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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Scholars have long suspected that the Byzantine cult of the Virgin Mary owed its early success to the efforts of the early Byzantine empresses. Among them, it is Aelia Pulcheria, Augusta from 414 to 453 and herself a professed virgin until her politically-charged marriage in 451, who is best known for having asserted Mary’s right to be known as Theotokos - the one who gave birth to God. Many sources suggest that the Nestorian controversy debated at the Council of Ephesus in 431 arose from an altercation between Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople from 428 to 431, and Pulcheria. On this view, the debate over Christ’s human and divine natures turned on whether Mary had given birth to God the Son, or only to Jesus the man. It was with this in mind that in 1982 Kenneth Holum suggested that by refusing to support the cult of the Virgin as Theotokos, Nestorius had in effect challenged the imperial family’s religious authority in early fifth-century Constantinople.
1 Holum.
2 See n. 11 below, and the contributions of Averil Cameron and Richard Price in this volume.
3 Holum, 174.
4 Ibid., 227, citing A. Wenger, ‘Notes inedites sur les empereurs Theodose I, Arcadius, Theodose II, Leon I’, Revue des etudes byzanlines, 10(1952), 54-9.
5 Limberis, with a discussion at 121-42 of the Virgin as protectress of the city, based largely on the Akathist hymn, to complement the earlier studies of N.H. Baynes, ‘The supernatural defenders of Constantinople’, Analecta Bollandiana, 67 (1949), 171-2, and Averil Cameron, The Theotokos in sixth-century Constantinople’, JT/iS, 29 (1978), 79-108.
6 Limberis’ thesis is accepted by Borgeaud, Philippe, La Mere des dieux: de Cybele a la Vierge Marie (Paris, 1996), 182 Google Scholar.
7 Holum, 164.
8 Cyril Mango, ‘Constantinople as Theotokoupolis’, in Vassilaki, 17-25, suggests at 19, drawing on his earlier The origins of the Blachernae shrine at Constantinople’ (Acta XIII Congressus Interwtionalis Archaeologiae Christianae, 2 (Vatican City and Split, 1998), 61-76, at 65-6), that in the absence of early evidence for Pulcheria as patroness of the Marian basilicas, ‘the somewhat disreputable Verina, rather than the virginal Pulcheria, emerges as the chief promoter of Marian devotion in the fifth century’.
9 Kate Cooper, ‘Contesting the Nativity: wives, virgins, and Pulcheria’s imitatio Mariae’, Scottish Journal of Religious Studies, 19 (1998), 31-43.
10 On the sources for Chrysostom and Eudoxia, see Cooper, Kate, The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA, 1996), 17–19 Google Scholar, and literature cited there.
11 Constas, Nicholas, “Weaving the body of God: Proclus of Constantinople, the Theotokos, and the loom of the flesh’, Journal of Early Christian Studies, 3 (1995), 169–94 Google Scholar, to be followed by a book-length study currently in progess.
12 On the date of Socrates, see Leppin, Hartmut, Von Constantin dem Grofien zu Theodosius II: Das Christhche Kaisertum bei den Kirchenhistorikern Socrates, Sozomenus und Theodorel (Gottingen, 1996), 274–9 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (opting for a date between 444 and 446); Urbainczyk, Theresa, Socrates of Constantinople: Historian of Church and State (Ann Arbor, MI, 1997), 34 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, arguing for a date early in the 440s; Wallraff, Martin, Der Kirchenhistoriker Socrates: Untersuchungen zu Geschichtsdarstellung, Methode und Person (Gottingen, 1997), 210–12 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, arguing for a date before 443.
13 On Socrates’ tendency to attribute schism within the Church to the conflicting power strategies of individual bishops, see Leppin, Von Constantin, 227-43.
14 See, for example, Letter 19 of Celestine 1 to Theodosius II: ‘Major vobis fidei causa debet esse, quam regni; ampliusque pro pace ecclesiarum dementia vestra debet esse sollicita, quam pro omnium securitate terrarum’ (PL 50, cols 511-12), discussed in Stewart Irwin Oost, Galla Placidia Augusta: a Biographical Essay (Chicago, 1968), 250; Leppin, Von Constantin, csp. 206-24 on ‘Kaiserliches Handeln und gottliches Wirken’, and also Joachim Szidat, ‘Friede in Kirche und Staat: zum politischen Ideal des Kirchenhistorikers Sokrates’, in Balbina Babler and Heinz-Giinther Nesselrath, eds, Die Welt des Sokrates von Konstantinopel: Studien zu Politik, Religion und Kultur in spaten 4. undfriihen 5.J11. n. Chr. zu Ehren von Christoph Schaublin (Munich and Leipzig, 2001), 1-14. For a relevant discussion of the religious significance of the person of the emperor, see Francois Heim, Virtus: Ideologic politique et croyances religieuses au IVe siecle (Berlin, 1991), 187-218.
