Religious Violence, or Why Hagiography is Not History

Source: There Is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ: Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire, Michael Gaddis, University of California Press, 2005, pp. 223-228.

 

 

We may gain additional insight into the contested nature of martyrial assertions made by violent zealots by examining another incident in which a claim of martyrdom might conceivably have been made, but was not. The series of violent upheavals connected with John Chrysostom’s expulsion from Constantinople are amply described in a variety of sources. [62] One incident, however, mysteriously absent from all Christian sources, is known to us only through the pagan historian Zosimus. [63] When John left the city for his first exile, there were great disturbances among the people. At this point a rather unusual episode of violence erupted:

While the city was in an uproar, the Christian church was taken over by the so-called monks. (These men renounce lawful marriage and fill populous colleges of bachelors in cities and villages: they are useless for war or any other service to the state. Moreover, from that time to this, they have taken over most of the land and, under the pretext of giving everything to the poor, have reduced almost everyone else to beggary.) These men, then, took over the churches and hindered the people from coming in for their customary prayers. This enraged the commoners and soldiers, who, anxious to humble the monks’ insolence, went out when the signal was given, and violently and indiscriminately killed them all, until the church was filled with bodies. Those who tried to escape were pursued and anyone who happened to be wearing dark clothes was struck down, so that many died with them who were found in this garb because of mourning or some other tragic chance. [64]

The identity and allegiance of the various warring groups mentioned in this passage has been subject to some debate. Although it is well known that the people of Constantinople were in large part enthusiastic followers of Chrysostom, while much of the lower clergy and most of the city’s monastic establishment had turned against him because of his overzealous reform efforts, the suggestion that the soldiers sided with the people against the monks might seem confusing given that the imperial government at that time was trying hard to get rid of Chrysostom and would soon turn to brutal persecution of his followers. Timothy Gregory offers a plausible reconstruction of events. Shortly after John departed for his first exile, the empress Eudoxia was alarmed by the loud demonstrations in his favor and changed her mind, sending her eunuch to bring John back. When the monks heard that John was returning, they registered their protest by seizing the Hagia Sophia and disrupting services. At that point the more zealous popular supporters of John combined with Eudoxia’s soldiers to expel the monks. Other sources, which do not mention this incident specifically, do however make general references to attacks by the people against the monks who had come with Theophilus from Alexandria. When Theophilus departed for Egypt in order to escape the hostility of Chrysostom’s supporters, the monk Isaac, a leader of Constantinopolitan monasticism, felt it necessary to flee with him. [65]

That the soldiers sided with John’s supporters in this case, while in several later incidents they would be opposed to them, should not in and of itself be surprising when we remember that the imperial government’s first concern was not taking a consistent side but rather maintaining law and order. In this case, the monks, by illegally seizing and occupying the city’s main church and disrupting services, were overthrowing both public and ecclesiastical order within sight of the imperial palace. Such a usurpation could not be tolerated, and so soldiers were sent to expel the offenders. Chrysostom’s popular supporters, meanwhile, performed a usurpation of their own: seizing the opportunity, they took the law into their own hands and turned what was supposed to be a police action against a specific group of rebel monks into a general massacre of monks, or even of anyone who happened to look like a monk. In later incidents, similar acts of lawlessness attributed to John’s supporters—most notably the burning of the same Great Church—drove the imperial government to turn against them and begin a harsh campaign of repression.

Monks, zealous men of Christ, had been slaughtered by the dozens if not more, their blood spilled within the very precincts of the Hagia Sophia, at the hands of an enraged mob and of armed soldiers. Such a lurid picture of sacrilegious violence within church walls might recall other massacres, such as the attack that fell upon John’s supporters in their church in the middle of baptismal rites a few months later, or the brutal assault made by the Homoian bishop Lucius against the Nicene congregation of Alexandria thirty years previously. [66] And yet no Christian source reports any expression of sympathy for the victims of this massacre, and there is certainly no evidence that the slain monks were venerated as martyrs or even that any such claim was ever made on their behalf.

