Ecclesiastical History Research Articles

Oriental Scholarship and Episcopal Polity: The Reception of John Selden's Arabic-Latin Edition of Eutychius

John Selden's 1642 edition and translation of an extract from a chronicle by Eutychius (Said ibn Batriq), the tenth-century Melkite patriarch of Alexandria, can be considered the first Arabic book printed in England. This article examines the early reception of Selden's Eutychius in the European republic of letters, exploring the ways in which its testimony about the early Alexandrian Church contributed to scholarly debates over episcopacy against the backdrop of the English Revolution. In doing so it demonstrates how Selden's edition made Eutychius a touchstone in seventeenth-century confessional disputes over ecclesiastical history while attracting readers in England and abroad.

Nauczanie historii Kościoła alumnów obrządku łacińskiego w Instytucie Teologicznym w Przemyślu 1772-1918

The author of the article – presenting the place of the ecclesiastical history in the curriculum of seminary studies under the Austrian partition on the example of the Przemyśl centre – introduces the history of this institution established in 1687. The following part contains the complicated fate of the Seminary in Przemyśl, which from 1772 had to struggle with the policy of the invader that first involved its closing (1783), then reactivation (1819) and finally functioning under the conditions of severe Austrian supervision. It is this stage of the activity of the discussed institution that constitutes the main interest of the article and shows the place of the ecclesiastical history in the curriculum of theological studies, the organization of lectures and the textbooks used. Particular attention was paid to the teaching staff throughout the discussed century, presenting their struggles with the Austrian bureaucracy and even facing repression by the authorities.

Disfigurement and Deliverance: Eusebian Portrayals of Martyrdom and the Letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne

Abstract: This study examines Eusebius’s physical portrayals of martyrs, situating them within his moral and rhetorical agenda in his Ecclesiastical History . To bring the contours of his discourse into greater relief, I first compare Eusebius’s martyr portrayals with those of the Letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne (one of the longest ostensibly non-Eusebian martyr narratives in the History ). After noting several minor differences between the descriptions in Eusebius’s martyr stories and those populating the Letter , I highlight one significant discursive disparity: namely, the physiognomic and sartorial details in the Letter tend to emphasize the martyrs’ divine physical restoration and glorification during their ordeals, while Eusebian martyr stories place greater emphasis on the martyrs’ gruesome disfigurement. Having made a case for the Letter ’s distinct deployment of physical details—further suggesting its authorial independence from Eusebius—the remainder of the article focuses on one particular historiographic and pedagogical aim to which Eusebius deploys these grisly martyrological images: amplifying the irrationality and cruelty of persecuting imperial leaders. From the early books of the History , Eusebius frequently catalogues imperial leaders as either pious respecters of the Christians, in step with traditional Roman mores , or impious persecutors, exemplifying their irrationality and lack of imperial virtue. The mangled bodies of the martyrs adorn Eusebius’s History , I argue, at least in part as gruesome monuments to immoral, barbaric leaders. These evil exempla , in turn, provide both an effective foil for the virtuous leadership of Christian-favoring leaders and a stern moral warning for future leaders. At various points in this article, I also bring Eusebius’s earlier narrative, Martyrs of Palestine , into the conversation to demonstrate further the relative stability of Eusebius’s physiognomic portrayals of martyrs.

Claude Fleury’s Ecclesiastical History , A Newly Identified Source for Melville’s Reading

Claude Fleury’s Ecclesiastical History , A Newly Identified Source for Melville’s Reading

OutRage! Hypocrisy, Episcopacy and Homosexuality in 1990s England

The brief but bitter campaign to expose the hidden homosexuality of Anglican bishops in the mid-1990s was framed as a contest about hypocrisy, with bishops – whether suspected of homosexuality or not – condemned as hypocrites, and the Church of England as hypocritical. However, the activists behind this ‘outing’, and the media which covered the story with such enthusiasm, were similarly attacked for hypocrisy. A neglected moment in recent ecclesiastical history, it reveals the ongoing importance of hypocrisy in debates about the nature of faith and the authority of the church. Still more, it sheds light on how contemporary assumptions about authenticity both intensified the perceived importance of hypocrisy and increased the chances of being accused of acting hypocritically.

