The Social World of Intellectuals in the Roman Empire: Sophists, Philosophers, and Christians

Trim: 228mm × 152mm Top: 11.95 mm Gutter: 18.98 mmCUUK1999-FM CUUK1999/Eshleman ISBN: 978 1 107 02638 4 July 9, 2012 11:30

THE SOCIAL WORLD OF INTELLECTUALSIN THE ROMAN EMPIRE

This book examines the role of social networks in the formation ofidentity among sophists, philosophers, and Christians in the earlyRoman Empire. Membership in each category was established andevaluated socially as well as discursively. From clashes over admis-sion to classrooms and communion to construction of the group’shistory, integration into the social fabric of the community servedas both an index of identity and a medium through which con-tests over status and authority were conducted. The juxtaposition ofpatterns of belonging in Second Sophistic and early Christian circlesreveals a shared repertoire of technologies of self-definition, authoriza-tion, and institutionalization, and shows how each group manipulatedand adapted those strategies to its own needs. This approach providesa more rounded view of the Second Sophistic and places the earlyChristian formation of “orthodoxy” in a fresh context.

kendra eshleman is an assistant professor of Classical studies atBoston College.

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GREEK CULTURE IN THE ROMAN WORLD

Editorssusan e. alcock, Brown University

ja s elsner, Corpus Christi College, Oxfords imon goldhill, University of Cambridge

The Greek culture of the Roman Empire offers a rich field of study. Extraordinary insights can begained into processes of multicultural contact and exchange, political and ideological conflict, and thecreativity of a changing, polyglot empire. During this period, many fundamental elements of Westernsociety were being set in place: from the rise of Christianity, to an influential system of education, tolong-lived artistic canons. This series is the first to focus on the response of Greek culture to its Romanimperial setting as a significant phenomenon in its own right. To this end, it will publish original andinnovative research in the art, archaeology, epigraphy, history, philosophy, religion and literature of theempire, with an emphasis on Greek material.

Recent titles in the series:

The Making of Roman IndiaGrant Parker

PhilostratusEdited by Ewen Bowie and Jas Elsner

The Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire: Citizens, Elites and Benefactors in Asia MinorArjan Zuiderhoek

Saints and Church Spaces in the Late Antique Mediterranean: Architecture, Cult, and CommunityAnn Marie Yasin

Galen and the World of KnowledgeEdited by Christopher Gill, Tim Whitmarsh and John Wilkins

Local Knowledge and Microidentities in the Imperial Greek WorldEdited by Tim Whitmarsh

Homer between History and Fiction in Imperial Greek LiteratureLaurence Kim

Facing the Gods: Epiphany and Representation in Graeco-Roman Art, Literature and ReligionVerity Platt

Narrative, Identity and the Ancient Greek NovelTim Whitmarsh

Women and Visual Replication in Roman Imperial Art and CultureJennifer Trimble

The Maeander Valley: A Historical Geography from Antiquity to ByzantiumPeter Thonemann

Greece and the Augustan Cultural RevolutionA. J. S. Spawforth

Saints and Symposium: The Literature of Food and the Symposium in Greco-Roman andEarly Christian Culture

Jason Konig

The Social World of Intellectuals in the Roman Empire: Sophists, Philosophers, and ChristiansKendra Eshleman

ii


THE SOCIAL WORLD OFINTELLECTUALS IN THE

ROMAN EMPIRESophists, Philosophers, and Christians

KENDRA ESHLEMAN

iii


cambridge university pressCambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town,

Singapore, Sao Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City

Cambridge University PressThe Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

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c© Kendra Eshleman 2012

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exceptionand to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,no reproduction of any part may take place without the written

permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2012

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication dataEshleman, Kendra, 1973–

The social world of intellectuals in the Roman Empire : sophists, philosophers, and Christians /Kendra Eshleman.

pages cm. – (Greek culture in the Roman world)Includes bibliographical references and index.

isbn 978-1-107-02638-41. Social networks – Rome. 2. Social structure – Rome. 3. Group identity – Rome.4. Identity (Philosophical concept) – History – To 1500. 5. Rome – Intellectual life.

6. Sophists (Greek philosophy) 7. Second Sophistic movement. 8. Philosophers – Rome.9. Christians – Rome. I. Title.

dg78.e75 2012305.5′520937 – dc23 2012018821

isbn 978-1-107-02638-4 Hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence oraccuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to

in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on suchwebsites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

iv


Contents

List of figures page viAcknowledgments viiNote on abbreviations ix

Introduction: “Who are you?” The social formationof identity 1

1 Inclusion and identity 21

2 Contesting competence: the ideal of self-determination 67

3 Expertise and authority in the early church 91

4 Defining the circle of sophists: Philostratus and theconstruction of the Second Sophistic 125

5 Becoming orthodox: heresiology as self-fashioning 149

6 Successions and self-definition 177

7 “From such mothers and fathers”: succession narratives inearly Christian discourse 213

Conclusion 259

References 263Index 288

v


Figures

1 Major figures mentioned in Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists page 1302 Genealogy of heresy according to Hippolytus, Refutation 228

vi


Acknowledgments

This book began life as a dissertation written at the University of Michigan.Its seed was planted by David Potter: hearing that I wanted to write onearly Christian heresy, he sent me off to read Hippolytus and Philostratus,two authors unknown to me, but who he promised would have much tosay to each other. He was right, as he usually is. The project has evolvedconsiderably from its initial form, but it has been nourished throughoutby David’s wisdom, enthusiasm, and apparent omniscience.

On the road to publication, a book accrues many debts. The bulk ofthe revisions were completed with the help of a Boston College FacultyFellowship in the spring of 2010. An earlier version of Chapter 4 appearedin Classical Philology 103 (2008). Lauren Caldwell read more drafts thanshe probably cares to remember, and she helped to make straight muchthat was tangled and inelegant. The book would never have been com-pleted without her. Others who commented on drafts, fielded queries, andasked inconvenient questions include Sara Ahbel-Rappe, Derek Collins,John Finamore, Daniel Harris-McCoy, Meredith Monaghan, CatherineOsborne, Pheme Perkins, Jim Porter, Adam Serfass, William Turpin, Chrisvan den Berg, Tim Whitmarsh, Meghan Williams, Ralph Williams, andtwo anonymous readers at Cambridge University Press. I am gratefulas well to the many others who responded to portions of the work inprogress at the American Philological Association, the Classical Associ-ation of the Middle West and South, the Boston Patristics Group, theMACTe Junior Faculty group, the University of Toronto, Georgetown,Oberlin, Skidmore, Boston College, and the Mennonite Congregation ofBoston. Aaron Hertzmann helped to find the cover image and has generallybeen a font of practical wisdom. Corey Streitweiser was a prince amongproofreaders.

To my family – Ken and Myrna Eshleman, Tina Eshleman, Don Harri-son, Olivia Page Harrison, Lin Albertson Thorpe – are due special thanks

vii


viii Acknowledgments

for setting my feet on paths of scholarship and for their love and supportthrough the long gestation of this book.

Finally, my husband, Jeremy Thorpe, to whom this book is dedicated.He prepared the figures, talked me through the hard bits, and knows moreabout Alexander the Clay Plato than a reasonable person ought.


Note on abbreviations

Citations of periodicals follow the abbreviations used by L’Anneephilologique. Abbreviations for ancient authors and works follow theOxford Latin Dictionary and Liddell–Scott–Jones’ Greek–English Lexicon;for Christian texts not covered by those two works, I have followed thesystem of the Society of Biblical Literature.

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x

Trim: 228mm × 152mm Top: 11.95 mm Gutter: 18.98 mmCUUK1999-INTRO CUUK1999/Eshleman ISBN: 978 1 107 02638 4 July 9, 2012 10:25

Introduction“Who are you?” The social formation of identity

Asked for money by a man in the garb of a mendicant Cynic, the greatHerodes Atticus, a man of consular rank and high culture, replies with asimple, devastating question: “Who are you?” The man responds indig-nantly that he is plainly a philosopher, but Herodes remains unconvinced.“I see a beard and a cloak,” he says, “but I do not yet see a philoso-pher. But indulge us, please, and say what evidence you think we coulduse to know that you are a philosopher?” (Gell. 9.2.1–5).1 There are nomore basic questions than these: who are you, where do you fit, and howcan we know? In this instance both Herodes and his hapless interlocu-tor speak as though it were easy to determine who deserved the “mostholy name” (nomen sanctissimum) of philosopher and on what grounds(Gell. 9.2.9), but their very disagreement indicates otherwise. The presti-gious title “philosopher” was “not an absolute but a differential category,”2

maintained at the cost of an unending labor of discursive and social dis-tantiation from the others who marked its boundaries (the layperson,the charlatan, the sophist, and, eventually, the Christian). The same istrue of “sophist,” another notoriously slippery category often madden-ingly entwined with “philosopher.” The right to either label could not beestablished once for all but had to be continually defended through assid-uous self-presentation that in turn advanced implicit definitions of one’sown field(s) and its rivals. Contemporary Christians concerned to definethe parameters of authentic (“orthodox”) Christian identity confronted

1 Herodem Atticum, consularem virum ingenioque amoeno et Graeca facundia celebrem, adiit nobispraesentibus palliatus quispiam et crinitus barbaque prope ad pubem usque porrecta ac petit aes sibidari �� . Tum Herodes interrogat quisnam esset. Atque ille, vultu sonituque vocis obiurgatorio,philosophum sese esse dicit et mirari quoque addit cur quaerendum putasset quod videret. “Video,” inquitHerodes, “barbam et pallium, philosophum nondum video. Quaeso autem te, cum bona venia dicas mihiquibus nos uti posse argumentis existimas, ut esse te philosophum noscitemus?” All translations from Latinand Greek are my own. Unless otherwise noted, translations of Nag Hammadi treatises come fromThe Coptic Gnostic Library (CGL).

2 Whitmarsh 2001a: 159.

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2 Introduction: the social formation of identity

similar problems of self-definition by pursuing a remarkably similar set ofstrategies.

The central premise of this book is that establishing and evaluatingidentity as a sophist, philosopher, or Christian was a matter not only ofbeing – that is, conformity with certain cognitive, ritual, ethical, and/orprofessional standards – but also of ties to other members of the group,past and present – that is, of belonging. Demarcating these frequentlyintersecting categories from each other, as well as sorting out legitimatefrom illegitimate members within each group, was (and is) notoriouslydifficult. The dividing lines remained blurry and disputed and were tooschematic to map fully the hybrid complexities of one person’s identity.Further, as is often pointed out, the Roman world possessed “few explic-itly professional qualifications, institutional structures for controlling andguaranteeing expertise”; lacking these, ancient intellectuals leaned heavilyon rhetorical means of legitimation and group definition.3 This fluidityplaced heavier weight on social modes of self-definition as well, so thatintegration into the social fabric of each community, past and present,served as a vital index of identity and a medium through which contestsover status and authority were conducted.

That identity is constituted through social interactions has been widelyrecognized,4 especially for the ancient world, where individuals wereembedded in networks of family, class, city, ethnicity, patronage, and friend-ship. The relevance of belonging to Second Sophistic contests over identityand status has been explored only in rather limited ways, however.5 Exceptin the symposium, where socialization and the cultivation of social bondsare foregrounded,6 the “groupness” of early imperial pepaideumenoi as suchis not immediately obvious and is sometimes dismissed as unimportant.7

Yet to the extent that sophists and philosophers thought of themselves as

3 Konig and Whitmarsh 2007: 25; cf. Lloyd 1979: 86–98; Gleason 1995: xxiv. 4 Jenkins 1996.5 The entanglement of sophistic rivalries with inter-city competitions has long been recognized; see

Bowersock 1969: 89–100. The role of quarrels in the self-fashioning of pepaideumenoi has beenilluminated by (among many) Hahn 1989: 109–18; Gleason 1995: 27–8; and Whitmarsh 2005: 32–4.Remus 1996 considers the role of Aelius Aristides’ social networks in facilitating his return to oratory.These analyses typically stop short of seeing such feuds and friendships as bearing on the shape ofthe sophistic movement or philosophy as a whole, however.

6 On the symposium generally, see Murray 1990, 2003. For the symposium as a site for the negotiationand display of elite paideia in the imperial period, see Schmitz 1997: 127–33; Whitmarsh 2000, 2001a:279–93, and 2006; Amato 2005; Konig 2008; Lim 2008: 152–6.

7 E.g. Glucker 1978; Sedley 1989. Glucker in particular downplays the role of belonging to philosophicalidentity: “Here, a group of people is indeed included as an essential ingredient in [the definition of��]. But �� is not defined in terms of the group – not to speak of an organized school orinstitution: it is identified with the opinions of such a group. Indeed, the group itself is defined onlyin terms of holding such opinions” (181).


Introduction: the social formation of identity 3

belonging to an in-group distinct from various out-groups, they can be saidto constitute groups.8 Philostratus represents his subjects as competing forrecognition as “worthy of the circle of sophists” (VS 614, 625). That circlewas no more than a dispersed set of men engaged in roughly the samepursuits. It was metonymically embodied, though, in a myriad short-livedassemblages that formed and reformed in classrooms and auditoria, atpublic performances, and even more informal gatherings. Invisible, fluid,and contested as its dimensions are, this “circle” has a definite reality inthe minds of Philostratus and his subjects. As for philosophers, takingbelonging into account might seem at odds with the ideal of disinter-ested inquiry. In Lucian’s Eunuch, candidates for the Peripatetic chair arejudged not on their personal connections or academic record, but on thedegree to which they look and act the part, exhibiting mastery of Aris-totle’s writings and a life consistent with them. Some scholars have justlysingled out these criteria as core constituents of philosophical identity.9

Others, however, have shown that personal relationships too, either withpeers or with the “golden chain” of philosophers stretching back to theclassical past, played a role in establishing philosophical identity and statusin the imperial period.10 While not sufficient, such bonds served to locatephilosophers in what could otherwise be a vertiginously unbounded disci-plinary landscape. This category, too, was concretized in teaching circles,public performances, and learned soirees, any of which might become aliteral site of contestation over who (and what) deserved to be counted asproperly philosophical.

The interpenetration of being and belonging is more evident in theearly church, despite the institutional fluidity and wide internal diversitythat characterizes it in its first centuries. From the start, Christians con-ceptualized themselves in communitarian terms, as a family or a “thirdrace,”11 united by shared norms of belief, behavior, and belonging, even

8 For this cognitive approach to group formation, which has some points of contact with BenedictAnderson’s (1991) notion of imagined communities, see J. C. Turner et al. 1987, esp. 51–67; Jenkins1996: 80–3.

9 Deportment: Hahn 1989: 33–45; Sidebottom 2009: 82–7. Mastery of and conformity with thefounder’s writings: Glucker 1978: 182–4; Sedley 1989.

10 Interactions with peers: Hahn 1989: 109–18; Watts 2006: 7–13. “Golden chain” (of Platonists):Dillon 1979: 77, 1982: 66–9; Swain 1997: 181, 186. Apuleius describes himself as a member of thePlatonica familia (Apol. 64.3; cf. 22.7 [Cynica familia]). His relationships with other members ofthis familia seem to be largely mediated through text, and in this instance are defined by sharedcognitive commitments, but the metaphor resonates; see Hijmans 1987: 416 n. 82 for parallels.

11 On “ethnoracial” reasoning in Christian self-definition, see Buell 2005; she explores the implicationof Christianity in “cultural struggles over forms of affiliation and identification” (12) complementaryto the ones treated here.



if disagreement persisted as to what those norms were.12 Perhaps as aresult, the social dimensions of Christian identity have received moreattention, in studies of conversion, congregational life, and the role ofritual participation in Christian socialization and self-definition.13 Despitea growing integration of Christianity into treatments of Roman religion,14

however, early Christian struggles over individual and corporate self-creation have rarely been seen as relevant to the strategies of self-fashioningemployed by early imperial pepaideumenoi.15 Setting early Christian con-troversialists alongside Second Sophistic intellectuals helps to highlightthe less often noticed dynamics of inclusion and exclusion among thelatter.

This project sits at the intersection of several lines of recent scholarlyinterest. In classical studies in the past two decades, interest in the self-fashioning or “symbolic representations” of Greek sophists and philoso-phers has breathed fresh life into the perennial debate over what exactly itmeant to be a philosopher or a sophist in the early Empire, and what distin-guished them from each other and from Greek urban elites generally;16 thisdiscussion has blended with broader investigations of the (re)constructionof Greek identity under Rome.17 At the same time the formation of earlyChristian identity within and against the Jewish and Greco-Roman world

12 Kreider 1999: 4–7 abstracts this formula from Justin Martyr’s statement that the eucharist is restricted“to the one who believes that our teachings are true, has received the washing that is for the forgivenessof sins and for rebirth (i.e. baptism), and lives as Christ handed down” (� �� ’ �� !� "�� #� � �� $!� %��& � '� ( )�� !�� , Apol. 66.1).

13 Understanding conversion as a social process has significantly revised, if not entirely replaced, theJamesian view of conversion as an individual, psychological event: see e.g. L. M. White 1985–6;Gallagher 1993; Sandnes 1994; Taylor 1995; Finn 1997 and Ch. 1 n. 68 below. Closely related isrecognition of the place of ritual in Christian identity formation: e.g. Meeks 1983: 140–63; Theissen1999: 121–38; Pagels 2002; D. E. Smith 2003: 173–217. Lieu 2004: 147–77 offers a nuanced discussionof the interplay of practice and (textual) discourse in the formation of Christian identity. On socialmodels of congregational life, see n. 49 below.

14 Exemplified by the inclusion of Christianity in Beard, North, and Price 1998.15 Exceptions include Brown 1988; Gleason 1995: 55–81; Goldhill 2001c; Konig 2008; J. Perkins 2009:

17–44.16 For the vexed question of the definition of “sophist,” and what distinguished sophists from philoso-

phers or rhetors, see Bowersock 1969: 10–15, 2002: 161–7; Stanton 1973: 351–8; Jones 1974: 12–14;G. Anderson 1986: 8–10, 1993: 16–17; Swain 1996: 97–100; Schmitz 1997: 12–13; Puech 2002: 11–14.On the self-presentation of Greek pepaideumenoi, see G. Anderson 1989: 88–99, 170–92, 1993: 55–64;Hahn 1989; Gleason 1995; Swain 1996: 43–51; Schmitz 1997; R. R. R. Smith 1998; Connolly 2001;Goldhill 2002: 82–93; Konig 2005; Whitmarsh 2005: 13–22, 32–56; Rife 2009; Sidebottom 2009.On self-fashioning in Roman rhetoric, see Richlin 1997; Gunderson 2000.

17 Bowie 1974 is seminal. A sampling of more recent work: Alcock 1993; Woolf 1994; Swain 1996;Braund and Wilkins 2000; Goldhill 2001a and 2002; Whitmarsh 2001a; Stadter and Van der Stockt2002; Konstan and Saıd 2006; Bowie and Elsner 2009.


Introduction: the social formation of identity 5

has been incisively studied from a variety of angles in recent years,18 as hasthe rise of normative Christianity and the Christian rhetoric of authen-ticity, a process that intersects at many points with the first.19 Work inboth veins has benefited greatly both from the “linguistic turn” in his-torical scholarship and from a greater engagement with social-scientificapproaches to identity; both have encouraged scholars to eschew essen-tializing views in favor of understanding identity as socially and discur-sively constructed, always plural (and hybrid), and continually subjectto negotiation. These studies have done much to illuminate the inter-play of social and rhetorical strategies in Christian identity formation.On the whole, however, they have focused more on the construction ofborders with (and within) the Jewish and Greco-Roman matrices, thanon internal boundary construction as such, insofar as those things canbe disentangled. While much labor has gone into mapping early Chris-tian diversity at the regional and local levels,20 only fairly recently hasthe social articulation of Christian “orthodoxy” begun to receive detailedattention.21

The anecdote with which we began hints already at the interpenetrationof personal authority, corporate identity, and social ties. The definitions of“philosopher” implicitly advanced by Herodes and the would-be Cynic areostensive rather than descriptive: the Cynic defines the word by pointingto himself, Herodes by invoking Musonius Rufus; Aulus Gellius, mean-while, records this story in part as a way of touting his own friendship withHerodes, and hence his own credentials as an evaluator of other intellectu-als. The same holds for our other categories as well: what Christianity orsophistry is depends to a large degree on whom one regards as prototypicalChristians and sophists, while authority to make those judgments rests in

18 See esp. J. Perkins 1995 and 2009; Cooper 1996; Horrell 2002; Lieu 2002 and 2004; King 2003,esp. 22–38, and 2008b; Boyarin 2004; Castelli 2004; Buell 2005; Sandwell 2007; Holmberg 2008;Harland 2009, and n. 41 below. Essential starting points on early Christian self-definition generallyare Sanders 1980 and Meyer and Sanders 1982.

19 Two watersheds in twentieth-century scholarship on the construction of “orthodoxy” and “heresy”are Bauer 1971 [1934] and Le Boulluec 1985; M. A. Williams 1996 and King 2003 have spearheadedan ongoing revolution in the study of the phenomena long lumped together under the heading“Gnosticism.” In addition to these, I have profited especially from Wisse 1971; Elze 1974; Koschorke1978; Vallee 1981; P. Perkins 1993; Buell 1999 and 2005; Inglebert 2001a and 2001b; Iricinischi andZellentin 2008a; King 2008b.

20 Although many of the specific historical claims of Bauer 1971 [1934] have not held up under scrutiny,his central insight, that early Christianity was characterized by wide diversity and that its historymust be written regionally, remains foundational, even for studies (like this one) that seek to tracetranslocal patterns.

21 E.g. Wisse 1986; R. Williams 2001; Bird 2002; Pagels 2002; King 2003: 32–6 and 2008a; Lieu 2004:126–42; Thomassen 2004; Brakke 2006: 254–9; Perrin 2010.



part on the social and intellectual pedigree of the judge.22 As a result, theself-presentation of individuals and the (self-)definition of the communi-ties to which they belong are mutually implicated: a notion of philosophyoriented around Musonius Rufus will be different from one centered ona pugnacious mendicant Cynic. As self-professed members of each groupjockey for position, therefore, they also seek to shape those groups in waysthat provide meaningful and advantageous contexts for their identities andactivities. As a result, the present investigation will move back and forthbetween the level of the individual and that of the community, both small-and large-scale. Pride of place will necessarily be given to those individualswho sought to claim definitive authority for their vision of their commu-nity – and hence to secure their own position within it – through writing,but I will also try to compare these textual strategies with the real-worldbehavior of the authors’ colleagues, to the extent that that can be glimpsedthrough the textual record.

A second aim of this book is to place the construction of Christianorthodoxy in the second and early third centuries within the broadercontext of the formation and (self-)regulation of intellectual communitiesin the early Roman Empire. I hope to contribute to an understanding thatthe formation of a dominant orthodoxy was not only an intellectual andtheological project but also a social one. The role of discourse, both oraland textual, in the crafting of Christian identity has been well recognized:as Averil Cameron puts it, “if ever there was a case of the constructionof reality through text, such a case is provided by early Christianity.”23

Yet discourse cannot be divorced from social behavior; it arises out of andseeks to intervene in social reality. There is an obvious difficulty in tryingto tease out from texts the social realities they address and seek to address;the glimpses we catch of those realia can never be more than partial.Nonetheless, the historian must undertake that effort, if we are not toconfine ourselves solely to textual analysis. The works under considerationhere both describe and prescribe ways of interacting with others whocall themselves Christians. Their prescriptions were not always heeded,or not as their authors intended, as their frequent complaints make clear.Yet many of those complaints point to a widely shared assumption thatsocial contact could and should be used to regulate the boundaries of

22 Formulation adapted from Markus 1980: 5. G. Anderson 1986: 8 notes that “it is characteristic of[Philostratus’] habit of mind to quote any number of examples of who is a sophist or who is not,without actually stating his terms of reference.” I contend that this inductive procedure is not merelya Philostratean quirk.

23 Cameron 1991: 21.


Two encounters 7

the “orthodox” community, however understood. Rhetoric and action aremutually informing; I will argue that early Christian texts operated in adynamic feedback loop with behavior “on the ground,” conditioned by andseeking variously to enforce or revise the social “rules” by which believersand congregations daily made and remade (their) Christian identity.

Treating second-century Christians within the world of the SecondSophistic offers a fresh angle on the Christian discourse of orthodoxy andheresy, especially as it played out in the life of Christian congregations. Atthe same time the more richly documented, self-conscious process of Chris-tian identity formation can shed useful light on the strategies employedby pagan intellectuals to define their own communities. Examining earlyChristian self-definition alongside the authorizing practices of contempo-rary pepaideumenoi broadens our view of the cultural and social world of theSecond Sophistic and helps to bring the stakes in play for intellectuals andtheir historians more sharply into focus. I do not propose that the parallelsidentified here arose through direct interchange between Christians andpepaideuemenoi. Rather, the conjunction of their behaviors reveals a set ofculturally available technologies of identity formation, authorization, andinstitutionalization, which early Christian modes of self-definition mirror,map, and transform.

two encounters

The congruence between sophistic and Christian modes of communityformation, and the intertwining of personal authority, social connection,and group identity that will be at the heart of this book are illustrated ina pair of anecdotes from the middle of the second century. The first takesplace in Athens in the 130s, where the irascible sophist Philagrus of Ciliciahad an unfortunate run-in with the student Amphicles of Chalcis.24 AsPhilostratus tells it in the Lives of the Sophists, Philagrus had recently arrivedin Athens for a lecture tour and was wandering around the Kerameikoswith a few groupies (�*�� +,�- �.�� / �0� �� ) whenhe came upon Amphicles, star pupil of Herodes Atticus (VS 578):

Seeing that a young man on his right with a fair number of companions keptturning around, and supposing that the man was somehow making fun of him,Philagrus said, “Who are you, then?” “I am Amphicles,” replied the man, “if indeedyou have heard of that man of Chalcis.” “Then stay away from my lectures,” said

24 I follow Puech’s dating (2002: 55–7), which is more plausible than a date c. 150 (Papalas 1979–80)or in the 160s (Bowie 2009: 22). Unless noted, all dates are ce.



Philagrus, “for you seem unsound to me.” “And who are you to give such orders?”asked the other, whereupon Philagrus said that he took it as an insult if anyoneanywhere failed to recognize him.25

After this incident it was all downhill for Philagrus in Athens (VS 578–80). First he was caught using an “outlandish” (1�� ) word. Then hemanaged to offend Herodes himself, by dragging him into the quarreland ignoring his advice, and irritated the Athenians with a new-fangled( ��2-�) and poorly delivered encomium. Finally, Herodes’ studentsconspired to sabotage one of Philagrus’ lectures by exposing his penchantfor self-plagiarism, which so enraged Philagrus that he literally chokedduring a subsequent declamation. Thereafter, says Philostratus, althoughPhilagrus went on to win the Roman chair of rhetoric, he never attainedthe reputation he deserved at Athens (�� 2�� 3��& �45��).

As this passage illustrates, to be a sophist in the second century wasto belong to a worldwide movement whose local “chapters” were onlyloosely connected to each other: celebrity at Rome was no guaranteeof success in the Athenian market. Among those who cared about suchthings, membership in this fraternity was highly desired and hotly con-tested. Acceptance as a sophist depended on meeting certain professionaland aesthetic criteria – public declamation, lectures for students, fluent(and fresh) extemporization, flawless mastery of classicizing language andstyle – which formed part of an exacting performance of class, gender, andculture required both on and off stage.26 At this performance Philagrus,unable to master either his language or his emotions, failed wretchedly onthis occasion. And yet, as this story hints, the sophistic paradigm remainedopen to negotiation. Both Philagrus and Amphicles sought recognitionwithin the circle of sophists, but a secure position within that circle wasas elusive as it was desirable. Its circumference was subject to contin-ual redrawing, as each would-be inhabitant of that culturally valorizedspace sought to define it in a way that put himself at, or near, the cen-ter, while excluding as many of his rivals as possible. (Others – includingsome classified by their peers and modern scholars as sophists – regardedthe same terrain as a cultural wasteland, employing the word “sophist”

25 #�6 � �� 7� 8� ��5�� 4 ! ��9��7 � �’ �:�& �45��,“��’ ; �0,” 1��, “7�;” “ +,�� 8�9,” 1��, “�# �< � )�� .” “��2�� 7 � ,”1��, “� 8�� =��! , �: �=� �� >� ��7 �� .” �& � 8�� , “7� � ? �&��;” �� =�2�� ; �’( @7��, �# �� >�� .

26 Epideictic oratory as the defining sophistic activity: Bowie 1974: 169; G. Anderson 1986: 9, 1990:95–6. Teaching: Russell 1983: 74–5; Swain 1996: 97–9. Both: G. Anderson 1989: 88; Brunt 1994:26–33; Billault 2000: 10–15; Puech 2002: 10; Pernot 2005: 189. Self-presentation generally: n. 16above.


Two encounters 9

with its negative Platonic valence to label what they considered wrongways of being an intellectual.)

Once again, the definition of “sophist” proves to be subject not only totheoretical debate, but also to ostensive demonstration: what precisely itmeans to be a sophist hinges in part on who counts as a sophist. Philagruspushes this principle to the limit: caught in the use of an alien word andchallenged to name a classic author in which it appears (�� 7 � � 8��7�! ;), he fires back, “In Philagrus!” (VS 578). If successful, thisassertion would enshrine Philagrus among the standard-setting classics –in social-scientific terms, as an in-group prototype27 – in which case hislanguage and conduct ipso facto meet sophistic standards; if not, he standsaccused of deviating from a model embodied by others.

Policing the membership of the sophistic world was therefore of vitalimportance for the self-definition of the movement as a whole. What thisstory makes clear is that inclusion among the sophists depended to a largedegree on recognition by one’s peers – literally, in this case: Philagrusexpects to be known at sight, while Amphicles seems to be banking on hisown name recognition. Further, these two men do not want merely to beknown, but to be known as sophists. This is especially crucial for Philagrus,an outsider whose professional success at Athens hinges on his reception bysophists there. Amphicles’ apparent mockery and failure to recognize himconstitute a serious threat: how can he claim a place in the local sophis-tic community if the members of that community do not acknowledgehim?

Philagrus’ response is a case study in how sophists sought to establishtheir identity and authority in the eyes of their peers. Faced with a chal-lenge to his insider status, he seeks to present himself as a recognizedauthority, empowered to dispense or withdraw authorization. To mask hisvulnerability and need for approval, he conducts himself with lofty con-fidence, addressing Herodes as an equal, and suggesting that Amphiclesneeds his endorsement, rather than the other way around. Further, he triesto neutralize his apparent rejection by a local insider by challenging firstAmphicles’ identity as a sophist (“Who are you?”) and then his competence(“You seem unsound”). Implicit is that if Amphicles is not a real sophist,then his ignorance of Philagrus is irrelevant; he is just a witless outsider.(Amphicles attempts the same maneuver in return, arguably with more

27 As J. C. Turner et al. 1987: 57–65, 71–88 explain, “the prototypicality of any ingroup member isthe degree to which he or she exemplifies or is representative of some stereotypical attribute of thegroup as a whole” (79); members perceived as prototypical will generally be more influential withinthe group, their behavior more normative.



success.)28 Last, Philagrus cements his repudiation of Amphicles’ sophisticcredentials by barring him from his lectures – that is, by denying himaccess to the central activity of the profession. These tactics bespeak aninsider’s perspective according to which status as a sophist is contingentupon recognition by other acknowledged sophists, who alone are qualifiedto judge each other. Competence to evaluate other sophists thus becomesone of the defining characteristics of a sophist, so that establishing one’sown status within the sophistic community is necessarily bound up withdefining the scope of that community.

Not only bids for recognition and social access but also questions ofpedigree and networking thread through this passage; consequences forstatus within the sophistic movement ripple out from this brief show-down. Young Amphicles derives his clout more from his connection toHerodes Atticus, the doyen of sophistic rhetoric at Athens, than fromany accomplishments of his own. A prolific teacher and political heavy-weight, Herodes in turn stands at the center of an extensive network ofstudents and colleagues. An insult to Amphicles is interpreted as pick-ing a fight with Herodes and his entire network; arguably, this is whatproves most fatal for Philagrus, as Herodes’ students turn out en masseto expose his deviation from sophistic norm. In addition, Philagrus andAmphicles are both attended by entourages. Philagrus’ followers, we learn,make a habit of chasing after sophists. If for the moment they have cho-sen to ride on Philagrus’ coattails, then presumably, they, too, have astake in his reputation. Finally, Philostratus himself has close ties to theschool of Herodes, but also a distant link to Philagrus; getting the balanceright between these two figures has consequences for his own academicpedigree.

This episode finds a striking parallel a generation later in an encounterbetween two intellectuals of rather different sort: the great Polycarp, for-mer student of the apostles (�� 4�! ��7�) and apostolicappointee as bishop of Smyrna, and the controversial theologian Marcion.The anecdote comes to us from Polycarp’s student, the heresiologist Ire-naeus, who offers it as a model for orthodox Christian behavior (Haer.3.3.4):

28 Papalas 1979–80: 95 argues that Amphicles must have recognized Philagrus – that Philagrus hadalready attracted groupies in Athens suggests that his visit had been well advertised, and Herodes’students knew his work well enough to catch him recycling it – but pretended not to in order torattle him.


Two encounters 11

Once when Marcion came into his sight and said to him, “Recognize me,” Polycarphimself replied, “I do recognize you: I recognize you as the firstborn of Satan.” Thatis how careful the apostles and their disciples were not to have any communion,even of speech, with any of those who counterfeit the truth.29

Central to this passage, like the other, is a contest over recognition andinclusion, which has implications for the articulation of an entire com-munity – in this case, for the definition of Christian “orthodoxy.” Thehistoricity of this encounter is dubious,30 but the way in which Irenaeusimagines it is instructive. Like the definition of “sophistic,” correct Chris-tian theology and practice could be, and were, subject to theoretical debate.Here, though, that debate plays out as a collision not between two dog-matic positions, but between two men, locked in a tug-of-war over statusthat might have seemed quite familiar to Philagrus. As Irenaeus representshim, Marcion does not ask Polycarp to recognize his teachings, althoughthat is of course the import of his request, but to recognize him, person-ally. Polycarp responds in equally personal terms – “I recognize you as thefirst-born of Satan” – and backs up his words by refusing further contactwith Marcion. Both words and action are shorthand for a repudiationof Marcion’s doctrine as alien, even inimical, to true Christian belief andpractice, but as a shorthand they raise a vital point.31 Marcion’s distinctiveviews are wrapped up in the person of Marcion himself; to exclude this“alien” teaching from Christian tradition, Polycarp must exclude Marcionfrom the Christian community, as Philagrus sought to to bar Amphiclesfrom his lectures. Once again, the question of what counts as authenticChristian belief and behavior is wrapped up with the question of who is tobe accepted as a member of the Christian community.

Now, as Irenaeus tells it, Polycarp is already “orthodox” and Marcionalready “heretical” when they meet: Polycarp, because he adheres faithfullyto the tradition he learned from the apostles, which alone constitutes truth,

29 �� :�� ( A�� B��7! 7 �� #� CD� �:� 8��4 � �� -�� , “ +E��7 !��,” ��7��, “ +E�� 9��!, 8�� 9��! � �!4�� & F�� .” �� /�4�� / �� :� 1�2� �:�=%�� 2�� 4�� ! �> � �� 2��4 ! < ��-�� .

30 The meeting is suspiciously convenient, and suspiciously recalls a passage in Polycarp’s Letter to thePhilippians which attacks as the “first-born of Satan” (Phil. 7.1) either Marcion himself (Harrison1936: 172–206; Hoffmann 1984: 49–56; Nielsen 1986), or, more likely, proponents of views thatresemble classic Marcionite doctrine. For the source problems with which this question is boundup, see Schoedel 1993b: 276–85 (Phil.) and 1993a: 241–3 (the anti-Marcionite prologue to John);May 1987–8: 134–6 and Moll 2008 (other sources for Marcion’s biography).

31 On “first-born of Satan” as a term for heresy in Jewish and early Christian polemic, see Dahl 1964.



Marcion because his teachings deviate from those (Haer. 3.3.4).32 Accordingto the normative rhetoric that animates the Against Heresies, orthodoxy andheresy are a priori, internal conditions, not constructed categories. On thisview, Polycarp does not make Marcion a heretic but only recognizes himas such.33 Even so, the story itself implicitly contemplates a situation inwhich Marcion’s status is not so clear-cut: Marcion, at least, seems toimagine that he has a chance at legitimation; for the reader, too, Marcion’sstatus momentarily hangs in the balance. What effectively moves himinto the ‘heretic’ column is Polycarp’s response, especially his removal ofMarcion from social and cultic integration with other Christians. Likea more successful Philagrus, Polycarp confirms both his own authorityand his conception of Christianity by asserting his control over access tothe defining activities of church life. As a paradigm for the “orthodox”response to “heresy,” this story tells us much about how, in Irenaeus’view, orthodoxy and heresy took shape. As among sophists, so too amongChristians: Irenaeus holds that an orthodox Christian is one acknowledgedas such by a recognized authority, while a heretic is a person repudiated andexcluded by such a figure. He calls faithful believers to follow Polycarp’sexample and join in protecting the boundaries of the church by severingcontact with those who stray from the truth.

Questions of pedigree percolate in the background of this passage as well.For Irenaeus, agreement with the apostles is the criterion of orthodoxy but,since the content of apostolic teaching is precisely the issue here, personalconnections serve to tip the scales of debate. Polycarp’s conformity with theapostles is corroborated by his acquaintance with them, while Marcion’sdeviance is diagnosed in genealogical terms: he is the child of Satan andan intellectual descendant of Simon Magus, the father of all heretics (patreomnium haereticorum, Haer. 3 pr.). His exclusion from communication(and communion) with legitimate Christians simply reiterates the funda-mental alienation of his spiritual lineage from its inception, or so Irenaeuswould have us understand. Lastly, the story itself, which paints Polycarpas an irrefutable arbiter of orthodoxy, second only to the apostles, reflectsin turn on Irenaeus, former student of Polycarp and expert diagnosticianof heresy. In the context of the Against Heresies, Irenaeus’ connection to

32 �&� ��=5�� G �� 4�! 1�� , G �� 8��7� ��7�!�� , G ��4 � 8�� . Marcion holds that the (Jewish) Creator is distinct from, and unrelated to,the Christian God, the Father of Christ, a proposition that both Polycarp and Irenaeus reject asblasphemous.

33 As King 2003: 33 puts it, “according to this reasoning, the polemicists’ prescriptions to shun hereticswould be recognized not as promoting division but rather as recognizing the schism that, from theirperspective, the heretics had already established by being different.”


Christians in the world of the Second Sophistic 13

Polycarp – and through him, to the apostles – lends powerful support tohis authority as an architect and defender of Christian orthodoxy.

Here we may return to Philostratus, for on this score he has much incommon with Irenaeus. His Lives purport to catalogue the major figuresof what he christens the Second Sophistic, describing each one’s “goodand bad points, and in what he succeeded or failed, whether by luck orjudgment” (VS 480).34 This formulation, however, conceals the degree towhich the Second Sophistic as Philostratus presents it is his own invention –and the degree to which his own position within the movement dependson his version of its history. He implies that in recording successes andfailures, he is simply reporting self-evident fact. Yet the clash betweenPhilagrus and Amphicles reveals how little consensus existed on that point:Philagrus goes away thinking he has won, and the audiences of Romeaccept him as a great star, while Athenian connoisseurs of rhetoric regardhim as an overrated fool. It is only the control that Philostratus exertsover his narrative that leads us to believe that a final, correct judgment hasbeen, or can be, reached in such cases. Likewise Irenaeus, standing in themiddle of a swirling controversy over what (and who) should be includedwithin Christianity, speaks as though that question had been answeredeven before it was asked. For Irenaeus, the pay-off is the creation of a visionof orthodoxy that enshrines his own theology (and his allies) as the onlylegitimate expression of Christianity; for Philostratus, it is the depiction ofa sophistic movement that places him in a privileged position, both as asophist and as a historian of sophists.

christians in the social world of the second sophistic

Philagrus and Philostratus would no doubt have been offended to hearthemselves compared with Christian bishops and theologians. The feelingwas mutual: in early Christian texts, the word “sophist” generally bearsits disparaging Platonic overtones, used to mark the difference betweenChristian truth and both Greek culture and “heretical” error.35 And inmost ways, the central experiences and preoccupations of sophists andChristians were widely disparate:36 there was no metaphysical truth or

34 �� :� ��=� � �� 7�� . . . H � ��9��!�� I�� 8��=�� J �2�. J� 9��..

