Palladas and Christian PolemicAuthor(s): Alan CameronSource: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 55, No. 1/2, Parts 1 and 2 (1965), pp. 17-30Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/297427Accessed: 05/01/2010 17:47

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PALLADAS AND CHRISTIAN POLEMIC

By ALAN CAMERON

Eduard Norden's well known claim that pagans only read the New Testament when they wanted to refute it 1 has never been seriously challenged. During the first four centuries of the Christian era the only pagans who can be shown to have had a thorough acquaintance with Christian writings and knowledge of Christian teachings are Celsus, Porphyry, and the Apostate Julian 2-all of whom wrote detailed refutations of Christianity.

Yet it has often been alleged that there are allusions to Christian doctrines and even echoes of New Testament phrases in the epigrams of Palladas of Alexandria. Now this, if true, would be of great interest and importance; for although it has, from time to time, been contended that Palladas was a Christian,3 there can in my opinion be little doubt that, like so many other schoolmasters in fourth and fifth century Egypt,4 he was a pagan. It is sufficient to refer to his caustic couplet on the monks,5 his numerous poems on Tx5X , so characteristic of pagan writers of the day,6 and his ironic comments on the ' conversion ' of the statues of the old Olympians, and on some Victories adapted to herald the victory of Christ 7 (further evidence is adduced in ? ii).

The reason for this pagan neglect of Christian writings was, of course, above all their inferiority from the literary point of view,8 and it would be especially interesting to find them being read by a pagan whose business was with classical literature. Hence it is worth subjecting these alleged echoes of New Testament ideas and phrases to a closer scrutiny. It is the purpose of this paper to show (a) that there is no reason for supposing that Palladas had any knowledge of the Bible or indeed any knowledge of Christian teaching at all, but (b) that he was nevertheless familiar with the catch-phrases and cliches of Christian apologetic, and that realization of this is the key to some of his most enigmatic poems.

I

Georg Luck 9 and Sir Maurice Bowra 10 have recently lent their support to the view that when Heracles, whose statue had just been overthrown (probably in the anti-pagan riots at Alexandria in 39'), tells Palladas in a dream that

KOCipco ouXeucov Kac OeE'S Qv siCaov (AP IX, 44I, 6) he is playing on or alluding to Paul's words in Rom. 12, II, TCr Kcatp sOUVE'UOVTrS. Both scholars admit that the phrase Koapc) 5OUAEv?EtV is common in pagan contexts, e.g. TOb KcipoV Cj 8ouE5ovUCV oi 6OKOoVTrEs apXEtv (Plut., Arat. 42),11 but Bowra finds an

'elegant double entendre ' in Palladas' use of the phrase. There is, however, one decisive argument against this view. KOCap) is only a variant in the MSS of Romans for the textus receptus KUpiCO. I do not know on what grounds Luck (p. 460) calls Kcapc? the textus receptus. KUpicp is read not only in the Sinaiticus (4c.), Alexandrinus (5c.), Vaticanus (4c.) and 'plerique codices Graeci' (Souter), but in the Vulgate (4c.), old Coptic (3-4c.) and Syriac versions (5c.) and in citations from the Greek fathers. Athanasius, Origen and Jerome

1 Antike Kunstprosa II (1909), 517 f., quoted and endorsed by Harnack, Mission and Expansion of Christianity (tr. Moffat I908) I, 378, with 506, n. i. For an attempt to prove that Themistius was familiar with the New Testament, not in my opinion compelling, see G. Downey, Harv. Theol. Rev. L

(1957), 262 f. (though Themistius does quote Proverbs xxI, I three times, always referred to obliquely as ?6yos TcOv 'Acravpicov: see Downey again, Studia Patristica v, 3, 1962, 480 f.). For J. Straub's theory that the authors of the Historia Augusta were familiar with Christian writings, see below pp. 240 ff.

2 See, briefly, P. de Labriolle's La reaction paienne (I934), III f., 223 f., 369 f. Many later anti- Christian writings, such as those reflected in the Quaestiones of Ambrosiaster (cf. P. Courcelle, Vigiliae Christianae XIII, 1959, 133-69), in all probability derive their knowledge of the Bible from Porphyry.

3 Most recently by P. Waltz, REG 59/60 (1946/7), 203 f.

4 I have collected the evidence in ?? I and iv of my article ' Wandering Poets ' in Historia, xiv (I965).

5 Below, p. 29. 6 cf. Sir Maurice Bowra, ' Palladas on Tyche',

CQ n.s. x (1960), ii8 f., and add to the poems he discusses Anth. Pal. x, 77 and xi, 62 (henceforth all references to poems from the Anth. Pal. will be cited by book and poem number only).

7 IX, 528 ; XVI, 282 ; cf. JHS LXXXIV (I964), 54 f- 8 cf. Norden, l.c. As Tertullian observed (De

test.an.I, 4) ' tantur abest ut nostris litteris annuant homines, ad quas nemo venit nisi iam Christianus'.

9 Harvard Studies LXIII (1958), 459 f. 10 Proc. Brit. Acad. XLV (I959), 260 f. 11 cf. W. Headlam, J1. of Philology, xxx (1907),

300.

explicitly reject 12 Kalpc ; it is represented often in citations from Latin fathers, but one hesitates to believe that the few words of Latin Palladas may have known enabled him to read a Latin version of Romans. It is scarcely likely, then, that the Alexandrian Palladas should have alluded to a varia lectio in the text of Romans not to be found in editions accessible in Alexandria.

It is hardly necessary to take seriously most of the arguments with which Teresa Bonanno has recently obscured the issue of Palladas' attitude to Christianity,13 but her allegation that in x, 34, an elaborate demonstration of the futility of worrying, Palladas is criticizing the Christian doctrine of providence should perhaps be mentioned. Here is the poem:

Ei TO -r .IEXV SW'OCaCI Ti, I,EpiIlva KOi IjIEAE'C CO 1'

Ei s ?xkE1 TTEpi cOU sCallovt, croi T0i Ur Aei; OiTrE pepitV(JcrElS 5lXa baiodovoS, o?T' &paEhAi'jxsi'

&aX' iva croi Tl IrXE,A 5caipovI TOU rO o ?A?e1.

Everything, according to Palladas, is ordered by God. Therefore there is no point in worrying, because we cannot even worry unless it is God's will that we should. Bonanno takes this as an implicit attack on the Christian idea that divine providence can be reconciled with human freedom of action, which, she claims, 'Palladas non poteva certo ignorare '. But in view of the fact that the problem of the relation between divine grace and human will was first raised in its extreme form by a Christian in the West 14 when Palladas was an old man or even dead,15 it is asking rather a lot to assume that Palladas, in the Eastern empire, was sufficiently familiar with this sophisticated answer to subject it to satire. For the same reason it was hardly legitimate for Johannes Irmscher to remark of vii, 339:

o u 5 ? v a p a p Tr cr a s yE?v6opv rTrapaoc TCV pE TeKOVrcoV ' wie unchristlich ! ',16 and to prefer Grotius' translation ' nil ego peccaram ' to Beckby's 'ohne verschulden' on the grounds that caqapTavco is a 'festgepraigter christlicher Terminus '.17 Did Palladas know that it was ? The apparent ignorance displayed by no less a person that St. John Chrysostom regarding the doctrine of Original Sin caused no little embarrassment to St. Augustine (c. Jul., I, 22). In any event attempts to harmonize providence and freedom of will are by no means confined to Christian thinkers. The pagan neoplatonist Hierocles, a contemporary and fellow-citizen of Palladas, wrote a treatise on the subject, and it has been said of his arguments that they ' rappellent singulierement le grand effort intellectuel d'Origene pour harmoniser le libre arbitre et la providence'.18 Plainly therefore there is no necessity to see any allusion to Christian teaching here. In fact I would maintain that x, 34 is merely another statement of Palladas' often expressed belief that everything is governed by a blind capricious Tx)TI 19 and that man's efforts are of no avail. cf. x, 77, 3 f.:

TCO 58ai,ovI u1X qiiovYiKEl, Cqlv 5e T')XTIV c-rEpycov ilVoaXiv ayaora.

