Pope Damasus Research Articles

Три Петровых престола в римской экклезиологической традиции конца IV – первой половины V в.

The article is devoted to the development in the Roman church tradition of the idea of a special status in the Universal Church of the three Peter’s sees: Rome, Alexandria and Antioch. The question of the origins of this ecclesiological construction is connected with the possibility of attributing the third part of the Decretum Gelasianum to the Council of Rome, 382. This hypothesis still causes debate in the scientific literature. The author analyzes references to the special status of Peter's sees in the subsequent tradition up to the middle of the 5th century. We are talking about the texts of Popes Innocent I, Boniface I and Leo the Great, as well as Praefatio longa, which is an introduction to the Nicene canons and dated from the same time. The peculiarity of these texts in comparison with the third part of the Decretum Gelasianum is the correlation in one form or another of the idea of the special ecclesiastical status of Rome, Alexandria and Antioch with the canons of Council of Nicaea (325). The 6th Nicene canon establishes the jurisdiction of the See of Alexandria over Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis and notes the special significance of Rome and Antioch, but in this text these sees do not line up in any hierarchy, in contrast to the texts of the Roman ecclesiological tradition. There is also no mention in this canon of St. Peter. Considering these circumstances, the author supports the dating of the third part of the Decretum Gelasianum by the period of the pontificate of Pope Damasus I (366–384), believing that the idea of the special status of the three Peter's sees was originally formulated without connection with the 6th canon of the Council of Nicaea, but then was further confirmed by a peculiar interpretation of this text. On the whole, the idea of special significance in the Universal Church of the three sees of Peter is interpreted in the article as a polemical construction, directed mostly against the claims of Constantinople to the status of the New Rome and not strongly correlated (unlike the later model of the pentarchy) with the really existing regional ecclesiatical structures.

Girolamo, Elvidio e il contesto teologico romano al tempo di Damaso

This essay places the debate between Jerome and Helvidius in the theological context of the Rome of Pope Damasus. It presents the different theological positions of Helvidius and Jerome, highlighting that the literary clash was in the first place centered on asceticism and only later on the question of the perpetual virginity of Mary. The controversy, before being dogmatic, was exegetical in nature and this could explain the absence of an official intervention by Pope Damasus. Referring mainly to the testimony of Ambrosiaster, it is proved in this study that the thought of Helvidius differed from the tradition of the Church in Rome, and that even Jerome innovates with his exegetical solution to the issue of the «brethren of the Lord».

Splitting the Difference : Jerome and the Schism of Antioch in His Letter 15

This article proposes a reinterpretation of an encounter with the Meletians related by Jerome of Strido in Letter 15, addressed to Pope Damasus (366- 384) at some point between 373 and 377. Scholars have interpreted Jerome’s characterization of his repartee with his “heretical” harassers as demonstrating either intransigence on theological matters or lack of awareness of the latest developments in the Trinitarian disputes. A closer reading of the episode shows instead Jerome’s readiness to abide by the prescriptions of the Council of Alexandria (362), which in order to favor reconciliation between the Old Nicenes and the Meletians had conditionally authorized the use of tri-hypostatic language.

Sacred Stimulus: Jerusalem in the Visual Christianization of Rome by Galit Noga-Banai

