Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (176 page)

89
Eusebius, 250 [VI.2.4-6].

90
Stevenson (ed., 1987), 192-3.

91
J. N. B. Carleton Paget, 'Origen as Exegete of the Old Testament', in M. Saebo (ed.),
Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation
(3 vols., Gottingen, 1996), I, Pt I, 499-542.

92
There has been controversy as to whether the
Hexapla
contained the Hebrew text of the Tanakh, but see A. Grafton and M. Williams,
Christianity and the Transformation of the Book: Origen, Eusebius and the Library of Caesarea
(Cambridge, MA, and London, 2006), 92-6. On the number of books, ibid., 88, 105, on the innovative format, 17, and on Origen's hesitant Hebrew, 112. The Victorian edition was F. Field (ed.),
Origenis Hexaplorum quae supersunt; sive, Veterum interpretum Graecorum in totum Vetus Testamentum fragmenta
(2 vols., Oxford, 1867-75).

93
For a recent thorough corrective to easy assumptions that Alexandrian Christian thought should be read chiefly with reference to Plato and 'middle Platonism', see M. J. Edwards,
Origen against Plato
(Aldershot, 2002).

94
Stevenson (ed., 1987), 206. For the neo-Platonist Porphyry's hostile comments on Origen's use of allegory, see ibid., 207-8.

95
Ibid., 202.

96
Ibid., 199.

97
Commentary on John 20.28, qu. H. Chadwick,
East and West: The Making of a Rift in the Church. From Apostolic Times until the Council of Florence
(Oxford, 2003), 6.

98
G. W. Butterworth (ed.)
Origen: On First Principles
(London, 1936; reprint with further introduction, Gloucester, MA, 1973), 67-68, 110-13.

99
This doctrine is known technically as
apokatastasis.
On this and Origen's cosmic scheme, see Stevenson (ed., 1987), 201-4.

5: The Prince: Ally or Enemy? (100-300)

1
Romans 1.19-32.

2
Useful discussion in W. V. Harris (ed.),
The Spread of Christianity in the First Four Centuries: Essays in Explanation
(Leiden, 2005), esp. 17-23, 158-60.

3
H. Chadwick, 'The Early Church', in Harries and Mayr-Harting (eds.), 1-20, at 9.

4
F. M. Young, 'Prelude: Jesus Christ, Foundation of Christianity', in Mitchell and Young (eds.), 1-35, at 14-15.

5
R. M. Grant, 'Five Apologists and Marcus Aurelius',
Vigiliae Christianae
, 42 (1988), 1-17, at 4-5.

6
H. W. Attridge et al. (eds.),
The Apostolic Tradition
(Minneapolis, 2002), 88, 90, 94.

7
F. Trombley, 'Overview: The Geographical Spread of Christianity', in Mitchell and Young (eds.), 302-23, at 310.

8
It is twice told by Eusebius in his
Church History
, 161 [III.30.6]; 187 [IV.14.6].

9
D. Trobisch,
The First Edition of the New Testament
(Oxford, 2000), esp. 19-21.

10
L. W. Hurtado,
The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins
(Grand Rapids, 2006), esp. on these
nomina sacra
, Ch. 3; Trobisch,
The First Edition of the New Testament
, 11-19.

11
A. Wypustek, 'Un aspect ignore des persecutions des chretiens dans l'Antiquite: les accusations de magie erotique imputees aux chretiens aux II et III siecles',
JAC
, 42 (1999), 50-71, at 58. Cf. J. A. Hanson (ed.),
Apuleius: Metamorphoses
(2 vols., Cambridge, MA, and London, 1989), 179-85 [IX.29-31].

12
Stevenson (ed., 1987), 1-2.

13
C. Ziwsa (ed.),
S. Optati Milevitani libri VII . . . Accedunt decem monumenta vetera ad Donatistarum historiam pertinentia
(
Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
, 26, 1893), Appendix I, 186-7. On Constantine and funerary commemoration, see pp. 292-3.

14
A figure quoted by W. H. C. Frend,
JEH
, 55 (2004), 126.

15
V. Fiocchi Nicolai, F. Bisconti and D. Mazzoleni,
The Christian Catacombs of Rome: History, Decoration, Inscriptions
(Regensburg, 1999), 20-22, 35, 151-3. A further good general introduction is J. Stevenson,
The Catacombs: Rediscovered Monuments of Early Christianity
(London, 1978).

16
M. A. Tilley, 'North Africa', in Mitchell and Young (eds.), 381-96, at 391.

17
J. Huskinson, 'Pagan and Christian in the Third to the Fifth Centuries', in Wolffe (ed.), 13-41, at 22. See text in Stevenson (ed., 1987), 44-5.

