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Reviewed by:
  • Epiphanius of Cyprus: A Cultural Biography of Late Antiquity by Andrew S. Jacobs, and: Epiphanius of Cyprus: Imagining an Orthodox World by Young Richard Kim
  • Robin Darling Young, Jon F. Dechow, David Maldonado Rivera, Andrew S. Jacobs, and Young Richard Kim
Andrew S. Jacobs, Epiphanius of Cyprus: A Cultural Biography of Late Antiquity. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016. xiv + 335; $95.00.
Young Richard Kim, Epiphanius of Cyprus: Imagining an Orthodox World. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2015. Xvi + 278; $85.00.

Introduction by Robin Darling Young

Blessed with a steely temperament and a remarkably long life for his own era, Epiphanius of Salamis (310/20-403), monk, bishop, author and controversialist, was a man whose vast ambition was disproportionate to his moderate learning. Epiphanius came from a wealthy family in Palestine and made the most of imperial toleration for Christianity, expanding his power and influence not only by cannily associating with ambitious Christian leaders, but also—and with great labor—by assembling a book (The Panarion) cataloging heresies for the increasingly prominent church. The fourth century saw the defeat of one major heresy, with imperial assistance, and the birth of others; Epiphanius presciently had written an outline of orthodoxy, the Ancoratus, and he stuck to leadership and diplomacy, avoiding the perils of philosophy.

Both Kim's and Jacobs' book are thorough, polished and intriguing accounts of a man whom most historians of the later Roman Empire, and historians of Christianity, have found odious. Both take a biographical approach to the man, and follow Epiphanius in his career; both express some wonder at his success and at the reactions to him—they remark on the cultural differences between Epiphanius and his more learned contemporary writers; and both accord him the same grudging recognition that he has received from earlier historians, pious or not.

Kim, trained as a classicist, bases his understanding of Epiphanius upon his deep familiarity with the text of the Panarion, a translation of which he had earlier published. He reviews Epiphanius' life as a thoroughly [End Page 528] monastic one; reviews the proto-orthodoxy of the Panarion, and treats it as a work of history rooted in a particular knowledge of Judaism. Epiphanius early recognized the importance of monastic discipline, orthodox faith, and the city of Jerusalem within the newly-Christian Holy Land. Epiphanius developed the episcopal power he had been granted; as an old man he travelled with Jerome to Rome to exercise their mutual influence, and was defeated only by the superior machinations of Theophilus of Alexandria—a successor to the bishop Epiphanius admired most, Athanasius.

Jacobs takes a different approach to Epiphanius. A historian of Christianity, he employs theory to perform cultural analyses of Epiphanius' life and works as represented in literary remains, continually placing the resulting portraits of Epiphanius in juxtaposition to contemporary understanding of the topics he has chosen. Placing the ancient figure and his writings in conversation with postmodern literary studies, he considers Epiphanius under five categories: celebrity studies; conversion; scripture; salvation; and "afterlives"—two hagiographical treatments of Epiphanius, one from the fifth and one from the early twentieth centuries.

Using these literary-analytical tools, Jacobs notes the way in which Epiphanius turns his celebrity into power. Jacobs asserts that celebrity is different from fame, a well-known ancient quality, in its improvisational, collective and somewhat accidental or fortuitous quality; for Epiphanius, his ambition and priesthood coincided with historical circumstances he might not have foreseen, but without which he never would have become a star. As a scripture scholar, Epiphanius was not a philosopher or a textual critic in his exegesis; rather, he employed an aesthetics of antiquarianism. His construal of salvation, he—like the even longer-lived Shenoute of Atripe—centered on the human body, unlike the followers of Origen, with their thinly-veiled neoplatonist metaphysic. Finally, Epiphanius might unknowingly provide contemporary historians with a certain salvation. Writes Jacobs: "It may be that, at the end of the day, remembering Epiphanius will allow us not only to bring historiographic nuance to the field of late antiquity, but ethical nuance to our own considerations of the past, and the present."

Both Kim...

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