2001.08.20 09:10
Life of Pope Sylvester
The Life of Pope Sylvester at: sylvester
from
The Book of the Popes
Liber Pontificalis
translated by
Louise Ropes Loomis, Ph. D
1916
This centuries old text on the life of St. Sylvester, selected from the Liber Pontificalis, for the most part contains the only record that fully describes ancient Rome's first Christian basilicas as erected during the reign of Constantine the Great, and quite likely erected under the architectural/planning supervision of Constantine's mother, the Empress Helena, otherwise known as St. Helena.
Along with naming each Church, lists of all the Churches' interior fittings are given as well, along with lists of the estates throughout the Roman Empire that provided sustaining income for the Churches. Additionally, one can well imagine that many of the gold and silver altars, vessels and light fixtures of these Christian basilicas were made from melted down Pagan Temple furnishings.
The text of the life of St. Sylvester is here offered in its entirety, and the hyperlinks throughout the text correspond to all the Loomis footnotes.
2001.08.20 23:49
Prisca, Eutropia and Valeria
Full excerpts from Jacques Roergas de Serviez's The Roman Empresses (London: The Walpole Press, 1899) are now available within EPICENTRAL beginning at
www.quondam.com/09/0825.htm.
Specifically, it is the lives of Prisca, Eutropia, and Valeria (three of the wives of Diocletian's tetrarchy) that are here contained. All of these women were close contemporaries of Helena, and it is interesting to note that throughout history (excepting the present) these women are considered Christian believers -- a strange phenomenon because it was their husbands that 'instituted' the last 'great' Roman persecution of the Christians.
Could it be, along with the standard enforcement of power, that the last Christian persecution also involved a sexist agenda? The main reason I ask this question is because Christianity seems to have empowered many 4th Century women.
ps
an outline of my analysis of the VITA CONSTANTINI Book III is now available at: 0705.htm.
2001.08.28 11:08
Re: Prisca, Eutropia and Valeria
Thank you for supplying the Lactantius source regarding the (textually slim) possibility that Prisca and Valeria were Christian believers during the persecution of 303-305 or in the following years of their lives. While textual evidence is most often the cornerstone of historical veracity, there are also many other factors that relate 'history'. For example, you mention some reasons that may have compelled Eutropia to 'convert' to Christianity by 324 or soon thereafter. A question I ask is: how might Eutropia (and Helena for that matter) have reacted when she learned of the dire fate of Prisca and Valeria? Prisca and Eutropia no doubt knew each other quite well, perhaps just as well as their respective husbands Diocletian and Maximian knew each other. The violent deaths of Prisca and Valeria may well have affected Eutropia greatly. Perhaps this is the reason why she later decided to "embrace the faith of her son-in-law," or perhaps this is one of the factors that further resolved Eutropia's own faith. The point being that either scenario is plausible depending almost only on individual point of view.
As to lack of other textual evidence regarding the possible Christian beliefs of Prisca and Valeria, I am quickly reminded of the recent discussion here on damnatio memoriae and the notion of historical 'silence' as well. Last night I was reading H.W. Bird's Introduction to the Breviarium ab Urbe Condita of Eutropius, and was intrigued to learn that Christianity was virtually not at all mentioned in this abbreviated history of Rome and its rulers, even though the text was dedicated to and written for the Christian Emperor Valens in 369. Did Eutropius omit Christian details because he himself was not a Christian? Having been close to the emperor Julian (the Apostate), however, the rise (and threat) of Christianity to the Hellenic status quo was surely not unknown to Eutropius. The Breviarium of Eutropius is a perfect example of textual history that purposefully omits much of what (really) happened.
[As an aside, last summer (15 August to be exact) I thought of a great title for a book, but alas I wasn't sure what the content would or could be. Given what appears to be my approach toward (writing) history, I think I could now eventually fill a book entitled Learning from Lacunae: a progressive inquiry of the acquisition of knowledge via reflection on what is not there.]
