Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Number of quotes: 75
Book ID: 241 Page: 14
Section: 2C
How did Latin paganus come to acquire its most famous meaning? The earliest documented meaning was apparently “rural,” from pagus, a rural district. But to judge from surviving texts, the dominant meaning by the early empire was “civilian,” as opposed to “military.” Finally, soon after the middle of the fourth century, quite suddenly we find it as the standard Latin designation for non-Christians.
Quote ID: 6028
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: 14
Section: 2C
So Baronius (1586), assuming that Christians dismissed nonbelievers contemptuously as country bumpkins. This seems to be the dominant view today.{4} Yet there are major objections.
Quote ID: 6029
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 241 Page: 15
Section: 2C
More generally, it would be paradoxical if western Christians had called pagans by a name symbolizing lack of culture when eastern Christians called them by a name symbolizing culture itself (“hellene”).
Quote ID: 6030
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 241 Page: 18
Section: 2C
Remarkably enough, the earliest datable writers to use paganus in this sense all treat it as the exact Latin equivalent of hellene = pagan.
Quote ID: 6031
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: 20
Section: 2C
But with the end of the persecutions and a Christian on the imperial throne, Christians must have begun to look on the non-Christians around them differently, no longer as automatic enemies but as misguided fellow citizens, fellow Romans in an increasingly dangerous world. Non-Christians were now individuals who lived next door or worked in the same office. Above all, they were converting in unprecedented numbers. The time had come for a less openly pejorative term to denote them.
Quote ID: 6032
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: 24
Section: 2C
Following Mohrmann, then, I would suggest that the religious sense has nothing to do with either rustics or soldiers of Christ. At some time, around the end of the third or beginning of the fourth century, Christians began referring to those “outside” their community as pagani. It is unlikely that there was ever a conscious search for a new term. Paganus was simply the most natural term for any Latin speaking community to apply to outsiders.
Quote ID: 6034
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 241 Page: 25
Section: 2C
Words that fill a newly felt need sometimes catch on very quickly (computer-related terminology is an obvious recent illustration), and it is surely no coincidence that paganus caught on a generation after the Constantinian revolution.
Quote ID: 6035
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: 26
Section: 2C
It is true enough that early Christians used “paganism”as “a convenient shorthand for a vast spectrum of cults ranging from the international to the ethnic and local.”{76}
Quote ID: 6036
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: 27
Section: 2C
Fourth-century pagans naturally never referred to themselves as pagans, less because the term was insulting than because the category had no meaning for them.
Quote ID: 6037
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: 27
Section: 2C
When the pagan Longinianus styles himself homo paganus in a letter to Augustine (Ep. 234), the tone of the letter suggest irony. He would certainly not have so styled himself writing to a fellow pagan.
Quote ID: 6038
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 241 Page: 32
Section: 2C
A random survey of a few recent studies of late antique society that employ “polytheist” instead of “pagan” turned up not a single case where the substitution of “pagan” could by any stretch of the imagination have been said to convey a negative bias of any sort.. . . .
But in most cases “pagan” is the simplest, most familiar, and most appropriate term, and I make no further apology for using it.
Quote ID: 6039
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 241 Page: 33
Section: 3C
During his visit to Rome in 357, Constantius II ordered the altar of Victory removed from the senate house, Christian senators had understandably been distressed at having to watch while their pagan peers burned incense before senatorial meetings. Yet during that same visit Constantius walked around Rome admiring the ancient temples, and even filled vacancies in the pontifical colleges, evidently in his capacity as pontifex maximus.{1} The pious emperor may not have performed these duties enthusiastically, but no doubt saw them as a necessary quid pro quo. If he was going to grant a request from Christian senators, it was tactful to grant a parallel request from pagan senators.
Quote ID: 6040
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 241 Page: 93
Section: 3D
In his continuation of Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History, written in 402/3, Rufinus of Aquileia gives a vivid account of the confrontation between Theodosius and Eugenius by the river Frigidus.
Quote ID: 6041
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 241 Page: 94
Section: 3D
Most modern critics have taken Christian representations of the Frigidus more or less literally as historical narratives that describe the defeat of a dangerous pagan uprising, reflecting a perspective unique to the special circumstances of Eugenius’ rebellion. There are problems with this assumption, nor is it enough to concede (as often done) that some of the writers may have exaggerated. The distortion that must be allowed for goes much deeper than simple exaggeration. The truth is that all these accounts are stylized in ways that call into question their claim to be considered historical narratives at all in the modern sense.
Quote ID: 6042
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: xx
Section: 3A4A
Pastor John’s note: (written on inside cover of book).This book is very good at seeing through Christian propaganda. The author demonstrates that there was no cultural-wide distinction between ancient and modern Roman religion (“paganism” and “Christianity”), and convincingly shows the impossibility of making a clear separation of the two, as far as the essentials of the religion are concerned. Since the mid-third century, the bishopric was increasingly political in nature, and after Constantine, it was increasingly expected to be so.
It is a dangerous situation for Christianity when its leaders lose their grip on political power; that is, when the people began to insist on truth and experience rather than claims and threats of divine judgment for unbelief.