15 Leppin, Von Constantin, 240.
16 Urbainczyk, Socrates, 34, assuming a later date for Sozomen, after Pulcheria’s re-emergence into the limelight on the death of Theodosius in 450. Alan Cameron, ‘The empress and the poet: paganism and politics at the court of Theodosius II’, Yale Classical Studies, 27 (1982), 217-89, suggests that Pulcheria’s withdrawal from court from roughly 439 was the product not of rivalry with Eudokia - indeed, Cameron paints Eudokia and Pulcheria as collaborators rather than rivals - but rather of Pulcheria’s status as a victim, like Eudokia, of the machinations of the eunuch Chrysaphius in the period from 439 until 450.
17 Wallraff, Sokrates, 220-1.
18 Socrates, Hisloria ecclesiastica, VII.32.1-3, in Giinther Christian Hansen, ed., Socrates: Kirchengeschichte, Griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte, n.f. 1 (Berlin, 199s), 80. Neither Holum nor Limberis lays particular emphasis on Socrates’ testimony in this respect; both refer to portions of Socrates VII.32 - Holum at p. 154 nn.37-8, and Limberis at p. 54 n.50 - but in support of different points. Here and below 1 use the translation by Zenos, A.C., ‘The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus’, in Schaff, Philip and Wace, Henry, eds, A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, second series, 2 (Oxford and New York, 1891), 170 Google Scholar.
19 See Pelikan, Jaroslav, Mary through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture (New Haven, CT, 1996)Google Scholar on the history of the term.
20 Socrates, Hisloria ecclesiastica, VII.34.10-11 (ed. Hansen, 383; tr. Zenos, 172).
21 Eusebius, Life of Constantine, 3, in Socrates, Historia ecclesiastica, VH.32.15-16 (ed. Hansen, 381; tr. Zenos, 171).
22 Brubaker, Leslie, ‘Memories of Helena: patterns of imperial female matronage in the fourth and fifth centuries’, in James, Liz, ed., Women, Men and Eunuclu: Gender in Byzantium (1997), 52–75 Google Scholar.
23 Oost, Galla Placidia Augusta, 275-7, with sources at 276 n.88.
24 Ibid., 270-1, with sources at 271 n.77.
25 And was so by Socrates, Historia ecclesiastica, VII.47, where she is explicitly called a new Helena. Holum (183-5) discusses the circumstances of Eudokia’s departure in early 438 at the urging of Melania the Younger according to the latter’s biographer.
26 Martin Harrison, A Temple for Byzantium: the Discovery and Excavation of Anicia Juliana’s Palace-Church in btanhul (1989); Elizabeth A Clark, ‘Patrons not priests: gender and power in late ancient Christianity’, Gender and History, 2 (1990), 253-73 (see also Boatwright, Mary Taliaferro, ‘Plancia Magna of Perge: women’s roles and status in Roman Asia Minor’, in Pomeroy, Sarah Booth, ed., Women’s History and Ancient History (Chapel Hill, NC, 1991), 249–72 Google Scholar). In addition, see now James, Liz, Empresses and Power in Early Byzantium (London and New York, 2001)Google Scholar.
27 ACO, 2/ii/I:i 55; I have followed Holum’s translation (216), though he uses the passage in support of a different point.
28 David Hunter, ‘Helividius, Jovinian, and the Virginity of Mary in late fourth-century Rome’, Journal of Early Christian Studies, i (1993), 47-71, and Rocca, Giancarlo, L’Adversus Helvidium di San Girolamo nel contesto delta letteratura ascetico-mariana del secolo IV (Berlin, 1998), 24 Google Scholar.
29 Homily in Luke, 14.8; cited in Hunter, ‘Helvidius, Jovinian, and the Virginity of Mary’, 69.
30 In his Contra Helvidium and Adversus Jovinianum.
31 See Elm, Susanna, ‘Virgins of God’: the Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1994). 336–7 Google Scholar, on Mary as an exemplar for virgins in Athanasius of Alexandria’s Letter to Virgins.
32 Cooper, ‘Contesting the Nativity’, 35-41.
33 The Chalcedonian Definition, 4.1 cite here the English version from J. Stevenson, Creeds, Councils, and Controversies: Documents Illustrating the History of the Church AD 337-461, new edn rev. W.H.C. Frend (1989), 353.
34 Goubert, P., ‘La Role de Sainte Pulcherie et de l’eunuque Chrysaphius’, in Grillmeier, Alois and Bacht, Hermann, eds, Das Konzil von Chalkedon, 1 (Wiirzburg, 1951), 303–21 Google Scholar. Holum summarizes: ‘During the year of Chalcedon she directed preparations from her palace, and the council unfolded according to her plan’ (216).
35 Galla Placidia’s letters to Theodosius II and to Pulcheria on behalf of Leo are in A CO, 2/i/I:5-6, letters 2-3, and 49-50, letter 14. In ACO, 2/iv:20, letter 28 (60), Leo thanks Pulcheria for her letter to him (which is not preserved). The letters are discussed by Oost, Galla Placidia Augusta, 289-90.
36 Holum, 129 (on the imperial cousins’ betrothal in 424, drawing on Marcellinus Comes a. 424), 183 (the sources for the marriage).
37 On the fate of the mother and daughters, see Carmelo Capizzi, S.J., ‘Anicia Juliana (462 ca-530 ca): ricerche sulla sua famiglia e la sua vita’, Rivista distudi Bizantini e neoellenici, n.s. 5 (1968), 191-226.