Reviewed by: Sacred Stimulus: Jerusalem in the Visual Christianization of Rome by Galit Noga-Banai Maya Maskarinec Galit Noga-Banai Sacred Stimulus: Jerusalem in the Visual Christianization of Rome Oxford Studies in Late Antiquity New York: Oxford University Press, 2018 Pp. 256. $85.00. Noga-Banai's Sacred Stimulus is written to engage two types of readers: the art historian and the historian. Art historians will relish in the precision with which Noga-Banai presents and describes mosaics, sarcophagi, wall paintings and other visual material, her constructive engagement with older scholarship (helpfully well-documented in the extensive footnotes), and the nuanced and surprising readings that emerge. These are case studies that can productively be read on their own terms, even as they are interwoven into a larger and more ambitious historical thesis about the subtle, but significant influence of the earthly Jerusalem on art in Rome in the fourth to mid-fifth century. This review focuses on that thesis from a historian's perspective. Noga-Banai's preface begins with a charming vignette of a modern sculpture, "Second Temple: Jerusalem-Rome-Jerusalem," overlooked by all but the most attentive (or well-informed) viewers: a concave hourglass carved into a sidewalk in what was formerly the Jewish ghetto of Rome. This "miniment," as its artist Micha Ullman terms it, though easy to overlook, is nevertheless subtly present in the urban fabric of the city. Similarly, so Sacred Stimulus argues, Jerusalem was present, as a visual idea, in late antique Rome—despite the fact that, as the author readily admits, its traces are as difficult, if not more, to identify. Most ambitiously, Noga-Banai contends that careful visual analysis can reveal an engagement with Jerusalem—and even a shifting argument about its meaning and importance vis-à-vis Rome—that has left no trace in the textual record. As she eloquently expresses it, "Visual rhetoric can help us to see the absence of words and decipher the presence of silence" (5). In itself this is a plausible and credible thesis, even if readers will not all be equally persuaded by the specific relationships between Rome and Jerusalem that Noga-Banai posits. The starting points for Noga-Banai's analysis are a historical claim, namely that "[i]n order to stake its claim to be the head of the Church . . . Rome had to overcome [not only Constantinople but] another much more complicated obstacle as well: Jerusalem" (4), and a first-century Roman monument: the Arch of Titus and its representation of the Temple spoils. Rome's claim to these sacred treasures, in addition to Rome's acquisition of relics of the True Cross, were, according to Noga-Banai, the stimuli for Rome's attempts to establish its superiority to Jerusalem. Specifically, in chapter 1, she suggests that the presence of a copy of the Mosaic law in Rome influenced late fourth-century depictions of the Dominus legem dat scene as found in a mosaic from the mausoleum of S. Constanza and a wall painting from the catacomb under the Villa Torlonia. With respect to the S. Constanza mosaic she argues that it "pictures the significant eschatological event of ingathering, which is to take place on Mount Zion, as in [End Page 338] fact taking place in Rome" (29). Then in chapter 2, in a similar vein, she draws a relationship between Roman compositions showing the adoration of the elevated Christogram by Peter and Paul and Cyril of Jerusalem's account that emphasizes Jerusalem as the home of the True Cross. In turn, Noga-Banai posits that there was a change in Rome's relationship to Jerusalem from the late fourth century onward, once "Rome finally established itself as a pilgrimage center as sacred as Jerusalem" (139). This trajectory is explored through Pope Damasus's attention to martyrs' tombs (juxtaposed with Cyril of Jerusalem's efforts to "Christianize" Jerusalem), the imperial reconstruction of S. Paolo fuori le Mura, and portable art of the fifth century. Depictions of Christian Jerusalem in fifth-century Rome (in the mosaics of S. Pudenziana and S. Maria Maggiore and the architecture of S. Stefano Rotondo) register, according to Noga-Banai, Rome's embrace of Jerusalem "with the strong arm of...

Gli epigrammi di Papa Damaso e Roma Christiana

This article aims through a study of the epigraphy of Pope Damasus (366-384), to reconstruct the ideal society that was shown to the pilgrim who went to the loca sanctorum in the Urbs. Taking into account the pastoral, political and ideological elements of Damasian epigraphy, it shows that the choice of martyrs and subjects which were celebrated responded to the increasing numbers of nobles within Roman Christian society after the peace of Constantine. Damasus tried to accommodated himself to the sensibilities of the minor aristocracy of Rome and the emerging clergy, without renouncing its hierarchical organization of the Church in line with the social and ecclesial tendencies of the second half of the fourth century, when Roma christiana came into being.

Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre and Dystopia, Science Fiction, Post-apocalypse: Classics—New Tendencies—Model Interpretations

Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre and Dystopia, Science Fiction, Post-apocalypse: Classics—New Tendencies—Model Interpretations

Die erste Dekretale: Der Brief Papst Siricius' an Bischof Himerius von Tarragona vom Jahr 385 (JK 255): Aus dem Nachlass mit Ergänzungen herausgegeben von Detlev Jasper by Klaus Zechiel-Eckes

Reviewed by: Die erste Dekretale: Der Brief Papst Siricius' an Bischof Himerius von Tarragona vom Jahr 385 (JK 255): Aus dem Nachlass mit Ergänzungen herausgegeben von Detlev Jasper by Klaus Zechiel-Eckes Eric Knibbs Zechiel-Eckes, Klaus. Die erste Dekretale: Der Brief Papst Siricius' an Bischof Himerius von Tarragona vom Jahr 385 (JK 255): Aus dem Nachlass mit Ergänzungen herausgegeben von Detlev Jasper. MGH Studien und Texte Band 55. Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2013. Pp. xiii, 136. €25.00. ISBN: 978-3-7752-5715-2. After his fabled victory at the Milvian Bridge, Constantine ended the persecutions of Diocletian and extended to Christianity the status of a tolerated religion, one with powerful support from the uppermost reaches of the imperial government. Thirteen years later, bishops from across Christendom convened at Nicaea under the emperor's aegis. As a robust conciliar tradition emerged, Peter's successors awaited the institutional and bureaucratic developments befitting their central position in the empire. A great part of these accrued during the reign of Theodosius. The edict Cunctos populos, promulgated at Thessalonica on 28 February 380, bound Roman subjects to profess the faith proclaimed by the bishops of Rome and Alexandria, formally enforcing Nicene orthodoxy. The preceding years had seen legislation establishing procedural rules for ecclesiastical courts, freeing Christian clergy from public service and taxation, and proscribing heresy. These measures coincided with the pontificate of Pope Damasus I (d. 384), who brought to bear a corresponding insistence on the authority and the dignity of his office. Among other things, he articulated a vision of Roman primacy that circumvented the rival claims of other sees by drawing on Jesus's familiar statement to Peter in the Gospel of Matthew: 'Upon this rock I will build my church… And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven' (Matt. 16:16-18).1 [End Page 313] Assertions like these opened a new era in canonical history, one that found its law not only in the conciliar tradition, but also among the decretal letters issued by the bishops of Rome. That Damasus's assertions were taken seriously even in the provinces we learn from an inquiry on matters of church discipline that Bishop Himerius of Tarragona directed to the Apostolic See in 384. Damasus died shortly before the letter arrived, and thus it is that the first papal decretal came to be issued by his successor, Pope Siricius, on 10 February 385. This is JK 255, Directa ad decessorem, and it is the subject of an edition, facing-page translation, and brief monographic study by Klaus Zechiel-Eckes, late professor of medieval history at the University of Cologne. The publication is a posthumous one. As the forward explains, Zechiel-Eckes began work on the project as early as the 1990s, but soon set it aside in favor of other projects. It has been left to Detlev Jasper to complete the introduction and bring the manuscript to press.2 After he had been confirmed in office, Siricius convened a Roman synod to assist him in answering Himerius's questions. The text of JK 255 nods only briefly to this 'conventus fratrum'. The accent lies rather on Roman primacy, here characterized, in the manner pioneered by Damasus, as inherited from Peter the Apostle. 'We bear the burdens of all who are weighed down', Siricius writes, 'or rather, the blessed apostle in us carries them—he who protects and maintains us in all things…as the heir of his office'.3 These are among the most widely received statements of the entire decretal. [End Page 314] Siricius first addresses congregational discipline. He forbids the rebaptism of Christians who have been baptized by Arians; like Novatians and other heretics, they are to be rejoined to the orthodox congregation 'solely by the invocation of the septiform spirit, through the imposition of the episcopal hand'.4 Also forbidden is the baptism of catechumens on Christmas, the feast of the Epiphany, and the feasts of the apostles and martyrs. The sacrament is reserved for Easter and Pentecost, with exceptions for infants and those near death. Apostates who seek...