35 “Sophist” is the negative exemplar of Greek paideia e.g. in Tatian, Orat. 35.1. For the alignment of“heretics” with “sophists,” see Dahl 1964; Karris 1973; Le Boulluec 1985: 135–57; Lyman 2003a: 220and 2003b: 48; Lim 1995: 111, 142–4 and Boyarin 2008: 222–3 describe the strategy in late antiquity.

36 Emphasized by Stowers 2001: 95–6; cf. Momigliano 1976: 274.



eternal salvation at stake in sophistic rhetoric, no religious orthodoxy ororthopraxis in question, no contests over authoritative exegesis of canonicalscripture, no border to defend against Jews and pagans, although thenotoriously fluid boundary between sophistic and philosophy does presentsome similarities. Likewise, many of the concerns that loom large forPhilostratus or Lucian – fluent improvisation, florid or simple style, correctAtticist usage, public honors – have little direct relevance for second-century Christians. The specialized world of public ex tempore declamationwas not on the horizon of Christian teachers, who rarely performed inpublic except in the limited context of martyrdom and in the fantasy worldof the apocryphal Acts. Nor, presumably, would viewers have taken Marcionor Polycarp for sophists: the self-presentation of Christians was (or wassupposed to be) sharply and self-consciously distinct from that of sophists.Christians might affect the mantle of the philosopher (Jus. Dial. 1.1–2; Tert.Pall.), but the translucent robe and high-heeled shoes, the swaggering walkand elaborate hairstyle of the celebrity orator (Luc. Rh. pr. 11, 15) were tobe off-limits for Christians as they were for philosophers (Clem.Al. Paed.2.10.107–11.117; 3.2–3, 11.53.4–73.4; cf. Epict. 3.1). Clement of Alexandriaurges that Christians’ dress should be simple and unadorned – certainlynot see-through (Paed. 2.10.107.5)! – their walk “grave and leisurely, butnot dawdling, not strutting in the streets or looking at passersby with one’snose in the air” (Paed. 3.11.73.4).37 For Irenaeus, self-important swaggering(cum institorio et supercilio incedit) is a telltale sign of “heresy” (Haer. 3.15.2).

Nevertheless, Christian intellectuals were closer in background and habi-tus to Second Sophistic pepaideumenoi than either would have liked toadmit. Polycarp and Marcion both belonged to roughly the same Greekurban elite in which Philagrus and Amphicles moved, although not at thesame stratospheric levels.38 Apparently a household name in Smyrna (Mart.Pol. 3.2), Polycarp was wealthy enough to own at least two estates outside

37 �� > �� & ��=�� , � � �� 2��>� 8�� , �: � %=�� 4 , �:� � 8 �>� (��>� �� 85��=K� ��%�� #� �0� �� . Brown 1988: 122–39 and Gleason 1995: 55–81 place Clement’sprescriptions for Christian dress and deportment in the context of second-century debates over elitemale self-fashioning.

38 The social level of early Christians is a perennial subject of debate. Current consensus holds that inthe first three centuries Christians were spread across the entire socioeconomic spectrum, with theexception of the senatorial elite; see the recent summary in Meeks 2006: 156–9. Likewise, while theelite status of sophists is indisputable, scholars remain divided on the extent to which sophists owedtheir wealth and high political visibility to their sophistic activity (so Bowersock 1969; Whitmarsh1998: 196–9; Pernot 2005: 190–1) or to their aristocratic origins (Bowie 1982; Schmitz 1997: 50–63,with some qualifications; R. R. R. Smith 1998: 80; Billault 2000: 17–19). Philostratus’ picture ofsophists moving in the highest echelons of Roman imperial society has also been questioned by Rife2009.


Limits of the study 15

the city (Mart. Pol. 5.1, 6.1, 7.1), and he may once have been on familiarterms with a procurator’s wife (Ign. Pol. 8.2). At his trial, charged with thesophistic task of persuading the people, he echoes Philagrus’ boundary-drawing refusal: while the proconsul deserves to hear his defense, thepeople do not (8��7 �� :2 ��&�� 57��; Mart. Pol. 10.2).39 Asfor Marcion, a shipbuilder from Pontus, he was reportedly rich enough todonate 200,000 HS to the Roman church (Tert. Praescr. 30.2), and eru-dite enough to bring Alexandrian text-critical techniques and a sensibilityinformed by current philosophical theology to bear on the texts of thegospel and Paul.40 His leading adversaries – Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Ter-tullian, Clement, Hippolytus – were likewise men of intimate, if prickly,acquaintance with Greek paideia. In the last decade, recognition of thiscongruence has sparked a proliferation of scholarship that seeks to locateChristian authors within the horizons of the Second Sophistic. In partic-ular, Christians have been seen as both appropriating and reacting againstsophistic models of teaching, discipleship, and paideia and engaging withSecond Sophistic themes of carving out identity within and against Hel-lenism and/or Roman imperial hegemony.41 Most important to us here isthat Christians, sophists, and philosophers faced a common problem: theneed to demarcate the boundaries of a group in which membership washighly desirable (at least in some quarters), but poorly defined and institu-tionally fluid. In response, I argue, they brought to bear an illuminatinglysimilar repertoire of social strategies that start from the assumption thataffiliations map affinities and can thus be used both to evaluate and torevise identity claims.

limits of the study

Chronologically, this book covers the “long century” from the Flavians tothe Severans,42 although we will occasionally venture beyond these limits inpursuit of a relevant source. This is, of course, the period that Philostratus

39 Hopwood 2000: 239 compares this to the refusal of the sophist Nicetes to address the general public(Philostr. VS 511). Lane Fox 1986: 465–79 analyzes the self-positioning of Polycarp’s third-centuryimitator Pionius within and against the sophistic culture of Smyrna; cf. Castelli 2004: 92–102.

40 Gager 1972; Grant 1993: 34–6; Gamble 2006: 197–8.41 E.g. Alexander 1994 and 2001; Horner 2001: 72–84; Winter 2002; Lyman 2003a and 2003b; Brent

2006; Adler 2009; J. Perkins 2009; Nasrallah 2010. Among older scholarship, see esp. Jaeger 1961;Judge 1961; Fredouille 1972: 182–3; Hock 1980; Barnes 1985: 211–32. Lyman and Nasrallah in particulardraw attention to parallels in the self-fashioning of Greek-speaking eastern pepaideumenoi suchas Justin, Tatian, Lucian, and Numenius. Such comparisons are often illuminating, but can beoverdrawn; Stowers 1984 and 2001 offers useful correctives.

42 Schmitz 1997: 33.



christened the Second Sophistic (VS 481), an era that marks a more distinctphase in the history of rhetoric than perhaps he knew. Sophistic rhetoricwas not reborn from nothing under the Flavians, nor did it disappear afterthe mid third century ce.43 Still, the Flavian period did inaugurate a surgein the visibility and prestige of sophistic, buoyed by imperial patronage andthe emergence of paideia as a privileged locus of competition among Greek(and Roman) elites.44 At the other end, Christopher Jones has shown thata decisive shift in taste was underway already when Philostratus wrote,45

away from the improvised declamations that he cherished as the hallmarkof the Second Sophistic, and toward the more literary style exemplified byAelius Aristides.46 Greek philosophy, too, achieves new social prominencein the late first century and takes another marked turn in the middle ofthe third century with the rise of Neoplatonism, so that this period can betaken as marking a distinct phase in the history of philosophy as well.47

For Christianity, meanwhile, this period was an age of ferment andexperiment, in which the core institutions of later Christianity took shape,at least in rough outline. By the middle of the third century an extensivemachinery of “orthodoxy” was being forged: a powerful clerical hierarchy,largely fixed scriptural canon, credal norms of interpretation, and increas-ingly well-theorized mechanisms of certification, for both lay believers andclergy. In our period those institutions remain disputed works in progress,and I will argue that manipulation of social connections represents onecrucial means by which those structures were produced and debated. Dis-cursive, social modes of contestation never disappeared, of course, andscholars have traced the intertwining of social networks and theologicaldebate in late antiquity.48 The emergence of widely disseminated ide-ological standards, monarchical bishops, and corporately owned churchproperty in the third century changed the character of debate significantly,however, and will accordingly mark the terminus of the present study.

43 On late Republican and Julio-Claudian antecedents, see Bowersock 1965: 2–6 and 1969: 9; Winter2002.

44 Brunt 1994, the most recent challenge to the reality of the Second Sophistic, has found few adherents.Whitmarsh 1998: 196–9 and Sidebottom 2009: 92–9 discuss the interplay between Roman imperialpower and the rise of pepaideumenoi in the late first century ce.

45 Jones 2002 has demonstrated that Gordian III makes a better candidate for dedicatee of the VS thaneither Gordian I or II, which would date the work to 242–4.

46 Jones 2008b. For Elsner 2009: 14, Philostratus is conscious of standing at the end of the SecondSophistic: “In a brilliant series of literary performances he effectively caps and kills the tradition. Heexplodes letter-writing, re-invents ecphrasis, takes Homerkritik into areas of mystic revelation fromwhich it could hardly recover, encyclopaedises and effectively signs off the entire Second Sophisticto date in the VS.”

47 Hahn 1989: 13–14, 30–2.48 E.g. Brown 1970; E. Clark 1992: 16–42; Van Dam 2003: 15–45; Miles 2008.


Limits of the study 17

Taking Second Sophistic intellectuals as the chief comparandum for earlyChristian group formation has meant largely bypassing two other axes ofaffinity, the household and the voluntary association. Both are of profoundrelevance to the construction of Christian identity and notions of belong-ing, and both have been very fruitfully studied in recent decades.49 Insightsfrom those studies have enriched my thinking and will occasionally appearin these pages, but for the most part I have chosen to concentrate insteadon the ways in which the more diffuse patterns of group identificationamong sophists and philosophers can illuminate and be illuminated by thenegotiations conducted within and across early Christian congregations.

Sophists and philosophers were not the only second-century groupsto confront the challenge of crafting a distinctive identity over againstdangerously proximal rivals and in the absence of clear, institutionallysanctioned criteria of inclusion. Of many that could have been included,I will single out two. First, doctors, a category that overlaps so extensively,and so self-consciously, with philosophers and sophists that any distinctionbetween them can be approximate at best.50 Galen moved in the samecircles as Philostratean sophists and shared much with them in professionalmethods and strategies of self-promotion, while his ambition to capturethe cultural prestige of philosophy for medicine is encapsulated in the titleof his treatise, That the Best Doctor Is Also a Philosopher.51 At the sametime, physicians engaged in a ceaseless struggle to define what exactly“medicine” was as distinct from other forms of healing, and to assert thesuperiority of their art to rival disciplines like gymnastike.52 The social andrhetorical dynamics of these self-definitional contests present suggestiveparallels to (and complications of ) the patterns traced in this book.53

Another regrettable omission is the nascent rabbinic movement, whose

49 A few examples among many: Wilken 1971, 2003 [1984], esp. 31–47; Meeks 1983: 75–81; Sandnes1994; Kloppenborg and Wilson 1996; L. M. White 1996; Osiek and Balch 1997; Hellerman 2001;Ascough 2003; Harland 2003, 2009; Gehring 2004; Osiek and MacDonald 2006.

50 For example, Apuleius, whose smooth blurring of (or ability to slide between) the personas of rhetorand philosopher defies easy classification, cites an interest in medical diagnosis among the pursuitsthat mark him as a philosopher (Apol. 48–51).

51 On Galen as a sophistic performer, see Bowersock 1969: 59–75; von Staden 1997. Konig andWhitmarsh 2007: 25 observe that equating medicine with philosophy “allows [Galen] to separatehis own expertise not only from other disciplines, but also from the activity of those he represents asmore disreputable and incompetent claimants to medical knowledge, whose expertise is not worthyof that label.” Of course, not all doctors moved at Galen’s heady level: see Nutton 1995, 2005:253–62.

52 Nutton 2005: 173–4, 248–71; Konig 2005: 254–300, 315–25 (medicine vs. gymnastike).53 In an influential article von Staden 1982 connected the Christian concept of “heresy” to medical

usage; Nutton 2005: 250–1 notes the (limited) role of membership in medical associations in definingwho was a medicus.



emergence in the second century is closely entwined with the formationof early Christianity and exhibits many of the same strategies, both textualand social.54 I have been sorry to pass over these groups, but the book islong enough as it is, and the medical and rabbinic sources lie beyond mycompetence.

overview

At the center of this book is the identity-defining capacity of social rela-tionships – or, more precisely, the interplay between social bonds, affinities,and the assertion of identity, both individual and collective. Each section isdedicated to a different kind of relationship, and the self-definitional strate-gies that cluster around it. The argument spirals upward from face-to-faceinteractions to textualized, retrospective representations of collectivities,at every stage seeking to draw the Christian formation of orthodoxy intodialogue with Second Sophistic contests over identity and prestige. Whatbegins with tussles over entry to a lecture hall or eucharistic gatheringculminates with historiographic attempts to produce a definitive map ofan entire community, past and present, following the lines of its consti-tutive social networks. These different levels of individual and corporateself-fashioning flow into each other: the social mechanisms by which dis-tinctions between self and other(s) are drawn in face-to-face encountershave analogues in textualized authorizing discourse, which in turn feedsback into the behavior of actors “on the ground.”

The first chapter, “Inclusion and identity,” argues that the boundariesof the circles of sophists and philosophers, as of the (“orthodox”) Christiancommunity, were understood as physically instantiated in, and open toregulation in terms of, attendance at their central activities. The sites ofperformance, worship, and encounter supplied an opportunity to cultivatethe relationships that marked insider status, and an arena in which thoserelationships could be visibly advertised. Entrance to those spaces was thusan indispensable precondition of membership and jealously guarded bythose who saw themselves as defenders of their community’s integrity.At the same time, we must take account of the opposing pressures thathindered such efforts. The material conditions of instruction, performance,and worship rendered strict control of participation unattainable, while theideal of limiting attendance clashed with the needs of performers to attractlarge audiences and/or engage therapeutically with a broad public, and of

54 See esp. Cohen 1980; Boyarin 1999, 2004; Tropper 2004; Lieu 2004.


Overview 19

a missionary faith charged with welcoming “all who come in the name ofthe Lord.”

The next pair of chapters examines tensions between pepaideumenoi andChristians about where authority over membership in their communitieslay. If identity depends on recognition by significant others, which oth-ers are in fact significant? In Chapter 2 I trace an insistence on the part ofsophists and philosophers on the irrelevance of external, non-specialist per-spectives; only expert insiders – marked by their acceptance by other insid-ers – could confer status within their professional communities. Chapter 3explores the process by which an emerging clerical hierarchy graduallyclaimed the right to define “orthodox” Christian identity as its exclusiveprerogative. This monopoly came at the expense not only of “outsiders,”namely those marginalized as heretics, but also of other forms of authority,including church patrons, and of the broad mass of believers, who werereconfigured as “non-expert” laity in language that echoes the denigrationof non-specialist opinion by pepaideumenoi. In both cases, attempts to dis-tance expert “insiders” from amateurs and outsiders entwine with effortsto create hierarchies and boundaries within the group.

The remaining chapters investigate ways in which the rhetorical andsocial strategies brought to bear in face-to-face contests translated inthe authorizing texts that both record and participate in those contests.Chapter 4 centers on Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists, arguing that his“creation” of the Second Sophistic is a form of self-fashioning that repli-cates, while seeking to transcend, the methods of his professional peers. Hisnotoriously limited survey of sophistic history spotlights his own academicancestors and allies to the virtual exclusion of all others, while advancingan implicit sophistic canon and establishing his own canonizing authorityin turn. Both forms of authorization depend on the vision of the “circleof sophists” as a self-contained, self-generating, self-regulating communityshown in previous chapters to be crucial to the posture of Philostratus’colleagues and subjects.

Chapter 5 examines parallels between Philostratus’ approach and thatof early Christian heresiologists, whose works likewise promoted compre-hensive yet idiosyncratic maps of their community. These authors seek tonaturalize a distinctive vision of what it means to be Christian as the self-evident consensus of (authentic, “orthodox”) insiders. They achieve thisin part through carefully selective recording of relationships, personal andtextual, between prototypical representatives of “orthodoxy” and “heresy,”and by excluding from consideration the views of dissenters configured asoutsiders. Their works aim to provide definitive statements of “orthodox”



consensus; textuality holds out the promise of freezing the kaleidoscopeof shifting self-definition on a single image, and establishing the authorsthemselves as the ultimate insiders.

Claims about pedigree and origins undergird many of these debates overlegitimacy. In the next pair of chapters those historical relationships cometo the fore, in the form of the succession lists that supply an organizingprinciple of many intellectual histories in our period, pagan and Chris-tian. Here we have largely to do with literary constructions of identity,but concrete social relationships continue to provide the mechanism ofdefinition. Chapter 6 surveys the use of succession lists in early imperialintellectual historiography. The audacity with which pagan authors exploitthe successions format has often gone unnoticed behind its bland, for-mulaic surface. In fact, such lists frequently promote deceptively idiosyn-cratic conceptions of their discipline, by delicately rewriting its lineage inaccord with the author’s vision of its proper identity. Chapter 7 exploresearly Christian exploitation of the same device, both legitimizing anddelegitimizing. Second- and third-century heresiologists labor to organize“orthodoxy” and “heresy” into distinct, competing family trees, naturaliz-ing the borders between the two as merely reinscribing pre-existing socialfault lines. Although totalizing in their claims, no single model immedi-ately prevailed; instead, rival genealogies of both “heresy” and “orthodoxy”advance competing visions of what it means to be Christian. Over time,Christian history, and hence the scope of “orthodoxy,” is retrospectivelyconstricted, as the ranks of significant ancestors are gradually thinned. Notonly “heretics” but also authorizing successions of prophets, martyrs, andteachers are pruned away, leaving only bishops, reimagined as successors ofthe apostles, as the defining center of the church. Nonetheless, the resultinghistoriographic scheme, which survives in the doctrine of apostolic suc-cession, is rooted in the everyday life of early Christian churches, and anequation of social affiliation and identity that Christians shared with earlyimperial pepaideumenoi.

Trim: 228mm × 152mm Top: 11.95 mm Gutter: 18.98 mmCUUK1999-01 CUUK1999/Eshleman ISBN: 978 1 107 02638 4 July 9, 2012 10:9

chapter 1

Inclusion and identity

Recognition and inclusion, literal and figurative, are at the heart of theencounters between Polycarp and Marcion, Philagrus and Amphicles. Inthe former, the storyteller Irenaeus explicitly equates the two and connectsboth with the process of Christian self-definition: Polycarp’s view of what itmeans to be Christian finds concrete expression in a set of persons admit-ted to (“orthodox”) Christian worship. That a definition of sophistry is atissue in the clash between Amphicles and Philagrus is less obvious. On itsface, this is a battle over status and market share, unfolding within the ago-nistic atmosphere in which members of the educated urban elite typicallyoperated. The students of Herodes Atticus can be seen as defending theirmaster’s turf against a threatening newcomer, or trying to raise their ownprofiles at the expense of an older sophist who looks like an easy target.Philagrus, meanwhile, newly arrived in town and in a hurry to establishhis reputation in the Athenian market, tries to ensure the success of his up-coming local debut by removing a potential heckler from his audience. Hisletter to Herodes, taking the latter to task for his students’ behavior, assertshis own place in the professional pecking order: he is not in competitionwith the insolent student Amphicles, but on the same level as the eminentHerodes, able to advise him as a seasoned peer.1 Yet in the aggregate thesekinds of battles over individual standing do add up to an effort to regulatemembership in the circle of sophists, and hence to define what exactly itmeant to be a sophist.

Underlying both attempts is the presupposition that the boundaries ofintellectual disciplines, on the one hand, and the Christian community, onthe other, could be understood as physically instantiated in, and open toregulation in terms of, attendance at paideutic performance and eucharis-tic worship respectively. This equation of inclusion and group identity,

1 Philagrus, whom Philostratus deems a model teacher (�2�� & ��=��, VS 578), might wellhave thought he had something to teach Herodes about how to handle students.

21


22 Inclusion and identity

together with the corresponding need for strategic exclusions, pervadesancient thought and behavior. Participation in religious ritual served toarticulate and reinforce both individual and communal identities;2 thepurity of the community’s interaction with the divine was preserved byexcluding the polluted and the sacrilegious from shrine and sacrifice.3 Atthe symposium, an institution closely linked with both the sacrificial mealand the display of elite paideia,4 maintaining cohesive conviviality couldrequire exclusion of both certain kinds of speech (Xenoph. 1.13–14, 21–4)and certain people. Plutarch stresses the importance of inviting the rightguests for the occasion (Quaest. conv. 679c–d, 708d–709d) and cautionsthat both conversational topics and friends should be admitted only iftested and approved (�� , 697e; cf. 645f).5 Defense of sacri-ficial purity, sympotic amity, and sectarian boundaries converge in Lucian’sSymposium, where Stoic guests turn their backs on an Epicurean in disgust,as if he were a parricide or polluted (8 ��) (Symp. 6). Christian wor-ship was no exception to this pattern; the contrast once frequently drawnbetween Christianity as a universalizing religion of belief and orthodoxyand the practice-centered, locative religions of Mediterranean antiquity hasincreasingly yielded to acknowledgment of the centrality of ritual partici-pation, orthopraxy, and place in defining what it meant to be Christian.6

In later antiquity, control of physical space played a crucial role inbattles to define Christianity, since locally prevailing “orthodoxy” couldoften be identified spatially, as well as theologically: legitimate Christianswere held to be those gathered in basilicas and other authorized sites, while“private or household space was, and increasingly became, the context ofopposition over and against more public or imperially sanctioned worshipspace.”7 This logic held, at least in the eyes of the current winners, even

2 Bruit Zaidman and Schmitt Pantel 1992: 29–30, 34–6, 80–91; Sourvinou-Inwood 2000a, 2000b;Rives 2007: 105–31. Sourvinou-Inwood 2000a: 48–51 details exclusions of non-citizens from fullreligious participation in Greek poleis.

3 Parker 1983; Burkert 1985: 75–9; Versnel 1985; Lindsay 2000: 154–6.4 On the overlap between symposium and sacrifice, see Schmitt Pantel 1990; D. E. Smith 2003: 67–86.5 Elsewere he notes that some people exclude philosophers as a way of excluding philosophical

conversation, which they find anti-sympotic (612f). Plutarch disaproves (cf. 716d–f), but he concedesthat philosophers who insist on bringing up complex, obscure subjects in mixed gatherings are “unfitfor company” (�:�� . . . 8�� ! 7� , 614e–f). The larger tension between thecompeting ideals of democratic openness, equality, and heterogeneity, on the one hand, and socio-cultural homogeneity and aristocratic self-legitimation, on the other, is beyond the scope of thisdiscussion.

6 For problematization of the underlying dichotomy between thought (belief ) and action (ritual), seeBell 1992.

7 Maier 1994, 1995, 2005 (quotation at Maier 1994: 79); Sandwell 2007: 45–7. On friction betweenepiscopally directed and domestic worship more generally, see Bowes 2005: 205–10 and 2007; Denzey


Inclusion and identity 23

when the definition of “orthodoxy” shifted and basilicas changed hands.Spatial gamesmanship of that sort is not available before the middle ofthe third century, when corporately owned church structures begin toappear. The underlying theory, however – an equation of “orthodoxy”with participation in worship with other “orthodox” Christians – is voicedalready in late first-century Christian texts, as is the corollary, that thepurity of the group could be protected by restricting entrance to thespaces of worship. Contemporary pepaideumenoi do not state as overtlythat inclusion and exclusion serve as an index of membership, with theresult that this feature of Second Sophistic self-definition has been less wellrecognized. Philagrus’ banishment of Amphicles, however, points to use ofthis strategy of corporate self-fashioning among early imperial intellectualsas well. I will argue that its operation can be traced more widely amongsophists and, more ambivalently, philosophers.

Such contests over access treat interactions with other recognized mem-bers of the group as a medium for both assessing and regulating identity.Social credentials are scrutinized as external signs of inner reality: beingknown as the student of a well-regarded teacher or the mentor of well-regarded students, feeling oneself (and being felt by others) to be part ofa “golden chain” of philosophers, being treated as a fellow insider in pro-fessional contexts (classes, declamations, public encounters) or assembliesfor worship, receiving the approval of those peers and having one’s ownapproval esteemed as worth gaining. The sites of performance, worship,and encounter supplied opportunities to cultivate such relationships, pos-itive and negative, and an arena in which they could be visibly advertised.Entrance to those spaces was thus an indispensable precondition of mem-bership, and jealously guarded by those who saw themselves as defendersof their community’s borders. In the world of elite paideia, undesirablesworthy of exclusion run a rough gamut from rivals seen as undeservingor deviant to unpromising students to the general (but still largely elite)public, who might deform the intellectual enterprise through poor judg-ment or inappropriate expectations. Christians like Polycarp seek to erectbarriers against those whom they regard as bearers of intolerable difference,

2007: 180–9. MacMullen 2009 argues suggestively, if too exuberantly, that the overwhelming bulkof post-Constantinian Christianity was centered outside the physical and ideological confines ofbasilicas. Cod. Theod. 16.5, “Concerning Heretics,” spanning a period from 326 to 435, is pepperedwith imperial prohibitions of “heretical” assemblies and threats against their hosts: see esp. 16.5.4,11, 12, 30, 33, 36.1, 40.7, 58pr. As Sessa 2007 emphasizes, however, the cubiculum was a multivalentsite, associated not only with secrecy and illicit activity, but also with personal spirituality andself-improvement.



whether ritual, ethical, or doctrinal, and to solidify those boundaries bymaneuvering others to one side or the other.

Attempts at social boundary construction were complicated, however,by countervailing pressures, both theoretical and practical. Despite oursources’ insistence to the contrary, there were no consensus definitions of“Christian,” “sophist,” or even “philosopher.” Determining who deservedentry into each community thus operated in a perpetual feedback loopwith establishing what exactly the community was, who had the authorityto permit or withhold access to it, and on what basis. More practically,the project of controlling the group’s identity by policing access to itsactivities was hampered by the uncoordinated pluralism of its constituentunits and the informality and permeability of the spaces in which theyoperated. Recent studies have reflected fruitfully on the material conditionsof ancient education, highlighting the difficulties of imposing consistentdisciplinary or sectarian identities or standards – to the extent that this wasseen as desirable – in an instructional landscape crowded with schools ofwidely varied types meeting in a wide variety of improvised spaces, bothpublic and private.8 Decentralization and ease of entry into the spaces inwhich intellectuals and Christians operated stoked fears within each groupthat its ranks would be infiltrated, its identity adulterated by undeservingoutsiders. As a result, the accessible spaces in which pepaideumenoi andChristians gathered become not only an apt metaphor for the challengesand contradictions of patrolling vaguely defined and porous borders, butalso, at times, literal sites of contestation.

Further, restricting attendance cannot have held much appeal for per-formers who relied on attracting large audiences for fame and income; forthose who depended on student fees for their livelihood, turning awayhearers was surely not an option to be exercised frequently. Philosophersand Christians wrestled, too, with striking a balance between engagementwith a broad public and limiting their audiences in the interest of ideo-logical purity and/or pedagogical quality. This struggle touches on a largertension that will run through this book, between secrecy and exclusivityon the one hand, and transparency and accessibility on the other. FrankKermode has dissected the allure, even necessity, of esoteric understandingfor the exegete: implicit in every act of interpretation is that the objectunder scrutiny conceals hidden meanings perceived only by insiders; to

8 Natali 2000; Snyder 2000; Cribiore 2001; Benatouıl 2006. The challenge to philosophical sectsof maintaining a cohesive (“orthodox”) identity without fixed doctrinal norms or, in the imperialperiod, institutional centers is discussed by Lynch 1972: 135–62; Dillon 1979, 1982; Sedley 2003:15–20; C. Gill 2006: 36–8.


Accommodations and boundaries 25

understand is to be on the inside, and vice versa.9 This theme is explicitin the gospels, Kermode’s focus, but the image of a discipline as a mystery,its texts as shuttered to all but initiates, is a topos in the world of elitepaideia as well.10 But divining “latent mysteries” comes at the cost of “thepossibility of consensus, and of access to a single truth at the heart of thething.”11 The same Christian authors who celebrate scripture’s conceal-ment of its mysteries argue that truth must be public, shared, agreed uponby all. They charge that Greek philosophy is too elitist to be useful andthat esoteric meanings uncovered by their Christian rivals are nothing butidiosyncratic fictions.12 This charge picks up a Platonic critique of priva-tized, self-enclosed (sophistic) discourses so specialized that they make senseonly to insiders, a position mobilized at need by imperial pepaideumenoi aswell.13

Accordingly, we will have to consider not only the rhetorical and socialpower of exclusivity as a method of self-definition, but also its limitations.The notion that full participation was restricted to legitimate insiders, suchthat social inclusion could function as a reliable marker of insider status,is undercut at multiple points by both reality and other strains in eachcommunity’s rhetoric. Yet the unrealizability of that ideal did not makeit less potent. Indeed, the very things that rendered it unattainable – thefragility of our groups’ physical and social boundaries, the elusiveness ofstable self-definition – made it feel all the more necessary.

“stay away from my lectures”: accommodationsand boundaries

Venues for instruction and paideutic display in the early imperial periodspan a continuum from more or less private to entirely public.14 At one endare the private homes in which most advanced education, both philosoph-ical and rhetorical, appears to have been conducted, as well as the symposia9 Kermode 1979, esp. 1–47.

10 Even Aulus Gellius, no one’s idea of an occult writer, adopts this posture (Gell. pr. 19–21).11 Kermode 1979: 122–3.12 For example, Clement of Alexandria praises and imitates the scriptural practice of withholding

some mysteries and cloaking others in obscurity (e.g. Strom. 1.1.13–15, 12.55–6; 7.18.111), but he alsoinsists that Christianity is superior to Greek philosophy because it is accessible to all (1.20.99.1;6.18.167.2–3) and charges “heretics” with picking apart the “accurate transparency” of scripture (< � � ��7! ��%� ��- �� > , 7.18.109.6).

13 Branham 1989: 79.14 Sites of philosophical teaching: Dillon 1979, esp. 67–76; Natali 2000: 209–12; Alexander 1994: 73–6

and 2002: 233–43; Kalligas 2004: 43; C. Gill 2006: 37. Rhetorical venues: Russell 1983: 74–6; Billault2000: 11; Korenjak 2000: 27–33. Konig 2005: 49–51 discusses the gymnasium as a site for literaryeducation. On material conditions of education generally, see Cribiore 2001: 15–44, esp. 31–4.



that remained a privileged site of intellectual display and informal instruc-tion. Some teachers, including Philostratus’ mentor Proclus of Naucratis(Philostr. VS 604) and the Athenian Platonist Calvenus Taurus (Gell. 2.2;7.13; 17.5, 20), taught in their own homes; others used the house of apatron, who might also be a student, for example Plotinus’ Roman host,Gemina (Porph. Plot. 9). The institutional centers once provided by theAthenian philosophical academies were for the most part no longer opera-tive; by the first century ce those schools had either ceased to exist or fadedinto obscurity.15 In the early Empire, most teachers of philosophy, as ofrhetoric, were freelance individuals, operating outside formal institutionalframes; the establishment of endowed chairs of philosophy and rhetoric inseveral major cities was a stimulus to advanced education but did not alterthe basic physical situation of teaching.16 In between lay a spectrum ofsemi-public venues in which sophists and philosophers regularly appeared,ranging from gymnasia, rented lecture halls, city council chambers, andodeia to theaters, temples, colonnades, baths, and even public streets. Atthe other extreme are appearances at great Panhellenic festivals, for examplethe addresses delivered by the Cynic Peregrinus at four successive Olympicfestivals.17

In principle, each type of venue was governed by its own codes of behav-ior and rules about how strictly access was regulated, for both performersand hearers. Different topics were appropriate to an intimate symposiumthan to a lecture before a “large and diverse audience” (�� L�� 9! ��4 ! , Plut. Quaest. conv. 653d–e). Private teach-ing was a place for intensive practice and experimentation in the companyof a relatively select group of peers and students, while public lectures weresites of polished expert display, “a sphere to which a performer should gainaccess only as a socio-cultural privilege earned by educational merit.”18

As Galen explains, “in any of the well-regulated cities it is not permittedfor everyone to speak in public, but only if one is a person of distinctionand can display pedigree, upbringing, and education worthy of addressingthe public do the laws allow him to speak in public” (On the Therapeutic

15 Lynch 1972: 163–207; Glucker 1978; Sedley 2003: 24–8. The Epicurean ��2-, if not the Gardenitself, survived into the second century; Erler 2009: 48 summarizes the evidence.

16 Glucker 1978: 152–3; Benatouıl 2006: 419. The evidence for the endowed chairs in Athens andelsewhere is collected in Marrou 1956: 303–7; cf. Hahn 1989: 126–8, 141–4.

17 Luc. Peregr. 19–20. On these speeches, see Jones 1986: 124–5. On philosophical performances atshrines and festivals generally, see Hahn 1989: 144–7.

18 Von Staden 1997: 44–7, at 47; cf. Stowers 1984: 74–8; Alexander 1994: 74–5.



Method 1.2.3 = 10.10 Kuhn).19 Yet the context of his remark – grousingthat a below-par physician has gained a public hearing – betrays that theserules were not invariably enforced to everyone’s satisfaction. Performersdeemed unworthy by some won their way onto prestigious public stages,to say nothing of the myriad improvised spaces such as the bars where thesophist Aurelius declaimed (Philostr. VS 627), or the Roman bookstoreswhere hack grammarians drummed up business (Gell. 13.31.1–13; 18.4.1–9;cf. 5.4).20 Nor could quality be inferred from accommodations alone: inthose bookstores, the young Aulus Gellius met not only over-hyped incom-petents but also the learned grammarian Sulpicius Apollinaris, who wonhis allegiance by besting a rival in Sallustian exegesis.21 Even the apparentprivacy of domestic teaching was not inviolable. Drop-ins, whether poten-tial students (Epict. 3.1), rival teachers (Philoster. VS 529; Porph. Plot. 14),parents (Epict. 2.14), or simply interested visitors (Epict. 3.9.14; Gell. 2.2;Porph. Plot. 1, 8, 13–14), seem to have been a fairly common feature ofthe ancient school, while the uninvited guest is a topos of symposiumliterature.22

Nor can the distinction between public and private teaching be drawnsharply. For sophists, public performance was a necessary form of advertise-ment and integral to their pedagogy, since attending public declamationswas a necessary part of an orator’s training;23 public lectures formed the bulkof the education of Neilus, a first-century rhetoric student in Alexandria.24

Philosophers were on pedagogical duty at all times, not only in formal

19 �� :� 8��>�� 7� 8 �� : �� ! 4��! , ��’ �M �� 87��4� 8�� 12�� < ��>5�� 7� �57� �& ��> , �� 2!��&�� / 4��.

20 Cf. Gell. 16.6.1–11 (the docks in Brundisium). These men appear to be advertising their services asgrammarians or tutors, but their experiences are not necessarily incommensurate with those higheron the pedagogical ladder. As Cribiore 2001: 31–44, 59–65 notes, accommodations tended to improveas one rose up the scale, but even advanced teachers had to improvise according to their personalcircumstances; she also shows that the boundaries between lower and higher levels of teaching weremore porous than was once supposed.

21 The scene occurs “when, as a teenager at Rome, I had just changed from the toga praetexta ofchildhood, and was now seeking more advanced teachers for myself” (cum iam adulescentuli Romaepraetextam et puerilem togam mutassemus magistrosque tunc nobis nosmet ipsi exploratiores quaereremus,Gell. 18.4). Presumably this quest is what brought Gellius to the bookstore where he witnessedApollinaris’ triumph, and we may infer that Apollinaris, too, was there to advertise his services; seeHolford-Strevens 2002: 83.

22 Hahn 1989: 70–2; Fantham 1996: 211; Korenjak 2000: 25; Alexander 2002: 241.23 Cribiore 2001: 58, 239; Benatouıl 2006: 420; Watts 2006: 29–30.24 P.Oxy. xviii 2190. As Neilus explains in this letter to his father, he has given up on finding a regular

tutor and is instead paying a private tutor for limited guidance, which he supplements by attendingpublic declamations. On this letter, see Rea 1993; Alexander 1994: 69–70; Cribiore 2001: 57–8;Winter 2002: 19–39.



scholastic contexts. In the memoirs of Aulus Gellius, the Academic Favor-inus is seen engaging in learned discourse over dinner (Gell. 2.22, 3.19),in the bath (3.1), during visits to sick friends (2.26; 16.3.1–5) and a newfather (12.1), while waiting for the emperor’s morning salutatio (4.1; 20.1),and before a meeting with a consul in Trajan’s Forum (13.25).25 Markedout by their distinctive look, philosophers needed to be prepared for thepossibility that any casual encounter with a stranger could turn into ateaching situation.26 Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho, for example,begins when Justin’s philosophical garb (�2��) catches the eye of the Jew-ish philosophy student Trypho (Dial. 1–2). In short, neither institutionalmembership nor physical location alone established the credentials of aself-proclaimed specialist in the early Empire.27

A similar, although not identical, set of difficulties bedeviled Christianefforts to assert cohesive group identity through spatial control.28 It haslong been recognized that early Christian congregations looked a greatdeal like philosophical schools, especially to outsiders: that is, like text-centered groups whose identity was rooted in allegiance to a founder, whichmet for shared meals, teaching, study of texts, and/or cultic activities.29

Like advanced education, Christian worship in our period took placeoverwhelmingly in private homes;30 the first extant building dedicated toChristian worship is a renovated house.31 As among pagan pepaideumenoi,the domestic setting of early Christian worship complicated the (alreadyquite complicated) project of crafting a united, uniform identity. It meantthat location alone could not distinguish sanctioned assemblies, practices,and theologies from unsanctioned. When the Antiochene bishop Ignatiuscontrasts valid (%�%��) eucharists with invalid (Smyrn. 8.1), the differenceis one of personnel, not venue: a valid eucharist is defined by the presenceof the bishop or his delegate. When later second- and third-century authorsdistinguish between “churches” and “schools,” these are ideological labels,

25 On these contexts for competitive learned display, see Gleason 1995: 140–3.26 Hahn 1989: 89–92. 27 Stressed by Glucker 1978, esp. 180–4.28 Perrin 2010 discusses similar efforts and their limitations in later antiquity.29 The scholarship on this point is vast; see esp. Nock 1998 [1933]: 164–86; Judge 1961; Wilken 1971:

272–6 and 2003 [1984], esp. 68–93; Malherbe 1983: 45–8; Meeks 1983: 81–4; Stowers 1984, 2001;Alexander 1994, 2001, 2002; Mason 1996; Markschies 1997; Snyder 2000. The centrality of canonicaltexts and devotion to a founder, as well as one’s own teacher, put Christians closer to the philosophicalthan the sophistic end of the spectrum, but for our purposes, those distinctions matter less than thestructures and concerns shared across the spectrum.

30 Rordorf 1964b: 110–16; Petersen 1969; Malherbe 1983: 64–77; Meeks 1983: 75–7; Stowers 1984: 65–70;Lampe 1987: 301–20; Maier 1991; L. M. White 1996.