Quote ID: 6027
Time Periods: 3457
Book ID: 241 Page: XX
Section: 1A
“It might seem that much of the argument of this book has been negative. There was no pagan revival in the West, no pagan party, no pagan literary circles, no pagan patronage of the classics, no pagan propaganda in art or literature, no pagans editing classical texts, above all, no pagan last stand. But all these apparent negatives actually add up to a resounding positive. So many of the activities, artifacts, and enthusiasms that have been identified as hallmarks of an elaborate, concerted campaign to combat Christianity turn out to have been central elements in the life of cultivated Christians. This is the one area in which paganism (defined as the Roman tradition, Rome’s glorious past) continued to exercise real power and influence on men’s minds. Despite the best attempts of Augustine and other rigorists, the Roman literary tradition played a vital and continuing role in shaping the thought-world of Christians, both at the time and in the centuries to come.”
Quote ID: 9888
Time Periods: 47
Book ID: 241 Page: 133
Section: 3A4A
Priesthoods were regarded as political rewards rather than religious responsibilities.....
The future emperor Galba received the ornamental triumphalia and three priesthoods, one major and two minor, as a reward for victories in Africa and Germany.
Quote ID: 6043
Time Periods: 147
Book ID: 241 Page: 133
Section: 2B
In 274 Aurelian established the new college of pontifices Solis, at once counted among the major priesthoods. {8}
Quote ID: 6045
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 241 Page: 135
Section: 3A4A
For centuries, most aristocrats listed their priesthoods along with all their other honores on cursus inscriptions as a matter of course, . . . and there is no reason to suppose that the situation had changed by at any rate the age of Constantine. The prestige value of Roman priesthoods is clearly enough illustrated by their inclusion in the cursus.
Quote ID: 6046
Time Periods: 01
Book ID: 241 Page: 139
Section: 3A4A,3C
It is not without justification that membership of the priestly college in the early empire has been treated “as an aspect not of Roman religion but of the history of the senatorial elite.”{46} And in the fourth century, as before, it is clear that the qualifications for a priesthood remained either noble birth or (a distant second) a distinguished career.
Quote ID: 6047
Time Periods: 04
Book ID: 241 Page: 139
Section: 3A4A
In the Republic and early empire it was taken for granted that those who presided over the cults of the city should be chosen from among the elite. But the growing pressure of Christianity, with its very different priests, elected at a mature age to lead communities of Christians, may eventually have prompted more religiously inclined pagans to see their pontifical duties in a new light.
Quote ID: 6048
Time Periods: 045
Book ID: 241 Page: 141
Section: 3C
While the pontificatus Flavialis was technically a “pagan” cult, it was a cult sanctioned by and actually named after Constantine. Its award was a mark of imperial favor. Though an aristocrat of old Rome, Proculus enjoyed high favor with Constantine.. . . .
The base of his statue in the Forum of Trajan preserves a flattering letter from Constantine himself (p. 9).
Quote ID: 6049
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 241 Page: 151
Section: 3A4A
In this context Praetextatus’s famous quip that he would become a Christian if he was made pope takes on a new meaning. Nobles like Praetextatus and Kamenius would not have been happy to find themselves rank-and-file catechumens, gathering in groups with women and children to be instructed by some lowborn presbyter. They took it for granted that they were born to be top dogs in any religion they joined.
Quote ID: 6050
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: 158
Section: 2C,3A4A
In the high empire the man in the Roman street knew, when comparing two otherwise parallel cursuses, that priesthoods implied noble birth and imperial favor. But by the second half of the fourth century priesthoods must have come to be viewed quite differently, by both Christians and pagans. The Christian man in the street was likely to see a pontifex as something like a pagan bishop and a quindecimvir sacris faciundis as someone personally stained with the blood of sacrifice. Aristocrats would not have continued to spend fortunes on games (Symmachus 2,000 pounds of gold on the praetorian games of his son) unless popular favor was still important to them. When they held (as most of them did sooner or later) the prefecture of Rome, they were faced with the delicate responsibility of provisioning the city. There were constant famines and riots. The elder Symmachus was not the only noble to have his fine Trastevere mansion burned down by a rampaging mob. In an increasingly Christian Rome, it was unwise for nobles to run further risks by “advertising” their paganism to everyone who passed their dedications in the public spaces of Rome on a daily basis. The reason members of the Roman elite had in the past routinely listed priesthoods along with the rest of their honores was the prestige they brought. Even before the 380s it was becoming clear that they were now becoming liabilities. It was not prudent to flaunt them.
Quote ID: 6051
Time Periods: 124
Book ID: 241 Page: 162
Section: 2E1
Prudentius had no idea who the flamines were or what they did (or used to do). He did not even know the best-attested thing about them, that they wore a special spiked cap (galerus or apex). {130}
Quote ID: 6052
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 241 Page: 164
Section: 3A1B,3A4A,4B
Symmachus felt he could not do this “when so many are neglecting their priestly duties”. It is here that he makes his much-quoted remark that “it is now a way of currying favor for Romans to desert the altars”. What has not been sufficiently appreciated is that this is not a comment on the small numbers of pagans left because of the inroads of Christianity. It is a complaint about the small number of pontiffs who took the trouble to show up, whether at meetings of the college or at the festivals.. . . .
