bishops & churches in barbaricis gentibus

Medieval Academy of America

Barbarian Bishops and the Churches "in Barbaricis Gentibus" During Late AntiquityAuthor(s): Ralph W. MathisenSource: Speculum, Vol. 72, No. 3 (Jul., 1997), pp. 664-697Published by: Medieval Academy of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3040758 .Accessed: 07/01/2011 19:58

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at .http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=medacad. .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Medieval Academy of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toSpeculum.

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=medacad

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3040758?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=medacad

Barbarian Bishops and the Churches "in barbaricis gentibus"

during Late Antiquity

By Ralph W. Mathisen

Late antiquity was a crucial period for the development of the Christian church.

Christianity went from a persecuted to a favored religion; and after a period of internecine struggle, Nicene-Chalcedonian Christianity prevailed as orthodoxy throughout the Mediterranean world. Ancient sources and modern studies dealing with this period are replete with discussions of the church as it developed within the territorial confines of the Roman Empire. But both virtually ignore the barbarian churches that existed during the fourth through the sixth centuries, which were often heterodox and, initially, located beyond the imperial frontiers.1

In particular, the internal organization and hierarchy of barbarian churches have been little studied, and the senior clergy of the Arian Germanic churches that

developed within the territory of the western empire among peoples such as the

Visigoths, Vandals, Burgundians, and Ostrogoths has received little attention.2 One reason for this is the dearth of contemporary source material;3 another, perhaps, is that by the end of the sixth century most such churches had been assimilated into the Nicene church and left little trace or heritage. And yet the scattered

I would like to thank Luke Wenger and the two anonymous referees for Speculum for their valuable criticism and suggestions.

1 Note, among many, Augustin Fliche and Victor Martin, gen. eds., Histoire de l'eglise depuis les origines jusqu'a nos jours (Paris, 1934-), vols. 3 and 4; Louis Duchesne, Early History of the Christian Church, 4th ed. (New York, 1920); A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, A.D. 284-640: A Social, Economic, and Administrative History, 2 vols. (Norman, Okla., 1964), pp. 262-64; and Judith Herrin, The Formation of Christendom (Princeton, N.J., 1987), pp. 31 and 106-7. If barbarian churches are mentioned at all in modern studies, it is usually in the context of the spread of Christianity, and often as a manifestation of imperial policy. See, for the Byzantine east, Garth Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth: Consequences of Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Princeton, N.J., 1993), pp. 100- 137; for the empire in general, see W. H. C. Frend, "The Missions of the Early Church, 180-700 AD," in Derek Baker, ed., Miscellanea historiae ecclesiasticae, 3: Colloque de Cambridge, 24-28 septembre 1968 (Louvain, 1970), pp. 3-23.

2 For barbarian Arianism see Michel Meslin, Les Ariens d'Occident, 335-430 (Paris, 1967), pp. 91-99; and Manlio Simonetti, "L'incidenza dell'arianesimo nel rapporto fra Romani e barbari," in

Passaggio dal mondo antico al medio evo da Teodosio a San Gregorio Magno, Atti dei Convegni Lincei 45 (Rome, 1980), pp. 367-79. The term "Arian" could have varying significance; see R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy, 318-381 (Edinburgh, 1988). Generally, Arians rejected the Nicene contention that the Father and Son were of the same substance.

3 See, e.g., Piergiuseppe Scardigli, Die Goten: Sprache und Kultur, trans. Benedikt Vollmann (Mu- nich, 1973), p. 333, for the lack of information on the organization, governing, and activities of the Ostrogothic church. Jill Harries, Sidonius Apollinaris and the Fall of Rome, AD 407-485 (Oxford, 1994), p. 63, n. 27, notes regarding Sigesarius, "this is one of the few references to Gothic bishops." Meslin, Ariens, p. 92, mentions only two Gothic bishops briefly and in passing.

664 Speculum 72 (1997)

evidence that does exist can give valuable insight into the nature both of the relationships between barbarians and Romans and of the ultimate integration not only of the Arian and Nicene churches but also of the Roman and barbarian populations. It was this integration that characterized the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages and that was crucial for the preservation and transmission of the classical tradition.

The following discussion of the hierarchy and organization of barbarian churches will focus upon the senior clergy, that is, those referred to as "bishops" in the Nicene-cum-imperial church. It also should be noted that the word "barbarian" will be used here as a convenient, nonpejorative term to refer to all the non-Latin- and non-Greek-speaking exterae gentes who dwelt around, or eventually settled within, the Roman Empire during late antiquity.4 It will be seen that the status and roles of senior clergy in some barbarian churches, and in particular heterodox ones, were strikingly different from those of the imperial church. Par- ticular attention will be given to the significance of terminology, such as the meaning of the words episcopus, sacerdos, antistes, and presbyter in Roman and barbarian contexts.

"ECCLESIAS DEI IN BARBARICIS GENTIBUS CONSTITUTAS"

One might commence by looking broadly at Roman policies regarding the se- lection of bishops for barbarian peoples.5 Beginning in the early fourth century, several eastern Roman bishops took it upon themselves to oversee the development of churches among the gentes barbaricae. At the same time, Roman emperors, in theory at least, saw themselves as being responsible for the Christianization not only of the empire but of the world.6 As a result of such initiatives, it would seem that areas considered by the Romans to be "civilized," such as the kingdoms of Armenia and Persia, developed episcopal systems similar to that in the Roman Empire. In these regions a number of bishops, located in episcopal sees, were under the authority of a catholikos.7 In the early fourth century, for example, the church of Armenia was established; the first catholikos, Gregory the Illuminator, was

4 For the significance of the term "barbarus," see Ralph W. Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats in Bar- barian Gaul: Strategies for Survival in an Age of Transition (Austin, Tex., 1993), pp. 1-6 and 39-49; and Gerhart B. Ladner, "On Roman Attitudes toward Barbarians in Late Antiquity," Viator 7 (1976), 1-25.

5 The works of the following ecclesiatical historians will be cited below with the abbreviated title HE (for Historia ecclesiastica): Philostorgius, ed. Joseph Bidez and Friedhelm Winkelmann, Die grie- chischen christlichen Shriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderts (henceforth cited as GCS) 21, 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1972); Rufinus, ed. Eduard Schwartz and Theodor Mommsen, GCS 9 (Leipzig, 1908); Soc- rates, ed. Robert Hussey (Oxford, 1853); Sozomen, ed. Joseph Bidez and Gunther C. Hansen, GCS 50 (Berlin, 1960); Theodoret, ed. Leon Parmentier and Felix Scheidweiler, GCS 19, 2nd ed. (Berlin and Leipzig, 1954); and Theodorus Lector, ed. Gunther C. Hansen, Theodoros Anagnostes, Kirchen- geschichte (Berlin, 1971).

6 Eusebius (Vita Constantini 4.24), for example, described Constantine as bishop "of those outside"; see Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth, p. 91.

7 Persia: Fliche and Martin, Histoire, 3:492-95 and 4:321-30; Armenia: ibid., 3:490-92 and 4:330-36. For bishops at various places around the Persian Gulf and the east, see ibid., 4:529-31.

Barbarian Bishops 665

consecrated as bishop of Achtichat, the capital city, by the bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, and twelve sees were established.8 The bishop of Caesarea continued to consecrate the Armenian catholikoi.9 In Persia, where the church was often independent of Roman oversight, forty episcopal sees were attested at the Persian synod of 410; the see of the catholikos was at Seleucia-Ctesiphon.10

For less cosmopolitan peoples, however, the Roman policy seems to have been different. Single bishops were appointed for entire peoples. In the 330s, for example, the Roman emperor Constantine (306-37) "selected a bishop ... and sent him to the Iberians" of the Caucasus in response to a request from their king.11 A group of Saracens, under Queen Maouvia, converted to Christianity c. 374 on condition of receiving as bishop the monk Moise, but he refused to be consecrated by the Arian bishop of Alexandria and remained a priest.12 Frumentius was dispatched to "India" (apparently Ethiopia) as bishop by the Nicene Athanasius of Alexandria, perhaps in the 340s.13 C. 357 the emperor Constantius II attempted to replace him with the Arian bishop Theophilus of Dibous (perhaps the Maldives, or Socotra in the Indian Ocean), whom he had directed to Ethiopia, Yemen, and India.14 Across the Red Sea, the Himyarites of Yemen were furnished a bishop by the emperor Anastasius (491-517); perhaps he is to be identified with Silvanos, "bishop of the Homerenes" at this time.15 During the reign of Justin (517-26), after a massacre of the Christians, another bishop, Gregentius, was sent from Alexandria to the Himyarites.16 After 526, moreover, Theodorus was consecrated as bishop of Nubia by Timotheus of Alexandria,17 and in 566 the priest Longinus

8 See Josef Markwart, "Die Entstehung der armenischen Bistiimer," Orientalia Christiana 27/2 (1932), 1 ff.; and Fliche and Martin, Histoire, 3:490.

9 Ibid., 3:492; and Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth, pp. 79 and 105. 10 See Fliche and Martin, Histoire, 3:494; and Stephen Gero, Barsauma of Nisibis and Persian Chris-

tianity in the Fifth Century (Louvain, 1981). Note also Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth, pp. 94 and 122: a "Bishop John of Persia" had attended the Council of Nicaea in 325, and by the 480s the Iranian church had officially become Nestorian.

n Theodoret, HE 1.23; Rufinus, HE 1.10. 12 Rufinus, HE 2.6, "... nisi Moyses ... genti suae ordinaretur episcopus .. ."; Sozomen, HE 6.38.

See Fliche and Martin, Histoire, 3:496 and 4:515-16; and Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth, p. 120.

13 Rufinus, HE 1.9, "episcopus perrexisset ad Indiam"; repeated in Sozomen, HE 2.24 ("ordained bishop of India"); Socrates, HE 1.19; Theodoret, HE 1.22. In another tradition (John Malalas, Chroni- con, ed. Ludwig Dindorf [Bonn, 1831], p. 433), the king of Axum, after defeating the Himyarites, perhaps under Zeno or Anastasius, received from the emperor as bishop the sacristan Johannes of Alexandria. See Fliche and Martin, Histoire, 3:496 and 4:523 and 526; Fowden, Empire to Common- wealth, pp. 110-11; and Stuart C. Munro-Hay, "The Dating of Ezana and Frumentius," Rassegna di studi etiopici 32 (1988), 111-27.

14 Athanasius, Apologia ad Constantium 29-31, in PG 25:636 ff.; see Fliche and Martin, Histoire, 3:396 and 4:523. Theophilus: Philostorgius, HE 3.4-4; see Albrecht Dihle, "Die Sendung des Inders Theophilos," Palingenesia 4 (1969), 330-36; G. Fernandez, "The Evangelizing Mission of Theophilus 'the Indian' and the Ecclesiastical Policy of Constantius II," Klio 71 (1989), 361-66; John B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian (A.D. 395 to A.D. 565), 2nd ed. (London, 1923), 2:322; and Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth, p. 110.

'5 Johannes Diakrinomenos, fr. 1-2: Hansen, Theodoros Anagnostes, pp. 152 and 157; Fliche and Martin, Histoire, 4:523-24.

16 From the Vita Gregentii, a questionable source, discussed by Bury, Later Roman Empire, 2:327. 17 See Jean Maspero, "Theodore de Philae," Revue de l'histoire des religions (1909), pp. 1-3.

666 Barbarian Bishops

was named bishop of the Nobades (Nubians).18 Alexandria seems to have acted as the metropolitan see for all of these churches.

In the west, however, the situation was somewhat different. In only one instance is a bishop, or a cleric of any kind, known to have been dispatched to western barbarians beyond the frontier. According to the chronicle of Prosper, in 431 Palladius was sent as primus episcopus "by Pope Celestine to the Scots believing in Christ."19 In this case, parallel to the eastern examples, the recipient people had lived near the empire for a long time, although a significant difference is that it was the church, not the state, that sent the bishop. In other cases the barbarians were expected to come to Rome: when Fritigil, queen of the Marcomanni, was converted by letters of Ambrose, rather than having a bishop sent to her, she herself traveled to Milan.20 The western church does not seem to have laid claim to churches in barbarian regions the way that the eastern church did. And here one also might mention "Mansuetus, bishop of the Britons," who attended the Council of Tours in 461.21 Mansuetus would have been bishop of Romans who had emi- grated to Brittany following the Roman abandonment of Britain in the early fifth century; lacking a territorial see, Mansuetus emulated Palladius and served as bishop of his people rather than of a city.

The preceding discussion now can be used to shed some light upon the second canon of the Council of Constantinople of 381, which dealt, among other things, with the method for organizing churches among barbarian peoples. It reads, "Let not those bishops who oversee a diocese interfere in the churches that are outside the boundaries that have been established for them.... But, according to the canons, let the bishop of Alexandria oversee only that which is in [the diocese of] Aegyptus. And let the bishops [of the diocese] of Oriens oversee only Oriens, with the privileges preserved that were granted to the church of Antioch by the canons of Nicaea. Likewise, let the bishops of the Asian diocese control only those matters that are in the diocese of Asia .... Indeed, it is clear that the rules that have been written regarding governance must be obeyed ... just as is known to have been decreed at the Nicene council. Furthermore, it is fitting that the churches established among barbarian peoples (in barbaricis gentibus) be governed according to the custom (consuetudinem) that was instituted by the Fathers."22

18 John of Ephesus, HE 3.4.6-7, ed. F. M. Schonfelder, Die Kirchengeschichte bei Johannes von Ephesus aus dem syrischen Ubersetzung (Munich, 1862); see Fliche and Martin, Histoire, 4:528-29.

19 Prosper of Aquitaine (Prosper Tiro), Epitoma chronicon s.a. 431, ed. Theodor Mommsen, MGH AA 9:341-499, "Ad Scottos in Christum credentes ordinatus a papa Caelestino Palladius primus episcopus mittitur." As for the better-known St. Patrick, there is no evidence for who, if anyone, sent him; see Edward A. Thompson, Who Was Saint Patrick? (New York, 1985).

20 Paulinus, Vita Ambrosii 36, PL 14:27-46 (A.D. 396); she arrived only after his death in 397. See Fliche and Martin, Histoire, 2:496-97. For other examples of western missionary work, note Nicetas of Remesiana in the 390s (Paulinus of Nola, Carmina 17.245 ff.) and Victricius of Rouen c. 400 (idem, Epistulae 18.17).

21 "Mansuetus episcopus Britannorum interfui et subscripsi" (CCSL 148:148). He subscribed last of the eight bishops, suggesting either that he had been recently ordained or that he was considered junior to the bishops of cities. And note also Fastidius, Britannorum episcopus (Gennadius, De viris inlustribus 57).

