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Julian and Justinian and the Unity of Faith and Culture*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Glanville Downey
Glanville Downey
Affiliation:
Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D. C.
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Extract

The relationship—or lack of it—between religious belief and socalled secular culture is a topic which has been of perennial interest both to ancient students of religion and history and to modern historians. Students today use the phrase Unity of Faith and Culture because it has become current and because it bears some relationship to our own situation and problems, but we must also consider the subject, at least as we see it in antiquity, in terms of the interdependence or the interaction of faith and culture.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , December 1959 , pp. 339 - 349
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1959

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References

1. Kingston, F. Temple, “Classical Culture and the Wholeness of Faith,” Anglican Theological Review, XL (1958), pp. 26–36.Google Scholar

2. Hatch, Edwin, The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church (Hibbert Lectures, 1888; London, 1890)Google Scholar, reprinted in 1957 in the Harper Torchbook series under the title The Influence of Greek Ideas on Christianity, with valuable foreword, notes and bibliography by Frederick C. Grant; Hailiday, W. R., The Pagan Backgronnd of Early Christianity (Liverpool and London, 1925)Google Scholar; Cochrane, C. N., Christianity and Classical Culture (Oxford, 1940)Google Scholar, reprinted 1944, and reissued in 1957 by the Oxford University Press, New York, in the Galaxy series.

3. On Libanius' attitude toward Christianity, see Misson, J., “Libanius et le christianisme,” Musée belge, XXIV (1920), pp. 72–89Google Scholar; Petit, P., Libanius et la vie municipale a Antioche au lye siécle aprés J.-C. (Paris, 1955), p. 196.Google Scholar

4. See the studies by the present writer, “Education and Public Problems as Seen by Themistius,” Transactions of the American Philological Association, LXXXVI (1955), pp. 291–307Google Scholar, and “Themistius and the Defense of Hellenism in the Fourth Century” (one of the Bedell Lectures for 1956), Harvard Theological Review, L (1957), pp. 259–274.Google Scholar

5. Geffcken, J., Kaiser Julianus (Leipzig 1914)Google Scholar; Ensslin, W., “Kaiser Julians Gesetzgebungswerk und Reichsverwaltung,” Klio, XVIII (1923), pp. 104–199Google Scholar; Bidez, J., La vie de 1'empereur Julien (Paris, 1930)Google Scholar, translated into German, with additional material, under the title (in which the change of the description of Julian may be noted) Julian der Abtrünnige (Munich, 1940)Google Scholar; Andreotti, R., “L'opera legislative ed amministrativa dell'Imperatore Giuliano,” Nuova Rivista Storica, XIV (1930), pp. 342–383Google Scholar, together with the scholar's, sameIl Regno dell'Irmperatore Giuliano (Bologna, 1936)Google Scholar. Professor Dvornik's study is cited below, note 8.

6. In a forthcoming paper in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology.

7. On the economic situation in Julian's time see Mazzarino, S., Aspetti sociali del quarto secolo (Rome, 1951)Google Scholar. On Julian's sojourn at Antioch see the studies by the present writer, “Julian the Apostate at Antioch,” Church History, VIII (1939), pp. 303–315Google Scholar, and “The Economic Crisis at Antioch ander Julian the Apostate,” Studies in Roman Economic and Social History in Honor of A. C. Johnson (Princeton, 1951), pp. 312–321.Google Scholar

8. Dvornik, F., “The Emperor Julian's ‘Reactionary’ Ideas on Kingship,” Late Classical and Mediaevai Studies in Honor of A. M. Friend, Jr. (Princeton, 1955), pp. 71–81, especially pp. 75–76.Google Scholar