Ep. i.47 reproaches Praetextatus for vacationing at Baiae while Symmachus performs his pontifical duties in Rome, and while the tone is playful (“there is much to be discussed in our college; who allowed you a holiday from your public responsibilities?”), Symmachus devotes four sentences to the point.
Quote ID: 6053
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: 165
Section: 3A4A,3A4B
The consulate was the supreme honor available to a private citizen (even rarer now that so many went to emperors and their sons), while membership of the priestly colleges (even assuming they still existed) was a distinction shared with scores of others, a distinction that came to nobles like Tertullus unsolicited in their teens. {141}It is hard not to connect this text with a strikingly similar passage in Paulinus of Nola, urging Augustine’s young protege Licentius in 396 to renounce his worldly ambitions and follow Augustine’s footsteps: “If you heed and follow Augustine. . . then indeed you will be fashioned consul and priest, not in the phantom of a dream, but in reality.” And then, “For Licentius will be truly a pontifex and truly a consul, if you hug the footsteps of Augustine... tread the ways of God in close attendance on your master, so that you may learn... to deserve the priesthood.”{142} To be both consul and pontifex had been the summit of a Roman noble’s ambitions since the days of the Republic.”{143}
Quote ID: 6054
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: 165
Section: 3A1B,3A4A
The latest Roman pontifex known is Symmachus himself, who died in 402. No pontifex, augur, or quindecimvir is known to have lived later than 402.
Quote ID: 6055
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: 166
Section: 4B
Goddard claimed that the great Roman families remained pagan down to the late fifth century. But it is important to distinguish between the possibility that a few (perhaps more than a few) nobles continued in the privacy of their homes to drop a few grains of incense on a domestic altar, and the continued existence of the priestly colleges. According to Liebeschuetz, when Gratian renounced the title of pontifex maximus, this means that “there would be no one to fill vacancies in the priestly colleges, which would therefore die out.”
Quote ID: 6056
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 241 Page: 167
Section: 3A4A
The fact is that, on the evidence we have, Symmachus (402) is the latest known pontifex, Praetextatus (384) the latest known augur, Kamenius (385) the latest known quindecimvir, Coelia Concordia (385) the latest known Vestal, and Q. Clodius Flavianus (if he outlived Kamenius) the latest known septemvir epulonum.. . . .
There is no indication that any pagan noble born later than ca.360 ever held any of the old priesthoods. The colleges were not abolished; they simply faded away as their older members died off, in the first decade of the fifth century.
Quote ID: 6057
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: 167
Section: 3A1B,3A4A
Moderns tend to assume that nobles with many priesthoods were more dedicated pagans. In fact, the accumulation of more than two major priesthoods in a single person should probably be seen as an early sign of the decline of the priesthoods.. . . .
It may be that someone like Symmachus, who restricted himself to a single priesthood and took the trouble to attend as many meetings as he could, was actually serving the state cults better than those who ostentatiously filled their cursuses with a multitude of priesthoods they had no time for.
Quote ID: 6058
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: 168
Section: 3A4A
There is little evidence that official Roman paganism survived the fourth century. By this I do not mean that Roman paganism itself died out (in a variety of ways and forms it never entirely died). Nor do I mean that no individual pagans were left. But there can (I would argue) be no serious doubt that the formal apparatus of the state cults as administered by the various priestly colleges was gone. There is one highly significant piece of evidence that has never so far been exploited by historians. The grammarian Servis frequently and systematically refers to pontifices, flamines, and countless details of sacrifice and other cult practices in his Vergil commentary, published in (at least) the 420s in the imperfect tense (Ch. 16.3). This, that, or the other was what the priest used to do or say.
Quote ID: 6059
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 241 Page: 169
Section: 2E4
The Codex Calendar of 354 has reduced the number of pagan festivals illustrated to four; while an early fifth-century mosaic from Carthage has only one.{154} And that one is the consular games of the first week of January, which, like many other ludi, certainly continued. The long series of consular diptychs show consuls, all now Christian, spending fortunes year after year on their (now entirely de-paganized) consular games in both Rome and Constantinople, right down to the Basilius who celebrated the last consulate of all, at Rome, in 541.{155}Pastor John’s note: “The previous forms of pagan worship had fallen out of favor, but what is it that had not fallen out of favor? Answer: ceremony and desire for political status.
Quote ID: 6060
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 241 Page: 171
Section: 3A1B,3A4A
There is no reason to suppose the pontiffs were more pious than other pagans, or in any but a purely titular sense pagan leaders. In view of their wealth and social importance as aristocrats they were certainly the most authoritative representatives of Roman paganism, and so the obvious spokesmen to protest at the Christian abrogation of state subsidies for the cults in 382. On the other hand, they were not necessarily the most committed champions available. Indeed, the very fact that they were so prominent, both socially and politically, may have meant that most were unwilling to commit their prestige too decisively to a losing cause. Pontifices did not in any sense represent a pagan community in the sense that Christian clergy represented the Christian community.With a few pagan counterparts to bishops like Athanasius or Ambrose to rally the troops, the fate of Roman paganism just might have been different. But pagan priests known to have been appointed in their teens and twenties on the basis of birth and connections could hardly command either the authority needed for the task or the respect of their Christian counterparts. More important, it does not seem to have occurred to them to make the attempt. Men like Kamenius, Praetextatus, Flavian, and Symmachus were first and foremost aristocrats and landowners, not priests. The very fact that their descendants continued to hold high office in a Christian world is enough to show that it was their families and estates, not the cults, that they saw as their primary responsibilities.
