Bishops in Flight: Exile and Displacement in Late Antiquity by Jennifer Barry

Abstract

Reviewed by: Bishops in Flight: Exile and Displacement in Late Antiquity by Jennifer Barry Alexander B. Miller Jennifer Barry. Bishops in Flight: Exile and Displacement in Late Antiquity. Oakland: University of California Press, 2019. 224 pp. The rapid succession of emperors in the fourth century resulted in a proliferation of church councils, with opposing bishops cowed into submission or exiled. In this work, Barry does not attempt to untangle the theological debates. Rather, she asks why some bishops can wear the sentence of exile as a badge of orthodoxy while it is a badge of shame for others. This is a study in the discourse of exile, as it "constructs, contests, and preserves orthodox identity in both ancient and contemporary works" (introduction). In Barry's argument, the discourse of exile is a matter of tying a bishop to or distancing him from geographical "beacon[s] of orthodoxy" (chaps. 2–4) like Alexandria or Constantinople. Barry's introduction is a succinct overview of the classical and ecclesiastical histories of exilic discourse. Classical writers described exile as social death, reprieve from politics, and the exile of the res publica itself. Within the church, imperial persecution elicited both Tertullian's call for martyrdom and Cyprian's defense of the cautious bishop-in-hiding. Athanasius' case (chap. 1) introduces many of the themes for the remainder of the book. Barry helpfully reminds us that exile is a reference not only to punishment but also to a point of origin. When Alexandria was a bastion of orthodox worship (a "model city"), Athanasius's exile was painful, but he maintained a virtual presence (and authority) through correspondence. When Alexandria was overrun by "heretics" and "schismatics," Athanasius described the desert as a refuge for the persecuted church. Finally, when Athanasius fled from imperial censure into the desert, his language shifted to flight as ascetic anachoresis (withdrawal), not cowardice. In this scenario, Athanasius's desert is a heterotopia, a Foucauldian term for a counter-space that allows one to reflect on the ideal values of another space. The Life of Antony depicts the desert as an ideal city [End Page 242] juxtaposed against "Arian" Alexandria, but Athanasius's victorious return to Alexandria bearing the mantle of Antony ultimately proved his orthodoxy. In chapters 2 and 3, we learn that Gregory Nazianzen appealed to the ascetic memories of Athanasius and Basil to defend his own brief flight after ordination, and Chrysostom maintained authority through his epistolary network, imagined the city of Constantinople going into exile with him, and as his death in exile drew near, cast all of Christian existence as a state of exile in a strange world. These first three chapters yield the greatest reward. Barry's readings of Athanasius, Gregory, and Chrysostom are explicitly informed by critical and spatial theory, but by keeping close to the texts at all times, this remains a book about church history, not an exercise in theory. She impresses upon the reader that geography (whence and whither one is sent) is integral to the sentence of exile and its interpretation, rather than incidental. Through her attention to chronology and shifting doctrinal and political debates, Barry fruitfully parses the polyvalence of exilic discourse to account for the "victories" of both bishops who return to their orthodox sees and those who die in exile. In the second half of the book, Barry tests her theory that writers in the fifth century linked one's orthodoxy to association with "holy" cities and distance from suspect ones. Chrysostom's biographers lobbied for his posthumous return to Constantinople by pinning his exile on an imperial betrayal of the city's orthodoxy (chap. 4). Eusebius of Nicomedia, once exiled as an ally of Arius, died as archbishop of Constantinople, but his memory was bound to Nicomedia, its pro-Arian past, and his exile from it (chap. 5). Finally, Meletius of Antioch appears to have an orthodox record: he baptized Chrysostom, opposed the Arian party, and supported Gregory Nazianzen. Nonetheless, he found himself in a state of schism with Paulinus, the Alexandrian candidate for the see of Antioch, and the nearest sympathetic historians can place him after death is just outside of Antioch with the relics of St...