9. See Butcher, S. H., Some Aspects of the Greek Geivius (ed. 2, London, 1893), pp. 4–42.Google Scholar

10. This edict is so important, and so characteristic of Julian's views, that it is quoted here in full, in the translation by Mrs. W. C. Wright in her edition of Julian's works in the Loeb Classical Library, II, pp. 117–123 (Epistle 36 = Epistle 61 in the edition of J. Bidez and F. Cumont): “I hold that a proper education results, not in laboriously acquired symmetry of phrases and language, but in a healthy condition of mind, I mean a mind that has understanding and true opinions about things good and evil, honorable and base. Therefore, when a man thinks one thing and teaches his pupils another, in my opinion he fails to educate exactly in proportion as he fails to be an honest man. And if the divergence between a man's convictions and his utterances is merely in trivial matters, that can be tolerated somehow, though it is wrong. But if in matters of the greatest importance a man has certain opinions and teaches the contrary, what is that but the conduct of hucksters, and not honest but thoroughly dissolute men in that they praise most highly the things they believe to be most worthless, thus cheating and enticing by their phrases those to whom they desire to transfer their worthless wares. Now all who profess to teach anything whatever ought to be men of upright character, and ought not to harbor in their souls opinions irreconcilable with what they pnblicly profess; and, above all, I believe it is necessary that those who associate with the young and teach them rhetoric should be of that upright character; for they expound the writings of the ancients, whether they be rhetoricians or grammarians, and still more if they are sophists. For these claim to teach, in addition to other things, not only the use of words, but morals also, and they assert that political philosophy is their peculiar field. Let us leave aside, for the moment, the question whether this is true or not. But while I applaud them for aspiring to such high pretensions, I should applaud them still more if they did not utter falsehoods and convict themselves of thinking one thing and teaching their pupils another. What! Was it not the gods who revealed all their learning to Homer, Hesiod, Demosthenes, Herodotus, Thucydides, Isocrates and Lysias? Did not these men think that they were consecrated, some to Hermes, others to the Muses? I think it is absurd that men who expound the works of these writers should dishonor the gods whom they used to honor. Yet, though I think this absurd, I do not say that they ought to change their opinions and then instruct the young. But I give them this choice; either not to teach what they do not think admirable, or, if they wish to teach, let them first really persuade their pupils that neither Homer nor Hesiod nor any of these writers whom they expound and have declared to be guilty of impiety, folly and error in regard to the gods, is such as they declare. For since they make a livelihood and receive pay from the works of those writers, they thereby confess that they are most shamefully greedy of gain, and that, for the sake of a few drachmae, they would put up with anything. It is true that, until now, there were many excuses for not attending the temples, and the terror that threatened on all sides [i.e. under the Christian régime] absolved men for concealing the truest beliefs about the gods. But since the gods have granted us liberty, it seems to me absurd that men should teach what they do not believe to be sound. But if they believe that those whose interpreters they are and for whom they sit, so to speak, in the seat of the prophets, were wise men, let them be the first to emulate their piety towards the gods. If, however, they think that those writers were in error with respect to the most honored gods, then let them betake themselves to the churches of the Galileans to expound Matthew and Luke, since you Galileans are obeying them when you ordain that men shall refrain from temple-worship. For my part, I wish that your ears and your tongues might be ‘born anew,’ as you would say, as regards these things in which may I ever have part, and all who think and act as is pleasing to me. For religious and secular teachers let there be a general ordinance to this effect: Any youth who wishes to attend the schools is not excluded; nor indeed would it be reasonable to shut out from the best way boys who are still too ignorant to know which way to turn, and to overawe them into being led against their will to the beliefs of their ancestors. Though indeed it might be proper to cure these, even against their will, as one cures the insane, except that we concede indulgence to all for this sort of disease. For we ought, I think, to teach, but not punish, the demented.” On this edict and its significance, see the present writer's article, “The Emperor Julian and the Schools,” Classical Journal, LIII (1957), pp. 97–403.Google Scholar

11. See p. xi of the Foreword by Setten, Kenneth M. in Henry Osborne Taylor, The Emergence of Christian Culture in the West (New York, Harper Torchbooks, 1958Google Scholar; originally published in 1901 under the title The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages).

12. See the study of Anastos, M. V., “The Immutability of Christ and Justinian's Condemnation of Theodore of Mopsuestia,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, VI (1951), pp. 123–160CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Professor Anastos is preparing a monograph on the intellectual history of the reign of Justinian.