Quote ID: 6061
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: 173
Section: 1A
Ever since Gibbon enumerated the “secondary” causes for the spread of Christianity (the primary cause, naturally, being “the convincing evidence of the doctrine itself”), historians have sought to trace, date, and account for the Christianization of the Roman world.PJ note: He held that there were 5 secondary causes. They were such things as the unity and zeal of Xty - and miracles.
Quote ID: 6062
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 241 Page: 173
Section: 3A4A
As Henry Chadwick charmingly put it, “Pagans did not know they were pagans until the Christians told them they were.” {1} Even then, no pagan would have thought of himself as a pagan except in relation to Christians.. . . .
It is also a problem that we have so few conversion stories – for the aristocracy, none.
Quote ID: 6063
Time Periods: 456
Book ID: 241 Page: 173/174
Section: 3A2B,4B
We have the outline of a conversion for one minor member of the nobility, a certain Firmicus Maternus, vir clarissimus, inferred from his two surviving works: the Mathesis, an astrological work undoubtedly written by a pagan, and De errore profanarum religionum, the most intemperate surviving work of Christian polemic. What we do not have, unfortunately, is a narrative, any account of how and why Maternus turned from paganism to such an aggressive form of Christianity. {2}. . . .
If we had only his Mathesis, he would have been confidently classified as a pagan. The ferocious polemic of the De errore might seem to imply a powerful conversion experience between the two works that produced an evangelical fervor.{3} But there is another possibility, persuasively argued by Caseau.{4} Given the suspicion inevitably aroused by opportune conversions among ambitious members of the elite, such converts were under some pressure to prove their conversions genuine. Take Arnobius’s Adversus Nationes. Though often described as Christian apologetic, according to Jerome Arnobius wrote the book to convince a bishop, skeptical because in his pagan days he had attacked Christianity, that he was a genuine convert. {5}
. . . .
We should bear in mind that his Mathesis (337) opens with a flattering dedication to a prominent pagan, Lollianus Mavortius, whose distinguished career Firmicus obsequiously traces from office to office, apostrophizing him no fewer than thirty times in the course of his book, just as he repeatedly apostrophizes Constantius and Constans in De errore.{9} While no doubt delighted to observe the conversion of a former pagan man of letters and protégé of pagan aristocrats, skeptical Christians might need to be convinced that he really had rejected his pagan past.
Quote ID: 6064
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: 175
Section: 2D,2D3B
After studying Christian writings for some years in private, Victorinus told his friend the Christian priest Simplicianus that he was “now a Christian.”“I shall not believe that or count you among the Christians,” Simplicianus replied, “until I see you in the church of Christ.”
“Do then walls make a Christian?” Victorinus famously responded.
They had this conversation many times, until one day he finally said to Simplicianus, “Let’s go to church; I want to become a Christian” (volo Christianus fieri).
Not the least interesting detail in this story is the implication that, but for Simplicianus’s insistence, Victorinus might have continued to believe that his personal acceptance of Christian teaching was enough to make him a Christian, without the need to confess his faith publicly in church. That public confession in front of a crowd of their social inferiors must have been particularly hard for Roman aristocrats.
Quote ID: 6065
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 241 Page: 175
Section: 1A,3C,4B
For those brought up in the world of civic cults and private initiations, it cannot have been easy to comprehend the exclusive, absolute commitment Christianity demanded. During much of the fourth century, there must have been many who took a genuine interest in Christianity and presented or considered themselves as Christians but, while rejecting sacrifice to what they were willing to accept were false gods, still followed (say) pagan burial customs, continued to watch a favorite festival, or occasionally consulted a haruspex. Rigorist would have dismissed such folk as not better than outright pagans.. . . .
Take Bacurius, an Iberian chieftain who rose to the rank of magister militum in Theodosius’s army at the Frigidus. Rufinus was in no doubt that he was a sincere Christian, but Libanius seems to have thought of him as a pagan (PLREi. 144). Both men actually knew him, and, by itself, the opinion of either would have been considered decisive by any modern scholar. But what do we do with both?
4B
Quote ID: 6066
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: 176
Section: 1A
The classic illustration is Domitius Modestus, who professed Christianity under Constantius, came out as a pagan under Julian, and returned to (Arian) Christianity again under Valens.3C
Quote ID: 6067
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 241 Page: 176
Section: 1A
And when Faustus the Manichee called Christians semi-Christians, Augustine responded that “something that is ‘semi’ is imperfect in some respect, but still not false in any respect,” adding that all Christians were striving to make their faith more perfect. {15}3C
Quote ID: 6068
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 241 Page: 177
Section: 1A
I would not suppose that there was ever more than a relatively small proportion of the entire population in either of the “committed” groups. The major shift, as I see it, would be from the center-pagan to the center-Christian category. From about 340 to (say) 430 I would guess that some three-quarters of the one passed into the other.3C
Quote ID: 6069
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 241 Page: 179
Section: 1A
Barnes laid much weight on a passage in the second book of Prudentius’s Contra Symmachum that list converts to Christianity among the aristocracy of Rome .. . . .
