Doctrinal Controversy and the Church Economy of Post-Chalcedon Palestine

Doctrinal Controversy and the Church Economy of Post-Chalcedon Palestine Daniel Paul Neary Faculty of History University of Cambridge This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Corpus Christi College September 2017 ii CONTENTS Acknowledgements iii Abbreviations iv Introduction 6 Chapter 1 – Reappraising the Rebellion against Juvenal of Jerusalem: Aristocratic Patronage and ‘Anti-Chalcedonian’ Violence, 451-453 CE 22 Chapter 2 – Contesting the ‘Church of the Bishops’: Controversy after Chalcedon, 453-518 CE 50 Chapter 3 - Church Economy and Factional Formation 69 Chapter 4 – Jerusalem under Justinian 100 Chapter 5 – Controversy and Calamity: Debating Doctrine on the Eve of the Islamic Conquests 134 Conclusion 165 Appendix A – Donors, Patrons and Monastic Proprietors in the Lives of Cyril of Scythopolis 171 Appendix B – Palestinian Delegates and Spectators at the Synod of Constantinople (536 CE) 177 Bibliography 179 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC UK) and the Faculty of History of the University of Cambridge for funding this research. I will always be grateful to my supervisor, Peter Sarris, for guiding this project to completion over the past four years. My interest in the history of the Eastern Roman Empire was first encouraged by two inspirational teachers, John and Nicola Aldred. Since arriving in Oxford as an undergraduate in 2008, I have encountered many more, among them Neil McLynn, Mark Whittow, Bryan Ward-Perkins, Phil Booth, Mary Whitby, Ida Toth, Neil Wright, Esther-Miriam Wagner and Nineb Lamassu. Mark had been due to act as external examiner of this thesis. His tragic and premature death last December left us, his former students, profoundly saddened. My time as a doctoral student was immeasurably improved by the camaraderie of my fellow PhDs and early career researchers, whether at Cambridge (Max Leventhal, Jiří Čevora, Alastair McClure, Alexandra Vukovich, Sam Ottewill-Soulsby, Sandy Rogers, Alexandra Davies, Robin Whelan, Christian Sahner, and Will Styles), or further afield (Sukanya Raisharma, Adrastos Omissi, George Woudhuysen, and Will Wyeth, to name but a few). The arduous task of writing up was made easier by the support of my colleagues at the Department for Education. Special thanks go to Sarah for her kindness and forbearance. Lastly, I would like to express my gratitude to my parents, Paul and Kathryn, without whom this thesis would never have been written. I dedicate the study which follows to them. iv ABBREVIATIONS AB Analecta Bollandiana ACO Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum BASOR Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research BF Byzantinische Forschungen BHG Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca (ed.) F. Halkin, 3rd Edition, Subsidia Hagiographica 47 (Brussels, 1957). Byz Byzantion BZ Byzantinische Zeitschrift CCT A. Grillmeier et al, Christ in Christian Tradition, 5 vols. (Oxford 1975- 2013). CI Codex Iustinianus CH Church History CPG Clavis Patrum Graecorum CSCO Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium CTh Codex Theodosianus DOP Dumbarton Oaks Papers GRBS Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies J. Nov Justinian, Novellae Constitutiones JECS Journal of Early Christian Studies JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History JRA Journal of Roman Archaeology JRS Journal of Roman Studies JThS Journal of Theological Studies LA Liber Annuus OCP Orientalia Christiana Periodica PG Patrologia Graeca PL Patrologia Latina PLRE A.H.M. Jones, J.R. Martindale, and R. Morris, Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, 3 vols. (Cambridge 1971-1992). PO Patrologia Orientalis POC Proche-Orient Chrétien RB Revue Biblique v REB Revue des Études Byzantines RHE Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique ROC Revue de l’Orient Chrétiens SC Sources Chrétiennes SP Studia Patristica TU Texte und Untersuchungen der altchristliche Literatur V. Abr. Cyril of Scythopolis, Vita Abramii V. Cyr. Cyril of Scythopolis, Vita Cyriacii V. Euth. Cyril of Scythopolis, Vita Euthymii V. Geo. Anthony of Choziba, Vita Georgii V. Jo. Hesych Cyril of Scythopolis, Vita Iohannii Hesychastes V. Mel. gr Gerontius, Vita Melaniae Iunioris, (Greek version) V. Pet. John Rufus, Vita Petri Iberici V. Sab. Cyril of Scythopolis, Vita Sabae V. Sev. Zachariah of Mitylene, Vita Severi V. Theod. Theodore of Petra, Vita Theodosii ZDPV Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 6 INTRODUCTION ‘Out of this came the ineffable union (hē arrētos henōsis), with the result that, through the formula ‘from two [natures],’ the formula ‘in two [natures]’ is also properly meant, and through ‘in two,’ ‘from two,’ and neither statement precludes the other… Still, men deem these things to be so different from one another, thinking this on account