31 This is the famous house church at Dura Europus. For discussion and bibliography, see L. M. White1996 i: 108–9, 120–2; ii: 18–24, 123–35.



not sociological descriptions. For Clement of Alexandria (c. 160–215), a“church” is a group that possesses correct exegesis, tradition, and liturgy,while a “school” is a group that lacks these things; his usage is typical.32

Such ideological divisions hint at spatial differences, but “heresy” couldnot be spatially diagnosed, nor could it be suppressed by mobilizing adistinction between authorized and unauthorized places of assembly.

On the other hand, early Christianity had little public component,33

which we might suppose permitted tighter screening of attendance thanwas available to pagan educators. Yet confinement to private spaces didnothing to allay fears of corruption by “foreign” or undesirable elements;quite the opposite. Despite their comparative privacy, the domestic meet-ing spaces of Christian house churches, as of pagan schools, remainedfairly accessible.34 Paul reminds Corinthian Christians that outsiders andnon-believers (#�� J N��) might drop in on their services (1 Cor.14:16, 23–5). A century and a half later, Christians are still arguing about thedegree of openness desirable to strike the right balance between growth andinternal purity. In the contest over “orthodoxy,” both too much opennessand connectivity (to the outside world) and too little (to other, “orthodox”Christians) can provide grist for a charge of heresy. In Carthage Tertullianupbraids opponents for throwing their (faux) pearls before swine by allow-ing pagans (ethnici) to participate in worship (Praescr. 41.2);35 this chargeruns parallel with claims that rival Christianities represent syncretistic con-taminations of pure Christian teaching.36 Yet too much exclusivity couldalso appear culpable. The accusation of subversive teaching “in corners”is a recurrent theme of intra- as well as anti-Christian polemic,37 while

32 Van den Hoek 1997: 73. The perspectival character of this label comes clearest when, in his Refutationof all Heresies, the Roman presbyter Hippolytus aggressively terms the following of the bishopCallistus a ��>� (Ref. 9.12.20, 24–6). For this reason, the distinction commonly drawnin older scholarship between “churches” or “congregations” and “schools” or “conventicles” hasincreasingly been discarded for our period: see Campenhausen 1969: 178–9; Lampe 1987: 319–20;Brent 1993b: 368–71; Lyman 1999: 84–6 and 2003b: 41. It persists, though, in discussions of the“school of Valentinus” (e.g. Layton 1987: 267–75; Markschies 1997, sensitive to the label’s polemicthrust, but affirming its validity; Dunderberg 2008; Brakke 2010: 115–19), where it serves not only toindicate philosophical character, but also to imply that Valentinian gatherings were more school-likethan other Christian assemblies and/or that they were usually distinct from and supplemental to(“orthodox”) congregations.

33 Stowers 1984: 71–81. 34 Alexander 1994: 81; Osiek and Balch 1997: 16–17.35 etiam ethnici si supervenerint, sanctum canibus et porcis margaritas, licet non veras, iactabunt.36 The charge of syncretism reaches its height in Hippolytus’ Refutation, which asserts that all “heresies”

merely repackage pagan doctrines and practices. On the identification of “heresy” with syncretismin ancient heresiology and modern scholarship, see King 2003; Boyarin and Burrus 2005.

37 Intra-Christian: Hermas, Mand. 11.11.18; Testim. Truth 74.26–30. Anti-Christian: Origen, Cels. 4.23,36; 6.78, cf. 3.55; Min. Fel. Oct. 8. On this topos, see Koschorke 1978: 172–3 n. 16; Dunderberg 2008:191–5.



Tertullian and other polemicists were ready to attack as spiritual elitistsChristians who laid claim to secret knowledge, deeper understanding, orgreater ethical rigor that set them apart from other believers.38 Opennessand exclusivity thus lay on a continuum, with the values of both polesavailable for exploitation against rivals.

Facilitating such disputes over admission policies (and hence identity)was the multiplication of assemblies. Gathering in private, mostly domesticspaces, Christian congregations were typically small – perhaps roughly fortyor fifty adults and children.39 Local churches quickly exceeded the capacitiesof a single congregation, especially in larger cities: the churches of Corinthand Rome were evidently divided into multiple cells already in the lifetimeof Paul.40 By the late second century the Christian community of Romewas made up of a large number of loosely coordinated cells of diversecharacter and type, which ran the gamut from complete independence toclose-knit integration with other local gatherings; the same was true inAlexandria and Carthage.41

That “such a physically divided church tended almost inevitably tobecome a mentally divided church” has long been recognized.42 In themid-to-late second century what passed for “orthodox,” or at least accept-able, Christianity varied not only from region to region but from city tocity, or even one neighborhood or congregation to the next. A remarkfrom Tertullian’s Scorpiace (c. 203) captures the social and mental seg-mentation of a church in a large urban setting. Complaining about theinroads that gnostic evangelists make among “orthodox” believers in timesof persecution, Tertullian warns that their strategy is to feign solicitude, “sothat you mistake them for fellow Christians or pagans of the better sort”(Scorp. 1.6).43 Evidently the Christians of Carthage are scattered enoughthat believers do not all know each other by sight. The diffusion of the localChristian network permits – indeed, encourages – diverse understandings

38 Buell 2005: 116–37 discusses the figuring of spiritual elitism as heresy.39 Hopkins 1998: 204; cf. Harnack 1904–8 ii: 85 (“no more than a couple of dozen people”). Thomassen

2004: 246 guesses higher (“hardly more than a hundred people”), but with similar conclusions.Typical collegia were of comparable size, c. 15–100: see Kloppenborg 1996: 25–6. Osiek and Balch1997: 201–3 rightly argue for more elastic estimates: the capacity of Roman triclinia could varywidely, especially if a peristyle and/or atrium could be used as spill-over space; while 30–50 mighthave been typical for house churches, the grander houses at Pompeii could accomodate crowds inthe hundreds or even thousands.

40 Meeks 1983: 75–7; Dassmann 1984: 88–9.41 On Alexandria, see van den Broek 1996; on Carthage, see Rives 1995: 226–34.42 Filson 1939: 110; cf. Harnack 1904–8 i: 447–9; ii: 85–7; La Piana 1925. Among more recent treatments,

see Lampe 1987, esp. 301–45; Hopkins 1998: 201–7; Maier 2005: 215–21.43 ut putes fratrem aut de melioribus ethnicum.



of Christianity to flourish and enjoy at least tacit mutual acceptance untilsomeone (Tertullian, for example) forces the issue.44 Indeed, although Ter-tullian seeks to reduce the pluralism of local Christianity on some fronts,he was almost certainly one of its beneficiaries, since this same period sawhim moving toward affiliation with the New Prophecy movement whileremaining in tense communion with the local majority church.45

Congregational worship, moreover, was just the tip of the icebergof Christian life, at least in urban centers. In his treatise To His Wife(c. 198–203), Tertullian rattles off a list of things that a pagan husbandmight prevent his Christian wife from doing (Ux. 2.4):

If she has to perform a statio, her husband makes an appointment at the baths forthat day; if she must observe a fast, her husband may put on a banquet on the sameday . . . Moreover, who would allow his wife, for the sake of visiting the brethren,to go around the neighborhoods to other people’s homes, and even to some poorershacks? Who will willingly permit her to be taken from his side for nocturnalmeetings, should the obligation arise? Who, indeed, will accept all-night Eastervigils without concern? Who will let her go without suspicion to that infamousLord’s supper? Who will allow her to sneak into prison to kiss the chains of amartyr? . . . If a traveling brother comes to her, what hospitality will he receive inthat “foreign” household?46

This warning about the pitfalls of marrying a non-Christian man givesa lively overview of Christian life in Carthage at the turn of the thirdcentury. Not only weekly assemblies for eucharistic fellowship but alsobiweekly penitential stationes,47 night-time meetings, and visits to othermembers, including confessors in prison, make up the religious routine ofthis busy woman. The segmentation of local churches, then, encompassesnot only a multiplicity of congregations in one city, but also a multiplicityof commitments on the part of each believer.

44 Lampe 1987: 321, 323.45 Tertullian’s first secure references to the Prophecy are in his Against Marcion (c. 208 ce). Following

Powell 1975b: 33–9, most scholars now accept that there was friction, but not a complete breach,between admirers of the Prophecy and the majority Carthaginian church in Tertullian’s day; fora dissenting view, see Braun 1985: 250–2. The precise institutional form of the New Prophecymovement in Carthage has baffled diagnosis and cannot be addressed here.

46 si statio facienda est, maritus de die condicat ad balneas, si ieiunica observanda sint, maritus eademdie convivium exerceat . . . quis autem sinat coniugem suam visitandorum fratrum gratia vicatim alienaet quidem pauperiora quaeque tuguria circuire? quis nocturnis convocationibus, si ita oportuerit, alatere suo adimi libenter feret? quis denique sollemnibus Paschae abnoctantem securus sustinebit? quis adconvivum dominicum illud, quod infamant, sine sua suspicione dimittet? quis in carcerem ad osculandavincula martyris reptare patietur? . . . si pereger frater adveniat, quod in aliena domo hospitium?

47 On stationes, non-eucharistic meetings dedicated to communal penitential exercises, see Munier1980: 182. Bathing was prohibited on statio days, usually Wednesday and Friday.



Any of these involvements could potentially become the flash-point ofconflict configurable as heresy, for example over questions of ritual (whenand how should one fast?), authority (what power attaches to the martyr inprison?), or reception of visitors (is the traveling frater a genuine Christianor an impostor?). Each in a sense represents a distinct doctrinal position aswell, whether encoded in ritual, embodied in the persons involved (whatare the martyr’s views on penitence or prophecy?), or openly voiced amongparticipants. Fellowship meals (agapes) in particular offered opportunitiesfor informal teaching and discussion. Tertullian describes the standardprocedure at such meals: after dinner, “each one, as he or she is able fromthe holy scriptures or personal invention, is called into the middle tosing to God” (Apol. 39.18).48 This sounds like the Christian version of asymposium, although Tertullian does not use the word, and it is easy tosee how such gatherings could have become occasions for unlicensed, evendissident, instruction;49 open-ended diversity of views is a hallmark of theliterary symposium.50 We may catch echoes of the informal, participatoryatmosphere of agapes and other study circles when Tertullian complainsabout Christians who mistake talkativeness for cleverness and obnoxiousnitpickers (scrupulosi immo temerarii) who like to argue about pointlessquestions (Herm. 1.2; Bapt. 12.1); his treatise On Baptism reproduces whatsounds like a fragment of such a conversation, about scriptural support forwater baptism (Bapt. 12–14).

These extra-congregational gatherings were not necessarily coterminouswith any single congregation’s membership. Rather, believers assembledin shifting constellations, in which they might rub elbows with people(and ideas) that they did not encounter in the course of Sunday worship,whether “orthodox” or otherwise. This is especially clear in our evidence forearly third-century Alexandria, where the emerging bishop-centered churchcoexisted with a riot of complementary and/or competing gatherings forworship and study, of which the circles that clustered around Clement,his Valentinian opponents, Origen, and the “heretic” Paul of Antioch,who shared a patron with him (Eus. Hist. eccl. 6.2–3), are only the bestknown. Origen’s auditors included pagans as well as the already-Christian(Hist. eccl. 6.3.1, 13; 6.18–19), while Paul’s rhetorical prowess attracted

48 ut quisque de scripturis sanctis vel de proprio ingenio potest, provocatur in medium deo canere.49 Indeed, Barnes 1985: 117–20 suggests that agapes provided a setting for Tertullian’s own teaching

activity.50 For the parallel to the symposium, cf. D. E. Smith 2003: 201 on 1 Cor. 14:26. Konig 2008: 88–90,

94–102 discusses the playful, speculative open-endedness of sympotic dialogues and suggests thatthat feature was one factor in early Christians’ avoidance of the genre; G. Clark 2008 and Lim 2008nuance that pattern further.



“a great crowd . . . not only of ‘heretics’ but also of ‘our people’” (Hist.eccl. 6.2.14).51 At the turn of the century, all of these groups fell withinthe loose, variegated orbit of local Christianity, although tensions are visi-ble; in the 230s the bishop Heraclas was still butting heads with membersof his flock who saw no contradiction in attending both common wor-ship and meetings with “heterodox” teachers (Hist. eccl. 7.7.4). Heraclaspushed such floaters to make an all-or-nothing choice by expelling themfrom his church and readmitting them only if they made a full publicexpose of what they had learned. This policy built on decades of effort topush certain circles out of the penumbra of the church as unauthorizedand “heterodox,” while drawing in others as official arms of the church.Clement, Origen, and their followings were retrospectively domesticatedas the church’s official catechetical school (Hist. eccl. 6.6; 6.3.8), while Paul’scircle was presumably nudged toward the margins.52 Participants in suchcircles could accordingly have found themselves unwittingly drifting intoor away from episcopally defined “orthodoxy,” and from “school” to “con-gregation” or vice versa as their self-conception or interactions with thelocal Christian network evolved.

From this perspective, early Christianity – local, regional, and ecu-menical – presents itself as a profusion of micro-communities variouslycomplementing, overlapping, and competing with each other, some mutu-ally oblivious, some coexisting with varying levels of contact and comfort,some openly hostile and seeking to force a separation. Each in a senserepresents a distinct (and sometimes distinctive) instantiation of the move-ment. The informality of these assemblies made them difficult to corral;as with philosophical and rhetorical schools, we should imagine congrega-tions coming and going fairly fluidly, coalescing around particular teachers(or households or patrons) and often dissolving again upon their deathor departure.53 Architects of “orthodoxy” who wished to distill a single,unified identity from this exuberant diversity struggled to bring the linesof affiliation and identification among believers into accord with the linesthey perceived between salvific truth and blasphemous falsity.

Mutually reinforcing patterns of diffusion and differentiation werenot unique to the early church. Geographic dispersion and competition

51 ��7�� -�� & /�� 8 �4�� & A�� . . . �� ’ �:� �:�4 � �/�� , �� ! . This paragraph is adapted from Eshleman 2011; cf. Kyrtatas1987: 139–43.

52 “Domesticated” is the felicitous phrasing of Brakke 2006: 257. On the relation between Clement’sschool and the broader Alexandrian church, see Van den Hoek 1997.

53 On the impermanence of late antique philosophical schools, see Fowden 1977, esp. 379.



between local schools could give rise to diverse paradigms of what it meantto be a sophist or a philosopher: we glimpse this in the popularity in onecity of orators and styles of oratory despised by audiences in another,54 inrivalries between local teachers of contrasting character,55 or in the tendencyof students to shop around until they found a teacher to their liking.56 Onthe whole, though, this possibility sparks less anxiety from Second Sophis-tic pepaideumenoi, who did not share their Christian peers’ aspirations toecumenical unanimity, than among Christians, where institutional andideological pluralism is a subject of intense concern, and correspondinglystrenuous denials.

accessibility and the impostor problem

The conditions of performance and worship thus rendered the notion thatattendance could be restricted to authorized persons more ideal than reality.The same is true on the “production” side of the equation: the informalityand openness of the spaces in question made it unsettlingly easy to setup oneself up as a sophist, philosopher, or Christian authority. In eachcommunity the difficulty of effective gatekeeping fed anxieties that its rankswould be penetrated by unqualified impostors or even deliberate saboteurs,whose presence would corrode its identity. The strenuous insistence bysophists and Christians in particular that their gatherings really were, orcould be, restricted to legitimate members must be understood in part asa defensive response to this discomfiting state of affairs.

Resentful fear of interlopers finds its most trenchant voice in Lucian’ssatires, in which undereducated strivers win undeserved reputations assophists or philosophers through superficial mimicry of their characteristicappearance and speech. As Philosophy bluntly admits in the Runaways,“my characteristics are very easy and accessible to imitate, as you know –I mean, the visible ones. It does not take much effort to throw on a cloak,hang a wallet from your shoulder, carry a staff in your hand, and shout –or rather, bray or bark – and abuse everyone” (Fug. 14).57 Lucian depicts

54 For example, Philagrus never achieved the same reputation at Athens that he did in Rome (Philostr.VS 580). Philostratus, trained in Athens, alludes sneeringly to the “Ionian” style of oratory popularin Ephesus, which one might catch like ophthalmia (VS 598).

55 For example, the competition between the rough, manly philosopher Timocrates and the smooth,lyrical sophist Scopelian divided the elite young men of Smyrna (Philostr. VS 536).

56 Alexander 1994: 68–71 and Lamberton 2001: 438–40 connect the topos of the philosophic itineraryto real student behavior.

57 � �’ �� = � O��, '� ��, �� 8� �7�� 42�� – � �� ! – �� :�� 7�� > ��%9 �� %�� -�� 85��-�� 5�� 8 P. 2�� 12�� %�� , �� Q�� J ��> , �� >�� R�� .


Accessibility and the impostor problem 35

the world of professional pepaideumenoi as almost fatally vulnerable tounqualified poseurs. More earnest than Lucian, Gellius, too, peoples hiswork with successful pseudo-intellectuals. Such men are brought on stagemerely as foils for real experts who puncture their pretensions with ease.58

Since Gellius routinely presents them as famous and well-regarded, though,we infer that others less knowing than he have been taken in. We neednot take these warnings at face value: the charlatan (�4��, ��K9 ), likethe flatterer, is a scare image conjured up to mark the boundary betweeninside and out, and to establish the commitment of author (and audience)to true paideia.59 Yet the sense that the pedagogical market is clogged withshoddy products finds a (relatively) real-world echo in the frustrations ofparents and students in search of qualified teachers. Galen’s father visitedpotential teachers with him, to test their competence; evidently competencecould not be taken for granted (Anim. pass. 8 = 5.8.41.10–45.1 K.). Lessfortunate, the young student Neilus searches fruitlessly among the “trash”(��=��) of Alexandria for an affordable rhetoric teacher who willsatisfy both himself and his father (P.Oxy. xviii 2190, 10). In a crowdedmarketplace without accrediting agencies, how could consumers be sure ofhiring a teacher worthy of the name?

Both amateurs and experts find certainty on this point frustratinglyelusive. The criteria of legitimacy could hardly be more straightforward, orso it seems: as Epictetus repeatedly insists, a true philosopher is not onlycompetent in the doctrines and core texts of his school but also practiceswhat he preaches (1.29–30; 2.1–2, 9; 3.2 and passim).60 Yet inner qualitiesprove difficult to assess directly, and neither location nor physical self-presentation provides an adequate external gauge of quality. As a result,I will suggest, added weight falls on personal connections as a means ofverification.

Early imperial pepaideumenoi tend to be frankly dubious about the abil-ity of consumers to assess professional qualifications, a point to whichwe will return in Chapter 2. They insist that distinguishing the charlatanfrom the genuine article requires rigorous first-hand investigation by anastute customer.61 Yet few consumers are as astute as Galen’s father. Insteadof examining knowledge, skill, or character, amateurs are dazzled by mere

58 These scenes are catalogued by Baldwin 1975: 48.59 Schmitz 1997: 174–5; cf. Branham 1989: 29–37 on Lucian’s narrative poses more generally. Whitmarsh

2006 analyzes the functions of the flatterer as a “scare image.”60 See further Glucker 1978: 183–4 (Epictetus) and 211 (on Gell. 15.2.1–3, where a self-styled Platonicus

fails both the doctrinal and the ethical test).61 E.g. Luc. Herm. 47, with Eshleman 2007/8: 130–1.



book learning or mastery of scholastic exercises, a large library, possession ofphilosophical relics, mass popularity, an endowed chair or post in the impe-rial bureaucracy, and above all the long beard, cloak, and dignified walk ofa philosopher, or the flashy get-up and swish manner of a sophist.62 Yet itis difficult to see what else they could have done, especially since Epictetusand others also repeatedly stress that non-experts (#��) are unqualifiedto judge a philosopher’s character.63 Without disciplinary competence oraccess to the inner life of a pepaideumenos, it was only reasonable to assumethat outward appearance reliably reflected inner character; in the words ofTertullian, ipse habitus sonat (Pall. 6.1).64

Moreover, experts themselves often struggle to articulate or implementclear standards of evaluation. In Lucian’s Eunuch, candidates for the Athe-nian chair in Peripatetic philosophy begin by competing in exactly theterms approved by Epictetus, by touting their grasp of Peripatetic doctrine,loyalty to Aristotle, and ethical fitness (Eun. 4–6, 9). Those criteria proveinsufficient grounds for discrimination, however, and the dialogue quicklydegenerates into an argument over one candidate’s sexual endowment.Outside the realm of satire, Aelius Aristides flummoxes similar attempts todevise a clear, objective definition of what it means to be an (exemption-eligible) orator. Adjudicating his claim to liturgical immunity, the pro-consul Severus offers what seems like an unobjectionable benchmark: oneshould be both “first in oratory” and actively practicing, since “it is onething to be first of the Greeks and supreme in oratory . . . and anotherto engage in this and have students” (Aristid. Or. 50.78, 87).65 Yet the

62 Book learning: Luc. Pisc. 34–5; Epict. 1.4; 2.16–17, 19; 3.21 and passim. Library: Luc. Ind. esp. 1–4.Relics: Luc. Ind. 13–14. Mass popularity: Luc. Rh. pr. 20; cf. pp. 000–000. Endowed chairs: Philostr.VS 566; D.C. 69.3.5; cf. G. Anderson 1993: 31. Imperial office: Philostr. VS 524, 627. Critiques ofdress and deportment as a standard of evaluation are too numerous to list, but Musonius Rufusis typical: “These things too are appropriate for philosophers, but philosophizing does not consistin them, but in right understanding and intention” (�� &� �>� ��4��S��’ �:� 8 �� > 8�� , ��’ 8 � �� > G 2�< �� >��, fr. 16, p. 88Hense). For flashy garb as a short-cut to fame as a sophist, Luc. Rh. pr. 15–16, 19 is definitive.

63 E.g. Epict. 1.29.50–4, esp. 52: “Who is it who ever has the power to express a judgment about you?Does he know what piety or impiety are? Has he practiced that? Has he studied? Where? Withwhom?” (�I�� T 7� �� ( 12! 85��7� �& ��- ��7 � �� &; �� 7 8�� :��% � J � ��%��; �� :4; ��=�� ; �&; �� 7 �;)

64 Hahn 1989, esp. 34–7, 44–5, 57–8; cf. Gleason 1995: 55–81 on “reading” grooming and deportmentas barometers of inner reality. Sidebottom 2009: 81 notes that “the evocations caused by a symbolicrepresentation of the sophist could replace a judgement on virtuosity as the validation of the statusof a sophist.”

65 U��4 8�� VE��- ! �� N�� 8 �4�� . . . �� U�� 7%�� 8� �� 12�� . Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius too treat active professional practice as sinequa non (Aristid. Or. 50.75), while Septimius Severus expects exempt philosophers to be “active anduseful to those striving in the same school of studies” (se frequentes atque utiles per eandem studiorumsectam contendentibus praebent, Dig. 50.5.8.4). On this episode, see pp. 000–000.


Accessibility and the impostor problem 37

ultimate decision in Aristides’ favor seems to depend more on his abilityto pull strings than on his meeting these criteria (at the time in question,he did not).

One solution was for the perplexed consumer to solicit personal recom-mendations, an obvious choice in a society structured around networks ofkinship and amicitia, and one consonant with our emphasis on the socialdimensions of authority and identity. This is the approach that youngNeilus adopts, although without much satisfaction. When we meet him,in the irritable letter he sends home, he has been persuaded by his fellowstudent Philoxenus to sign up with the latter’s tutor (and friend), Didymus,as have their friends the sons of Apollonius.66 Neilus and friends are youngmen from Oxyrhynchus, searching for capable, affordable teachers in thebig city; it is only natural that they would pool their efforts and utilizewhatever personal connections they could. Such word-of-mouth network-ing presumably contributed to the observable tendency of students fromthe same region to find their way to the same teachers.67 Galen confirmsthat this was common practice: he grumbles that most doctors and philoso-phers form professional allegiances without due diligence, simply joiningwhatever hairesis their fathers, teachers, or friends belong to, or the onethat happens to have a well-regarded teacher in their city (Libr. ord. 1 =19.50.4–16 K.); Origen makes the same criticism (Cels. 1.10; 3.19). Indeed,we should expect nothing else: sociologists have shown that conversionregularly travels through social networks, a pattern that has been traced inboth religious and non-religious decision-making.68

Yet most ancient authors who comment on the phenomenon denigrateit as a lazy, unreliable method of judgment, as Galen and Origen do.Lucian ridicules the idea of choosing a philosophical school based on afriend’s recommendation (Herm. 30), while Epictetus, quoting Diogenesthe Cynic, sees no point in writing reference letters: if the recipient is aperson of adequate discernment, the letter will be superfluous; if not, it willnot help (Epict. 2.3.1). The danger, as these authors see it, is that followingrecommendations derails free, disinterested inquiry: instead of samplingthe doctrines of multiple teachers and systematically distinguishing truefrom false, prospective students blindly accept the opinions of others,

66 P.Oxy. xviii 2190, 19–33.67 Watts 2006: 9. On networking and teacher selection, see Alexander 1994: 68–71; Eshleman 2007/8.68 The seminal study is Lofland and Stark 1965; cf. Stark and Bainbridge 1980: 1385–9. Non-religious

choices: Sheingold 1973; Fernandez and McAdam 1988; Christakis and Fowler 1998; Wing and Jeffery1999. Ancient elective associations: Harland 2003: 30–44 and 2009: 29–35. Philosophy: Eshleman2007/8. Mithraism: Gordon 1994: 462; Beck 2006: 192–3. Christianity: Bardy 1949: 250–1; Meeks1983: 29–31, 75–7; MacMullen 1984: 36–41; L. M. White 1985–6; Stark 1996: 3–27; Eshleman 2011.



for the sake of affection or convenience. Another objection, rarely statedopenly, may be that reliance on recommendations puts influence over ateacher’s success or failure in the hands of persons – either consumers orcompetitors – whose taste he may find deficient or uncongenial. At worst,the advocate might not recommend any teacher at all: Aristides complainsthat his Smyrnaean rivals, “the damnable sophists” (�/ ��=�!��7), have been steering tourists toward baths instead of declamations(Or. 33.27–9). Epictetus hints at a third possible problem: the need forrecommendations may expose the fact that the real basis of choice is oftensomething other than intrinsic merit, or that merit is not in fact self-evident.

Behind all these objections, we may detect a note of resentment ofreliance on amateur recommendations as too “consumer driven.” Morecongenial to producers of paideia were methods of discernment that leftthe evaluation of quality and the (ideally literal) separation of the worthyfrom the unworthy in the hands of experts like themselves.69 Like recom-mendations, these approaches to community self-policing exploit personalinteractions to draw (and justify) distinctions among those who hold them-selves out as legitimate purveyors of paideia, but within sharply restrictedhorizons whose very limitations contribute to defining the boundaries ofthe group. Unlike consumer recommendations, this method is availableonly to those who have already staked out a position as an insider. Thisapproach implicitly subordinates the various markers of identity cited bynon-experts to a single standard: legitimate sophists and philosophers arethose whose self-presentation as such is accepted by other legitimate insid-ers. The rhetorical strength of this conception lies in its affirmation of thecommunity’s exclusive right to define itself – a proposition that in turntacitly asserts the self-evident prior existence of the very community calledinto being by the act of definition.

attendance and insider status

If location, external appearance, and consumer reports prove insufficientguides to status as a (true) sophist or philosopher, what then? Recent schol-arship has done much to illuminate the complex games of self-presentationand display of cultural mastery through which early imperial pepaideumenoi

69 Lloyd 2008: 35 points out that when presenting the competing medical sects in his works forbeginners, Galen carefully steers readers toward his own view, rather than leaving them to make uptheir own minds.


Attendance and insider status 39

sought to position themselves in the landscape of Greek paideia.70 This sec-tion explores another measure of identity, namely relationships with otherpepaideumenoi and full participation in the central, defining activities oftheir disciplines. The importance of such interactions, both positive andnegative, in sophistic self-presentation is most famously summed up byPhilostratus’ remark that Favorinus’ quarrel with the sophist Polemo wascited as evidence that he too was a sophist, since “ambition . . . is directedagainst one’s professional rivals” (VS 491).71 Contests over inclusion in pro-fessional gatherings represent a particularly fraught instance of this largerpattern. Sophists maneuver to see and be seen by the “right” people andcarefully manage their own professional contacts as a way of both position-ing themselves and either endorsing or denying the status claims of others.At the same time, our sources seem at pains to insist that identity as apepaideumenos ultimately depends on merit, that outward appearance andsocial connections index, but do not substitute for, inner reality; storiesabout outsiders (like Favorinus) who make it big, or incognito sophistswho earn applause through talent alone help to sustain that claim.

Sophists cared deeply about who was in their audience, especially whenprofessional identity and status were at stake. Audience composition mat-tered in the obvious sense that a big audience was a sign of success. Incompetition with “a certain little Egyptian” in Smyrna, Aelius Aristidesdeliberately books a performance in the city council chamber at the sametime as his rival is scheduled to perform in the Odeion, and he gloats whenhis own declamation draws a standing-room-only crowd, while his rivalattracts a mere seventeen listeners (Or. 51.29–34).72 It mattered, too, thatthe audience be well disposed. A friendly crowd could be an enormousboon to the speaker, while unresponsive or hostile listeners could have adevastatingly withering effect.73 As a result, sophists were not above seed-ing their audiences with claques of supporters, a tactic favored by Lucian’sslick Teacher of Rhetoric (Rh. Pr. 21) and Aelius Aristides (Philostr. VS 583)alike.74

More precisely, sophists paid close attention to the presence or absenceof specific individuals in their audiences. The appearance (or conspicuous

70 See Introduction, n. 16.71 �>� � �T ��< � @�%!�> � ��&�� 2�� 8� �4��5� �� :� � �� 2��

�:� ��P., 4 �� 4�� . . . 8� �0� � ��2 �� . On friendships and feuds asa “statement” and “useful catalyst in the construction of a public personality,” see Gleason 1995: 145,28, and pp. 000–000.

72 Seventeen is a traditional figure for a risibly tiny audience, not necessarily to be taken literally; seeRussell 1983: 77.

73 Korenjak 2000: 96–114, 139–47. 74 G. Anderson 1993: 23–4; Korenjak 2000: 124–7.



absence) of other sophists at a declamation was carefully noted. Attendingsophistic performances telegraphed the status of both hearer and performer.Speaking before a provincial assembly in Macedonia, Lucian preens him-self that his audience does not consist of sports fans, but “the best reputedorators, historians and sophists” (Herod. 8).75 The main point of this moveis to ensure the success of his speech: by casting his hearers as discern-ing judges, Lucian aligns them with himself as shrewd appreciators ofculture and primes them to receive his performance in the right spirit.76

But this flattering portrait of the audience also flatters the performer. Thepresence of colleagues in the audience was a gauge of rank; being heardby an established star could represent a career-making endorsement. Itwas a red-letter event – “like the vote of Athena” (W�� X�� D��) – for Aristocles of Pergamum (Philostr. VS 567–8) and Alexan-der the Clay-Plato (VS 571–3) when Herodes Atticus sent his students totheir lectures. Attendance soared at Megistias’ school after a surprise visitfrom the estimable Hippodromus of Thessaly (VS 619).77 Likewise, beingseen at the lectures of an established star could be a wise career move fora younger sophist. When Herodes passed through Smyrna, Polemo sig-naled his respect by eagerly asking to hear him declaim; Herodes returnedthe favor by attending Polemo’s performances and praising him highlyafterward before audiences in Athens, Olympia, and Rome (VS 537–9).

The act of performing before other sophists is thus wielded as a mark ofinsider status: a real sophist is one whose performances other real sophistsattend. This point is made most clearly in Philostratus’ account of Marcusof Byzantium’s unannounced visit to Polemo’s school in Smyrna (VS 529).Marcus is so unkempt that Polemo does not recognize him as a sophist andreacts scornfully when his students look to Marcus to propose a theme,insinuating that no one so rustic could participate competently in decla-mation even at the level of a student.78 But when Marcus speaks, Polemorealizes his mistake and promptly delivers a long, marvelous speech for

75 O�4�! � �� ! �� / ��9��; cf. Harm. 3.76 Branham 1989: 38–40; Zweimuller 2008: 71–2.77 Similarly, Gleason 1998: 505 notes that among late antique desert fathers, “receiving unsolicited

visitors was indeed one of the signs that one had ‘made it’ as an abba.” Yet such visits also werefraught competitive situations that could hold dangers for either party. When Dionysius of Miletussought out the young Polemo, it confirmed the latter’s status as a rising star, but their meetingcrackles with tension: Dionysius fears being eclipsed by his young rival, while Polemo cannotendure criticism. When Dionysius’ initial review is somewhat tepid, Polemo demands a secondchance to prove himself, and his bid for approval is laced with barely concealed aggression (Philostr.VS 525–6). On this passage, see further Korenjak 2000: 198.

78 “Why are you looking at that rube? He won’t give us a theme” (7 8� � N�� (��; �: ��9�� I�� 4�� ).



him, after which he invites Marcus to declaim in turn. “And when hehad declaimed and listened to the other declaim,” concludes Philostratus,“[Polemo] both admired and was admired.”79 For each man, declaimingbefore another sophist was a confirmation of his position within the circleof sophists.80

The equation could also be reversed: real sophists are those who hearother (real) sophists’ declamations. Not only could attending a star’s perfor-mance provide a career boost, but failing to patronize fellow sophists couldbe evidence of amateurism. In To Those Who Criticize Him Because He DoesNot Declaim, Aelius Aristides lashes out at self-professed admirers, perhapshis own students, who have been derelict in what he sees as their duty toattend his lectures, preferring the baths instead (Or. 33, esp. 7, 24–5). Theirtruancy and preference for swinish pleasures reveal their disqualificationfrom the field, he explains, for “it is impossible for lovers of jewelry, bathaddicts, or those who esteem inappropriate things to understand lectureson oratory” (Or. 33.25, cf. 31).81

Extending that logic, the right to participate fully in declamations issometimes treated as the exclusive prerogative of an in-group of experts; torefuse that right, as Philagrus did to Amphicles, is to reject the other as apeer.82 Polemo famously put an Athenian audience on notice that he wouldjudge their abilities as hearers, not the other way around (Philostr. VS 535);Nicetes resisted appearing before the Smyrnaean demos (VS 511). This viewis implicit, too, in the popular metaphor of rhetoric as a mystery cult,to which only initiates may be admitted.83 Lucian’s Teacher of Rhetoriccoaches an aspiring sophist in the signs he needs to display so that Rhetoricwill recognize and admit him, instead of rejecting him as a non-initiate(Rh. pr. 16).84 Aristides rebuffs a critic by dismissing him as a non-initiate(��, Or. 28.113, cf. 135) who is unqualified to assume the guise of anorator (O-�� 2��, Or. 28.8); this nobody should be pleased that hewas allowed to attend Aristides’ lecture at all (Or. 28.97).85

79 ��-�� =�� 8��=�� 8�� .80 Schmitz 1997: 125 describes their mutual approbation as “eine Art Ritterschlag.”81 �:� 1 �� 7�! 8�� :� �� 85�� :�’ G �< ��> �� 0�

�4�� %�� 9�� .82 Webb 2006: 45 remarks that “declaiming, or being part of a declaimer’s audience, was therefore a

sign of a certain restricted Hellenic identity.”83 On this metaphor, see Korenjak 2000: 214–19; cf. Behr 1968: 45, 107; Zweimuller 2008: 285–7, 309.84 Of course, the signs that the Teacher recommends are exactly the sort of superficial markers that

were not supposed to impress real connoisseurs.85 �� &� ? �:��, ��’ �� , �# �� 8 �#�� =5�� >�

�� . Implicit is that only orators are qualified to critique other orators, a point to whichwe will return in Chapter 2.



Aristides was not the first to play this “pearls before swine” card. Itcomes out most often in defensive situations, to delegitimize critics whohave the speaker at a disadvantage. A Roman grammarian, shown up in alearned gathering at Fronto’s house, stalks out, declaring huffily that he willanswer Fronto’s question later, “one-on-one, so that the ignorant will nothear and learn” (Gell. 19.10.14).86 The ploy fools no one, but it is at leastavailable as a face-saving maneuver. Galen employs it more successfully:unexpectedly challenged by the philosopher Alexander of Damascus duringan anatomical display, Galen storms out, muttering “I was wrong to thinkI had not come among Skept-hicks”: an unqualified audience unworthy ofhis time (On Prognosis 5.15 = 14.629 K.).87 (Galen is enticed to resume hisdemonstration by the intervention of “all the intellectuals in Rome,” whoarrange for a repeat performance in the presence of “all the other celebritiesin medicine and philosophy”; he emerges triumphant, his stature confirmedby the star-studded audience as well as by his successful demonstration.)This tactic relies on the intuitive logic that learned discourse belongs to thelearned – a notion accepted by most sophists, at least when it suited them.The idea that attendance at sophistic performances was restricted to expertsis obviously nonsense, sharply at odds with the performer’s desire to attractlarge crowds. Still, it contains a grain of truth: sophistic audiences werepredominantly composed of educated elite men, especially other sophistsand their students, for whom participation in such performances providedan opportunity to display their own paideia while also scrutinizing that ofthe speaker.88

Attendance at sophistic lectures – along with other forms of socialcontact, to be considered in later chapters – thus emerges as a vital markof identity as a sophist, and a medium through which the group’s identitycould be regulated. This strategy, I will argue, belongs to a larger view

86 “Tibi,” inquit, “Fronto, postea uni dicam, ne inscitiores audiant ac discant.”87 �� ’ 8�6 �&� ��6 �:�0� 82!�7�� Y �4 � ��5=�� , '� 8��=��

�#4�� :� �#� �0� ��! �7�� Z�� . On this passage, see von Staden 1997: 48–9;Gleason 2010: 97–8, whose translation of ��! �7�� I have borrowed.

88 Korenjak 2000, esp. 115–49, 170–99; cf. Schmitz 1997: 114–17. The size and composition of sophisticaudiences has been much debated. That sophists attracted mass audiences, including those outsidethe paideutic elite, has been most forcefully argued by Schmitz 1997, esp. 160–75. But Nesselrath1998 and Korenjak 2000: 41–65 point out that this view relies too heavily on sophists’ inflated,often vague, self-reports, and on a very optimistic picture of the educational opportunities availableto lower-class urban dwellers. Further, they argue, audience size should be estimated not from thecapacity of theaters, which were not built for sophistic performance, but of bouleuteria and odeia,which was generally in the hundreds rather than thousands. Finally, the subtle interactions betweenspeaker and audience described by our sources seem to require fairly intimate quarters. On thisrevised view, average audience size was probably in the range of 50–500, the bulk of whom wouldhave been other educated aristocrats.



of the sophistic movement as a self-determined world whose contourswere established only from within, by (authentic) sophists themselves. Atthe same time, the physical realities of sophistic performance must haverendered such control of participation largely symbolic. Not only wasPhilagrus unable to prevent Amphicles’ classmates from attending (andsabotaging) his lecture, but it is difficult to imagine how he could haveprevented Amphicles himself from entering the theater, except perhaps bymobilizing his supporters as bouncers, at the risk of creating an ugly scene.89

To the extent that the boundaries of the circle of sophists were understoodto be embodied by the boundaries of actual sophistic performances, thepermeability of the latter represented an unwelcome, but unavoidable,blurring of the former.

