Mark Humphries
Forthcoming in Nicholas Baker-Brian and Josef Lössl (eds),
A Companion to Religion in Late Antiquity
(Chichester and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell)
CHAPTER 3
Introduction
Superstition shall cease; the madness of sacrifices shall be abolished. For if any man in violation of the law of the deified Emperor, Our Father [i.e. Constantine I], and in violation of this command of Our Clemency, should dare to perform sacrifices, he shall suffer the infliction of a suitable punishment and the effect of an immediate sentence (Codex Theodosianus16.10.2).
In 341, with these apparently uncompromising words, the Christian emperor Constans (337-350) commanded his official Madalianus to restrict the worship of the ancient gods. This lawis preserved in a fifth-century compilation of imperial legislation that speaks loudly of its hostility toward traditional cults (Hunt 1993; Salzman 1993) and offers a window onto a world that seems utterly at odds with the religious dynamics of earlier Roman history. One of the most striking features of that earlier world was its capacity to absorb new cultures and, with them, new gods. It is no exaggeration to say that much of what we know about the pantheons of Iron Age Europe arises from their assimilation into Roman religious habits in the Empire’s provinces.
As native gods were adopted by the Romans, so they became subject to Roman forms of worship: this included the setting up of votive inscriptions from which we know the names of a range of deities, such as Antenociticus on the northern frontier of Britain (RIB1327-29). Some of these local cults spread far beyond their homelands, such as the mother deities of the Pannonians (Matres Pannoniarum) attested at Lyons in Gaul in the190s (Mócsy 1974: 232-4, 250). A similar adaptability can be seen in the East, this time building on Hellenistic foundations (see chapters 3 and 6).
IN THE REIGN OF SAINT EMPEROR CONSTANTINE THE GREAT
Dr. Adrian BOLD
University of Craiova, Faculty of Theology
Introduction
The relation between Christianity and paganism represented, especially in the early Christian centuries, the main concern of both the Fathers and Writers of the Church and the pagan Greco-Latin authors. The way that the new religion was understood and interpreted was for along time, one of the major concerns in the Roman Empire, regardless of the social position of those involved in the dispute. This situation lasted until the time of the emperor Constantine the Great (272-337), and even after his reign (306-337), its analysis being of great interest in knowing how Christianity defeated Greco-Roman paganism and spread throughout the empire and even beyond its borders. St. Constantine the Great remained a controversial figure in the history of the Church of all confessions. „He is one of those people who seem by their personality, their acumen, and their ability both to take the opportunities offered and to leave the world markedly changed by their presence in it. He bequeaths a series of paradoxes: an autocrat who never ruled alone; a firm legislator for the Roman family, yet who slew his wife and eldest son and was himself, illegitimate; a dynastic puppet-master, who left no clear successor; a soldier whose legacy was far more spiritual than temporal”.
According to some researchers, the king helped the Christian Church in order to use it: he kept the title of pontifexmaximus, he tolerated paganism, he was baptized only on his deathbed by the Arian bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, he oscillated between Christianity and paganism and between Orthodoxy and Arianism. His policy was unfavorable to Christianity frequently.
Dr. Adrian BOLD
University of Craiova, Faculty of Theology
Introduction
The relation between Christianity and paganism represented, especially in the early Christian centuries, the main concern of both the Fathers and Writers of the Church and the pagan Greco-Latin authors. The way that the new religion was understood and interpreted was for along time, one of the major concerns in the Roman Empire, regardless of the social position of those involved in the dispute. This situation lasted until the time of the emperor Constantine the Great (272-337), and even after his reign (306-337), its analysis being of great interest in knowing how Christianity defeated Greco-Roman paganism and spread throughout the empire and even beyond its borders. St. Constantine the Great remained a controversial figure in the history of the Church of all confessions. „He is one of those people who seem by their personality, their acumen, and their ability both to take the opportunities offered and to leave the world markedly changed by their presence in it. He bequeaths a series of paradoxes: an autocrat who never ruled alone; a firm legislator for the Roman family, yet who slew his wife and eldest son and was himself, illegitimate; a dynastic puppet-master, who left no clear successor; a soldier whose legacy was far more spiritual than temporal”.
Constantine the Great is considered „holy” in the Orthodox Church, in the Roman Catholic Church „great”, while the Protestant world and a large number of modern scholars consider him a political opportunist who was driven by personal and state interests to achieve his goals. „Many scholars ascribe sincere religious motives to him, while others see him as an opportunist currying favor with a vocal minority. We do know that Constantine's contemporaries and successors viewed his patronage of Christianity as a watershed: for pagans, such as Zosimus, it was the beginning of the end of a proud empire; for Christians, such as Eusebius, it was the dawning of a bright new day of Christian triumph. Constantine put a great deal of financial and political support behind Christianity, beyond the simple legalization of the movement in 313 C.E.”
No comments:
Post a Comment