...the context of this passage is the immediate aftermath of the Frigidus at Rome, and there are grounds for believing that the core of Bk I was originally written soon after the Frigidus, as a panegyric on Theodosius (Ch. 9. 4).
. . .
However diligent his inquiries, it would not have been easy to obtain reliable information about the earliest noble converts. Their Christian grandchildren in the very different world of the 390s had every reason to exaggerate. All Prudentius needed was a few prominent Christian family names.
3C
Quote ID: 6070
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 241 Page: 183
Section: 4B
Here we are fortunate enough to have a genuine and more abundant set of statistics, deriving from a source that has yet to be fully exploited by historians, the more than twelve thousand 37 sculptured sarcophagi found in and around Rome, dating from the early second to the early fifth century. Few are dated exactly, but most can be assigned a date to within a couple of decades on stylistic grounds. On the latest available figures there are 788 pagan and 71 Christian sarcophagi dating from 270-300; 317 pagan and 463 Christian from 300-330; and only 12 pagan but 325 Christian from 330-400. {38} Christian are already outnumbering pagan sarcophagi before the death of Constantine.
Quote ID: 6071
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 241 Page: 183
Section: 1A
The closing of the temples in the first half of the 390s marked the end of public paganism, but that tells us nothing about hearts and minds.. . . .
The Bassus sarcophagus is justly celebrated as a masterpiece of classicizing high relief sculpture. There are also dozens of other high-quality Christian sarcophagi lacking exact dates but judged even earlier, to cite only one, the so-called Two Brothers Sacrophagus, generally placed between 330 and 350. {49}.
. . . .
The high-end art market of Rome was clearly targeting rich Christians of noble birth as early as the 350s.
2A1
Quote ID: 6072
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 241 Page: 185/186
Section: 4B
Then there are Jerome’s attacks on the Christian society of Rome during his stay of 382-85. Scores of passages lambaste the Roman clergy for their greed, venality, hypocrisy, gluttony, and corruption, nor does he spare the Christian nobility on whom they preyed. {51}. . . .
Jerome’s vivid sketches are (of course) exaggerations, not to say caricatures, inspired as much by literature as real life. But they clearly imply an established, surely second generation Christian elite, not a few recent converts.
Quote ID: 6073
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: 186
Section: 4B,3A1
In fact, it helps to explain Jerome’s famous anecdote about Praetextatus telling Damasus that he would convert at once if he could be bishop of Rome, a joke implying that, in the eyes of a leading pagan noble of the 360s, the bishop of Rome was a man of wealth and power, a priest with the social status of a pontifex or augur.
Quote ID: 6074
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: 195
Section: 3D
It is a mistake to see the occasional pagan prefect in the first decade or two of the fifth century as proof that paganism remained strong and anti-pagan legislation ineffective. No individual pagan could have used the nine or ten months of his prefecture to do much more for the pagan cause than restore a few statues. Indeed, pagans who accepted high office from Christian emperors were more likely to be seen as collaborators than champions of the cause. Heresy was the real worry for both church and court. As far as paganism was concerned, it was enough that there was no more sacrifice and the temples were closed. The stragglers would soon come over.
Quote ID: 6075
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 241 Page: 197
Section: 3D
If he remained a catechumen for many years, {115} Volusianus was no doubt a poor Christian, the despair of his pious niece. But there is no evidence that he was ever a committed pagan, much less as late as his prefecture of 428-29. As Peter Brown wrote in 1967, Volusianus was born into “a post-pagan world,” a man who at best knew the pagan cults from books, not the streets and temples. {116}
Quote ID: 6076
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 241 Page: 203
Section: 4B
Thirty-seven years after the Frigidus [PJ: Battle in 394 between Theodosius (east) and Eugenius (west)], the “pagan ringleader” of modern textbooks [PJ: Eugenius?] may have appeared to contemporaries much as he does in Macrobius’s Saturnalia, a great man of a bygone age, whose one mistake was to have joined the wrong side in a civil war. A pagan, to be sure, but then so were the ancestors of many good Christians of the 430s. Fifth-century Christian aristocrats felt no embarrassment about their pagan forbears.. . . .
That is to say, his Christianity is an extra layer on top of the qualities he has inherited from his pagan ancestors. Despite their paganism, those ancestors are not rejected.
Quote ID: 6077
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 241 Page: 206
Section: 4B
It is often claimed of writers who fall into this category that such and such a passage “could not have been written by a Christian.” At best, this means that a well-informed and observant Christian is not likely to have written thus. But a poorly informed or not very pious Christian might have. And even a well-informed and observant Christian might have if he was writing in a classicizing genre, for example an epithalmium or a panegyric, whether in prose or (especially) verse. If all we had from the pen of Sidonius Apollinaris was his imperial panegyrics, and we knew nothing about his life beyond these poems, it might well have been argued that he was a pagan.