Matters are more complicated in philosophical circles, where the appealof this means of corporate self-molding clashes with concerns about notonly the feasibility but also the wisdom of exclusivity. Our sources arekeenly alive to the role of affective ties in promoting or obstructing com-mitment to philosophy, which could be a reason to limit access to thephilosophical classroom.90 Musonius Rufus dreams of moving with hisstudents to a rural commune, far from the urban temptations that obstructphilosophical development (fr. 11 Hense). His disciple Epictetus warns ofthe danger of attachments to non-philosophers: “Inevitably, someone whooften spends time with others for conversation, or for banquets, or simplyto share their life, will either become like them, or they will convert to hisway of living”; associate with non-philosophers, and inevitably, you willbe influenced by them (3.16.1, 6; cf. 2.21.11–22; 4.2.1).91 For that reason,taking up philosophy can mean abandoning your own people (3.15.11) andavoiding non-philosophers (�� 0� #��9��), at least temporarily(3.16.16; cf. 3.23.32). The more counter-cultural the philosophy, the morenecessary it is to screen one’s social contacts. Thus, advises Epictetus, theonly suitable friend for a Cynic is another Cynic, and a Cynic should avoidmarriage, unless he can find a Cynic wife with a Cynic father, and theyraise their children as Cynics (3.22.62–76). This counsel takes to its logi-cal extreme the pedagogical truism that students learn most readily when

89 That claques could turn violent is demonstrated by the notorious incident in which the students ofHadrian of Tyre beat a heckler to death (Philostr. VS 587–88), although not during a declamation.

90 Malherbe 1987: 36–40; Meeks 1992: 23–6; Alexander 1994: 71–2. On affective relationships andphilosophical conversion, see Eshleman 2007/8, where a version of this paragraph appears.

91 � =�� 8�� J �#� �� J �#� ��4�� J "�� #� ��%7!�� J �:� 8��7 �� 85��!�� J 8��7 �� > �� 8� � ��& . . . ��’ � =�� #��!� �� =��.



surrounded by others whose ability and dedication are equal to or greaterthan their own.

The less accessible one’s teaching, moreover, the easier it is to control thecomposition and character of one’s circle. As depicted by Philostratus, thePythagorean holy man Apollonius of Tyana is a walking advertisement forselectivity. During his first visit to Antioch, Apollonius deliberately avoidsdiscoursing in crowded public spaces, saying that he needs not just people,but real men (VA 1.16.3).92 Instead, he camps out in holy sites and unlockedtemples, settings in which he can dictate precisely the rhythm of his philo-sophical day, and the participants admitted at each stage. He begins atdawn with solitary rituals limited to those who have completed a four-yearperiod of silence. Next comes conversation with the temple’s priests and aquestion-and-answer period with his disciples, and finally an informal pub-lic lecture (VA 1.16.3–4). For Philostratus, Apollonius’ freedom to decidewhen, where, and with whom he will philosophize is crucial to his abilityto control the kind of philosophy (and philosophers) he promotes. Laterin the work, the Indian king Phraotes explicitly spells out the connectionbetween exclusivity and quality control. Unlike Greeks, observes the king,Indians have no problem with unqualified sham philosophers, because theyemploy a rigorous system of testing (��=K� ��) under which “anyonewho wants can exclude [a prospective philosophy student] if he does notstudy purely” (VA 2.29–30, at 30.1).93

This perspective acknowledges the benefits of restricting one’s classes topersons who share similar goals and philosophical views. That idea plainlyappealed to some philosophers in our period. In Alexandria, Dio Chrysos-tom finds philosophers who refuse to discourse in public but instead teachin lecture halls (��-��), accepting only students whom they findcongenial (1 �� ) and tractable (2��-��) – a pedagogical tech-nique he deplores (Or. 32.8). Galen likewise ridicules philosophers whoshrink from engaging outsiders in debate, preferring to address only theirown students and members of the same sect (On the Errors of the Soul5 = 5.91.18–92.13 K.).94 Galen and Dio regard this practice as a sign ofweakness, even a dereliction of duty, but others took a more positiveview. The Platonist Taurus entertains fantasies of reviving the Pythagoreanmethod of screening potential students (Gell. 1.9.1–7). Epictetus recallswith admiration that Musonius turned away most applicants, in order to

92 8�� 1� ! ��, � � (�� 2!�7! �� & � ��.�>�, �-��:� � ��9! 3�� > ��’ � �� .

93 � ’ ;. �>� %�� 85�7�� :4 , �# �< �� .94 On this passage, see Alexander 1994: 72–3.



weed out dilettantes (3.6.10), while Lucian records that his ideal PlatonistNigrinus taught (only) the worthy (�>� �5��&�� 7%! , Nigr.26).95 Lucian also has the Peripatetic Diocles declare that eunuchs shouldbe barred (��>��) from philosophy; were the eunuch AcademicFavorinus still alive, Diocles would certainly exclude him (Eun. 6–8).

Attempts at selectivity appear especially in the context of the perennialbattle to defend the pedagogical turf of philosophy against the encroach-ment of rhetoric.96 Both the Platonist Taurus and the Stoic Epictetuswork to maintain the integrity of (their) philosophy by refusing studentswith purely oratorical interests. Taurus complains about pupils who wantto read Plato only for his prose style (Gell. 1.9.8–11),97 and he discour-ages rhetoric students (including the young Aulus Gellius) from joininghis classes (Gell. 10.19; 17.20.4–6). Similarly, Epictetus loses patience withhearers who judge teachers only by their linguistic purity (3.9.14), and hememorably excoriates a student who comes to school sporting the smooth,elegant look typical of sophists instead of the rough guise of a philoso-pher (3.1). Another student whose “shamefully molded” body and fancyclothes again suggest rhetorical interests is flatly turned away; lacking thenecessary skill (8��7�) and practice at listening to philosophers (��%�� ), says Epictetus, this student is simply not worth teaching(2.24.5, 10).

At times, too, philosophers consider banishing students on more or lessdoctrinal grounds. Epictetus rails against pupils who come to him withthe wrong attitude and for the wrong reasons (2.21.11–22), or who do notdeserve to call themselves Stoics (1.9.19; 2.19; 3.24.41). Particularly offensiveare those who parrot Stoic authors but act like Epicureans (3.24.38–9). Hewelcomes students who want to work toward genuine moral change, butone who comes for other reasons is likely to go away feeling – correctly –that “he was not sorry when I left” (85��2�� :� 1�� ,2.17.33–8). In the third century the Platonist Ammonius Saccas reserveshis most innovative teachings for a closed inner circle who swear them-selves to secrecy (Porph. Plot. 3). His student Plotinus likewise shares hiswritings only with a select, carefully vetted few (�� =�� 7��!� �

95 Gleason 1995: 52 suggests another motive for claims to selectivity: “In an academic system whereprofessors had to compete for students while avoiding all traces of servility in their search for aclientele, such high-handedness constituted an assertion of professional superiority. To maintain‘face’ in this situation, every professor had to act as if he took on only the best and that any pupilswho left him did so because they were inadequate.”

96 On this turf war, see Hahn 1989: 86–99.97 A frequent complaint: cf. Gell. 1.9.11; 7.10.5 and Epict. 2.17.3, 29–40; 2.21.10–22; 3.5; 3.9.10–14;

3.23.16–18; 3.26.13–20.



��%� 4 ! , Plot. 4). And although his “conferences” are generally opento all comers (Plot. 1), Plotinus does not welcome all students. When hisformer classmate and rival Origen drops in on his lecture one day, Plotinustrails off, explaining that “a speaker’s enthusiasm withers when he perceivesthat he is speaking to hearers who already know what he is going to say”(Plot. 14).98 On another occasion an orator named Diophanes read a semi-nar paper that advanced a pederastic reading of the Symposium that clashedwith Plotinus’ own views (Plot. 15). Offended, Plotinus considered walkingout – that is, signaling his disagreement by terminating the pedagogicalexchange, as Polycarp or Galen might have done.

In the end, though, Plotinus did not walk out on Diophanes. Instead, heassigned his protege Porphyry to write a refutation of Diophanes’ deviantreading. He took a similar tack in response to gnostic Christian hearers(Plot. 16), and when Porphyry himself, as a new pupil, challenged histeaching on the intelligibles (Plot. 18). Like Taurus and Epictetus, Plot-inus had to rebuff attempts to dictate his curriculum and field studentcontributions that could take the conversation off track. Porphyry recordsthat an auditor named Thaumasius once asked that he and Plotinus cutshort a protracted discussion about the relation between body and soul toreturn to textual exegesis (�#� %�%�7�, Plot. 13);99 he also recalls a fellowstudent’s frustration that “because [Plotinus] encouraged participants toask questions, his school was characterized by chaotic meandering and agreat deal of nonsense” (Plot. 3).100 At no point, though, do we hear of Plot-inus ejecting a dissident student as a means of restoring order or imposingphilosophical consensus. Instead, he relies on oral and written refutationto shepherd students toward his preferred understanding. Despite teachingin relatively closed domestic space (Plot. 9), within a tradition that wasbeginning to move toward an insistence on doctrinal orthodoxy, Ploti-nus maintains a conspicuously accessible classroom.101 The same is true ofTaurus and Epictetus: for all their threats and tirades, they seem to haveexpelled troublesome students rarely, if ever. Rather, those pupils are vex-ing precisely because they continue to be their pedagogical responsibility.

98 � 7�� 7��, H� M��. ( ��! , H� �� #�4�� 8��> G �:�� .This Origen is not to be confused with the Christian, who also studied with Ammonius; see Watts2006: 159–60.

99 For this interpretation of Thaumasius’ request, see Snyder 2000: 229.100 ; � � ��%-, '� [ �:�& K��> �� 0� �� 4 ��, ��57�� -��

�� 7��. As Lamberton 2001: 442 remarks, Thaumasius presumably regarded Porphyry’shijacking of class discussion for three days straight as a prime example of this sort of disruptive“nonsense.”

101 Dillon 1979: 73; Fowden 1977: 371–2. On the orthodox turn in late antique Platonism, see Athanas-siadi 2002.



Although wary of his rhetorical proclivities, Taurus did accept Gellius intohis school, even if only as a casual auditor at first; evidently he did notalways – or often? – turn away problem students.102 He might have beenmore selective about admission to his inner circle, but his general hear-ership was fairly unrestricted.103 Epictetus turns away the odd rhetorician,but his door remains open to a host of other undesirable visitors, includingadulterers (2.4), Skeptics (1.27.15–20, a hypothetical situation), and Epi-cureans (3.7). He has a clear idea of what it means to be a philosopher ingeneral, and a Stoic in particular. But like Taurus and Plotinus, he seemsrarely to have wielded control over attendance at his school as a way ofenforcing that view.

In short, some early imperial philosophers were evidently attracted tocontrol over venue and audience as a means of preserving the quality andpurity of their philosophy. Yet for the most part the idea belongs to the realmof fantasy, a practice to be found on the exotic margins of the world, notin the everyday experience of working philosophers. Indeed, the fantasyof being able to turn away under-prepared, deviant, and pedagogicallydemanding students may have seemed attractive precisely because it wasso far from real experience. Nor is it clear to what extent Taurus andhis colleagues would have embraced greater exclusivity even if they could.Rather, a tension is visible between a desire to restrict participation to thosewho share a certain philosophical vision, and pressures toward openness.104

Several considerations militated against too much exclusivity. As we haveseen, there were no perfectly private teaching venues; even the boundariesof domestic classrooms remained permeable to visitors, welcome or unwel-come. Nor would it have been desirable to exclude outsiders entirely.Listening in on the master’s conversations with distinguished friends and

102 A scene where Taurus dismisses his sectatores and then sits outside his classroom, conversing “withus who were standing nearby” (cum assistentibus nobis, Gell. 2.2.2) might imply a division betweenstudents and casual hearers, with Gellius in the latter group: so Hahn 1989: 76. By contrast, Baldwin1975: 36 reads this as a claim to favored status. In any case, Gellius did eventually enter the innercircle of Taurus’ iunctiores (7.13.1), pace Dillon 1979: 72.

103 This is the policy that Gellius attributes to Aristotle, who restricted his advanced “acroatic”lectures to students whose “ability, elementary training, and passion and diligence for learning” hehad scrutinized in advance (nec ad eam quemquam temere admittebat, nisi quorum ante ingenium eteruditionis elementa atque in discendo studium laboremque explorasset) but offered his exoteric eveninglectures to all without distinction (sine dilectu, 20.5.3–5). On the division between casual “hearers”(��7, auditores), who might attend the public lectures of multiple teachers, and inner circlesof more dedicated students (� 9��, 3�>��, K��!�7, ��7, �� -��, discipuli, sectatores),see Watts 2006: 29–32, 156–7; Alexander 1994: 75–6. It is not always clear, though, that the innercircle received different formal instruction from auditors, as Lamberton 2001: 440–1 notes aboutPlotinus.

104 Hahn 1989: 75–8.



visitors was a valuable part of a student’s education and socialization.105

Further, although our sources tend to insist that philosophers should beloftily independent of their “customers” – not reliant on payment, neversoliciting students, but always sought by them, behaving like patrons ratherthan clients – this was not true of all.106 Taurus decries colleagues who chaseafter rich students, going to their houses and even waiting around untilnoon for them to wake up (Gell. 7.10.5); Lucian vividly conjures up aroom full of nervous job candidates vying for a single position as residentphilosopher in the household of a wealthy Roman (Merc. cond. 10–12);Origen bluntly asserts that many philosophers rely on aid from their stu-dents (Cels. 1.65). For such teachers, turning away students was presumablynot an option.

Another objection emerges from the critiques of Dio and Galen, andfrom Plotinus’ classroom management style: although philosophical teach-ing is a social enterprise, inevitably affected by the personalities and posi-tions represented in the classroom, it is also an intellectual project. Ideally,then, philosophical consensus should be achieved through reasoned argu-ment, not the expulsion of dissenters. We have seen, too, that the allure ofesoteric doctrine as the crystallization point for group identity is in tensionwith the principle that knowledge, if true, should be accessible beyond theconfines of an elite inner cadre.

Most broadly, the issue of selectivity was bound up with debates aboutthe philosopher’s pedagogical and therapeutic mission, a point on whichteachers differed according to sect and temperament.107 The image of thephilosopher’s classroom as the hospital of society was widely embraced,but what practical consequences this conceptualization entailed remainedopen to debate.108 Epictetus argues that pursuing large audiences is at besta distraction, at worst a vitiation of the therapeutic process, since it enticesthe philosopher to pander by offering crowd-pleasing epideictic lectures in

105 Hahn 1989: 71–5.106 Hahn 1989: 82–4, 111–13; Schmitz 1997: 57–61; Dillon 2002: 34–7. Attacks on greedy philosophers

who solicit gifts or prostitute philosophy by teaching for money are a topos from Plato onward;Whitmarsh 2000 and 2006 dissects the related topos of defensively denouncing flattery of wealthypatrons. That the philosopher should not advertise: Epict. 3.23.27; Gell. 7.10.5; cf. Aristid. Or. 33.9on the proper relationship between orator and audience. On tensions between pepaideumenos andpatron, see pp. 000–000.

107 Attitudes toward the proper relationship between philosopher and public are surveyed by Stowers1984: 76–7 (Hellenistic schools); Hahn 1989: 56–7, 110–13 (second century); Malherbe 1989: 11–22(imperial Cynic attitudes). As a rule, Cynics adopted the most open stance, Pythagoreans the least,but the discrepancy between the Cynic Dio and the Cynicizing Stoic Epictetus suggests that in theimperial period, personal preference mattered as much as school affiliation.

108 Nussbaum 1994 analyzes a spectrum of conceptualizations of philosophy as therapy of the soul.


Wolves in the sheepfold 49

place of genuine therapy (3.23.19–38). From that perspective, effective cureof souls requires some discrimination. Others, however, took the oppositeposition: if the philosopher is a physician, then he has an obligation to seeas many patients as possible. Lucian describes his ideal Cynic Demonaxas the friend of all, adding that “although he enjoyed the company ofsome people more than others, he avoided only those who seemed to havesinned beyond hope of therapy” (Demon. 10).109 On this view, to turn awaystudents or to restrict one’s teaching to a select audience is a derelictionof the duty of care. Dio blames the bad habits of the Alexandrians ontheir local philosophers, who (he says) have abrogated their obligation tothe public welfare by refusing to teach in public (Or. 32.8, 20; cf. Plut.Mor. 776c). For those who shared Dio’s perspective, limiting attendanceat philosophical lectures to the deserving was not only impractical butimmoral.

Despite these reservations, though, enforcing disciplinary quality con-trol in this way remains a live and alluring possibility for early imperialpepaideumenoi. Both sophists and philosophers regularly treat participationin their central activities, whether as performer or hearer, as a yardstick ofmembership. From there it is a short step to the corollary, that status asa sophist or philosopher could be regulated by extending or refusing theright to full participation. Even though this strategy was not universallyembraced and can rarely, if ever, have been rigorously implemented inpractice, the underlying theory forms a crucial element of Second Sophis-tic authorizing discourse. The attraction of this method of corporate self-definition lay in part in its ability to bypass the difficulties of other criteriaof membership: external semiotics could be faked and inner character hid-den from view, but a would-be intellectual’s reception by his professionalpeers offered (one might suppose) a secure, visible barometer of identity.Crucially, this is a producer- rather than consumer-centered mechanismof community construction; on this model, control of membership and ofthe definition of the community as a whole rests exclusively in the handsof the community itself.

wolves in the sheepfold

On the Christian side, the intertwining of attendance, membership, andidentity is more explicit; reading these texts alongside Second Sophistic

109 �� J 1�� 12�� 6 8 7�� :� , �4 �� 85��=�� (4�� [ 8�4�� :�� < �� 7�� 8�7�� = �� .



literature highlights the subtler currents running through the latter. Fromthe start, early Christian authors too seem haunted by a sense that theircommunity is under continual threat of infiltration by impostors who aredifficult to tell apart from the genuine article. Like their academic coun-terparts, they are engaged in a dynamic process of constructing the bordersthat they present themselves as defending; voicing anxieties about the pen-etration of those borders is part of the work of boundary construction.Although the perceived stakes of these projects are radically different –loss of eternal salvation rather than degradation of cultural prestige –the structural difficulties run parallel. Among Christians, too, reliance onimprovised private spaces exacerbated feelings of vulnerability. The uneasymockery of intellectuals who peddle their mediocre erudition in book-stalls and wineshops finds a counterpart in Celsus’ jibes about Christian“wool-workers, cobblers, fullers, and the most uneducated, rustic people”engaged in outreach to children and women in private houses and shops(ap. Origen, Cels. 3.55).110 These are the words of a pagan critic, but thethought of Christian evangelism’s being conducted at irregular times andplaces by persons unknown was not always a comfortable one for Christiandefenders of “orthodoxy” either. Warnings about “heretics” who worm theirway into the hearts of unsuspecting believers at home and in unregulatedgatherings are a recurring theme (e.g. 2 Tim. 3:6–7; Tit. 1:11), arousing fargreater anxieties than the entry of pagan outsiders into the same spaces.

Tension between openness and worries about border security is builtinto the Christian ecumenical and evangelistic project.111 On the one hand,Christians are exhorted to “receive anyone who comes in the name of theLord” (Did. 12.2).112 Reception of traveling believers was a prime responsi-bility of house churches, for both practical and ideological reasons: alongwith the circulation of texts, circulation of individuals was vital to knittingtogether the fabric of a scattered movement with high aspirations to unityand uniformity. On the other hand, Christian sources bristle with anxietythat not all who claim the name of the Lord are worthy of it. Distinguishingtrue from false proved difficult. A rich repertoire of metaphors describesthe insidious plausibility of those who are like-us but not-us:113 falseChristians are wolves in sheep’s clothing, foreign weeds in the garden, wildbeasts in human form; their versions of the faith are poison slipped into

110 (�� < �� #�7�� #�7�� 8��0� �� 4�� >� �� 0��=�� =��, . . . 8�� 7�! �:� #�7� �=%! �� 7! � � �0 �:�>� � �-! .

111 S. Schwartz 2005. 112 �� ( 8�24�� 8 Q 4�� 7�� 2�-!.113 This phrasing comes from J. Z. Smith 2004: 245, 275.



honeyed wine, chalk mixed into milk, stale leaven, cut glass masqueradingas an emerald.114 Such images emphasize how easy, and how fatal, it is tobe taken in by impostors.

In response, Christian authors, like pepaideumenoi, offer prescriptionsfor how to spot frauds among the legitimate insiders, bringing to bearethical, ritual, and hermeneutic, as well as doctrinal criteria. The veryproliferation of these guidelines, however, belies their efficacy. A handfulof early examples will suffice to give a sense of the range, as well as thedifficulties involved. The Didache stands near the head of a long traditionof such diagnostic advice.115 Laying out a basic ethical (Did. 1–6) and ritual(7–10) blueprint for Christian life, the author urges that conformity withthese prescriptions be treated as the hallmark of a true teacher: “Whoevercomes to you and teaches all the things stated above, receive him. But if theteacher himself has turned aside and teaches another teaching that leads todestruction, do not listen to him” (Did. 11.1–2).116 The visitor’s behaviortoo comes in for scrutiny, with special attention to money; Lucian wasnot alone in thinking that Christians were ripe for financial exploitation(Peregr. 13). To be rejected as pseudo-prophets are apostles who stay formore than two days or ask for money (Did. 11.5–6), and prophets who donot manifest the ways of the Lord, who partake of banquets they mandate,who do not preach the truth or practice what they preach, or who ask formoney (11.8–12). Likewise, any traveler who stays for more than two orthree days without working is a “Christ-trafficker” (2��), bestavoided (12.2–5). The community itself, meanwhile, is defined by ritualpractices designed in part to distance it from its neighbors. In particular,an injunction to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, rather than Mondaysand Thursdays “along with the hypocrites” (�� ) seemsintended to drive a wedge between the community and (some part of ) itsJewish matrix (8.1).117

114 Wolves: Matt. 7:15; Ign. Phld. 2.2; Jus. Apol. 58.2; Ir. Haer 1 pr.2, 3.16.8; Tert. Praescr. 4.3; Clem.Al.Strom. 1.8.40.5. Alien, diabolic plants: Matt. 13:38–9; Ign. Eph. 10.3, Trall. 6.1, Phld. 3.1. Wildbeasts: Ign. Smyrn. 4.1, Eph. 7.1. Poison: Ign. Trall. 6.2; cf. Tert. Praescr. 30.2. Chalk: Ir. Haer3.17.4. Stale leaven: Ign. Magn. 10.2; Testim. Truth 29.13–5. Faux gem: Ir. Haer 1 pr.2. Le Boulluec1985: 23–6 analyzes metaphors for “heresy” in Ignatius.

115 Most scholars now locate the Didache in late first- or early second-century Syria, but definitiveconsensus remains elusive. For a judicious survey of proposals, see Zangenberg 2008, who placesthe text in the eastern Mediterranean, post-70 ce, in the same milieu as Matthew and James.

116 \� [ �T 8��6 ��=5�. �� &� = � � �� , ��5�� :4 S 8� � �:�� (��=��! �� =��. N�� 2< �#� � ��&��, �< �:�& ��.

117 Readers are also enjoined not to pray “like the hypocrites,” but “as the Lord instructed in hisgospel” (Did. 8.2).



Other authors foreground other criteria. The Elder of 2 John, probablywriting around the turn of the second century in Asia Minor, is mostconcerned to affirm the physical reality of Christ’s incarnation, warningthat “if anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, neitherreceive him into the house nor greet him” (2 Jn. 7, 10).118 Addressing fivechurches in western Asia Minor a few decades later, Ignatius concurs:119

in an environment thick with bearers of evil teaching (Eph. 9.1; cf. Phld.2.1) and hypocrites whose deeds are unworthy of their name (Eph. 7.1,15.1), the lethal hairesis of docetism – the view that Christ’s incarnation,suffering, and/or death occurred only in appearance (� ��> ) – holdspride of place (Trall. 6–11; Smyrn. 1–7; cf. Magn. 9.1). Ignatius also sharesthe Didachist’s concern for patrolling the border with Judaism, buttingheads in his letters to Magnesia and Philadelphia with persons who, ashe sees it, are pursuing “Judaism” instead of “Christianism” (Magn. 8–11;Phld. 2–9, esp. 6.1). Whatever the precise issues at stake, we are plainlycaught between conflicting conceptions of legitimate Christianity.120 ForIgnatius, “Judaism” constitutes divisive heterodoxia,121 but its advocates inPhiladelphia insist that their position is backed by impeccable hermeneuticprinciple: “If I do not find it in the archives, I do not believe (it to be) in thegospel” (Phld. 8.2).122 These “archives” are evidently Jewish scripture, whoseauthority the Philadelphian “Judaizers” privilege over that of the gospel.

118 �M �� 1�2�� < ��2< �: ��, �< ��%= �� :� �#� �#�7� ��2�7�� :� �< ��. The Johannine letters are usually dated to the last decades of the firstcentury; Painter 2002: 1–26 reviews the scholarship on their historical situation. Their traditionalassociation with western Asia Minor is generally accepted, but cannot be decisively proven, as Lieu2008: 14 cautions.

119 Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 3.36) assigns Ignatius’ letters and martyrdom to the reign of Trajan (96–117 ce), but a date anywhere between 105 and 135 ce is possible; see Schoedel 1993b: 347–9. Barnes2008 makes a plausible case for a late dating (c. 140), arguing that in Pol. 3.2 and Magn. 8.2Ignatius takes aim at Valentinus’ associate Ptolemy. Renewed attempts to identify the letters as latesecond-century forgeries (Hubner 1997, 1999; Lechner 1999) have met with vigorous opposition;see Brent 2006: 18–23 with bibliography.

120 By “Judaism” Ignatius almost certainly means a form of what we would call Christianity, but theprecise nature of the problem has been much debated. In Magnesia, observance of the Sabbathinstead of (or in addition to) the Lord’s Day may be one issue (Magn. 9.1), while in Philadelphia“Judaism” has to do with the relative authority of (Jewish) scripture and the gospel (Phld. 5.2,8.2–9.2, with Schoedel 1978). These are often assumed to represent a single error, but nothingin the letters necessitates that conclusion; see Schoedel 1978: 104; Sumney 1993: 354–9; Cohen2002: 402–4. Nor is there any reason to assume that these manifestations of “Judaism” and thedocetism at issue elsewhere represent a single “heresy,” whether gnostic (Molland 1954b), Marcionite(Hoffmann 1984: 57–63), or “Ebionite” (Goulder 1999).

121 Divisive: Phld. 2.1, 7.2, 8.1 (��4�), 3.3 (�27K�� ). VE��57��: Magn. 8.1; cf. Phld. 2.1(��L��7��), 3.3 (��7� � 9��), 6.2 (��2 7��).

122 8�� Z��= � ! ��4 ! , H� 8� �< 8 �>� ��2�7�� $�! 8 � �:��7� �: ��!.My translation follows Schoedel 1985, although the reading “If I do not find it in the archives, Ido not believe (it) in the gospel,” defended by Goulder 1999: 16–17, is also possible. One implies



In Philadelphia, then, Ignatius found himself confronting Christians withtheir own well-articulated criterion of authenticity, which differed sharplyfrom his. From their perspective, he was the heterodox outsider.

Despite their differences of perspective, Ignatius, the Elder, theDidachist, and their various opponents have in common a sense of belong-ing to a community whose physical and social accessibility left it vulnerableto infiltration and corruption, and that malevolent impostors might at anymoment be discovered lurking in their midst. As among pepaideumenoi,the danger to the community is depicted in strongly personal terms, whichcall for personal solutions: the corrosive element is embodied in indi-viduals who do not conform to the group’s standards (whether ethical,paideutic, doctrinal, ritual, or exegetical), and who must be rooted out andexcluded for the sake of the health of the whole community. In response,these guardians of the faith accumulate signs by which interlopers mightbe recognized. These never prove entirely sufficient, though, both becauseno one set of criteria commands universal assent, and because, like theexternal markers of elite paideia, the semiotics of Christian identity proveall too easy to falsify, or to combine with other identifiers felt to alter theirsignificance. Indeed, the very multiplication of taxonomic indicators ofauthentic Christianity fed fears of fragmentation, by granting salience toever more points of difference.123

One solution is to have recourse to a further criterion, intended tomake the others unmistakably visible: deviants stand not only spiritu-ally but literally outside the group, socially and ritually sundered fromgenuine insiders.124 Hand-in-hand with definitions of authentic “Chris-tianism” come calls for the exclusion of those who fail to meet thosestandards. This Christian social control recalls, without exactly replicating,the strategies of inclusion and exclusion employed in sophistic and philo-sophical circles, as well as their underlying logic: that regulating the socialcomposition of the group represents a valuable, even necessary, means ofshaping its self-definition, while legitimate insider status can be articulatedand regulated through participation in the community’s activities. Once

the (unwritten) Christian message as a whole, the other a written gospel, a question that does notaffect us here.

123 King 2008a: 32–6. As Meeks 2006: 153 notes, “the history of schisms and the very concept of ‘heresy’that emerged in the second century are ironic testimonies to the ideal of unity and the practicaldrive to enforce it.” The image of “taxonomic indicators” of religion comes from J. Z. Smith 1982:1–18.

124 Not all differences provoked the same responses, though: while some are held to constitute a fatalthreat to the salvific unity of the church, others are smoothed over or ignored as insignificant; inother cases cleavages are widened or created (e.g. the Didache’s substitution of fast days) in orderto justify sundering an undesired unity.



again, we are dealing with an ideal rather than strictly enforced (or enforce-able) social reality; as Judith Lieu points out, “theological boundaries andsocial boundaries are not necessarily coterminous. People do continue tolive and worship with those with whom, theologically, they ought not beable to, and separate from those with whom they believe most things incommon!”125 For Christians, too, as for philosophers, the felt need to ensurepurity by excluding dissidents stood in tension with pastoral, evangelistic,and practical considerations that favored inclusion. Nonetheless, holdingup rigorous exclusivity as an ideal, however unrealizable, was a rhetoricallypotent gesture, affirming the solidity of the community’s identity in theface of the realities of diversity and the accommodations required by itsexpansionist goals.126

“we share communion with none of them”

“If a teacher himself turns aside and teaches a different teaching,” warns theDidachist, “do not listen to him” (Did. 11.2),127 while the Elder counselsa church not to receive anyone who brings dissident teaching, lest bywelcoming him members share in his evil deeds (2 John 10–11).128 Ignatiusadvises believers not even to come face to face (�� ) with falseteachers if possible (Smyrn. 4.1) but to avoid them like rabid animals,secret biters (��), difficult to cure (��) (Eph. 7.1).To worship with transgressors is not only to give tacit approval to theirtransgressions but to expose oneself to spiritual contagion (cf. 1 Cor. 5:9–13;1 Tim. 5:22). Social pressure is brought to bear against deviants: denial ofhospitality, exclusion from the physical space and eucharistic fellowship ofthe congregation, refusal of eucharistic exchange or other contact acrosscongregations and regional networks. This separation is meant both toembody and to cement the gulf between right and wrong belief.

Underlying this tactic is the presupposition that what it means to beChristian can be articulated socially, through shared participation in rit-ual. In his Dialogue with Trypho (c. 155–60), Justin Martyr describes twoinstances in which refusal of communion has been used to mark a divi-sion between right and wrong ways of being Christian, and in so doing tonegotiate boundaries with Greco-Roman and Jewish culture as well. One

125 Lieu 2002: 19. 126 S. Schwartz 2005: 154–5.127 8� � �:�� ( ��=��! �� =��. N�� 2< �#� � ��&��, �< �:�&

��.128 �M �� 1�2�� < ��2< �: ��, �< ��%= �� :� �#� �#�7� , ��

2�7�� :� �< ��S ( ��! �� :� 2�7�� ! �> �>� 1�� :�& �>� � ��>�.


“We share communion with none of them” 55

meets with his approval; the other does not. On the one hand, he boasts ofholding the line against self-identified Christians who consider it accept-able to eat meat sacrificed to idols (35.1–6). These false believers “confessthat they are Christians and confess the crucified Jesus as both Lord andChrist but do not teach his teachings, but those of the spirits of error”(35.2).129 “We, the disciples of the true, pure teaching of Jesus Christ,” donot acknowledge such people, but rather “we share communion with noneof them” (] �:�� ! �&�� ) (35.2, 5). On the other hand, it grieveshim that some Christians who do not observe the Jewish law refuse toshare in gathering or meals with those who do (�� ! �> (��7�� J3�7��), while some law-observant Christians will not commune with thenon-observant (47.1–3). Although blisteringly harsh in his attitude towardnon-Christian Jews, Justin holds that Christians may follow the Jewishlaw if they want, as long as they do not pressure others to do the same,and exhorts law-observing and non-observing Christians to receive andshare with each other as brothers and members of the same body ('�(��=�2 �� >�, 47.2) – a point on which he appears to bein the minority.130

These passages illustrate the tough spot in which believers enjoined to“flee division and evil teaching” (Ign. Phld. 2.1) could find themselves.When does division constitute culpable, even heretical, schism, and whenis it mandated to protect the community from corruption? And which arethe “evil teachings” here? Justin, regarded by later tradition as a pillar oforthodoxy, holds eccentric views on both questions by the standards ofhis own day, as his own remarks show. Many who considered themselvesChristians obviously thought that eating sacrificial meat was permissible, ashad Paul himself, although with reservations (1 Cor. 8; Rom. 14:1–15:2). Asfor Justin’s conviction that observant and non-observant Christians couldcoexist, many on both sides of the issue plainly disagreed. This is a matternot only of differing criteria but of priorities: keeping kashrut falls withinthe bounds of allowable variation for Justin, while eating food sacrificed toidols does not; others drew those lines differently.

In the first passage, concrete, small-scale boundary construction throughexcommunication is justified by a more abstract rhetoric of inclusion andexclusion which, however, still relies on reconfiguring social ties. To his

129 (��& �� 3��0� �� )�� 0� �� !�� +^��& (��> �� )�7�� , �� < � 8��7 �� =�� =�� , �� = �� =! .

130 Lieu 1996: 139 suggests that Justin’s moderate stance may be a concession to the practical necessityof preventing law-observant Christians from defecting.



adversaries’ claims to be followers of Christ, Justin responds by aggressivelyrelabeling them and rewriting their social/spiritual pedigree. Instead ofChristians,

We call them by the surname of the men from whom each teaching and opiniontook its start . . . Some of them are called Marcionites, some Carpocratians, someValentinians, some Basilideans, some Satornilians, and others by other names,each named after the founder of his opinion, in the same way as each of those whothink they are philosophers . . . is considered to bear the name of his philosophy,after the father of his system (35.5–6).131

This sort of renaming is a standard polemic technique, familiar fromthe language of factionalism and civil war, and a great rhetorical advanceover Ignatius, who has no convenient labels with which to dismiss hisopponents. In the context of the Dialogue, it also paints rival Christiansas philosophers in the inadequate Greek tradition, more interested in theirfounders’ teachings than in truth, rather than true philosophers like Justin(2.2). For present purposes, though, it is most important to note thatJustin attacks his opponents’ doctrines by challenging their relationships:we know that they are fake Christians because they are connected tothe wrong people. In this way, too, separating true teachings from falseis a problem that admits of a personal solution: false Christians revealthemselves not only in what, but in who they know.

Right and wrong ways of being Christian – and the dividing linesbetween Christianity, paganism, and Judaism – were of course subject totheoretical discussion in the second century; the Dialogue with Tryphorepresents one such discussion. But these passages show that those lineswere also negotiated in social terms.132 Judgments about which beliefs,actions, and attitudes are compatible with the “true, pure teaching of JesusChrist” are publicized and enforced by withholding or extending eucharis-tic fellowship to particular individuals. “We disciples” are recognized notsimply by self-identification and confession of Christ – markers sharedwith the “teachers of error” – but by mutual welcome into communion. To

131 �� <�� 7> �#�� ’ �� ! ��7�� 85 �I�� 3�=��2< �� 9�� Z�5�� . . . ��7 �#�� :� �/ �� B�� 7, <�/ � _�� 7,> �/ � `:�� 7, �/ � a�� 7, �/ � F�� 7, �� N��N�� Q 4��, ��&��2�� 9�� U�� Q ��K4�� , \ �4� �� U�� > ��K4 ! . . . �� &�� & �4�� C ��b� ��> ��7��>�� . B�� 7, or B�� 7, are Marcionites (�/ �� B��7! �� /��!�):Hegesippus ap. Eus. Hist. eccl. 4.22.5, 5.16.21; Harnack 1960 [1924] ii: 9 n. 2.

132 On theoretical discussion and social articulation of these boundaries, see further Lieu 2002: 11–29,171–89 and 2004, esp. 132–42.



admit the others to communion and social integration would amount toacknowledging their practices and ideas as acceptable Christian teaching.

This approach seems to promise a more secure way to distinguish cleverimitators from the genuine article. A generation after Justin, Irenaeusmakes this point explicitly, when defending his refusal to communicatewith Valentinian Christians. Valentinians protest this policy, “complain-ing that although their beliefs are similar to ours, we abstain from com-munion with them for no reason, and that although they say the samethings and have the same doctrine (as we do), we call them heretics” (Haer.3.15.2).133 In fact, argues Irenaeus, Valentinians could hardly be more hereti-cal: he regards their doctrine as the recapitulation of all previous heresies,and more blasphemous than all the rest (Haer. 4 pr.2–3). Yet their errorhas thus far stubbornly resisted detection, because Valentinians “talk like‘us,’ although they do not think like us” (Haer. 1 pr.2).134 It is preciselythis similarity which, to Irenaeus’ mind, necessitates a social rupture. Ifless sophisticated believers (�/ ��4��, simpliciores) cannot see thevast (but subtle) differences between Valentinians and true Christians,then the two must be kept physically apart. This harsh policy reflectssound sociological insight: ideas spread most readily through social net-works, as people tend to bring their beliefs into line with those of theirfriends.135

In quarantining Valentinians from other believers, Irenaeus aims todraw a bright line through the murky zone between “orthodoxy” and“heresy” by untangling the threads of social affiliation that presentlycrisscross it. An episode from Irenaeus’ church offers a model of howthis process could work out (Haer. 1.13.3–7).136 When Marcosian teach-ers – a species of Valentinians, according to Irenaeus137 – arrived in theRhone Valley and began holding gatherings for fellowship, instruction,and exploration of charismatic gifts, some local Christian women becameinvolved. Evidently they were not familiar with the peculiarities of Mar-cosian teaching and practice at first, since these seem to have come as asurprise.138 On learning of those features, some – the more faithful ones, says

133 qui etiam queruntur de nobis quod, cum similia nobiscum sentiant, sine causa abstineamus nos acommunicatione eorum, et cum eadem dicant et eandem habeant doctrinam, vocemus illos haereticos.

134 H�� <��> > ��& ��, � 4�� & ��; cf. Haer. 3.15.2, 17.4.135 See p. 000 with n. 68 above. 136 The next two paragraphs are adapted from Eshleman 2011.137 This association is challenged by Tripp 1991 and Brent 2006: 102–18, who argue that the original

sequence of Haer. 1 has been disrupted and that Irenaeus actually connected Marcus to SimonMagus, but this argument has been convincingly rejected by Forster 1999: 8; Thomassen 2006:12–14.

138 Forster 1999: 128–9.



Irenaeus – left the group.139 Others, however, apparently saw no con-flict between Irenaean “orthodoxy” and Marcosian practice. Pressured tomake an either/or choice, they responded in various ways. Some repentedand performed penance. Others, ashamed to confess, quietly withdrew,“despairing of the life of God,” while others defected outright. Still oth-ers remained “ambivalent and, as the proverb says, neither outside norinside” (Haer. 1.13.7).140 Irenaeus refrains from calling these fence-sittersheretics, although he does regard their position as extremely precarious. Inhis eyes, it seems, only the wholesale defectors properly fall into the cate-gory of heretic; presumably their apostasy consisted in becoming full-timeadherents of Marcus’ disciples.141

On its first appearance in Lyons, the Marcosian group seems to havetaken shape as an extra-congregational fellowship circle, meant to fold intothe mix of local Christianity. Its rituals seem designed to complement,rather than replace, the central rites of baptism and eucharist.142

Pressure from Irenaeus successfully attenuated the overlap between“orthodox” and Marcosian gatherings, however. For adherents who casttheir lot exclusively with the latter, the Marcosian agape may have assumedthe role of congregational worship, while remaining supplemental for oth-ers. When we next meet Marcosians, in third-century Rome, Hippolytusdescribes them as conducting recruits through what sounds like a catecheti-cal period leading up to baptism: “when they think that [their hearers] havebeen proven worthy and are able to guard their faith, then they lead themto baptism” (Ref. 6.41.3).143 That third-century Marcosians were baptiz-ing some recruits as well as ushering the already-baptized toward the moreadvanced rite of apolytrosis suggests a growing separation between them andother Roman Christians: these cells seem to be no longer merely supple-menting but duplicating central rituals of congregational life.144 Although

139 As Irenaeus tells it, the sticking point was not the Marcosians’ mystical, numerologically derivedcosmology (Haer 1.14–16), but the practice of round-robin prophecy on demand, which suggestedthat the prophetic spirit could be subject to human control and granted unusual prominence tofemale prophets (Haer 1.13.4).