Arystoteles i Biblia pod mezoamerykańskim dachem. Chrystianizacja przez asymilację aspektów wierzeń i dziejów nahua w narracji „Historia ecclesiástica indiana” Jerónimo de Mendiety (1525-1604)

The aim of this paper is to identify and define how elements of the native Mesoamerican Nahuan beliefs are described in „Historia eclesiástica indiana”, the chronicle written by Spanish Franciscan friar Jerónimo de Mendieta (1525-1604). The Catholic monk exploited numerous components of the Nahuan religious system, while this paper focuses on Mendieta’s rendering of the legendary character of Ce Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, Toltec priest-emperor as well as on the native speeches huehuetlahtolli, delivered by Nahuan parents to their children. The ecclesiastical historian uses the aforementioned themes to unfold his own ideas and narrative about the past and colonial reality of the Nahua people. Mendieta’s writings are compared with fragments of an encyclopaedia by the Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590), „Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España”, the key source to studying religion and culture of the precolonial societies in Central Mexico. The paper also draws on the accounts of other colonial authors, such as Motolinia, Olmos and Durán.

Understanding the concept of the English people in Bede’s work “Ecclesiastical history of the English people”

Understanding the concept of the English people in Bede’s work “Ecclesiastical history of the English people”

Transforming the Coptic Ecclesiastical History at the Beginning of the Mamluk Period: From the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria to the Coptic‑Arabic Synaxarion

Cet article traite de l’historiographie dans les milieux coptes au début de l’époque mamelouke et en particulier des transformations majeures qu’elle a subies à ce moment‑clé de l’histoire égyptienne. En effet, c’est à ce moment que la célèbre Histoire des Patriarches d’Alexandrie – l’histoire officielle de l'Église copte en arabe, composée à l'époque fatimide – fut entièrement réécrite. Aussi, le Synaxaire copto‑arabe, qui incarne une approche différente de l’histoire, fut composé à la même époque. Le présent article émet l’hypothèse que ces deux phénomènes sont corrélés et doivent être étudiés à la lumière des changements concomitants dans les sphères culturelles, ecclésiastiques et politiques.

Ambiguous Christians and Their Useful Texts: Tatian, Bardaisan, Symmachus, and Rhodon in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History

Abstract Eusebius did not represent all heretics in the Ecclesiastical History as equally pernicious. This paper presents close readings of Eusebius’ chapters about three relatively benign heretics, namely Tatian (Historia ecclesiastica 4,29), Bardaisan (4,30), and Symmachus (6,17), and I also explore Rhodon (Historia ecclesiastica 5,13), a student of Tatian whom Eusebius never labels a heretic. Three inferences emerge from these readings. First, rather than condemning all heretics as equally demonic, deceitful, morally depraved, and worthless, Eusebius considered some heresies less dangerous than others. Second, Eusebius commended some heretics’ useful writings, which in each case Eusebius quotes in his own œuvre; he thus retained some of Clement’s and Origen’s openness to heretics’ ideas. Third, the case of Rhodon shows that Eusebius assumed no obligation to classify all Christian thinkers as orthodox or heretical: as with Rhodon, Eusebius elides the ecclesiastical status of Tertullian and Ammonius (Historia ecclesiastica 2,2,4; 6,19,9–10), two other Christians of questionable orthodoxy. For Eusebius, in sum, the usefulness of an author’s texts sometimes superseded the harm of that author’s questionable orthodoxy, especially when that author hailed from a less-harmful heresy or was not clearly a heretic.

Modestus at Edessa. Imperial officials in the ecclesiastical histories of Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret

Abstract This article considers the depictions of imperial officials and their interactions with Christian communities in the genre of ecclesiastical history. It focuses on one particular episode where the emperor Valens ordered his praetorian prefect Domitius Modestus to disperse an assembly of Nicene Christians at the martyrium of Thomas at Edessa. The four fifth-century Nicene ecclesiastical historians Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret offer the same basic narrative of the events which led to the prefect’s abandonment of his mission. Yet they construe the causes and implications of his reluctance to persecute in strikingly different ways. These adaptations reveal their differing views of the role of imperial officials in matters concerning the church and, more broadly, of what Christian communities might expect from the imperial state in a Christian empire.