SANCTE AGNETIS, MÀRTIR E VERGE : A MODEL VIRGIN FOR LAITY AND CLERGY IN ST. VICENT FERRER’S CATALAN SERMON

St. Agnes of Rome became one of the most celebrated martyrs of the fourth century. Her passion story was popularized by several Church Fathers, most notably Pope Damasus, Prudentius, and Ambrose of Milan. In the Middle Ages, Jacobus of Voragine widely disseminated her hagiography through his Legenda Aurea. St. Vicent Ferrer (1350–1419) dedicated a sermon to her entitled Sancte Agnetis, which he preached in late medieval Catalan. In this sermon he relied very little on Jacobus and the bulk of the previous passion stories about Agnes, which is unusual for Vicent’s hagiographical sermons. Vicent was more interested in promoting the saint’s virginity as a model of holiness for laity and clergy. This article seeks to identify the provenance of the hagiographical material that he did include. It also explores how Vicent proposed the virtue of virginity as a model of holiness to his target audience.

L’interpretazione di Luc. 15, 11-32 nell’ep. 21 di Gerolamo

Jerome’s epistle 21, in which the parable of the merciful father (Lk 15 :11-32) is commented in detail, is part of the correspondence which took place in 383-384 between Pope Damasus and Jerome about the interpretation of certain scriptural passages. This article attempts to reconstruct the historical, social and cultural environment in which the epistle is placed and to highlight the features of Jerome’s interpretation of the Lucan passage, where strictly exegetical motifs are interwoven with polemical cutting remarks and allusions, which are only recognizable thanks to an investigation which considers a variety of reading levels. The analysis is conducted on a double track : on the one hand the starting point is represented by the explanations requested by Pope Damasus, on the other hand attention is paid to the three figures of the parable. These two tracks tend to cross one another repeatedly, thereby enabling a better understanding of the richness of the text.

Il comprensorio della catacomba di San Callisto tra la via Appia e la via Ardeatina (Roma) alla luce delle indagini geofisiche estensive

The paper presents and discusses results from the integration of various methods of geophysical prospection on the plateau between the Via Appia and the Via Ardeatina on the ancient suburb of Rome. The use of large-scale magnetometry, georadar and electromagnetic survey in an area of particularly dense archaeological remains is a highly effective methodology for revealing important information on previously unknown archaeological features. Of particular interest in this case is the comparison between geophysical data and the results of previous excavations, and newly-targeted test investigations that suggest the survival of the documented but previously undiscovered basilica of Pope Damasus as well as unknown catacomb tunnels at San Callisto and elsewhere on the plateau.

The Carolingian afterlife of the Damasan inscriptions

This paper investigates the multiple impulses that contributed to the early medieval interest in Pope Damasus's inscriptions. In part, Damasus's verses were read as guides to Rome's martyrial topography; in part, they served as models of a classicizing Christian style. Above all, the appeal of these verses derived from their association with Damasus himself, who came to be seen as a secure mediator of the early Christian past. Concurrently, the figure of Damasus grew in stature, as a saint marked by his solicitude for the Christian community, whether living or dead.