22 "Qui sunt super dioecesin episcopi, nequaquam ad ecclesias, quae sunt extra terminos sibi prae- fixos, accedant ... sed iuxta canones Alexandrinus antistes quae sunt in Aegypto regat solummodo. Et orientis episcopi orientem tantum gubernent servatis privilegiis, quae Nicaenis canonibus ecclesiae


The most significant issue in this canon was the authority of the bishops of the Diocletianic dioceses. The council put church administration on the imperial administrative model, stating that bishops were not to interfere in churches outside their own dioceses. This was an elaboration of the sixth canon of the Council of Nicaea of 325, which had given the church of Alexandria, in the diocese of Ae- gyptus, authority over Egypt, Libya, and the Pentapolis and had noted that a similar custom (parilis mos) applied to Rome, Antioch, and "the other provinces."23 The Constantinopolitan clause that provincial matters were to be decided by provincial synods also drew its support from Nicaea. But the final clause, that dealing with barbarian churches, did not. The barbarian addendum drew its support from consuetudo, custom, indicating that it covered ground not considered at Nicaea.24 The barbarian churches did not fit the pattern of churches inside the empire, and they embodied several anomalies that required special consideration. For one thing, these churches were beyond the boundaries of the Roman empire, and therefore technically outside the formal jurisdiction of any churches within the organizational structure of the imperial church. Secondly, the bishops of these barbarians were bishops, not of cities, but of gentes. Furthermore, some Roman bishops for some time had been exercising a most uncanonical authority over some of these barbarian churches, which were not only not in their provinces but not even in their dioceses.

By 381, moreover, these structural anomalies had led to some very real difficulties. In particular, there was a problem in the Armenian church. In the mid- 370s, the Armenian king Pap broke with Basil of Caesarea and allowed the catholikos to be consecrated by Basil's rival, Anthimus of Tyana, metropolitan of the new province of Cappadocia II, resulting in a serious dispute between the two bishops.25 And neither of the two Cappadocian provinces, one should note, was contiguous with Armenia.

The way that the Council of Constantinople chose to deal with such peculiarities is most revealing. First and foremost, it formally asserted Roman jurisdiction over barbarian churches and attempted to incorporate these churches into the Roman administrative system. But as for particulars, all the bishops could do was to accept the anomalies and to purport to support some previous status quo, without, however, specifying just what that was. And even though they claimed to be upholding

Anthiocenae tributa sunt. Asianae quoque dioeceseos episcopi ea solum quae sunt in dioecesi Asiana

dispensent ... [etc.]. Servata vero quae scripta est de gubernationibus regula manifestum est ... sicut Nicaeno constat decretum esse concilio. Ecclesias autem Dei in barbaricis gentibus constitutas gu- bernari convenit iuxta consuetudinem, quae est patribus instituta": Josephus Alberigo et al., eds., Conciliorum oecumenicorum decreta, 2nd ed. (Basel, 1962), pp. 27-28.

23 Ibid., p. 8. 24 The phrase "institutes of the Fathers" in other contexts often referred to Nicaea; see Angelo di

Berardino, ed., Encyclopedia of the Early Church (New York, 1992), p. 320, citing Basil of Caesarea, Epistulae 140, "the holy fathers in synod at Nicaea"; and Gregorius Nazianzus, Orationes 35.15. Its use here perhaps was intended to create an impression that this clause, too, had received some kind of undocumented support at Nicaea.

25 Fliche and Martin, Histoire, 3:492; Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth, p. 79. For the feuding, see Raymond Van Dam, "Emperor, Bishops, and Friends in Late Antique Cappadocia," Journal of Theological Studies 37 (1986), 53-76.


Barbarian Bishops what had been "instituted by the Fathers," the bishops accepted clear violations of their own ecclesiastical procedures.26

The practical results of the ruling of 381 would have been to leave Alexandria in charge of the Red Sea churches, and Caesarea, presumably, whose authority was more "instituted" than that of Tyana, in charge of Armenia. It also may have resulted in opportunism by other ambitious Roman patriarchs, for the bishop of Antioch went so far as to claim authority over the church of Persia.27

Subsequently, at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the bishop of Constantinople was able to consolidate his own authority over barbarian churches. The twenty- eighth canon stated, "The metropolitans of the dioceses of Pontus and Asia and Thrace, and also the bishops in the [areas] of barbaricum of the aforementioned dioceses, should be ordained only by the aforementioned most blessed see of Con- stantinople."28 This clause may help to explain what was meant by consuetudo in 381. It would seem that areas of barbaricum were considered to be, in some way, under the ecclesiastical authority of the adjoining Roman dioceses. This certainly would seem to have been the de facto practice in the cases of Nubia and Armenia. Furthermore, in the years after 381, there may have been attempts to incorporate barbarian churches more conventionally into the imperial ecclesiastical administrative structure. The canon of 381 had referred to "barbarian nations" (gentes), but that of 451 specified barbarian territory (barbaricum), a concept with which the imperial church was more familiar.

The pronouncement of 451 would have put Constantinople on the same administrative level as Antioch and Alexandria, which already claimed oversight over the barbarian churches in areas adjoining the dioceses of Oriens and Aegyp- tus-respectively.29 It also would have closed a loophole that could have left Cae- sarea as metropolitan see of Armenia, outside the effective control of Constanti- nople, even when Constantinople had authority over Caesarea itself. Any barbarian bishops in territories adjoining the dioceses of Pontus, Asia, and Thrace now were to be responsible directly to Constantinople; other ties were abrogated.

These canons portray several ways in which the "churches of barbarian nations" were distinct from imperial churches. Barbarians did not even have churches, and by implication bishops, of places, but of peoples. The administration of barbarian churches was not just a variation on the imperial system but was fundamentally different, so much so that the church fathers were willing to violate their own standard ecclesiastical practices in an attempt to find some way to incorporate the ecclesiae in barbaricis gentibus into the imperial ecclesiastical system.

The preceding discussion has dealt primarily with eastern barbarians, and the canons of Constantinople in 381 and Chalcedon in 451 explicitly targeted rela-

26 See Carl Joseph von Hefele and Henri Leclercq, Histoire des conciles, 2/1 (Paris, 1908), pp. 53- 63, for this clause as "an exception to the rule against interference in other patriarchates.... [They] remained too few in number to form patriarchates of their own and were therefore governed as be-

longing to other patriarchates...." 27 In 408 the bishop of Antioch authorized a national council to be held by the Persians, which was

done at Seleucia in 410 (Fliche and Martin, Histoire, 3:495). By 424, however, the Persian church was

independent of Antioch (see Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth, p. 96). 28 Alberigo et al., Decreta, p. 76. 29 See Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth, pp. 107-8. Antioch and Alexandria were patriarchates,

which could explain why they were able to retain their extra-imperial jurisdictions.

669

tively stable barbarian orthodox (whatever orthodoxy was at the time) churches located beyond the eastern frontiers of the empire. They say nothing, overtly, about the even more complex issue of heterodox churches of barbarians who settled within the empire, and especially in the west, and it was these churches that were to have the greatest effect upon the Roman population. Most evidence in this regard concerns the Goths, and the discussion of this issue shall begin with them.

THE BISHOPS OF THE CRIMEAN AND DANUBIAN GOTHS

The first references to bishops of the Goths are associated with the area of the Black Sea.30 In 325 the Council of Nicaea was attended by the bishops "Cadmus of Bosporus" and "Theophilus of Gothia."31 The presence of the Bosporan bishop attests to Christian communities in the Crimea, as does a notice that an unnamed "bishop from the Bosporus" died in an earthquake at Nicomedia in 358.32 Other Nicene bishops are attested at Cherson: Aetherius attended the Council of Con- stantinople in 381.33

Theophilus would seem to have been bishop of an ethnicized territory; that is, he was usually designated not as "bishop of the Goths" but as "bishop of the territory inhabited by the Goths."34 Perhaps this method was adopted because he dwelt in territory that was incorporated into the Roman ecclesiastical system and that already had other bishops. The location of Gothia is unclear. Eusebius of Caesarea's comment that "Scythia also sent its bishop" to Nicaea does not help, for the designations "Gothia" and "Scythia" could refer either to the Crimea or to the left side of the lower Danube.35 But one might suggest, in part on the basis of the existence of at least one other Crimean Christian bishop at this time and in part because the names of Theophilus and Cadmus of Bosporus always appear grouped together in the manuscripts, that "Theophilus Gothiae" likewise came

30 See, in general, Jacques Zeiller, Les origines chretiennes dans les provinces danubiennes de l'Empire romain (Paris, 1918), which remains the standard work on the subject; and Alexander A. Vasiliev, The Goths in the Crimea (Cambridge, Mass., 1936).

31 See Fliche and Martin, Histoire, 3:497; Duchesne, History (above, n. 1), 2:449: Knut Schaferdiek, "Wulfila, vom Bischof von Gotien zum Gotenbischof," Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte 90 (1979), 107-46, at pp. 141-43; Henricus Gelzer, Henricus Hilgenfeld, and Otto Cuntz, Patrum Nicaenorum nomina (Leipzig, 1898); and Ernst Honigmann, "The Original Lists of Nicaea," Byzantion 16 (1942- 43), 20-80. One cannot tell whether Theophilos was a Greek or a Goth.

32 Sozomen, HE 4.16. 33 Duchesne, History, 2:449; Zeiller, Origines, pp. 410-11. The Synaxarium ecclesiae Constantino-

politanae (ed. Hippolyte Delehaye [Brussels, 1902], p. 517) lists seven bishops of Cherson: Basil (at the time of Diocletian), Eugenius, Agathodorus, Capito, Elpidius, and Aetherius (wrongly at the time of Constantine).

34 Theophilus is cited variously in Gelzer et al., Nomina, as "Theophilus Gothiae" (Latin, pp. 56- 57; Syriac, p. 117); "Theophilos Gothias" (Greek, p. 70); "Theophilus Gothorum" (Syriac, p. 141); "Theophilus Gothopolis" (Arabic, p. 163); and "e Gothorum pago: Theophilus e Gothis" (Armenian, p. 215), none of which are helpful in localizing his district. The Syriac use of the gentile name may reflect familiarity with the appointment of bishops for gentes.

35 Eusebius, Vita Constantini 3.7. Nor is it clear whether Eusebius is referring to Cadmus or Theo- philus, although one would surmise the latter. The Roman province of Scythia, on the other hand, bordered the right bank of the lower Danube in the Dobrudja.


from the area of the Crimea.36 Additional evidence comes from John Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople 398-404, who consecrated another bishop of Gothia, Unila.37 Subsequently, when Chrysostom was in exile in 404, he expressed worry that Unila's successor would be consecrated by his, Chrysostom's, Constantino- politan rival Arsacius.38 This would lead one to conclude not only that these Gothic bishops were Nicene, but also that they were under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Constantinople.39

Furthermore, Theodoret reports that Chrysostom sent missionaries to "nomads encamped along the Danube [who] were thirsty for salvation, but had none to bring them the stream."40 Chrysostom wrote a letter to Leontius of Ancyra in which he described the conversion of the Scythians and begged that "fit men might be sent for their instruction."41 This would seem to indicate that the Goths on the lower Danube were not the Goths for whom Chrysostom appointed bishops, which also suggests that Unila and his successor were bishops of the Goths of the Crimea.42

Evidence from the mid-sixth century also seems to localize these Nicene Goths in the same area. Procopius reports that in 548 "the Goths who are called the Tetraxitae [sc. Trapezetai?]," located where the Maeotis empties into the Black Sea, that is, in the Crimea, sent four envoys to Justinian, "begging him to give them a bishop (siatcYKOrtov), for the one who had been their prelate (i£pouq) had died not long before and they had learned that the emperor had actually sent a prelate (igtcla) to the Abgasi,43 and the emperor Justinian very willingly complied with their request."44 One might suggest that these Nicene Tetraxitae who received their bishops from Constantinople are the same as the Nicene Goths of "Gothia" or "Scythia" who did the same in the late fourth century.45 Nor is there any in-

36 See Duchesne, History, 2:450; and Zeiller, Origines, p. 412. Vasiliev, Goths, pp. 11-18, however, argues that Theophilus was bishop of the western, i.e., Danubian, Goths. In the longest list, in five Latin manuscripts (Gelzer et al., Nomina, pp. 2-57), Theophilus and Cadmus appear 219th and 220th, immediately after Nicasius of Die in Gaul. The only Danubian bishops appear elsewhere: Protegenes of Sardica is 203rd; Pistus of Marcianopolis is 204th.

37 John Chrysostom, Epistulae 14, PG 52:618. Or was his name, perhaps, actually "Hunila"? 38 John Chrysostom, Epistulae 206-7, PG 52:725-27; see Duchesne, History, 2:450; Zeiller, Ori-

gines, pp. 414-15. The news of Unila's death was brought by the deacon Modouarius. 39 As Zeiller, Origines, p. 601. 40 HE 5.31. 41 Ibid. 42 Subsequently, in 518, Johannes appears as metropolitan of Bosporus, indicating that the bishops

of Cherson and "Gothia" had become dependent upon him (Zeiller, Origines, pp. 411-12). One also finds references to Crimean bishops from Phanagoria (518), Zichia (536), and Nicopsis; Zeiller, Ori- gines, p. 601, suggests that all of these are bishops of the Crimean Goths, who experienced "un serie de changements de residence."

43 A Christian Caucasian people; see George Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, trans. Joan Hussey (New Brunswick, N.J., 1969), pp. 102 and 370. The use of the word ispvuq for the bishop of the Goths suggests that the Abgasi also received a bishop, rather than simply a priest.

44 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum 4.4.11. The area is located on the coast to the east of Cherson (Procopius, De aedificiis 3.7).

45 Assumed by Zeiller, Origines, p. 414. The Crimean Goths were still speaking Gothic at the end of the sixteenth century, although of a form that "cannot have descended from the Bible Gothic of Wulfila"; see MacDonald Stearns, Crimean Gothic: Analysis and Etymology of the Corpus (Saratoga, Calif., 1978), p. 3.


672 Barbarian Bishops dication that such peoples had more than one bishop at a time. Indeed, Sozomen, in the early fifth century, commented, "There are, for instance, many cities in Scythia, and yet they all have but one bishop."46

Evidence for Christian ecclesiastical organization in trans-Danubian "Scythia" comes from the activities of a certain Audius, a Syrian who refused to accept the date of Easter and proposed a form of anthropomorphism and who was exiled by Constantine to Scythia after the Council of Nicaea in 325.47 According to Epiphanius of Salamis, after irregularly becoming bishop he converted many Goths in the interior and established monasteries.48 He himself ordained bishops, including "Uranius of Mesopotamia and several Goths," among whom was a certain Silvanus. Later developments demonstrate that here Scythia refers to the left side of the lower Danube.49 So, according to this account, by the mid-fourth century there would have been several Audian bishops of the Danubian Goths, however uncanonically consecrated.

Another, and the best-known, bishop of the Goths at this time is the Arian Ulfila, a third-generation Goth whose forebears had been kidnapped from Cappadocia in a Gothic raid of c. 257.50 He was "ordained bishop among the people of the Goths" (Philostorgius calls him the "first bishop appointed among them" and Jordanes their "primate") around the late 330s.51 Seven years after his ordination, in the mid-340s, Ulfila and the so-called lesser Goths (Gothi minores) were expelled by the Gothic leader Ermaneric from trans-Danubian Gothia and settled south of the Danube in Moesia, perhaps in the area around Nicopolis.52

46 HE 7.19; even if the reference here is to the Roman province of Scythia, it may yet reflect a local practice of having bishops for groups of cities, or peoples.