Quote ID: 6078
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 241 Page: 206
Section: 4B
The survival of Sidonius’s correspondence puts it beyond doubt that he had always been a Christian, who eventually entered the church and ended his days as a bishop. As late as 468 (his panegyric on Anthemius), audiences at western courts clearly still enjoyed classicizing poetry full of the old mythology.
Quote ID: 6079
Time Periods: 567
Book ID: 241 Page: 207
Section: 4B
Many (too many) studies have been devoted to the religious beliefs of Rutilius. One or two outliers have allowed the possibility that he was a Christian; the great majority have concluded that he was a pagan, with many insisting that he was an ardent pagan who hated Christians.. . . .
Claudio Bondi’s 2003 film de Reditu (il ritorno) represents Rutilius returning to Gaul in order to raise an army to overthrow the Christian government of Ravenna (excerpts available on YouTube). He would (I suspect) have been very disappointed if he had tried to rally the now largely Christian aristocracy of Roman Gaul for any such attempt.
Quote ID: 6080
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 241 Page: 207/208
Section: 4B
Take the case of Claudian. Augustine calls him “alien from the name of Christ,” but we do not know whether he had positive information or was just guessing from his poems. Orosius calls him a “most stubborn pagan,” but otherwise simply copied the passage he quotes from Augustine. The “pagan” imagery of which critics once used to make so much is now recognized to be purely literary.{5} While there is no way of discovering his personal beliefs, there is one thing we do know for certain: all his poems were written for Christian patrons and publicly performed in front of an overwhelmingly Christian audience at court in Milan and (later) Ravenna.4B
Quote ID: 6081
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 241 Page: 208
Section: 4B
In the most famous passage of his poem, Rutilius eloquently describes how Rome has always risen with renewed and increased strength from her defeats, whether the Gauls, the Samnites, Pyrrhus, or Hannibal.
Quote ID: 6082
Time Periods: 15
Book ID: 241 Page: 209
Section: 5D
There is in fact one further scrap of evidence. In the course of a bitter invective against the Jews (i. 395-98), Rutilius makes the point that, ironically enough, it was Titus’s conquest of Judaea that dispersed the Jews throughout the world:Once the pest was destroyed its contagion spread far and wide;
the conquered nation overwhelmed its own conquerors.
Commentators have long noticed the close similarity in both thought and language between the last line and fragment 42 of Seneca’s De Superstitione, also an invective on the Jews: “the customs of this detestable race become so prevalent that they have been adopted in every part of the world; the conquered have imposed their laws on their conquerors” (victi victoribus leges dederunt). That captive Greece had captured Rome was a commonplace, but Seneca is Rutilius’s only known predecessor in applying the same epigram to the Jewish Diaspora.
Quote ID: 6083
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 241 Page: 209
Section: 1A,4B
But where did he read them? Seneca’s prose writings were not fashionable in the pagan circles of the later empire. His style was severely criticized by Fronto and Gellius, and he is seldom quoted by the grammarians.. . . .
As early as the second century close parallels to New Testament ideas and phrases were noted in his writings, and to Tertullian he was Seneca saepe noster. By the fourth century it was even believed that he had known St. Paul, and a correspondence between them (in bad Latin) was duly produced to prove it.
PJ note: Seneca saepe noster means “almost one of us”.
. . . .
Jerome went so far as to include Seneca in his catalogue of Christian writers. Of all his works, De Superstitione was the one most likely to be read by Christians rather than pagans. For the attack it contains on the Roman state religion was, according to Augustine, “fuller and sharper” than even Varro’s (CD iv. 10)
Quote ID: 6084
Time Periods: 145
Book ID: 241 Page: 211/212
Section: 2E2
Jerome himself reveals by describing a pious young man as “burning daily to make his way to the monasteries of Egypt…or at least to live a lonely life in the Dalmatian islands.”{14} This is why he insists that there was not a blade of grass or a leaf of shade on Bonosus’s island.. . . .
The earliest known example is St. Martin, who lived for a year or two ca. 358 on the island of Gallinaria with a single companion.{15} The generally hostile reaction of urban elites was not unconnected with the fact that deportation to an uninhabited island (relegatio) had long been a standard form of imprisonment for members of the Roman elite.
. . . .
It has been suspected that Martin’s was a case of imprisonment rather than voluntary withdrawal,{18} and it is surely no coincidence that both Jerome and Rutilius introduce prison terms, albeit metaphorically, into their descriptions.
Quote ID: 6085
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 241 Page: 217/218
Section: 4B
The Rome of Rutilius’s eulogy is not the brick and marble fifth-century city but Roma the symbol and personification of an empire. Roma is apostrophized as the goddess who made a single fatherland for nations far apart (63), made a city of what was once a world (66), the goddess every corner of her dominion celebrates (79). In the diction of poetry, dea Roma means no more than the personification with helmet, shield, and one bare breast that are her attributes in art and literature, Christian no less than pagan, down into the sixth century. Rutilius’s white-haired Roma rejuvenated by the defeat of the Goths derives from Claudian, but then so does Prudentius’s Roma, rejuvenated by her conversion to Christianity.{55}. . . .