18
B. D. Shaw, 'The Passion of Perpetua',
PP
, 139 (May 1993), 3-45, at 22, and
passim
for useful comment.

19
Stevenson (ed., 1987), 18-21.

20
H. Chadwick,
The Early Church
(London, 1967), 52n.

21
Eusebius, 201 [IV.23.4-8].

22
W. A. Meeks, 'Social and Ecclesial Life of the Earliest Christians', in Mitchell and Young (eds.), 145-73, at 171-2; M. M. Mitchell, 'From Jerusalem to the Ends of the Earth', ibid., 295-301, at 295-6. There are, however, instances of second- and early-third-century pilgrimage to the Holy Land, including such figures as Origen, Melito of Sardis and Alexander, Bishop of Cappadocia: see Stringer, 74.

23
H. Chadwick (ed.),
Contra Celsum
(rev. edn, Cambridge, 1965). We must presume that Celsus wrote his attack in Greek, the language in which it is transmitted by Origen.

24
Stevenson (ed., 1987), 136.

25
A useful summary account of these developments is F. Millar with D. Berciu, R. N. Frye, G. Kossack and T. Talbot Rice,
The Roman Empire and Its Neighbours
(London, 1967).

26
'. . . though it was impossible that she could reconcile the practice of vice with the precepts of the gospel, she might hope to atone for the frailties of her sex and professions, by declaring herself the patroness of the Christians': E. Gibbon,
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
(12 vols., London, 1813), II, 446-7 [Ch. 16]. Similarly, the great French Church historian Monsignor Duchesne does not seem to have been immune to the comic aspects of her career when he observed in riposte to Gibbon, 'Her life - in such surroundings - could scarcely be in strict accord with Gospel precepts': L. Duchesne,
Early History of the Christian Church from Its Foundation to the End of the Third Century
(London, 1914), 183, from the 4th French edn., Ch. 13, 251-2.

27
E. Cary (ed.),
Dio's Roman History
(9 vols., Loeb edn, London and Cambridge, MA, 1914-2004), IX, 271-3 [
Epitome of Book LXXVII
14.6].

28
R. Reece, 'Town and Country: The End of Roman Britain',
World Archaeology
, 12 (1980), 77-92, at 80.

29
J. Geffcken,
The Last Days of Greco-Roman Paganism
(rev. edn, Amsterdam and London, 1978), 25-31.

30
J. G. Davies, 'Was the Devotion of Septimius Severus to Serapis the Cause of the Persecution of 202-3?',
JTS
, 5 (1954), 73-6.

31
E. R. Dodds,
Christian and Pagan in an Age of Anxiety: Some Aspects of Religious Experience from Marcus Aurelius to Constantine
(Cambridge, 1965).

32
Current archaeological opinion, however, does not favour the common idea that the famous Mithraeum from Walbrook in the City of London was deliberately desecrated by Christians: see J. D. Shepherd (ed.),
The Temple of Mithras, London: Excavations by W. F. Grimes and A. Williams at the Walbrook
(London, 1998), 227-32. For Mithraic dedications, see Barrett (ed.), 133-4.

33
On his vanishing and visions, see C. P. Jones (ed.),
Philostratus
(3 vols., Loeb edn, Cambridge, MA, and London, 2005), 322-3, 384-5, 413-15 [
Life of Apollonius of Tyana
VIII]. Vol. III contains Eusebius's refutation. Barrett (ed.), 82-5, provides economical extracts of Apollonius.

34
B. Stock,
After Augustine: The Meditative Reader and the Text
(Philadelphia, 2001), 43.

35
On Jesus as apostle, M. Franzmann,
Jesus in the Manichaean Writings
(London and New York, 2003), 15-17; on the paradoxes, ibid., 76-7.

36
S. Whitfield with U. Sims-Williams,
The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith
(London, 2004), 121-2.

37
Stevenson (ed., 1987), 267-8.

38
I. Gardiner et al. (eds.),
Coptic Documentary Texts from Kellis I
(Oxford, 1999), 72-82, 344-57. See also M. Franzmann, 'The Syriac-Coptic Bilinguals from Ismant el-Kharab (Roman Kellis): Translation Process and Manichaean Missionary Practice', in A. van Tongerloo and L. Cirillo (eds.),
Il Manicheismo: nuove prospettive della ricerca
(Turnhout, 2005), 115-22.

39
P. McKechnie, 'Christian Grave-inscriptions from the
Familia Caesaris
',
JEH
, 50 (1999), 427-41, at 439, and see p. 167.

