Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity. Claudia Rapp

is a particular concern in German scholarship. The beginnings of this phenomenon can be attributed to the dwindling local powers and the absence of a strong central government in the Merovingian period, although it reached its full extent in the tenth to twelfth centuries, when the bishops of large cities in Germany and Gaul held all the reins of civic administration, complemented by legal and financial independence, thus acting as veritable “lords of their cities.”²¹ This form of Stadtherrschaft of bishops is a later, medieval development, however, that did not necessarily follow from the role of bishops in the later Roman Empire alone but resulted from a combination of other factors specific to Gaul and Germany. In other regions of the Roman Empire, bishops of the fourth to sixth centuries fulfilled the same functions as representatives of their cities and providers of humanitarian help in times of crisis, yet this did not lead to the autonomous episcopal governance of cities in later centuries. Dietrich Claude attempted to apply this Gallic model to early Byzantium in order to show that bishops in the Eastern Roman Empire also exercised a veritable Stadtherrschaft, but the limitations of this approach have long been recognized, at least by Byzantinists.²² More recent studies of the transformation of cities in Asia Minor have emphasized the stabilizing role of bishops in up-holding and perpetuating the existing social order as they operated in conjunction with the people and the leading men of their cities.²³ The writings of the Cappadocian fathers, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa, have generated several scholarly treatments of their views of the episcopate and their own exercise of this office.²⁴

      Studies of the role of bishops along the southern shore of the Mediterranean have centered on issues such as the patterns of urbanization, the structure of civic life, the presence of dissenting Christian groups, and the nature of the surviving evidence. Since Egypt spawned the thriving monastic movement that attracted pilgrims and followers from all over the empire, monasticism in all its forms is the focus of most studies of Christian life in this region,²⁵ while less energy has been devoted to the discussion of dissenting movements within the church, such as Arianism and Monophysitism.²⁶ As a consequence, modern studies concentrating on this region accord only a marginal role to bishops within their urban setting. An exception is Athanasius of Alexandria, whose prolific literary output has given rise to several studies of his dogmatic stance, political maneuvering, and ascetic outlook.²⁷ Apart from the bishop of Alexandria, bishops do not dominate the picture, while the papyri often show village priests in a uniquely prominent role. Because of the wealth of the surviving documentary evidence, scholars have been able to investigate the ecclesiastical and economic administration of Egypt as an organic entity in which the bishops were firmly embedded.²⁸

      The nature of the available sources has also influenced the studies of Christianity in North Africa. Here Augustine of Hippo is the towering figure, not so much because of the saint’s Life written by his disciple Possidius, but because of the numerous works that survive from his pen, especially his extensive epistolographical collection, which has been augmented in recent years by Johannes Divjak’s discovery of additional letters.²⁹ North Africa was also a densely urbanized region that enjoyed great economic prosperity until the Vandal invasion of the late 430s and beyond. The archaeological work, and especially the epigraphic record, provide a mine of information about the life of the North African cities and the bishops’ participation in it.³⁰

      Previous studies of bishops in late antiquity thus fall into three distinct groups: histories of the development of the episcopal office within the church, which usually end with the reign of Constantine; investigations of the public role of bishops within their urban or regional context, which usually begin with Constantine’s legislation in favor of the clergy; and biographies of important men of the church, based to no small extent on their own literary record. Each of these areas of study has considerable merit in contributing important insights into specific aspects of the role of bishops in late antiquity. But at the core of these studies are two underlying assumptions, one chronological, the other ideological. The chronological assumption consists in highlighting the reign of Constantine as a radical turning point when the idealized, charismatic age of early Christianity came to an end and the church became tainted through its exposure to the empire, a decline that is thought to be accompanied, as if in a seesaw, by the rise of the bishops. What has been lacking is a study that deemphasizes the reign of Constantine and that, instead of treating it as a watershed in the history of the institutional development of the church, follows the continuous flow of developments, both in Christian culture and in the Roman Empire, in the centuries before and after Constantine’s reign. The present study is intended as a first step in this direction, as its chronological range extends from the third to the sixth century.

      The general ideological assumption upon which most studies of the episcopate have rested until about two decades ago is that of a strict division between the religious and the secular aspects of the role of bishops, in order to concentrate on the bishops’ social prominence and political power. Yet there are some notable exceptions of scholars who have chosen a more integrative approach, in an effort to link the bishops’ public activities within their cities with their religious position as Christian leaders. Thus Henry Chadwick³¹ and Philip Rousseau³² explore the interconnection between the roles of monks and those of bishops. In a similar vein, Rosemarie Nürnberg acknowledges that asceticism provides the foundation and justification for episcopal power in late antique Gaul, and Andrea Sterk has undertaken a similar study for Cappadocia.³³ Bernhard Jussen, by contrast, pursues the notion of the survival of elites in changing political circumstances and points out that the new prominence of aristocratic bishops in Gaul since the fifth century goes hand in hand with their ceremonial self-representation as charismatic leaders through the performance of the liturgy in its various forms.³⁴ An entire volume of essays was dedicated to the interconnection of episcopal power and pastoral care in 1997.³⁵ Rita Lizzi has investigated the role of bishops, especially prominent bishops, in the East and highlights what she calls the “process of moralization” that characterizes their interaction with secular authorities and its representation in the sources.³⁶ Recent articles by Susanna Elm and Rebecca Lyman draw attention to the importance of the ascetic stance in the assertion of episcopal authority.³⁷ Conrad Leyser explores the connection between interpretations of asceticism, the formation and internal structure of monastic communities, and leadership within those communities.³⁸ In a similar vein, the latest monograph by Peter Brown, Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire,³⁹ focuses on the role of the bishop in his city as the “lover of the poor,” with all the social and political consequences this entails, and at the same time seeks the roots of the bishop’s advocacy for the poor in the religious traditions of Judaism and Christianity. Brown argues that the Judeo-Christian tradition of the distribution of the offerings of the community through its appointed officers prepares the ground for the concrete exercise of Christian charity, while the radically new, Christian idea of a deep-rooted solidarity among fellow humans as a result of the incarnation of Christ provides additional motivation for its practice among Christians. On the whole, there is a noticeable trend, especially in Anglophone scholarship since the late 1980s, to treat episcopal power not as an isolated social or political phenomenon, but as a complex construct of secular and religious elements that come to bear in ever-shifting constellations.

      The study of the role of holy men has evolved according to the same pattern. Initial emphasis on the single criterion of personal sanctity has given way to a more integrative interpretation that takes into account additional socioeconomic factors. The important studies by German scholars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially the seminal works of Karl Holl⁴⁰ and Hans von Campenhausen, isolated the charismatic element as crucial in the establishment of personal holiness.⁴¹ A second wave of scholarship set in with Peter Brown’s foundational 1971 article “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity,”⁴² which explained the activities of holy men, especially in fifth- and sixth-century Syria, with reference to the socioeconomic context in which they operated. In this article, Brown explored the holy man’s public role as a patronus and its connection to asceticism, but to the neglect of the spiritual element. Brown has since then added further facets to the interpretation of the functions of the holy man by drawing attention to his role as philosopher-sage and as exemplar, while others have suggested that holy