Threat to Public Piety

DePalma Digeser Elizabeth

Description

In A Threat to Public Piety, Elizabeth DePalma Digeser reexamines the origins of the Great Persecution (AD 303-313), the last eruption of pagan violence against Christians before Constantine enforced the toleration of Christianity within the Empire. Challenging the widely accepted view that the persecution enacted by Emperor Diocletian was largely inevitable, she points out that in the forty years leading up to the Great Persecution Christians lived largely in peace with their fellow Roman citizens. Why, Digeser asks, did pagans and Christians, who had intermingled cordially and productively for decades, become so sharply divided by the turn of the century?Making use of evidence that has only recently been dated to this period, Digeser shows that a falling out between Neo-Platonist philosophers, specifically Iamblichus and Porphyry, lit the spark that fueled the Great Persecution. In the aftermath of this falling out, a group of influential pagan priests and philosophers began writing and speaking against Christians, urging them to forsake Jesus-worship and to rejoin traditional cults while Porphyry used his access to Diocletian to advocate persecution of Christians on the grounds that they were a source of impurity and impiety within the empire.The first book to explore in depth the intellectual social milieu of the late third century, A Threat to Public Piety revises our understanding of the period by revealing the extent to which Platonist philosophers (Ammonius, Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus) and Christian theologians (Origen, Eusebius) came from a common educational tradition, often studying and teaching side by side in heterogeneous groups.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Ancient Rome
• History of religions
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 avril 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801463969
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

q A THREAT TO PUBLIC PIETY

A THREAT TO PUBLIC PIETY n C h r i s t i a ns , P l a t o n i s t s , a n d t h e G r ea t Pe r s e c u t i o n

E l i z a b e t h D e Pa l m a D i g e s e r

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2012 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2012 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Digeser, Elizabeth DePalma, 1959–  A threat to public piety : Christians, Platonists, and the great persecution / Elizabeth DePalma Digeser.  p. cm.  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 9780801441813 (cloth : alk. paper)  1. Persecution—History—Early church, ca. 30–600. 2. Church history—Primitive and early church, ca. 30–600. 3. Christianity—Philosophy—History. 4. Platonists. 5. Violence—Philosophy. 6. Philosophy and religion. 7. Violence—Religious aspects. I. Title.  BR1604.23.D54 2012  272'.1—dc23 2011037723

Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetablebased, lowVOC inks and acidfree papers that are recycled, totally chlorinefree, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Cloth printing

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Paige

q  Co nt e nt s

Preface ix List of Abbreviations xiii

Introduction: From Permeable Circles to Hardened Boundaries 1 1. Ammonius Saccas and the Philosophy without Conflicts 23 2. Origen as a Student of Ammonius 49 3. Plotinus, Porphyry, and Philosophy in the Public Realm 72 4. Schism in the Ammonian Community: Porphyry v. Iamblichus 98 5. Schism in the Ammonian Community: Porphyry v. Methodius of Olympus 128  Conclusion: The Ammonian Community and the Great Persecution 164

Bibliography 193 Index 215

q  P r e f a c e

What is the relationship between philosophical or religious thought and violence? In attempting to understand religious vio lence, sociologists and other social scientists often assume that material con ditions and economic interests are the real motivations for violence directed against particular religious groups. If ideas make a difference at all, we see them as rationalizations, justifications, or explanations for violence, not as 1 motive forces in themselves. This book turns the conventional wisdom on its head, for it argues that ideas about correct ritual and metaphysical doc trine inspired people to bring about Rome’s last and longest effort forcibly to repress Christianity. And it involves philosophers and theologians as the primary source of these ideas, even though they themselves never called for forcible repression of their doctrinal opponents—as far as the surviving evi dence indicates. This project arose out of my earlier exploration of the involvement of the ancient Christian scholar and theologian Lactantius in defending Christian ity against the criticisms that had undergirded Diocletian’s “Great Persecu tion.” InLactantius and Rome,The Making of a Christian Empire: I was primarily interested in excavating the evidence for an exchange of ideas between the African theologian and defender of religious toleration and the first Chris tian emperor, Constantine, who drew upon those ideas in fashioning his reli gious policy after the persecution ended. In the process of telling that story, however, I began increasingly to wonder who were the people—beyond the imperial court—advancing the arguments to which Lactantius responded in a number of sophisticated works across the last years of his life. The search to discover those voices and make clear their motivations has occupied me across the past decade and more.

1. See, for example, Bernard Lewis,The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror(New York: Random House, 2004); Mark Juergensmeyer,Terror and the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious ViolenceCalifornia Press, 2003); and John McGarry and Brendan O’Leary,(Berkeley: University of A Time for Peace: Explaining Northern Ireland(Oxford: Blackwell, 1995).

ix