140 �/ � �#� �� 85��& ��, �/ � ��!�� &�, ��2� � �� 3��>�� K!�� & c��&, 1 �� #� � � �� , 1 �� 8��7K�� 7�� 4 ��, �-� 15! �-� 1�! �T��.

141 The ones who withdrew from the life of God altogether presumably ceased all Christian involve-ments, both Irenaean and Marcosian.

142 Forster 1999: 64–91.143 od� [sc. ��] 8= <�T > ��7�!�� =�� =�� :�>� �

��, 4� 8� �� N��. Marcovich emends to 8� <� �� > ��4 , but thisseems redundant.

144 Thomassen 2006: 357–77 argues that apolytrosis is simply the Valentinian name for their baptismalrite, but Irenaeus (Haer. 1.21) and Hippolytus (Ref. 6.41.2–5) at least understood the Valentinians



we cannot draw a straight line from second-century Lyons to third-centuryRome, the progression is suggestive. In the evolution of Marcosian gather-ings we may see not only the plurality of functions that the same cell couldplay for different members, but also the dynamic social and discursiveprocess by which a group could find itself sliding inadvertently along thespectrum between “orthodoxy” and “heresy.”

In this case, Irenaeus pursued a bottom-up strategy, working to sealthe border between “orthodoxy” and “heresy” by pressing individualbelievers to withdraw from “heretical” associations. In Rome, meanwhile,a series of congregational expulsions by Irenaeus’ ally Victor (bishopc. 189–98) pioneered a more top-down approach directed against entiregroups. In a famous series of excommunications, Victor brought an increas-ingly assertive episcopal authority to bear against the nucleated diversitydescribed above. He removed from office two presbyters, Blastus and Flor-inus, the latter of whom he suspected of being “dragged down by theValentinian error” (��4�� P. �� `:�� > � �= �., Eus.Hist. eccl. 5.20.1; cf. 5.15). How “Valentinian” Florinus was, how many ofhis congregants shared his views, or how fully, we cannot know.145 We doknow, however, that Victor took this action at the prompting of Irenaeus(Ir. fr. Syr. 28 Harvey), and that Florinus’ congregation followed him intoseparation. If Victor hoped that expelling Florinus would push the latter’scongregants back into the mainstream fold, his gamble failed.

At roughly the same time, Victor also moved against a community ofAsian Christians who adhered to the Asian custom of celebrating Easter onPassover (Nisan 14), rather than on a Sunday, as was standard at Rome (Eus.Hist. eccl. 5.24.14–17).146 Despite this discrepancy, there had been no rup-ture between this group and the wider Roman church until Victor decidedto force the issue. This time Irenaeus took the more irenic side. Writing toremonstrate with Victor, Irenaeus (an Asian immigrant himself ) reminds

to require a two-stage initiation; Denzey 2009 argues that the Marcosian apolytrosis describedby Hippolytus was a death-bed ritual. Pagels 2002, esp. 353–9, suggests plausibly that it was thispotentially divisive ritual variation that placed Valentinian doctrines beyond the limits of tolerationfor Irenaeus.

145 Thomassen 2006: 500. Brakke 2010: 115–16 rightly cautions that Florinus’ congregants may nothave been aware that there was anything unusual about their group or cared about those features ifthey were; cf. Eshleman 2011. Although caution is in order, scholars have been much more resistantto the possibility that Florinus pursued his Valentinian inclinations in a congregational settingthan they are in the case of Blastus’ “Judaizing” (e.g. Lampe 1987: 327–8; Thomassen 2004: 245,building on Baumstark 1912); one suspects a lingering reluctance to incorporate Valentinians intothe history of the institutional church.

146 A third target was a teacher named Theodotus whose christology Victor considered unacceptablylow (Eus. Hist. eccl. 5.27.6; cf. Hipp. Ref. 7.35).



him that previous Roman presbyters “never cast anyone out on this account,but . . . although they did not observe it themselves, sent the eucharist tothose foreigners who did observe it” (ap. Hist. eccl. 5.24.14–5).147 Indeed,when Polycarp himself visited Rome, he and the then-bishop Anicetus(c. 150–66) remained in communion with each other (8�� 9 �� 3��L�>�), even though they failed to reach agreement on this point and cele-brated Easter separately (Hist. eccl. 5.24.16–7).

For Anicetus and Irenaeus, the contrast between Asian and Roman Eastercustoms was not a difference that made a difference, but Victor disagreed.In his eyes, celebrating Easter on Passover amounted to “secretly introduc-ing Judaism” (Ps.-Tert. Adv. omn. haer. 8.1), the offense for which Blastushad been excommunicated. Now he was taking similar action against allthe churches of Asia and neighboring regions, “attempting to cut them offfrom common unity, on grounds of heterodoxy” (Eus. Hist. eccl. 5.24.9).148

Dissidence was thereby abruptly translated into defection.149 Irenaeus’ let-ter testifies to the role that manipulation of social contact played bothin knitting together scattered communities, and in externalizing previ-ously unnoticed internal fissures. Within the network of loosely confed-erated cells that comprised the second-century Roman church, Anicetusregisters his unity with Polycarp and the Asian congregation through anexchange of eucharistic elements.150 Ruptures are registered by withholdingthis sign from an offending group. Victor’s contemplated break with thechurches of Asia represents the trans-local equivalent of this gesture. Theself-definitional strategy recommended by Ignatius and the Elder of 2 Johnis here projected onto a worldwide scale.

In their push to rebrand and remove dissidence from their churches,Irenaeus, Victor, and other bishops moved the struggle to define authenticChristianity onto a new plane, but they did so by activating a currentpresent in Christian discourse from the beginning. For Irenaeus, as for theJohannine Elder, the imposition of social separation is intended to exter-nalize perceived divergences of belief or practice, to make visible differencesthat might otherwise go unremarked. This strategy does not preclude, but

147 �� :�� &� ��%�-��= � ��, ��’ �:�� < ��& �� / �� &��%�� >� �� &�� 1�� :2��7�.

148 �� , '� [ 8��5��, �� 3 9��!� ��.149 Borrowing from deviance theory, Wilson 2002: 442 defines dissidents as “those who despite deviant

belief or behavior were still considered to be part of a community,” while defectors are “those whobecause of deviant belief or behavior were considered to be no longer part of the community.”

150 This is probably an early attestation of the Roman practice of fermentum, in which elements fromthe bishop’s eucharist were distributed among the city’s congregations as a sign of unity: La Piana1925: 217; cf. Afanassieff 1974: 27–30; Brakke 2006: 255–6.


The rights and wrongs of exclusivity 61

bolsters, theoretical argument, especially where that has proved insuffi-cient. It aims at bringing social affiliation into line with the character ofan individual’s Christian commitment, so that the former might serve asa transparent reflection of the latter. In this way, early Christian authori-ties share with their sophistic and philosophical contemporaries a notionalequation of inclusion and insider status, which finds expression in a strat-egy of controlling access to participation in the community’s activities as away of defining the community itself.

the rights and wrongs of exclusivity

Christians differ from their academic counterparts, though, in the vigorwith which they pursued this mode of self-definition, especially as theydeveloped centralized authorities capable of executing it from above. Ori-gen, who draws attention to this contrast, describes it as a particular merit ofChristianity (Cels. 3.50–1). Responding to an unflattering analogy betweenChristians and street-corner Cynics, Origen grants that like Cynics, Chris-tians do not confine themselves to recruiting the educated elite (�0� ��K�� &��) but address the lay masses (�0� #��!��0��-��) as well. Christian procedure is superior to Cynic, however, becauseit is more discriminating. Whereas “philosophers make no distinctionsamong their hearers, but whoever wants can stand there and listen,” Chris-tians “as much as possible, test the souls of would-be hearers in advanceand instruct them in private,” introducing them into the community onlywhen they appear sufficiently interested (3.51; cf. Clem.Al. Strom. 1.9.1).151

Once admitted, candidates are tracked into two classes, one for unbaptizedrecruits, and another for the more committed. Their progress is monitoredby “people assigned to inquire into the lives and conduct of attendees, sothat they can exclude those who behave despicably from entering their com-mon assembly, while daily improving those of opposite character, whomthey receive wholeheartedly”;152 sinners, too, can be expelled (��L ��) later on. Origen compares this rigorous screening of membership

151 �/ � �� 7� ��4�� 4�� o: �� &�� 0� �� , ��’ ( %��4L�� U�� S )�� :�>� ��%�� 7�� %�� ! �� D�2�� ’ #�7� �:�>� �� , 8� �� :=��!��/ �� #� � �� #��> 8��!�� %��& , � � ��=��:�0� �#�=�� .

152 ��’ �*� �#�� > �0� %7�� !�� 4 L! , � � �0� � � 87��a �=o �� !��!�� e�� 8� � �� :� ��L�� , �0� � �< �� H��. D�2P. ��24�� %��7�� (�� =K!�� .



to the Pythagorean procedure; what for Taurus and the Philostratean Apol-lonius of Tyana represented the (fantastic) gold standard of quality controlis, we are to understand, everyday reality among Christians. As a result,asserts Origen, Christians are better than philosophers at calling the massestoward the supremely aristocratic virtue of kalokagathia.

Reasons for the greater readiness of Christians to exclude those theyconsidered deviant or unworthy are not difficult to find. Gibbon famouslymade the “inflexible and . . . intolerant zeal” of Christians the first of his“secondary causes” for the spread of Christianity.153 The idea that Chris-tianity was inherently and uniquely intolerant needs to be modified;154 weare better off thinking in terms of pressures toward and against exclusion.If we accept with Rodney Stark and Keith Hopkins that early Christian-ity grew at something like 40 percent per decade,155 then the pressure ofassimilating large numbers of adult converts must have added urgency tothe problem of boundary maintenance.156 And as James Rives reminds us,the exceptional Christian drive toward homogeneity and totalization was“firmly grounded in a dualistic view of the cosmos, in which the Christiangod embodied all goodness and demons were evil beings ranged againsthim.”157 And with eternal salvation on the line, there was no room for error.Ignatius puts it starkly: “anyone who destroys by evil teaching the faith ofGod . . . will enter into unquenchable fire, as will the one who listens to him”(Eph. 16.2).158 The corporate threat was construed somewhat differently,too. For intellectuals engaged in a zero-sum contest over cultural prestige,the cost of admitting the wrong person was to surrender a measure of pres-tige or wealth to an unworthy competitor, or to risk allowing an interloperto tarnish the group’s image in the eyes of outsiders. Christians, by contrast,understood themselves to have entered into a corporate relationship withthe divine, which could be tainted by any deviation from correct ritual ordoctrine. They were concerned about the church’s reputation with out-siders, but the real danger was that the contagion of heresy would infectthe entire community, at the cost of eternal life for all.

Yet, as among pepaideumenoi, Christian calls for exclusivity areveined with ambivalence. While authors across the theological spectrumsubscribe to the ideal of internal unanimity, the value of protecting the

153 Gibbon 1956 [1776–88] i: 431.154 Lyman 2003a; cf. Beard, North, and Price 1998 i: 211–44 on the limits of toleration in traditional

Roman religion.155 Stark 1996: 4–13; Hopkins 1998: 186–94.156 Hopkins 1998: 217–25; Drake 2005: 10–11. 157 Rives 2005, at 21.158 8� 7�� & 8 ��P. ��7� ��7��. . . . �#� � &� � N�%�� 2!�-��, (��7!� �� (

��! �:��.


The rights and wrongs of exclusivity 63

group’s purity by excommunicating dissenters is not uniformly embraced.Some tacitly concede the practical impossibility of strict enforcement of asocial boundary. Judith Lieu highlights the gap between rhetorical aspira-tion and sociological reality in Revelation. The author “seeks to effect animpermeable ‘virtual’ boundary” by projecting backward an eschatologicaldivision between the blessedness of the saints and the destruction of others.Yet the voice of authority proves unable to “enforce boundaries and imposean exclusion, which is instead left to an eschatological threat.”159 Later inthe second century, expulsion of “heretical” leaders and groups was notas frequent as polemicists like to pretend; the long acceptance of Marcionand Valentinus at Rome is notorious.160

The fragmentation of second-century churches surely accounts for muchpassive, often unwitting, tolerance, but theoretical justifications could alsobe found for actively countenancing diversity. Some authors advocate spir-itual, not social, separation from dissenters, either on the ground thatweeding out false Christians will be an eschatological event (e.g. Apoc.Pet. 75.27–31) or that disagreement stems from grasping a lower level of thetruth (e.g. Docetae ap. Hipp. Ref. 8.10.8–11).161 Similarly, the Roman bishopCallistus (c. 217–22) invoked the image of Noah’s ark to justify extendingcommunion liberally to sinners, ex-“heretics,” and persons expelled byother congregations: just as the ark contained both clean and uncleananimals, so the church should embrace pure and impure alike (Hipp.Ref. 9.12.23). This policy incensed his rival Hippolytus, but most RomanChristians appear to have sided with Callistus.162 Indeed, even those whoendorsed withdrawing fellowship from “heretics” in theory might well hes-itate in practice. One person’s principled separation was another person’sdestructive schism, and even Christians who saw themselves as allies coulddisagree about whether a particular point of difference was serious enoughto merit rupture.

Pastoral considerations, too, weighed against stringent exclusivity.Like (some) philosophers, some Christians understood their mission in

159 Lieu 2004: 136–7.160 Langerbeck 1967: 172–6; Ludemann 1979; Lampe 1987: 326–30; Thomassen 2004: 241–7.161 Koschorke 1978: 85–9, 166–98. For example, the author of Testim. Truth says that the true Christian

“is patient with every one; he makes himself equal to every one, and he also separates himself fromthem” (44.13–16), which Koschorke interprets as a call to maintain communion with dissenterswhile spiritually dissociating from them. One wonders, though, whether the author could havebelonged to the same congregation as believers who rejected the text’s stringent asceticism orinsisted on practicing water baptism (38.27–40.12, 67.1–68.12, 69.7–28).

162 With Powell 1975a, I accept that Hippolytus was a dissenting presbyter rather than a schismaticbishop, as some later patristic writers assumed; Brent 1995: 415–53 advances a more complicatedversion of this thesis.



therapeutic terms; again, the metaphor demands a certain openness tothose perceived as deviant, since it is not the healthy who need a doctor,but the sick (Mark 2:17). Consistent with his image of the perfect gnosticteacher as a physician of souls,163 Clement of Alexandria presents his workas an overture to “heretics” who are not entirely incurable (�� <� =�� =��), holding open the possibility of their repentanceand restoration (Strom. 7.16.102.6, 95.2). On this model, while temporarysegregation of the spiritually diseased from the uninfected might be ther-apeutically or epidemiologically necessary, “heretics” should be treated aserrant members who might still be recuperated, rather than amputated. Noris Clement alone in his (guarded) optimism. Earlier in the second centurythe Roman prophet Hermas holds out hope that “hypocrites and importersof strange teachings” (�� 2�� 5� �� #�� ) mightstill repent, in contrast to apostates, betrayers of the church, and blasphe-mers, who can not (Sim. 8.6.4–5; cf. 9.19.1–3).164 Valentinian authors whodraw what can look like deterministic divisions between different typesof Christians in fact allow for fluid movement among categories.165 EvenIrenaeus aims at the conversion and reconciliation of dissidents, not theirirrevocable exclusion.166 Second-century Christian writers, then, do notuniformly advocate permanent social rupture as the only, or best, responseto difference, even differences they consider salient.

Still, calls for the exclusion of “heretics” are a bass chord running throughour sources, even those that express reservations. Near the end of his urgentcall to repentance, Hermas looks forward to the seamless unity of thechurch, “after its purification and the expulsion of the wicked, the hyp-ocrites, the blasphemers, the double-souled, and those doing evil with man-ifold wickedness” (Sim. 9.18.3–4).167 Clement cautions that the incurablyill do need to be cut off, lest the entire body be destroyed along with them(Strom. 1.27.171.4). Even Callistus, whose school Hippolytus charges with“indiscriminately offering communion to all” (�� 7!� ��

163 E.g. Strom. 1.8.40; 4.23.152.3–13; 7.3.161, 4.27.6, 9.53.2, 14.88.5. See further Kovacs 2001: 11–16.164 Cf. Vis. 2.2.8, 3.6.1, 3.7.2, Sim. 6.2.3, 8.8.2, 9.26.3–6 (apostates, deniers, and blasphemers unre-

coverable); Sim. 8.8.5 (dissenters eligible for conversion). Date: Osiek 1999: 18–20 argues that theShepherd was composed over a period extending from the late first century through the first half ofthe second.

165 Schottroff 1969; P. Perkins 1980: 182–3, 1993: 152–63; M. A. Williams 1996: 189–212; Buell 2005:126–37; Dunderberg 2008: 134–46; Tite 2009: 195–6.

166 Vallee 1981: 27. Thomassen 2004: 253–5 discusses the Valentinian attitude toward “psychic” believ-ers not as heretics, but as potential Christians to be evangelized; Thomassen 2006 regards thissoteriological question as the chief point of contention between western and eastern Valentinians.

167 �� %�� 0� � ��0� �� %��-�� D�2�� 7�� 7��.


Conclusion 65

< �� ! 7� ), drove out (��!�� ) the teacher Sabellius for doctrinalerror ('� �< �� o& � Q��, Ref. 9.12.26, 15). Within the emerginginstitutional church, a gradual hardening of attitudes can be traced in thelast decades of the second century. Heresy comes increasingly to be equatedwith apostasy, aided by new historiographical schemas that track the ances-try of “heresy” to extra-Christian roots.168 This equation is concretized ina social sorting, as increasingly empowered bishops work to bring orderto the untidy profusion of Christian gatherings – and inflections of thefaith – in their cities. Victor’s excommunications of Blastus and Florinusand attempt to corral local Asian Christians exemplify this movement, asdo the efforts of Irenaeus and Heraclas to force an either-or choice between“orthodox” church membership and attendance on “heretical” teachers.

conclusion

In the early Empire, men and women who claimed recognition as sophists,philosophers, and Christians sought membership in categories to which itwas intensely desirable and rewarding to belong – at least in the eyes of itsown members – but whose precise boundaries and character proved frus-tratingly difficult to define. Self-professed insiders in each group labored toestablish the contours of their community in a way that placed themselvesat the center and excluded deviants, charlatans, the unqualified, and mali-cious saboteurs – a rhetorical exclusion ideally replicated by physical andsocial marginalization. The vulnerability of these groups’ corporate iden-tities was accordingly emblematized and aggravated by the permeability ofthe physical spaces in which their members operated.

In response, Christian and pagan intellectuals sought to use social con-nections to seal the porous boundaries of their communities. Where self-profession, appearance, and spatial location prove unreliable guides to innerreality, our sources insist that (the right kind of ) ties to group membersprovide a more secure index of identity. Recognition by other insiders andinclusion in the central activities of the group are thus held out as anexclusive prerogative and hallmark of legitimate members, whose status isconfirmed in turn by their interactions with other insiders. Self-consciousinsiders screen their interactions accordingly – or at least, claim to do so,and urge others to follow suit. In the ideal, closing social ranks – and, ifpossible, the spaces of assembly – against the unworthy brings the group’sblurred image back into clear focus and reasserts its ability to determine its

168 Wilson 2002, esp. 446–7. On genealogies of “heresy,” see Chapter 7.



own identity. Operating in largely private venues, and with eternal salvationhanging in the balance, early Christians pursue this strategy of corporateself-regulation with a rigor that would have struck many of their academiccounterparts as fantastic, others as deplorable. Yet even there, enforcementis less a matter of physical expulsion than of bringing to bear social pressureand personal connections. This raises the question of which connections,or whose opinions, should carry most weight: tension between what wemight call top-down, producer-driven models of authorization and grass-roots, consumer-driven forms of recognition, an undercurrent throughoutthis chapter, will rise to the surface in the next two.


chapter 2

Contesting competenceThe ideal of self-determination

introduction

Identity is not simply a matter of self-identification, but of recognition byothers. As the sociologist Richard Jenkins remarks, “we cannot see ourselvesat all without also seeing ourselves as other people see us . . . It is not enoughto assert an identity. That identity must be validated (or not) by those withwhom we have dealings.”1 In Chapter 1 we saw that Christians, sophists,and philosophers looked in part to individuals’ dealings with other groupmembers to establish their identity. But what value was to be accorded tointeractions with those outside the group, who nevertheless had a stake in itscomposition: non-specialist hearers, fans, patrons, and political authorities?Identity always takes shape in the interface between internal definition –how a group defines and announces its character to itself and others –and external categorization – the identity and membership attributed tothe group by outsiders, which may or may not coincide with insiderperspectives.2 How much friction is sparked by this interaction dependson how far the two perspectives concur, whether group members recognizethe external categorizers’ authority as legitimate, and how vulnerable orcontested the internal definition is felt to be.3

The next two chapters argue that Second Sophistic pepaideumenoi andChristians both insisted, in somewhat different ways, on the primacy ofinternal definition. The premise that only legitimate group members haveauthority to evaluate the credentials of members and hence to determinethe group’s contours pays large dividends in contests to define “insider”perspective. It assumes the pre-existence and coherence of the very bound-aries it projects, affirms as self-evident the selection of individuals singledout as nodal points, and naturalizes the exclusion of those labeled out-siders. It also opens an avenue for inserting oneself into a prized category

1 Jenkins 1996: 21. 2 Jenkins 1994. 3 The last point is made by Lieu 2002: 176.

67


68 Contesting competence

by challenging the self-designations of others; thus Justin Martyr posi-tions himself as a true philosopher by questioning the credentials of hisimperial addressees (Apol. 2.2) and other purported sages (Apol. 4.8–9, 7.3;2 Apol. 8).4 Yet this reasoning stands in tension not only with its own man-ifest circularity, but with the fact that it is neither possible nor desirable toinsulate a community completely against “outside” input. A group cannothelp responding to and to some degree internalizing external perspectives,even if resists them.5 And if we ask which matters most for a performer –mass popularity, critical acclaim, or the approval of other artists – theanswer must be all of the above; indeed, our sources tend to give mostweight to whichever metric works best in their favor.6

This chapter focuses on the struggles of pepaideumenoi to balance com-mitment to disciplinary autonomy against recognition of the role that out-side persons and agencies played in defining their communities. Sophistsand philosophers are of course intensely attuned to the reactions of non-specialist patrons and consumers. Yet they staunchly insist that mass pop-ularity, awards, and honors, while gratifying, have no real bearing onprofessional identity or standing – except when taking them into accountproves advantageous.7 Much as aristocratic pepaideumenoi sought to nat-uralize their cultural superiority and political power by portraying paideiaas innate rather than acquired (or acquirable),8 so too it was a sustainingarticle of faith that competent evaluation of paideia and pepaideumenoicould come only from inside the paideutic elite.

The silent (or silenced) partner in this negotiation is the non-specialist (#��9��),9 a multivalent figure who proved a useful foil for the

4 Nasrallah 2010: 130–44, 191–201 discusses the theme of naming in Justin and Athenagoras.5 Jenkins 1994. In a very different context, Porter 1993: 271 points out the incoherence of the concept

of autonomy, as “a relational concept that appears to name a property standing outside all relation.”6 Cicero grapples with this question at length in the Brutus (183–200). Taking a practical view of

oratory – and taking aim at snobbish “Atticizers” who lack crowd appeal (283–9) – he argues thatsince the aim of public speaking is to inform, delight, and move an audience (185), mass audiencesare ideal judges of whether those effects have been achieved. While it takes an expert to explainwhy a speech is good or bad, anyone can recognize it as such. As a result, “there has never been adivergence of opinion between the people and learned experts” (numquam fuit populo cum doctisintellegentibusque dissensio, 188). Even so, Cicero does not hesitate to challenge popular opinion indefense of an unpopular orator he favors (264) or against an overrated panderer (242–3).

7 Zweimuller 2008: 105–7 notes this tension but tries to mitigate it.8 Schmitz 1997; cf. Gleason 1995: xxi; Flinterman 2002: 203–4; J. Perkins 2009: 17–28.9 As Morgan 1998: 235 observes, “among the writers who discuss the acquisition of rhetorical skills,

learning rhetoric means acquiring a monopoly of significant speech . . . Only men who fulfil thosecriteria can express themselves effectively. The rest cannot speak and if they do their speech is, bydefinition, insignificant.” Schmitz 1997: 89–90 discusses the sharp division in second-century Atticistlexica between the speech of the educated and that of the uneducated masses (�/ ��7, #��,��>�).


Introduction 69

self-formation of pepaideumenoi. That one should not consult non-expertson areas of specialist expertise is a well-established Platonic topos. For thesophos, this mandates a judicious disregard for amateur opinions aboutintellectual activity. The wise man, urges Socrates, ignores conventionalwisdom (� � �� 45�) and listens only to those who know aboutjustice and injustice, just as athletes accept gymnastic advice only from theirtrainers (Pl. Crito 44cd, 46b–48a). Since the multitude (� ��) doesnot understand philosophy, philosophers inevitably come in for criticismfrom the crowd and the non-philosophical teachers (#��) who panderto it – namely sophists – but this criticism has no value (Pl. R. 6, 494a).Already in Plato, then, idiotai represent an out-group against which insideridentity may be defined, and emblems of the difference between true insid-ers and unworthy competitors. Early imperial authors exploit this topos toposition pepaideumenoi as a breed apart, governed by rules that only theyunderstand and apply properly. This claim supplies an easy way to silencecritics, while enhancing the mystique and prestige of elite paideia. Eveneducated non-specialists can be lumped into the category of idiotes, whenthat serves to defend the unique perquisites of intellectual “producers.” Atthe same time, the notion that no serious person pays attention to idiotaiprovides leverage against professional rivals and competing forms of exper-tise: either the rival himself is an idiotes, with no business interfering inthe domain of experts and ineligible to protest his marginalization,10 or hisfans are all idiotai whose admiration counts for nothing. Here too, Socratessets the tone, with his barbed allusion to sophists as idiotai: by implication,sophists are neither philosophers nor credible rivals to philosophy; theirso-called expertise (��7�) is merely cheap amateurism, parroting back tothe crowd its own opinions (R. 6, 493a–494a).

Another classic Socratic trick for turning the tables on exponents of rivalforms of wisdom is to pose as an idiotes oneself, to lure a self-importantinterlocutor into making himself look foolish or to downplay the value ofhis specialism.11 Baiting a trap for a brash young Stoic, Herodes Atticusadopts the pose of a humble seeker who defers to a master, “since we, whom

10 “What business do you have asking about that?” (�� . . . 7 �� ! ��> ;),snaps one Stoic at a grammarian who quizzes him about Chrysippus; he then steers the man back onto his own turf (� M��) with a question about Nausicaa’s laundry (Plut. Quaest. conv. 626E–627A).A disciplinary boundary is being (re)asserted, not through closure of physical or social space, butthrough restriction of discourse.

11 For example, Socrates gulls the sophist Euthydemus by deferring to his superior dialectical knowl-edge, “since I have only the skill of an amateur” (�2 � 12! #��9�� 9��, Pl. Euthd.295e); cf. Euthd. 278d, 282d; Hp. mi. 367c; Ion 532e.



you call idiotae, cannot give answers to you” (Gell. 1.2.6).12 Epictetus reels inan Epicurean-leaning imperial administrator by professing that “it is rightfor us idiotai to inquire of you philosophers” (3.7.1).13 Far from renouncingthe privileges of paideia, this ploy is both premised on and underscoresthe danger of inserting oneself into learned conversation beyond one’scompetence. A more subversive variant finds in the idiotes an outsidevantage from which to criticize the conduct of insiders and the valueof their expertise. Here, Lucian is the master.14 Disgusted by brawlingphilosophers at a topsy-turvy (� ��) symposium, his alter-egoLycinus muses that popular distrust of education may be well founded:the idiotai present have behaved perfectly while the philosophers disgracedthemselves (Symp. 34–5; cf. Pisc. 34). “Best and sounder the amateur life,”Teiresias counsels Menippus, advising him to forget the cosmic speculationsand logic splitting of sophoi (Nec. 21).15 Yet this “amateur” stance, too, isless a renunciation of expertise than a critique of those who perform theirexpertise wrongly.

The prickly attitude of Second Sophistic intellectuals toward idiotaigenerally and their exploitation of the figure of the idiotes as a tool for self-definition form the subject of the first half of this chapter. The second halfwill zero in on a particularly troubling set of idiotai, the financial backersand political authorities who mediated access to the trappings of successthat could make or break a career: prestigious venues and performanceopportunities, civic honors, endowed chairs, imperial offices. Pursuingthose goods while denying their relevance required a delicate but seeminglynecessary balancing act. At stake was not only who deserved recognition asa sophist or philosopher (and hence what exactly those labels meant), butalso who was entitled to make such decisions – questions that prove to beclosely intertwined.

idiotai in the realm of the pepaideumenos

When the disheveled sophist Marcus of Byzantium drops in unannouncedon Polemo’s school, Polemo reacts with scorn to the idea that a rustic(N��) outsider could propose a theme for declamation, much less

12 quoniam respondere nos tibi, quos vocas idiotas, non quimus.13 N5�� , 1��, �0� #��9�� ’ �� 4�! � �= ��.14 On this Lucianic posture, see Branham 1989: 23–5; Goldhill 2001b: 4.15 ( � #��!� N�� %7��, �� !�� =�� & ��!��> ��

��2�� 8��> �� ! �� &� �� =�� .


Idiotai in the realm of the pepaideumenos 71

declaim himself (Philostr. VS 529). Underlying his incredulity is the toposthat amateurs are neither welcome nor competent to engage actively indisplays of high culture – the flip side of the notion that admission tothe (physical) arena of learned discourse is the hallmark and exclusiveprerogative of legitimate experts. Non-specialists are to enter the realm ofthe pepaideumenos at most as passive consumers: circumspect amateurs are“typically on guard against discoursing about and misrepresenting thingsabout which they know nothing” (Jus. 2 Apol. 8.3).16 Prominent among thesubjects beyond the ken of the untrained is evaluation of pepaideumenoi: inan Epictetan parody of philosophical shoptalk, one participant’s opinionabout which philosophers are best is written off as not worth hearingbecause “he has only the first rudiments (of education), nothing more”(Epict. 3.2.10).17

The poor cultural judgment of ordinary people was proverbial, a sourceof endless fun in Lucianic satires. Idiotai have no idea how to respondto art but merely gawk in silence, gesturing vaguely, since “with regardto viewing, the law for amateurs is not the same as for cultured men”(Dom. 2).18 They fare no better in looking at artists. They rely uncriticallyon superficial appearance, whether the grubby sternness of the philoso-pher or the sleek urbanity of the sophist,19 and cannot tell the differencebetween performance and reality (Salt. 83). Unversed in sophistic Kunst-sprache (Pseudol. 13), they are easily impressed by unfamiliar words, whetherrightly or wrongly used (Lex. 24; Rh. pr. 17), and by other cheap rhetori-cal tricks (Rh. pr. 18–21), including dazzling but “ignoble, effeminate, andunphilosophical” vocal mannerisms (Demon. 12).20 They mistake trivialquibbling, insolence, and shouting for philosophical debate (Bis acc. 11;cf. Gell. 10.24.24), and the cynical publicity stunts of a Peregrinus for thecourageous frank-speaking of true greats such as Musonius Rufus, DioChrysostom, and Epictetus (Peregr. 18). Christians – idiotai all – cannoteven distinguish real Christians from fakers (Peregr. 13). Ignorant of what

16 #��!� . . . �f ��=� �� =�� ] �:� 87�� D��L��> .

17 �:� 1�� N5�� & ��> �� : 7 �� ; �� 9�� 12��, �� ’ �:�� .18 �:2 ( �:�� =�� 4�� #��9�� =�� . On “cultured

viewing,” see Goldhill 1994, 2001c: 157–67.19 Sidebottom 2009: 82: “A man would hold that it was always other people, and usually the masses,

who judged by symbolic representation alone and thus opened the door to the ‘false sophists’ mockedby Lucian.” Similarly, Gleason 1995: 36–54 analyzes how in his physiognomical work Polemo “setshimself apart from ordinary people, whose unsophisticated reliance on single signs leaves them atthe mercy of the duplicitous” (42). Goldhill 2002: 83–4 notes that mocking those who judge onappearance does not stop Lucian from obsessively observing and ridiculing appearance himself.

20 �� >� �� 7� e�� , with Gleason 1995: 135.



is better (�� &�� %��7!), ordinary people must – indeed, preferto – follow the opinions of experts (Harm. 2). Obviously, then, the approvalor disapproval of the general public cannot determine the reputation of apepaideumenos among connoisseurs.21

Instead, we are told, only pepaideumenoi have the acumen needed toassess other pepaideumenoi, for evaluating elite cultural “products” requiresthe same expertise as producing them.22 This is the basis for Aelius Aristides’self-defense in On a Remark in Passing: criticism of oratory is the exclusiveprovince of the orator, so let the critic take over the orator’s chair himself, ifhe has switched roles from hearer to speaker (Or. 28.126). Only an orator,who specializes in speaking in persona, possesses the technical knowledgeneeded to assess a speech given in the persona of himself (Or. 28.4–8; cf.33.15). Indeed, one of the orator’s tasks can be to point out the meritsof his declamation to listeners who lack the capacity to appreciate them(Or. 28.119–21).23 For an amateur to critique a declamation, then, is tousurp the role of the orator (O-�� 2��, Or. 28.8); conversely, todeny a man’s right to criticize is to deny his status as an orator. Polemotook this logic a step further during his Athenian debut, in which hedeliberately defied audience expectations, a move he presented as a testof his listeners’ competence: “People say, Athenians, that you are shrewdhearers of speeches. I will see about that” (Philostr. VS 535).24 It is thesophist who judges the audience, not the other way around; not his status,but their ability to appreciate his declamations is at issue. Philostratus citesthis episode as an instance of Polemo’s arrogance, but his behavior simply(if polemically) enacts the asymmetry of performer and audience tacitlyasserted throughout the Lives of the Sophists and explicitly theorized byAristides. The right to judge insiders is treated as a privilege reserved for –and hence a defining signifier of – those already on the inside.

To violate this rule by attending to lay opinion could have dire conse-quences – so our sources would have us fear. The integrity of an entirediscipline, whether rhetorical or philosophical, could be at stake. Most

21 Gleason 1995: 152 highlights this strategy in Favorinus’ On Exile: “Favorinus practically dismantleshis audience by implying that its reaction has no bearing on the success of his speech.”

22 Branham 1989: 19 analyzes how in On the Dance, “Lucian correlates the relationship of the actor tohis role with the audience’s reception of the performance”: just as the performer needs to maintainsome distance from role, the shrewd hearer maintains “the requisite distance for contemplating andjudging a performance.”

23 Fields 2008: 160–3 discusses this logic.24 �� , g X�� >��, ��0� �� 4�! S �M��. G. Anderson 1986: 51 finds

Polemo’s attitude self-indulgent, but it is better understood in the context of the agonistic relation-ship between performer and audience, in which both parties had expectations to meet: see Korenjak2000: 170; Schmitz 2009: 63–4.



basically, reliance on the judgment of unqualified fools and flatterers pro-motes shoddy work and encourages the over-inflated self-image of bunglerssuch as Lucian’s Lexiphanes and the Ignorant Book Collector (Ind. 20; Lex.17, 23; cf. Philostr. VS 540–1). Aelius Aristides (like Socrates) blames the riseof the facile sophistic style he abhors on pandering to public taste, although(like Cicero) he is also quick to insist that this strategy is self-defeating,since even popular audiences prefer high-quality, critically sanctioned ora-tory (Or. 34, esp. 1–3, 19–47). Attempts to cater to audience taste thusdegrade oratory in the eyes of the public (Or. 34.55–8), just as acceptingpopular philosophical judgment paradoxically devalues philosophy in theeyes of the masses, since charlatans are allowed to pass for real sages (Epict.4.8.4–14; Luc. Fug. 21, Pisc. 32–4).

Further, argues Aristides, attentiveness to audience reaction can weaken aperformance, because it spoils the orator’s concentration and takes him outof the moment (Or. 28.111–15). More fundamentally, taking cues from theaudience upsets the dynamic between speaker and audience (Or. 28.118–26).Aristides cannot bear an active hearer “who knows how to be moved, andwho meets the words head-on”; far better a restrained (�9��! ), reactivelistener (Or. 28.118).25 The orator’s task is not to cater to his audience, but toinstruct and lead it, as a general does his soldiers, a helmsman his sailors, achorus-leader his dancers, or a ruler his people (Or. 28.126; cf. 33.9, 34.53).To invert this hierarchy is dangerous, a shameful reversal of the law ofnature, which is to obey one’s superior (Or. 28.123, 125–6). Worst of all, tobe guided by the audience is to up-end the orator’s relationship with the godwho inspires him (Or. 28.110, 114–16, 156). Accepting advice from amateur“tattle-tales” (�/ ��!��>�) might be appropriate for bumblers whodo not know their own art (Or. 28.131), but if a real orator did so, he wouldsubvert the architecture of the universe itself, putting uninitiated hearers inthe place of the divine! Audiences do have a part to play, in that they havea duty to attend declamations and to encourage others to do the same, butAristides casts them strictly in the role of consumers, not collaborators;further, any dereliction of their duty undercuts their claims to be admirersof oratory, not the prestige of the orator himself (Or. 33.7–14, 24–32).

On the philosophical side, Epictetus too regards independence of non-expert opinion as a moral necessity. Echoing Socrates, he repeatedlycautions against chasing after the meaningless approval of lay people,which no specialist heeds when it comes to his own art (2.13.3, 14.2;4.1.117, 5.22, 12.14). Why would a philosopher care if he is admired by

25 �� <� � �:2 H�� 4�� 9��! , ��’ H�� 87�� >�� %�� H�� >� �� ;



non-philosophers (1.21.3–4; cf. 2.7.4–7, 13.16–19, 29.50–4) or despised bythe ignorant (4.5.22), whose behavior betrays their incomprehension oftrue moral value? Only a philosopher understands the proper criteria ofevaluation – that is, what is genuinely good or bad – so only he can assessanother philosopher’s ethos competently (4.7.29; cf. 2.18.21). Concern forreputation among idiotai inevitably turns one’s attention away from therealm of moral purpose (��7��) and toward externals, both reputa-tion itself and the kinds of outward circumstances that non-philosophersconsider important (1.29.64). Just as desire for applause can make an oratoror musician nervous and impair his performance, since he wrongly believesthat such praise has value, so desire for external success hobbles the ethicalperformance of a philosopher (2.13.2–13, 16.5–19). Either his philosophiz-ing will be merely for show, aimed at winning admiration rather thanat moral transformation (1.26.9; 2.1.34–8; 3.12.16) or he will compromisehimself for fear of being pitied as a failure (4.6). This critique culminatesin Epictetus’ portrait of the sophistic philosopher who cares more aboutpolished lectures, glowing teaching evaluations, and high enrollments thanabout effective instruction (3.23.10–26). His listeners go away praising hiselegant discussions of Xerxes and Thermopylae, but morally unchanged(3.23.35–7). Epictetus concludes in disgust: “Is this what it means to heara philosopher?” (3.23.37).26 Again, allowing outsiders to set the agendafor one’s field represents a fundamental betrayal. Exclusion of lay voicesserves to marginalize inappropriate (sophistic, crowd-pleasing) modes ofphilosophy.