47 Theodoret, HE 4.9; Epiphanius of Salamis, Haereseos 70.14 ff.; see Duchesne, History, 2:451; Zeiller, Origines, pp. 419-20. And Basil of Caesarea, Epistulae 164, mentions a certain Eutyches who also "taught the barbarians" of the lower Danube "in past time." Nothing else of his mission is known.

48 Epiphanius of Salamis, Haereseos 70.15. 49 See Zeiller, Origines, p. 420, "La rive gauche du Danube." The Audians departed from the lower

Danube during a subsequent Gothic persecution in this area, discussed below (see n. 53). 50 For Ulfila, see esp. Philostorgius, HE 2.5; and Auxentius of Milan, ed. Friedrich Kauffmann in

Aus der Schule des Wulfila: Auxenti Dorostorensis Epistula de fide, vita et obitu Wulfilae, im Zusam- menhang der Dissertatio Maximini contra Ambrosium (Strasbourg, 1899), translated in Peter Heather and John Matthews, The Goths in the Fourth Century (Liverpool, 1991), pp. 145-53. See also D. B.

Capelle, "La lettre d'Auxence sur Ulfila," Revue benedictine 34 (1922), 224-33; and Karl K. Klein, "Die Dissertatio Maximini als Quelle der Wulfilabiographie," Zeitschrift fiir deutsches Altertum 83 (1951-52), 239-71.

51 "episkopus est ordinatus ... sacerdos Cr(ist)i ordinatus, ut regeret ... gentem Gothorum" (Aux- entius, Epistulae 56, ed. Roger Gryson, Scolies ariennes sur le Concile d'Aquilee, Sources Chretiennes 267 [Paris, 1980], p. 244); Socrates, HE 4.33; Theodoret, HE 4.33; Philostorgius, HE 2.5, "bishop of the Christians in the Getic lands" (by Constantine I); Jordanes, Getica 267, "cum suo pontifice ipsoque primate Vulfila" (ed. Theodor Mommsen, MGH AA 5/1). The Passio S. Nicetae (ed. Hippolyte De-

lehaye, "Saints de Thrace et de Mesie," Analecta Bollandiana 31 [1912], 161-298, at p. 210) describes Ulfila as "the successor of Bishop (episcopus) Theophilus"; Socrates, HE 2.41, has him as Theophilus's disciple. See Schaferdiek, "Wulfila"; Timothy D. Barnes, "The Consecration of Ulfila," Journal of Theological Studies 41 (1990), 541-45; and Hagith Sivan, "The Making of an Arian Goth: Ulfila Reconsidered," Revue benedictine 105 (1995), 280-92. Peter Heather, Goths and Romans, 332-489 (Oxford, 1991), p. 182, describes Ulfilan Christianity as "a traditional, non-Nicene Christianity sometimes described as 'semi-Arianism.'" At the time of Ulfila's ordination, of course, Arianism was orthodoxy.

52 Auxentius, Epistulae 59, "c[om]pletis septem annis tantummodo in episkopatum... de barbarico

As for the Goths who remained north of the Danube, one gets only a few insights into their ecclesiastical organization. Most come in the context of another persecution, by the Gothic leader Athanaric beginning c. 369, that resulted in the departure of Audians, Arians, and Nicenes alike.53 The Life of St. Sabas, which describes local life in trans-Danubian Gothia c. 370, mentions the presbyters Gouththikas and Sansalas-but no bishops.54 After Sabas's martyrdom in 372, the governor Junius Soranus sent his remains to Cappadocia, "at the desire of the college of presbyters ( Frp_opu Tplov)."55 In the New Testament the presbyterion seems to have been a sort of council of elders, which often acted independently.56 If this Gothic example is at all similar, it would seem that the use of the term indicates that there was no trans-Danubian Nicene Gothic bishop. These presbyters' independence of action likewise suggests that they had no bishop.57

Elsewhere, a fragmentary fifth-century Arian Gothic calendar lists, in Greek, for the years 369-75, the priests (presbyteroi) Bathouses and Werkas and the monk (monazontos) Arpulas. Furthermore, an extant Gothic fragment of an Arian ecclesiastical calendar mentions "Werekas the papan (priest) and Batwin the bilaif (minister?)."58 Again, no indication of bishops. This slim evidence could suggest, if nothing else, that if the trans-Danubian Goths, both Arian and Nicene, did have their own bishops at this time, they kept a low profile. Or perhaps the Arians still were under the nominal authority of the episcopus Gothorum Ulfila.

But a menologium, which survives only in a Paris manuscript of the eleventh century, offers another possibility.59 It tells of three Gothic martyrs "who died in Gothia ... in the northern land of the barbarians." Seven years later, "Goddas, elected as bishop (episcopos), and bearing the relics on his own shoulders, laid them to rest in their own country." Subsequently, "the same Goddas the bishop [transported] the relics to the place called Haliscus, which is a harbor." Haliscus

pulsus in solo Romanie ... in montibus"; Philostorgius, HE 2.5, "Ulfila led a large body of Scythians from those living across the Ister.... [T]he emperor established this mass of refugees in the territories of Moesia" (trans. Heather and Matthews, Goths, pp. 143-44). Only in the sixth century does Jor- danes note (Getica 267), "alii Gothi, qui dicuntur minores, populus inmensus ... hodieque sunt in Moesia regionem incolentes Nicopolitanum ad pedes Emimonti [Haemus Mountains] gens multa."

53 See Jerome, Chronicon s.a. 369, "Athanaricus rex Gothorum in Christianos persecutione commota

plurimos . . . de propriis sedibus in Romanum solum expellit"; Ambrose, In Lucae evangelium 10.10, PL 15:1807; Socrates, HE 3.33; Sozomen, HE 6.37; Augustine, De civitate Dei 18.52; Orosius, Ad- versus paganos 7.32. See also Fliche and Martin, Histoire, 3:498-99; and Duchesne, History, 2:452, who assumes that the Audians were expelled at the same time as Ulfila, c. 349.

54 Vita Sabae 4.1, ed. Delehaye, "Saints," pp. 216-21; see also Heather and Matthews, Goths, pp. 109-17; and Edward A. Thompson, "The Passio S. Sabae and Early Visigothic Society," Historia 4 (1955), 331-38.

55 "a61t O8iXlaToq( TOi tpgpsopuE ptov" (Vita Sabae 8); presumably in Gothia. 56 Luke 22.66; Acts 22.5; see also 1 Tim. 4.14. 57 Heather and Matthews, Goths, p. 117, suppose that this "college of presbyters" belonged to a

"church of Scythia, possibly Tomi." But Tomi had a bishop, Vetranio, and it would be most irregular for his presbyters to be acting independently in such a matter.

58 Delehaye, "Saints," pp. 276 and 279; Heather and Matthews, Goths, pp. 126 and 129-30. The Ravenna papyri indicate that papan, or papa, was the equivalent of presbyter; see Scardigli, Die Goten (above, n. 3), pp. 277, 281, and 288. For bilaif, see Ute Schwab, "Bilaif im gotischen Kalendar (29. Oktober)," Helikon 7 (1967), 357-69. For the same episode, see Sozomen, HE 6.37.14; and note Zeiller, Origines, pp. 426-27.

59 Delehaye, "Saints," pp. 215-16; see also Schaferdiek, "Wulfila," p. 128.


is otherwise unknown,60 and this incident cannot be exactly dated, although it has been connected to the persecution of Ermaneric in the late 340s.61 Goddas has been identified variously as a Nicene bishop among the Goths or as an Arian successor to Ulfila after the latter's departure.62 Regardless, Goddas, if he did exist, also would have been an episcopus Gothorum.

Back on the Roman side of the frontier, Ulfila died in Constantinople, where he had been summoned to attend a church council in 383.63 He was succeeded by the Gotho-Phrygian Selenas. According to Socrates, Selenas was "of mixed de-

scent, a Goth by his father's side, and by his mother's a Phrygian."64 Sozomen adds that "the Goths were drawn to Selenas particularly because he had formerly been the secretary of Ulfila."65 It is unclear not only whether the ordination oc- curred immediately, that is, in Constantinople, or back in Moesia, but also where Selenas lived afterwards.66 Given that c. 386-87 Selenas was drawn into a quarrel among the Roman Arians of Constantinople, it is clear that he at least had con- nections there. Indeed, he may have exercised the same authority as a Gothic

primas that Jordanes later attributed to Ulfila.67 C. 400 John Chrysostom attempted to attract the Goths of Constantinople in

the following manner: "Appointing presbyters and deacons and readers of the divine oracles [i.e., Nicenes] who spoke the Scythian tongue, he assigned a church to them....68 He used frequently himself to visit it and preach there, using an

interpreter who was skilled in both languages, and he got other good speakers to do the same."69 One of Chrysostom's sermons delivered there still survives, in

60 Zeiller, Origines, p. 439, suggests Alisca on the Danube in Hungary. 61 Edward A. Thompson, The Visigoths in the Time of Ulfila (Oxford, 1966), pp. 161-65, dates the

episode to 347-48. 62 Nicene: Thompson, Visigoths, pp. 161-65; Fliche and Martin, Histoire, 4:499; and Zeiller, Ori-

gines, p. 438. Arian: Heather and Matthews, Goths, p. 131, n. 70. 63 Auxentius, Epistulae 61, "qui cu[m] precepto inperiali ... ad Constantinopolitanam urbem ad

disputationem." The council of 383 was intended to reconcile the leaders of the various heterodox groups; see Socrates, HE 5.10; Sozomen, HE 7.12; and Gregorius Nazianzus, Epistulae 175; and also Duchesne, History, 2:452; and Fliche and Martin, Histoire, 3:296. It failed, of course. The result was a spate of laws forbidding heretics to assemble (Codex Theodosianus 15.5.11-13, A.D. 383-84). See Franz Jostes, "Das Todesjahr des Ulfilas und der Obertritt der Goten zum Arianismus," Beitrdge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 22 (1897), 158-87. An unanswered question is just what Ulfila's place, as a bishop of a people rather than a place, was in the structure of the imperial church.

64 Socrates, HE 22. See Herwig Wolfram, History of the Goths, trans. Thomas J. Dunlap (Berkeley, Calif., 1988), pp. 76 and 81; and Meslin, Ariens, pp. 59-99.

65 Sozomen, HE 7.17. 66 Fliche and Martin, Histoire, 3:499, suggests that Selenas's residence was at Nicopolis in Moesia

and that he remained "chef de tous les Goths ariens." In general, see Gerhard Albert, Goten in Kon- stantinopel (Paderborn, 1984).

67 Getica 267, above, n. 51. 68 The "church at the tomb of St. Paul" (John Chrysostom, Homiliae 8, PG 63:499-510). 69 Theodoret, HE 5.30; see Zeiller, Origines, p. 545. Two Goths who may have benefited from this

educational opportunity are the priests Sunnias and Fretela, who received a lengthy exegesis on the Psalms from Jerome in the early fifth century (Epistulae 106). Jerome gives no indication of heterodoxy, and they seem to have been Nicenes (Zeiller, Origines, pp. 566-68), not Arians. See also Jacques Zeiller, "La lettre de saint Jerome aux Goths Sunnia et Fretela," Comptes rendus de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1955), pp. 238-50; and Elfriede Stutz, Gotische Literaturdenkmdler (Stuttgart, 1966), pp. 43-47.


which he noted that Abraham, Moses, and the three wise men also were "barbarians."70 It is unknown how successful Chrysostom was in luring Arian Goths into his Nicene Gothic church, but there certainly is no indication that there was an Arian Gothic bishop there to oppose him. Many of these Goths would have perished, moreover, when the Gothic church was burned during rioting in 400 associated with the defeat of the Gothic general Gainas by Fravitta, another Goth.71

THE GOTHS AND THE ARIAN BISHOPS OF CONSTANTINOPLE

In the Roman Arian community of Constantinople, the bishop Demophilus died c. 386.72 The Arians then summoned a bishop Marinus from Thrace, but soon, c. 387-88, they replaced him with Dorotheus, Arian bishop of Antioch.73 The Do- rotheans occupied the existing oratories, and the Marinians-refusing to accept Marinus's deposition-responded by building new ones of their own. In the early 390s dissension among the Constantinopolitan Arians escalated and spread beyond the city, with a dispute over whether God could be called "the Father" before the appearance of Christ.74 Dorotheus and his followers thought not, but Mari- nus's party disagreed. According to Sozomen (Historia ecclesiastica 7.17), Mari- nus's party was called either the "Psathyrians" (from the word for pastry cook, the occupation of one of their supporters) or "Goths" (because "their sentiments were approved by Selenas, the bishop of that people"). So the Gothic Arians, too, were eventually drawn into this quarrel between the rival Roman Arian bishops of Constantinople.

Subsequently Marinus also quarreled "about precedence" with an erstwhile par- tisan, Agapius, whom he had supported as Arian bishop of Ephesus, and "the Goths sided with Agapius."75 The quarrel went on for thirty-five years, until the Gothic consul and master of soldiers Flavius Plinta, an Arian himself, reunited the two Constantinopolitan factions in 419, although the split continued in other cities.76 In this episode it again appears that whereas the Roman Arian bishops were bishops of cities, however much they traveled, the barbarian Gothic bishop was a bishop of his people.

Dorotheus died in 409 at the age of 109 and later appeared as a saint in a

70 Homiliae 8, PG 63:499-510: "'Olgt%ia .gXOEioa iv rzl EKKracif& aff tn d HiWnaou, F6zrov va7yv6vTcov." See Pierre Batiffol, "De quelques homelies de S. Jean Chrysostome et de la version

gothique des Ecritures," Revue biblique internationale 8 (1899), 566-83. 71 See Zosimus 5.20-22; Eunapius, fr. 69.4; Philostorgius, HE 11.8; Socrates, HE 6.39; John of

Antioch, fr. 190; and Alan Cameron and Jacqueline Long, Barbarians and Politics at the Court of Arcadius (Berkeley, Calif., 1993), pp. 224-39.

72 One must distinguish bishops of barbarian gentes from Roman Arian bishops, whose genesis came in the mid-fourth century when Arianism was "orthodoxy" and who, like Nicene bishops, were bishops of cities.

73 Socrates, HE 5.12 and 7.6; Sozomen, HE 7.17; and Philostorgius, HE 9.19. 74 See Socrates, HE 5.23 (A.D. 392); and Sozomen, HE 7.17. See also Heather, Goths, pp. 182-83;

and Thompson, Visigoths, pp. 135-38. 75 Sozomen, HE 7.17. 76 Ibid.; and Socrates, HE 5.23. See also J. R. Martindale, The Prosopography of the Later Roman

Empire (henceforth cited as PLRE), 2: A.D. 395-527 (Cambridge, Eng., 1980), pp. 892-93.