Jerome of Stridon: His Life, Writings and Legacy (review)

Reviewed by: Jerome of Stridon: His Life, Writings and Legacy Michael Graves Jerome of Stridon: His Life, Writings and Legacy Andrew Cain, Josef Lössl, eds. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2009. Pp. xiii + 283. ISBN 978–0-7546–6407–9 Presses are encouraged to submit books dealing with Late Antiquity for consideration for review to any of JLA's four Book Review Editors: Michael Kulikowski (mek31@psu.edu); Richard Lim (rlim333@comcast.net); Hagith Sivan (helenasivan@yahoo.com); and Dennis Trout (troutd@missouri.edu). This volume represents a selection of papers from a conference held at Cardiff University in July 2006, Jerome of Stridon: Religion, Culture, Society and Literature in Late Antiquity. The contributors present an excellent sample of the best of contemporary scholarship on Jerome as a literary, historical, and religious figure. The book is divided into three parts: "Hagiography, Letters, Heresy, and the Man," "The Science of Scripture: Philology, Exegesis, and Translation," and "Reception: Fifth through Sixteenth Centuries." The first part begins with an essay by Stefan Rebenich, "Inventing an Ascetic Hero: Jerome's Life of Paul the First Hermit." Rebenich focuses on Jerome's use of classical motifs and his motivation in writing the work, namely, to outdo the Life of Antony and thus promote himself as a monastic authority by creating an ascetic who is senior to Athanasius' hero and who (unlike Antony) embraces the classical tradition. Andrew Cain's essay, "Rethinking Jerome's Portraits of Holy Women," likewise focuses on Jerome's underlying motivations, arguing that Jerome's portrayals of Asella (Epist. 24) and Marcella (Epist. 127) are primarily propaganda meant to promote his own reputation and his religious and scholarly opinions. In addition to Cain, two other essays offer detailed readings of selected letters of Jerome. Yves-Marie Duval, "Sur trois lettres méconnues de Jérôme concernant son séjour à Rome (382–385)," treats Epist. 27* to bishop Aurelius, Epist. 18* to the deacon Praesidius, and Epist. 43 to Marcella, all of which relate in some way to Jerome's stay in Rome between 382 and 385. Duval shows how Epist. 27* confirms Jerome's role as letter-writer for pope Damasus. This corrects the false impression that Jerome spent his time only in the service of his female friends. The other two letters give subtle evidence that Jerome did not leave Rome simply because of the death of Damasus or because of personal conflicts, but because he idealized withdrawal from the city of Rome and retreat to the Promised Land. Neil Adkin's essay, which discusses the appearance of phraseology borrowed from Tertullian in Jerome's Consolation to Heliodorus (Epist. 60), seeks to appreciate how Jerome recasts his source material with an eye towards "stylistic finesse," even at the cost of saying precisely what he meant to say. In "Jerome on Jeremiah: Exegesis and Recovery," Philip Rousseau attempts to mine Jerome's Jeremiah commentary for biographical information, specifically, the extent to which Jerome developed a theological response to the crisis of the sack of Rome. Rousseau sees potential connections between Jeremiah's message about the fall of Judah and Jerome's experience of the fall of [End Page 386] Rome—although, as Rousseau points out, for Jerome Jerusalem is the church and the greatest threats to her safety are heretics. Thus, the restoration to be hoped for is the restoration of orthodoxy within the church. In "Le Dialogus Attici et Critobuli de Jérôme et la prédication Pélagienne en Palestine entre 411 et 415," Benoît Jeanjean convincingly argues that, despite standard polemics, Jerome's Dialogue Against the Pelagians offers genuine information about Pelagian thinking, namely, that God's grace consists in human free will as given at creation together with the giving of divine commands, and that a person in theory could be sinless and "righteous"—at least in comparison with other people. At this stage of the dispute, according to Jeanjean, Jerome still hoped to reform his theological adversary and so did not wish to condemn Pelagius personally. Of the seven essays found in part two, two deal with the broader theological impact of Jerome's readings of specific biblical texts. Danuta Shanzer, "Jerome, Tobit, Alms...

