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Town and Countryside in Early Christianity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

W. H. C. Frend
W. H. C. Frend*
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow
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Extract

A visitor to the Greco-Roman world about the year 350 AD would have found himself confronted by one of the great ‘sea changes’ in the lives of its peoples. The structure of city, farm and village that had persisted for centuries would appear to be intact. The market-places of the towns would be lined with altars and statues of long-dead benefactors. Temples to the gods of Rome and perhaps to a native deity duly Romanised, would dominate the scene. Wherever one stood in the city the temples in the forum would be the landmark. Nearby, would be the amphitheatre and great bath-building, the social centres of the old community, and near the entrance to the town the triumphal arch, marking perhaps the unification of Roman citizen and native inhabitant into one community.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 16: The Church in Town and Countryside , 1979 , pp. 25 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1979

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References

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2 Libanius, , Antiochikos, Orationes 11, 196, ed Förster, R. (Leipzig 1903) 1 p 504 Google Scholar, and compare Festugière, A. J., Antioche paienne et chrétienne, Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d’Athènes et Rome 194 (Paris 1959) pp 23-7Google Scholar.

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6 See Lassus, J., ‘Les edifices du culte autour de la basilique’, Atti del 6 Congresso Internazionale di archeologia cristiana, Ravenna 1962 (Rome 1965) pp 581–610 Google Scholar.

7 Compare AM bk 21 cap 16 para 18.

8 These churches are described by Berthier, A. and his colleagues in his Li christianisme antique dans la Numidie centrale (Algiers 1942) pp 39 Google Scholar seq.

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11 On the circumcellions see Frend pp 172-7; Frend, , ‘Circumcellions and monks’, JTS, ns 20 (1969) pp 542-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and for their contempt even for Donatist bishops see Optatus, [De Schismate], bk 3 cap 4, ed Ziwsa, C., CSEL 26 (1893)Google Scholar—‘Dicuntur [episcopi] huiusmodi homines in ecclesia corrigi non posse’.

12 Optatus p 82, and in the early fifth century see Augustine Ep 185.4.15, ed Goldbacher, A., CSEL 57 (1911) p 14 Google Scholar.

13 See A. Martin, ‘L’Eglise et la Khora egyptienne au IVe siècle’. Les Transformations dans la société chrétienne au IVe siècle, Actes du Congrès à Varsovie du CIHEC, 1978 (to be published).

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20 For instance, see John, Chrysostom, Homilia in Matt 61.3, PG 58 (1862) col 591 Google Scholar. Syrian landowners were described as ‘more cruel than the barbarians because they imposed intolerable and unending taxes and corvées on the working population on their lands’.

21 His reception of Paphnutius who had been terribly mutilated in the persecution, for instance; see Socrates, HE bk 1 cap 11, PG 67 (1864) col 101CGoogle Scholar.

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24 The Sectarian Rule of the Community from Q’ mran, Cave 1 (= IQS) 8,12-13. See also Milik, J. T., Ten years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea (London 1959) pp 115-16Google Scholar, and Cross, F. Moore, The Ancient Library ofQ’mran (London 1958) p 55 Google Scholar.

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26 On the eschatological character of John’s ministry, see Robinson p 189. ‘The purpose of John’s baptism, we may say, was precisely to force the eschatological issue.’

27 See Dodd, C. H., Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge 1963) compare pp 279 CrossRefGoogle Scholar seq, 300-1.

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29 See Dibelius, M., Studies in the Acts of the Apostles (Eng trans London 1956) p 71 nGoogle Scholar; Haenchen, E., The Acts of the Apostles: a Commentary (Eng trans London 1971) pp 431-4Google Scholar.

30 For instance, the Galatians, ‘received me as an angel of God, as Jesus Christ’, Gal 4.15.

31 For Paul’s social teaching see de Ste. Croix, G. E. M., ‘Early Christian attitudes towards Property and Slavery’, SCH 12 (1975) p 19 Google Scholar.

32 I refer in particular, to the long moralising passages in 1 Clement which have no reference either to the gospels or Paul and yet reflect Christian teaching of the day.