Barbarian Bishops Gothic calendar, along with the apostle Philip, some Gothic martyrs, and even the Arianizing emperor Constantius II (337-61).77 Dorotheus was succeeded as Arian bishop of Constantinople by Barba, who died in 430 and was himself succeeded as "bishop of the Arians" by Sabbatius.78 The last known Roman Arian bishop of Constantinople, Deuterius, appears during the reign of Anastasius (491-518), demonstrating the continued vitality of the Arian church there.79

As for the eastern barbarian Arians, their next attested bishop is seen, apparently, in 455, when "the ambassador Bleda, a bishop (FnioKonro0) of the heresy of Geiseric," was sent to the Vandals.80 Because Bleda spoke out in favor of the imperial position, he would seem to have been bishop of an eastern Arian community, and not of the Vandal king Geiseric. Moreover, his name, as well as his mission, in which a knowledge of Gothic would have been useful, suggests that Bleda was of barbarian extraction.81 Perhaps he was the current "bishop of the Goths" in the east. The subsequent fate of the Gothic Arian church in the east is unknown, although even in the late sixth century, Gothic mercenaries, now identified only as "a barbarian people from the west," appealed to the emperor for a church outside the walls.82

The Arian Goths of Constantinople and the east, then, were overseen by a single "bishop of the Goths" who does not seem to have been attached to any particular location or city. The Roman Arians, on the other hand, were administered by traditional bishops of cities and in particular by an Arian bishop of Constanti- nople. There do not appear to have been any incompatibilities in the functioning of these two systems. Selenas, for example, was able to take sides in the quarrels among the Roman Arians in Constantinople without having to face any challenges over his right to do so. Furthermore, actions such as the Gothic involvement in Roman Arian quarrels, and inclusion of Romans in their ecclesiastical calendars, demonstrate that these Goths saw themselves as part of an Arian church writ large, not part of a separatist Gotho-Arian church.83 The Nicene Goths, of course, felt likewise about the Nicene church. Indeed, one of the latter may have been Fravitta,

77 Preserved in a sixth-century palimpsest from Milan; see Delehaye, "Saints," pp. 275-81, trans. Heather and Matthews, Goths, pp. 128-30; and George W. S. Friedrichsen, "Notes on the Gothic Calendar (Cod. Ambros. A)," Modern Language Review 22 (1927), 90-93. The calendar was com- piled after 406.

78 Socrates, HE 7.30. See Zeiller, Origines, p. 523, for Barba as "possibly a Goth." 79 Theodorus Lector, HE, fr. 55, for the abortive Arian baptism of a certan Barbas (cf. the earlier

Arian Bishop Barba of Constantinople). Cf. Victor Tonnenensis, Chronicon s.a. 500, ed. Theodor Mommsen, MGH AA 11:191. No other Arian bishops are attested elsewhere in the east after the early fifth century.

80 Priscus, fr. 24. Note also Frithela, bishop of Heraclea in Thrace, who attended the Council of Ephesus in 431; see Eduard Schwartz, ed., Acta conciliorum oecumenicorum (Strasbourg and Berlin, 1914-40), 4/3/2:399-400. Given his name and the concentration of Gothic Christians in the area, it has been suggested that he was a Goth (Zeiller, Origines, p. 478, n. 4, and p. 568).

81 For the barbarian origin of the name, note Bleda, king of the Huns and brother of Attila, murdered in 445 (PLRE 2:230); see Ernst F6rstemann, Altdeutsches Namenbuch (Bonn, 1901), p. 313.

82 John of Ephesus, HE 3.26; see Herrin, Church, p. 31; and Thompson, Visigoths, pp. 95 and 99. 83 The nature of the relations between the Gothic and Roman Arian churches of Illyricum remains

unclear; some, such as Neil McLynn, "From Palladius to Maximinus: Passing the Arian Torch,"Journal of Early Christian Studies 4 (1996), 477-93, assume that the Roman Arians continued to be both numerous and influential after 381.

676

Barbarian Bishops

a possible descendant of the Gothic general of the same name, who served briefly as patriarch of Constantinople c. 490.84

THE BISHOPS OF THE INTRUSIVE GOTHS

Discussion now can turn to other groups of barbarians, and in particular to the Arian Visigoths who wandered about on Roman soil after 376, referred to below as the intrusive Goths. What kind of Christian hierarchy did they employ? Any discussion of this issue must begin with a curious passage from Eunapius, who reports that when Fritigern's Visigoths crossed the Danube in 376, they brought with them several religious: "They all claimed to be Christians and some of their number they disguised like their bishops (&0S £nta6KTouq) .... They also had with them some ... so-called monks, whom they had decked out in imitation of the monks among their enemies;... it sufficed for them to trail long gray cloaks and tunics.... The barbarians used these devices to deceive the Romans."85 Eunapius therefore believed that these Gothic bishops and monks were somehow not the real thing. Nevertheless, his tale is curiously consistent with the reports of the prior ordination of multiple bishops by the Audians-who, however, supposedly had left the country by this time.86

Bishops also are mentioned by Orosius, who, after gleefully discussing Valens's defeat and death at the hands of the Visigoths in 378, recalled, "The Goths pre- viously had requested through suppliant ambassadors that bishops (episcopi) be sent to them, from whom they could learn the precepts of Christian faith. Valens, with a deathly depravity, sent specialists (doctores) in the Arian faith, and the Goths held onto the rudiments of the first faith that they had accepted."87 This tale, even though it sounds suspiciously like a doublet of Ulfila's mission, none- theless is consistent with the imperial practice of sending bishops to groups of barbarians, and it provides another indication that the Goths had bishops of some sort at the time they entered the empire. But only further analysis of the use of bishops by these intrusive Goths can help to clarify these reports.

Another account of Gothic clergy occurs just two years later. Ammianus reports that when Fritigern attempted to make peace just before Adrianople in 378, "a priest (presbyter) (so they call themselves) of the Christian religion was sent as an ambassador by Fritigern; along with other humble ones (humilibus) he came to

84 Schwartz, ed., Acta conciliorum oecumenicorum, 2/5:132; for the suggestion, see Cameron and

Long, Barbarians, p. 252. 85 Eunapius, fr. 48.2, in Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum, 4:55 (trans. Roger C. Blockley, The

Fragmentary Classicizing Historians of the Later Roman Empire [Liverpool, 1981-83], pp. 75-78); see also Vitae sophistarum 476C (trans. Wilmer Cave Wright [London and New York, 1922], pp. 438-39). Not all the Visigoths crossed the Danube; many, including the followers of Athanaric, remained; see Heather and Matthews, Goths, p. 127, n. 69.

86 Epiphanius of Salamis, Haereseos 70.15; they settled in Syria and Mesopotamia. 87 "Gothi antea per legatos supplices poposcerent, ut illis episcopi, a quibus regulam Christianae

fidei discerent, mitterentur. Valens imperator exitiabili pravitate doctores Ariani dogmatis misit. Gothi

primae fidei rudimentum quod accepere, tenuerunt..." (Orosius, Historia adversus paganos 7.33).

677

the emperor's camp."88 Perhaps these humiles included some of the aforementioned "monks."89 And one might wonder why, if the Goths had bishops, a mere presbyter was sent. Or was this presbyter a representative of a Gothic presbyterion analogous to the one that only a few years before had organized the transfer of the remains of St. Sabas, and now was carrying out missions for the king?

The next report of a possible bishop of the intrusive Goths occurs in 382, when Ambrose, on behalf of the Council of Aquileia, reported to the emperors Gratian, Valentinian II, and Theodosius I about the activities of the Arian bishop Julianus Valens. According to Ambrose, Valens had been made Arian bishop (episcopus) of Poetovio (Pettau) in Pannonia Superior, had betrayed his city (to the Goths?), and had been expelled. He now was getting into mischief around Milan, con- sorting variously with Milanese Arians and with Goths.90 Ambrose reported, "Pro- faned by Gothic impiety, clothed in the manner of the barbarians (more ... gen- tilium)91 in a torque and armband, [he] dared to go forth in the sight of the Roman army. This, doubtless, is sacrilege not only in a bishop, but even in any Christian; indeed, he recoiled from Roman practice-unless by chance the idolatrous prelates of the Goths (sacerdotes Gothorum) are accustomed to go forth thus."92 Am- brose's final comment would indicate that Valens was not only a bishop, but also a sacerdos Gothorum. And if so, he could only have been ministering to a band of Goths in imperial service-in this case as a kind of religious counselor or senior

88 "Christiani ritus presbyter (ut ipsi appellant), missus a Fritigerno legatus, cum aliis humilibus venit ad principis castra . . ." (Ammianus 31.12.8). See Heather and Matthews, Goths, p. 113, n. 24, for the suggestion that St. Sabas was such a "Gothic monk."

89 There continued to be orthodox Gothic monks in the Dobrudja: c. 519 a group of so-called Scythian monks from the neighborhood of Tomi stirred up great controversy in their attempts to oppose "Nestorianism" (Epistulae imperatorum 107, 109, 187, 191, 216-17, 224, 227, 230-31, in CSEL 35). See also Peter the Deacon et al., Epistula 16, CCSL 85:172 and 91A:551; Johannes Max- entius, Epistula ad legatos sedis apostolicae, PG 86; and Responsio Maxentii loannis adversus epis- tulam Hormisdae, CCSL 85A:123-53. Note also Thomas A. Smith, De gratia: Faustus of Riez's Trea- tise on Grace and Its Place in the History of Theology (Notre Dame, Ind., 1990), pp. 3-5.

90 Ambrose, Epistulae 10.10; cf. 11.3. See Heather, "Conversion," pp. 314-15; and Duchesne, His- tory, 2:436, who describes him as an "unattached bishop" who had made himself "half a Goth." Meslin, Ariens, pp. 66-67, supposes that Julianus was "le chef de la communaute homeenne de Milan," but this position was held by Auxentius, a pupil of Ulfila. See Heather and Matthews, Goths, p. 146; Karl K. Klein, "Ist der Wilfilabiograph Auxentius von Durostorum identisch mit dem mailandischen Arianerbischof Auxentius Mercurinus?" Beitrdge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 75 (1953), 165-91. According to Ambrose, Sermo contra Auxentium, de basilicis tradendis (PL 16:1007-18), Auxentius had in his flock four or five gentiles, surely Visigoths, as his representatives (cognitores). Also to be mentioned, if not fully explicated, is Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum, 5:1623, from the area of Aquileia and dating to the early fifth century, which commemorates the sacerdos Amantius, whom a "ple[b]s aliena" chose as its prelate, who was "dign[u]s ita geminis ducibus / consortia sacra parti/cipare" and who "binis populis presidit." The word sacerdos, it will be seen, could suggest that his congregation included Goths.

91 The word gentiles also was a technical term referring to units of barbarian soldiers; see Jones, Later Roman Empire (above, n. 1), p. 54.

92 "qui etiam torquem, ut asseritur, et brachiale, Gothica profanatus impietate, more indutus gen- tilium, ausus sit in conspectu exercitus prodire Romani: quod sine dubio non solum in sacerdote sacrilegium, sed etiam in quocumque Christiano est, etenim abhorret a more Romani, nisi forte sic solent idolatrae sacerdotes prodire Gothorum .. ." (Ambrose, Epistulae 10.9-10). For Goths as part of the Arian opposition to Ambrose in the mid-380s, see Heather, Goths, pp. 340-41.


Barbarian Bishops

chaplain.93 Indeed, perhaps Valens's military position might help to explain the "velvet gloves" treatment he received from Ambrose.94 Moreover, not only does Ambrose's reference to sacerdotes Gothorum suggest that such persons were a well-known phenomenon, but his failure to call them episcopi may indicate a desire to distance them from Nicene bishops (no surprise, perhaps, given his in- sinuation that they were still pagan).95

In the early fifth century one finds another bishop of a Visigothic army, this time the main body of Goths in the west. In 409-10 the puppet emperor Priscus Attalus was "baptized by Sigesarius, the bishop of the Goths, to the great satis- faction of Alaric and the Arian party."96 This same "bishop Sigesarius" (irntTK6rou Ityrao6pou) appears again in the troubled times following the death of Athaulf in

the summer of 415, when he unsuccessfully attempted to keep the murdered king Athaulf's children from falling victim to the sword of King Sigeric.97 In this case there can be no doubt that Sigesarius was an Arian bishop of a group of intrusive Goths. Unlike Julianus Valens, whose name and prior ecclesiastical career suggest that he was a Roman, Sigesarius, given his name, certainly was a Goth. But, for their Arian flocks, it presumably was their role and religion, not their ethnicity, that mattered.

Yet another example of an Arian bishop accompanying a Roman army of Goths is found in North Africa, where Count Sigisvult-certainly a German and probably a Goth-was sent in 427 to take charge of the war against the rebel Count Boniface.98 At some point during the campaigns, which dragged on until 429-30, he sent the elderly Arian bishop Maximinus, who may have been a Goth himself, on a special, and apparently hasty, mission to Hippo Regius in an attempt to effect a reconciliation between Boniface and the imperial government.99 He would have been an especially effective emissary because c. 426 Boniface had married Pelagia, an Arian barbarian who had become a Nicene just before the marriage.100 But she

93 The use of such chaplains (presbyters and deacons) in the Nicene army at least as of the time of Constantine has been demonstrated by Arnold H. M. Jones, "Military Chaplains in the Roman Army," Harvard Theological Review 46 (1953), 239-40. Only the Goths, it seems, used bishops as their chaplains, a result, perhaps, of their past tradition of having bishops for entire gentes.

94 Meslin, Ariens, p. 67, discusses "l'absence de sentence ecclesiastique" against Valens and Am- brose's request that the emperor merely compel him to return home (where he already had caused so much trouble!). Meslin attributes this treatment to the influence of the Arian empress Justina, still resident in Milan, but Julianus's position as bishop of Gothic troops may have worked to greater effect. For Ambrose in this regard, see also Karl Kurt Klein, "Ambrosius von Mailand und der Gotenbischof Wulfila," Siidost-Forschungen 22 (1963), 14-47.

95 Ambrose also refers to Valens's "illicitis ordinationibus" in Italy: either these refer to Goths, or he was ministering to Romans and Goths equally, like Auxentius and Amantius (n. 90 above).

96 Sozomen, HE 9.9.1; see Wolfram, Goths, pp. 158 and 166. 97 Olympiodorus, fr. 26, ed. Karl Muller, Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum, 4 (Paris, 1885). 98 Possidius, Vita Augustini 17.7, notes that Maximinus had come to Africa "cum Gothis," and at

this time, of course, it was not unusual for western military units under barbarian command to be

heavily barbarian. See Bury, Later Roman Empire, 1:245. 99 For his possible Gothic ethnicity, see Zeiller, Origines, p. 441, n. 1: a "Goth a demilatinise." This

embassy would have foreshadowed Bleda's similar mission in 455. See McLynn, "From Palladius to Maximinus" (above, n. 83), who assumes (pp. 484 and 488) that Maximinus was a Roman with a see in Illyricum.

100 For these individuals see PLRE 2:237-40 (Boniface), 856-57 (Pelagia), and 1010 (Sigisvult).

679


must have recanted because they had their daughter baptized by an Arian.101 An Arian bishop, therefore, might have been expected to have special influence with Boniface.

