragmatic authority of bishops, which was often determined by their elevated social origin prior to their election. This is followed by treatments of three aspects of the pragmatic authority of the bishop that invite comparison with the activities of prominent citizens and of holy men—namely, the bishop’s residence, his access to wealth, and his distribution of wealth.
Constantine’s laws granting bishops extensive administrative rights and obligations are traditionally regarded as the touchstone of church-state relations in this formative period. Chapter 8 proposes a critical reassessment of Constantine’s measures in order to show that, rather than absorbing the bishops into the apparatus of imperial administration, they merely confirmed the existing episcopal oversight over practical matters that were considered to be of particular concern to Christians in general. A more significant change that was heralded by the reign of Constantine was the open access to the imperial court that the bishops now enjoyed. But holy men of
