Variations on Local Angelos Veneration and Christian Reaction

CHAPTER FIVE ANGELS OF THE SPRING: VARIATIONS ON LOCAL ANGELOS VENERATION AND CHRISTIAN REACTION Literary accounts and archaeological evidence make it clear that the inhabitants of the ancient Mediterranean believed that gods and spirits were associated more strongly with some places than others. These sites made up the sacred geography of the later Roman world: the points of contact where heaven and earth (or earth and the infernal realm) were most likely to meet. Although scholars often classify such sites by religious tradition, this chapter examines holy sites that cannot be so easily classified. The sacred sites examined in this chapter all contain springs or natural wells, and all of them are associated with angeloi. The chapter focuses on Mamre in Judea and the Fountain of the Lamps at Corinth, and compares those sites with the Bethesda Pool, the Fountain of Anna Perenna, and Chonae, each of which is associated with angeloi. Ancient evidence suggests that those of divergent religious traditions came to pray and leave offerings side-by-side at these sites, in the shared belief in their sacred character and association with angeloi. The chapter examines the manner in which the term angeloi could serve as an occasional explanation for the numinous beings associated with the sites, the reasons that the term angeloi could have mean- ing for the divergent religious groups that appear to have venerated these sites, and the process by which Christian authorities attempted to establish authority over some foci of angeloi veneration and invoca- tion. Although angeloi could have a distinct significance for members of divergent religious traditions, this chapter argues that a shared Hel- lenic culture among Christians, Jews, and followers of local religious traditions allowed for a shared understanding of the ritual power of sites associated with angeloi. The chapter suggests that prior to the fourth century many of the participants in rituals at these sites may not have thought much about worshipping alongside those of different religious traditions, because they believed that the presence of those belonging to different religious traditions could not impugn the ritual power of the site. However, by the fourth century and afterwards, Christian authorities and some Christian worshippers, as well as some 106 chapter five rabbinical authorities, did not share such an inclusive attitude. Rather, the Christian empire and the Church viewed such inclusiveness as a threat to its authority over sacred sites. Mamre At early-fourth century Mamre in southern Judea, pagans, Jews, and Christians worshipped along side each other because of a shared belief that angels appeared to Abraham at that site. Constantine’s mother- in-law, Eutropia, on pilgrimage to the Holy Land (ca. 323), witnessed the religious practices at this shared religious site and found the rituals so shocking and idolatrous that she reported them to the emperor.1 Three historians—Eusebius, Socrates, and Sozomen—record that after Constantine learned of these rites, he sternly rebuked the bishops of Palestine for allowing idolatrous practices at a site sacred to Christi- anity and ordered a Christian house of worship to be constructed at the site. Eusebius offers the earliest account in his Life of Constantine (ca. 339), but it contains only a limited description of what Eutropia saw at Mamre. The second historian to treat the subject was Socrates Scho- lasticus, who, in his Ecclesiastical History (439–43)2 offers an even more abbreviated summary of events than Eusebius’s earlier statement. Sozomen, the third historian to write about Eutropia’s trip to Mamre, provides a more thorough description of what Eutropia saw there. According to Sozomen’s Ecclesiastical History (composed 439–50),3 Eutropia witnessed Jews, Christians, and others worshipping side-by- side. Sozomen records that Jews considered the site sacred because of the angelic epiphany to Abraham, Christians worshipped there because they believed one of the angels was the pre-incarnate Christ, and Hellenes (i.e. non-Christians and non-Jews) came to call upon the angeloi, while offering lamps and incense at the well of Mamre. Furthermore, Sozomen states that these same groups came together at Mamre even in his own day, approximately one hundred years after Eutropia’s visit. The present chapter will focus on Sozomen’s 1 PLRE Ι (1979), “Eutropia 1,” p. 316. 2 On the dating of Socrates’ work, see T. Urbainczyk, Socrates of Constantinople (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997) 19–20. 3 Although Socrates’ and Sozomen’s histories date from roughly the same period, Sozomen is generally acknowledged to have used Socrates’ work and thus is considered to be slightly later. See Urbainczyk (1997) 19–20..

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