13. The paragraphs which follow have grown in part out of previous studies by the present writer, “Justinian as Achilles,” Transactions of the American Philological Association, LXXI (1940), pp. 68–77Google Scholar; “Justinian's View of Christianity and the Greek Classics,” Anglican Theological Review, XL (1958), pp. 13–22Google Scholar; “The Christian Schools of Palestine: A Chapter in Literary History,” Harvard Library Bulletin, XII (1958), pp. 297–319.Google Scholar

14. The best account of the work of the schools at Athens at this period is Walden, J. W. H., The Universities of Ancient Greece (New York, 1909).Google Scholar

15. veneranda vetustatis auctoritas (September 23, 3, p. 188, line 9 ed. Schoell-Kroll, Corpus iuris civilis); inculpabilis antiquitas (September 8, iusiurandum, ibid. p. 89, line 36).

16. Justinian's action is thought paradoxical by Stein, Ernst, Histoire du Bas-Empire, II (Paris, 1949), p. 276, cf. p. 372Google Scholar. J. B. Bury comes closer to a correct understanding of the measure, though he does not take into account all the factors involved: History of the Later Roman Empire (London, 1923Google Scholar; reprinted, New York, Dover Publications, 1958), II, pp. 369–370.

17. Cod. Just. 1.5.18.4; 1.11.10.2.

18. Cod Just. 1.5.18.4. It is interesting to compare St. Augustine's statement (De doctrina Christiana, IV, 27 [59])Google Scholar: “The man whose life is in harmony with his teaching will teach with greater effect … Whatever may be the majesty of the style, the life of the speaker will count for more in securing the hearer's compliance.”

19. As Bury (loc. cit., above, note 15) suggested.

20. On his career, see Seitz, K., Die Schule von Gaza (Diss., Heidelberg, 1892), pp. 9–21Google Scholar, and von Christ, W., Geschichte der griechisehen Litteratur, ed. by Schmid, W. and O., Stählin, ed. 6, II, pt. 2 (Munich, 1924), pp. 1029–1031.Google Scholar

21. Diehls, H., “Ueber die von Prokop beschriebene Kunstuhr von Gaza: mit einem Anhang enthaltend Text and Uebersetzung der Ekphrasis Horologiou des Prokopios von Gaza,” Abhandlungen der k. Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse, 1917, No. 7.Google Scholar

22. Photius, Bibliotheca, cod. 206 (Migne, , P.G., CIII, cols. 676–677).Google Scholar

23. See the present writer's article in the Harvard Library Bulletin, cited above, note 13.

24. On John Philoponus, see H. D. Saffrey, “La chrétien Jean Philopon et la survivance de l'école d'Alexandrie au VIe siècle,” Revue des études grecques, LXVII (1954), pp. 390–410Google Scholar (for this reference I am indebted to Professor Sirarpie der Nersessian). For other studies of the work of the school of Alexandria at this period, see Anastos, M. V., “The Alexandrian Origin of the Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, III (1946), pp. 73–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, “Aristotle and Cosmas Indicopleustes on the Void,” Prosphora eis Stilpona P. Kyriakiden (Thessalonica, 1953), pp. 35–50Google Scholar (Hellenika, Parartema IV).

25. Florovsky, G., “Empire and Desert: Antinomies of Christian History,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review, III (1957), p. 143Google Scholar. The reader should note what Professor Plorovsky says (Ibid., pp. 141–142) on Justinian's conception of the Christian State.

26. Tsirintanes, A. N., Towards a Christian Civilization: A Draft Issued by the Christian Union of Professional Men of Greece (Athens, “Damascus” Publications, 1950), pp. 156–157.Google Scholar

27. See the present writer's article “The Byzantine Church and the Presentness of the Past,” Theolagy Today, XV (1958), pp. 84–99Google Scholar, also the review article “Byzantium and the Classical Tradition,” The Phoenix, XII (1958), pp. 125–129.Google Scholar