Valentinian and the Bishops: Ammianus 30.9.5 in Context

VALENTINIAN AND THE BISHOPS: AMMIANUS 30.9.5 IN CONTEXT

David Hunt

Abstract: This paper tries to provide a context for understanding Ammi- anus’ noted commendation of Valentinian’s religious toleration. It sur- veys the evidence for Valentinian’s religious policy in general, and in relation to Christianity; it details his dealings with bishops, concluding that (contrary to the tradition found in the church historians) he shared with Valens the intention not to disturb the homoean doctrinal settle- ment of 359/60; where he was drawn into episcopal matters, it was in the interests of preserving public order in major cities of the empire. Ammianus’ favourable judgement of Valentinian’s laissez-faire approach to religion was aimed at appealing to pagan traditionalists in his Roman audience at a time of increasing intransigence from the Christian regime of Theodosius. The teenage ruler Valentinian II, holding court at Milan in the mid- 380s, found it hard to escape the looming presence of his dead father, the first Valentinian: the latter’s example was always conveniently to hand for those who would urge the youthful emperor to better courses of action. So it was with the conduct of religion. In voicing the cele- brated petition for the restoration of the altar of Victory in the Roman senate-house, the prefect Symmachus in 384 imagined the senior Valen- tinian ‘from the starry citadel’ casting a reproachful eye down towards his imperial successor at the denial of religious practices which he him- self as emperor had openly preserved; while barely two years later bishop Ambrose, summoned to court to argue the essentials of Chris- tian doctrine with the ‘Arian’ Auxentius, would similarly confront the young emperor with the example set by his father who, Ambrose was at pains to emphasize, had scrupulously reserved matters of ecclesi- astical judgement for bishops, and not the emperor, to resolve.1 It is remarkable testimony to the posthumous reputation of Valentinian I as a champion of toleration that, within ten years of his death, both pagan traditionalists and a leading Christian bishop should find in him

1 Ambr. Ep. 75 (21).2; cf. ibid. 5: non est meum iudicare inter episcopos; Symm. Rel. 3.20 (= Ambr. Ep. 72a[17a]). 72 david hunt a model of religious freedom and independence to hold up to his son and heir. Not long afterwards, the historian Ammianus Marcellinus was completing (in Rome) his record of events which, for the west- ern Roman empire, ended with the death of Valentinian I in 375 and the elevation of his then four-year-old son to the rank of Augustus. For Ammianus, the last word on the government of the senior Valentinian was also of religious toleration. The list of his ‘actions deserving the approval and imitation of right-thinking men’ ends famously with the following encomium: In the last place, his rule was distinguished for its tolerance in this respect, that he took a neutral position between religious differences, never troubling anyone, nor ordering them to adopt this or that mode of worship. He was not in the habit of bending the necks of his subjects to his own form of worship with threatening edicts, but left the various groups undisturbed just as he found them.2 Valentinian’s reputation, already signalled from opposing perspectives by Symmachus and Ambrose, had evidently not escaped the contem- porary historian. For Ammianus, the policy of religious neutrality being commended in this passage surely transcended the divide between Christianity and the old gods. Although the Christian tradition, by contrast, would soon come to parochialise Valentinian’s religious indif- ference, and confine it specifically to disputes within Christianity (a process which began firmly with Ambrose and became canonical with the ecclesiastical historians of the fifth century),3 Ammianus’ language leaves no doubt that Valentinian was being praised for a religious toler- ance which recognized no boundaries. This paper will return later to the fuller significance and context of Ammianus’ judgement. But first, what evidence can be assembled of the religious character of Valentinian’s government?4 Pre-eminently, from the emperor’s own lips comes the statement that laws had been issued at the beginning of his rule ‘which granted to everyone free-

2 30.9.5: Postremo hoc moderamine principatus inclaruit, quod inter religionum diversitates medius stetit, nec quemquam inquietavit neque, ut hoc coleretur, imperavit aut illud; nec interdictis minacibus subiectorum cervicem ad id, quod ipse coluit, inclinabat, sed intemeratas reliquit has partes ut repperit. I have modified the translation of Walter Hamilton (Penguin Classics, Harmondsworth 1986), in particular his misleading translation of religionum diversitates as ‘opposing faiths’. 3 See below, p. 82. 4 For a still useful summary, see A. Piganiol, L’empire chrétien (325–395) (Paris 19722) 210–216; but especially now Noel Lenski, Failure of Empire: Valens and the Roman State in the Fourth Century A.D. (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London 2002)Ch.5 ‘Religion under the Valentiniani’.