This was a common belief in all periods of ancient thought, and I can see no justification for detecting a polemical reference to Christian theology in a poem whose main purpose is to serve as a vehicle for Palladas' verbal dexterity (cf. especially x, 73). I suspect that most scholars would subscribe to Jacob's judgment: 'ineptum epigramma, quod in putidis alliterationibus versatur '.20

12 See the testimonia cited by Tischendorf, ad loc. (I965). Pelagius' teachings on Free Will did not 13 Orpheus v (I958), 119 f: x, 82 she takes to be a attract much notice before the beginning of the fifth

satire on the Christian way of life as a tirocinio century. for the life after death ; for my interpretation see below 16 At p. i65 of his very useful study of Palladas in p. 27. For her interpretation of x, 90 see n. 4I. Wiss. Zeitschr. d. Humboldt-Universitdt, Gesell. u.

14 cf. Harnack, History of Dogma (tr. I897 from sprachwiss. Reihe, vi (1956/7). 3rd German ed.) III, 265: ' The fundamental 17 Studia Patristica IV, 2 (I96I) 463, n. 5. importance of the First Fall . . . won acceptance as an 18 D. Amand, Fatalisme et Liberte dans l'antiquite authoritative Biblical doctrine, but never obtained grecque, Universite de Louvain, Receuil de travaux the same certainty, clearness, or importance among d'histoire et de philologie, IIIe ser., fasc. I9 (I945), I76, the Greek Fathers as among the Latin '. Gregory of with full discussion of other pagan writers who deal Nazianzus was incautious enough to say that small with the matter. children were &rr6vqipoi (Or. XL, 23). 19 cf. Bowra, o.c. (n. 6), passim.

15 See my ' Notes on Palladas ' ? IV, in CQ n.s. xv 20 Animadv. in Anth. Graec. 1, 3 (i8oi), 259.

I8 ALAN CAMERON

PALLADAS AND CHRISTIAN POLEMIC

Luck (p. 461-2) pointed out a parallel between x, 58, yfis ET-rrTlv yupvos yupv6oS ' UTrO yctaiv &aw-rrI.

KOii TI prrlTIV pOXOC), yuvpvOv opcov -rO rTAOS; and I. Tim. 6, 7, oV65E yap EioTlVEyKcapEV els TOV KO6apOV, OTr oUSEv EEVE)yKEiV TI

8uv&aCu?a. Compare also a far more striking parallel from the book of Job : a-ros y u p v 6 s i 0 A o v EK KOXliaS piTrTpo6 pov, y u p v Kai a w e X E c o p I EKEi.21 But, as Luck

justly observed of I Tim. 6, 7, ' it contains nothing specifically Christian, just as Palladas' epigram contains nothing specifically anti-Christian', and there are many even closer parallels from pagan texts. Luck compares Seneca, Ep. 22, 15 'nemo aliter quam quomodo natus est exit e vita' (quoting Epicurus, F 495, Usener), and cf. also CLE Biich. 1949:

'Nudus natura fueras a matre creatus, nudus eris. obitis gratia nulla datur.' 22

Both this poem and x, 58 display a decidedly un-Christian pessimism. L. Sternbach 23 thought that Palladas wrote the following poem 'eo consilio ut cum

Platone Christiani deriderentur ':

S[copa Traos yuXiS, SrljS, poip', ao X0oS, avayKnr Kai EaJ0i6 24 KpcTEPb K K6pA t KAaCi paacrvcov.

'AAA' oTav EXEA8T TOU cbUro cc roS cs rro6 8sEcrPi V TOU 0av&rou, YpEyEl wrpOS e6ov aOavcrov. (x, 88)

To this there are two objections. First, I cannot see anything in the poem to suggest that it is a satire of anything; on the contrary its tone seems to be perfectly serious. Second, though the sentiment expressed-that the body is the prison of the soul-is not inconsistent with Christianity, there is certainly nothing especially or exclusively Christian about it. But it is decidedly and very characteristically Platonic; indeed Luck well remarked that the poem ' might have been written on the title page of the Phaedo '.25 Beckby quotes a close parallel from the Pythagorean Carmen Aureum (70-i)-a work singled out for special comment by the pagan Hierocles of Alexandria. Moreover the apparently quite sincere Platonic character of the poem might be claimed as a legitimate reason for doubting whether it was in fact written by Palladas at all. For elsewhere he makes it perfectly clear that he had scant sympathy for such fanciful speculations. In x, 45 he upbraids man for his ueyaAocppocouvqi (11. 3-5):

'AA' 6 rfT&rcov aoit rUcov O6vEpcbccaov EvUpcaEv, a avcr6ov ae A?Eycov Kiai (prTov oupaviov.

'EK TTilAou yEyovas. Ti (ppoVEi5 piya;

It is hard to believe that the scathing attack on Platonism contained in x, 45 came from the same pen as x, 88.

I have noticed a parallel between x, 79: NUKTOS aTr?pXOHEV1S yEvvccbipEa fipap 1rT' puap

TOU TrpOTEpoU p1OTOU lt6?EV EXOVrT?S E?T

and II Cor. 4, i6: El Kai 6 ?co) avOpcoTros StapeipErTat, &AA' 6 ?aCo avaKalvouv'Tat iuPpa Kaci rli?pa : but as Zerwes 26 has shown, the idea is a commonplace. Compare Plutarch, de E apud Delphos 392d, 6 Tr' ?X?OS Es TOV caIPEpoV TE?vrlKEV KTA., and Seneca, Ep. 58, 22, ' nemo nostrum est idem mane qui fuit pridie,' who explicitly traces the idea to Heraclitus (cf. Diehls-Kranz, Vorsokr. F 49a). There is, moreover, nothing especially or exclusively Christian in the passage from II Corinthians.

Zerwes pointed out a close verbal parallel between xi, 386, 4, the words of a statue of NIKyT awarded to a charioteer called Patricius: 27 O UK ? y v co S c u p 6O v o ; TTa-rpIKic 5?55opiai and the words of Cleopas to Christ on the road to Emmaus: v I 6 v o S TracpotKei

21 A. Rahlfs' ed. of the Septuagint, II (952), 274. for the ms. 5ipog; ; cf. also T. W. Lumb, Notes on 22 cf. also Propertius III, 5, 14 ; Lucian, Mort. the Greek Anthology (I920), 86.

Dial., x, I. 25 Luck, o.c. (n. 9), 459; Bowra, o.c. (n. IO), 264. 23 Analecta Laurentiana, Festschr. Theodor Gomperz 26 In his Tiubingen Dissertation Palladas von

(I902), 398. Alexandrie (1956; typescript, available only in 24 5EUp6s is a not altogether satisfactory correction Tiubingen), ad loc.

27 cf. JHS I964, 58.

I9

Ev 'IlpouacXArl Kai 0 oUK ? y V co Ta yEv6OVEa Ev auJrTi (Lk. 24, I8). Zerwes himself considered the parallel coincidental-the words after all are commonplace-and we must surely agree with him. A deliberate allusion here would argue considerable familiarity with the Gospels on Palladas' part.

If Palladas was as familiar with the New Testament as this, it would be attractive to detect in x, 85:

wTrvTES TG3) avarco TrlpoOvtEOaa Kai Tpr?9PE6?ECI cos a y ? X X o i p co v ac(paoP?vov aX6ycos

a reference to the Gadarene swine, a y EX X i p co v IEyaAlr poo<opEivrl (Mk. 5, I ; Mt. 8, 30; Lk. 8, 32). The &A6ycoS might then be pressed as a verdict on Christ's action not unlike that of Thomas Woolston, as ' an injury done to the proprietors, and unbecoming to the Goodness of the holy Jesus.' 28 However, the simile is more probably the result of a visit to the slaughter-house than of a reading of the Gospels.