Feastdays of the Saints. A History of Irish Martyrologies (review)

Reviewed by: Feastdays of the Saints. A History of Irish Martyrologies Dáibhí Ó Cróinín Feastdays of the Saints. A History of Irish Martyrologies. By Pádraig Ó Riain. [Subsidia Hagiographica, 86.] (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes. 2006. Pp. xxviii, 416. €75.00 paperback.) For the first three centuries of the Christian Church the cult of martyr saints and their relics hardly existed. By the end of the fifth century, the field was a growth industry. The extent of the change is to be seen in the contrasting reactions of the younger Augustine, dismissive of Donatist claims to special sanctity for the Christian departed, and the older Church Father, wearied alike by the senectus mundi and the Vandal siege of Carthage, in the last book of his City of God offering an elevated discussion of body and soul and the possibility of resurrection (as expounded by Plato, Cicero, and Porphyry) and then breaking off into an enthusiastic catalogue of the miracles allegedly wrought by St. Stephen at the local shrines of Hippo and Uzalis. Though the phenomenon has been viewed by many (after Hume and Gibbon) as a sign of the "vulgarization" of religion in the post-Roman world, many scholars have seen the cult of saints and their relics as a direct descendant of pre-Christian mortuary practices (the pervigilia of the dead). On the other hand, Peter Brown and his followers have made radical claims for the originality of Christian commemorations. But are they right? It appears natural enough to trace the origins of the festal commemoration of sancti back to the consular laterculi or fasti of the pagan Roman world, and, by extension, to [End Page 621] trace the linear descent of such texts from the Fasti of Furius Dionysius Filocalus (a.d. 354) [ed. Th. Mommsen, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 1 (1863) 332-357] through to the "Christianized" version of Polemius Silvius (a.d. 448/9), christiano odio imbutus, who used Filocalus's Fasti as his model, but stripped it of all pagan elements (except the names of the Egyptian months). Polemius Silvius was, according to that great Bedan scholar Charles W. Jones, a source for Bede's chronological writings. Some have seen behind this new-found enthusiasm for the saints and their relics the hand of Pope Damasus—that great "tickler of noblewomen's ears" (auriscalpius matronarum), and patron of Filocalus, who carved many of the pope's most impressive verse inscriptions in Rome. Damasus's violent campaign in the early 380's to wrest the sedes apostolica from his rival required new tactics and new weapons; one of these was the power of the "very special dead," whose bones were all over Rome. The extent of his success is illustrated by the rapidity with which Ambrose—that other great Christian "impresario" (Peter Brown's term)—"miraculously" discovered the remains of SS. Gervasius and Protasius in Milan in 385, and turned them to a similar purpose. After that, it was just a matter of compiling lists of names of saints and martyrs (along the lines of the Notitia locorum sanctorum compiled early for Rome) and adding to them over time. Such a procedure might very well have produced the Martyrologium Hieronimianum. "There is perhaps no more horrible book in all of antiquity," wrote the Bollandist Victor de Buck in 1875, and who would gainsay a Bollandist in such matters! It is more than a little odd, therefore, that the Irish—the last to join the fold of the Christian Church before the final collapse of the Roman Empire—should have preserved the names of none of their earliest martyrs (those newly-baptized converts whose massacre is reported by St. Patrick), and yet the oldest extant manuscript of Jerome's Martyrology, Paris, BN lat. 10837 (saec. viii) was written by Virgilius, an Irish member of the seventh-century mixed Anglo-Saxon-Irish community at Rath Melsigi (Co. Carlow), who, after a.d. 690, transferred to Echternach (Luxembourg) with its founder Willibrord; the Venerable Bede had a great deal to say about both. Professor Ó Riain has for many years pioneered the study of the earliest Irish vernacular martyrologies and their relationship with that Rath Melsigi/Echternach book, and...