While he was in Hippo, Maximinus became distracted by theological differences. A friendly discussion with the Nicene priest Heraclius soon turned into a heated argument, in which Heraclius was soundly thrashed. The latter then appealed to his superior to step in, and the result was an impromptu debate between Maximinus and Augustine himself.102 The extant minutes begin, "When Augustine and Maximinus met together at Hippo Regius, Maximinus said, 'I have not come to this city for the purpose of instigating an altercation with Your Reverence, but, sent by Count Sigisvult, I have come with thoughts of peace.' "103 In spite of his

disclaimer, Maximinus proceeded to dominate the discussion. His haste to depart left Augustine protesting that he had not had enough time to make his case, and he subsequently published a separate tract expressing what he would have liked to have said.104 As for Maximinus, he went on to write, at some time after 438, a commentary on the Council of Aquileia of 381 and the Apology of Palladius.105 And once again, it would seem that an army of Arian Goths was accompanied by its own Arian bishop.106

The preceding discussion would indicate not only that groups of Arian barbarians had their own bishops, but also that Arian bishops accompanied western barbarian armies in the late fourth and early fifth centuries in the capacity of senior

military chaplains. Perhaps this was done for a very pragmatic reason: Nicene

troops (if they did not happen to have their own Nicene chaplains) could certainly

101 Augustine, Epistulae 220.4, dated c. 227-29 (PLRE 2:856). 102 "Revera enim Heraclio presbytero amicali pactione mecum tractanti, responsum dedi ut valui,

ita tamen ab ipso provocatus; quique in tantum exarsit, ut etiam adventum tuum contra me provo- caret" (Augustine, Collatio cum Maximino Arianorum episcopo 1, PL 42:707-42). Note also a spu- rious debate between Augustine and another Arian, the vir spectabilis Pascentius (PL 33:1156 ff.).

103 "Cum Augustinus et Maximinus Hippone regio unum in locum convenissent,... .Maximinus dixit: 'Ego non ob istam causam in hanc civitatem adveni, ut altercationem proponam cum religione tua, sed missus a comite Sigisvulto contemplatione pacis adveni' " (Augustine, Collatio 1). See William A. Sumruld, Augustine and the Arians: The Bishop of Hippo's Encounters with Ulfilan Arianism (Selinsgrove, Pa., 1994).

104 Augustine, Collatio 26 ("et tu remeare festinas"); see also Augustine, Contra Maximinum Ari- anum (PL 43:743 ff.) and Sermones 140 (PL 38:773). For Maximinus as the "victor of the encounter," see McLynn, "From Palladius to Maximinus," p. 488. And the African bishop Cerealis, asked "ab Maximino Arianorum episcopo" if he could defend the Catholic faith, wrote a libellus, "sicut Maxi- minus irridens petierat" (Gennadius, De viris inlustribus 97).

105 See Gryson, Scolies; and McLynn, "From Palladius to Maximinus." The commentary cites the Theodosian Code, published in the west in 438. McLynn, p. 488, assumes that Maximinus "returned to his Danubian see"; but given that there is no evidence for the existence of such a see, it may be more likely that he remained in the company of Sigisvult, who is attested as having an extensive retinue in the mid-440s in Ravenna (Vita Germani 38), where Maximinus would have had access to the library resources he needed for his commentaries. Zeiller, Origines, p. 482, makes the intriguing suggestion that he is the Maximinus who, in 440, as "the leader of the Arians in Sicily [who] had been condemned by the Catholic bishops," encouraged Gaiseric to attack Panormus (Hydatius, Chronica 120, ed. Theo- dor Mommsen, MGH AA 11). This would be consistent with Maximinus's earlier Arian-cum-barbarian affiliations.

106 Meslin, Ariens, p. 94, suggests that Maximinus had been required, or invited, to exercise the function of "Ordinaire des Armies" and that he served as "chapelain militaire." He was no "grateful hanger-on" (as McLynn, "From Palladius to Maximinus," p. 485).

Barbarian Bishops

anticipate having their spiritual needs met, even by bishops if necessary, wherever they were on the road. But Arian armies could have no such expectations, so they brought their prelates with them. After all, it was not uncommon for armies of pagan barbarians to be accompanied by priests.107 The presence of Arian bishops with Gothic armies would only be consistent with barbarian practice.

Indeed, intrusive Arian gentes seem to have continued to have their own "national" bishops: in the late sixth century Trasaricus, episcopus sectae Arrianae, delivered the treasury of the Gepids to Constantinople after their defeat by the Lombards.108 Perhaps the western Germanic Arian churches evolved in part from this original wish to minister to the religious needs of peoples on the move and armies on the march.

ARIAN BISHOPS IN BARBARIAN KINGDOMS

One now might ask what happened once the various Arian Germanic peoples settled down and established their own kingdoms in the west. Did they retain the custom of having one bishop for each people (or military unit), or did they adopt the Roman practice of placing bishops in cities?

In fifth-century Gaul there is little evidence for a strongly developed church hierarchy in the Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse. We do not have the name of any fifth-century Visigothic bishop. In the 460s Arian services for the Visigothic king at Toulouse were presided over by "his own prelates (sacerdotum suorum)."109 Gothic sacerdotes appear again in 474, when Bishop Epiphanius of Pavia visited Toulouse and was invited to sup with King Euric (466-85). But he had learned that Euric's banquets were "polluted by his prelates (sacerdotes)," and he declined to attend.110 One observes that in all these Tolosan royal cases, the sacerdotes appear in groups, never singly.1ll One also wonders whether these royal sacerdotes ought to be considered bishops or presbyters.112

Outside Toulouse there is plenty of evidence for Arian clergy, but none for bishops. The vita of St. Vincentius of Agen tells how an Arian cleric (sacerdotem), named Wietharius, Guetarius, or Nicasius, unsuccessfully attempted to make off

107 Note, for example, the Hunnish practice of consulting soothsayers before battles (Jordanes, Ge- tica 195-97).

108 "per Trasaricum Arrianae sectae episcopum" (John of Biclaro, Chronicon s.a. 572, MGH AA

11:212); see Zeiller, Origines, p. 538, who also suggests (p. 585) that bishops such as Ulfila, Selenas, Maximinus, Sigisharius, and Transaricus did not have "circonscriptions territoriales fixes" and (pp. 528-29) that Sigesarius may have been the successor to Selenas and that Alaric may have had several

bishops. 109 "antelucanos sacerdotum suorum coetus minimo comitatu expetit" (Sidonius Apollinaris, Epis-

tulae 1.2.4, ed. Christian Luetjohann, MGH AA 8:3). 110 "iugiter per sacerdotes suos polluta habere convivia" (Ennodius, Vita Epiphanii 92, ed. Frederick

Vogel, MGH AA 7:95). 111 The late Vita Viviani 6 (MGH SSrerMerov 3:96-98) notes that Bishop Vivianus of Saintes at-

tended a royal banquet at Toulouse in the 460s "cum reliquis episcopis"; the king demanded to be offered a cup "ab his qui aderant episcopis." It is unclear, however, whether the bishops were Nicene or Arian. If the latter, this would be another example of a group of high-ranking ecclesiastics in attendance upon a barbarian king. See Pierre Courcelle, "Trois diners chez le roi wisigoth d'Aquitaine," Revue des etudes anciennes 49 (1947), 169-77.

112 Hence the occasional use of the word "prelate" here when the meaning is in doubt.

681

Barbarian Bishops with the martyr's remains.113 In the 450s the presbyter Othia, apparently a Visigoth and therefore an Arian, dedicated a church-a bishop's task in the imperial church-to the popular saints Felix, Agnes, and Eulalia near the oppidum of Enserune, between Narbonne and Beziers.114 Othia's non-Nicene affiliation also is suggested by his unprecedented practice of dating by the years of his presbyterate, a clear emulation of the equally unprecedented practice of Rusticus of Nar- bonne, the powerful Nicene bishop of Narbonne, who dated by the years of his episcopate.115 It would seem that by doing so, Othia not only blatantly under- scored his independence but also portrayed himself, a Gothic presbyter, as the equal of a Nicene bishop.

There is no indication of intellectual activity by Arian bishops, but a debate between an Arian presbyter and a Nicene deacon is reported.116 And Modaharius, with whom the Nicene bishop Basilius of Aix had a celebrated Christological debate in the early 470s, was described by Sidonius Apollinaris not as a bishop, or even as a cleric, but as a "Gothic citizen" (civem Gothum).117 Were there no Visigothic bishops capable of carrying on a debate, even with a deacon? After all, in Africa the Arian bishop Maximinus had not disdained a debate with a Nicene priest, although this case might have been the exception rather than the rule: an anonymous North African writer of the mid-fifth century wrote a lengthy response to the propositions against the unity of the Trinity put forth by "Varimadus, deacon of the Arian sect."118

Nor is there evidence where one might expect to find it for any Arian bishops of Gallic cities. When Sidonius, for example, discussed Euric's refusal to permit the ordination of Nicene bishops in the cities under his jurisdiction in the early 470s, he made no mention of Arian bishops installed in their stead, and he surely would not have missed the opportunity to do so had such existed.119 Nor were there present at the Council of Agde of 506, which had been convened specifically "with the permission of our Lord King Alaric,"120 any bishops with Germanic names or any double bishops of the same city.

So, if there were any Arian Visigothic bishops, where were they?121 They do not

113 "Arriane legis potentissimum et iniquissimum sacerdotem" (Vita Vincentii 6, in Acta sanctorum, June 2:164); Louis Duchesne, Fastes episcopaux de l'ancienne Gaule, 2nd ed., 3 vols. (Paris, 1907- 15), 2:143.

114 Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum, 12:4311. A Gothic nationality is suggested not only by his name but also by the fact that such establishments by any other than bishops were forbidden in the Nicene church; see Concilium Arausicanum, c. 9 (10), A.D. 441, CCSL 148:80. St. Agatha seems to have been an Arian favorite; Ricimer decorated her church in Rome-if indeed it was hers at the time

(Hermann Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae selectae, 5 vols. [Berlin, 1892-1916], no. 1294). 115 See Henri-Iren6e Marrou, "Le dossier epigraphique de l'6veque Rusticus de Narbonne," Rivista

di archeologia cristiana 3-4 (1970), 331-49. 116 Gregory of Tours, Gloria martyrum 80 and Gloria confessorum 14. 117 "Modaharium, civem Gothum, haereseos Arianae iacula vibrantem" (Sidonius Apollinaris, Epis-

tulae 7.6.2-3). 118 "Varimadi Arrianae sectae diaconi" (Pseudo-Vigilius, Contra Varimadum, praef., CCSL 90:9).

The author encountered the tract in Naples, but it is unclear where Varimadus himself was stationed. 119 Epistulae 7.6.6. 120 "ex permissu domni nostri ... regis [Alarici]" (CCSL 148:189-219, at p. 192). 121 There is no reference to bishops in Gothic legislation prior to the conversion of 589; see the

Codex Euricianus and Lex Visigothorum in MGH LL 1/1. And note John Wallace-Hadrill, "Gothia and Romania," Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 44 (1961), 219-37, at p. 233: "As a rule, the Arian hierarchy (if we can speak of such) kept remarkably quiet."

682

Barbarian Bishops seem to have been stationed in cities. The only example of the building of a church is by a presbyter.122 They did not engage in the intellectual defense of Arianism, a task that seems to have been left to junior clerics and even laypersons. It seems that the most likely candidates for Arian bishops-if they existed-would be among the sacerdotes who attended the king in Toulouse. Perhaps they formed a sort of sacerdotal college, conceptually related to the presbyterion of the time of Sabas, that performed duties for the king, in the same way that Maximinus had performed his for Sigisvult. One such duty may have been to accompany Visigothic armies on campaign, as Arian bishops had done in the past.

This hypothesis might draw support from a report of Gregory of Tours, in which a group of Visigoths arrived at Rions, in the Gironde, and occupied a Nicene church. When Easter came (it is unclear how much time intervened), "they, with their heretical prelates (cum hereticorum sacerdotibus) baptized the infants in our church, so that the people might be more easily entangled in their sect."123 Pre- dictably, the ploy failed, and on the same day the Visigoths "returned his church to the [Nicene] priest (presbytero)" and, along with their clerics, presumably went on their way. Some parts of this entertaining anecdote do have a certain ring of truth, such as the appearance of a group of Goths-in this interpretation, an army on the march-accompanied by their sacerdotes-cum-chaplains, who proceeded to occupy a church for their own, apparently short-term, use.124 Indeed, perhaps the approach of Easter was the reason for their doing so in the first place.125

If this interpretation is correct, then one is left wondering whether the Visigothic sacerdotes did anything else besides pay court to the king and trail along with military forces. An example of a different kind of role might be found during the Visigothic occupation of Spain in the years after 455. Under the year 466 the Spanish chronicler Hydatius reported, "Ajax, by nationality a Gaul, after becoming an apostate and the senior Arrianus, appeared among the Suevi as an enemy of the Catholic faith and the divine Trinity."126 This passage has several suggestive elements. For one thing, Ajax is described not as a bishop or even as a priest, but as a "senior Arrianus." Does this mean "the senior Arian" or "an Arian senior"?

1'2 Gregory of Tours, Gloria martyrum 91, MGH SSrerMerov 1/2:34-111, however, does complain that Alaric II lowered the roof of the cathedral of Narbonne because it obstructed his view; perhaps this is a typically tendentious reference to church renovation. For Alaric's intervention on behalf of the church of Narbonne (either Arian or Nicene), note Cassiodorus, Variae 4.17.2, CCSL 96:154, addressed to the dux Ibba, "Atque ideo praesenti tibi auctoritate praecipimus, ut possessiones Nar- bonensis ecclesiae secundum praecelsae recordationis Alarici praecepta, a quibuslibet peruasoribus occupata teneantur, aequitatis facias contemplatione restitui...."

123 "ad suam sectae inmunditiam ear transtulerunt ... cumque adveniret vigilia pascha, hi cum hereticorum sacerdotibus parvulos in ecclesia nostra tinguebant, ut ... facilius ad hanc sectam populus implicaretur . ." (Gregory of Tours, Gloria confessorum 47, MGH SSrerMerov 1/2:294-370).

124 And one notes the use of the word sacerdos for the Visigothic clerics but presbyter for the Nicene ones.

125 For that matter, the Visigothic Arian date of Easter may even have been different from the Nicene: see Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum 5.17, MGH SSrerMerov 1/1.

126 "Ajax, natione Galata, effectus apostata et senior Arrianus, inter Suevos regis sui auxilio hostis catholicae fidei et divinae trinitatis emergit. A Gallicana Gothorum habitatione hoc pestiferum inimici hominis virus adfectum" (Hydatius, Chronicon 232, A.D. 466; cf. Isidore of Seville, Historia Suevorum 90, MGH AA 11). Fliche and Martin, Histoire, 4:375, describe him as "un pretre-ou un 6veque."

683

If the latter, then one wonders what a "senior" was. A layman, or a cleric, and if the latter, the equivalent of a "bishop" or a "priest"?127

Furthermore, Ajax was said to have come "from the abode of the Goths, with the support of his king," that is, the Visigothic king Theoderic II (453-66). He may have been one of the members of Theoderic's sacerdotal college-were they called seniores?-sent on a special mission to the Suevi. And a successful mission to boot, for the Suevi were converted to Arianism, and remained Arians until the Spanish Visigothic conversion of 589.128 For the Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse, therefore, one encounters no episcopi, but only sacerdotes. They seem to have formed a group that waited upon and performed duties for the king.

The kingdom of Toulouse was effectively destroyed by the Franks at the Battle of Vouille in 507, and the subsequent history of the Visigothic church was written in Spain.129 The first Visigothic bishops-qua-bishops are not attested until the reign of Leovigild (572-86), who initiated an aggressive attempt to unify the Iberian church under the Arian banner.130 In 580, for example, he took a page from the Nicene book by summoning at Toledo the first known Visigothic Arian synod, at which the Arians decided to accept Nicene conversions without rebaptism.131 At this point, however, there are no attested bishops of cities, so the "council" may have consisted of the sacerdotes at Leovigild's own court.