Sternbach suggested that in writing x, 90, 4 f.:

OUTCOS EToitcA)os - co p i a s0ovAEUOIEV. "E X A r v ES ? EriEv avSpES eTro5copE?Vti

(a poem certainly to be connected with the pagan persecutions of 391 : see below pp. 21 ff.) 'Palladas procul dubio Pauli Apostoli verba (I. Cor. I, 23) 'lEIs 6s KrlpUccYao tEV Xpior6v E0ocTaUpCAbEvov, 'IoucaioiS pEv ox&av8aAov, "'E A l cr a co p i a v respexit.' The passage is also quoted by Luck (p. 468, n. 22) and Bowra (p. 262, n. 3): Luck thought Sternbach's suggestion an ' attractive hypothesis ', Bowra decided that 'the text is fully intelligible without it.' Neither noticed that Sternbach had misquoted Paul's words, which are in fact 'louvSaois psv c<av6caAov, E' v E a l 5E [xcopiav.29 Further, Sternbach's hypothesis demands that !copia should mean Christianity and VEKpCOV of 1. 6 be a reference to Christ. This was in fact the view of Reiske, and parallels can be drawn from Celsus and Julian to support it.30 The reason why it must be rejected will become apparent when I discuss the poem in detail (see below pp. 23 ff.). It might also be observed that the plausibility of Sternbach's suggestion is not increased by the fact that in Palladas pcopplc and "EAArivEs are in different sentences.

The last suggestion of this nature to be discussed is that of J. W. Mackail, 31 that line 7 of the same poem, x, 90:

aVE-rpaqpr yap TravTa vvv Ta -rpayuara 'seems to be a bitter attack on the doctrine of the resurrection.' The line is, however, clearly to be connected with another poem:

avEoTpaprcaV c5o op5 32 TOa IrpaypocCra, KaO T*fV TUXrn viv rv o-ruo xoOaaV EsSopEV (ix, 18I),

one of a series of poems (ix, i80-I83) that Palladas wrote on the conversion of the Tychaion of Alexandria into a tavern.33 It is difficult to entertain the possibility of a reference to the resurrection in ix, 181. But the clearest refutation of Mackail's suggestion, and incidentally the clearest piece of evidence that Palladas was ignorant of or not interested in Christian teachings is provided by his poem on Magnus, the famous iatrosophist: 34

M&yvos oT' etI 'AiSrlv KOrTEprI, TpoLEGcV 'Aivcbvsus EiTyV: 'A v a cr T co v fXAu KaOi V E K v a S (XI, 281).

After death Magnus was going to ply his trade in Hades and raise up even the dead. That the poem is exclusively concerned with the extraordinary prowess of Magnus as a

28 A discourse on the Miracles of our Saviour Fathers, presumably under the influence of 'E?AuivEs (1727), 38. The allusion would have added point if in the next verse. we accept Bowra's suggestion that the poem was 30 See below n. 41. inspired by the slaughter of the pagans of Alexandria 31 Select Epigrams of the Greek Anthology 2

by Theophilus' monks, o.c. (n. I0), 258. The arch- (I906), 330. pagan Porphyry could scarcely find words strong 32 Lumb, o.c. (n. 24), 59, suggests cbs poc for the enough to express his utter contempt for the story rather weak cbs 6opc of the mss. of the Gadarene swine : c& p0Uo, c& Xqpos, yeXcos 6OVTCs 33 So Bowra, CQ, I960, I22. TrXaTvus. Xoipcov TrAieos ... (fr. 49 Harnack, Abh. Berl. 34 On Magnus see 0. Seeck, Die Briefe des Akad. I9I6). Libanius (I906), 200, Magnus Iv.

29 'EANioi is attested in a few citations from Greek

20 ALAN CAMERON

PALLADAS AND CHRISTIAN POLEMIC

physician (of which we hear also from Eunapius, Vit. Soph. 498) is proved by the position of KCai. If Palladas had wished to make a play on the Christian &va&orcans vEKpCoV he could easily have said that Magnus also was able to raise up the dead, thus blasphemously placing him on a par with Christ.35 But clearly there is a world of difference between ' Magnus as well will raise the dead ' and ' Magnus will raise even the dead '. The poem would lose its point completely if any reference to the resurrection were intended. If then Palladas could actually use the technical term avicrrrlp together with VEKUvaS apparently without any ulterior motive, a fortiori he did not intend a reference to the resurrection with the word avacorpEcco, which is never used in this sense by Christian writers.

II

That there is no evidence that Palladas knew anything of the Bible or Christian doctrine is no more than we should have expected from a pagan man of letters of the day. Yet no one who lived in late-fourth-century Alexandria could have failed to know something about Christianity. And indeed Palladas did not, like Macrobius, for instance, shut his eyes to the new religion and pretend that it did not exist: he refers quite openly to the Christians (Ix, 528) and to the monks (XI, 384), and devoted a number of poems to the destruction of the pagan temples and statues by the Christians in 39I. It would not, therefore, be altogether astonishing if we could detect in the poems he wrote at this time some echoes of Christian apologetic, traces of the anti-pagan arguments the militant Christians of Alexandria hurled against those of their fellow-citizens who stubbornly refused to see the light.

It has long been realised that x, 82, 89, 90 and 91, poems obviously connected with one another, allude in dark and mysterious language to the defeat sustained by the pagans in 39I, the year the Christians destroyed the Serapeum of Alexandria, a wonder of the Ancient World, and one of the last bastions of paganism.36 It is my belief that the mystery can be solved and the poems made to yield a perfectly clear and consistent meaning if we assume that Palladas is assigning to words the meaning they bear in Christian anti-pagan writings. The most important-and most enigmatic-of these poems are x, 90 and 91:

&r TTS pEyliaolS TOU 9 o 6 v o uV TovTrpiaCs. TOV EvT1JxfUX piCE1 TIS, O v 0 E 6 S9 iA ET. oUTrcoS a v 6rO T o I T 06v e Ocp wXTrAav Ea, OUTrcoS ?TOIroCOs pcopia p AouAsV OpEv. E AX A rv E S E&CEV av5pES ECTr0oScoEVOt,

V E K p CO V EXOVTES EATlcSaS T?EaoppEoVaoc

avEcaTpaprj yap TravTa vuv Tra TrpaypiaTra. (x, 90)

OTaCV a T -r y ri TS av6pa, T o v Oe Os (piAXE o0CTOS pE'yiaTrrlv i co p i a v KaTrEiCayWr (pavEp5s yap aOvrTZ TCO OeEc KOpucycraETl, X 6 A O v pEyi0oov EK ) 0 O6 v o u 8ESEypEVOS, 6?i yap qIAEIv EK?EVOV, 6 V 0 6 O S A X E . (x, 91)

The thrice repeated 6v (r6v) E6OS cpiAeT must be a reference to a definite person, and this can only be, as Lacombrade and Keydell independently 37 realized, Theophilos, patriarch of Alexandria from 385-4I2. This rafher obvious pun on Theophilus' name seems to have been not displeasing to the patriarch himself, for Synesius actually makes use of it in a letter addressed to Theophilus, 6 OEopiAEorc-raos T'arTlp EE6oAXos (ep. 105), and elsewhere as well (ep. I2). Palladas' description of him as E?v'Uxri presumably refers to the victory he won over the pagans in 39I, when all the statues of the old gods were destroyed and many

35 Pagans often asserted that Christ was merely a very common motif in Christian literature; cf. very able magician, placing him on a level with, and Harnack, Mission, Bk. ii, Ch. 2, and, more recently, sometimes below (Lactantius, Div. Inst. v, 3) R. Arbesman, Traditio x (I954), I f. Apollonius of Tyana and Apuleius. Cf. Arnobius, 36 It was Reiske who first connected the poems Adv. Nat. I, 52 f. for a list of magicians compared with Theodosius' anti-pagan edict of 39I, Cod. with Christ; Augustine, ep. 5 and Eunapius, Vit. Theod. xvi, io, i (cited in the Didot edition, ad loc.). Soph., praef. for adulation of Apollonius. Christ 37 Lacombrade, Pallas (153), 23 ; Keydell, as the healer and physician par excellence is in fact a Byz. Zeit. L ( 957), i.