Paulinus Nolanus und die Basilica Nova in Cimitile/Nola: Studien zu einem zentralen Denkmal der spätantik-frühchristlichen Architektur (review)

Reviewed by: Paulinus Nolanus und die Basilica Nova in Cimitile/Nola: Studien zu einem zentralen Denkmal der spätantik-frühchristlichen Architektur Dennis Trout Tomas Lehmann Paulinus Nolanus und die Basilica Nova in Cimitile/Nola: Studien zu einem zentralen Denkmal der spätantik-frühchristlichen Architektur Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2004 Pp. 283. Black and white illustrations, 252; color, 40; foldout plans, 3. This magnificently produced book written by a scholar who knows the archaeological site of Cimitile (near Nola) as well as anyone working today is the welcome fruit of nearly two decades of close association with the basilica complex that arose around the grave of Felix of Nola in the mid-fourth century, was then expanded and enhanced by the émigré Paulinus of Bordeaux, and remained an important pilgrimage center in the medieval period. Despite its general fame as a uniquely preserved and documented late antique saint's shrine, however, the site at Cimitile has not been well understood until quite recently. Early modern archaeology of the site was often haphazard and poorly published. Intermittent and fragmentary field reports (primarily those issued by Gino Chierici from the 1930s through the 1950s) and reconstructions based heavily upon the literary descriptions embedded in the poems and letters of Paulinus (notably R. C. [End Page 114] Goldschmidt's Paulinus' Churches at Nola [1940]) seldom sat comfortably side-by-side. Moreover, preservation efforts at the complex were largely insufficient until intensive recovery and restoration began in the late 1980s. But Cimitile is now a show-site well worth the detour from Naples or Pompeii, and Tomas Lehmann's erudite Paulinus Nolanus und die Basilica Nova makes the archaeology and history of the basilica complex fresh and comprehensible. Lehmann's approach in this volume, as it often was in his preliminary studies, is opportunistically ecumenical. Archival, epigraphic, art historical, textual, and archeological evidence and methodologies are all recruited to the service of historic reconstruction. The volume's introductory chapter is followed by a careful review of excavation and publication activity from the sixteenth through the twenty-first century. Chapter 3 charts the transformation of this originally extra-mural zone (which now underlies modern Nola's contiguous neighbor, Cimitile) from an early imperial cemetery into the suburban pilgrimage shrine it had already become even before Paulinus began construction of the Basilica Nova about 400. A long fourth chapter presents the archeological evidence for the Basilica Nova itself. Two chapters then consider, first, the group of structures (i.e., S. Stefano and S. Tommaso) lying just to the west of the Basilica Nova and the earlier Basilica Vetus and, secondly, the late fifth or early sixth-century construction projects carried out within the Basilica Vetus. Most notable in the latter respect are the still extant mosaic-laden aedicula that surrounds the tombs of Felix, Paulinus, and his wife Therasia and the grand western apse that completely reoriented the Basilica Vetus in the vicinity of these holy graves. Chapter 7 re-examines the literary evidence for the Basilica Nova. Lehmann introduces, translates, and comments upon the relevant sections of Paulinus's epistula 32 (404; to Sulpicius Severus) and carmina 27 and 28 (the natalicia of 403 and 404). Briefer consideration is given to the evidence of carmen 19 (the natalicium of 405) and to a sixth-century epigraphic sylloge (already thoroughly discussed by Lehmann in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 91 [1992]), which also serves to document the interest of Pope Damasus (366–384) in Felix's Nolan tomb. Chapter 8 collates this broad array of evidence to provide an overview of the plan, form, and function of the new basilica built by Paulinus only a few meters north of the Basilica Vetus that sheltered Felix's tomb. Lehmann's volume concludes with a brief survey of the fate of the Basilica Nova after Paulinus, including recall of the major renovations required by a moment of catastrophic destruction linked to an early sixth-century eruption of Vesuvius. Words communicate a great deal here, of course, but so, too, do pictures. The volume's 252 black and white images, 40 color reproductions, and three foldout plans not only present a feast for the eyes (especially in the...

