Hope and trepidation. approaching an emperor conjured up conflicting feelings in petitioners. Because emperors were a highly anticipated source of justice, generosity, and assistance, they were expected to demonstrate their accessibility and civility. When Theodosius visited Rome, he had enjoyed bantering with the crowds. To reinforce this image of himself as an ordinary citizen, he had also “banished terror.” But despite their best intentions, emperors often projected an aura of menace and intimidation. Emperors were frightening figures, usually surrounded by high-ranking advisers and armed bodyguards and with no constitutional restrictions on their exercise of power. Even as one orator praised Theodosius for his affability at Rome, he also admitted that he was still terrified to speak in his presence. Another orator had calmed his nerves in front of Constantine by openly acknowledging his uneasiness. “It is no small task to ask the emperor of the entire world for a personal favor, … to compose the words, to speak without fear, to stop at the right time, to await a response.”

Petitioners and communities approached emperors and their courts either directly in person or through letters. In a direct meeting an envoy might address the emperor with a panegyric. However nervewracking for the panegyrist, the formal occasion at least imposed a framework of traditional protocol, since the orator generally followed the demands of the rhetorical genre and the emperor was expected to listen respectfully.

The best texts of constantine's rescript to hispellum are in ILS 1:158–59, no. 705, and Gascou (1967) 610–12, both derived from the edition of E. Bormann in CIL 11.2.1:768, no. 5265. Gascou's text is printed and translated here. Also included here is a summary of Gascou's important comments about the numerous oddities in grammar and spelling. For photographs, see Andreotti (1964), facing p. 288, and Lenski (2006a), Figure 4, with the comprehensive survey of earlier scholarship in Amann (2002).

Constantine himself had insisted that edicts and constitutions that did not include an exact date were invalid: see CTh 1.1.1, issued in 322. Even though his original rescript to Hispellum had undoubtedly included a date, the inscribed copy erected in the town did not. The dating of the rescript hence depends upon interpretation of the college of emperors in its heading. The heading described Constantine as Augustus, mentioned his three sons, Constantine, Constantius, and Constans, but gave them no titles. Constans joined his two older brothers as a Caesar after his investiture on December 25, 333: for the date, see Consularia Constantinopolitana s.a. 333. The younger Dalmatius, Constantine's nephew, joined his three cousins as a Caesar after his investiture on September 18, 335: for the date, see Consularia Constantinopolitana s.a. 335. Grünewald (1990) 150–53, hence dates the rescript between these two dates.

INTRODUCTION

In the previous part, I considered Chrysostom's and Libanius' ways of writing about religious identity and religious allegiance. We saw that Chrysostom was trying to construct for his audiences clear-cut identities of Christian, Greek and Jew and of believer and unbeliever. He demanded that they adopt being Christian as an identity that dominated their whole lives and that would be externally visible at all times. He required not only that they be Christian but also that they display their Christianity. In doing this, Chrysostom not only presented a stark contrast between what it was to be Christian and what it was to be Greek or Jewish but also suggested that all non-Christian identities could be aligned and characterized as demonic. This allowed Chrysostom to present his audiences with the starkest of choices: either they accepted being Christian on his terms or they were the total antithesis of what was Christian and godly. There was absolutely no room for compromise and no room for having a different understanding of what it meant to be Christian. In the case of Libanius, in contrast, we saw that most of the time he was not interested in marking out permanent religious identities. His habitual sense of the appropriate ways to represent religious allegiance in each situation gave him ‘a feel for the game’ for when it was right to refer to this factor and for when it was better to let it fade into the background.

LABELLING AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF RELIGIOUS IDENTITIES

Labelling of the self and of others is an important part of the process of identity construction. The fact that labels for religious allegiance permeate Chrysostom's writings is thus significant and should be seen as directly connected to his interest in identity construction. For adherents of his own religion he used the well-accepted label for the followers of Christ – Christianoi. This was the name given to all Christians at baptism (Catéchèse 1.44 (SC 50.131)) but it also had special local significance because Antioch was believed to be the place where Christians were first called Christians (Acts 11.26) – something that Chrysostom often emphasized to his audiences (Hom. in Matt. 8 (PG 57.81)). Chrysostom also spoke of Christians as believers (pistoi) and those within (tous esō) because they believed in Christ and the one God and belonged to the Christian community. Those who followed the Graeco-Roman religions were at times labelled Hellēnes, a usage that had become common in the fourth century. Before the fourth century the most common terms used by Christians to describe those outside the Judaeo-Christian tradition had been ethnē/ethnos, and Chrysostom sometimes still talked of ta ethnē in contrast to Jews. Chrysostom also used the term ‘unbelievers’ to describe those who did not believe in the Christian God and Jesus Christ, and ‘those outside’ for those who were not ‘subject to the doctrines and laws of Christ’ and had not received the Gospel (In Ep. ad 1 Cor. Hom.