21

uncompromising adherents of the old religions were forced to flee Alexandria (Rufinus, HE II, 22, Socrates, HE v, I6). In 90, 5 he states emphatically that the 'Hellenes '- and at this period the word can only mean' pagans ' 38-are done for, ' burnt to ashes '. The vivid word orrobcopEvot rings a striking note of finality. The repetition of "'EXArqv in a similar context in go, 5, 82, 2 and 89, 2 and the allusions to Theophilus in both go and 9I prove beyond any reasonable doubt that all these poems are connected with the defeat of the pagan and victory of the Christian cause, and all the other allusions in the poems must, therefore, be interpreted in this light. I propose to interpret them on the assumption that Palladas is deliberately using words that Christians used to attack pagans and pagan beliefs.

First, what of the thrice repeated (pOvos ? 'Woe for the wickedness of 906vos ' (90, I), ' we (pagans) are stupidly led astray by (pO6vos ' (90, 3), ' p6ovos has brought wrath down upon the enemy of Theophilus (91,4).' Now p06vos bulks large in Christian writings, and it is no mere lexicographer's whim that ' Suidas ' has two separate entries for the word, one as used by St. Paul, the other as used by pagan writers. A number of interesting remarks will be found in the homilies devoted to po6vos by St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom (PG 3I, 372 f.; PG 63, 679 f.). It was responsible, they tell us, for most of the great crimes in history: Cain, for example, was seized with qO6vos of Abel, Saul of David, Jacob's sons of their brother Joseph, and, Basil emphasizes (377), the P?ytcrros 906voS of all was the crucifixion (here following the Gospels, e.g. Matt. 27, I8 Sia yeO6vov TrapEScoKaV cOr6v). St. Chrysostom dwells on the evils of pq)ovos on numerous occasions,39 and at horn. in Joann. LXV (PG 59, 359) he says that it T'a avco KrTCO ETroirlcEV : compare Palladas' aVE?Tpaypl ... w'TaVTc vUv Tr& rrpa&ypara (90, 8). At 9I, 3 Palladas says that as a result of this (p0ovos Theophilus' enemy is fighting god himself,

(p a v ? p C6 S yap aucr TCr 0E ? 5 Kop c-ETc a .

According to Basil p6ovos is EVacVTicoc1S -Tp6os OE6v (376 f.), what caused the Devil to become pavEpcoS 0E?opaxos, it is vocros ?eo,paXcias 5i5a'cKa?oS and causes a man to become EX0p6S OEou0 &yatOo Kaic a&povou (380). For Chrysostom also 6 pacXoKacivCOv Tr OEC paXE)(-rTa (PG LXIII, 679). Moreover it is a commonplace of Christian writings that it is (qpovos that causes the Devil to work for the disruption of the church and the destruction of man. To cite just one example, from St. Basil again :

' TOY aPXE?KCaKov 8caipova EIS TOV KoXTO

avepcbrrcov ?IoV? w6pEov ; o < ; 39a Indeed qpo6vos is often used concretely meaning simply 'the Devil' (e.g. Eusebius, Vita Const. I, 49, 2), and compare also the following Christian inscription:

2[Tra]pov [rrapovTos] ou'?v 1rX)(VEt (== iXO?'Et) 0eovoS.39b

A remarkably close parallel to Palladas' Tf1jS pEyiCorT1s TOo (pe6vou TrovTlpias is provided by the closing lines of the last book of George Pisides' De Exped. Pers.: pXAac-r-r, Xpi? . . EK Tr S T o r a u r TS T o p q0 e v o u K a K O U p y i a . In view of the frequency of Christian denunciations of Pqo6vos it is hardly necessary to suppose that George was, either deliberately or unconsciously, imitating Palladas, but it is certainly possible. To judge by the frequent imitations of Palladas by the poetic nun Kasia,40 and by the fact that Constantine Cephalas included more epigrams of Palladas in his Anthology than of any other poet, he seems to have been very popular in the literary circles of Constantinople. But if George was recalling Palladas' words, then it is interesting to note that he obviously took them in a Christian sense.

Now TAacvcobEOa in 90,3. -rrAav'i and iTAav&aOcal are standard terms in Christian writers to designate paganism. To take a few examples at random, rl T?Epi Tra EScoNa KOCi 6atipovas r X a v r (Eusebius, HE viii, 14, 8); &a0?s r X acr cb V C a , y ?vpi U X a avco ur iv,

38 'EAXrIv is the regular Greek word for ' pagan ' is certain (cf. the parallels quoted by E. Peterson, Eli from the fourth century on: see K. Lechner, Oes6, I926, 35). For a number of Judaeo-Christian Hellenen und Barbaren irm Weltbild der Byzantiner, amulets from Africa in the Later Empire designed Diss. Muinchen, 1954, I6-37, and cf. also now I. to ward off invidia, cf. A. Merlin, REA XLII (I940), Opelt, Vigiliae Christianae xix (I965), 7 f. 486 f. 39 cf. the index to PG 64, 277-8, s.v. invidia. 40 Pointed out by Luck, o.c. (n. 9), 470, n. 71.

39a PG 31, 376a: for many more examples see Kasia has 8 consecutive poems on the subject of G. J. M. Bartelink, Vigiliae Christianae xii (1958), qp6vos, e.g. 9eoveIv tpl so5s poI XpIaT- .... (edited by 37 f. K. Krumbacher, SB Miinchen, I897, 359). 39b Gregoire, Recueil No. 230 ter : the restoration

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etc., passim in Clement of Alexandria (cf. Stahlin's index, G.C.S. 39, p. 649 f.); ol Tracvc'bEvoI (Theodoret, HE, IV, I8, I2 andpassim). It is very often found coupled directly with "E?AArvEs, as, for example, i 'EAAXrIVlK] Trravri (Theodoret, HE v, 2I, i) and even in an imperial law, rTIVE EpvrpTVTai 'T TC TV avocriov KaCI pucvapc55v

' E A A r v co v wT A a v KcrTEXO6EVOI (Cod. Just. I, xi, io). This contemptuous designation of the beliefs and observances that had led Rome safely through ten centuries of glorious history as rrwavri naturally rankled with pagans. This comes out clearly in the aggressively pagan historian Zosimus, who describes how Theodosius addressed the Roman senate, TrapcancKacv &dcpiEvcat pkv, co a u T o S A s y E v, iv TrpTrEpov pE'TrlE-aV rT X a v rq v, XAEcr0ocx 5E TOV Xpittravcov Trio-rv (IV, 59). Is it a coincidence, then, that Palladas used this of all words to describe pagans in a poem, moreover, that laments their folly and hostility to the Patriarch himself ? It may be that he uses it in the same sense a few poems later, at x, 97, 6:

TOTE KaT' EaCovUTQV Tf IT A &C V T1 CKOTOUIEVOS iUcyCo -rTa TavTrc TrfS dt&rlia Xcaptv.

Compare also the lines immediately preceding that already cited from George Pisides for the combination of TrAavi and po8vos in a prayer to Christ (De Exped. Persica III, 439 f.) XETpacs cx3&.. o .ravpco v ... . auvas . ..rpos T- Aica Trs TrS A a v T S ... uparTovs Troirlo-ov cauTa T- co q e v cp.

Perhaps the most puzzling line in the poems is 90, 6:

VEKpCOV EXOVTES EwTri5aS T'Eapp[Evas.