Subsequently, instead of merely appointing Arian bishops to cities, Leovigild attempted to induce Nicene bishops to convert. In the case of Vincent of Saragossa he was successful.132 But, in the mid-580s, he failed to subvert Masona, bishop of the strategic metropolitan see of Merida and a Goth himself. Only then did he. take the step of appointing Sunna "as bishop of the Arian party" in Merida, the first attested case of a named Arian Gothic bishop in Spain.133

Leovigild died in 586, and the next year King Reccared ordered the sacerdotes sectae Arrianae to convert; in 589 another council at Toledo, attended by both Arian and Nicene bishops, ratified his decision.134 Ironically, it is in these very last

127 In Nicene circles the term senior could refer to a presbyter, as Verecundus of Junca, In canticam Deuteronomi 8: "nam quod nos seniores in latino dicimus, Graeci presbyteros nuncupant" (CCSL 93:24).

128 See below, n. 134, and the corresponding text. 129 For Visigothic Spain, see Roger Collins, Early Medieval Spain: Unity in Diversity, 400-1000

(New York, 1983); Knut Schaferdiek, Die Kirche in den Reichen der Westgoten und Suewen bis zur Errichtung der westgotischen katholischen Staatskirche (Berlin, 1967); and Edward A. Thompson, The Goths in Spain (Oxford, 1969).

130 Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum 9.15 and Gloria confessorum 13, tells how, during the reign of Leovigild, an Arian bishop failed to cure a blind man. See also Collins, Early Medieval Spain, p. 41: "before 589 there are no references to named Arian bishops at all, with the exception of Sunna of Merida in the 580s."

131 "in urbem Toletanam synodum episcoporum sectae Arrianae congregat .. ." (John of Biclaro, Chronicon s.a. 580, MGH AA 11:216); see Thompson, The Goths in Spain, pp. 94-95; and Collins, Early Medieval Spain, pp. 51 and 59.

132 "Vincentium, Caesaraugustanae urbis episcopum, qui ex catholico in arrianum pravitatem fuerat devolutus" (Isidore of Seville, De viris inlustribus 30). Gregory of Tours, Gloria martyrum 81, reports a failed attempt at episcopal conversion in Spain.

133 Vita Masonae 5 ff. (in Vitas patrum Emeretensium, CCSL 116), also called Siuma; see Thompson, The Goths in Spain, pp. 101-3.

134 John of Biclaro, Chronicon s.a. 587, MGH AA 11:218; see also Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum 9.15, "Richardus rex ... convocatis episcopis religionis suae .. ."; and Schaferdiek, Die Kirche in den Reichen der Westgoten und Suewen, pp. 214-28.


days of Visigothic Arianism that we have our best evidence for named Arian bishops of cities. Ugnus of Barcelona, Ubiligisclus and Murila of Valencia, Sunila of Viseo, Gardingus of Tuy, Bechila of Lugo, Argiovitus of Oporto, and Fruisclus of Tortosa renounced Arianism at once.135 All were bishops of cities, but not without another anomaly: there were two Arian bishops from Valencia. Furthermore, at the immediately subsequent unified synod, six of these cities-all but Barcelona- were represented by both Visigothic and Roman bishops, a situation that could have arisen only if Leovigild had in fact installed rival Arian bishops.

The conversion was resisted, however, by others, including the aforementioned Sunna, who was exiled to Mauretania where he subsequently made many converts to Arianism;136 Athalocus, Arian bishop of Narbonne;137 and a bishop Uldida (or Uldila) of an unknown see, who also was exiled.138 Given that Sunna and Athalo- cus were both bishops of metropolitan cities, and that no Gothic metropolitans apostacized in 589, one might speculate that Uldida was bishop of one of the remaining metropolitan cities: Toledo, Seville, or Braga. Certainly, the Gothic metropolitans would have had the most to lose by the Gothic conversion. And because Toledo was the capital (and it is difficult to see how it could not have had an Arian metropolitan) and Uldida was allied with the obdurate Arian Visigothic queen Gosuintha, one might suggest that Toledo was Uldida's see.

All of this evidence for Arian bishops of cities at this particular time may be more than merely fortuitous. It may be, rather, that their appointment was an innovation of Leovigild. For one thing, Sunna had to confiscate Nicene churches, which would not have been necessary had there been Arian bishops at Merida in the past.139 Furthermore, only ten Arian bishops are attested, either as holdouts, or as converts at the council of 589, where all the converts certainly would have appeared and where fifty-eight Nicene bishops were represented.140 The installa- tion of Sunna and a few other Arian bishops may therefore have been a last-ditch effort of Leovigild at unification, in this case, unification by appropriating the Nicene hierarchy in a few cities.141 But even in the process, vestiges of a sacerdotal college might have remained, as evidenced by the two Arian bishops of Valencia.

The question now arises of why the Visigoths waited so long to assign bishops to cities. In part, this may reflect an effort to minimize conflict, or rather, perhaps, not to create any conflict unnecessarily, for there was no real religious need for Arian bishops in cities, where the populations would have remained largely Ni-

135 Concilium Toletanum III, PL 84:349-60. See Collins, Early Medieval Spain, p. 54; and Thomp- son, The Goths in Spain, p. 40.

136 John of Biclaro, Chronicon s.a. 588. 137 "Arianae sectae episcopus Athalocus" (Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum 9.15); see also Vitas

patrum Emeretensium 5.12, CCSL 116:92, "Arrianorum episcopum nomine Atalocum." 138 John of Biclaro, Chronicon s.a. 589, MGH AA 11:218, "Uldida episcopus cum Gosuintha regina

insidiantes Reccaredo"; see Thompson, The Goths in Spain, p. 101. 139 Sunna, the vita reports, had been appointed "pro seditiosis simultatibus excitandis" (Vita Ma-

sonae 5.5, CCSL 116:57). 140 For a list of bishops, sees, and affiliations, see Schaferdiek, Die Kirche in den Reichen der West-

goten und Suewen, pp. 252-57. 141 Perhaps these were cities with sizable Visigothic populations. Any other unattested Arian bishops

would have been as guilty of high treason as Sunna, Athalocus, and Uldida, so these ten may be all that there were.


cene. Any reasons for putting them there would have been primarily political, and for barbarian kings, at most times, this would have been politically counterpro- ductive, as demonstrated, it seems, by Leovigild's initiative. The placing of bishops in cities, the holding of church councils, and the acceptance of Nicene baptism would have demonstrated how little difference there was between Arians and Nicenes, and the demise of the Arian church of Spain followed with little fuss.

If Leovigild attempted, however unsuccessfully, to merge the Arian and Nicene churches under Arian leadership, the Vandal kings of North Africa took a rather different approach and made the most concerted attacks of all the barbarian rulers upon the Nicene hierarchy. Their tactics, graphically documented by Victor of Vita, included the use of bishops.142 For the reign of Geiseric (429-77) there are only generalized references to Arian bishops-called episcopi by Victor, but sacerdotes by the Vandals-as advisers and to a church hierarchy that included presbyters (such as Anduit and Jocundus) and deacons (such as Marivadus).143

Under Huneric (477-84) the picture becomes clearer, with references, analogous, perhaps, to the Visigoths, to a band of Arian bishops-sometimes even accompanied by armed men-attendant upon, and seconding, the king.144 On 1 February 484 Huneric convoked a council where these Arians met with the Ni- cenes.145 The presiding bishop was the Vandal patriarcha, Cyrila, described also as "the bishop (episcopum) of Huneric" (that is, not as "bishop of Carthage").146 In several instances, Cyrila, exercising his patriarchal role, was depicted by Victor as overseeing the nefarious activities of the other Vandal bishops.147 Subsequently the exiled Nicene bishop Eugenius of Carthage carried on the dispute "cum Ari- anorum praesulibus per internuntios."148 Here the word episcopi once again was avoided in a reference to a group of Arian prelates.

A few other Arian bishops also are individually attested. On one occasion Cyrila appointed one of his notaries as Arian bishop of Tipasa, with the result, says

142 Victor Vitensis, Historia persecutionis Africanae provinciae, ed. M. Petschenig, CSEL 7; see Fliche and Martin, Histoire, 4:378-85, and note also African apologists such as Vigilius of Thapsus (PL 62:95). Victor's account is stridently tendentious, yet it does include Vandal primary evidence that illustrates the difference between Nicene and Arian terminology.

143 Victor Vitensis, Historia persecutionis 1.19, "praesentibus sacerdotibus nostris"; 1.41 (Anduit); 1.43, "suadentibus episcopis suis" (Jocundus); 1.48 (Marivadus); also 2.1, "presbyteros et diaconos Arrianae hereseos."

144 Ibid., 2.39, "cum consensu sanctorum episcoporum nostrorum hoc nos statuisse"; 2.51, "dicunt-

que Arrianorum episcopi: 'hoc Eugenius per maleficia fecit'"; 3.38, "episcopis Arrianorum sugge- rentibus"; 3.42, "Arrianorum episcopi, presbyteri et clerici cum rege et Wandalis saeuiebant"; 3.48, "episcopi atque presbyteri illorum cum armatorum manu ... uicus uel oppida circuibant .. ."; 3.54, "uade ad episcopos nostros."

145 Ibid., 2.52 ff. The list of Nicene clerics summoned to Carthage for the council survives (MGH AA 3/1:63-71).

146 Victor Vitensis, Historia persecutionis 2.22, "Huniricum regem et Cyrilam episcopum eius"; 2.54, "patriarcha Cyrila dixit." Nor is there any doubt about Cyrila's Germanic origin because at the council he purportedly claimed not to know Latin (ibid., 2.55).

147 Ibid., 2.8, "Arrianorum episcopi ... [cum] Cyrila calumniis insectantes"; 2.53, "Cyrila cum suis satellibus." His reputation extended even to Gaul: see Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum 2.3, "Cyrola, falso vocatus episcopus, hareticorum tunc maximus habebatur assertor .. ."; note Gregory's contention that an Arian episcopus somehow was not a true bishop.

148 Gennadius, De viris inlustribus 98.


Victor, that nearly the entire population departed for Spain.149 The promotion of this individual would suggest not only that Arian bishops could come from very modest professional backgrounds but also that the Arian cursus must have been rather different from the imperial.150 There also is the case of Antonius, an Arian bishop of Tamullumum described as "more cruel than the others."151 He was cho- sen by Huneric to be the jailer of the exiled Nicene bishops Habetdeus, who was bishop "of the city of Tamallumum, where Antonius was," and of Eugenius of Carthage.152 Both these cases show Arian bishops being delegated a special mission by a barbarian king.153

Moreover, one thing that both Antonius and the ex-notary had in common is that their assignment, according to Victor, was not to minister to local Arians (or perform any kind of liturgical function, as far as can be seen) but to attempt to convert the Nicene population to Arianism.154 Antonius even went so far as to baptize Habetdeus forcibly as an Arian, thus, to the Vandal way of thinking, making Habetdeus a second Arian bishop of Tamallumum.155 Indeed, in at least one case the Vandals were successful in their conversion initiative, for during the reign of Huneric the Nicene bishop Revocatus did convert to Arianism and thus become another Arian bishop.156 Subsequently, during the reign of Thrasamund (496-523), Fulgentius of Ruspe debated a group of Arian bishops led by the episcopus Pinta, who may have been the successor to Cyrila; he also disputed the topic of the Holy Spirit with the Vandal presbyter Abragila and published a ref- utation of an extant sermo of Fastidiosus, a Nicene presbyter who had converted to Arianism.157

A number of observations can be made regarding the Vandal bishops. There are some differences between Arian and Nicene titulature and practice. For one thing, although Victor referred to Arian episcopi, the word used by the Vandals themselves, in Huneric's decree of 24 February 484, was the typical sacerdotes.l58 The mid- sixth-century writer Verecundus of Junca consistently referred to heretical sacer-

149 Victor Vitensis, Historia persecutionis 3.29, "In Tipasensi ... ciuitate ... Arrianum episcopum ex notario Cyrilae ... ordinatum."

150 Nicene bishops nearly always had risen through the ecclesiastical ranks or had been high-ranking laymen.

151 Victor Vitensis, Historia persecutionis 3.42, "quidam episcopus inter illos, ceteris crudelior, An- tonius nomine...."

152 Ibid., 3.45, "Tamallumensis ciuitatis, in qua Antonius fuerat...." 153 Ibid., 3.54, "Sed neque Antonium haec res ab insania potuit reuocare, sciens se magis impio regi

ob hoc multum posse placere." 154 The ex-notary labored "ut eos faceret Arrianos" (ibid., 3.29); Antonius promised, "nisi eum

[Habetdeum] nostrae fecero religionis, non sit Antonius" (ibid., 3.45). 155 Ibid., 2.37; perhaps analogous to the situation at Valencia in Spain in 589. For similar activity

by Cyrila, see ibid., 3.49. 156 Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum 2.3, "... infelix ille episcopus nomine Revocatus est re-

vocatus a fide catholica." 157 See Vita Fulgentii 47-48, PL 65:141; Fulgentius Ruspensis, Ad Thrasamundum regem Vanda-

lorum libri tres, CCSL 91:97 ff.; Sermo Fastidiosi ariani and Fulgentius, Contra sermonem Fastidiosi, CCSL 91A:280-308. Pinta's name is reminiscent of that of the master of soldiers Plinta of 419.

158 Victor Vitensis, Historia persecutionis 3.12, "concilio tantorum numero sacerdotum"; and 3.14, "maiestatis diuinae cultoribus, id est sacerdotibus nostris." Nicene bishops, however, were referred to as antistites and episcopi.


dotes, never to episcopi.l59 This might suggest, again, as already seen in Gaul, that sacerdos was the barbarian Arians' preferred Latin term for their senior ecclesiastics.

Moreover, Cyrila's role as "patriarch" would be consistent not only with the role of "primate" assigned by Jordanes to Ulfila but also with the traditional barbarian practice of having only one primary bishop for each people. Cyrila is portrayed as the leader of a gang of Arian bishops-cum-sacerdotes attendant upon the king. And finally, even though it might appear at first glance that the Vandals were attempting to replace Nicene bishops with Arians, one notes also that Cyrila was the Vandal patriarch, not "bishop of Carthage," and that the other two ap- pointments of Vandal bishops appear to have been ad hoc in nature. No subsequent Vandal bishops of cities are known, and the Vandal Arian church itself disappeared without a trace after the destruction of the Vandal kingdom in 534.