IDENTITY AND RELIGIOUS INTERACTION IN ANTIOCH

The question of religious identity lies at the heart of understanding religious interaction. Talking about religious interaction means first saying something about the religious entities that we see to be taking part in that interaction. As Markus noted long ago, rather than try to assess how Christianized fourth-century society was, we need to ‘set ourselves the task of tracing the shifting boundaries drawn by late antique people which determined how far their society measured up to what they saw as properly Christianised society’. At the same time, because what it means to be the member of one religion can only be constructed in relation to what it means to be a member of another religion, religious interaction is always a prerequisite for the existence of religious identities. Religious identities do not have an objective existence that naturally arises out of an essential and distinct package of religious traits.

INTRODUCTION

It was suggested in part I that Libanius and Chrysostom had different ways of writing about religion and different approaches to issues of religious identity and religious allegiance. It was also suggested that there was a connection between the fact that they had different approaches to writing about religion and the fact that they conceived of religious allegiance in different ways. Part II will explore these ideas in more detail. Chapter 3 will study Chrysostom's construction of religious identity in his preaching. It will show that clear-cut religious identities and labels were central to his thinking. It will also show how Chrysostom used his oratorical powers to create these notions of identities as (new) ways of being for his audiences. I shall start by looking at Chrysostom's definition of the central features of Christianity in his Catechetical Sermons and elsewhere. I shall show that these definitions inevitably led him to construct a ‘Greek’ other at the same time. We shall then turn to Chrysostom's depiction of Greek religion in his sermons addressed to the Greeks and in other works. We shall see here that Chrysostom was working with a stereotype of Greek religion that functioned most easily as a direct contrast to Christianity. This will then be compared with the way that Chrysostom sought to draw clear-cut distinctions between Jews and Christians in his sermons on the Judaizers.

INTRODUCTION

In part III we explored the relationship between Libanius' and Chrysostom's understandings of religious identity/allegiance and social organization. This was a question of how far constructions of identity could be seen to translate into social organization but at the same time was also a question of the relationship between text and social practice. We saw in chapter 7 that Chrysostom sought to construct a sense of community for his audience through his preaching and the Christian ritual of baptism and that it is possible to suggest that a ‘textual community’ could have grown up around his preaching. However, we also saw that there was little basis for such a textual community: it was impossible to associate one consistent audience with Chrysostom's preaching, and his audiences did not appear to have formed any permanent social organization based on their Christianity. Instead, a more ‘fuzzy’ model of Christianity in Antioch was suggested, in which individuals had varying degrees of commitment and could interact socially with non-Christians. In chapter 8 we saw that the notion that Libanius' writings give any real evidence of a 'pagan faction or ‘group’ should also be questioned. It was argued that loyalty to the emperor Julian and his religious policy should not be taken as the basis for a ‘pagan faction’ around Libanius, because Libanius had goals other than representing his relationship with Julian ‘as it really was’.

DEFINING RELIGIOUS PRACTICE AND DEFINING RELIGIOUS PRACTICE

Constructions of identity are largely textual and linguistic in nature. They take place in the sphere of language, in what people say and write and how they think about themselves and others. In the sphere of practice, however, they are far less visible. As Barth noted long ago, practice and behaviour are often shared across the boundaries of ethnic difference that human discourses seek to construct. Practice, and religious practice in particular, will often be the site of syncretism: the normal mixed and undifferentiated state that exists prior to attempts to create pure traditions and identities. As Lieu has shown for the religious situation of the early empire, however strongly Christian leaders and authoritative texts sought to create clear-cut religious identities, these were often undermined in actual life and practice. Jews, Christians and even sometimes adherents of Graeco-Roman religions acted in the same ways, ‘observed common practices’ and felt affinity towards each other. As other recent studies have shown, the theos hupsistos inscriptions from second- and third-century Asia Minor and cultic lamps from fourth-century Corinth give little indication of the religious allegiance of the users and show little concern with defining distinct religious identities. Religious practices do not have to be totally antithetical to identity construction and could potentially be particularly good markers of identity because of their public and visible nature – by doing something that everyone can see, you can clearly show your allegiance to one religious identity rather than another.

The chapters in this volume of the Cambridge History of Christianity present the ‘golden age’ of patristic Christianity. After episodes of persecution by the Roman government, Christianity emerged as a licit religion enjoying imperial patronage and eventually became the favoured religion of the empire. It was during this period (c. 300–600) that the so-called Great Church emerges in the midst, as it were, of a great and vibrant flourishing of Christianities; the stories of the Great Church, the anonymous masses within it and indeed the countless numbers beyond it are retold in these pages.

Christianity was rapidly transformed during this period, and these transformations will be considered under several headings; artistic (ch. 29), cultural (chs. 12, 26–8), inter-religious (chs. 5, 1–11), literary (ch. 13), philosophical (chs. 10, 18–19), political (chs. 14–17), social (chs. 6–9, 17, 20–5) and, of course, theological aspects (chs. 18–20) are specifically considered. This coverage is in keeping with the multidisciplinary character of modern research into this time period, widely known now as ‘late antiquity’. Accordingly, chapters in the book have been contributed by specialists in doctrinal theology, historical theology, social history, art history, liturgics, archaeology, philosophy, comparative religion, and philology.