Who are these veKpoi whose hopes the defeated Hellenes had ? Pagans like Julian and Eunapius referred contemptuously to the Christian saints as VEKpoi,41 but if my interpreta- tion is so far correct, then VEKpCOV must here bear a meaning found in Christian writings. It does in fact bear just such a meaning, being found right from the earliest days of Christian Apologetic as an insulting designation of the pagan gods. For, claimed Christians, the so-called gods of the pagans were really no more than distinguished men who had been accorded the honour of worship after their death. As Theophilus, bishop of Antioch towards the end of the second century, put it (ad Autol. I, 9), T'a uEv o6v6o'aTra Cov (pfis c-p3Eceatl 0 E 6 v, 6v6Oacra crTt v ? K p c V &vepcbwov, mere men, according to Justin, o0vs ... OEOsv TwpocrcovopaoCcv, ETrEt apuXa KXai v E K p a Ta-rac yiyvcbo-oPEV (Apol. I, 9, i). They are V E K p o i ovpaviot (Sib. Or. VIII, 47), 8aikiovas a&dvXous, v E K V co v E8coAX KCapOVTCOV (ib. VIII,

394). Compare especially with Palladas' statement that the pagans nurtured VEKpCOV ATtriScas, Clement's remark that pagans were VEKpOIS TrETCMrTEUKOTES (Protr. III, 45, 5),

a phrase repeated by Eusebius after he had said that oi d&utpi TTV 'o TroXA ov w X A v rl v worshipped v E K p CO V Es'coXa (Praep. Ev. II, 5, 6). In support of this thesis (first advanced, of course, by a pagan, Euhemerus) they were able to point to texts like Callimachus' allusion (h. I, 8 f.) to Zeus' grave in Crete, sure proof that he was no god: these lines are quoted by a host of Christian writers, Athenagoras, Tatian, Clement, Epiphanius, Chrysostom and Theodoret (see Pfeiffer, ad loc.). It is, in fact, largely as a result of this revived Euhemerism of the Apologists and Fathers that we know as much as we do about the teachings of Euhemerus himself. For Christian writers eagerly appealed to him as a first-rate pagan source with which to confound the pagans.42 The pagan Celsus turned this v IKpos theme to his own advantage (ap. Origen, c. Cels. viI, 36; 40; 68) and it may be that it was his example Julian followed in calling Christ 6 VEKp6S, probably, as de Labriolle suggested, 'une retorsion contre les attaques chretiennes.'43

A particularly interesting example, and very relevant to the present discussion, is the famous ' prophecy' of the doom of paganism in Egypt inserted (at about the same time as

41 Eunapius, Vit. Soph. 472; for Julian see the Literatuur (Diss. Utrecht, 1952), has collected the passages collected by R. Asmus, Woch. f. kl. Phil. allusions to Euhemerus from Latin patristic writings. XXIV (I907), 152. Bonnano, Orpheus 1958, I24, taking A full treatment of the subject, according to P. VEKp5V Xwsrias5 as being the 'mondo ideale pagano Courcelle (REL xxx, 1952, 451), would require immediatamente distrutto ' thinks that Palladas is ' deux gros volumes et une dizaine d'annees '. deliberately opposing it to the Christian idea of death 43 La reaction paienne (I934), 415, n. 2. To the as the start of true life. But nowhere is Palladas more passages there cited add Julian, Adv. Cyn. 203c3, as likely to have heard talk of death as the start of true emended by D. A. Russell in CR n.s. xv (I965), 43. life than in the pagan neoplatonic circles of Alexandria. Jews also accused Christians of worshipping a vsKp6s 42 J. W. Schwippers, De Ontwikkeling der (Theodoret, Ad Rom. iv, PG 82, col. 93c). Euhemeristische Godencritiek in de Christelijke Latijnse

23

Palladas wrote these poems) 44 in the Hermetic treatise Asclepius : 'tunc [i.e. when the old gods have been driven from Egypt, and their worship forbidden by law] terra ista sanctissima [i.e. Egypt], sedes delubrorum atque templorum, sepulchrorum erit mortuorumque plenissima ' (? 24). ' Sepulchrorum erit mortuorumque plenissima' was probably intended as an insulting allusion to the Christian worship of martyrs 45-compare Julian's remark that the Christians Traxvra ETrlppcrCav Trapcov Kcai pvTqpJrcov (contra Christ. p. 225, 9 Neum.)- but Augustine cites the passage triumphantly as proof that Hermes Trismegistos himself ' deos Aegypti homines mortuos esse testatur ' (Civ. Dei vII, 26). It is perfectly possible that both pagan prophecy and Christian interpretation were current in Alexandria when Palladas was writing. One other example worth citing is a remark of George, patriarch of Alexandria in the early 360's. While passing by the great temple of Tuxri 46 in Alexandria one day, he looked at it and said: ' quamdiu hoc sepulchrum stabit ? ' (Amm. Marc. xxII, II, 7). Here then we have a clear example of the gibe being made publicly in Alexandria itself in Palladas' lifetime-and this was doubtless not the only time. And if the pagan Ammianus was able to learn of the incident when he visited Alexandria a few years later, it is not likely to have been unknown to Palladas, who lived there. In x, go, 6 Palladas had said that the "EAqvE5S were ?caro8copEvoi. In the next line he gives-ironically of course- the Christian reason: they are finished because they hang their hopes, not on gods, but on dead men.

ix, 501, though formerly a riddle, now becomes as clear as day: Ti3v TrAiv ol vEKVS Tpo6TEpov cocraXv KaTreAiyaov

PEiTS &? COVTES TTIV WT6OAV EK(PEpOpEV.

The w6irv is Alexandria,47 and the v?Ku?s are the pagan gods who have been driven out by Theophilus and his monks. Palladas exploits to the full the possibilities of word-play the situation offers: the city used to be alive while the ' dead men ' dwelt in it, but now Palladas (or does the plural mean ' we pagans ' ?) is left alive to officiate at the city's funeral (EKqEppop?v). In connection with this poem-and in confirmation of the interpretation of it I have suggested-compare once more the Asclepius prophecy already quoted, where Hermes Trismegistos is represented as ' foretelling ' precisely what according to Palladas had now happened, that the gods will leave Egypt: 'e terris enim et ad caelum recursura [sc. erit] divinitas, linquetur Aegyptus terraque, sedes religionum quae fuit, viduata numinum praesentia destituetur ' (? 24). And in 391 when the Christians started destroying pagan statues and temples, the leader of the pagan opposition, a man happily named Olympius, told his supporters not to be disheartened, because though the statues were made of perishable material, the gods who dwelt in them had flown safely away to heaven (Sozomen, HE, vii, i5).48

Several other words in these poems take on a clearer meaning once it is realized that Palladas is describing the condition of the pagans as a Christian would have-or perhaps parodying the way a Christian (presumably, among others, Theophilus) actually did.

'AVO'rTOI, for example, though naturally an obvious enough word in any sort of polemic, is found with a specific connotation in Christian writers. Clement, for example, says av6roToi oi a r i 7r T O i, avolrTovu Koai &a Tr e E? i (ed. Stiihlin II, 328, 2I; 233, 9) and Palladas' OJTCOS Ocv6rlToi reminds one of o?0rcoS &v6rl'TITOI oT of Galat. 3, 3 (cf. Lk. 24, 25).

Mcopioc too might seem so obvious a reproach as not to be worth illustrating from Christian writers. Yet Palladas does repeat the word with some emphasis in both x, 90o, 4, ov0rcos ?Tro(os p,copia 6ouv?XE'opEv, and 9I, 2, where the man who hates Theophilus PE?yio-rTv pcopiav K?`irca`cy?i. And it is a word that is used in a rather specialized context in Christian Apologetic. For although Christ crucified was ' folly to the Greeks ' (the

44 cf. Neill and Nock, Jl. Theol. Stud. xxvi 47 An Alexandrian would inevitably mean Alex- (1925), i74 f. andria when he referred to the rr6oAs, for Alexandria

45 For a different, but to my mind unconvincing, was distinguished as the troA6s from the rest of explanation, cf. Scott and Ferguson, Hermetica iv Egypt, known as Xcbpa (U. Wilcken, Grundziige u. (I936), 187 n. Chrestom. I. I (I9I2), 34). cf. also JHS I964, 6o.

46 This temple was destroyed in 39I and converted 48 The passages of Palladas and Sozomen surely into a tavern-an event to which Palladas devoted no confirm a date in the 390's for the ' prophecy' : cf. fewer than four poems: Anth. Pal. ix, I80-3 ; and n. 44 above. cf. JHS LXXXIV (I964), 57.