No educated fifth-century Christian would have found anything objectionable in Rutilius’s stirring eulogy of Rome.
Quote ID: 6086
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 241 Page: 223
Section: 3C2,4B
His account of Olybrius’s city prefecture is another fascinating illustration of Ammianus’s technique:He never deviated from a humane policy, and took great pains to ensure that no word
or act of his should be accounted harsh. He punished slander severely, pruned the profits of the treasury wherever he could, drew a sharp distinction between right and wrong, and all in all was an admirable judge and very mild towards those he governed. Nevertheless, these good qualities were overshadowed by a defect, which did little harm to the community but was discreditable in a high official. His private life verged on the luxurious and was almost entirely devoted to the stage and to women, though his liaisons were not criminal or incestuous. (28. 4. 2)
A seemingly glowing testimonial-with a sting in the tail. Once again, Barnes detects an explanation in terms of Olybrius’s Christianity. But this would be a strangely oblique way of attacking a man for his religion.
Pastor John notes: Ammianus was a pagan.
Quote ID: 6087
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 241 Page: 224
Section: 3A2B,3C
Compare the rather similar passage where Ammianus describes the city prefecture of the elder Symmachus, “a man of the most exemplary learning and discretion” and a pillar of the pagan establishment:Through his efforts [Rome]…can boast of a splendid and solid bridge which he restored and dedicated, to the great joy of the citizens, who nevertheless some years later demonstrated their ingratitude in the plainest way. They set fire to his beautiful house across the Tiber, enraged by a story, invented without a shred of evidence by some worthless ruffian, that Symmachus had said he would rather use his wine to quench lime-kilns than sell it at the reduced price that the people were hoping for. (27.3.4)
Quote ID: 6088
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 241 Page: 228
Section: 3C,3D
It has been plausibly conjectured that it was Drepanius himself who compiled the corpus of the Panegyrici Latini, all of which, like Drepanius, have strong Gallic connections.{89} Imperial panegyric is a highly conventional form, to start with apparently unaffected by the conversion of Constantine, who is the subject of no fewer than five of the speeches. They are characterized by “a neutral monotheism which would be acceptable to Christians and pagans alike.”{90}. . . .
Among those who came out of Emona in procession to greet Theodosius, [see symbol] 37 describes flamines venerable in their purple robes and pontifices wearing apices, the conical hat worn by various pagan priests. But no mention of Christian clergy. Section 4.5 has been generally thought to go further than most divine comparisons:
Let the land of Crete, famous as the cradle of the child Jupiter, and Delos, where the divine twins learned to crawl, and Thebes, illustrious as the nursemaid of Hercules, yield to this land. We do not know whether to credit the stories we have heard, but Spain has given us a god we can actually see” (deum…quem videmus).
Would even the most liberal Christian have followed classicizing conventions that far? In this case the answer is yes.
. . . .
Thanks to a brilliant recent discovery by Turcan-Verkerk, we now know that Drepanius (as he should be called) was not only a Christian, but the author of devotional poetry. We can now read one of his poems, an openly Christian piece titled On the Pascal Candle. {93}
Quote ID: 6089
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: 229
Section: 4B
Drepanius’s classical culture stands out in sharper relief in that there is not a single allusion to the Bible, here again unlike his contemporary and fellow disciple of Ausonius, Paulinus of Nola, who not infrequently quotes Scripture in his poems. {97}
Quote ID: 6090
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: 230
Section: 4B
This is a discovery with important ramifications. It is not just the puzzle of Pacatus Drepanius that has finally been solved. The solution raises the bar for similar puzzles in the future. If the pious Christian his poem reveals him to have been can refer to “the god who is your consort,” describe the dress of flamines and pontifices as venerable, and call a Christian emperor to his face “a god we can see,” it makes it harder to know at what point we can say with confidence that this or that classicizing formula could not have been written by a Christian.Pastor John’s note: We have not yet seen “The Last Pagans of Rome”.
2E5
Quote ID: 6091
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 241 Page: 231
Section: 1A
Macrobius’s Saturnalia is a key text for any evaluation of the intellectual interests of the elite of late fourth- and fifth-century Rome. Some of the most distinguished “nobles and other learned men” of the age gather to devote the holiday from which the dialogue takes its name to literary conversation.
Quote ID: 6092
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 241 Page: 256
Section: 4B
It was in the pages following this passage that Boissier enunciated his famous doctrine of a general pagan “conspiracy of silence” about Christianity. He had been amazed to find no mention of Christianity in the pagan grammarians, orators, poets, and historians of the age.. . . .
The silence is deafening enough, but is conspiracy the right word or contempt the right explanation?
Quote ID: 6093
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 241 Page: 256
Section: 2B,3C
More will be said on the subject in later chapters: for the moment it will suffice to refer to Liebeschuetz’s discussion of the “neutral monotheism” of fourth-century panegyric as providing “a wide area of common ground between Christians and pagans.” {106} We should not be misled by the polemical writings of an aggressive Christian minority. For the majority on both sides who wished to avoid confrontation, the “conspiracy of silence” was actually a welcome solution.2B
Quote ID: 6094
Time Periods: 234
Book ID: 241 Page: 265
Section: 2B,3C
So was Macrobius himself a pagan? Surely not – at any rate not a committed pagan. One of the most widely discussed passages in the entire Saturnalia is the long discourse on solar theology put in Praetextatus’s mouth in Bk i (17-23), arguing that almost all the gods of the Graeco-Roman pantheon (and a few others as well) represent one aspect or another of the sun.