An apparent exception to this reasoning comes in Dio Chrysostom’saccount of his “conversion” to philosophy (Or. 13.9–13). Dio representshimself as stumbling into philosophy by accident during his exile, in partthrough the prompting of the Delphic oracle, but mostly because thepeople he met on his travels assumed from his ragged appearance that hewas a philosopher and treated him as such (Or. 13.11–12):

Some who encountered me, upon seeing me, called me a wanderer, others abeggar, but some also called me “philosopher.” From that, it happened that Iquickly obtained this name, without any advocacy or self-conceit on my part. Formany so-called philosophers proclaim themselves, as Olympic heralds do; but asfor me, when others said it, I was not always able to fight it out with everyone.27

26 �&4 8�� 4�� 4��; Pace Winter 2002: 118–21, we need not read this passage aspolemic against sophists as such, but as part of a debate over right ways to do philosophy.

27 �/ � 8 ��2= � �� N ��!�� (�� / � ��-� , �/ � !2� 8�=�� , �/ �� 4�� . 8 �&�� 8�� %� ��’ Q�7�� : %��=�� :� �:� 8�’ 3�� -�� & Q 4�� 2�> . �/ � �� ! ��4�! ��0� � �� , W�� / +`��7�� -��S 8�6 � � N��! ��4 ! �:�8�� =�� =2��.



Dio thus ostentatiously insists that it was not he who initiated his turntoward philosophy, but the god and ordinary people encountered on theroad. Yet the point of this stylized narrative, now widely recognized asartful autobiographical fiction,28 is not to affirm the ability of lay peopleto create a philosopher out of whole cloth. Rather, it serves to establishDio’s philosophical bona fides, as an exiled sage and Socratic self-taughtphilosopher (�:�� 7��, Or. 1.9) who did not seek that titlefor himself.29 Aligning himself with idiotai permits Dio to differentiatehimself from presumptuous “self-styled” rivals and to outflank their claimsto authority by locating the basis of true philosophical identity elsewhere.If the principle of philosophical autonomy appears to be sacrificed andidiotai momentarily made the arbiters of philosophical status, we shouldnot mistake that for a programmatic theoretical position, however;30 Diospends most of the rest of the speech mounting traditional arguments forthe irrelevance of majority opinion (� �� 45�) (esp. Or. 13.2, 31).This exception is no exception.

For Dio, Epictetus, and Aristides, interrogating the value of lay judg-ment has to do not only with protecting their community’s autonomy,but also with pushing back against rivals and disciplinary models thatthey wish to exclude. So too Lucian’s jokes about undiscerning idiotai,whose real butt is not lay consumers themselves, but opponents who (hecharges) can find admirers only among know-nothing amateurs. In thisdiscourse, false insiders are represented as heeding outside opinion eithertoo little (self-important upstarts with no authority beyond themselves)or too much (showy panderers who court mass popularity). In this way,the idiotes becomes a screen onto which to project internal contests overself-definition, so that desired internal divisions are recast as, or made toreplicate, external ones.

More directly, one can turn the label idiotes against the opponent himself.In its broadest reach, this threat informs the intense scrutiny to whichmembers of the educated elite subjected each other, always alert for an errorof speech, knowledge, dress, bearing, gesture, or glance that might betraysomeone as a pretender. The clashes that Lucian stages between his modelCynic Demonax and the Academic Favorinus add a final turn of the screw:each wields the equation of producer and critic against the other, seekingto discredit his rival as an unqualified outsider (Demon. 12–13).31 At stake isnot only their own standing, but their contrasting visions of what mattersmore to philosophy, virility or paideia. Hearing that Demonax has been

28 Moles 1978. Whitmarsh 2001b: 287–90 analyzes the “ironic naivety” of Dio’s self-representation.29 Whitmarsh 2001a: 159–67, esp. 161 discusses the Socratic (and earlier) roots of this paradigm.30 Pace Hahn 1989: 193–5. 31 On this passage, see Gleason 1995: 135–7.



mocking his speaking style, Favorinus confronts him. His opening gambitrecalls Philagrus (“Who are you to make jokes about my affairs?”), followedby a challenge to Demonax’s paideutic competence: “What equipment doyou have to go from school to philosophy?”32 The supremely well-educatedFavorinus plainly expects to win this fight, but unfortunately Demonaxhas one crucial piece of equipment that he lacks: balls (C�2��). A secondencounter begins with Favorinus again attempting to expose Demonax’sincompetence, and again it ends with his own qualifications in doubt.Asked which hairesis he prefers, Demonax wonders who told Favorinus thathe was a philosopher and then chuckles at the thought that the beardlessFavorinus thinks he can judge philosophers by their beards (Demon. 13).33

Because Favorinus lacks the true (physical) prerequisites of philosophy, inother words, he is unequipped to recognize philosophers but must rely onexternal markers and the guidance of others like an amateur. For each man,an attempt to nullify the other’s status as a philosopher (and conceptionof philosophy) takes the form of disputing his qualification to assess otherphilosophers.

The debates we have been examining so far are predicated on andadvocate for the idea that pepaideumenoi operate in a professional bubble,affecting but essentially unaffected by non-specialists. This picture obvi-ously obscures much – deliberately, I would argue. That celebrity sophistswere in fact deeply invested in their public reputations hardly needs tobe said; their love of reputation (��57�) and ambition (��7�)were proverbial. Philodoxia was a perennial hazard for philosophers, too,although our sources insist that it was only other, illegitimate philosopherswho chased after fame. There is no mystery here. Public performance,and hence dependence on popular opinion, was central to the practice ofboth philosophy and rhetoric; our sources’ strenuous protests of indepen-dence cannot entirely paper over their vulnerability to public response totheir work.34 Moreover, the image of listeners as appreciative, but essen-tially passive, consumers, so foundational to Aristides’ vision of the proper

32 ��6 h�9� � i��9 ��, 7� ? 2��=K�� :�&S j ��!��, 1��, �:��:�=�� 12! � g�. 8�� & ��& �� 8�!� ��, k7 � � �� 8�4��12! , ] i�� 5, 8� ��7�� #� ��7� e��;

33 N�� ( �:�� 6 h�9� � i��9 ��, 7 � �� =K�� 8 ��7�S ( ��, “k7� �=� �� H� ��;” . . . �& � 8�!-�� , 8�’ H� ��,8��> �� 1��, “l��>4 �� * �� 1��5� , �# �0 �� & 9�! �� 5��>� ��7 �� 0� ��L��& �� :�� 9�! � �:� 12! .”

34 Bowersock 2002. Schmitz 1997: 214–20 examines the pressure of popular expectations to whichsophists were exposed, which they met at the cost of a measure of their sovereignty.


The problem of patronage 77

functioning of oratory, has been thoroughly debunked.35 As both Plutarch(On Listening to Lectures) and Lucian’s Professor of Public Speaking (Rh.pr. 22) recognize, the audience was an active partner in performance,sometimes collaborating, often in competition with the speaker. The linebetween performer and spectator is also blurred by the fact that audiencestypically did not comprise idiotai in the strongest sense but largely othermembers of the urban elite, often with similar education and ambitions.Our sources’ configuration of audiences as amateur outsiders with neitherthe disciplinary acumen nor the effective ability to pass judgment on intel-lectuals is thus tendentious on every count, a maneuver in the agonisticback-and-forth between speaker and hearers, rather than a description ofreality.

Further, even authors who deride celebrity seekers and proclaim theirdisdain for non-expert opinion are willing to credit mass popularity whenit works in their favor. In the midst of a sustained assault on greedy,fame-obsessed philosophers in the Fisherman, Lucian slips in a plug forhis own work by having Diogenes complain that such polemics have wonapplause and praise from spectators (Pisc. 25). The incongruity may bedeliberate: Lucian turns the same ironic, knowing eye on his surrogates’games of self-presentation that he does on everyone else’s.36 Others play itstraighter. Philostratus finds proof of the supreme eloquence of Dio andFavorinus in the fact that their discourses appealed to non-specialists (�/�< � VE��- ! ��%�& ��, VS 488)37 and even non-Greek speakers(VS 491), the ultimate outsiders to the system of Greek paideia. EvenAristides happily touts his popularity with audiences “of both tribes, I meanboth the skilled and those whom we call the masses” as evidence for the highquality of popular taste (Or. 34.42–4; cf. 51.16, 29–41).38 Granting weightto non-expert opinion does not constitute an infringment of intellectualautonomy as long as it confirms the author’s own perspective.

the problem of patronage

The dynamics of negotiation become particularly fraught, denial of thevalence of external recognition especially difficult, when the outsiders in

35 Korenjak 2000; cf. Gleason 1995: xxxiii; von Staden 1997: 48–9; Whitmarsh 2005: 3, 24–6; Webb2006: 38–9, 45–6. The model of the passive (mass) audience has been most vigorously defended bySchmitz 1997: 209–14, who has in mind political, rather than aesthetic, responses to declamation.

36 A running theme of Branham 1989, esp. 179–210; cf. Goldhill 2002: 60–107.37 For this interpretation of the phrase, see Whitmarsh 2001a: 243.38 7 �� ! ��7K�� %�� 8 ��4�� 8�7 �� ; J 7� �� . . . ��! eD��

8� � , ��! �� 5�� d� <�0�> ��0� Q ��=K�� ; (Or. 34.42).



question hold the keys to the financial resources, opportunities, and honorsthat confer distinction or make professional activity possible. Allocation ofthese resources puts the critical judgments of patrons into action, enablingthem to actualize their understanding of the categories “philosopher” or“sophist,” at least in the small scale. To acknowledge the authority of out-siders in this way, however, threatens to undermine academic autonomyand the ideal hierarchy of performer and consumer, and to blur the dis-tinction between insider and outsider. The second half of this chapterexamines the means by which pepaideumenoi sought to manage, migitate,and reframe the influence of patrons (broadly understood) over their ownidentity claims and the shape of their disciplines as a whole.

External interventions were not always unwelcome, of course. Patronalmeddling in the affairs of pepaideumenoi meets little resistance when it pro-duces a congenial result. In his first Sacred Tale, Aelius Aristides literallydreams of imperial patronage that will advance his career while exclud-ing “those scarecrows” (�:�� N�� %�� 4 ��), hissophistic rivals (Or. 47.46–9).39 Aulus Gellius remembers warmly the gate-keeping authority that Herodes Atticus exercised over the salons he hostedfor philosophy students in his suburban villa. On one occasion, Herodessquelches an obnoxious young Stoic with an apt reading from Epictetus(Gell. 1.2); on another, he punctures the identity claims of an importunateCynic (Gell. 9.2.4–5). Herodes was a patron with enough acumen in hisown right to separate the philosophical sheep from the goats; he wouldlater be put in charge of awarding the first imperial chairs of philosophy atAthens (Philostr. VS 566). A teacher might welcome such a connoisseur aspatron – provided that their critical judgments aligned. In The Scythian,Lucian represents himself as being in the market for just such expertpatrons, a father–son duo whom he butters up as “comparable to the TenAttic Orators in culture and oratorical power” (Scyth. 10).40

Other patrons tactfully recede into the background, for example Ploti-nus’ host Gemina (Porph. Plot. 9). Such sponsors promote a learned guest’steaching, providing venue, audience, and “a kind of social legitimation,”41

without interfering in his curriculum. The reception of the sophistScopelian by Herodes’ father provides a sterling example (Philostr. VS521). The elder Atticus’ house provided Scopelian with a base of opera-tions during what was presumably an Athenian lecture tour, as well as theopportunity to give private master classes for the teenaged Herodes. This

39 For �/ ��%��7 as rival sophists, cf. Or. 32.8, with Behr 1981: 427 n. 74.40 ��7� � �� 4�! �� =�� P. X��P. ��=�� %=�� N . 41 Stowers 1984: 66.



episode netted Scopelian high praise from father and son, gifts totaling 30talents, and the title of teacher (��=��) of Herodes, which he con-sidered sweeter than the springs of Pactolus. No wonder: the prominenceof this episode in Philostratus’ Lives suggests what a valuable boost thisassociation gave to Scopelian’s reputation, at least within Herodes’ circle.Atticus’ hospitality represents a model intervention in the sophistic hier-archy: unobtrusive, respectful of academic autonomy, and chiming withPhilostratus’ own judgment.

Patronal influence was not always so benign, though. Patrons couldendorse the wrong person or harm the recipients of their support. The haz-ards are luridly detailed in Lucian’s On the Hired Academic.42 Throughout,Lucian frets about the impact that employers can have on philosophy – notso much on doctrine, which goes largely unmentioned, but on a philoso-pher’s bios and his very identity as a philosopher. Among other indignities,the candidate’s credentials are subjected to the scrutiny of a hiring commit-tee consisting of the rich man, his friends and household, and, potentially,any neighbor or compatriot with a grudge to settle (11–12). “Imagine,” saysLucian, “a man with a long beard and gray hair being examined to see ifhe knows anything useful, and seeming to some to do so, to others not!”(12).43 He paints Roman patrons as undiscerning customers, unable (orunmotivated) to distinguish men of genuine learning from frauds, magi-cians in philosophical garb who merely claim to be pepaideumenoi (40).Many have no interest in higher learning at all but want a teacher only asa prop in the display of their own cultural power (25).44 As a result, theresident intellectual may wind up competing for attention with cinaedi,dancing-masters, and dwarves who recite erotic poetry, or even trying hisown hand at singing or prophecy (25–7, 36; cf. Nigr. 25). He may be reducedto declaiming or philosophizing in front of drunken dinner guests or whilethe mistress is having her hair and make-up done.45 These circumstancespermit no control of audience or curriculum, and they make a mockeryof his instruction, as when a patron interrupts a lecture on self-control towrite to her lover (35–6). Also the man’s professional judgment will almostinevitably be compromised: if the patron has any intellectual pretensions,

42 In the next three paragraphs, references otherwise unspecified are to Merc. cond. This translation ofthe title is borrowed from Goldhill 2002.

43 ��’ 8 4�� N �� 8 %��> 9�! � �� P. �4��. 85��K4�� M � �� m�� ,�� >� � ��& � �#�� , �>� � �-.

44 Whitmarsh 2001a: 289–90.45 Similarly, Plutarch notes with displeasure the Roman fad of having Platonic dialogues acted out at

symposia “amidst desserts and perfumes” (8� ��-�� , Quaest. conv. 711d); cf. Ath.Deipn. 9.381f–382a.



the salaried pepaideumenos must praise the man’s compositions, flatter hisself-image as a sage or orator, and not only endorse but imitate his solecismsas purest Attic Greek (35). Such patrons not only make poor gatekeepersbut actively distort the discipline they finance.

Further, although Lucian does not raise doctrinal issues directly, thetext is laced with philosophical vocabulary in a way that suggests howallowing one’s patron to call the shots could pervert one’s philosophy.Recurrent metaphors frame the teacher’s entry into the master’s house asan initiation into a mystery cult (1, 14) and admission to a distinct society,a charmed circle in which he appears to have become a true insider –images used elsewhere to describe membership in learned communities.46

Plainly, this man has chosen the wrong “mysteries” to join: in the end,the only secret (�4��) revealed is his own nature (41). From thefirst, moreover, the academic’s interaction with his employer reverses theproper pedagogical relationship. As a job candidate, he reacts to the patron’squestions with sweating (/��9�), trembling (�4��), giddiness (M��),and speechlessness (11) – precisely the response that philosophical parrhesiaaimed to elicit.47 Once hired, he becomes an idiotes where he should havebeen the expert (30). Instead of instructing or presenting an ethical modelfor his client to emulate,48 the philosopher must emulate (K��& ) andlearn (�� = �� ) dinner etiquette from his neighbor (15). The young men(��=��) he encounters are not students but servants, entertainers, and/orpotential romantic objects, and the diatribe; he imagines for himself in theircompany is indulgent leisure, not philosophical study or the running of aschool (16, cf. 30).49 His patron may indeed engage in “peripatetic studies”(< 8 � ��=� . . . �2��- ), but only for show (25).

46 “After this, outsiders envy you, seeing that you spend your time within the enclosed circle, enteringunhindered, and having become one of the real insiders” (�/ � �< 15! N ��!�� &� K��&�� (�� 8 �� 7�� 7%� � �� !��!� �#��4 � �� = � � � 1 �� , 21). On the initiatory metaphor, see Whitmarsh 2001a: 281–9, andpp. 000–000.

47 Whitmarsh 2001a: 277, 284 notes the parallel with Nigr. 35, where Nigrinus’ words reduce “Lucian”to confusion (��P. ��2��), giddiness (#�7��), sweating (/��), tongue-tied silence (e ��! < 85�� =�� ), and tears (8�=�� ). On the psychosomatic effectsof philosophical protreptic, see Malherbe 1987: 21–5, 36–46, 1988: 235–7.

48 The ideal relationship between philosopher and patron as envisaged e.g. by Epictetus (4.1.116–18)and Plutarch (That the Philosopher Ought to Converse Especially with Men in Power), as well as thetype-scene of the Cynic philosopher at dinner with a rich man (D.L. 6.25–6, 32 and 36, 94, 97–8;Ps.-Diogenes, Epp. 2, 31, 37, 38.4–5).

49 For ��=�� as a generic term for an adolescent student of rhetoric or philosophy, see e.g. Luc.Rh. pr. 1, Eun. 9; Philostr. VS 604. i��%- as philosophical study, discourse, or school: LSJ 2,with Glucker 1978: 162–6.



In this environment the hired philosopher’s grasp of even basic ethicaldoctrine erodes quickly. Not only is he forced to live a life inconsistentwith self-control and moderation (18, 30–1; cf. Nigr. 24–5), but he comesto judge well-being (�:�� 7�) in terms of wealth rather than the stateof a man’s soul (16, 20); he acquiesces in his host’s definition of his duties(��-�� ) as consisting in attendance at dinner parties, rather thanmorally appropriate “due actions” (31). He has sold himself “virtue, wisdomand all” (�:P. ��P. �� 7�), with no regard for the teachings of Plato,Chrysippus, and Aristotle in praise of freedom and against servility (24). Bythe end, warns Lucian, “what you once knew, you have unlearned after somuch time” (39).50 The ultimate erosion of the wage-earner’s philosophicalidentity is to be seen in the plight of a Stoic named Thesmopolis employedby a wealthy Roman noblewoman: with the philosopher relegated to thejob of dog-sitter, his beard and cloak – the semiotics of identity for whichhe was presumably hired in the first place (cf. 25) – become visible symbolsof his degradation, as the dog rides around in his beard and gives birth onhis cloak (33–4).

Lucian’s dark vision is satiric and over the top, but not essentially outof kilter with the worries of an Epictetus or Taurus (Gell. 7.10.5) aboutreliance on wealthy students and patrons. Class snobbery accounts for someof these strictures against wage earning. Most early imperial philosopherswhose social position we know were independently wealthy, and the disdainof Greek and Roman aristocrats for wage earners is notorious.51 More is atstake, though, in acknowleding the influence of non-specialist employersover who filled the role of philosopher or sophist, or how. As we haveseen, the ideal relationship between the pepaideumenos and his supporterswas steeply asymmetrical, epitomized by the hauteur of Polemo, who“discoursed with cities as their superior, with rulers not as an inferior,and with gods as an equal” (Philostr. VS 535).52 Unsettling that hierarchystruck at a fundamental conception of the place of the pepaideumenos insociety, as, in a sense, the stand-in for the Greek urban elite as a whole,and embodiment of its highest cultural ideals.53 Special anxieties mayhave attached to Roman “consumers,” where producer–patron interactions

50 G � �!� Z.�� 6 8 �� 2�4 �. 51 Hahn 1989: 68–72, 78–85, 111–13, 128–32.52 4�� & ��n2� ��, �� >� � �� & �< �� , ��>� � �� & M��

��.53 Schmitz 1997, esp. 63–6, 218–20; cf. Gleason 1995: xxiv; Sidebottom 2009: 92–9. Swain 2009: 34–5

doubles this analysis back on itself: by privileging the figure of the sophist, and emphasizing thesocial and political, as well as rhetorical, dominance of sophists, Philostratus invites us to regard“sophist” as a “natural goal” to which any member of the educated elite, including the work’simperial dedicatee, should aspire.



activated a complex polarity that figured Greeks as teachers and possessorsof paideia, Romans as conquerers and students.54 But as Polemo’s universalclaims of autonomy show, push-back against patronal authority was notlimited to Roman patrons.

In this economy of status, the acceptance not only of patronage butof honors and privileges more generally was delicate business. Even asthey eagerly tally up honors awarded by cities and emperors, our sourcesinsist that such marks of distinction do not confer but merely confirmreputation as an intellectual, nor can their loss infringe it. No one was moreadept at spinning this rhetorical posture to his advantage than Favorinus.Three tense moments in his career offer a primer in how to assert theautonomy of one’s professional identity in the face of the loss of publichonors. Confronted with the dismantling of his statue in Athens, Favorinusadroitly wrings confirmation of his philosophical identity from apparentdishonor, with the quip that he has gotten off easy: Socrates would havethought it an excellent bargain merely to be deprived of a statue by theAthenians (Philostr. VS 490).55 Arguing for the restoration of anotherstatue in Corinth, he audaciously insinuates that Corinth’s reputation, nothis own, is at stake: his advice is intended “for the benefit of the city,which ought not to incur shame among the Greeks” by exiling (the statueof ) a man as universally esteemed as himself ([D.Chr.] Or. 37.37).56 It isimplicit that loss of the statue will not diminish Favorinus’ standing as aphilosopher – nor, therefore, did his standing owe anything to the erectionof the statue in the first place. After all, the reputations of Arion, Solon, andHerodotus flourished without statues at Corinth (37.1–8); so too Favorinushad assumed his god-given role as a universal exemplar of paideia prior to,and independent of, any external recognition (37.27). If anything, suggestsFavorinus, the statue was his gift to Corinth, not the other way around.Setting up the statue was not only just but advantageous (��4 !�)for Corinth, and indeed the entire world, while to Favorinus it apparentlyadded nothing, since it was no more than he deserved (37.23–7). Heconfirms this impression by applying Anaxagoras’ words on the death of

54 Whitmarsh 2001a; cf. Whitmarsh 2005: 13–15.55 “o �’ [ ,” 1��, “�� F!��=�� #�4 � 2�� ’ X�� 7! �� J �6

�9 �� .”56 �� &� � � � �� 4��!�, p �: ��> �� >� qE�� #�2� � Q��> , H� � ��’

�� 8��!�4� = �� N�� 2! �� : �4 � , �� L%��! �� >� � N�� 7!�� < �� P. � �#�4 ! � ��. Korenjak 2000:155–6 observes that Corinthians did indeed see their reputation as entangled with the statue: Favor-inus’ misdeed, real or imagined, compromised not only himself, but the community that honoredhim.



his son (“I knew I had begotten a mortal”) to the loss of his statue. As MaudGleason observes, this allusion both underscores Favorinus’ philosophicalidentity by aligning him with Anaxagoras (another unjustly prosecutedphilosopher) and suggests that the statue was “like my son: my creation,not yours.”57

In the third episode the emperor Hadrian is poised to deny Favorinus’request for immunity as a philosopher, on the ground that he is not actuallya philosopher ('� �< ��& �) (Philoster. VS 490; cf. D.C. 69.3.6).58

This would seem to be a clear-cut instance in which power to validate (ornot) an intellectual’s self-identification rested with the emperor. Yet heretoo Favorinus manages to reassert not only his status as a philosopher,but the autonomy of that status. Realizing that Hadrian plans to ruleagainst him, Favorinus pre-empts the decision by withdrawing his claim,thereby removing the question of his philosophical qualifications from theemperor’s purview. He credits his change of heart to a dream vision of histeacher, Dio Chrysostom. Dropping Dio’s name allows Favorinus to shiftthe issue of his professional categorization away from the slippery groundof self-presentation to a more secure credential, his academic pedigree.59 Atthe same time he casts his decision as neither submission to the emperornor renunciation of his professional claims, but a pious act of deferenceto legitimate philosophical authority: “I will undertake the liturgy, o king,and obey my teacher” (VS 490).60

Threatened with potentially damaging losses of public honor, then,Favorinus responds in part by denying the relevance of such honors – andthe judgment of the cities and emperors who grant or rescind them – tohis identity as a philosopher. That depends instead on Favorinus’ ownqualities, especially his paideia, but also on his ties to other philosophers,whether through personal acquaintance (Dio) or identification with pastluminaries (Socrates, Anaxagoras). That the predecessors he spotlights allsuffered at the hands of political authority is no accident. Rather, thistoo serves to proclaim the immunity of philosophy to outside influence.Accounts of interactions between philosophers and rulers in early imperialliterature tend to follow one of two patterns: philosopher as wise advisor,and philosopher as fearless frank-speaking critic who endures exile and

57 Gleason 1995: 18; cf. Or. 37.32, where Favorinus places himself in the company of Socrates, Pythago-ras, and Plato, as fellow targets of slander.

58 Swain 1989: 153 suggests that Hadrian was reacting to Favorinus’ genre-bending appearance andperformance style; Gleason 1995: 147 wonders if the issue was his indictment for adultery.

59 Gleason 1995: 146.60 ��2�� -, g %��&, < ��7� �� =�� 7��.



even death, if necessary, for the sake of truth.61 Some, like Dio and thePhilostratean Apollonius, are credited with playing both roles for rulersof different character.62 Both models stress the autonomy and superiorityof the philosopher in his own sphere. In these narratives, the emperor’spower to grant status as a philosopher is at best inadvertent, in that hecan confer the “credential” of exile. The independence of the definitionof philosophy from control by political authority is not directly at issue;rather, such independence is a centerpiece of the definition.

Denials of the power of emperors and cities to make or break an intel-lectual’s career sound repeatedly through our sources. Epictetus openlybelittles the ability of the emperor to confer credentials, whether moral orintellectual: “Let him write you (a rescript) that makes you judge of literaryculture, too – what good is that to you? (3.7.30; cf. 2.19.17).63 Losing thepost of ab epistulis to his rival Heliodorus, Dionysius of Miletus retortsthat “Caesar can give you money and honor, but he cannot make youan orator” (D.C. 69.3.5);64 passed over for the Athenian rhetorical chair,Chrestus of Byzantium sniffily proclaims that �:2 �/ �� N ��(Philostr. VS 591).65 After a legal defeat before the emperor, Heracleides ofLycia’s students assure him that “no one will deprive you of your abilityto declaim, nor your glory in that area” (VS 614).66 (As with the “pearlsbefore swine” gambit, disdain for imperial honors tends to crop up whenthose honors have gone to someone else.)61 Hahn 1989: 182–91. Whitmarsh 2001a: 133–246 and 2001b explores the ways in which these patterns

articulate relationships between Greek and Roman.62 Dio’s claims to have advised Trajan are challenged by Whitmarsh 2001a: 186–216; Sidebottom 1996

debunks his supposed relationship with the Flavians.63 ��D=! ��, � � ��7 �.� �� S �� 7 �� C��;64 _�>�� 2�-�� < ��& �� , O-�� : �� ;

cf. M. Pomponius Porcellus’ quip that “you can give citizenship to people, Caesar, but not towords” (tu enim, Caesar, civitatem dare potes hominibus, verbis non potes, Suet. Gramm. 22.2). Thereis some truth to Dionysius’ assertion. For the imperial secretaries between Trajan and Caracalla,being named ab epistulis was the product, not the source, of their literary prominence (Millar 1977:88–93), nor was the office the exclusive preserve of literati (Lewis 1981: 149–54; Bowie 1982: 39–44;Schmitz 1997: 51–5; contra Bowersock 1969: 50–7). The extent to which sophists dominated theoffice, however, depends on how one counts: Bowie adopts a conservative roster of sophistic abepistulis, omitting Heliodorus, Celer, and Julius Vestinus, all of whom have a fair claim to thetitle. More generous enumerations would lend more credence to the assumption that secretaries ofunknown specialty were sophists, and hence that appointment as ab epistulis might have been seenas an indicator of sophistic identity.

65 “The 10,000 (drachmae) don’t make the man.” Rhetorical chairs, too, were typically awarded tomen with established reputations as declaimers and teachers, rather than rising stars (Philostr. VS566, 588, 627). Watts 2006: 33 n. 45 points out that if Chrestus, who reportedly had a hundredpupils at once (VS 591), charged them the same 100d rate as his contemporary Proclus (VS 604), hewould already have been earning 10,000d per year in fees alone. No wonder he was so scornful ofthe endowed chair!

66 ��’ �: �� -��7 ��, g Vr��7��, �:� � 8’ �:P. ��.



Philostratus concurs: being named ab epistulis or appointed to one of therhetorical chairs will not make someone a sophist if he is not one already.He is quick to point out that good declaimers do not always make good abepistulis and vice versa (VS 627, 524) and that “not all who mount the chair[of rhetoric] are worth mentioning” (VS 566).67 Throughout the Lives heis careful to keep emperors in their place, as ardent fans of oratory, butwith no star-making power or aspirations of their own – at least not thebetter emperors. For him, Hadrian was “the readiest of all past emperorsto promote merit” (VS 530);68 we will not hear from him, as we do fromCassius Dio, that Hadrian “tried to destroy the sophists Favorinus of Gauland Dionysius of Miletus, in particular by elevating their rivals, someof them worth nothing, others very little” (D.C. 69.3.4).69 In the Livesinfringing sophistic autonomy is left to bad emperors such as Caracalla.He not only elevated the obscure Arabian orator Heliodorus to equestrianrank and named him advocatus fisci but also forced reluctant listeners toapplaud his declamation (VS 626), while stripping Philiscus of Thessalyof immunities out of irritation at his appearance (VS 623) – exactly thesort of criterion that non-experts rely on. More expert than the emperor,Philostratus sternly cautions that defects of dress and voice should not beallowed to detract from Philiscus’ surpassing Hellenism and compositionalability (VS 623). The meddlesome Caracalla contrasts sharply with Trajan,almost the ideal imperial fan: he did not understand � VE��- ! wellenough to comprehend Dio Chrysostom but loved (and honored) himanyway (VS 488). He could have had no pretensions as a critic of sophists.70

At stake for Philostratus is the autonomy of the circle of sophists asa self-generating, self-determining, and self-regulating movement. I willargue in Chapter 4 that Philostratus regarded the self-determination of thecircle of sophists as fundamental to its authority, and to his own ability tofashion an authoritative position for himself within it. It is in this light thatwe should understand his insistence on classifying the historian Aelian asa sophist, since “he was called a sophist by those who bestow such things”(VS 624).71 This has been taken to mean that Aelian received immunity

67 �:� = �� / 8�%�� & ��4 �� 4�� N5��.68 8��4�� =�� %��! �� 4�� :5��,69 � @��!�> � � l��=� , 4 � i�� B��-�� 0� ��

8�2�7��, �>� � N�� =�� 0� � ��!�� 85�7�� , �0� � �-�� ,�0� � %��2�=�� 57�� C ��. Bowie 1997: 7–11 dismantles Dio’s tradition of Hadrian’spersecution of intellectuals. That Philostratus has gotten it right this time, however, is of less interesthere than the contrast between his handling of the tradition and Dio’s.

70 This reading is essentially in line with Whitmarsh’s observation (2001a: 243) that Trajan is “cast inthe role of inexpert reader,” although Whitmarsh also finds darker political nuances in this scene.

71 �� <� �� 2��K�� ! � ��&�.



from liturgies or some other privilege reserved for sophists – in other words,that he was a sophist because the emperor said he was.72 Yet Philostratusstrongly resists such acquiescence to external categorization. It seems muchlikelier that “those who bestow such things” are his colleagues: in the eyesof Philostratus, Aelian was a sophist because other authoritative sophistsconsidered him one.73

Establishing an intellectual’s position within the community of his aca-demic peers, then, required complex negotiations and posturing amonga wide range of stakeholders: the pepaideumenos himself, professional col-leagues and rivals, students, hearers, and fans – often rhetorically figured asa large and unsophisticated public, to emphasize the performer’s celebritywhile minimizing the audience’s role in making his reputation – and patronsof various sorts, both human and divine.

Nowhere are the rhetorical gyrations necessary to hold these forces inbalance better displayed than in Aelius Aristides’ account of his campaign in152/3 ce to have his oratorical exemption confirmed in the face of multiplenominations to public office (Or. 50.71–94).74 Of particular note are boththe array of individuals and groups who have a say in adjudicating Aristides’identity claim, and the deft maneuvering required to exploit their backingwhile in the same breath denying that they have any real relevance to hisstatus as an orator.

Selected for liturgies by the proconsul Severus and the boule of Smyrna(73, 88), Aristides enlists in turn the support of the emperor and hisson (75); his friends Heliodorus (a former Prefect of Egypt, 75) and theconsular Rufinus (83–4); and Severus’ legatus (85–6) and his childhoodfriend Pardalas (87). Rufinus in particular lays on the political pressure,writing in Latin and hinting that Severus should exempt Aristides or else(84).75 Meanwhile Aristides’ divine patron, Asclepius, intervenes at everyturn (75, 80–3, 87, 89). The outcome is a resounding success. Besiegedon all sides, Severus tries (unsuccessfully) to pass the buck, recommending

72 Brunt 1994: 32. G. Anderson 1986: 86 suggests other reasons for Aelian’s inclusion: as a token Romanwhose choice of Greek as his literary medium flatters Hellenism, or to allow Philostratus of Lemnosa bon mot at his expense. Aelian is not the only Roman in the Lives, however (what about Aspasiusof Ravenna [VS 627–8]?), nor does he need his own Life to be the subject of a witty insult; Scopelian(VS 520), Polemo (VS 540–1), Hadrian of Tyre (VS 590), and Hippodromus (VS 617) all score pointsagainst targets who do not receive their own Lives.

73 I will argue below (p. 000) that similar logic governs Philostratus’ classification of Aelius Aristidesas a sophist.

74 Unless otherwise noted, all references in the following paragraphs are to the Fourth Sacred Tale(Or. 50).

75 �� & �� h. 7�� (�>4 � 1��, �# �- �� 3�6 ��7��.



that Aristides convince the Smyrnaeans to name him as one of their exemptorators, and that he accept some pupils. Aristides accepts this professionalcounsel – not so much at the proconsul’s behest as the god’s, who had senthim “for that very purpose” (�:� ��! U ��, 87). At the hearing inSmyrna everything goes perfectly: Severus, his advisors, and everyone else,including the orators in attendance, treat Aristides with such conspicuousrespect that the event resembles an epideictic display more than a trial,and those present behave like students in a classroom, eager to hear hisoration (91).76 After a long speech laced with hints about taking his case tothe emperor (92), Aristides leaves with his immunity confirmed, and evengreater honor than before (93).

This series of events locates the high-flying orator at the nexus of a denseweb of intersecting relationships with professional peers, powerful Romanfriends, cities, a host of imperial officials, including the emperor himself,and even the gods.77 These categories sometimes overlap: Pardalas, themutual friend of Aristides and Severus, is also an expert on rhetoric (27);78

Heliodorus, who appears here as a politically powerful friend, is the oratorand ab epistulis whom we have already met as the rival of Dionysius ofMiletus (D.C. 69.3.5). All of these come into play as sources of professionalrecognition. If we were to ask who was responsible for validating Aristides’self-identification as an orator – the imperial administrators, the expertsin the field, the Smyrnaean boule, the sympathetic trial audience, or thedivine – we might well conclude that it was all of them.

Aristides, however, will have none of that. The final scene reasserts the“correct” balance between the professional insider and his surroundings,as those ostensibly sitting in judgment on Aristides are reduced to the roleof deferential audience, responding enthusiastically to his performancewithout exerting any control over it, or him. On this telling, neither pro-consul nor city council has any real power to affect Aristides’ professionalstanding. Nor, it should be conceded, does Aristides give much credit tothe support of his professional peers. While careful to note the presenceof other rhetors at his hearing, and proud of having his oratory praised

76 R�� #�� ’ �:�& �� ! , '��!� � O�4�! � ��L��4! �� N��! (4�� , �� 2�� 8��75�!� �� ; J �7��S e � ��n �� < �� 0� �4�� '�� 8��-�� 4� �� 2�� ! P., ��= ’ ; W�� 8� �2�� !�� ! .

77 Mapped in detail by Remus 1996, esp. 159 on this episode.78 He is “the greatest expert of the Greeks of our time on the subject of oratory” (N�� 8�’ ��

VE��- ! �� 4��).



by those in the rhetorical know (18, 27, 62), Aristides takes no less plea-sure in professional encouragement from literati of other kinds, includingtwo philosophers (19, 23) and a lyric poet (23), and from Roman friends,including Rufinus (28, 43). It is notable, too, that in recounting theseevents, Aristides chooses to highlight the offices and personal connectionsof Heliodorus and Pardalas, rather than their rhetorical expertise. Thismight reflect his famously strained relationship with the sophistic world,or perhaps it implies a tacit acknowledgment that political clout countsfor more than insider judgment in securing exemptions. In any case, hedoes not treat acceptance by colleagues as a decisive factor in securing hisreputation as an orator.

What enables Aristides to downplay the endorsement of both outsidersand (rival) insiders is that he has a far better credential: a divine patron(��9�, 71; cf. Or. 28.156, 33.2). The fourth Sacred Tale as a wholerecounts Aristides’ return to oratory under divine command (14–15, 23, 50)and tutelage (24–6, 29–31).79 It is Asclepius who calls him to oratory, andwho proclaims his speeches “everlasting” (�� , 47); in comparison withthese divine honors it would be petty to tally up signs of human esteem,comments Aristides (in the context of a long praeteritio detailing howwarmly the proconsul Quadratus received Aristides’ write-up of his career)(67).80 In Aristides’ record of the trial itself the interventions of Asclepiusreduce the human actors to mere agents of divine will. In particular, whatlooks like capitulation to Severus’ advice to resume teaching is reframedas obedience to divine plan (87), while Aristides credits Asclepius withorchestrating the support he received from Pius, Heliodorus, Rufinus,and the proconsul’s legatus (75–6, 80–3, 85–6). To the extent that humanagencies appear to confirm Aristides’ standing, they are thus acting onbehalf of the sole legitimate authority, the divine. In the face of whatseems like overwhelming evidence that his position as a sophist dependedon external validation, Aristides, like Favorinus, has contrived to suggestthat the judgment of outsiders is essentially irrelevant to his professionalidentity.

79 For Asclepius as Aristides’ rhetorical teacher, critic, and patron, see Behr 1968: 46–7.80 “As to how the letter won immediate favor, as the governor himself read it to everyone, and they all

fought to get their hands on it, and what he replied to it, and what sort of things he did in the end, ashe was leaving office – a person recounting those things might perhaps appear to engage in offensiveboasting, because of the hyperbolic praise involved, and it would be a sort of pettiness to spendtime on those things, after the honors given by the gods” (\ � �d �4� �:�0� �:��7�� =�� !��4�� = � �#� = �� ’ �:�& �& ��4 �� =2�� C � ��%�> , �� G �� &� � �� , 8��< �� 2�� 85-.�� – P.� M�!� ��K� 7� 12�� [ �45�� %�� 8 �:�>� 8 4 ! , P.�’ W�� 4�� [ �M� ��7%�� 8� ��, �� =�).


