The Byzantine view of Papal Sovereignty

1991 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 173-185
Author(s):  
Donald M. Nicol
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Roman Emperor ◽  
Kingdom Of Heaven ◽  
Eusebius Of Caesarea

THE idea of papal sovereignty was foreign to the Byzantines. They had trouble enough trying to understand the Western interpretation of papal primacy. Papal ‘sovereignty’ was beyond them, unintelligible, unreasonable, and unhistorical. It is true that the East Roman Christians, whom for convenience we call Byzantines, did not all live in one generation. Their cultural and political roots were in Constantinople, the ancient Byzantium; and their empire endured in one form or another for 1,100 years, from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries. In so long a span their ideas naturally evolved and changed, as did their society. But their concept of the order of the Christian world remained stable. It was based upon the formula devised by the first Christian historian, Eusebius of Caesarea, in the fourth century. The formula was an amalgam of pre-Christian, Hellenistic notions of monarchy, with Old and New Testament elements. The Christian Roman Emperor was the elect of God and, as God’s vice-gerent on earth, he ruled over what was the terrestrial reflection, albeit a poor copy, of the Kingdom of Heaven. His patriarchs or supreme bishops of the Christian Empire, especially the Patriarch of Constantinople, his capital city, were the spiritual heads of the Christian world, acting in harmony with him. Church and State were therefore one, indissoluble and interdependent.

Church and State in the Byzantine Empire: A Reconsideration of The Problem of Caesaropapism

1965 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 381-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deno J. Geanakoplos
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Roman Emperor ◽  
The West ◽  
Latin West

In the medieval theocratic societies of both the Byzantine East and the Latin West, where the influence of Christian precepts so strongly pervaded all aspects of life, it was inevitable that the institutions of church and state, of sacerdotium and regnum to use the traditional Latin terms, be closely tied to one another. But whereas in the West, at least after the investiture conflict of the eleventh century, the pope managed to exert a strong political influence over secular rulers, notably the Holy Roman Emperor, in the East, from the very foundation of Constantinople in the fourth century, the Byzantine emperor seemed clearly to dominate over his chief ecclesiastical official, the patriarch.

Greek Christian Lists

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmon L. Gallagher ◽  
John D. Meade
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Chronological Order ◽  
Masoretic Text ◽  
Origen Of Alexandria ◽  
Catholic Epistles ◽  
Eusebius Of Caesarea

This chapter contains texts, translations, and analysis of the seventeen early canon lists (Old Testament and/or New Testament) in Greek in probable chronological order: the Bryennios List, Melito of Sardis, Origen of Alexandria, Eusebius of Caesarea, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius of Alexandria, Synod of Laodicea, Apostolic Canons, Gregory of Nazianzus, Amphilochius of Iconium, and Epiphanius of Salamis. These lists show remarkable consistency of biblical contents for both the Old and the New Testaments. The OT lists consist mostly of the twenty-two books of the Jewish canon though the forms of the some of the books reflect the Septuagintal forms rather than the Masoretic Text. The NT lists largely consist of the four Gospels, Acts, and the fourteen epistles of Paul. Disputes over the Catholic Epistles and the Revelation of John persisted into the fourth century as the lists show, but appear to have subsided by the end of this century.

The Date of the Muratorian Fragment

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-172
Author(s):  
John F. Lingelbach
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Church History ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Current Work ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Historical Theology ◽  
First Time ◽  
Objective Methodology

Three hundred years after its discovery, scholars find themselves unable to determine the more likely of the two hypotheses regarding the date of the Muratorian Fragment, which consists of a catalog of New Testament texts. Is the Fragment a late second- to early third-century composition or a fourth-century composition? This present work seeks to break the impasse. The study found that, by making an inference to the best explanation, a second-century date for the Fragment is preferred. This methodology consists of weighing the two hypotheses against five criteria: plausibility, explanatory scope, explanatory power, credibility, and simplicity. What makes this current work unique in its contribution to church history and historical theology is that it marks the first time the rigorous application of an objective methodology, known as “inference to the best explanation” (or IBE), has been formally applied to the problem of the Fragment’s date.

Roman Imperial Culture

2019 ◽  
pp. 256-276
Author(s):  
Davina C. Lopez
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Visual Representation ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Roman Emperor ◽  
Imperial Culture ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Imperial Ideology

This chapter discusses several aspects of Roman imperial culture that offer resonances with the study of the New Testament. Herein several gendered and sexualized tropes of Roman imperial ideology, which serve to discursively naturalize power relationships and differences in hierarchy, are considered. These include the impenetrable manliness of the Roman emperor, the link between military conquest and sexual violence and feminization of conquered barbarian “others,” and the characterization of the Roman Empire as an endlessly fertile family. Special attention is given to the rhetorical and representational dimensions of Roman imperial culture, and particular emphasis is afforded to visual representation. Finally, the article considers several areas wherein the intersection of gender, sexuality, Roman imperial culture, and the study of the New Testament might further be explored.