Putting the issue of Prisca and Valeria in the background for a while, the most widely accepted reason that any Imperial of the early 3rd century became an avowed Christian is due largely to augury, specifically Constantine's report that there was a 'sign' in the sky 27 October 312, the night before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. While augury is for the most part considered a Pagan practice, it is nonetheless exactly a type of augury that Constantine professed to base his faith upon. That augury was still very much practiced throughout the Empire in the early 3rd century is well documented, for example, Maxentius went into battle at the Milvian Bridge in confidence against Constantine because 28 October 312 was exactly the sixth anniversary of Maxentius' raise to power (28 October 306). Some historians write that Maxentius' augers foresaw a great victory, but unfortunately it turned out not to be his own.
I have to admit that 'augury' has very much to do with my investigation into the life of Helena. Since 1 April 1999 (Holy Thursday that year, and the fifth anniversary of the death of a close architect/friend of mine; 1 April 1994 was Good Friday) there have been repeated occurrences that I could call 'signs', however, for reasons of objectivity, I choose to first off accurately record the occurrences (e.g., 'calendrical coincidences'), and thus treat the occurrences as their own history. If I am able to write anything with complete veracity, it is the story of how Helena (very unexpectedly) became a part of my life. Is it significant that within the first week of writing EPICENTRAL that Steven Izenour, co-author of Learning from Las Vegas died on 21 August 2001 (the same date as my grandmother's death 13 years ago, and the birthday of my nephew/Godson also 13 years ago)? Or that a Vietnamese nun was brutally attacked early 23 August 2001 while on her way to Mass at St. Helena's Church in Olney, Philadelphia? (The nun was hit on the head with a hammer, but not severely injured, and St. Helena's is the Catholic parish next to my own; I live in (the exact same valley of) St. Ambrose Parish, Philadelphia. And the relationship between Ambrose and Helena certainly hasn't escaped me). The only real significance of all this is that it is indeed all true, which is a whole lot more than can be said of many 'histories'.
Getting back to serious history then, it is interesting to note that Fausta is named within the Breviarium of Eutropius, specifically her disclosure of Maximian's plot against Constantine (Book 10, section 3). Comparatively, the death of Crispus is mentioned (10:6) but only that Constantine "killed his son"--the name of Crispus is omitted. This appears to be a sure sign as to the continuance of the damnatio memoriae of Crispus, but why then is Fausta's name written in the same text if she also suffered damnatio memoriae. Again, is there then a special significance to the 'Helena/Fausta' palimpsest of CIL X 678?
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2001.09.03 12:46
Cathedral of Tyre 314?
Within sources readily available I am finding what appear to be errors regarding the Cathedral at Tyre, which is described by Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History X iv 44. Below are three excerpts which offer conflicting dates and seem to mistakenly attribute the building of the church at Tyre to Constantine.
1. Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture states:
"The cathedral of Tyre (Sur) in the Syrian coast, consecrated in 318, represents still another approach. Eusebius's description, although rhetorical, outlines the plan with some clarity, and it certainly reflects the impression a lavish church building was designed to make. ... Tyre, Aquileia, and Orleanville, then, represent variant types of Constantinian cathedrals."
2. The online Catholic Encyclopedia under 'Ecclesiastical Buildings' says the following:
"In his Ecclesiastical History (X, iii, iv) Eusebius describes the dedication, in 314, of the church erected by Constantine at Tyre, at which time, however, there was no special rite for that purpose."
3. And under 'Dedication' the CE states:
"It is not strange, however, that owing to the persecutions of the first three centuries, references to the dedication of churches are extremely rare. The first authentic accounts of this kind are furnished by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., X, iii, iv; De Vitâ Const., IV, xliii, in P. G., XX), and Sozomen (Hist. Eccl., II, xxvi in P. G., XLVII) in regard to the cathedral of Tyre (314) and Constantine's church at Jerusalem." [Note: only Eusebius' Hist. Eccl. references Tyre, while the Vita Const. and Sozomen's Eccl. Hist. reference the dedication of the church at Jerusalem.]