33 Thus Didache 1 and 4, with the emphasis on selective almsgiving rather than drastic self-denial.

34 Polycarp to the Philippians 10.2, with the emphasis abo on general philanthropy and good works as the Christian’s task.

35 See Hans Jonas’s fine work, The Gnostic Religion (Boston 1963)Google ScholarPubMed; John, Dart, The Laughing Saviour, (The Discovery and significance of the Nag Hammadi Library) (San Francisco 1976) part 2 Google Scholar.

36 The accusations of Celsus in [Origen], C[contra] C[elsum] 1.1 and 3.55; for ‘rejection of the gods’ see Lucian, , On the Death of Peregrinus 13 Google Scholar.

37 Note, for instance, the immigrant merchant character of the community of Lyon as shown by the account of the martyrs of Lyon, preserved by Eusebius, HE bk 5 caps 1-2.

38 Celsus, in Origen, CC bk 4 cap 23.

39 Such as the Cynic Crescens, who appears to have denounced Justin to the authorities in Rome. See Justin 2 Apologia 2.2.

40 Eusebius’s account based on anti-Montanist sources, HE bk 5 caps 16-18. For assessments of the evidence, see P. de Labriolle’s classic, La Crise Montaniste (Paris 1913)Google Scholar; Ford, J. Massingberd, ‘Montanism a Jewish-Christian Heresy?’ JEH 17.2 (1966) pp 145-58Google Scholar.

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46 Ibid 20.10.

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49 Lactantius, De Morte Persecutorum 13.3, ed Moreau, J., SC 39 (1954)Google Scholar.

50 A typical late third-century example is provided by the controversy over the ownership of the bishop’s house at Antioch after Paul of Samosata had been deposed by a council in 268. See Eusebius HE bk 7 cap 30 para 19.

51 Recounted by Eusebius, HE bk 7 cap 21. Dionysius of Alexandria was a supporter of Gallienus against the rebel Macrianus. See Andresen, C., ‘Der Erlass des Gallienus an die Bischöfe Aegyptens’, Studia Patristica 12 (Berlin 1975) pp 385-98Google Scholar.

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53 Thus, canon 5 of the council of Elvira. Seven years penance was decreed against a mistress who murdered her slave, five years for the equivalent of culpable homicide.

54 See canons 7 (life excommunication for the repeated offence of adultery), 13, 14, 17, 35, 47, 63-5.

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56 Contrast, Passio Mariani et jacobi 2, ed Musurillo, (Oxford 1972) p 195 Google Scholar, with Gesta apud Zenophilum (= Optatus of Milevis, De Schismate, app 1, p 186).

57 Eusebius, HE bk 8 cap 6 para 10.

58 Acta Saturnini 5 and 14 – ‘et illi sunt fratres qui Dei praecepta custodiant’ – PL 8 (1844) cols 693, 698.

59 Antony cap 46, col 909C. He was ‘unwilling to give himself up, but aided the confessors in the mines and in prisons’.

60 Acta Maxmiliani, ed Musurillo, p 247.

61 For the Roman authorities denounced as mouthpieces of Satan, see Acta Saturnini 6 – ‘Quid agis hoc in loco, Diabole’ – addressed by the confessor. Dativus, to die prosecuting advocate, PL 8 col 694A.

62 Aphraates, Demonstratio bk 5 cap 24, ed Lafontaine, G., CSCO, Scriptores Armenia 7 (1977) p 59 Google Scholar of Latin translation.

For similar sentiments of jubilation at the defeat of the Persians in 350, see Ephrem, Syrus, Carmina Nisibena 3, CSCO, Scriptores Syria , 92-3, ed Beck, E. (1961) pp 11–15 Google Scholar.

63 Augustine, , Enarratio in Ps 39.7, PL 36 (1865) col 438 Google Scholar; and In Ps 48.8, ibid cols 561-2.

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65 Possidius, , Vita Sancii Augustini, cap 28, PL 32 (1877) col 58 Google Scholar.