In fact, no surviving Christian source mentions the incident at all—a surprising omission considering the great attention and detailed presentation given by all the fifth-century church historians, as well as other sources, to other events in the turbulent months surrounding Chrysostom’s deposition and exile. One possible explanation for their silence is that this incident would have pointed up an embarrassing problem in historiographical presentation. To put it simply, the fifth-century church historians, like most religious historiographers, preferred to write Christian history around clear-cut distinctions between heroes and villains—Christians versus pagans, Nicenes versus Arians. The case of Chrysostom was considerably complicated by the fact that not only John but also several of his most bitter opponents came to be venerated in later Christian tradition as saints. [67] If both sides in such a battle could claim the mantle of holiness, their disputes could not easily be presented as struggles on behalf of the faith and could at best cause confusion and embarrassment. Socrates’ report of the confrontation between John and Epiphanius, monk and bishop of Salamis, presented the curious spectacle of two holy men, equally beloved by God, hurling curses at each other. Epiphanius prophesied that John “will not die a bishop” and John countered with the prediction that Epiphanius would never again see his home country. [68] The holy man’s curse, a public prediction or invocation of divine vengeance upon an evildoer, is a common feature in hagiography. But in this case, the cursing was reciprocal. Since both men were saints, both predictions came true: John was soon deposed, and Epiphanius died on his way back to Cyprus.

Some of Chrysostom’s most implacable enemies also happened to be the stars of Constantinopolitan monasticism, such as Isaac, revered (at least in Nicene orthodox tradition) as the founding father of monasticism in the imperial capital. [69] Isaac was only the first in a series of Constantinopolitan archimandrites to seek the assistance of a patriarch of Alexandria in order to challenge the authority of a patriarch of Constantinople. [70] But in this case the hagiographical traditions of the Constantinopolitan monks did their best to downplay or ignore any conflict between bishop and monastic leaders. [71] Although Isaac was probably not among the monks who seized the Hagia Sophia, those monks would have looked to him as their spiritual leader and would have believed that they were acting in support of him or perhaps even at his direction. But Isaac’s spiritual authority could not match the veneration that the people of Constantinople felt for their bishop. Eventually this veneration forced both imperial government and church establishment to rehabilitate John’s memory and to return his relics to the city. [72] In such a climate, any significant veneration for the slain monks, outside of their own monasteries, was unlikely.

Indeed, evidence for claims of holy zeal and righteous violence survive not for the monks, but from John’s side. Chrysostom, in a sermon thought to have been given on his return from the first exile, praised his supporters for their steadfast loyalty and bravery in his absence. In a likely reference to the battle at Hagia Sophia, he remarked: “The soldiers were armed, not only did the church become a military camp, but the city a church. . . . You have secured the cooperation of the empress . . . she went about everywhere, not indeed in person, but through her own military escort.” John then made an explicit declaration as to which side had acted legitimately: “I say these things not to lead you into insurrection, for theirs is the insurrection, while yours is zeal.” [73] The violence of the monks was an act of usurpation, and John assured his supporters that they had acted rightly—with godly zeal—in punishing them. [74]

In June of 404, once John had been exiled again (this time not to return) these same zealous followers of his were accused of setting fire to the Great Church, creating a conflagration that also consumed the nearby senate house and even threatened the palace. The imperial authorities used the suspicion of arson as an excuse to begin a harsh repression of John’s supporters. The church historians were unsure as to where to assign responsibility for the fire. Socrates simply said that the “Johannites” set the fire, but Sozomen reported that the fire broke out, perhaps accidentally, in the confusion during a battle between the Johannites and their opponents in the church—an equally plausible scenario. [75] Palladius, who can reasonably be called John’s hagiographer, offered a very different explanation for the fire. When John left the church, the “angel of the church” had gone with him, leaving only a dark and deserted sanctuary:

After this unutterable and inexplicable darkness there appeared a flame in the middle of the throne where John used to sit. It was just as the heart situated in the middle of the body controls the other members and communicates the oracles of the Lord. The flame looked for the expounder of the Word, and not finding him, it consumed the church furnishings. Then it took shape like a tree and grew up through the rafters to the very roof. . . . It was as though God were paying the wages of iniquity for the penalty assigned, to chide and warn those who would not be warned except by the sight of these calamities. . . . The fire as though endowed with intelligence leaped over the people in the street like a bridge and destroyed first of all the part closest to the church, but the part on the side of the royal palace. So we cannot say that it really burned because of the proximity of the structures, but it showed that it was only too clear that it had come from heaven. . . . In that whole crowd there was no loss of life, not of man or of beast. But the dirt of those who had carried on in such foul fashion was cleansed by the fire. [76]