My questions are:
1. Can anyone verify what the dedication date of the Cathedral of Tyre correctly is?
2. If the dedication date is 314 or 318, then in either case it is not possible to say that the Cathedral of Tyre is a Constantinian building because Constantine did not have control of the Eastern Empire until Autumn 324. Moreover, if the Cathedral of Tyre was dedicated in 314, then it surely predates the completion of the Basilica Constantiniani (now St. John Lateran, Rome), which began no sooner than late autumn 312. Could it be that the basilican church typology was already fairly well established in the East prior to its (the basilican typology's) establishment in Rome? [It appears that a church at Tyre was destroyed under Diocletian, and that the dedication in 314 or 318 was of a rebuilding of the prior church.]
3. What really makes me curious is why the mistake of associating Constantine with an eastern church dated prior to his having power in that region was made in the first place, and within reputable sources, no less. Is this perhaps an example of historians wanting to keep all credit of early 4th century Christian church building completely (and simply) with Constantine?
2001.09.03 22:58
re: Cathedral of Tyre 314?
Constantine need not have had direct control of an area to have erected a church there. As long as the several emperors were not actually at war with one another, the fiction was maintained that each was emperor in the entire empire, although each had a specific sphere of activity. Thus, Constantine's portrait appeared on coins issued from mints in areas of the empire that he did not control and other emperors' portraits appeared on coins from his mints--until hostilities finally broke out! So, it was quite possible for an emperor to build a church in another emperor's sphere of activity.
Mac (David John MacDonald)
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2001.09.04 06:59
Cathedral of Tyre -- answers
I found some answers to the questions regarding the Cathedral of Tyre in T.D. Barnes' Constantine And Eusebius pp. 161-62. For brevity's sake, here are the facts:
1. it was Maximinus Daia in Spring/Summer 313 that "granted the right to [re]building churches," and the source for this is in Eusebius Ecclesiastical History Book 9.
2. Eusebius "in a speech which forms the greater part of Book Ten of the History; he delivered the speech in Tyre about 315, when the rebuilt basilica was dedicated."
I think it is now safe to say that the rebuilt Cathedral of Tyre should not be directly attributed to Constantine. This then seems to open further implication that the churches Constantine IS responsible for are of a distinct set of churches that are special because of their unprecedented Imperial initiation and funding.
2001.09.04 10:06
Re: Cathedral of Tyre 314?
...in the specific case of the Cathedral of Tyre, the date of dedication is still significant because of its closeness to the (so-called) Edict of Milan (313) enacted between Constantine and Licinius. [I'm writing on the fly here, so I don't have the exact date of the Edict at hand.] As I recall, it was at the same time in Milan that most scholars believe that Constantine's half-sister Constantia was betrothed to Licinius as well. In this light, I personally believe any three of the above personalities could have been directly involved with the renewed church building at Tyre. Constantia surely died a Christian, and was indeed very religiously active during and after the years of her marriage to Licinius. For example, I just recently learned that Constantia was both present and actively vocal at the Council of Nicaea. She was also very close (friends) with Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia (not to be confused with Eusebius of Caesarea who wrote the Vita Constantini).
My thesis all along is that Constantine of course was ruler during the Christian church building boom of the 310s and 320s, but that the real champion of the church building cause was indeed Helena, and, to a lesser extent, other high Imperial women like Eutropia, and perhaps even Constantia, and maybe later even Constantina, Constantine's daughter. The Helena and Eutropia chapters of the Vita Constantini Book III are, I believe, indicative of what happened and how it (the church building) happened. In simple terms, Helena's activities had Constantine's automatic sanction, including full access to the imperial treasury, thus the expeditiousness of the church building in Rome during the 310s and the same expediency of church building in the Holy Land 325 and right after. Furthermore, a careful reading of Constantine's account of his letter from Eutropia regarding the holy site at Mamre (VC III 52) further discloses the outright gleefulness that the Imperials came to savor in their Christian church/architecture efforts.