of some custom pertaining to the worship of God, or indeed through prejudice, that they show contempt for every kind of death, rather than submit to reality.’1 The Fourth Ecumenical Council, held at Chalcedon in 451, began a period of extraordinary social and political crisis across the Eastern Mediterranean. In Palestine, as elsewhere, the centuries that followed were characterised by internecine conflict between local Christians persisting until the collapse of Roman authority in the region during the reign of the emperor Heraclius. The ‘Holy Land,’ however, is often accorded a special status in this controversy, an island of fervent support for Chalcedon in a Near East where attitudes were generally more mixed, a position commonly credited to the influence of the region’s monks. How disagreement over the Council became the cause of such enduring acrimony remains one of the great historiographical debates in the study of Late Antiquity. Since Edward Gibbon, historians have struggled to contextualise the origin of this unrest, ostensibly an argument between the proponents of rival, but also substantially identical, Christologies. Mirroring the broader concerns of the intellectual climate in which it arose, a current of early-twentieth century scholarship once sought to present the emergence of the ‘miaphysite’ Churches of Egypt and Syria as nascent nationalist movements.2 Following the dramatic explosion of interest in contemporary religion, however, pioneered by Peter Brown, A.H.M. Jones, and Henry Chadwick, among others, this argument was debunked and the fundamental ‘religious’ content of the controversy re-affirmed.3 Few today would question this assessment. Still contentious, however, is the question of what else may have acted to drive hostilities forward. When, in 1972, W.H.C. Frend began to call for an approach encompassing the broader social and economic conditions in which conflict over Chalcedon arose, the 1 Evagrius Scholasticus, Historia Ecclesiastica 2.5 (ed. Bidez and Parmentier, p. 264): …ἐξ ὧν ἡ ἄρρητος ἕνωσις, ὡς διὰ τῆς ἐκ δύο φωνῆς ἐνταῦθα νοεῖσθαι προσφόρως τὴν ἐν δύο, καὶ διὰ τῆς ἐν δύο τὴν ἐκ δύο, καὶ θάτερον τοῦ ἑτέρου μὴ ἀπολιμπάνεσθαι… Καὶ ὅμως οὕτως ἀλλήλων ἀπεσχοινίσθαι ταῦτα νομίζουσιν ἄνθρωποι, συνηθείᾳ τινὶ περὶ τῆς τοῦ Θεοῦ δόξης, ἢ καὶ τὸ οὕτω βούλεσθαι προειλημμένοι, ὡς πάσης ἰδέας θανάτου περιφρονεῖν ἢ πρὸς τὴν τοῦ ὄντος ἰέναι συγκατάθεσιν. 2 See, for instance: A.J. Butler, The Arab Conquest of Egypt and the last thirty years of Roman Dominion, (Oxford 1902); E.L. Woodward, Christianity and Nationalism in the Later Roman Empire, (London 1916); E.R. Hardy, ‘The Patriarchate of Alexandria: A Study in Nationalist Christianity,’ CH 15 (1946), 81-100. 3 H. Chadwick, ‘Eucharist and Christology in the Nestorian Controversy,’ JThS (new series) 2 (1951), 145-164; A.H.M. Jones, ‘Were ancient heresies national or social movements in disguise?’ JThS (new series) 10 (1959), 289-298; P. Brown, Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire, (Hanover, NH 2001), p. 107. 7 reaction was mixed.4 More recent studies have tended to promote an almost purely theological explanation for the violence which accompanied it. In outlining a new theory of ‘geo-ecclesiology,’ Philippe Blaudeau has echoed sentiments held by many in strongly repudiating any suggestion that the passion in evidence here can be taken to signify anything more than the extreme importance which contemporaries attached to matters of doctrine.5 Others might argue that, in any case, it is difficult to see beyond what Averil Cameron famously described as the ‘totalising Christian discourse’ of Late Antique literature.6 Contemporary accounts of doctrinal controversy, it is true, were almost exclusively produced by the same clerical and monastic groups most invested in its outcome. But the fact remains that within some of the highly-polemical narratives crafted by these writers, whether supporters or opponents of Chalcedon, a more nuanced picture of events emerges: an often sterile-seeming battle to promote a universal definition of the relationship between the human and divine in Christ is revealed to have been deeply affected by the material concerns of its participants. This thesis explores this facet of the controversy which followed Chalcedon in one region of the Eastern Roman Empire: Palestine. In particular, it seeks to trace the role of the Late Antique Church Economy - the systems through which Christian institutions were financed and maintained - in shaping its depiction. To what extent did such ostensibly ‘worldly’ considerations influence accounts of Chalcedonian-‘Miaphysite’ conflict? Can this be seen to have distorted our understanding of these defining Late Antique disturbances? Such questions are important, not least in promoting a fuller appreciation of a period still commonly

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