Preaching and Christianization in Late Antiquity: 2 the North Italian Context

1 Table of Contents Introduction: Preaching and Christianization in Late Antiquity: 2 The North Italian Context “We Ought To Abstain By All Means From Vices”: Exclusionary Rhetoric and Virtue in the Sermons of Chromatius of Aquileia 10 “Errors,” “Iniquities,” and “Wickedness”: Gaudentius and the Gentiles, Jews, and Heretics of Brescia 24 “As a Farmer Prunes the Twigs of the Vine”: Pagans, Jews, and Christian Discipline in Maximus’ Turin 39 A Tale of Three Bishops: Geography and Exegesis in Northern Italy 54 Conclusion: Bishops in the Shadows? 69 Bibliography 72 2 Introduction: Preaching and Christianization in Late Antiquity: The Northern Italian Context In 397, three Christian clerics traveled to the area of Val di Non in the Italian Alps, near what is today the city of Bolzano. Their names were Alexander, Martyrius, and Sisinius, and they were sent by Vigilius, the bishop of Tridentum, to minister to the Christian community already present there and to convert the rural pagan population to Christianity.1 Upon arriving in the region, they must have had some initial success in winning over the locals as they began to construct a church. But this initial victory was short-lived: in a sudden outburst of violence, the pagan population attacked the clerics, beat them to death, and razed the church to the ground, burning their bodies along with it.2 News of their death soon spread across northern Italy, and their ashes began to be venerated as relics of devotion.3 It was not long before the clerics were hailed as martyrs by the bishops in the region. Maximus of Turin in particular used the story of Alexander, Martyrius, and Sisinius to his advantage. In two sermons, preached one after the other, he recounted the story of their martyrdom and its relevance for his own congregation. They were to be especially hailed as saints and venerated because, unlike the martyrs of the persecutions in the pre-Constantinian era, they bore witness to the faith as contemporaries of Maximus and his congregation.4 According 1 Rita Lizzi and Michele Salzman argue that despite the abundance of paganism in the region emphasized by the sources there must have been a sizeable Christian community in the region for Vigilius to send three clerics there. See Rita Lizzi, “Ambrose’s Contemporaries and the Christianization of Northern Italy,” The Journal of Roman Studies 80 (1990): 156-173, 170-1; Michele Renee Salzman, “Rethinking Pagan-Christian Violence,” in Violence in Late Antiquity: Perceptions and Practices (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006), 265-85, 269. 2 Descriptions of the event can be found in two letters of Vigilius of Tridentum and two sermons of Maximus of Turin, though these clearly have a hagiographic intent. See Vigilius of Tridentum, Epp I-II, in Patrologia Latina (henceforth PL) 13, 549-558; Maximus of Turin, Sermons 105-6, in The Sermons of Maximus of Turin, trans. Boniface Ramsey (New York: Newman Press, 1989), 232-5; Lizzi, “Ambrose’s Contemporaries,” 170. 3 Gaudentius of Brescia lists the ashes of the three martyrs as among the relics which he had brought to Brescia for the dedication of the church of the Council of the Saints. See Gaudentius of Brescia, Tractatus 17:13, trans. in Stephen L. Boehrer, “Gaudentius of Brescia: Sermons and Letters,” (Ph.D. diss., Catholic University of America, 1965), 193. 4 Maximus of Turin, Sermons, Sermon 105:1, in Ramsey, 232-3. 3 to Maximus, “the Christian name had not been known before” among the inhabitants of the Val di Non.5 The clerics traveled to this region attempting to spread Christianity and to correct the pagan errors of the locals. The inhabitants, however, “drunken more with rage than with wine,” attacked and killed the priests.6 After destroying the church, they constructed a pyre from its beams and burned the clerics’ bodies. Maximus quickly emphasizes that they did not die in vain; their death led to the conversion of the region, which apparently enjoyed a sizeable Christian population by the time of Maximus’s preaching.7 Maximus did not stop there. Shortly afterwards, he preached further about the lives of the three martyrs and the example that they provided for his own congregation. He begins by insisting that Alexander, Martyrius, and Sisinius were not killed because of their Christian faith, but rather because they rebuked the people for their pagan practices. They were willing to accept death in order that the people to whom they were ministering would know that their actions were sinful and incompatible with a Christian lifestyle.8 Maximus insists that his congregation ought to show similar courage by eradicating the pagan practices still present within their community. Whoever allowed these practices, he insists, is just as guilty as those who commit them, for “as hindering the sacrilege makes righteous the one who speaks out against them, so also pretending that you do not see what you do see sullies the one who keeps silence.”9 This reproach was not uncommon in Maximus’ sermons; he often complained about the physical presence of pagan idols (altars, statues, etc.) as well as the continuation of pagan sacrifices and ceremonies on the 5 “...christianum nomen cognitum antea non fuisset...” Maximus of Turin, Collectionem, Sermo105:2, in Corpus Christianorum Series Latina (henceforth CCSL), 414. 