In honor of beloved Virgil—
“O degli altri poeti onore e lume . . .”
—Dante, Inferno
Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity
THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE
Peter Brown, General Editor
| I | Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity, by Sabine G. MacCormack |
| II | Synesius of Cyrene: Philosopher-Bishop, by Jay Alan Bregman |
| III | Theodosian Empresses: Women and Imperial Dominion in Late Antiquity, by Kenneth G. Holum |
| IV | John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late Fourth Century, by Robert L. Wilken |
| V | Biography in Late Antiquity: The Quest for the Holy Man, by Patricia Cox |
| VI | Pachomius: The Making of a Community in Fourth-Century Egypt, by Philip Rousseau |
| VII | Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, by A. P. Kazhdan and Ann Wharton Epstein |
| VIII | Leadership and Community in Late Antique Gaul, by Raymond Van Dam |
| IX | Homer the Theologian: Neoplatonist Allegorical Reading and the Growth of the Epic Tradition, by Robert Lamberton |
| X | Procopius and the Sixth Century, by Averil Cameron |
| XI | Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity, by Robert A. Kaster |
| XII | Civic Coins and Civic Politics in the Roman East, A.D. 180–275, by Kenneth Harl |
| XIII | Holy Women of the Syrian Orient, introduced and translated by Sebastian P. Brock and Susan Ashbrook Harvey |
| XIV | Gregory the Great: Perfection in Imperfection, by Carole Straw |
| XV | “Apex Omnium”: Religion in the “Res gestae” of Ammianus, by R. L. Rike |
| XVI | Dioscorus of Aphrodito: His Work and His World, by Leslie S. B. MacCoull |
| XVII | On Roman Time: The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity, by Michele Renee Salzman |
| XVIII | Asceticism and Society in Crisis: John of Ephesus and “The Lives of the Eastern Saints,” by Susan Ashbrook Harvey |
| XIX | Barbarians and Politics at the Court of Arcadius, by Alan Cameron and Jacqueline Long, with a contribution by Lee Sherry |
| XX | Basil of Caesarea, by Philip Rousseau |
| XXI | In Praise of Later Roman Emperors: The Panegyrici Latini, introduction, translation, and historical commentary by C. E. V. Nixon and Barbara Saylor Rodgers |
| XXII | Ambrose of Milan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital, by Neil B. McLynn |
| XXIII | Public Disputation, Power, and Social Order in Late Antiquity, by Richard Lim |
| XXIV | The Making of a Heretic: Gender, Authority, and the Priscillianist Controversy, by Virginia Burrus |
| XXV | Symeon the Holy Fool: Leontius’s “Life” and the Late Antique City, by Derek Krueger |
| XXVI | The Shadows of Poetry: Vergil in the Mind of Augustine, by Sabine MacCormack |
| XXVII | Paulinus of Nola: Life, Letters, and Poems, by Dennis E. Trout |
| XXVIII | The Barbarian Plain: Saint Sergius between Rome and Iran, by Elizabeth Key Fowden |
| XXIX | The Private Orations of Themistius, translated, annotated, and introduced by Robert J. Penella |
| XXX | The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity, by Georgia Frank |
| XXXI | Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity, edited by Tomas Hägg and Philip Rousseau |
| XXXII | Subtle Bodies: Representing Angels in Byzantium, by Glenn Peers |
| XXXIII | Wandering, Begging Monks: Social Order and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity, by Daniel Folger Caner |
| XXXIV | Failure of Empire: Valens and the Roman State in the Fourth Century A.D., by Noel Lenski |
| XXXV | Merovingian Mortuary Archaeology and the Making of the Early Middle Ages, by Bonnie Effros |
| XXXVI | Quṣayr ‘Amra: Art and the Umayyad Elite in Late Antique Syria, by Garth Fowden |
| XXXVII | Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition, by Claudia Rapp |
| XXXVIII | Encountering the Sacred: The Debate on Christian Pilgrimage in Late Antiquity, by Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony |
| XXXIX | There Is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ: Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire, by Michael Gaddis |
| XL | The Legend of Mar Qardagh: Narrative and Christian Heroism in Late Antique Iraq, by Joel Thomas Walker |
| XLI | City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria, by Edward J. Watts |
Holy Bishops
in Late Antiquity
The Nature of Christian Leadership
in an Age of Transition
Claudia Rapp
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BerkeleyLos AngelesLondon
Saint Demetrius with the Bishop of Thessalonike and the Eparch Leo. Seventh-century mosaic from the Church of Ayios Dimitrios, Thessaloniki, Greece. Courtesy of the Museum of Byzantine Culture, Thessaloniki, Greece.
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2005 by the Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rapp, Claudia.
Holy bishops in late antiquity : the nature of Christian leadership in an age of transition / Claudia Rapp.
p.cm. — (The transformation of the classical heritage ; 37)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–520–24296–3 (alk. paper)
eISBN 9780520931411
1. Bishops—Rome.2. Church history—Primitive and early church, ca. 30–600.I. Title.II. Series.
BR166.R362005
262’.1214—dc22
2004013430
Manufactured in the United States of America
13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is printed on New Leaf EcoBook 60, containing 60% post-consumer waste, processed chlorine free; 30% de-inked recycled fiber, elemental chlorine free; and 10% FSC-certified virgin fiber, totally chlorine free. EcoBook 60 is acid-free and meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/ASTM D5634-01 (Permanence of Paper).
In memoriam
Edeltraud Rapp, geb. Ebert
Bromberg, 2.
März 1931–Dortmund, 30. Dezember 1985
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PART ONE
1.The Nature of Leadership in Late Antiquity
Previous Scholarship on the Role of Bishops in Late Antiquity
A New Explanatory Model: Spiritual, Ascetic, and Pragmatic Authority
2.Pragmatic Authority
1 Timothy 3 and Its Interpretations