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parallel adduced by Sternbach, above p. o2), Paul goes on to say that caoqiac T0rov KoiCovU Toivrov pwopir wTrapca TCr ee oS Eor (I. Cor. 3, I9) and EpbpacvEv 6 OEBS TeV cvoqpiav TOU K6oCiov (ib. I, 20). This is a favourite line of the Apologists: for Justin, to accept Perseus' virgin birth from Danae and deny that of Christ from Mary is 6olocos -roIS "E A A Tr c i u oCA p a i v E V (Dial. 67, 2), and Clement argued that the presence of Christ made men not picopo but ouvE-TOi-it was rather oil [X O EXAC0-aVTrES WrieECCOa1 who were pc5poi (ed. Stiihlin, II, 57, 12). In the chapter of his Quaest. Vet. et Nov. Test. devoted to answering pagan objections to Christianity, Ambrosiaster insists time and again that it is really the pagans who are stulti, not the Christians,49 and Philostorgius records how a Christian martyr made precisely the same rejoinder to a pagan who accused him of being drrai6EuToS KaC 'EAArVIKiS cro<piCS cx[eTOXOS (p. 158, II Bidez). Palladas, as a "EAArv and representative, qua grammaticus, of Hellenic ofpiac might very naturally have resented being told that oi0.. "EEAArvs, cr6cpoo Elvoc XyovTEs icopdvOrcrcav (Aristides, Ap. 8, 2, cf. Rom. I, 23)- as Celsus certainly did (ap. Origen, contra Cels. vi, 12; I, 9).

As for 5ouAEUopEV (90, 4), SoU8AEViv as well is frequently used by Christians of pagans, in phrases like 8ucCEpEic sOUV0AE1V (Theodoret, HE, III, I, I), and oi TTv E iSCbAov wrAavi 68E8ouXcopivot (ib. III, 6, I), though too much must not be made of this, as the word is, of course, used in many other contexts by Christians and pagans alike.

It may be instructive to cite at this point a passage from the Epistle to Titus (III, 3), quoted in full by Clement in his ' Exhortation to the Greeks ' (Protr. I, 5), where Paul (?) writes, with reference to the days before he became a Christian: iperv yap TToTE Kaci TIPEi o&v6rlo, &WEIOEt, ? TrAavccbEvoi, OU?AoEOVTES 1-leUJ[ali; KCIa f|6ovCais TrOIKiAcXS, EV C aKi Ka 6 v O pV syowrst , cvyrlToi, cI O v -r S &XAAiXou. It is surely striking that so many of the words Palladas applied to pagans in x, 90 and 91 (for placo0VTeS cf. 90, i; 9I, I and 4) occur all together in this one sentence of St. Paul-and it is not likely that Clement was the only Christian preacher to address such a text to a pagan audience.

Lastly, what of the X6;AoS pEyicrros which is the result of pq)6vos (9I, 3) ? What else but the wrath of God that falls on unbelievers ? Evangelists then as now dilated on texts such as arroKaCAV TErra c... 6pyi] OeoO E-Trri racxav c aEpEiav (Rom. i, I8) and repeated, like Clement again, Paul's remark (Eph. II, 3) that those who did not turn to Christ were TEKVOC

6pyfls: e.g. Protr. II, 23, opi 6'vat ? waot 'rKva 6pyfis' ovopI&ovTai. Compare another poem of Palladas, placed by Keydell in 394 as reflecting the dashing of the hopes raised in pagan circles by the failure of the bid of the pagan Eugenius for the purple : 50

Ei 0e6OS1 ()fPltn, K E X A X co p V K a i a u ril EXAArCiv, capa?poTs ?Ea-rrc6c5ac AoyoTs. (x, 89, I-2)

Rumour also, if she be a goddess (a reminiscence of Hesiod, Op. 764),51 is angry with the pagans; her anger is added (K a i aocuri) to the XXAoS that qpeovos had brought them in x, 91, 4. If Stadtmueller, Franke and Zerwes are right in ascribing XI, 359 to Palladas (acephalous in the Palatinus), then it is perhaps to be connected with these poems. The poet is evidently addressing some very important person, perhaps (if the author is Palladas) Theophilus again:

6r Tr9S acTrcacrS Suv&apECoS 0TrpTT-rE, CACOa6v PE TOV sUOTClVOV EK TravroS 9 6 V v . ...

In ix, 175, 5-6 Palladas begs Theophilus to protect him (see below p. 27), just as the author of this poem asks for protection. The last two lines, unfortunately, are a hitherto unsolved riddle 52-but the last word, significantly enough, is X6Aov. This use of X?XAo to

49 cf. Hamack, Mission (tr. Moffat) I, 379, n. 3. writing before Palladas, says (ep. 82 [59], p. 137 ' Suidas ' s.v. pcbpous states quite simply that roCis Bidez) : KCa yexp ?i Troa ?TXpi TEp ris Oipr15 o i rr o t a rTOU K6crpiou ca6qoUs KaEi picbpoVs. (paav dbs rTIn EO6S. Hesiod's line is often quoted: see

50 o.c. (n. 37), 2-3. the testimonia in Rzach's editio maior ad. loc. 51 This line appears to be quoted by Synesius 52 Zerwes connects the aclsoupos of 1. 9 with

in his ep. 44: si ptv O6bs Eoarv ? I OIpr xcrrca ntva Trv Timothy Ailurus, monophysite bishop of Alexandria ?r a p' fipv Troitrv, as pointed out by L. A. Stella, from 457, but on any chronology of Palladas' life Cinque poeti dell' antologia palatina (I949), 383. On this is a good thirty years after the last date he is the other hand the motif may have been used by likely to have lived to; cf. ? iv of my article in other poets besides Hesiod and Palladas, for Julian, CQ I965.

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designate (at any rate in 9I, 4 and 89, i) the wrath of Jehovah gains extra significance from the fact that the Christian doctrine of a god of wrath was held to be monstrous by the educated pagan. 'Hoc quidem commune est omnium philosophorum . . .' remarked Cicero, 'numquam nec irasci deum nec nocere ' (De Off. III, I02), and the Apostate Julian was quite emphatic on the point: ovi5apou XcarEracivocv 6 OEos (paivETal, ou6' &yavoaKTCov, oU6' Opyi6OEVOS... cos 6 M CoOUij (pqroi.53

There is another series of poems, dealing with Palladas' enforced retirement from the teaching profession, which should perhaps be discussed in this connection. For Palladas' retirement seems to have been connected in some way both with his paganism and Theophilus' ' victory ':

Kax2Ai,XaXov TrcoAcX KOa 'T'ivSapov, i15E KOCx aorTaS T-rrrco'ES ypaCppcTlIcclKs rTTCOriv ?EXCV TrEViqS.

Acop6OEos yap EjpIlv Tpo>pqiiTv cyOVTCra1V EA.uCYE,

wTpEcYpEirlv KOCT' Epo0 TTV a&cyEp TrEXAcas. 'AAAx oiu ou rrp6crriq0t, 0 E C i [k E ?, pirSE ' Eoarais

CJV5E?oC[icp TrEVirI TOiV piov ?IavuicCai. (IX, I75)

8e0c piXE in 1. 5 is presumably Theophilus once more,54 thus setting the poem in the same context as x, 90 and 89. Palladas has been reduced to poverty and is selling his books; a certain Dorotheus has apparently cut short the living he had earned as a schoolteacher (a pun on the two meanings of OUVT'rcatI, 'syntax' and 'salary'). On the face of it the Wp?ECo3EirV acrEPfi of 1. 4 means no more than that this Dorotheus was 'impious' enough to lay information against Palladas that led to his Tpoq)ipVi o-VT'-ralS being withdrawn. But is this all it was meant to convey ? Something about the line evidently caused offence to Planudes, for he omitted it completely, and substituted another line of (presumably) his own composition instead:

Cb)UTE pE TO'U T? T-IEV TOJ T?E CayEv CXTOpETV.

