Rome, the Greek World, and the East: Volume 3: The Greek World, the Jews, and the East

18. Christian Emperors, Christian Church, and the Jews of the Diaspora in the Greek East, A.D. 379–450

  Christian Emperors, Christian Church, and the Jews of the Diaspora in the Greek East, .. –* Cessent igitur, quaeso, haec de cetero usque in finem per te et sapientiam tuam et sudores et labores singulorum dierum, qui semper ecclesiis prosunt, pro quibus constituat te nobis deus ecclesiae propugnatorem in longa et pacifica tempora, ut paulum quidem ex his improvisis malis respirantes, quae propter maledictum Nestorium mundus expertus est, adversum gentiles Phoeniciae possimus obsistere et Palaestinae et Arabiae et adversum cuncta Iudaica et maxime quae sunt in Laodicia (subito enim impii Iudaei archidiaconum, mirabilem virum, in theatrum deducentes puniverunt), insuper et contra eos qui in Cilicia effrenate resistunt. E. Schwartz, Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum ., no. , pp. – From now on, I beg you, let these (troubles) cease for good, through yourself and your wisdom and your everyday toils and efforts, which are ever for the good of the churches, and for which let God establish you on your behalf as the champion of the Church for a long and peaceful period. Thus, being able for a moment to catch our breath after these unexpected evils, which the world has experienced on account of the cursed Nestorius, we may stand up against the pagans of Phoenicia and Palaestina and Arabia, and against all the Jewish goingson and above all those in Laodicea (for recently the impious Jews took *First published in Journal of Jewish Studies  (): –. I am very grateful to the Leverhulme Trust for the Emeritus Fellowship which has made this work possible.   Jews and Others an archdeacon, an excellent man, into the theatre and beat him), and beyond that also against those (bishops) who in Cilicia (still) insanely resist (reconciliation). Introduction This sudden side-light on Jewish-Christian relations in the fifth century comes from Iohannes, archbishop of Antioch, writing to Proclus, his counterpart in Constantinople, in . What we are reading is in fact a sixthcentury Latin translation of a letter originally written in Greek, and referring to the long-drawn-out and acutely controversial process by which, after the Council of Ephesus in , most of the original supporters of the Nestorian , or ‘‘two-nature,’’ position had agreed to a formula of reconciliation with the victorious proponents of a ‘‘one-nature’’ understanding of Christ, led by Cyril of Alexandria. Iohannes himself,originally Nestorius’ main proponent , had yielded and now found himself regarded as a traitor by those who still resisted, including the Cilician bishops to whom he refers. Iohannes was writing fifty-six years after the accession of Theodosius I in , which it is entirely reasonable to see as the decisive moment in the adhesion of the Roman state to Christianity, in its commitment to the step-bystep suppression of paganism, and also in the proclamation by the emperor, a couple of years later, of the state’s support for what we can label as either ‘‘orthodox’’ or ‘‘catholic’’ belief, in essence subscription to the doctrine of the consubstantiality of the Trinity. Since that time, a division into twin empires, ruled from Rome or Ravenna on the one hand and Constantinople on the other, had come about on the death of Theodosius in ; while with the accession of Theodosius’ very young grandson, Theodosius II, in  an absolute and much-advertised commitment to Christian piety had come to mark the imperial court in Constantinople. The position of the church might then have been perceived as wholly secure. But, as Iohannes’ words show, that was not how it felt to Christians at the time. The reverberations of the dispute over the nature, or natures, of Christ, which had led to the Council of Ephesus, had been felt all round the late Roman world, in the Latin West as well as the Greek East. Even apart from that, an obsessive concern with the threat posed by long lists of named heretical groups marks both Christian writing and the laws issued by the emperors . Similarly, pagans, though suffering repeated blows, and progressively deprived of positive rights and of protection under the law, still functioned The Christian Church and the Jews of the Diaspora  in the Christian imagination as a hostile chorus, lamenting Christian success and rejoicing in disaster. But above all, and in a way which we ought to find noteworthy and surprising, the Jewish presence was also felt as a recurrent threat. ‘‘Presence’’ in this sense means literal presence, in the remarkable range of evidence available to us for Jewish communities of...