Conclusion 89

conclusion

Aristides and Favorinus mobilize a discourse of self- and community-formation that was broadly shared among Second Sophistic pepaideumenoi,both orators and philosophers (and those in the murky in-between), sound-ing familiar Platonic notes. Its central tenet is the asymmetry of the relation-ship between expert insider and non-specialist public, and, as a result, theprimacy of internal self-definition over external perspectives. The compo-sition of each group is held to be determined solely from within, by insiderswhose membership is effectuated precisely by their ability to evaluate otherinsiders. The circularity of this proposition is justified by equating the dis-ciplinary competence needed to produce high-level oratory, philosophicalargument, or a just life with the knowledge required to assess such things.Untrained outsiders (#��), whether patrons or fans, are thus compe-tent neither to engage in learned performance nor to pass judgment on itspractitioners. At best, relying on non-specialist opinion distorts the results;at worst, it inverts the proper hierarchy of pepaideumenos and audience,putting unqualified hearers in the role of the paideutic expert, or even thedivine, which alone should inspire and guide intellectuals in the perfor-mance of their art, whether oratory or living. Preserving the integrity ofeach practice requires that authority to determine membership and stand-ing within the community belong strictly to those already on the inside.At the same time, denigration of idiotai participates in debates among self-professed insiders about how, and around whom, their disciplines will bedefined. The polarity of idiotes and expert provides a flexible tool for map-ping (and widening) the gap between self and others, whether by aligningcompetitors with idiotai (and hence against true modes of expertise) or byadopting that position for oneself (in repudiation of devalued rival modelsof paideia).

This rhetoric entails a certain cognitive dissonance, since sophists andphilosophers were well aware that their success depended on the responsesof others who in various ways had it in their power to enable and authorizetheir careers. Indeed, our subjects gladly accept outside authorization whenit works in their favor. Further, the stereotyped hierarchy of expert speakerand inexpert audience is belied by the fact that audiences were typicallydominated by members of the educated elite, especially other specialists –whose presence was in fact a point of pride for our subjects.

These inconcinnities point to tensions built into the position of thepepaideumenos, who must simultaneously tower above elite imperial societyas moral critic and/or embodiment of its highest cultural aspirations, while



also competing for students and status at the disposal of that society. Onefunction of the legitimizing discourse we have been examining is to help tonegotiate precisely this contradiction. That sophists and philosophers didnot – could not – define themselves without regard for external opiniondoes not make their insistence on their own autonomy less meaningful asa way of articulating the identity of each discipline or its relationship towider society. When artists insist that the true measure of success is crit-ical acclaim or the esteem of their peers, rather than commercial success,we may recognize the posture as self-serving, but it serves nonetheless todefine the sort of artists they understands themselves to be. This attitudeis of a piece with the “producer-driven” modes of community-fashioningdescribed in Chapter 1, which held that membership could be regulated(within limits) by screening access to the defining activities of each com-munity. Chapter 4 will resume that line of argument, focusing on therole of personal connections with other sophists in the professional self-fashioning of Second Sophistic sophists, and especially of their chronicler,Philostratus.


chapter 3

Expertise and authority in the early church

A question has been percolating westward through the churches: how,exactly, should the relation between the Father and the Son be understood?Are they one and the same, or are they distinct persons of a Trinity?Popularized at Rome by a confessor named Praxeas, who imported it fromAsia Minor, the former position (monarchianism) has been gaining groundat Carthage, to the great displeasure of Tertullian, who considers it diabolicand unscriptural (Prax. 1). Tertullian is not surprised that many have fallenfor monarchianism, though: this simplistic form of monotheism typicallyattracts “all the simple, not to say the foolish and inexpert (idiotae), whoalways represent the majority of believers,” since they are intimidated bythe more difficult concept of divine oikonomia (Prax. 3.1).1 Audible beneathTertullian’s theological fulminations is a more basic question about whereauthority to resolve such issues, and hence to define Christian orthodoxy,should reside: with all believers, regardless of training or position, or onlywith certain authorized persons? If the latter, then who, and on what basis?Tertullian’s use of the loaded word idiotae is a precisely calibrated assertionof his own authority, which chimes with the insistence of Second Sophisticintellectuals that non-specialist outsiders had no legitimate input into theshape and character of their communities.

This chapter follows the idiotes as a thread through early Christian con-tests over authority and identity, the analogue to the arguments chartedin Chapter 2. Many of the rhetorical turns that featured in that chap-ter recur in this one. Like Second Sophistic intellectuals, early Christiancontroversialists deploy the figure of the idiotes to measure the distancebetween true Christianity and its rivals, both elite paideia and other formsof Christianity. Over the course of the second century, Christian use of

1 simplices enim quique, ne dixerim imprudentes et idiotae, quae maior semper credentium pars est. Rankin2004: 302 aptly describes simplices as “those who are by upbringing if not by inclination unable toengage in serious discourse.” He thinks that the word is not meant pejoratively, but since Tertullianglosses it with imprudentes et idiotae, I cannot agree.

91


92 Expertise and authority in the early church

this discourse pivots. Early in our period, Christian authors invoke theidiotes almost entirely in the ironic Socratic (or Lucianic) mode, figuringthemselves and/or their fellow believers as idiotai in order to circumvent,disparage, or critique a competing form of expertise, whether pagan orChristian. That strategem never goes out of style, but in the latter half ofthe second century we also begin to find Tertullian and other Christianpolemicists positioning themselves as experts in contrast to those repre-sented as amateurs in regard to, or in their performance of, Christianity.Sometimes these idiotai are non-Christians, as educated Christians beginto turn the tables on the chauvinism of Greek paideia. In other cases theyare individuals or groups whom the author considers “heretics,” misplacedoutsiders. Most often, though, they are understood to be fellow insiders,but of a lesser grade, whose lack of training or experience renders themincompetent to participate in defining Christian identity.

In Christian discourse, then, talk about idiotai serves the same func-tions as among pepaideumenoi – to mark boundaries against various sortsof “outsiders” – but also new ones, creating hierarchies of participationamong those accepted as insiders. Common to both is the premise thatdeciding what constitutes authentic belonging is the sole prerogative ofexpert insiders, along with all the circularity, self-justification, and Pro-crustean distinctions between insider and outsider entailed by that rhetoric.From the last quarter of the second century onward, ordinary believers areincreasingly depicted, and sometimes designated, as internal idiotai, theirrole in corporate self-definition correspondingly minimized. This perspec-tive is not unique to those, like Tertullian, whom later tradition embracedas “orthodox”; indeed, we first hear it put in the mouths of his Valen-tinian opponents. Within the emerging mainstream, though, this discur-sive marginalization occurs in tandem with a sorting of the faithful intolaity and clergy, and a gradual restriction of identity-defining competenceto the latter. As lay Christians (( ��4�, plebs) come to mirror the posi-tion of non-professionals (#��) and the general public (( ��0� ��9�,vulgus) in the world of elite intellectuals, the nascent clerical hierarchy iscorrespondingly cast in the role of expert insider.

Early Christian writers also share many of the anxieties voiced by theiracademic counterparts about the influence of patrons, whose material sup-port inevitably gave them a stake in shaping the local, and even the ecu-menical, community. Once more, the domestic setting of early Christianworship comes into play, and the prickliness sometimes visible betweenpepaideumenoi and their benefactors resurfaces in tensions surroundingthe authority that Christian patrons could wield over the assemblies they


Expertise and authority in the early church 93

underwrote, whether by acting as gatekeepers or leaders in their own right,by lending their support to the “wrong” people, or through the distortingeffects of money and the unhealthy obligations that patronage can impose.

Again, the parallel is not exact. No sharp division can be drawn between“producer” and patron in second-century churches; those figures are oftenone and the same, especially early in our period. By the third century,clerical and patronal roles have become more distinct, but the separationis never complete; the episcopate subsumes rather than eliminates manypatronal functions, while patrons continue to play a significant role inlate antique Christianity. Moreover, no equivalent to Christian ordinationdivides the super-star sophist or philosopher from the student or the ordi-nary fan. Positioned both as arbiter and guarantor of “orthodoxy” and asa focal point around which the (true) church could be socially and spir-itually united, the nascent clerical hierarchy represents precisely the sortof institutional structure and credentialled (and credentialling) authoritywhose absence gives Second Sophistic legitimizing discourse its distinctiveflavor.2

Yet even as this more formalized authority takes shape, anxieties sur-rounding the role of ordinary believers and patrons in policing the bound-aries of “orthodoxy” seem to grow more acute, not less. Increasingly, theyecho the worries that swirl around idiotai in Second Sophistic texts, some-times in very similar language. Late second- and early third-century Chris-tian polemicists warn that unsophisticated believers (simpliciores, rudes,��4��) cannot look beyond externals to tell true from false, and, ifleft unchecked, are apt to confer authorization where it is not deserved.Steeped in Plato, Clement of Alexandria knows that “good reputation withthe masses is no different from bad reputation, because of their ignorance ofthe truth” (Strom. 7.7.38.1).3 Hippolytus fumes about the crowds (C2��)streaming into the “school” of his rival Callistus (Ref. 9.12.24); the Gospel ofJudas (mid second century) rails against the lethal popularity of an oppos-ing version of Christianity: “the cattle that are brought in are the sacrificesyou have seen – that is, the many people you lead astray before that altar.[The . . . ] will stand and make use of my name in this way, and <the>generations of the pious will be loyal to him” (39.25–40.6, trans. Kasseret al.). (As among pepaideumenoi, this complaint often comes from writ-ers frustrated that their position has not found wider acceptance.) In the

2 Conflicts over authority did not cease after our period, of course, nor were the issues with whichwe are concerned here resolved by the rise of the episcopate to dominance. Indeed, the value of thesensus fidelium remains a live issue in contemporary Catholicism.

3 � � �� :��7� ��7�� :� �� < �� 7�� N� �� .



latter cases, corruption is understood to emanate from official, ordainedleadership, but it is facilitated by the complacency of undiscerning believ-ers. Against this dangerous incapacity, would-be guardians of “orthodoxy”urge that authority be left in the hands of qualified leaders, relegating othermembers to the position, as it were, of internal outsiders. The aim of thischapter is to locate this development against the backdrop of the notionalsegregation between elite pepaideumenoi and their non-specialist patronsand audiences in Second Sophistic legitimizing discourse.

ordination and authority

The backdrop for this chapter is the evolution of Christian authoritystructures during the second century, and in particular the emergence of athreefold hierarchy of presbyters and deacons, headed by a single bishopin each locality. First mentioned by Ignatius, who promotes it as the sinequa non without which “the name of church does not apply” (2!��! 8��7� �: ��>��, Trall. 3.1), this structure is unattestedoutside Syria and Asia Minor in Ignatius’ day and was probably not veryfirmly or widely established even there.4 A century later, however, themonepiscopate had become the norm almost everywhere and had assumedcritical importance in the discourse of orthodoxy and heresy.5 For Irenaeus,bishops and presbyters serve as the yardsticks and guardians of not onlylocal but worldwide Christian consensus, the primary locus of Christianexpertise and thus the pre-eminent arbiters of Christian identity. Beforewe turn to the “amateur” Christians and patrons whose decision-makingcompetence Irenaeus and others sought to subordinate to clerical expertise,therefore, a short survey of the rise of these “experts” seems in order.This story has been told many times, so I will merely sketch its outlines,focusing on three themes most relevant to this chapter: the shift fromdiversity and collegiality to a regularized hierarchy, the interaction betweeninstitutional and charismatic forms of authority, and the role of patrons incongregational leadership.6

4 Schoedel 1985: 22, 109; Maier 1991: 177–81; Campbell 1994: 216–22.5 Following Schollgen 1986, I prefer monepiscopate to the term “monarchical episcopate” for our

period, since the conception of the bishop as a monarch, i.e. absolute, ex officio ruler in his locality,is found neither in theory nor in practice before the middle of the third century.

6 The historical overview that follows goes back in rough outline to J. B. Lightfoot (e.g. 1896: 191–6), who posited a gradual evolution from colleges of presbyters (or presbyter-bishops) to moremonarchian forms of leadership. The scholarship on the evolution of Christian ministry is immense.I have profited especially from Ferguson 1968; Campenhausen 1969; Jay 1981; Meeks 1983: 131–9 and2006: 145–56; Dassmann 1984; Hanson 1985: 117–43; L. M. White 1987; Maier 1991; Edwards 2000;Sullivan 2001.


Ordination and authority 95

Pace Ignatius, no single model of congregational leadership prevailed atthe start of the second century. Authority was exercised by a variety of lead-ers, both settled and itinerant, while charismatic gifts represented a vitalsource of local and supra-local authority, sometimes undergirding, some-times complementing or competing with institutional office-holding. Cler-ical office-holding was becoming increasingly formalized, but not in anyconsistent pattern. Bishops (87��) and deacons form a frequent duo,most notably in the Didache, which gives instructions for their appointment(Did. 15.1–2).7 They are to perform the service (��7�) of prophetsand teachers, namely instruction and presiding over worship (Did. 10.7;11.1–2, 9–10; 13.1–2).8 Whether these offices are meant to coexist with orreplace reliance on itinerant charismatics remains disputed. In light ofthe warnings against false prophets and apostles in Didache 11, this pas-sage is often interpreted as a classic instance of Weberian tension betweencharismatic and institutional authority, and transition from one to theother.9 Others have pointed out, though, that the Didache takes a highview of charismatic leadership, and that the two modes are not necessar-ily incompatible.10 In any case, given the scarcity of individuals capableof acting as text brokers within the still-tiny Christian movement, somereliance on supra-local leaders must have been common.11 Meanwhile,authors writing to, from, or about churches in Rome, Greece, and AsiaMinor, tend to prefer the term presbyteroi (“elders”).12 This title sometimesalternates with episkopoi, as if “overseer” or “bishop” were synonymouswith (or a job description of ) “elder.”13 Ignatius’ threefold hierarchy mayrepresent a recent merger of the two systems in Syria, grafting presbytersonto an original bishop–deacon duo.14 The titles remain fluid well intothe second century, alternating especially in Roman authors with vaguedescriptors like “presiders” or “leaders” (�� ) (Heb. 13:7, 17, 24; 1Clem. 1.3, 21.6; Hermas, Vis. 2.2.6, 3.9.7–10); even in the 150s, Justin Martyr

7 Stewart-Sykes 2002 argues plausibly that bishops and deacons (plus lay seniores) were also the originalpairing in North Africa, with the presbyterate as a relatively late import.

8 Cf. 1 Tim. 3:1–13, 1 Clem. 42.4–5 for similar selection procedures and job descriptions. Apostles,prophets, and teachers form a frequent triad of itinerant charismatics (e.g. 1 Cor. 12:28–9; cf. Eph.3:5, 4:11; 2 Tim. 1:11); the classic treatment remains Harnack 1904–8 i: 431–68.

9 Niederwimmer 1996 [1977].10 De Halleux 1996 [1980]; Schollgen 1996 [1986]; Edwards 2000: 316–19; Sullivan 2001: 68–9, 89–90.

This is not the place to discuss the redactional theories with which this question is bound up.11 Lieu 2008: 259–61. Scarcity of “text brokers”: Hopkins 1998: 207–13; Snyder 2000: 210–11.12 Acts 14:23 (Asia), 20:17 (Ephesus); 1 Pet. 5:1–5 (Rome, Bithynia): Jas. 5:14 (Rome); Tit. 1:5 (Crete); 1

Tim. 5:17 (Ephesus); 1 Clem. 44.5, 47.6, 54.2, 57.1 (Rome, Corinth); Hermas, Vis. 2.4.2–3 (Rome);Pol. Phil. 5.2–3, 6.1 (Philippi). Acts also mentions a group of ��%�� in the first-generationchurch at Jerusalem (11:30; 15:2, 6, 22–3; 21:7–8).

13 E.g. Acts 20:28; 1 Tim. 5:17; Tit. 1:5–8; and below.14 Lietzmann 1914, esp. 148–9; cf. Young 1994, although she over-generalizes the pattern.



refers to his cultic leader simply as “the presider” (( ��9�, Apol. 65.3;67.4, 6).

Within this diversity, the one universal pattern is collegiality: with thelone exception of Ignatius, first- and early second-century authors invari-ably speak of leaders, including bishops, in the plural. Over time, however,colleges of presbyter-bishops (plus deacons) give way to a hierarchy ofbishop, presbyters, and deacons. For Hermas, writing in Rome in the firsthalf of the century, all bishops are presbyters, but not all presbyters arebishops. Rather, he singles out a subset of “presbyters who preside over thechurch” (�/ ��%�� / ��s�=�� 8��7��, Vis. 2.4.3), forwhom he appears to reserve the label episkopoi.15 Apparently a process ofdifferentiation has taken place; certain presbyters are now primi inter pares.Since these are praised for their hospitality (87�� 45� ��, Sim.9.27.2), they may be the hosts of their congregations. Next, one presidingpresbyter must gradually have become supreme among his local colleagues,and the title of bishop reserved for him alone. A generation or so after Her-mas, Irenaeus continues to speak of episkopoi in the plural, and to equatethem with presbyteroi (although not vice versa) (Haer. 4.26.2), but he alsoassumes that there is (and has always been) one bishop overseeing eachlocal church, most notably Rome (Haer. 3.2–3; fr. Syr. 28).16 By the endof the second century the monepiscopate was fast becoming universal. AtRome, there are signs that monepiscopal development was underway bymid-century, culminating under Victor (c. 189–98),17 while in Alexandria,it becomes visible with the episcopate of Demetrius (c. 189–232). Writingfrom North Africa at the turn of the third century, Tertullian takes forgranted that the monepiscopate is the norm everywhere.

Whatever drove this development – whether liturgical needs,18 divi-sion of administrative labor,19 or the pressures of safeguarding social anddoctrinal unity20 – the potential of the monepiscopate to foster a unified,“orthodox” Christian identity is one of its chief recommending features for

15 Maier 1991: 63–4; Sullivan 2001: 132–7. 16 Lietzmann 1914: 146–7; Sullivan 2001: 145–6, 153.17 Lampe 1987: 334–45. Brent 1995: 295, 412–16, 434–53 argues that the monepiscopate appeared at

Rome only with Pontianus (231–5), consolidated under Fabius (236–50), but he has in mind fullmonarchical supremacy, not monepiscopal primacy.

18 E.g. Rordorf 1964a: 91–9; Bobertz 1992, esp. 190–1; Callam 1997.19 Maier 1991: 63 focuses on patronage. Others speculate that the bishop was the presbyter in charge

of external communications, whose competence to speak for the local church as a whole translatedinto supervisory authority at home: so already Ramsay 1893: 364–71; cf. Lampe 1987: 341; Brent1995: 409–12; Green 2010: 92–9.

20 E.g. Dassmann 1984: 90–4; Hanson 1985: 123; Bakke 2005; Kyrtatas 2005; Hall 2006: 418–19;Humphries 2006: 143; Brent 2007: 14–43 (over-imaginative, but sensitive to the difficulties ofcollegial governance).



Ignatius. Nearly every one of his letters advocates separation from trou-blemakers and “unity with the bishop and those who preside” (3 9�� 8��4� �� >� �� , Magn. 6.2) as the solution to thelinked problems of social and mental division. “Let no one do anythingpertaining to the church apart from the bishop,” he pleads (Smyrn. 8.1; cf.Trall. 2.2).21 “Be on guard against such [false teachers]; this will be possibleif you are not puffed up and remain inseparable from God Jesus Christ,from the bishop and the commands of the apostles” (Trall. 7.1).22 Theclergy embody the church: Ignatius speaks often of “seeing” a church in itsministers (Eph. 1.3–2.1; Magn. 2.1; Trall. 1.1); estrangement from them isthus estrangement from the church itself. This strategy – essentially socialin both its heads – works not only to mark the outer limits of the commu-nity, but also to locate its center of gravity, an approach with considerableadvantages over exclusion alone.23

Concomitant with this carving out and privileging of episcopal authorityand proper order is an increasingly firm division between priestly minis-ters and laity (��s��7), first visible in 1 Clement (40.5).24 A century later,Tertullian’s synonyms for laity – plebs, grex, pecus – leave little doubt aboutwhere the balance of power lies in this relationship.25 We will see that thisdistinction supports not only an elaborate division of labor, with culticand teaching functions largely reserved for clergy, but also a recasting oflaici as simplices that aided the relegation of rank-and-file Christians to themargins of self-definitional discourse. The promotion of clerical leader-ship also came at the expense of charismatic and patronal authority, withwhich clerical office was intimately entwined from the start, and to whichit continued to lay claim.

Charismatic authority intersects with the concerns of this chapter insofaras it can be represented as both a superior form of expertise and a kindof (spiritual) patronage. This mode of expertise need not conflict withinstitutional leadership, of course. For Paul, prophecy, ministry (�� 7�),teaching, exhorting, giving, presiding, and compassion (i.e. pastoral care?)

21 �� 2!�� & 8��4�� ! � � ��4 ! �#� < 8��7� . Ignatius’ solutionis adumbrated by 1 Clement, which urges high regard for church leadership (41) and asks thosecausing division to withdraw from the congregation voluntarily (54.2).

22 ��=�� T �� . �&� � 1�� > �< �� T�� 2!�7��& ’^�� )��& �� & 8��4�� =! � ��4�! .

23 Lieu 2008: 261.24 1 Clement is conventionally dated to late in the reign of Domitian (Eus. Hist. eccl. 3.15–18), but

Welborn 1984 shows that it could fall anywhere between c. 80 and 140.25 On clergy (ordo) and laity (plebs) in the second century, with emphasis on Tertullian, see Rankin

2004: 299–304, who sees this split as reproducing Roman power relations between ordo and plebs,honestiores and humiliores.



are all charismata (Rom. 12:6–8). Ignatius makes his status as future martyr,along with his prophetic gifts (Phld. 7), the muscle behind his ecclesiologicalprogram; indeed, his authority to speak on Christological questions oftenappears to derive less from his episcopal office than from his impendingmartyrdom (Trall. 10.1; cf. Smyrn. 4.2).26 Still, the dynamic between thetwo was often prickly, as the Shepherd of Hermas illustrates. At timesHermas depicts himself working in concert with the clergy, delivering hisprophecies to the officers Clement and Grapte for distribution, and readingthem publicly alongside the presiding presbyters (Vis. 2.4.2–3).27 On otheroccasions, though, he is sharply critical. He chastises the “leaders of thechurch, who sit in the first seats” for harboring poisonous thoughts (� #� �#� < ��7� ) and exceeding their qualifications: “How do you wantto instruct the Lord’s elect when you yourselves have no education?” (Vis.3.9.7–10)28 He upbraids wicked and foolish teachers, and deacons who haveabused their office (Sim. 9.19.2, 22.2, 25.1–2), as though his prophetic giftsentitle him to supervise their performance. Throughout, Hermas assumesthe role of paterfamilias of the church, for whose behavior he is personallyresponsible (esp. Vis. 1–3; Mand. 5.1.7; Sim. 7);29 one wonders how thatposture meshed with the authority of the “hospitable bishops” (Sim. 9.27.1–3). A moment of awkward hesitation about who should be seated first,Hermas or the presbyters, hints that the relationship was not frictionless(Vis. 3.1.8). While Hermas represents himself as tactfully protesting thatthe presbyters should take precedence, he does not scruple to add that theLady of his vision (i.e. the church) ordered him to sit first.30

Here another non-official source of authority enters the mix, foralthough Hermas seemingly outranks the presbyters, the place of great-est honor on the Lady’s right goes not to him, but to “those who have

26 Ignatius’ remark that as a martyr he will attain the status and authority possessed by the apostlesimplies that he does not already have these as a bishop (Rom. 4.3).

27 Grapte, whose job is to “admonish the widows and orphans,” is probably a deacon (cf. Tit. 2:3–4;1 Tim. 3:11) (Osiek 1999: 59; Sullivan 2001: 134), although some scholars make her a presidingpresbyter-bishop instead (Eisen 2000: 208; Trevett 2006a: 154–8). Clement is usually assumed to bea presbyter, perhaps identical with the author of 1 Clement, although Osiek 1999: 59 argues that hewas probably a church secretary and/or deacon.

28 ��> ��! �>� �� 8��7�� >� �!��7�� < �7 �� H�� >��>� . . . �� >� �� 0� 8��0� ��7��, �:�� < 12� �� 7� ;

29 On Hermas as paterfamilias, see Rankin 2004: 312–14 and Osiek 1999: 49, 62, 192, although sheunderstands Hermas’ �� literally, rather than as a cipher for the church.

30 Following Lake 1912–13 ii: 29 n. 1, Osiek 1999: 62–3 understands ��%�� here to mean simply“older people.” On that reading, the passage betrays no tension between prophet and presbyters,but only polite deference to the Elder Lady (��%&��). But since we learn in the next verse thatthe place on the right is reserved for martyrs, it seems more reasonable to assume that an authoritycategory is meant in this verse, too.



already become well pleasing to God, and have suffered for the sake of thename” – that is, to martyrs (Vis. 3.1.9–10).31 As Ignatius shows, high regardfor martyrs can cohere with episcopal authority, but martyrs representan unregulated expertise that is frequently orthogonal to the ecclesiasticalmodel. Tertullian presents martyrs as the ultimate Christian combatants,next to whom all others (including himself!) are mere idiotae (Mart. 1.2).Close to Tertullian in time, place, and perspective, the Martyrdom of Per-petua and Felicitas explicitly juxtaposes the competence of prophet-martyrswith that of ordained clergy. The confessor Saturus has a vision in whichfeuding clerics appeal to him and his spiritual protegee Perpetua to resolvetheir dispute (Mart. Perp. 13), even though Saturus seems to be only a laycatechist, and Perpetua a newly baptized Christian (2–4). The text ham-mers home the inversion of authority by having Saturus ask, “aren’t you ourpapa and you a presbyter, that you throw yourselves at our feet?” (13.3).32

Elsewhere, Peregrinus’ lucrative stint as a Christian confessor, scripturalexegete, and cult leader (��=�2�� 5� ��!��) (Luc. Peregr. 12–13)underscores the close connections between spiritual virtuosity, teachingauthority, and administrative leadership. The veneration directed at Pere-grinus and other martyrs (cf. Mart. Pol. 18.3; Tert. Ux. 2.4) figures themas spiritual “experts” and patrons who could wield their special access tothe divine on behalf of their earthly communities. In that capacity, mar-tyrs intervene in ecclesiastical disputes (Eus. Hist. eccl. 5.3.4–4.3), advocatefor specific “orthodoxies” (Tert. Prax. 1), and, most destabilizing, brokerforgiveness of sins (deeply resented by Tertullian, Pud. 22).

Such actions inevitably struck other authority figures as dangerousencroachments on the turf they were staking out. By the early third centurythe power to pardon was increasingly being claimed as an episcopal prerog-ative; clashes over where ultimate decision-making competence lay wereunavoidable.33 More broadly, advocates of formalized leadership balked atgranting authority over doctrine, discipline, and hence membership, toindividuals whose strength of faith did not necessarily entail any particulartraining or depth of understanding, and who were neither authorized bynor accountable to community governance.34 Anxieties about the trustwor-thiness of martyrs accordingly thread through late second-century texts; in

31 � Z�� :��4! � �� 4 ! �� & Q 4��.32 non tu es papa noster et tu presbyter, ut vos ad pedes nobis mittatis?33 Tertullian, meanwhile, insists that forgiveness of serious sins belongs only to prophets (Pud. 21).34 As Burns 1997: 262 observes of Decian martyrs, “the enforcement of the qualifications for member-

ship passed from the community and its chosen leaders to the martyrs and their designated agentsamong the confessors. The martyrs, of course, had not been chosen and sent forth as champions by



the third century, friction between bishops and confessors became explo-sive at times, and martyrs were increasingly maneuvered into the categoryof laity.35

Also pushed toward the lay side of the division were unordained hosts andpatrons of churches, who were slowly differentiated from clerical presidersover the course of the second century. Like any school group or voluntaryassociation, early Christian congregations relied on patrons, who providedspace for gathering, funded their activities, and supported needy members.The extent to which such patronage or such titles as “father/mother ofthe association” entailed functional leadership instead of (or as well as)mere honor has been much debated; this question has seemed especiallypressing where female patrons of synagogues and churches are concerned,since this bears on the modern issue of women in ministry.36 Presentconsensus holds that while both possibilities are attested, more often thannot patrons did exercise some leadership in the groups they sponsored, withno difference between men and women in this regard.37 This matches thepattern observable in early imperial schools, where the host is often the leadteacher, as Proclus and Taurus are in their domestic schools (Philostr. VS604; Gell. 2.2; 7.13; 17.5, 20). Other hosts, for example Gemina (Porph. Plot.9) and the elder Atticus (Philostr. VS 521), stay in the background, whilestill others collaborate with guest teachers, as when Herodes hosts Taurus’students (Gell. 1.2; 9.2.4–5).38 Likewise, in Plutarch’s symposia some hostsappear as active participants in conversation, others as facilitators (therole of the ideal symposiarch: Quaest. conv. 620a–622c), others as silentlisteners.

In the case of Christianity, most scholars now agree that institutionalleadership developed out of the household-like structure of congregations,as prominent members – early converts, older and/or wealthier members,hosts – assumed leading roles within their cells. The spread of Christianity

the community but had built their authority on personal achievement. Their exalted, heavenly sta-tus, moreover, insulated them and their agents from the face-to-face pressures which could channelor even block the exercise of their power . . . [Their actions] transformed a voluntary communityinto a band of clients dependent upon the largess of heavenly and earthly patrons.”

35 In addition to Tertullian’s bitter complaints about martyrs who abuse their power, we find attemptsto restrict that power to “real” confessors, i.e. those who had suffered severely (Tert. Prax. 1) andwhose Christian confession was genuine (Eus. Hist. eccl. 5.16.21–2, 18.6–10; Hipp. Ref. 9.12.7–12).On the “laicization” of confessors, see Hardy 1984.

36 E.g. Brooten 1982; Kraemer 1992: 119–21, 181–3; Eisen 2000: 7–18; Ascough 2003: 54–9, 134–8; Osiekand MacDonald 2006: 194–219; Cohick 2009: 209–17, 298–320.

37 For a recent summary, see Harland 2009: 82–96, who confirms that in associations parental titlescould denote both function and honor, while cautioning that the distinction could be “blurry, evennon-existent” (96).

38 For Herodes as a likely patron of Taurus, see Dillon 2002: 35–7.



in a new locale regularly began with the conversion of a prominent house-holder along with his or her household, which then became the missionary’slocal base of operations and a gathering place for the new church.39 As aresult, the hosts of congregations were also often their spiritual, ritual,and/or administrative leaders, acting essentially as patresfamilias for thefellowships that met in their homes.40 Most of the resident leaders namedin Paul’s letters fit this description, although charismatic gifts also forman important basis for authority in Pauline congregations (1 Cor. 12–14;Rom. 12:6–8). Their involvement in teaching presumably varied: the anal-ogy to schools suggests that some patrons probably took a leading role inteaching, while others will have yielded that role to others.41 Titles for suchleaders in the genuine Pauline correspondence are few, but Paul does refera few times to patrons or presiders,42 and once to episkopoi and diakonoi(Phil. 1:1). Phoebe, prostatis and diakonos at Cenchreae (Rom. 16: 1–2), isboth minister and patron, a pattern that continues; in the middle of thesecond century we find patrons in Asian and Roman churches acting as theprimary teachers and administrators of the congregations they host.43 Atthe same time, leaders more formally designated as bishops, presbyters, anddeacons are routinely ascribed the virtues of an ideal paterfamilias, suggest-ing that official leadership positions continued to go to socially prominentmembers.44 As the two roles slowly diverge over the course of the secondcentury and beyond, some patronal functions and authority are absorbedinto the episcopate, others subordinated to it.45

In short, patronage, charismatic authority, instructional competence,and clerical office were closely entwined throughout our period, andpatronal and clerical leadership both derived more from wealth and social

39 Meeks 1983: 75–7; L. M. White 1985–6: 115–19; Malherbe 1987: 7–20; Sandnes 1997: 151–3; Harland2002: 391–2.

40 Maier 1991; L. M. White 1996 i: 145–6. 41 Osiek and MacDonald 2006: 160–2.42 �4��: Rom. 16:2. ��s�=�� : Rom. 12:8; 1 Thess. 5:12; cf. 1 Tim. 5:17 for “presbyters who

preside well” (�/ �� %��).43 Maier 1991 and 1993: 233–8. In the 150s Justin Martyr appears to be both host and leader of a

congregation that meets in his apartment at Rome (Mart. Just. 3, cf. Apol. 61, 65–7).44 Foremost among the desired attributes of office-holders are financial honesty (1 Tim. 3:3, 8; Tit.

1:7; 1 Pet. 5:2; Did. 15.1; Pol. Phil. 5.2, 6.1, 11; Hermas, Sim. 9.26.1–2) and conflict-resolution skills(1 Tim. 3:2–3, 11; Tit. 1:7–8; Did. 15.1; Ign. Phld. 1.1; Pol. Phil. 6.1), followed by social virtues suchas hospitality (1 Tim. 3:2; Tit. 1:8; Hermas, Sim. 9.27.1–2; Tert. Mon. 12.4), being married onlyonce (1 Tim. 3:2, 12; Tit. 1:6; Tert. Ux. 1.7.4, Exh. Cast. 7.2, Mon. 12; Hipp. Ref. 9.12.22), and goodreputation with outsiders (1 Tim. 3:7; Ign. Trall. 3.2–3). 1 Tim. 3:4–5, 15 explicitly stipulates that abishop must be a good household manager, or else he will not be able to manage the church, the�� &. On the minister as paterfamilias, see Dassmann 1984: 95–6; Maier 1993: 233–6; Sullivan2001: 73–4; Rankin 2004, esp. 311–14.

45 Bobertz 1993; Stewart-Sykes 2002; Rankin 2004; Cooper 2011: 186–8, 193–5.



standing than from any special moral virtuosity, scriptural knowledge, orexegetical acumen. This will be worth bearing in mind as we chart attemptsby some Christians to promote the authority of an elite in-group of expertdecision-makers, variously identified with the ordained clergy, charismaticvirtuosos, and the educationally sophisticated, at the expense of other, more“amateur” Christians, including lay patrons. Challenges to rival modes ofleadership and to the competence of idiotai generally should thus be under-stood as attempts to carve out, expand, or justify the domains of particularmodels of expertise rather than as mapping lines of authority already inplace.

simpliciores and idiotai in christian identity formation

There is no mystery why Hippolytus is upset about the crowds streaminginto Callistus’ “school” (Ref. 9.12.24): in the struggle between Hippolytan“orthodoxy” and Callistan “heresy,” the Christians of Rome are voting withtheir feet, and Hippolytus has not come out ahead. That ordinary believerscould be (witting or unwitting) agents in shaping Christian “orthodoxy”is undeniable: if nothing else, by affiliating with one leader or anotherin large numbers, they might shift the center of gravity of local “ortho-doxy.” That is why Irenaeus (Haer. 1.13.4–7) and Heraclas (Eus. Hist. eccl.7.7.4) demand that their congregants abandon “heterodox” teachers infavor of “orthodox” worship. To admit that openly, however, would be toimply that orthodoxy is relational and situational, dependent on humanaction – an unacceptable premise for such men.46 Further, it would sug-gest that authority to determine what constituted orthodoxy was widelydistributed among the faithful, also a disquieting prospect. These lead-ers’ dissatisfaction with decisions made by local Christians reveals gravedoubts about the ability of the “merely faithful” to spot the differ-ence between “orthodoxy” and “heresy” without expert guidance, ide-ally by bishops and presbyters – a category to which each of themhappens to belong. Others locate the center of Christian expertise else-where, but with the same consequences for those cast as non-experts.Much as Greek intellectuals insist that non-specialists can only con-firm, not confer, status within their communities, so Christian polemi-cists increasingly downplay the contribution of “simple” believers todefining what it means to be authentically Christian. In each case,

46 The phrase “relational and situational” derives from J. Z. Smith (2004: 241, 275) via Iricinschi andZellentin 2008b: 12.


Idiotai in Christian identity formation 103

talking about idiotai becomes a means of both mapping the boundaries ofa privileged identity and articulating its internal hierarchies.

In the earliest Christian texts the idiotes serves primarily to positionChristianity over against Greek culture. Often, the term is reclaimed withSocratic (or Lucianic) irony as a self-designation, as a way to circumvent,critique, or belittle the claims of Greek paideia or internal detractors whoare – or can be represented as being – aligned with it. Under fire at Corinthfrom “super-apostles” who promote a more professionalized model of evan-gelism, Paul tartly replies that “I may be an idiotes in speech, but not inknowledge” (2 Cor. 11:6).47 His opponents have presumably made the stan-dard argument against taking direction from an unqualified person; Paul’sresponse does not challenge the premise but asserts that Christian expertisedoes not consist in mastery of Greek rhetoric, but in (true) knowledge.Similarly, the writer of Acts smugly records that the priestly leadershipin Jerusalem was amazed by the frank-speaking (��7�) of Peter andJohn, whom they took for “illiterates and amateurs” (��=�� . . . ��#��, Acts 4:13). That Christians surpass pepaideumenoi in knowledgeand virtue despite their lack of paideia is a cherished premise of second-century apologists as well. Typical is Justin Martyr’s boast that “among usit is possible to hear and learn these [philosophical truths] from peoplewho do not even know the shapes of letters, who are idiotai and barbar-ians in accent, but wise and faithful in mind” (Apol. 60.11).48 Embracingthe position of idiotes in this way challenges the value of Greek paideiawhile promoting Christianity as a better philosophy, superior in resultsand accessible to all.49

Alternatively, Christianity can be figured as a counter-expertise withinwhich pagans are the amateurs. Paul treats idiotes as a synonym for non-believer (N��) (1 Cor. 14:16, 23–4). Justin charges his antagonist, thephilosopher Crescens, with amateurish (#��!��-) ignorance of Chris-tianity (2 Apol. 8.3). Clement contrasts the amateur (�� #��!��4 )self-control of pagans with the advanced continence of gnostic Christians(Strom. 7.12.69.8–70.2); elsewhere, he adapts the image of new converts

47 �# � �� #��9�� 4��, ��’ �: P. � 9��. Hock 1980: 50–65 locates this clash withinGreco-Roman debates over philosophical support and authority. Winter 2002: 141–239 analyzes thesophistic background of the Corinthian correspondence generally.

48 ��’ ��> �T 1�� &� ��&�� > �� :� �0� 2�� 2�7! 8�� ! , #��!� � �� %��%=�! � ��, �� & C ! .Cf. Jus. Apol. 39.3, 2 Apol. 10.8; Athenag. Leg. 11.4; Theoph. Autol. 2.1 (quoting 2 Cor. 11:6), 2.35;Clem.Al. Paed. 3.11.78.2. Tertullian adapts this topos to argue that the soul in its raw, untrained,pre-philosophical state (simplicem et rudem et impolitam et idioticam) has a sort of natural access todivine truth (Test. 1.6).

49 On this topos, see further E. Clark 2005, focusing on the use of women as paradigmatic #��.



as milk-fed infants (Heb. 5:13) to characterize philosophers as spiritualchildren, not yet experienced in true logos (Strom. 1.11.53.3). This strategyreplays Plato’s assault on sophists as idiotai (R. 6, 493–4), as honed inSecond Sophistic cultural polemics.

In other cases, the label idiotes bears its more ordinary meaning, denotingsecular non-specialists who must keep silent about unfamiliar subjects(Tert. Mart. 1.2), and whose lack of expertise renders them susceptible todeception (Ir. Haer. 1.9.4; Hipp. Ref. 4.5.1, 13.2) and reliant on specialistsfor guidance (Clem.Al. Strom. 2.4.15.4). Tertullian nearly runs agroundon this topos in his treatise To the Martyrs: if amateurs are unqualifiedto advise specialists, then he, a non-martyr, has no business addressingmartyrs; he saves himself by carving out an exception for encouragement(Mart. 1.2).50 Intra-Christian concerns bubble beneath the surface of thesepassages: in each one, pagan idiotai are introduced either as analoguesfor the vulnerability of naive believers to “heresy” or in order to justifyascribing hierarchies of Christian authority.