40
On Origen and Julia Mamaea, Stevenson (ed., 1987), 195. On Hippolytus and his imperial dedication, W. Smith and H. Wace (eds.),
Dictionary of Christian Biography
(4 vols., London, 1877-87), III, 99-100.

41
D. Magie (ed.),
The Scriptores Historiae Augustae
(3 vols., Loeb edn, London and New York, 1921-32), 234-5, 238-41 [XXIX.3, XXXI.5]. There is an equally dubious precedent in a similar story about the gnostic Carpocrates, from much the same period: Dodds,
Christian and Pagan in an Age of Anxiety
, 107.

42
McKechnie, 'Christian Grave-inscriptions from the
Familia Caesaris
', 441.

43
Stevenson (ed., 1987), 214-15. The whole episode of persecution from Valerian to Gallienus, Cyprian and Novationism is well covered ibid., 213-51. On the principle of sacrifice by heads of families, see R. Selinger,
The Mid-third Century Persecutions of Decius and Valerian
(Frankfurt am Main, 2002), 59-63.

44
For examples in summary discussion of such attitudes, Grant, 'Five Apologists and Marcus Aurelius'.

45
John 12.25; Matthew 10.23.

46
Stevenson (ed., 1987), 241-3.

47
Shaw, 'Passion of Perpetua', 15.

48
Baumer, 1-3.

49
T. Rajak, 'The Jewish Diaspora', in Mitchell and Young (eds.), 53-68, at 65; Goodman, 169 - 71.

50
Stringer, 83.

51
For an extraordinary long-term effect of one reading in the
Peshitta
on worldwide racist attitudes to blacks, see p. 868.

52
A good introduction is C. Hopkins, edited by B. Goldman,
The Discovery of Dura-Europos
(New Haven and London, 1979).

53
J. Gutmann, 'The Dura Europos Synagogue Paintings: The State of Research', in L. I. Levine (ed.),
The Synagogue in Late Antiquity
(Philadelphia, 1987), 61-72. A more striking instance of a cultural setting promoting the violation of Jewish prohibitions on sacred figural art, in this case the more direct violation of sculpture, is to be seen in the fine series of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sculpted gravestones in the Portuguese Jewish cemetery at Ouderkerk aan de Amstel in the Netherlands. For Orthodox evasion of the graven-image prohibition, see p. 444.

54
Doig, 10-18.

55
Baumer, 16. It is ironic that no Christian church building now remains in its original use in Urfa: see p. 927.

56
A. Mirkovic,
Prelude to Constantine: The Abgar Tradition in Early Christianity
(Frankfurt am Main, 2004), 89-115. For the texts, see Eusebius, 100-102 [1.13].

57
For a judicious contribution to the still ill-tempered debate on the Shroud of Turin, see A. Friedlander, 'On the Provenance of the Holy Shroud of Lirey/Turin: A Minor Suggestion',
JEH
, 57 (2006), 457-77. I am grateful to Hannes Schroeder of St Cross College, Oxford, for our discussions on carbon-dating of samples from the shroud in the University of Oxford's Research Laboratory for Archaeology.

58
F. Heal, 'What Can King Lucius Do for You? The Reformation and the Early British Church',
EHR
, 120 (2005), 593-614, esp. at 595, 614.

59
Mirkovic,
Prelude to Constantine
, 22, 141-3.

60
For Eusebius's comment, see Stevenson (ed., 1987), 125.

61
Hopkins, ed. Goldman,
Discovery of Dura-Europos
, 107-8.

62
For Serapion of Antioch's description of the use of another Gospel attributed to Peter, see Stevenson (ed., 1987), 126-7.

63
On Marcion, see pp. 125-7.

64
For a sympathetic study, see E. J. Hunt,
Christianity in the Second Century: The Case of Tatian
(London, 2003), esp. 52-73, 176-8.

65
Stevenson (ed., 1987), 155.

66
Dalrymple, 175.

67
S. A. Harvey, 'Syria and Mesopotamia', in Mitchell and Young (eds.), 351-65, at 355-6.

68
K. McVey (ed.),
Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns
(New York and Mahwah, 1989), 107: Hymn 5 on the Nativity. For the parallel of burglary in a parable of Jesus, see Luke 12.39-40.

69
Dalrymple, 171-7. I much appreciate the welcome given us by the congregation of St George in 2008 and their gift of CDs of their performances of Edessan sacred music.

70
A. Gelston,
The Eucharistic Prayer of Addai and Mari
(Oxford, 1992), esp. 12, and see also B. D. Spinks,
Addai and Mari - the Anaphora of the Apostles: A Text for Students with Introduction, Translation and Commentary
(Grove Liturgical Study 24, Nottingham, 1980).