The fire came not from John’s supporters on earth, but from heaven, to express God’s anger at the wrong done to his holy man. To John’s followers there could be no greater witness to the right of their cause. The monks previously slaughtered in the same church received no such legitimation, and were quietly forgotten by Christian sources who held reverence for both Chrysostom and his opponents, embarrassed by the fact that these zealous men had been enemies of the great saint. Only a pagan observer, who held equal contempt for both parties, cared to report that story.

 

NOTES

62. Palladius, Dialogue on the Life of Saint John Chrysostom, passim; Socrates HE 6.9–19; Sozomen HE 8.14–24; Theodoret HE 5.34. Cf. also T. Gregory 1979, esp. chap. 2; Kelly 1995, pp. 191–253.

63. For what follows, Zosimus 5.23. T. Gregory 1973 argues convincingly that Zosimus’ report should be taken seriously. This section, like much of Zosimus, seems to have been drawn directly from Eunapius, who would have been an eyewitness to the events described.

64. Zosimus 5.23 (trans. Ridley).

65. Sozomen HE 8.19.

66. Chrysostom, Letter to Pope Innocent. Alexandrian incident described in letter of Bishop Peter, quoted in Theodoret HE 4.22; see chapter 2, pp. 81–82.

67. Even his archrival bishop, Theophilus, though not fondly regarded by Socrates or Palladius, enjoyed a considerable reputation as a champion of the Christian faith against paganism, due largely to his role in the destruction of the Serapeum in 391. Later Coptic ecclesiastical tradition, as represented by the seventh-century John of Nikiu, preserves no memory of any bad blood between the saintly bishop John and the equally saintly bishop Theophilus.

68. Socrates HE 6.14.

69. Homoiousian or “Eustathian” ascetic foundations in the capital preceded Isaac’s arrival by several decades, but their memory was conveniently forgotten in the hagiographical tradition that grew up around Isaac and his followers: see Dagron1970.

70. This pattern would be followed by Dalmatius, who sided with Cyril against Nestorius, and later by Eutyches, who sought the assistance of Dioscorus against Flavian. See chapter 8, pp. 289–297. On Alexandrian-Constantinopolitan ecclesiastical rivalry, see Baynes 1926.

71. See, e.g., Callinicus, Life of Hypatius 11, which mentions the “great love” between Chrysostom and the monks. Only Palladius, most devoted to Chrysostom, ventured to attack Isaac, “that street idler, the guide of the false monks,” by name: Dialogue 6.

72. John was officially restored to the diptychs by bishop Atticus shortly after 412, despite the strenuous objections of Theophilus’ nephew and successor Cyril, who angrily remarked that he would sooner restore Judas: Cyril, Ep. 76. Official annual commemoration at court was introduced by bishop Nestorius in 428 (Marcellinus Comes, ad annum 428) and Chrysostom’s relics were finally returned from Asia Minor and formally deposited in the Church of the Holy Apostles in 438.

73. Stasis gar ta ekeinon, ta de humetera zelos: Chrysostom, Sermo post redditu ab exsilio (PG 52, 443–448), (trans. here from T. Gregory 1973, pp. 79–80). Although the authenticity of the sermon has been questioned, T. Gregory 1973 argues that “it probably represents a valid historical tradition.” Holum 1982, p. 75 n. 107, considers the doubts unfounded; Kelly 1995, pp. 233–234 accepts the sermon as authentic.

74. See discussion in previous chapter of John’s zealous exhortations regarding imitation of the martyrs, p. 171.

75. Socrates HE 6.18; Sozomen HE 8.22. Theodoret did not mention the incident. Zosimus 5.23, like Socrates, stated that John’s followers set the fire.

76. Palladius, Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom 10 (trans. Meyer). The Dialogue can certainly be considered as hagiography in intention, if not in literary form. Cf. discussion in previous chapter of “fire from heaven” miracles, pp. 185–186.