On the Communion of Damasus and Meletius: Fourth-Century Synodal Formulae in the Codex Veronensis LX. Edited and translated by Lester L. Field, Jr. Pp. xii + 304. (Studies and Texts, 145.) Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2004. isbn 0 88844 145 2. CAN$69.95.

This book has two aims: firstly, to provide new critical texts of the Roman synodical formulae and accompanying Eastern subscriptions found in the Codex Veronensis LX and dating from the 370s; secondly, to establish that these fragments demonstrate that communion was restored between Damasus of Rome and Meletius of Antioch before the latter's death while presiding at the Council of Constantinople in 381. The Codex Veronensis has been in the possession of the cathedral chapter of Verona since the tenth century. The portion which relates to the schism at Antioch consists of 130 lines (in this edition) of Latin text, purporting to be the exemplar from an imperial rescript of a Roman synod held under Pope Damasus addressed to the bishops of the East, known from its title as the Exemplum Synodi. The first portion of text, Confidimus Quidem, has an authenticating subscription appended by the Milanese deacon Sabinus, and is also preserved by Theodoret and Sozomen in their histories, in a Greek translation of a different redaction. Three further portions of synodal decrees deal with controversial doctrinal points (Ea Gratia; Illut sane; Non nobis), to which is appended a list of Eastern bishops who subscribed to a doctrinal formulary at a synod held in Antioch in 379, headed by Meletius of Antioch himself. Previous critical editions of all or part of the Exemplum Synodi, most notably those of Schwartz, Richard, and Scheidweiler, have been hampered by lack of access to the manuscript itself, and there has been no consensus regarding the status of the texts as either the original Latin or retroversions from Greek.

In ambrosiaster's shadow : A critical Re-evaluation of the last surviving letter exchange between pope damasus and jerome

In ambrosiaster's shadow : A critical Re-evaluation of the last surviving letter exchange between pope damasus and jerome

Scinditur in partes populus: Pope Damasus and the Martyrs of Rome

Pope Damasus (366–384) was the impresario of the late antique cult of the martyrs at Rome. Damasus celebrated the martyrs with epigrams written in Virgilian hexameters which he had engraved in exquisite lettering on their tombs. This article investigates the specifically Roman context of these activities as a means of shedding new light on Damasus' purposes. The enhancement of the cult of the Roman martyrs was more than a stage in the process of christianisation, creating Christian but still distinctively Roman holy patrons for the urbs. It was also directed against rival Christian traditions, including Nicene splinter groups such as the Ursinians and Luciferians who contested Damasus' election. The epi grams allowed Damasus to inscribe very specific and carefully shaped meanings on strategic and often contested sites within the Christian topography of Rome. By placing the Damasan epigrams in the context of a bloody ecclesiastical factionalism in Rome, this paper argues that these very public celebrations of the martyrs were used to promote concord and consensus within the Catholic community in Rome.

Jerome and the Sham Christians of Rome

This rhetorical question was poseu by Jerome in AD 411 to challenge a young man of good family from Toulouse who was contemplating the responsibilities of monastic life. The old man of Bethlehem wrote on city life with some authority; he had achieved fame and notoriety simultaneously at the court of Pope Damasus in Rome in the 380s.2 And yet, as both men knew well, the moral and physical dangers of the city, the latter resoundingly demonstrated by the Gothic capture of Rome in the previous year, had not prompted the rejection of urban life by western Christians, save by a small and eccentric group of extreme ascetics. Jerome's praise for this group is well known, and his criticism of less committed Christians in Rome is legendary. But when one examines the uniquely vivid testimony of Jerome's letters, one can detect beneath the praise and polemic a vigorous struggle for the support of the city's elite. The social background to the struggle as revealed in Jerome's writings is the subject of this article. What emerges is a complex, contradictory and divided Christian community which Jerome unsuccessfully attempted to influence, a failure that brought final and ignominious exile from Rome.