Quote ID: 6095
Time Periods: 245
Book ID: 241 Page: 271
Section: 2C
For any Roman antiquarian who had done his homework, paganus meant “countryman.” But among Christians, of course, the standard meaning of the word was not “pagan” (Ch.1).
Quote ID: 6096
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: 396/398
Section: 3A1B,4B
The diversion of choice for many rich Romans vacationing on their estates was hunting. But Symmachus, like Pliny before him disclaimed both interest and expertise, and affects to believe that his closer friends like-wise devoted their country trips to reading rather than hunting. {200}. . . .
Symmachus and his friends were following a social pattern that goes back through Pliny to the age of the Republic. Cicero and his peers regularly kept their libraries in their various villas, where they did their serious reading and writing.
. . . .
We have already touched on the Epigrammata Bobiensia, prominently featuring work by the nonagenarian Naucellius.
It is summed up in poem 5:
Here I pursue my studies and my leisure devoted to the Muses…Thus I delight to live and extend my calm old age, re-reading the learned books of the writers of old.
This notion of gentlemanly studious leisure was by no means restricted to pagans.
. . . .
Symmachus’s Christian friend Mallius Theodorus withdrew from a distinguished public career to “dedicate his leisure to the Muses” (otia Musis), in the words of his panegyrist Claudian.
. . . .
A number of consequences may be drawn. First, the centrality of the country retreat in this conception of literary otium spectacularly underlines the elite nature of the culture it fostered. It is precisely the fact that it was above all a social marker that explains why the traditional culture was so enthusiastically embraced by Christian members and would-be members of that same elite. For the same reason it is unlikely even to have occurred to pagans to use the culture they shared as a weapon in the battle against their Christian peers – much less to proselytize their inferiors. {215} It was the only culture there was. The idea that love of the classics formed a bond between pagans in particular rather than members of the elite in general is neither probable in itself nor borne out by the available evidence.
Quote ID: 6097
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 241 Page: 567
Section: 4B
Enough has already been said about the popularity of classicizing poetry at the Christian courts of Milan and Ravenna.{2} It is easy to see why people like Augustine were distressed to see Christians applauding poems on Christian emperors decked out with pagan gods and goddesses, elaborately described in all their traditional dress and paraphernalia.3D
Quote ID: 6098
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 241 Page: 567/568
Section: 4B
That late fourth-and fifth-century western culture was dominated by Virgil needs no demonstration. The writings, prose as well as verse, of all educated people, Christians no less than pagans, were steeped in Virgilian echoes and quotations.{5}
Quote ID: 6099
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 241 Page: 585/586
Section: 4B
Perhaps the most intriguing Macrobian conception is Vergil the pontifex maximus. In i. 24 he represents his interlocutors mapping out the course of their future discussions. Symmachus announces that he will cover rhetoric in Vergil. Next comes Praetextatus, in a passage quoted out of context:Of all the high qualities for which Virgil is praised, my constant reading of his poems leads me to admire the great learning with which he has observed the rules of pontifical law in many different parts of his work, as if he had made a special study of it. If my discourse does not prove unequal to so lofty a topic, I undertake to show that our Vergil may fairly be regarded as a pontifex maximus. (i.24.16)
. . . .
For Macrobius, the key factor is the learning displayed by the citation. In context, pontifex masimus has less the modern associations of “high priest” than “religious expert.” CHECK SPELLING
. . . .
The same applies to the immediately following sentence, in which Flavian announces the topic of his contribution:
I find in our poet such knowledge of augural law that, even if he were unskilled in all other branches of learning, the exhibition of this knowledge alone would win him high esteem.
Quote ID: 6100
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 241 Page: 741/742
Section: 2B2,4B
It was evidently important to some members of the Christian elite that Christianity should be made to look as classical as possible.. . . .
It was not the Nicomachi or the Symmachi who were the first Roman patrons of the classicizing poet Claudian, but the Christian Anicii. If we are to have any hope of understanding the classicizing taste of the aristocracy of late antique Rome, we must first give up the idea that it has any connection with their religious beliefs. There is no such easy key to the problems of patronage.
Quote ID: 6101
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 241 Page: 801
Section: 1A
“There was no pagan revival in the West, no pagan party, no pagan literary circles, no pagan patronage of the classics, no pagan propaganda in art or literature, no pagans editing classical texts, above all, no pagan last stand. All these apparent negatives actually add up to a resounding positive. So many of the activities, artifacts, and enthusiasms that have been identified as hallmarks of an elaborate, concerted campaign to combat Christianity turn out to have been central elements in the life of cultivated Christians. This is the one area in which paganism (defined as the Roman tradition, Rome’s glorious past) continued to exercise real power and influence on men’s minds.”
Quote ID: 9889
Time Periods: 2347
End of quotes