If, as seems likely, Pfeiffer is correct in maintaining that Planudes directly used the Palatinus,55 then his omission of the line cannot be due to a defective exemplar, for it is plainly visible in the Palatinus, as can easily be verified by reference to Preisendanz' admirable photographic copy. Now Planudes often took it upon himself to alter or even omit or rewrite what he considered obscene,56 but there can be no question of this here: one can only conclude, therefore, that the good monk took exception to it on religious grounds. It is not easy to see precisely what can have given offence on this count, though the word -TprpEpceia is used by Christians to mean 'intercession '. And it is possibly significant that the rabid pagan Eunapius, when writing, like Palladas, of Theophilus and his monks, contemptuously quotes the names the Christians gave to what he calls the' bones and skulls of criminals' (i.e. relics of saints) that they worshipped: 1JaprvpTUp yoUv EKaXov-ro ... KOi TW p E? CT 1I T OV aiTo-EC?cV Trapa TxSV O?EOV (Vit. Soph. 472). It may be that Planudes realized that Palladas had been obliged to give up teaching because of his paganism (see below) and suspected-whether rightly or wrongly we are not in a position to say-that 1. 4 was an offensive allusion to the denunciation of his paganism.

We learn more about Palladas' retirement from ix, I71 6pyavcx Mouovacov, -ra -rroX'uo-rova 3ip3iXa TrcoXC,

2iS ETEpoCS T?rXVTr pyca PETEPXO6P?VOS. Ft1?pi6?S, 'cbo 01i0E' X6yol, uvvTaccroplot viJiv'

O0VVT-rCIS yap E?0oi Kal O&avcTov cTrpEXEI. We read again that Palladas sold his books, only this time with the additional detail that he changed his profession (1. 2). The last couplet contains the usual plethora of puns, for which

53 Contra Christianos, as reconstructed by K. J. 56 cf. his 'normalization' of Anth. Pal. v, 6, 5 Neumann, 1880, I90, 5 f. cf. also CQ n.s. xiv (Callimachus) by substituting 6aXis 65i for dpasvliK6 (I964), 319, n.3. (Epco-r). Beckby misleads when he merely says 'om.

54 As seen already by Stella, o.c. (n. 5I), 341. P1.' in his note on IX, I75, 4, without indicating that 65 Callimachus I (I953), xcIII. But cf. now Gow Planudes actually wrote something else instead.

and Page, The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epi- grams I (I965), xxxIII-Ix.

PALLADAS AND CHRISTIAN POLEMIC

Palladas seems to have had an almost pathological fondness.57 At one level it means that :syntax ' bores him to death '; the other and more important meaning is that teaching the -classics, at least during this critical period, had actually become dangerous. Another poem that alludes to Palladas' loss of his livelihood, and connects it, moreover, with his paganism, is x, 82:

apa ar v Oav6v-rsg TC-Z OKEI)V C)[E?V I6VOV, "EXXrlvES &vSpeS, oup(p)opa TrE1TrcoK6KTE?,

OVEtpov EiK&covTrE EIlvao TOYV p36v, El CjpEV

' iETS TOOU Piou T-rE8vKOKos;

Editors and commentators have hitherto been unable to give an altogether satisfactory interpretation of this poem-principally because they quite unjustifiably desert the reading Ei ~cpev of both the Palatinus and Planudes in 1. 4.58 I would translate somewhat as follows: 'Are we not dead and living only in appearance, we Hellenes (i.e. pagans), fallen on disaster, likening life to a dream, if we continue to live while our livelihood is dead and gone ? ' 59 Piov in 1. 4 might perhaps mean ' our (i.e. the pagan) way of life ', but I prefer to take it as ' livelihood ' because of the other poems that mention Palladas' changed livelihood. (For a close parallel cf. Merchant of Venice iv, I, 377: ' You take my life when you do take the means whereby I live.')

I know of no other evidence that teaching the classics was actually forbidden at this period, and any such prohibition can only have been very short-lived, for we find the beautiful pagan philosopher Hypatia teaching with great success in Alexandria only a year or two later-though her violent death at the hands of a band of fanatical monks shows that it could certainly be dangerous. Indeed the teaching of the classics there remained in the hands of pagans for another century or more: 60 as late as the end of the fifth century we hear that the grammarian Horapollon used to offer up sacrifices to the gods with his pupils, thereby earning from Christians the nick-name Psychapollon, 'the destroyer of souls'.61 It would be understandable if in the first flush of their ' victory ' of 391 62 Christians had attempted to prevent their children being corrupted by pagan teachers-mindful perhaps that the Apostate Julian had tried to stop Christians teaching the young. And in addition to the evidence of Palladas we hear of two other Alexandrian grammarians, Helladius and Ammonius, who fled Alexandria during the riots of 391, and set up school in Constantinople instead (Socrates, HE. v, I6). But no law actually forbidding pagans to teach is attested before Justinian's edict of 529 (Cod. Just. i. 5, i8, 4), and even this law only explicitly forbids pagans to hold official chairs. It may be simply that pagans holding municipal chairs in Alexandria were (at any rate temporarily) replaced by Christians. This would not have worried successful teachers, who reckoned to make far more in private fees than they received from the city council,63 but those who were not so successful (and Palladas dilates often on his poverty) depended on their salary for their daily bread. This is surely what Palladas meant when he wrote that Dorotheus 'EucVE his TpoqtpJ'lv crVT'catv: 'OJVTcriS means ' salary', not 'fees '64 Dorotheus denounced Palladas as a pagan, and the authorities refused to pay him his salary. Unable to make both ends meet on fees from private pupils,65 he was obliged to sell his books and try his luck at another profession.

We have seen that in Ix, I75 Palladas asks for Theophilus' help: 'AXX'a oru pou Trp6cTrrit, eE4 (piRs. Was his request granted ? What happened to him after he gave up schoolteaching ? One last poem, unfortunately elusive as usual, can perhaps cast a little uncertain light on Palladas' last days:

X-rpocv ETCOV O'c5yas pETa ypacipaTiKfIS pJ3pupO6Oov, pouXErTfS VEKUCOV WTTETrOp[at El 'AiSriv. (x, 97)

57 For Palladas' puns cf. Peek, P-W XVIII. 3, 61 Zacharias, Life of Severus, tr. Kuigener, Patr. I67; Zerwes, Palladas von Alexandrie 368-9; and Or. ii (1907), 32. my article in Byz. Zeit. LVII (I964), at pp. 287-91 62 cf. JHS I964, 59 f. 58 For discussion of the reading see ? III of my 63 cf. A. H. M. Jones, Later Roman Empire II article in CQ n.s. xv (I965). (1964), I002 and my article ' Roman School Fees' in

59 For close parallels to this sentiment in other CR n.s. xv (1965). pagans of the day cf. CQ I.c. (n. 58). 64 Libanius, for example, uses rOIVTOatLs of the

60 Cf. J. Maspero, Bulletin de l'institut franf. municipal salaries paid to teachers in Antioch d'arch. orient. du Caire XI (1914), I76 f. (Or. xxxI, 19).

65 cf. CR, I.c. (n. 63).

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There were 72 solidi to the AiTrpa (pound of gold). In his usual tortuous fashion Palladas is saying that he has lived with grammar for 72 years before ending his days as a poueuTvrfs. Presumably this means that he was 72 years old when he wrote the poem, rather than that he had been 72 years a schoolmaster, but in either case it is reasonable to assume that it fits in the same context as the group under discussion. It is unlikely that Palladas retired from teaching a second time, after the age of 72. And, as Bowra observes,66 his request in Ix, I75 that Theophilus should not allow him rTV piov Etcavvccxa in poverty ' suggests that he is conscious of not having many years before him '. Bowra takes p3ouvAErris as meaning ' counsellor ', i.e. one who advises, but this is quite inadmissible; pouEurTis can only mean ' councillor ', i.e. one who serves on a local povuAT or senate. Jacobs thought that Palladas had aspired in vain to a seat on such a body, but this is to forget that in the late fourth century a seat on a p3ouvAi was no longer an honour to be eagerly sought after, but a burden to be avoided at all costs.67

Now as an official salaried grammaticus Palladas will have enjoyed extensive tax- immunities: cf. Cod. Just. x, 53, 6 (an edict of 337) ' medicos... grammaticos et professores ... una cum uxoribus et filiis... ab omni functione et ab omnibus muneribus civilibus vel publicis immunes esse praecipimus'. When, therefore, he ceased to be a grammaticus, he will automatically have ceased to enjoy these immunities, and one or other of the many public figures he had lampooned (e.g. IX, 393, x, 92) will have made sure that he was conscripted on to a BouANi without delay. It looks as though Palladas did end his days in poverty after all. But the relevance of the poem to my present argument is that the last line seems again to reflect this use of terms from Christian anti-pagan polemic. We have seen that Palladas was obliged to give up teaching because of his paganism. This reconstruc- tion is confirmed by x, 97. Whatever the exact sense of the second line-it may well be that the obscurity is intentional, pcov&vrca o vvrolrto - VEKicoV will bear the same meaning as V?Kpcov in x, 90, 7 and V?KUES in Ix, 50I, I, i.e. 'pagan gods', once more connecting Palladas' retirement with the pagan cause.