I am looking at this distinct church building occurrence from the view point of a modern registered architect, and I'm most intrigued by how quickly it all happened. It doesn't matter what age or era we talk about when it comes to the real time it takes to erect buildings. That so much was very quickly accomplished, for example, in Rome in the years just after late October 312, implies, to me at least, that someone was there supervising, and even planning, the architectural activities, otherwise it just would not have happened with the obvious careful intentionality that it did. My candidate for the person "in charge" is Flavia Julia Helena Augusta. (For contexts sake, remember Constantine himself spent a total of only a few months in Rome during the years between 28 October 312 and 3 August 325.)
So, back to the Cathedral of Tyre. What this church may represent is the (just pre-Constantinian)prototype for basilican church design of the early fourth century. That such a prototype should come from the East is also significant in that other architectural innovations at that time also seem to have come from the East. For example, the brickwork of the Aula Palatina, the Constantinian throne hall at Treves (Trier, Germany) circa 306-312, according the Ward-Perkins, exhibits masonry technique up until then only known in the East. So again, can anyone verify the date of the dedication of the Cathedral of Tyre in Phoenicia?
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2001.09.04 22:06
Catherdral of Tyre 314?
Michael wrote:
Another possibility, of course, is that Constantine simply took credit for the church (or Eusebius et al. gave him credit) after the fact.
Steve adds:
I don't know that there is any late antique reference to Constantine being at all connected with the re-building of the Cathedral of Tyre. It appears to be more of a "modern" connection that has been made.
Probably because there is hardly any physical evidence left of the pre-Constantine Christian churches throughout the East (e.g., the church of Nicomedia that was right across from Diocletian's palace there), it seems often overlooked that there indeed were Christian churches in existence prior to Constantine's rulership. Constantine certainly cannot be given credit for the original erection of the church of Nicomedia, nor can the earlier Imperial hierarchy for that matter. It seems only logical that the Christian's themselves, along with their priestly hierarchy, were already responsible for building churches in the East prior to 28 October 312. The case in Rome seems different, however, in that prior to October 312 actual churches did not exist, rather only catacombs and domestic gathering places. Thus, in the case of the Cathedral of Tyre, it could just as well have been the Christians of Tyre themselves that straight away after the Edict of Milan (February 313), i.e., when the Christians in the East got back what was taken from them during the Great Persecution, set out to rebuild their church that was destroyed under Diocletian.
For the record, Constantine spent most of the year and a half after the Edict of Milan at Trier, which is more or less Tyre's opposite extreme in the Empire.
2001.09.05 07:54
Cathedral of Tyre - answers
I found some answers to the questions regarding the Cathedral of Tyre in T.D. Barnes' Constantine and Eusebius pp. 161-62. For brevity's sake, here are the facts:
1. it was Maximinus Daia in Spring/Summer 313 that "granted the right to [re]building churches," and the source for this is in Eusebius Ecclesiastical History Book 9.
2. Eusebius "in a speech which forms the greater part of Book 10 of the History; he delivered the speech in Tyre about 315, when the rebuilt basilica was dedicated."
I think it is now safe to say that the rebuilt Cathedral of Tyre should not be directly attributed to Constantine. This then seems to open further implication that the churches Constantine is responsible for are of a distinct set of churches that are special because of their unprecedented Imperial initiation and funding.
2001.09.06 14:10
Re: Cathedral of Tyre 314?
I sometimes think, while reading various (now) older texts regarding Early Christian architecture, that the general feeling of the texts is either Rome 'centric' or Constantine 'centric' or both. This is akin to the notion believed by most of the general public that the "great" Christian persecution also occurred at Rome. Broad knowledge that the power base of the Empire was in the East from the late third century on just isn't out there. My point being that a lot of answers to long standing questions concerning the 'origins' of Early Christian architecture (and other things early fourth century) may well be found in the East.
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