The godly lives of Samuel Clarke and the ‘national church’ in the 1650s

ABSTRACT The godly lives of Samuel Clarke have traditionally been consulted by historians of early Stuart puritanism for biographical information, particularly anecdotal information, about many of the most famous puritan divines of the age. But, in fact, the lives, and the martyrologies and ecclesiastical histories in which they were contained, were a product of the events of the English civil war and revolution; and more particularly of the disastrous defeat suffered at the end of the 1640s and early 1650s by the Presbyterians at the hands of the Independents and the sects. The first versions of Clarke’s collection of lives, which were published between 1650 and 1652, represented a response to that crisis. This article sets out to explain how and why that was, and, having set the lives in that context, and explained the precise apologetic, polemical and edificational purposes they were designed to serve, it concludes by explaining what light such a contextual reading of Clarke’s text might shed on the dynamics of the 1650s and the fate therein of the ‘national church’.

Aimery de Nabinaud, OFM (†1326), Counsellor of Henry II, Bishop of Paphos, Papal Diplomat between Cyprus and Armenia, and Debtor

Of the four medieval cities (and dioceses) of Frankish Cyprus – Nicosia, Paphos, Limassol, and Famagusta – Paphos has received the least attention. Continuing work on the Bullarium Cyprium project, which involves editing the papal letters referring to the island, provides a window into the ecclesiastical history of the town. This is the second of three articles in this journal that complete Jean Richard’s work on the bishops of Paphos in the period of the Avignon papacy (1309–1377). With some notes on Bishop Jacques More (1309–1321), this paper focuses on his successor, Aimery de Nabinaud, OFM, the first member of an illustrious family of ecclesiastics who served Cyprus in the 14th century. First noted in 1310, when he was teaching at the Minorite convent in Famagusta, Aimery was an important advisor to King Henry II (†1324), he was eventually elevated to Bishop of Paphos in 1322. We know most about Aimery’s diplomatic activities with the Kingdom of Armenia in Cilicia from 1310 until his death, as well as the difficult financial situation he left to his successor as bishop, Géraud de Veyrines.

Roundtable on Michael J. Hollerich, Making Christian History: Eusebius of Caesarea and His Readers (Oakland: University of California Press, 2021)

Few topics are more germane to this journal than the writing of ecclesiastical history, and no figure has had greater influence on the development of this genre than the bishop and scholar, Eusebius of Caesarea. In his masterful study of Eusebius and his readers from the late ancient to the modern era, Michael Hollerich has done a great service to all historians of Christianity. A work of reception history, the book begins with a chapter on Eusebius's life and work, focusing on his Ecclesiastical History and its relation to his Chronicle as well as other historical and non-historical genres with which he engaged. Subsequent chapters examine the reception of his work in the Christian Roman Empire of late antiquity, the non-Greek East, the medieval Latin West, and Byzantium, before turning to the rediscovery of Eusebius in diverse early modern contexts and his reception in modern scholarship including the implications of his historiographical work for future historians. The essays that comprise this roundtable, followed by the author's response, continue this important conversation about Eusebius and his legacy.

Журнал церковной истории. Том 69 (2018), выпуск 1: Обзор материалов

В представленном здесь очерке продолжается ретроспективное обозрение научного «Журнала церковной истории», издаваемого в Кембридже. Настоящая публикация обнимает материалы первого выпуска (номера) 69-го тома (2018 г. издания), в который вошли шесть научных статей и семьдесят четыре аннотации на монографии, публикаци источников и тематические сборники, изданные в предыдущие четыре года. There is the continuation of reviews of the Journal of Ecclesiastical History. Here is situated the issue for the January of 2018 which this time concludes more than eighty items of publications presumably a reviews of monographs and issues collections. In proposed review of this journal’s issue all the published materials will be as usually briefly considered from the point of view of their content and main authors’ ideas.