Now it will of course be objected to my thesis that these words are all freely used by both Christian and pagan writers of all periods in a perfectly neutral sense. To this objection I should reply that although most of the words are indeed normally used in their ordinary meaning in ordinary contexts, the context in which they are used here is very far from ordinary. It cannot be just a casual coincidence that in x, go and 91 the word (pOovoS and the allusion to the man 6v (rov) eE6oS (piAE are repeated three times and Icopica twice: obviously the repetition of these words must have some special significance. And as "EAAlJVES must mean pagans, as the man 6v OEos qp)lXe must be Theophilus, as the "EAArnve are said to be finished, and as Palladas wrote in Alexandria towards the end of the fourth century, there cannot be any doubt that the poems allude to Theophilus' attempt to stamp out paganism in Alexandria in 39I. The reproaches (pOvos, pcopiac, TrXavcobpvot, hopes based on VEKpOt, etc., are then levelled at the pagans of Alexandria. What more natural in this of all contexts to find that the reproaches are in fact the reproaches Christians employed for this very purpose ? Furthermore, and most important, mine is the only interpretation of the poems hitherto propounded which gives them a meaning-and a coherent and consistent meaning at that. What was formerly a complete mystery is now revealed to have a perfectly intelligible and very pointed contemporary significance.

Furthermore, my suggestion accords well with Palladas' notorious fondness for playing with words. It is not just that in typical schoolmasterly fashion he cannot resist a pun. He also liked to ' take off' or satirize what displeased or amused him in the works of others. In his numerous lampoons on apXovET?S, for example, he turns upside down the usual phraseology of the honorific epigrams of his day.68 Epigrams in honour of prefects sometimes contained a phrase like EVsXos &-rEipEolov: Palladas' lampoon on Themistius when he became prefect of Constantinople describes his prefecture as a I a X o s raTElppCaov.69 And since we happen to possess several speeches Themistius delivered during his prefecture to

66 Proc. Brit. Acad. XLV (I959), 267. Bas-Empire (I948), 39 f. 67 cf. Jones, Later Roman Empire II, 748 f. 69 Robert, o.c. 98. 68 cf. L. Robert, Hellenica iv: Epigrammes du

PALLADAS AND CHRISTIAN POLEMIC

justify his exchanging the philosopher's cloak for the silver carriage of the city prefect, we can see that the poem is a satire of certain phrases in these speeches that had struck Palladas as hypocritical. Themistius, for instance, had argued that Plato was wrong to represent philosophers as K a r a paicvovTarc to public affairs, for rT avco Kai KOTCa)O a0s Ox ( aTAoov (Or. XXXIV); Palladas made the most of the opportunities such sophistry offered:

i<uea KaTCo KpEio'CCOV, avapasct 5' EyEVOU TWOAV0 XEipcV. 65up' ava3iptil Kcrcoo, VUV yap avco KaTEpriS. (XI, 292,70 3-4)

It is only natural that a man so preoccupied, by profession as well as by inclination, with words and their uses and abuses, should have taken some interest in the special meanings so many words took on at the hands of Christians. Indeed it can be proved. One of the neatest of all his epigrams is an ironic comment on the outrageous logical inconsistency with which the Christian ascetics who flocked to the desert in their thousands 71 called themselves of all things solitaries:

Ei tovacroi, Ti TrocoiSE; TroooiSE 56 TTCS wraAtl Po0voi; c) TrAXftvS povax&5v EEvaapECVT piovcaa. (XI, 384)

Now it is scarcely credible that Palladas used these Christian terms, p86vos, VKKpOt, TrrA&vrl sincerely, as a Christian would have, to denounce the impious pagan ways he had left behind him. Lacombrade and Bowra, however, have argued that Palladas underwent a nominal conversion in 391-as did many who wished to save their skins and did not feel strongly enough about the old gods to risk both life and property in defending them. Among these time-servers, according to Palladas, was Heracles himself, who

KaOipC ouV?UE'ov KCl EOS Cov Jia0ov.72 (IX, 441, 6)

On the face of it there are good reasons why a man such as Palladas should have acquiesced in the new faith. He displays no great attachment either to the traditional gods (e.g. x, 53) or to the philosophical speculations that had largely replaced them among intellectual pagans of his day (e.g. x, 45); furthermore he seems to have been an old man when the blow fell. But if, like his Heracles, Palladas too learnt Katipo5 souAev'iv, why was he obliged to give up his profession, and why does he speak of the distress of ' we Hellenes ' (x, 82 and 90), thus including himself in their number ? If he had wished to pass himself off as a convert would he not have addressed them in the second person so as to exclude himself from the 9p6vos, !tcopia and -Travri for which he upbraids them ? As it is, he clearly identifies himself with the Hellenes-as also, apparently, did the authorities who withdrew his salary. If we agree, as I think we must, with Keydell,73 that the threefold refrain-like repetition of 6v (-rov) 0e6S 9IAE! is full of ' bitterster Ironie ', then clearly the rest of x, 90 and 9I must be ironical as well. I therefore find it hard to follow Bowra in supposing that Palladas ' sees himself in some sense as their [the pagans'] counsellor ' who ' advised submission to the Christians '.74 I submit, on the contrary, that x, 90 and 91 are an ironic pastiche of phrases and words Palladas had heard applied to the pagans by Christians, phrases that seemed to him, as a pagan, particularly amusing or outrageous. We have seen that Celsus strongly objected to this use of pcopia, and the dismissal of the pagan gods as V?KpOt, and how indignant Zosimus was at Theodosius' use of TrAavri to designate the ancestral religion of Rome. What more natural than that Palladas should have found these same cliches worthy of his scorn ? x, 90 and 91 contain all the ideas and catch-phrases we might have expected to find in a sermon of Theophilus himself condemning the folly and futility of the pagan resistance-or in the letter of Theodosius that arrived in Alexandria during the riots. Rufinus, ' who had been at Alexandria before and after the event and may deserve the credit

70 For the text cf. ? v of my article in CQ n.s. xv Both Julian and Palladas may well have sincerely (I965). believed-or fondly hoped-that Christianity would

71 Two thousand dwelt in the neighbourhood of 'blow over' before long, and allow Heracles and Alexandria alone (Sozomen, HE vi, 29). the oracles to come back into their own once more.

72 For an interesting parallel cf. Julian, Contra 73 Byz. Zeit. 1957, 2. Christianos p. I98: 'paivSTat 6S T-r auropOlq Xpra"ripltc 74 o.c. (n. 66), 267: his view depends largely on ayficaai, T o i T v X p 6 v co v i Kov T a r E pio o s. his translation of PouAEuTris as counsellor.

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of an original witness ',75 describes for us the horrified amazement of the pagans, who could not believe that Theophilus' violent measures would receive the sanction of the Emperor, when in the very first words of the letter 'vana (= pcJpca) gentilium (='EXAAivcov): superstitio culpabatur, ... errantes (= TrAavcou'ivovs) mallet emendare quam perdere...' (HE II, 22). We may be sure that Palladas was treated to many such tirades. It was only natural that a man of his interests and temperament should have composed a pastiche of such cliches for the amusement of himself and his pagan friends-confident, perhaps, that his irony would be safely lost on the ignorant monks of Alexandria.

Bedford College, London.

75 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ed. Bury Iv (1897), I am grateful to Prof. A. Momigliano and I98, n. 4I. Mr. P. R. L. Brown for helpful comments.