The evidence for other Arian gentes is more scanty. In the short-lived Burgun- dian kingdom of Gaul, the Arian king Gundobad (c. 474-516) was advised on theological matters by a group of sacerdotes whom Avitus of Vienne referred to as "his prelates, or rather his seducers, as one may more accurately describe his co-religionists." 60 These sacerdotes would seem to be, once again, a group of Arian bishops advising a barbarian king. Whether, as in the case of the Vandals, each group of Burgundians also had a "patriarch" is unclear, although another report hints that this could have been the case: Gregory of Tours notes that when Gundobad captured Vienne c. 500, "[King] Godegisel fled to a church of the heretics, and there was killed cum episcopo arriano."161 Perhaps this faithful Arian episcopus was the chief bishop of Godegisel's sacerdotal college. Otherwise, however, Burgundian Arian bishops are difficult to find.162

Additional testimony regarding Burgundian Arian church administration comes from a pamphlet entitled "On Not Assimilating Basilicas of the Heretics" written by Avitus in 517.'63 In response to the question of whether, after the conversion to Nicene Christianity of Gundobad's son Sigismund (516-23), "oratories or basilicas of the heretics ought to be converted to the use of our religion," Avitus first asked whether the king "had consulted his prelates (antistites)."164 He also worried

159 E.g., In canticam Exodi 16, CCSL 93:13, "haeretici scilicet sacerdotes"; In canticam Azariae 19, CCSL 93:101, "Iudaica atque haeretica sacerdotia"; In canticam Habacue 15, CCSL 93:140, "de haereticis ... agnoscitur, quorum principibus, utique sacerdotibus, mortem veritatis agnitor minis- travit"; In canticam Debborae 15, CCSL 93:189, "haeretici sacerdotes, habentes partes fidelium, in- fidelium partem."

160 Avitus of Vienne, Epistulae 23, ed. Rudolf Peiper, MGH AA 6/2:55, to the Nicene king Sigis- mundi, "adiecit simpliciter: si scriptum misissem, sacerdotibus, immo magis seductoribus et, ut adhuc verius dicamus, sectatoribus suis." The mention in Epistulae 22, addressed to Gundobad, of "scitos ... sacerdotes" (ibid., p. 54), however, seems to be a generic reference to knowledgeable clerics in

general, without indication of doctrinal affiliation. 161 "Godegiselus ad ecclesiam hereticorum confugit, ibique cum episcopo arriano interfectus est"

(Historia Francorum 2.33). 162 Flodoardus mentions an "arianus episcopus" supposedly converted by Avitus (Flodoardus, His-

toria ecclesiae Remensis 1.16, PL 135:57). Nor do any Arian bishops appear in the Lex Burgundionum, and the only bishops in the Lex Romana Burgundionum are Nicenes from the Theodosian Code.

163 De basilicis haereticorum non recipiendis, Epistulae 7, MGH AA 6/2:35-39. 164 Sigismund even became a monk; see PLRE 2:1009-10; Passio s. Sigismundi 9; Marius Aventi-

censis, Chronica s.a. 523, ed. Theodor Mommsen, MGH AA 11:225-39. Avitus is very clear that the conversion of the king did not mean the conversion of the people and that the Arian religion continued to be practiced.


Barbarian Bishops that problems could arise should the area be occupied by the Ostrogoths and their sacerdotes.165 In these cases Avitus refers, not to Arian episcopi, but to sacerdotes and antistites. Indeed, Avitus indicates that the churches in question, described as oratories, basilicas, and "little basilicas" (basiliculae), had been built by and remained under the jurisdiction of private persons (privati), who also chose the clergy, suggesting, again, a much looser ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the Arian as opposed to the Nicene church.166 In 517, moreover, the Council of Epaon rec- ommended that only Nicene churches that had been appropriated by the Arians were to be reconsecrated by the Nicene church; other Arian churches were not to be assimilated.167 Shortly thereafter, in 532, the Burgundian kingdom was absorbed by the Franks and became thoroughly Nicene. And, in the Frankish view, Arian churches, at least Gothic ones, were to be reconsecrated as Nicene.168

As for Italy, the Ostrogothic king Theoderic (493-523) granted a tax exemption to the Arian antistes Unscila, who has been taken for a bishop but whose residence and actual status are unclear.169 And the ninth-century writer Agnellus of Ravenna reports that the Arian bishop (episcopus) Unimundus built a church of St. Eusebius at Ravenna in 514.170 Italy, therefore, seems to follow the pattern seen elsewhere, with an Arian bishop in the royal capital city, perhaps attached to the barbarian court. The existence of an Arian lower clergy as well is evidenced both by the existence of Arian churches, as at Ravenna and Rome, and by the presence of clerics with Germanic names, and even Gothic clerical offices, in Nicene churches after the destruction of the Ostrogothic kingdom in 554.171 Moreover, Agnellus

165 "Quid tamen, si nunc quisquam de vivis regibus legis alienae ulcisci in regione sua similiter velit, qiiod hic sacerdotibus suis doluerit inrogari?" (Avitus, Epistulae 7, MGH AA 6/2:36). The most ob- vious "living king" who met this requirement was Theoderic the Ostrogoth.

166 Ibid., p. 35, "haereticorum oratoria sive basilicae . . . cum conditores earum ad catholicam se legem ... transtulerint ... de oratoriis vel basiliculis privatis."

167 Concilium Epaonense, c. 33, CCSL 148A:33, "Basilicas hereticorum, quas tanta execrationem habemus exosas, ut pollutionem earum purgabilem non putemus, sanctis usibus adplicare dispicimus. Sane quas per uiolentiam nostris tulerant, possumus revocare."

168 Concilium Aurelianense a. 511, c. 10, CCSL 148A:7-8, "de basilicis, quas in peruersitate sua Gothi hactenus habuerunt, id censuimus obseruari, ut ... ecclesias simili, quo nostrae innouari solent, placuit ordine consecrari."

169 "ut quae dudum ecclesiae uiri uenerabilis Unscilae antistitis, praestitimus, ualere in perpetuum censeamus ... ad ecclesiam nostram" (Cassiodorus, Variae 1.26, CCSL 96:34). See Georg Pfeilschifter, Der Ostgotenkonig Theoderich der Grosse und die katholische Kirche (Miinster, 1896), p. 51, n. 8, and p. 230; Scardigli, Die Goten (above, n. 3), pp. 332-33; and Jacques Zeiller, "Etude sur l'arianisme en Italie a l'6poque ostrogothique et a l'6poque lombarde," Melanges d'archeologie et d'histoire 25 (1905), 130-31. It also has been suggested, on the basis of Luigi G. Marini, I papiri diplomatici (Rome, 1805), no. 119, that there was an Arian bishop at Rome c. 490, under either Odovacar or Theoderic; see Zeiller, "Etude," pp. 130-31, and idem, "Les 6glises ariennes de Rome a l'6poque de la domination gothique," Melanges d'archeologie et d'histoire 24 (1904), 17-33.

170 "quam aedificavit Unimundus episcopus anno 23 Theodorici regis, absque fundamentis" (Agnel- lus, Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravenatis 86, PL 106:619); see Pfeilschifter, Theoderich, p. 50; Scardigli, Die Goten, p. 332; and Zeiller, "Etude," pp. 130-31. The superscription to Cassiodorus, Variae 10.34, "Episcopis suis Witigis rex" (dated 536-37), apparently refers to Nicene bishops; see Zeiller, Origines, pp. 533-34.

171 See Pfeilschifter, Theoderich, pp. 47-54; Thomas Burns, History of the Ostrogoths (Blooming- ton, Ind., 1984), p. 161; Zeiller, "Etude," pp. 130-36. For post-Ostrogothic clergy, note the Docu- mentum Neapolitanum 82-85, "Optarit et Vitalianus praesb(yteri), Suniefridus diac(onus), Petrus subdiac(onus), Wiliarit et Paulus clerici nec non et Minnulus et Danihel, Theudila Mirica et Sindila

689

Barbarian Bishops

reports that four other churches, one with an episcopium and a baptistery, were built at Ravenna by "Arians," although it is unclear whether, as with the Burgun- dians, they were privately owned and administered.172 These churches, as in the Frankish kingdom, were later reassimilated to the Nicene faith.173

Which leaves the Lombards, supposedly the last of the Arian Germanic gentes. Lombard Arianism, however, is very problematical.174 For one thing, Procopius indicates that in the late fifth century some Lombards were Nicene Christians.175 There also is much evidence that many Lombards remained pagan through the sixth century.176 Only in the mid-seventh century does Paul the Deacon note that in some Lombard cities, "duo episcopi erant, unus catholicus et alter arrianus."177 But only two of these Arian bishops can be identified, one who unsuccessfully attempted to set himself up at Spoleto c. 600, and another, Anastasius of Pavia, who converted to Nicene Christianity.178 It would appear, therefore, not only that Arianism never really caught on among the Lombards, but also that by the end of the sixth century Germanic Arianism writ large had run its course.179

In some ways Roman attitudes toward barbarian churches were different in the east and west. In the east there were attempts to integrate the administration of barbarian churches into the Roman system. Regions such as Armenia and Persia

developed episcopal systems based on the Roman model. Otherwise, in both east and west, exterae gentes tended to have but a single bishop, who ministered to a

people as a whole, not to a particular city. With regard to titulature, one can contrast eastern and western practices. In the

east, writers referred to barbarian bishops almost exclusively as episcopi, suggesting that they were perceived as equivalent to bishops within the Roman world. In the west, however, where the barbarian Arian church experienced its full development, the situation was rather different. There is evidence for a head bishop, that is, a primas or patriarcha, perhaps a relic of the original "one people, one bishop" custom. As for other high-ranking clerics, and especially for groups of

spodei, Costila, Gudelivus, Guderit, Hosbut et Benenatus ustiarii, Viliarit et Amalagheus idem spodei"; and the Documentum Aretinum, with the Gothic names Angelfrid, Alamoda, and Gudilebus, cited in

Scardigli, Die Goten, pp. 277-81, q.v. also for the use of Gothic terminology. 172 Agnellus, Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravenatis 86, PL 106:619; anticipated, perhaps, by the pa-

tronage of the church later known as Sant'Agata dei Goti in Rome by Ricimer c. 470; see n. 114 above. 173 Agnellus, Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravenatis 86, PL 106:619; Liber diurnus 39; Liber pontifi-

calis 66; Gregory the Great, Regestrum 3.19. See Zeiller, "Etude," p. 135. 174 See Amadeo Crivellucci, "Le chiese cattoliche e i Langobardi ariani in Italia," Studi storici 4

(1895), 391-96; and Steven C. Fanning, "Lombard Arianism Reconsidered," Speculum 56 (1981), 241-58.

175 Procopius, De bello Gothico 2.14.9. 176 See Fanning, "Lombard Arianism." 177 Historia Langobardorum 4.42; see Fanning, "Lombard Arianism," p. 252; and Zeiller, "Etude,"

pp. 137-38. 178 Spoleto: Gregory the Great, Dialogi 3.29, PL 77:285; Pavia: Carlo Cecchelli, "L'arianesimo e le

chiese ariane d'Italia," in Le chiese dei regni dell'Europa occidentale e i loro rapporti con Roma sino all'800, Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo 7 (Spoleto, 1960), pp. 743-44.

179 See Fanning, "Lombard Arianism," p. 258, for the Lombards as "a largely heathen people who

slowly and almost imperceptibly adopted the Catholic faith."

690

Barbarian Bishops

them, the most common descriptive word was not episcopus but sacerdos, as well as presbyter, antistes, or praesul.

The use of such terms for chief clerics is in fact not inconsistent with early Christian practices, in which the words presbyter and episcopus appear to have been equivalent.180 In fifth-century Gaul a Nicene cleric, apparently a presbyter himself, emphatically made this point in the De septem ordinibus ecclesiae: "Con- cerning the sixth order of the church, which is the order of the priests (sacerdotum). The sixth order of seniority is that given to priests (sacerdotibus) who are called presbyters (presbyteri).... They share the ministries with the bishops ... because bishops (episcopi) themselves, we read, are referred to as presbyters.... Do you therefore understand that the height of the priesthood (sacerdotii) is gath- ered into the presbyterate? . . . For presbyter is a name denoting age, and bishop [denotes] authority."181 In other contexts, too, a bishop was referred to as a co- presbyter or as a summus sacerdos.182

The multipurpose denotation of the word sacerdos would have made it a useful choice for Nicenes who were uncertain as to just what the real status of Germanic Arian "bishops" was.183 This uncertainty would have been even stronger if, as it seems, the Gothic sacerdos functionally combined elements of the Nicene episcopus and presbyter. Fastidious Nicenes also may have avoided the word episcopus when referring to Arians in order to make it clear that, in their opinion, Arian bishops were not the real thing.184 In such a fluid context one can place Hydatius's reference to a senior Arrianus, the priest Othia's emulation of a Nicene bishop, and even Eunapius's reference to Gothic bishops.185

As for the Germanic Arians, their own terminology was often different from the Nicene. Some clerical offices, such as bilaif and spodeus, did not have exact Roman equivalents.186 For priest (presbyter), the Germanic term, as seen above, was papas or papan. In the Nicene Roman church, on the other hand, the word papa was used only for the highest-ranking ecclesiastics, that is, for bishops; by the sixth century it was increasingly limited to the bishop of Rome.187 Its use for priests among the Goths is instructive, perhaps indicating that their senior clerical

180 See Duchesne, History (above, n. 1), 1:62-66. 181 De septem ordinibus ecclesiae 6, PL 30:148-62, at cols. 155 and 157, "De sexto gradu Ecclesiae,

qui Sacerdotum ordo est. Sextus seniorum ordo est qui sacerdotibus datur, qui presbyteri dicuntur.... cum episcopis consortes ministeriorum sunt.... quoniam et ipsi presbyteri, ut legimus, episcopi nun- cupantur.... Intelligis ergo in presbytero summam sacerdotii collocari? ... Nam presbyter aetatis est nomen, episcopus dignitatis...."

182 summus sacerdos: Concilium Agathense, c. 6, CCSL 148:194; compresbyteri: Ruricius of Li-

moges, Epistulae 2.8, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH AA 8:299-350. 183 And Nicenes continued, of course, to use sacerdos to refer to Nicenes as well. 184 A similar Nicene chauvinism is seen in an assertion that only Nicenes had "churches"; heretics

merely had "meeting places" (conciliabula): Statuta ecclesiae antiqua 81, CCSL 148:179, "Conuenti- cula haereticorum non ecclesias sed conciliabula appellanda."

185 For Eunapius's possible difficulties with Christian terminology, see Schaferdiek, "Wulfila" (above, n. 31), p. 128.

186 For bilaif see Schwab, "Bilaif" (above, n. 58). Zeiller, "Etude" (above, n. 169), p. 131, sees spodei as "ascetes attaches a une eglise; Scardigli, Die Goten (above, n. 3), p. 286, as perhaps equivalent to lectors.

187 See Scardigli, Die Goten, p. 281.

691

Barbarian Bishops office was, again, not referred to as episcopus, but as papan in Gothic, or sacerdos or presbyter in Latin.

All of this helps to explain why Arian senior clerics can be difficult both to identify and to categorize. Indeed, given the state of our understanding of barbarian Arian clerical functions, one might choose to use the word "bishop" when referring to senior barbarian clerics only with caution, and with the realization that, terminologically, a barbarian Arian episcopus or sacerdos was something quite different from a Roman Nicene episcopus.

Otherwise, the primary differences between eastern and western practices involved organization and authority. In the east, emperors, bishops, and councils laid claim to the churches in barbaricis gentibus and in one way or another attempted to establish their authority over them. They were successful at first, but ultimately the churches of Armenia, Persia, and Ethiopia went their own ways, not only repudiating Roman administrative oversight, but also often adopting what the Romans considered to be heretical beliefs, either Nestorianism or Mo- nophysitism.