A Lost Source for Syriac Christianity in the Umayyad Era. The Ecclesiastical History of Daniel Son of Moses of Ṭur ʿAbdin (8th century)

A Lost Source for Syriac Christianity in the Umayyad Era. The <i>Ecclesiastical History </i>of Daniel Son of Moses of Ṭur ʿAbdin (8th century)

The Renunciation of Wealth as a Rite of ‘the poor' and ‘perfect’: Bede and his Successors

The renunciation and abandonment of wealth are rarely described as Christian rites of passage. Yet, for many medieval commentators on Scripture, such as the Venerable Bede and his successors, they were necessary rites, preliminaries to entry into the kingdom of heaven and into the class of ‘the perfect’. This article explores Arnold van Gennep's description of rites of passage in conjunction with the discussion of poverty in the Western exegetical tradition, centred in particular on Jesus's statements about poverty in Luke. It focuses on Bede's models of renunciation and abandonment of wealth which influenced Latin theology at least until the Reformation. The renunciation and abandonment of wealth provide an excellent test case for exploring van Gennep's ritual framework and its utility within the discipline of ecclesiastical history.

Flemish Immigration and Geoffrey of Monmouth's De gestis Britonum

Flemish Immigration and Geoffrey of Monmouth's <i>De gestis Britonum</i>

Financing Religion: Edinburgh’s Burgh Churches

This paper describes and analyses the financing arrangements of Edinburgh’s Burgh churches from the time of the Reformation to the enactment of the Church of Scotland (Property and Endowments) Act 1925. Deploying financial and demographic data it offers a preliminary economic commentary on two key episodes in Edinburgh’s nineteenth century ecclesiastical history – the Voluntary revolt against the Annuity Tax of the 1830s, and the 1843 Disruption – thereby enriching existing narratives of the period through a calibration of the financial impact of both events on the Burgh’s revenues.

Daniel Caner. The Rich and the Pure: Philanthropy and the Making of Christian Society in Early Byzantium.

In his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius recounted how in 250 Christians in Alexandria courageously cared for the victims of an epidemic. Without thinking of their safety, they embraced their loved ones as death approached. Their pagan neighbors, on the other hand, abandoned their family members in fear and left them to die alone in the streets. These Alexandrian Christians were practicing philanthropia, the virtue the apostle Paul called agape (love, charity), but they did not extend this philanthropy to pagans. In the next hundred years, however, Christians began to assist all men and women regardless of their religious beliefs. Scholars studying Christian philanthropy in the Early Byzantine period (323 to 642) attribute this expanding scope of Christian charity to Constantine’s conversion and the subsequent Christianization of the Roman state. In The Rich and the Pure: Philanthropy and the Making of Christian Society in Early Byzantium, Daniel Caner has undertaken a far more thorough analysis of this shift in Christian philanthropy. By examining various terms that Christian writers chose to emphasize different aspects of Paul’s agape, Caner traces out more precisely how these shifts occurred.

Hagiographic History: Reading and Writing Holiness in the Ecclesiastical History of Anonymous Cyzicenus

The late fifth-century Ecclesiastical History of Anonymous Cyzicenus (formerly attributed to a fictitious "Gelasius of Cyzicus") treats the Council of Nicaea from a pro-Chalcedonian perspective, containing far more doctrinal discussion and spiritual admonition than is usual for the genre. This article demonstrates how the author incorporates numerous hagiographic elements into his ecclesiastical history and argues that the resultant text, a composite "hagiographic history," transformed historical inquiry into a means of effecting piety through ascetic modes of reading and writing. I suggest that the author pursued this ascetic approach to ecclesiastical history in part because he was likely a member of a Bithynian monastic community. In making his history of Nicaea hagiographic, the author makes it more scriptural, peppering the text with biblical allusions, insinuating his history's divine inspiration, and drawing a direct line between the events of the New Testament, the Council of Nicaea, and the composition of his own history. Ecclesiastical history, like hagiography, becomes quasi-scriptural: writing is done in imitation of the saints who wrote scripture and meditation upon the text bears spiritual fruit. Nicaea's treatment as both history and hagiography also illustrates the developing sacralization of the Council in the aftermath of mid fifth-century theological controversies.