6 Maximus of Turin, Sermons, Sermon 105:2, in Ramsey, 233. 7 “Thus where Christ once suffered persecution in three martyrs, now He rejoices in the many Christian people of that place.” Maximus of Turin, Sermons, Sermon 105:2, in Ramsey, 234. 8 Maximus of Turin, Sermons, Sermon 106:1, in Ramsey, 234. Specifically, he refers to a lustrum, or a procession of sacred objects that was meant to purify a particular place. See note 5, 356. 9 Maximus of Turin, Sermons, Sermon 106:2, in Ramsey, 235. 4 landed estates of the wealthy Turinese.10 In a sequel to the sermons on the Val di Non martyrs, Maximus stresses that it is the landowners’ responsibility, under penalty of sin, to stop the pagan practices occurring on their lands, “for whoever realizes that a sacrilege is being committed on his property and does not forbid it from taking place has himself ordered it in a certain way....”11 Alexander, Martyrius, and Sisinius thus stand as an example of how the Christian is supposed to act in the face of pagan practices: boldly and uncompromisingly. Maximus’s manipulation of the Val di Non martyrs to promote Christian ascendency over paganism is not uncommon among episcopal sermons in late fourth and early fifth-century northern Italy, and it is characteristic of the bishop’s elite status over his community. Bishops occupied a unique place in late antique society, particularly in northern Italy. As the imperial structures of the Roman Empire began to collapse, Christian bishops became a source of unity and spiritual, if not temporal, authority among the local populations. While Constantine legalized Christianity with the Edict of Milan in 313 and Theodosius made Nicene Christianity the sole legal religion of the empire by 380, paganism still persisted in the cities and remained dominant in the countryside.12 Bishops faced the daunting task not only of nurturing their faithful (and sometimes unfaithful) Christian community but also of spreading Christianity beyond the limits of the churches and the cities into the countryside. 10 In particular, see sermon 42 for Maximus’ chastisement of Christian landowners for not eradicating pagan practices among their subjects; sermon 63 for a description of the pagan festival of the Kalends of Januray, which was still active during Maximus’s time; and sermon 91 for Maximus’s description of the physical signs of idolatry still present in the countryside. 11 Maximus of Turin, Sermons, Sermon 107:1, in Ramsey, 236. 12 It should be noted here that, while the form of Christianity promoted by the Council of Nicaea in 325 became the orthodox position of the bishops in northern Italy, there were other Christian groups in the region as well, particularly Arianism, which denied the decree of the Council of Nicaea that Christ was of the same essence of the Father. The struggle between these two factions of Christianity and the process of defining heresy played a significant role in the Christianization of northern Italy, a role which I will elucidate further in this paper. For an overview of the conflict between Nicene and Arian Christians in northern Italy during this time, see Daniel H. Williams, Ambrose of Milan and the End of the Nicene-Arian Conflicts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). 5 Their primary way of doing this was through preaching and scriptural exegesis, or interpreation. One of the most educated exegetes of the region was Gaudentius, bishop of Brescia.13 Of his twenty-one extant sermons and tracts, seven deal specifically with the Christian interpretation of the Passover story in the book of Exodus. Gaudentius systematically interprets the key components of the Passover meal within a Christian context, including the lamb, the blood of the lamb, the time of year for the Passover, the staff, the shoes, the unleavened bread, and the yeast.14 Throughout this series, he condemns pagans, Jews, and heretics for their obstinacy in sin and encourages Christians to set themselves apart from them. In tract four, he describes how Jews even in his own time are filled with the spirit of Barabbas, “that seditious murderer,” for they “raised these disturbances against the apostles, and even now, wherever they find opportunity, they do not cease to raise them against all the saints.”15

Load more