In the west, however, no Roman claim was made to barbarian churches. As a result, Arian Germanic churches developed free from administrative conflicts or quarrels over jurisdiction. Moreover, the organization of these churches was fundamentally different from that of Roman Nicene ones,188 and these differences were the result of the special needs of the gentes involved, not of anything inherent in Arianism per se.

The function of Germanic Arian bishops originally was to meet the needs of armies and peoples on the move. After the barbarian settlements in the west, there were several functional distinctions between Arian sacerdotes and Nicene episcopi. For one thing, there seems to have been no tradition of intellectual activity among barbarian Arian bishops. Indeed, rather the opposite. At the Council of Carthage of 484, for example, the Arian patriarcha Cyrila was portrayed as pretending that he did not know Latin in order to avoid debating the Nicene bishops; the Nicenes, however, responded, "We know very well that you always have spoken Latin."'89 Theological exegesis seems to have been left to junior clergy and laypersons.

Moreover, except in extraordinary circumstances, barbarian rulers did not ap- point Arian bishops of cities. And even when they did, it was only on a small- scale and apparently ad hoc basis, never with the idea of placing Arian bishops in all, or even an appreciable number, of the cities in their domains. Nor did barbarian bishops monopolize church construction the way Nicenes did. Indeed, barbarian churches were not only often constructed by laypersons and lesser clergy, but the laity even appears to have maintained some control over them. These lesser clerics also seem to have been responsible for meeting Arian religious needs on the local level.

As a result Arian bishops in barbarian kingdoms were nearly always "bishops without portfolio." They were primarily attendant upon the king, as a sacerdotal

188 Contrary to the conventional view that the Arian church by and large merely mimicked the Nicene: see Fliche and Martin, Histoire, 4:371; and Zeiller, "Etude," p. 131: "une grande ressemblance entre la vie religieuse des ariens et celle des catholiques."

189 Victor Vitensis, Historia persecutionis (above, n. 142), 2.55, "Cyrila dixit: 'nescio Latine'. Nostri episcopi dixerunt: 'semper te Latine esse locutum manifesto nouimus....'"

692

college, perhaps still called a presbyterion as in the days of Ulfila, and they un- dertook special missions on the king's behalf.190 Indeed, it may be that barbarian rulers, too, given their adverse experiences with powerful and froward Nicene episcopi, saw certain advantages to keeping their own senior clerics as "prelates of the second order."'19 The Arian prelates' only known liturgical responsibility was to conduct services for the king, and perhaps for the army. They, or perhaps only the primate, probably also had some role in the ordination of lesser Arian clergy. Other assignments included missionary work: seeking conversions that were voluntary, as in the case of Ajax's mission to the Suevi, or coerced, as with the Vandals in Africa.

Finally, the special circumstances surrounding the initial formation and subsequent development of the barbarian Arian church suggest that it was not intended in some way to compete with the Nicene church. Except for the rare occasions when they were installed as rival bishops of cities, Arian bishops did not contend with Nicene bishops. The two kinds of bishops did not have the same kind of duties, nor did they have much, if any, occasion to interact. This could help to explain the otherwise curious lack of animus toward barbarian Arianism expressed by Nicene writers, who seem largely to have been content to express their disdain by means of genteel debating and pampleteering.192

Any role that religion played as a segregating factor would have been the result, not of theological differences or official policies, but of organizational structure, which may have had very little meaning at the local level.193 Indeed, it may be that the degree of religious incompatibility between Nicene Romans and barbarian Arians has been greatly exaggerated, for there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that there was a good deal of mingling. For example, Gregory of Tours's tale of the Arian baptism cited above also relates that God threatened to kill the children, which could suggest that the parents were themselves in some way culpable: perhaps they had voluntarily sought out the Arian sacerdos.l94 In this context one also might note an addendum to the Council of Agde of 506 specifying that mar-

190 For colleges of bishops in early Christian times, see Duchesne, History, 1:62-70. A remnant of such colleges might be seen in the chorepiscopi who flourished in the east in the late third and fourth centuries (see Franz Gillmann, Das Institut der Chorbischofe in Orient [Munich, 1903]); perhaps they had some conceptual role in the creation of bishops of gentes barbaricae.

191 See Statuta ecclesiae antiqua 11, CCSL 148:168, for "inferioris ... gradus sacerdotes"; and Si- donius Apollinaris, Epistulae (above, n. 109), 4.11.3, "antistes fuit in ordine secundo," for this ter-

minology referring to a priest. 192 Note the examples cited above. See also Jones, Later Roman Empire (above, n. 1), p. 262, for

the "cordial relations" of Roman Nicenes with Burgundian Arians; F. Chatillon, "Sur un passage d'Avit de Vienne concernant l'Arianisme," Revue du moyen age latin 20 (1964), 261-75, for Avitus's tactfully rare references to Arianism; and Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats (above, n. 4), p. 48.

193 For Germanic "nationalism" see, inter alios, Burns, History of the Ostrogoths (above, n. 171), p. 160; Duchesne, History, 2:451 ("Arianism synonymous with Gothic patriotism"); Ernest L. Wood- ward, Christianity and Nationalism in the Later Roman Empire (London, 1916), p. 70 (Arianism used to "preserve their own nationality"); Thompson, The Goths in Spain (above, n. 129), p. 40 ("To become a Nicaean was, so to speak, to become a Roman, to cease to be a Goth"); and Zeiller, Origines, p. 585 ("eglises nationales"). And one must remember that not even barbarian peoples were religiously united: Burgundians and Lombards, for example, included both Nicenes and Arians.

194 Gregory of Tours, Gloria confessorum 47.


riages with heretics were acceptable if the parents agreed that any children would be raised as Nicene Christians.195

Such fraternization, of course, was officially frowned upon, although the rep- etitious restrictions against it only serve to suggest how common it must have been.'96 Gregory of Tours also repeats an anecdote about a dinner party attended by a Nicene woman, her Arian husband, and presbyters of both faiths.197 As for those who fraternized too enthusiastically and actually converted to heresy (which in a Gallic context generally meant Arianism or one of its presumed offshoots),198 the Council of Epaon in 517 decreed that lapsi, "who having been baptized in the catholic religion subsequently migrated to heresy," could be fully readmitted after a two-year penance, during which they were to fast every third day, humbly attend church regularly, and depart from the mass with the catechumens-even though "antiquity sanctioned that they could return only with great difficulty."199 The Council of Orleans of 541, however, merely left it up to the bishop to determine a suitable penance.200 It may be that fraternization was a problem primarily for Nicene bishops who were concerned more about their local authority than about theological or ideological subtleties.

On the other hand, Gallic conciliar canons made it easy for heretics to be received into the Nicene church, especially on their deathbed, if a Nicene rather than an Arian cleric happened to be handy at the time.201 Heretics also were welcome to attend Nicene church services, at least up to the address to the catechumens.202 In North Africa, too, it was said that Vandals attended Nicene services.203 Sidonius Apollinaris not only reports that c. 469 the Arians of Bourges participated in the election of a new bishop but even casually mentions his own attendance at Arian church services.204

195 Concilium Agathense, c. 20 (67), CCSL 148:228, "si tamen se profitentur christianos futuros esse catholicos." The addendum seems to have originated in Spain.

196 The late-fifth-century Statuta ecclesiae antiqua admonished clerics "to avoid banquets and the companionship of heretics and schismatics equally" and not "to pray or sing psalms with heretics" (CCSL 148:179). In the Burgundian kingdom the Council of Epaon decreed in 517 that a bishop or priest who attended a banquet of any heretic was to be excommunicated for one year; junior clerics were to be beaten. Note also Avitus of Vienne's complaint to King Sigismund (Epistulae 31) about Arian and Nicene fraternization at Geneva.

197 Gregory of Tours, Gloria martyrum 79, "fama refert"; the story even then may have been apoc- ryphal.

198 For haeretici as referring to Arians in such canons note Concilium Vasense a. 529, c. 5, CCSL 148A:80, "propter hereticorum astutiam, qui Dei filium non semper cum patre fuisse...." For the equation of Bonosiacs with Arians see Concilium Arelatense II, c. 17, CCSL 148:117.

199 Concilium Epaonense, c. 29, CCSL 148A:31, "Lapsis, id est qui in catholica baptizati ... post in heresem transierunt, grandem redeundi difficultatem sancxit antiquetas."

200 Concilium Aurelianense a. 541, c. 8, CCSL 148A:134. 201 Concilium Arausicanum a. 441, c. 1, CCSL 148:78, "Haereticos in mortis discrimine positos, si

catholici esse desiderant, si desit episcopus, a presbyteris cum chrismate et benedictione consignari placuit," a ruling reiterated by the Second Council of Arles (c. 26, CCSL 148:119) and by the Council of Epaon in 517 (c. 16, CCSL 148A:28); see also Avitus of Vienne, Epistulae 26.

202 Statuta ecclesiae antiqua 16, CCSL 148:169, applying also to pagans and Jews. 203 Pseudo-Augustine, Epistulae 178, PL 33:1162; see Gerhard Eis, "Der wandalische Gebetsruf

Froja armes," Forschungen und Fortschritte 34 (1960), 183-85. 204 Sidonius Apollinaris, Epistulae 7.8.3, MGH AA 8:112 (Bourges), "at postquam aemulos eius

nihil vidi amplius quam silere, atque eos maxume, qui fidem fovent Arianorum .. ."; ibid., 1.2.4, p. 3 (King Theoderic II's services at Toulouse), "possis animo advertere, quod servet istam pro consuetudine potius quam pro ratione reverentiam."


As for Arian clergy, after the fall of the kingdom of Toulouse it was determined at the Council of Orleans in 511 that Arian clerici could be accepted into the Nicene church merely by the imposition of hands and assigned to whatever church office a bishop wished.205 It may be that barbarian priests like Othia served Nicene and Arian, Roman and barbarian, equally: as late as 538, heretical sacerdotes were still ministering to Nicenes in Gaul.206 These cases all demonstrate the existence of an Arian clergy. But in none of them is there any evidence for bishops. Once again, it would appear that barbarian bishops were not pastors in a Roman sense, a role that was filled by lesser Arian clergy, who, in and of themselves, posed a lesser threat to the Nicene church hierarchy.

If this was the case, and if Roman Nicenes and barbarian Arians did in fact associate rather freely, it would go far toward explaining the remarkable lack of impact that most barbarian peoples had on the landscape. Instead of being a segregating factor, religion (that is, Christianity) provided a unifying element. And once the political authority of barbarian rulers had disappeared, populations such as the Vandals and Visigoths, Burgundians and Ostrogoths, along with their clerics, were soon absorbed into the Nicene population.

205 Concilium Aurelianense a. 511, c. 10, CCSL 148A:7-8, "De hereticis clerecis, qui ad fidem catholicam plena fide ac uoluntate uenerint ... id censuimus obseruari, ut si clereci fideliter conuer- tuntur et fidem catholicam integrae confitentur uel ita dignam uitam morum et actuum probitate custodiunt, officium, quo eos episcopus dignos esse censuerit, cum impositae manus benedictione sus-

cipiant .. ." See also Avitus of Vienne, Epistulae 26. 206 Concilium Aurelianense a. 538, c. 34, CCSL 148A:126, "si aeretecum aut Bonosiacum uel cuius-

lebet alterius aerisis sacerdotem quamcumque personam de catholicis rebaptizasse cognouerit...." For Arian clergy ministering to Romans and barbarians, note also the case of Auxentius of Milan, cited above, n. 90.

Ralph W. Mathisen is Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208 (e-mail: [email protected]).


APPENDIX

GERMANIC EPISCOPI AND BISHOPS OF BARBARIANS

Ethnicity

Gothic Gothic Gothic Tetraxita Abgasus

Gothic? Gothic?

Syrian Mesopotamian Visigothic Visigothic Visigothic Gotho-Phrygian Visigothic?

Roman? Visigothic Roman?

Congregation

Goths Goths Goths Goths Abgasi

Romans Romans

Goths Goths Goths? Goths Visigoths Visigoths Goths?

Visigoths Visigoths Goths

Location

Gothia Gothia Gothia Crimea Caucasus

Heraclea Constantinople

Scythia Scythia Scythia Scythia Scythia/Illyricum Illyricum Illyricum?

Italy Italy, Spain North Africa

Date

325 LIV c. 404 548 548

431 c. 490

c. 330 c. 330 c. 330 M IV 337-83 383 ff. 455

382 410-15 427

Sect Title

Nicene Nicene Nicene Nicene Nicene

Nicene Nicene

heterodox heterodox heterodox Nicene? Arian Arian Arian

Arian Arian Arian

episcopus episcopus episcopus episcopus, hiereus hiereus

episcopus episcopus

episcopus episcopus episcopus episcopus episcopus, primas episcopus episcopus

episcopus episcopus episcopus

Name

Theophilus Unila anonymous anonymous anonymous

Frithela Fravitta

Audius Uranius Silvanus Goddas Ulfila Selenas Bleda

Julius Valens Sigesarius Maximinus

Nicene Arian Nicene -* Arian Arian - Nicene Arian - Nicene Arian - Nicene Arian - Nicene Arian - Nicene Arian - Nicene Arian - Nicene Arian - Nicene Arian Arian

Arian Arian Arian Nicene -- Arian Arian

Arian

Arian Arian Arian Arian --Nicene

episcopus, patriarcha episcopus episcopus episcopus episcopus

episcopus

episcopus antistes

episcopus

Gepids Balkans 574

Masona Sunna Vincentius Ugnus Ubiligisclus Murila Sunila Gardingus Bechila Argiovitus Fruisclus Athalocus Uldida

Visigothic Visigothic Roman Visigothic Visigothic Visigothic Visigothic Visigothic Visigothic Visigothic Visigothic Visigothic Visigothic

Romans Visigoths Romans Visigoths Visigoths Visigoths Visigoths Visigoths Visigoths Visigoths Visigoths Visigoths Visigoths

Merida-. Merida

Saragossa Barcelona Valencia Valencia Viseo Tuy Lugo Oporto Tortosa Narbonne Toledo?

580s 586-89 580s 589 589 589 589 589 589 589 589 589 589

episcopus episcopus episcopus episcopus episcopus episcopus episcopus episcopus episcopus episcopus episcopus episcopus episcopus

Cyrila ex-notarius Antonius Revocatus Pinta

anonymous

Unimundus Unscila anonymous Anastasius

Vandal Vandal Vandal? Roman Vandal

Burgundian

Ostrogothic Ostrogothic Lombard Lombard

Vandals Vandals? Vandals? Romans Vandals

Burgundians

Ostrogoths Ostrogoths Lombards Lombards

Carthage Tipasa Tamullumum North Africa Carthage

Vienne

Ravenna Italy Spoleto Pavia

480s 480s 480s LV LV

c. 500

514 E VI c. 600 VII

Trasaricus Gepid Arian episcopus

bishops & churches in barbaricis gentibus

Documents

fragmenta historicorum graecorum

id censuimus obseruari

acta conciliorum oecumenicorum

mgh ssrermerov 1 2

mgh aa 6 2

lesser arian clergy

named arian bishops

early fourth century