scholarly journals Eusebius of Caesarea, the Roman Empire, and the Fulfillment of Biblical Prophecy: Reassessing Byzantine Imperial Eschatology in the Age of Constantine

2021 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-536
Author(s):  
Christopher Bonura
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Kingdom Of Heaven ◽  
The Future ◽  
Book Of Daniel ◽  
Eusebius Of Caesarea ◽  
Realized Eschatology ◽  
Second Coming

AbstractModern scholarship often attributes to Eusebius of Caesarea (d. circa 340 AD) the view that God's heavenly kingdom had become manifest in the Roman Empire of Constantine the Great. Consequently, Eusebius is deemed significant in the development of Christian eschatological thought as the supposed formulator of a new “realized eschatology” for the Christian Roman Empire. Similarly, he is considered the originator of so-called “Byzantine imperial eschatology”—that is, eschatology designed to justify the existing imperial order under the emperors in Constantinople. Scholars advancing these claims most frequently cite a line from Eusebius's Tricennial Oration in which he identified the accession of the sons of Constantine with the prophesied kingdom of the saints in the Book of Daniel. Further supposed evidence has been adduced in his other writings, especially his Life of Constantine. This article argues that this common interpretation of Eusebius's eschatology is mistaken and has resulted from treating a few passages in isolation while overlooking their rhetorical context. It demonstrates instead that Eusebius adhered to a conventional Christian eschatology centered on the future kingdom of heaven that would accompany the second coming of Christ and further suggests that the concept of “Byzantine imperial eschatology” should be reconsidered.

scholarly journals THE EARLY RECEPTION OF PLINY THE YOUNGER IN TERTULLIAN OF CARTHAGE AND EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA

2017 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 247-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Corke-Webster
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Pliny The Younger ◽  
The Third ◽  
Stark Contrast ◽  
Eusebius Of Caesarea ◽  
Sidonius Apollinaris

In 1967 Alan Cameron published a landmark article in this journal, ‘The fate of Pliny'sLettersin the late Empire’. Opposing the traditional thesis that the letters of Pliny the Younger were only rediscovered in the mid to late fifth century by Sidonius Apollinaris, Cameron proposed that closer attention be paid to the faint but clear traces of the letters in the third and fourth centuries. On the basis of well-observed intertextual correspondences, Cameron proposed that Pliny's letters were being read by the end of the fourth century at the latest. That article now seems the vanguard of a rise in scholarly interest in Pliny's late-antique reception. But Cameron also noted the explicit attention given to the letters by two earlier commentators—Tertullian of Carthage, in the late second to early third century, and Eusebius of Caesarea, in the early fourth. The use of Pliny in these two earliest commentators, in stark contrast to their later successors, has received almost no subsequent attention.

The Emperor and the Empire

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry O. Maier
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Elected Officials ◽  
Roman Emperor ◽  
Imperial Cult ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Trading Partners ◽  
Augustan Era ◽  
Religious Devotion

The chapter discusses the Roman emperor, the administration of the empire, and the imperial cult. It defines the terms “imperium,” and “imperator” and their changing definitions in the Augustan era. It considers the empire as a network of roads, laws, trading partners, and ethnicities, and also the ways religion traveled and spread through these networks through the actions of religious entrepreneurs. It discusses diaspora urban Judaism and its integration within the empire. It presents the division of the empire into senatorial and imperial provinces and their administration of law, along with the collection of taxes through provincial officials and tax farmers. It treats civic patronage by elected officials in the form of liturgies in return for honors. The imperial cult as religious devotion and a ritualized means of communication between the emperor and provincial elites and the high frequency of imperial language and imagery in the New Testament are discussed.

Double Honor: Elite Hutterite Women in the Sixteenth Century

2010 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 753-782 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Darlage
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Early Church ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Church

Studies of early modern Anabaptism have shown that many Anabaptists sought to model their communities after the examples of the New Testament and the early church before the “fall” of the church into a coercive, sword-wielding institution through the person of Constantine in the fourth centuryc.e.The Anabaptists claimed that one had to voluntarily choose to become a Christian through believer's baptism and suffer for his or her faith just as the martyrs of old had done in the face of Roman persecution. During the course of the sixteenth century, their Protestant and Roman Catholic enemies did not disappoint, as hundreds of Anabaptists were executed for their rejection of “Christendom.” To the “magisterial” Christians, Anabaptists were dangerous heretics because they denied the God-given power of spiritual and secular authorities.

scholarly journals Remembering Trajan in fourth-century Rome : memory and identity in spatial, artistic, and textual narratives

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Eric M. Thienes
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Roman Emperor

This study examines a broad range of fourth-century evidence in art, literature, and monuments in order to examine the cultural significance of the Roman emperor Trajan. Trajan was famous in his own day in the second century but was also important for later Romans in the fourth century seeking to create their own identity through associations with him. This study argues that Trajan was an essential figure to establishing the fourth century as an \"Age of Renewal.\"

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