Charges of (and claims to) amateurism take on new color in Irenaeus’Against Heresies, where they serve not only to position Christianity withinand against Hellenism, but also to map divisions within the Christiancommunity.51 At the start of the work Irenaeus folds the apologists’ defi-ant eschewal of paideia into a captatio benevolentiae, asking indulgencefor writing without rhetorical artistry, but “simply, truthfully, inexpertly(#��!��), and with love” (1 pr.3).52 Much like Paul, Irenaeus is not onlymeasuring himself against the standards of Greek paideia, but also dis-tancing himself from sophisticated rival theologians, whom he polemicallyassimilates to sophists.53 Following a path blazed in the Pastoral epistles,Irenaeus appropriates the traditional philosophical critique of sophistryto define the difference between authentic Christians (simple, humble,truth-seeking) and “heretics” (greedy, quarrelsome, arrogant, duplicitous,all flash and no substance).54

Identifying “heretics” with sophists is obviously tendentious, and of apiece with Irenaeus’ polemic portrait of the Valentinians as a “school”

50 “Nor am I such that I might address you; nevertheless, even the most perfect gladiators are cheered onfrom a distance not only by their trainers and directors, but also by amateurs and non-combatants”(nec tantus ego sum, ut vos alloquar; verumtamen et gladiatores perfectissimos non tantum magistri etpraepositi sui, sed etiam idiotae et supervacui quique adhortantur de longinquo).

51 In the next five paragraphs, references otherwise unspecified are to the Against Heresies.52 "��, �� , �� #��!�� =�� . Compare Dio’s announcement

in Or. 47.8 that his speech will not be a rhetorical showpiece, but “amateurish and shabby” (#��!�� &�� ).

53 Made explicit at 1.11.5; 2.17.9; 3.5.1, 24.2; 4.1.1, 2.2; 5.20.2; see Le Boulluec 1985: 136–48.54 Karris 1973 analyzes the assimilation of opponents to sophists in the Pastorals; cf. Elze 1974: 395.



rather than part of the church. Yet it also seems to exploit genuine ele-ments in the self-presentation of (some of ) Irenaeus’ Valentinian oppo-nents. He complains that Valentinians belittle “psychic” Christians likehim as “amateurs (#��) and know-nothings,”55 disparage the “ama-teurishness” (imperitia)56 of church elders (5.20.2), and boast that they areboth wiser (sapientiores, 3.2.2) than those authorities and in possession ofbetter tradition (3.2–3). Irenaeus surely exaggerates Valentinian elitism; thedistinctions they drew among Christians were more pastoral and less rigidthan he claims.57 But distinctions they were. The Valentinian Interpreta-tion of Knowledge envisages a community divided between a spiritual elite,who take the lead in speaking, and less gifted members, termed idiotes(Interp. Know. 21.26), who should defer to and benefit from their expertise.(References to jealousy and “persecution” of the author’s faction, though,suggest that power within the group may not in fact lie with the spiritual“haves”).58 By characterizing their rivals as idiotai, Valentinian controver-sialists tap into a familiar trope, positioning themselves as pepaideumenoiof a sort, beyond the reach of their non-expert critics.59 Valentinians wouldthus appear to have been the first to cast other Christians as less advanced,“amateur” believers, and to minimize their contribution to self-definitionaldiscourse on that basis.60

Irenaeus responds by reconfiguring Valentinians as the most discreditablesort of pepaideumenoi – sophists – and turning the apologetic critique ofpaideia against their claims to expertise. Against their slick cleverness, hesets the Christian ideal of undivided simplicity ("�4��), which he comesclose to equating with pious ignorance.61 With heavy irony, he attributes thewicked innovations of Valentinian theologians to their “greater experience”(1.12.1, 3; cf. 1.13.1), while making lack of education almost a signifier of“orthodoxy.” Apostates who “run down the amateurishness of the elders,”he says, “fail to consider how superior a pious amateur (idiota religiosus) is

55 #��!� �� 8�� ! (1.6.4); imperitos et idiotas et animales (2.26.3).56 Rousseau et al. restore #��!��4� in the Greek. 57 See p. 000.58 On this text’s view of congregational life, see Koschorke 1981; Dunderberg 2008: 147–58; Tite 2009:

185–216.59 Dunderberg 2008: 135 compares this to philosophical divisions between more and less advanced

students.60 Already in 1 Clem. 39.1, though, critics are blasted as “senseless, uncomprehending, foolish, and

untutored people [who] mock us and turn up their noses” (N�� !�� 7�� 2��=K�� 7K�� ).

61 On the ideal of "�4�� (Lat. simplicitas) and its heresiological significance, see Le Boulluec 1985:148–57.



to a blasphemous and shameless sophist” (5.20.2);62 faithful “amateurs andunlearned persons” (#��9�� Q��>�) are much better off than“seemingly learned and experienced” blasphemers (2.26.1).63 A battle linewould appear to be drawn between elitist sophistic “heretics” and humble“orthodox” idiotai, with the latter uniquely positioned to hold the lineagainst “heresy.”

Pious amateurs, however, are not to be equal partners in the struggle todefine “orthodoxy.” Simplicity has its dark side, as Irenaeus well knows.He worries deeply about the susceptibility of naive believers to “heretical”persuasion. He accuses Valentinians of deliberately targeting the inexpe-rienced (��4��) and guileless (��), who “cannot distinguishfalse from true” (�< ��7 �� ! � D�&�� & ��&�,1 pr.1); their greatest success, he charges, comes with simpliciores over-confident in their ability to discriminate between verisimilitude and truth(3.15.2).64 The harsh reality is that, unless stripped of its plausible garb,error can seem truer than truth to the inexperienced, just as glass can bemistaken for an emerald without the help of an expert skilled at spottingcounterfeits (1 pr.2).65 In short, simpliciores cannot be trusted to determinewho or what should be accepted as authentically Christian. Rather, thatjob should be left to trained specialists. To the learned recipient of hiswork, he urges that the best defense against “heresy” is knowledge: oncealerted to the hidden underpinnings of Valentinian (and other) doctrine,his reader will be better equipped to combat “heresy” in his own church(1 pr.3; cf. 1.22.2, 31.3–4; 2.19.8; 3 pr.; 4 pr.1–2).66 To simpler believers,though, he recommends the two-pronged Ignatian remedy: flee “heretical”opinions and take refuge in the church, under the guidance of the ordainedclergy (5.20.2). “It is right to obey the presbyters in the church,” he advises,since “along with succession in the episcopate they have received a securegrace of truth, according to the decision of the Father” (4.26.2);67 the best

62 qui ergo relinquunt praeconium ecclesiae imperitiam sanctorum presbyterorum arguunt, non contem-plantes quanto pluris sit idiota religiosus a blasphemo et impudente sophista.

63 N�� <�I > �� 9�� , #��9�� Q��>� �=�2�� =��7� �� & c��& J ��>� �� 8��7�� & �� %��-�� #� � 3�� 7�� i��4� . Cf. Le Boulluec 1985: 153–4.

64 decipiuntur autem omnes qui quod est in verbis verisimile se putant posse discernere a veritate.65 �� %�-�� !� �� :�� 7��, �� 3��<

��2�� 7 �� 15!�� 7�� >� �� . . . (4� �< ��P. ( �� ! ��=�� 2 � ��5�� < � ��!� �� .

66 On the heresiological tactic of refutation by exposure, see Koschorke 1975: 25–55; Vallee 1981: 52–4;Le Boulluec 1985: 117.

67 eis qui in Ecclesia sunt presbyteris obaudire oportet, his qui successionem habent ab Apostolis, sicutostendimus, qui cum episcopatus successione charisma veritatis certum secundum placitum Patris accepe-runt.



defense against “heretical” exegesis is to “read scripture carefully with thepresbyters in the church, with whom apostolic teaching resides” (4.32.1).68

For Irenaeus, the clergy are the yardsticks and arbiters of orthodoxy parexcellence.

Even so, Irenaeus scrupulously avoids referring to lay believers asidiotai.69 They may be inexperienced (��4��), guileless (��,�= ��), or foolish (� 4��), but never inexpert; only once doeshe describe doctrinal error as resulting from idiotismos (5.30.1).70 For Ire-naeus, evidently, idiotes was too much of a Valentinian buzzword to beusable as an index of authority or “orthodoxy.” The next generation ofheresiologists do not share this scruple. Although they continue to treattransparent simplicity as a hallmark of authentic Christianity and to bridleat Valentinian characterizations of “psychics” as “simple” (simplices, Tert.Val. 2.1) and “puerile” (��, Clem.Al. Paed. 1.6.25.1; cf. 1.6.31.2),they also appropriate the word idiotes to measure distance from the centerof “orthodoxy.”

Clement of Alexandria emphatically distances his ideal Christian gnosticfrom “the unholy gnosis of these falsely named people” (�� D��! ��! ��! � 4�� , Strom. 7.7.41.3), yet his attitude toward the “sim-ply faithful” (( "�� 4�, 6.14.111.3) often echoes that of his Valen-tinian adversaries. Once he explains that “gnostics, having advanced furtherand achieved in-depth understanding of the truth,” stand in the same rela-tion to the faithful as artisans do to lay people (#��) (7.16.95.9).71

Elsewhere he advises that just as those inexperienced (N��) at playingthe lyre or flute should keep their hands off those instruments, certainmatters are better left untouched by non-gnostics (6.14.112.3; cf. 1.1.2.2;5.9.57.1). Clement is markedly uninterested in the ecclesiastical hierarchy,

68 omnis sermo ei constabit, si et Scripturas diligenter legerit apud eos qui in Ecclesia sunt presbyteri, apudquos est Apostolica doctrina. Cf. 1.10.2; 2.22.5; 3.2–4; 4.27.1, 31.1, 8; 5.20.1–2.

69 By contrast, his Latin translator twice gives ��4�� as idiotae (1.8.1, 9.4), and once renders��7!� as idiotice (5.30.1). In portions where the Greek text survives, #��9�� is unfailinglytranslated as idiota, so we can be reasonably certain that we are missing few, if any, Irenaean uses ofthat word.

70 ��4�� (Lat. inexpertiores, rudiores, idiotae, inscii): 1 pr.1–2, 8.1, 9.4; 5.19.2. �� (Lat.simpliciores, rudes): 1 pr.1–2. simpliciores: 3.15.2; 4 pr.3. �= �� (Lat. simplices): 1.9.4. � 4��(Lat. qui sensum non habent, insensibiles, insensatores): 1.6.4, 13.1, 20.1; 2.30.2, 33.3. Irenaeus alsorefrains from using "�4�� pejoratively, as Le Boulluec 1985: 153 notes. The “amateurish” error isa variant calculation of the number of the beast, which is culpable only if promulgated deliberately.

71 ��’ p 8��-�� / � ��=�� 4 � � �� 7, �/ � �� !��!2!�-�� %�>� � 9�� 7�� =�2�� , �/ � !��7, 8�� >� �� %7� 12��7 � �� / �2 >�� #��!� �� 8 �7�� 8��&�� %�� .



although he does regard the earthly ranks of bishops, presbyters, and dea-cons as “imitations of angelic glory” (6.13.107.2; cf. 7.1.3.3). For him, highestauthority rests instead with the perfect gnostic teacher, whom he considersthe real presbyter and deacon of the church (6.13.106.2).

Like the Valentinians, Clement at times hints that differences in Chris-tian status correlate with different levels of secular education.72 Arguingthat Greek philosophy is propaideutic for Christian truth, he implies thatuneducated converts (�/ 85 8� � #��) can receive only superficialcatechesis (6.15.119.1), thus suggesting a link between deficient paideia anddeficient Christianity. He also considers dialectical expertise a useful pro-phylactic against heresy (1.20.99.4), which hints that those without rhetor-ical training are at elevated risk of falling into error. Does lack of Greekpaideia thus make one an amateur as a Christian? Clement backs awayfrom this implication, insisting that even a non-philosopher (�[ #��9��;.) is at no disadvantage in the race for salvation, which can be achieveddirectly through Christian teaching, bypassing the preliminary hurdle ofphilosophy (7.2.11.3; cf. Paed. 3.11.78.2).73 Clement thus crystallizes a long-standing Christian hesitation over the value of paideia, simultaneouslymaintaining that it is superfluous for one who has mastered true Christianphilosophy, and recognizing that poor education may pose a hindrance toproper (“orthodox”) identity formation.

Contemporary with Clement, Tertullian frankly identifies simple, error-prone believers as idiotae, although he refrains from that label when arguingagainst Valentinians and other sophisticated exegetes such as Marcion andHermogenes. We have already heard him belittle advocates of monarchiantheology as idiotae (Prax. 3.1); the word appears again in complaints that“inexpert or perverse” opponents (idiotes quisque aut perversus) have misrep-resented his position (Prax. 9.1). The association between poor educationand error recurs in other works. Ignorant simplicitas is to blame for themisguided custom of allowing unmarried virgins to go unveiled (Virg. 1.1)and the mistaken idea that punishment after death is impossible withoutbodily resurrection (Res. 17.1–2). This propensity for confusion renders“simple, inexperienced people” (simplices ac rudes) peculiarly vulnerable to

72 As Buell 1999: 129 observes, “paideia functions as a means of producing and ensuring social relationsof dominance and subordination on two levels: 1) between those with access to paideia and thosewithout access; and 2) among those who participated in paideia. For Clement, then, to develop amanual of Christian paideia can offer a means to delineate the difference between Christian andnon-Christian as well as a standard by which he can measure other Christians.”

73 �# �� VE��- ! ��%�� 7�� VE�� :��!� W�� 8� < �� 7� , ��7�� I��, �[ #��9�� ;., < 87�� !��7�� 7��!� �#� ��7!�� 3�4�� .



“heretical” seduction (Scorp. 1.5; cf. Bapt. 1.1; Res. 2.11, 5.1). Indeed, arguesTertullian, most “heretical” teaching is built on popular opinion (communessensus), which seems credible because of its simplicitas (Res. 3.6–4.1).74 Hisstarkest criticism of “amateur” Christians, though, comes in Montanist-period assaults on the disciplinary policies of Carthaginian “psychics.”75

Challenging the latter’s exegesis of 2 Corinthians, Tertullian concludeswith the sweeping charge that “it is common procedure for perverse andinexpert (idioticis) heretics, and now for all ‘psychics’ too, to capitalize on asingle ambiguous chapter to equip themselves against the army of explicitstatements in scripture as a whole” (Pud. 16.24).76 Not only are psychici allbut equated with haeretici, but for the first time idioticus is employed as adescription, and near synonym, of “heretic.”

A decade or so after Tertullian’s On Modesty, finally, Hippolytus comesclosest to identifying idiotai as the unwitting handmaids or even produc-ers of “heresy,” and hinting that they should be excluded from settingchurch policy for that reason. Reversing Paul’s self-description as “amateurin speech, but not in knowledge,” Hippolytus blasts those who celebrateEaster on Passover as “quarrelsome in nature, amateurs in knowledge,combative in character” (��4 �� < �� , #�� < � �� ,��2��9�� 4� , Ref. 8.18.1). More galling still is the inexpertmeddling of the despised Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome c. 189–217. “Ama-teurish, illiterate (#��9� �� =�� ), and inexperienced in thechurch’s rules” (Ref. 9.11.1),77 Zephyrinus may not have been a heretichimself, but his greed and incompetence made him the puppet of theduplicitous Callistus, whom Hippolytus considers the greatest heretic ofhis day. Under Callistus’ malign influence, Zephyrinus turned a blind eyeto monarchian teachings at Rome (9.7.1–2) and issued contradictory state-ments that perpetuated dissension within the church (9.11.3). The moral isclear: idiotai have no business leading a church or entering debate about

74 Likewise Irenaeus charges that Valentinians lure in recruits by offering familiar-sounding teachings,as one traps an animal with its usual food (Haer. 2.14.8); cf. Plato’s charge that sophistic idiotaimerely parrot popular opinion, which is like learning to speak like an animal you want to tame, andmistaking that for wisdom (R. 6, 493a–d).

75 Like the Valentinians, Tertullian appropriates the Pauline distinction between full-fledged spiritualChristians ( ��7) and less advanced “soulful” believers (D�2��7) (1 Cor. 2:13–3:3) to deridecertain opponents as psychici. Valentinians have in mind a failure to grasp higher spiritual reality;Tertullian, denial of the outpouring of the Spirit in the New Prophets.

76 sed est hoc sollemne perversis et idioticis haereticis, iam et psychicis universis, alicuius capituli ancipitisoccasione adversus exercitum sententiarum instrumenti totius armari.

77 N �� #��9� �� =�� N�� 8�� H�! . Cf. 9.7.1: � ��#��9�� #�2��&�.



matters of orthodoxy and heresy. The irony of turning Luke’s descrip-tion of the apostles as “illiterate amateurs” (Acts 4:13) into a disqualifi-ation for authority is apparently lost on Hippolytus. In his anger thatan unlettered idiotes had occupied the episcopal chair, Hippolytus soundsless like the subversively self-deprecating apologists than his coeval Cas-sius Dio, bemused that a man “uneducated due to rusticity” (��7��’ ��7��) found his way into the prefecture under Marcus Aurelius(D.C. 71.5.2).78

Similar warnings against trusting amateur judgment – and similar doubtsabout episcopal competence – are expressed in the Commentary on Danieloften ascribed to Hippolytus.79 In this text, inexpert exegesis is blamedfor the near destruction of two churches (4.18.1–20.1). In the first case, aSyrian church leader, a careless reader of scripture,80 convinces most of hisflock to troop out into the desert to meet Christ, where they are almostarrested as bandits, sparking a general persecution; disaster is averted onlyby the intervention of the governor’s wife, a Christian (4.18). The authormarvels at the congregation’s “folly and lack of education” (�!�7� ��7�): scripture plainly says that the Lord will come again in powerand glory, not in the desert (4.18.4–5). The second case, from Pontus,again concerns a church leader who was pious and humble but inattentiveto scripture, trusting more in his own visions (4.19).81 Based on thosevisions, he persuaded his followers that judgment day would come in oneyear’s time. Terrified, they stopped working their fields and many sold theirpossessions. When the end failed to come, they were left badly disillusioned,marrying off their consecrated virgins, returning to their fields (or, in theSyriac version, taking wives), and asking for their property back (4.19.7).82

The moral: “this is what happens to inexpert (#��9��) and weak-mindedpeople, who do not pay accurate attention to scripture but are persuadedinstead by human traditions, by their own errors and dreams, and by

78 Schmitz 1997: 47 cites this passage as evidence for the expectation that high political rank alignswith paideia.

79 The authorship of the Hippolytan corpus remains in doubt. The common authorship of thecommentaries and the Refutation has recently been challenged again by Cerrato 2002, in which casewe have two early third-century authors who share a perspective on Christian #��.

80 ��6� �=� �� 8��> 8��7�� < 8�4 !� 8 ��2= ! �>� ��7�� >� �� P.�! P. �& ��7�� -�� (4.18.2).

81 U�� <; > 8 � A4 �, �� :�� 6� 8��7��, �:��%<� � � <� �� 4��! , �< ��2! � �� >� ��>�, �� >� (�=�� *� �:�� 39�� 8��! .

82 �/ � �� K4�� , W�� :� �� 0�N �� 8� < ��!��7� 2!��· �/ � �#�P. � 3�� -�� !�-�� $�� 8��& ��.



mythologies and old wives’ tales” (4.20.1).83 It is implicit that scripture, withthe aid of the author’s expert commentary, stands as protection against suchtragically amateurish leadership.84 Here, as in the Refutation, idiotes comesclose to achieving the same valence in internal Christian discourse that ithas among pagan intellectuals. Idiotai in these texts are seldom instigatorsof “heresy,” but rather bumbling amateurs whose inexperience makes themunwitting abetters of error. For that reason, though, they deserve at best apassive role in the definition of Christianity.

Over the course of the late second and early third centuries, in short,the figure of the idiotes comes to be deployed in Christian discourse notonly to articulate the relationship of Christianity to Greek paideia, but alsoto measure distance from full Christian truth and to define a hierarchy ofparticipation in the construction of “orthodoxy.” This discourse reframeslong-standing worries about the vulnerability of the faithful “sheep” todeceitful “wolves,” reflecting a shifting sense of where the dangers lie.The rise of a notion of “heresy” in which intellectual error, rather thanwrong practice or social division, holds center stage is matched by growingattentiveness to the susceptibility of simpliciores to “heretical” falsehood.85

Leaders from a variety of perspectives concur that the church shelters aninexpert majority whose judgment about what it means to be Christian issuspect, if not entirely inadmissible, and who would be well advised to deferto more reliable and/or erudite guides. For Valentinians, the problem is thatidiotai have stalled out at a rudimentary level of belief; Irenaeus worries thatsimpliciores will overestimate their ability to distinguish truth from error andso be taken in by Valentinian promises of deeper understanding. Irenaeushas little confidence that average Christians can identify “orthodoxy” forthemselves; while he does task individuals with prising apart true andfalse by “fleeing the opinions of those people and . . . taking refuge in thechurch” (Haer. 5.20.2),86 the accent is on allowing the church to embodytrue opinion.

83 �&� ��%�7 �� >� #��9�� 8��>� � ��9��, H�� >� � ��>� ��%�� :��2�� , �>� � � ��!7 �� 4�� >� 3�� = �� >� 3�� 8 � 7�� 7�� 4�� 7�� .

84 At 4.18.7 the author explains that he recounts these stories in order to strengthen the faithful (�� ), so that they will not get ahead of the will of God. In particular,he aims to halt a deviant fasting practice currently (�� & ) being promoted on the strength ofsimilar misreadings of Daniel.

85 Although efforts to assert unity of fellowship, practice, and doctrine are to be found across ourperiod, a transition can be traced from concerns over division (�27��, �=��) and discordantpractice, to an emphasis on ��, reconceptualized as wrong belief. See Le Boulluec 1985, esp.11–12, 21–189.

86 fugere igitur oportet sententias ipsorum . . . confugere autem ad ecclesiam.



In the next generation those doubts deepen into a sense that inexpertnessand error are naturally, even causally, linked. The recasting of unsophis-ticated Christians as non-specialist idiotai, underway already in Tertul-lian’s later works, culminates in Hippolytus’ savage portrait of the bishopZephyrinus as a greedy idiotes whose ignorance (should have) disquali-fied him from setting church policy. By the early third century, ordinarybelievers are being painted in colors that strongly recall the attitude of con-temporary pepaideumenoi to non-specialist consumers and patrons. Fromthe perspective of self-conscious authority, simpliciores have little more roleto play in shaping and policing the boundaries of the Christian communitythan idiotai do in conferring status as a sophist or philosopher.

Where, then, did authority to define Christian identity lie, if not with thefaithful as a whole? Our sources offer a range of views. For Irenaeus, the bestguides for less advanced believers are bishops and presbyters in apostolicsuccession; for Clement, the divine Logos and his earthly counterpart, thetrue gnostic teacher.87 For Valentinians, the proper guides are evidentlyspiritually gifted and theologically sophisticated teachers, who might claimdivine inspiration and/or apostolic connections; ordained clergy can easilyfall into the category of idiotai in need of direction.88 The unordainedtheologian Tertullian recommends consulting “a more learned brother” onpoints of confusion (Praescr. 14.2); more broadly, truth is to be found inthe consensus of apostolic churches, informed by the prophetic Spirit.89

For Hippolytus, the best authority often seems to be Hippolytus himself,as presbyter in apostolic succession (Ref. 1 pr.6) and as tireless exegete,investigator, and scourge of “heresy.”90 While he gladly roots his ownauthority in ordination, he is less convinced of the value of that credentialwhen held by his episcopal opponents; the Commentary on Daniel registerssimilar doubts. The fissures marked by the figure of the idiotes are notalways the same, nor do they break cleanly along lines of either educationalcompetence or clerical status, although they intersect with both. The goalis always the same, though: to promote the policy-making competence ofcertain “expert” Christians at the expense of others figured as amateurs.

87 For Clement’s assimilation of the gnostic teacher to the Logos as Pedagogue, see Kovacs 2001.88 Divine epiphany: Hipp. Ref. 6.42.2–3 (Valentinus); Ir. Haer. 1.14.1 (Marcus Magus). Apostolic

connections: Ptolemy, Floro. 7.9; Clem.Al. Strom. 7.17.106.4 (Valentinus, queried by Markschies1992: 299–300).

89 Apostolic churches as guardians and yardsticks of “orthodoxy”: Praescr. 20–1, 32, 36; Marc. 1.21.4–5,4.5.1–2; Virg. 2.2–3, with Sullivan 2001: 155–60. In later works Tertullian emphasizes the Paraclete’srole in informing judgment and resolving ambiguities that entangle simpliciores in error (Res..63.7–10; Virg. 1.6–11).

90 Hamel 1951: 116; Koschorke 1975: 29–32, 89–90; cf. p. 000.


Patrons as arbiters of “orthodoxy” 113

patrons as arbiters of “orthodoxy”

Conspicuously missing from the above roster of stakeholders in the con-struction of (local) “orthodoxy” are the house owners and patrons whomade the operation of churches possible. Second Sophistic literature is shotthrough with anxieties about the ability of patrons, broadly understood,to distort the intellectual practices they sponsor, whether by endorsing theunworthy or withholding well-deserved honors and resources, by causing apepaideumenos to compromise his teaching or ethical standards, or simplyby infringing his cultural eminence and autonomy. It will come as no sur-prise that in Christian churches, meeting in private homes and financiallyreliant on their wealthier and more prominent members, many of the sameworries clustered around the figure of the host and patron of the assembly.

Even when patrons were not the primary ritual, administrative, orinstructional heads of their congregations, they inevitably influenced thecharacter of local churches. Nicola Denzey has described how late antiquepatrons, including women, acted as “powerful custodians and arbiters ofthe holy,” frequently in tension with episcopal authority.91 In our period,hosts of house churches were quite literally the gatekeepers of the commu-nity, which inevitably involved them in shaping the local church and itsfaith. They are explicitly tasked with this responsibility by the Elder of 2John, who instructs his addressee, the “elect lady,” neither to “receive intothe house nor speak a greeting” to anyone who brings deviant teaching(2 John 10).92 The “elect lady” may be a “semifictional cover” or a person-ification of the church itself, rather than a specific house-church patron.93

Still, this injunction reflects an awareness that the church’s physical homesare the primary battlefield on which the struggle to define Christianity isfought, a conflict in which congregational hosts must stand on the frontline. In highlighting doctrinal grounds for inclusion and exclusion, theElder tacitly acknowledges the “lady’s” role in establishing and enforcinglocal standards of orthodoxy.

This patronal role, and its hazards, are dramatically illustrated in thelate second-century Acts of Peter, in which the patron Marcellus representsthe crucial swing vote in a contest between the apostles Paul and Peter and

91 Denzey 2007: xiii–xiv, 138–40, 180–97, at xiv.92 �< ��%= �� :� �#� �#�7� , �� 2�7�� :� �< ��.93 “Semifictional cover”: Lieu 2008: 6, 144–6. Cf. Hermas, Vis. 1–3 for personification of the church as

a woman. It cannot be ruled out, though, that the head of this particular gathering was a woman, asin some Pauline (1 Cor. 16:19; Rom. 16:1–2, 5, 15) and perhaps Ignatian congregations (Smyrn. 13.2;Pol. 8.2–3).



the arch-heretic Simon Magus over the identity of Roman Christianity.94

Entering Rome after Paul’s departure, Simon scores a major coup by win-ning over Marcellus, a senator, who promotes his mission by giving hima place to stay and cutting off support for non-Simonian Christians (ActsPet. 8–9). By the time Peter arrives on the scene, the entire local churchapart from one presbyter and six social isolates has sided with Simon andMarcellus (Acts Pet. 4, 8). Reclaimed by Peter, Marcellus evicts Simon andopens his house to Peter’s preaching, which quickly triumphs (Acts Pet. 19–22, 29–31). While Marcellus’ support is not the only factor in the shiftingallegiances of Roman Christians, it does appear that where the patron goes,the rest of the church is apt to follow. Notably, Marcellus’ “vote” seemsto carry more weight than that of the loyal presbyter (and lesser patron)Narcissus.95

Although fictional, this narrative voices genuine concerns about the pit-falls of patronage. In 2 John, the Elder professes confidence not only in the“elect lady’s” doctrinal conformity with him, but also that she will reliablydetect deviations from correct teaching. Neither of these assumptions isnecessarily justified. Hippolytus registers exasperation with patrons whosedoctrinal competence is not up to snuff, complaining that the currentprostatai (patrons? presiders? both?) of the Noetian group in Rome mistakethe teachings of Heraclitus for those of Christ (Ref. 9.8.1–2, 10.9). Andas Marcellus’ erratic gatekeeping underscores, there was no guarantee thatchurch hosts would screen would-be entrants to their homes astutely, northat their judgment would converge with that of other stakeholders. Ina world felt to be bristling with plausible impostors, it was all too easyfor a patron inadvertently to open the door to heterodoxy. Once, recallsIrenaeus, an “orthodox” (� ��! ) deacon in Asia Minor receivedthe itinerant teacher Marcus Magus into his home, evidently unawarethat Marcus was an audaciously innovative, “heretical” theologian (Haer.1.13.5).96 (Alternatively, the deacon might not have found his teachingproblematic.) In no time Marcus was spreading his pernicious views inthe deacon’s church and had seduced the man’s wife, both physically andspiritually (�� < � 9�� 7��). In the end, alaborious intervention by the church was required to restore her to the

94 Date: Lalleman 1998; Bremmer 2001: 152–7. On patronage in Acts Pet., see further P. Perkins 1994:143. Stoops 1986 and J. Perkins 1994 emphasize that the text revises traditional models of patronage,subordinating them to the patronage of Christ.

95 Narcissus’ hospitality provides Peter with his first foothold in Rome (Acts Pet. 7), but evidently hecannot compete with Marcellus, since Peter moves to Marcellus’ house at the first opportunity.

96 As Forster 1999: 16–17 points out, as a native Smyrnaean, Irenaeus may have had this story fromoral report, if not first-hand knowledge.



fold. Reading between the lines, we may deduce several things: that thedeacon was initially unfamiliar with Marcus and his ideas; that Marcus’brand of Christianity proved welcome to some members of the churchbut unwelcome to others, including (eventually) the deacon himself; thathis activity created or brought to light disagreement that touched off atug-of-war over local orthodoxy; and that it was the deacon’s extension ofhospitality to Marcus that set all of this in motion. A church’s ability topolice its personal, and therefore religious, boundaries depended on thejudgment of the men and women who controlled access to its physicalspace.

Nothing guaranteed, either, that local patrons would concur aboutwhom to admit or exclude, whether because they disagreed about whatthe criteria of authenticity were, or about which visitors conformed withthem. In 3 John, the Elder finds himself on the receiving end of the veryexclusionary policy he recommends in 2 John. He has been affronted by aman named Diotrephes, evidently the host of a congregation and perhapsalso its leader.97 For reasons left unstated, Diotrephes is refusing hospital-ity to allies of the Elder and expelling from the church those who protest(3 John 10).98 By contrast, a certain Gaius, the letter’s addressee, seems will-ing to welcome the Elder’s associates – or at least the Elder represents himas such.99 Gaius evidently belongs to a different congregation, since he canreceive the visitors without fear of expulsion;100 since the decision abouthospitality seems to rest in his hands, we may suppose that he is its host.This letter thus bears witness to at least three splits: within Diotrephes’congregation, between supporters and critics of the Elder; within the localchurch, between Diotrephes and Gaius (and their groups?); and within thewider network, between Diotrephes and others on the one hand and Gaiusand the Elder on the other. Unfortunately, the cause of Diotrephes’ actionremains obscure. Is the issue purely personal (i.e. Diotrephes simply dis-likes the Elder or his associates) or political (e.g. a struggle over supremacyor autonomy), or is it ideological as well (i.e. disagreement about belief or

97 Diotrephes has the ability to eject others from the congregation, presumably by banning dissentersfrom his house. He likes to put himself first (��!��! , 3 John 9), so apparently he, at least,considers himself the group’s primary leader.

98 �n� �:�� 8��2�� 0� ��0� �� 0� %�� !�� 8� �� 8��7��8�%=��.

99 Lieu 2008: 272 notes that the Elder’s language is “remarkably circuitous and imprecise” and wondersif he is “trying to build up whatever Gaius had done into a positive commitment from which hecannot renege.”

100 Malherbe 1983: 104–5; Maier 1991: 149–50.



practice)?101 We cannot know. What is clear is that as hosts, Diotrephes andGaius wield considerable power over the make-up of their congregations,and that there is no certainty of unanimity among local patrons or betweenlocal leaders and outside authorities such as the Elder.102 Whatever thefocus of this struggle, the influence of church hosts as local power brokersis obvious.

Of course, as we have seen, the line between patron and clerical presideris not always clear: whether we call Diotrephes a church host or a presbyter-bishop may be largely a matter of anachronistic choice. Nor did explicitclericalization and hierarchy always suffice to iron out disputes over poweror definitions of “Christianism.” Ignatius’ letter to the church at Smyrnahints that conflicting assumptions about the autonomy of presbyters mayhave played a role in local diversification. Charging that certain “heterodox”people are abstaining from eucharist and prayer (Smyrn. 6.2–7.1), Ignatiusinsists that no valid eucharist, baptism, or agape can be held withoutthe bishop or his delegate (Smyrn. 8; cf. Pol. 4.1). He also cautions that“position [should] puff up no one” (4�� !, Smyrn.6.1) and exhorts the bishop Polycarp not to be intimidated by “thosewho seem trustworthy but are heterodox” (Pol. 3.1).103 Taken together, thissuggests that the docetic ideas that troubled Ignatius in Smyrna had clericalbacking.104 These docetists have often been understood as a separatistfaction, often on the tacit assumption that there was normally only oneeucharistic assembly in Smyrna.105 But if, as seems more probable, theSmyrnaean church comprised multiple cells, then the dissenters may wellhave formed one presbyterally led congregation among many. From theirperspective, they may not have withdrawn from communion at all. Rather,Ignatius may be trying to force the issue by declaring their worship invalid,perhaps on the theory that their presbyter’s status as delegate has been

101 Political: Malherbe 1983: 106–7 argues that, whatever Diotrephes thought, the Elder construes thematter as personal/political, since he does not accuse Diotrephes of not knowing the truth but onlyof slighting his authority; cf. Lieu 2008: 12–14, 275–9. Ideological: Bauer 1971 [1934]: 93; Malina1986: 187. These explanations need not be mutually exclusive: it could be rhetorically advantageousfor the Elder to recast a doctrinal challenge as a power play, and there is no reason to assume thatDiotrephes’ view of the situation was the same as the Elder’s.

102 Cf. Lane 1998: 219–28 for possible clashes in Hebrews and 1 Clement between patrons and charis-matic and presbyteral authority respectively.

103 �/ ��& �� 5�4�� 3��& �� - �� !�� .104 Schoedel 1980: 34, 1985: 235–7; cf. Maier 1991: 154–5.105 Kaufman 1996: 18 is representative: “The Docetists stayed away from Ignatius’ one altar as long

as presiding officials spoke of the bread and cup as the flesh and blood of Jesus. They apparentlyarranged for separate celebrations of the eucharist during which they gave thanks for Jesus’ exaltationbut were subdued, if not grimly silent, about his incarnation.”



abrogated by his disagreement with Polycarp.106 To presbyters accustomedto independence, or at least parity with the bishop, this attitude must havecome as a shock. For us, this episode is a reminder that the centrifugal forceswithin church networks were not entirely dissolved by the centralizingpressure of the monepiscopate.

Later in our period, anxieties over the dangers to consensus posed byitinerant Christians recede, but the ability of patrons to affect the make-upof local “orthodoxy” by sponsoring one resident teacher or another remainsa constant. One such patron was the Alexandrian woman who hosted thecircles of both the “orthodox” Origen and the “heretic” Paul early in thethird century (Eus. Hist. eccl. 6.2.13–14). With her support, the teenagedOrigen enjoyed a flourishing career as a freelance teacher of grammarand Christian scripture; only later were his classes annexed as the officialcatechetical school of Alexandria (Eus. Hist. eccl. 6.3.1–9). In this instanceEusebius applauds patronal influence, since in his eyes Origen was not onlyprecociously brilliant but also entirely orthodox. The bishop Demetriusagreed, at least at the time; later he and Origen came into conflict (Eus. Hist.eccl. 6.8.4–5, 19.17–19). The woman’s concurrent support for the “heretic”Paul, however, reveals the other side of this coin. While Origen signaled hisdisapproval by silently refusing to join in prayers with Paul, their mutualpatron’s subsidy had more visible results: her provision of teaching spaceeffectively endorsed Paul as a teacher and liturgical leader in the eyes oflocal Christians of various stripes. Whether she fully grasped the importof either man’s teaching is irrelevant to the impact her patronage had onshaping the mix of Alexandrian Christianity.

These incidents highlight the ability of patrons to affect the contoursof local “orthodoxy,” deliberately or otherwise, by extending or refusinghospitality to certain (types of ) Christians. Anxieties about this possibility,expressed in stories about patronal missteps and directives to be wary ofunknown outsiders, recall the complaints of pepaideumenoi about undis-criminating patrons who advance the careers of the undeserving. Warningsabout the corrosive results of subordinating oneself to rich patrons as aclient or to audiences in pursuit of popularity also resonate with Christianworries that financial dependence on patrons will distort the faith. Materialsupport for Christian leaders and the mutual obligations and asymmetriesof power entailed by patronage were always fraught subjects.107 Indispens-able to the functioning of local churches, financial aid was held up as a

106 Schoedel 1980: 34; Dassmann 1984: 93.107 This has been much discussed, especially in connection with Paul’s Corinthian correspondence.

See e.g. Hock 1980: 50–65; Chow 1992; Aejmaelaeus 2002; Osiek and MacDonald 2006: 210–14.



positive obligation for more affluent members, especially those in leader-ship positions.108 At the same time, funding of Christian leaders invariablycaused discomfort, especially when articulated too openly as salary, orinitiated by the leaders themselves. Salaried teachers or prophets mightfind themselves awkwardly positioned as both (spiritual) patron and client,muddying the lines of loyalty and authority. Injunctions that prophets andclergy must not be lovers of money (��=��) or shamefully greedyfor profit (�#�2��-�) are a constant;109 prominent among the chargesagainst the New Prophets is that they accepted wages and gifts.110

The danger is not only that false teachers and prophets will deceive thefaithful for gain (e.g. 2 Pet. 2:1–3; Tit. 1:10–11), but that wealthy patrons willprevail upon unscrupulous clients to compromise their message. Hermasdraws the link explicitly, advising that the mark of false prophets is thatthey refuse to prophesy for free but will prophesy on request in returnfor wages, pandering to the desires of their “customers” (Mand. 11.2–6, 11.12–13).111 Hermas is chiefly concerned with ethical laxity, but laterauthors are attentive to the role of money in promoting what they considerheresy. According to Hippolytus, not only incompetence but also greed(�#�2��-�) led Zephyrinus to become an unwitting ally of “heresy”: abribe-taker and money-lover (�!��-� �� =�� ), he acceptedpayment to allow the monarchian to Cleomenes to teach unhindered, untilhe himself was dragged down into that “heresy” (Ref. 9.11.1, 7.1–2). Aroundthe same time, the offer of a salary induced a Roman confessor namedNatalius to lend his spiritual prestige to another group with a “heretically”low christology, by serving as their bishop (Eus. Hist. eccl. 5.28.8–12). Insuch cases, financial sponsors intervene not merely by endorsing advocatesof variant Christianities, but by actively enlisting them, even pressuringclients to modify their doctrines in return for payment.

Finally, the gatekeeping function of patrons extended beyond admittingor excluding teachers and teachings, to include decisions about who mightparticipate in the church in any capacity. In 3 John, Diotrephes has notonly shut out the Elder’s associates but also expelled members of his owncongregation who objected. Disciplinary action of this sort works to definea group’s boundaries by punishing or removing those perceived to transgress

108 E.g. 1 Tim. 6:17–19; Hermas, Vis. 3.9.2–6, Mand. 8.10, Sim. 1.8, 9.27; cf. Maier 1993: 233–8.109 E.g. Did. 15.1; 1 Pet. 5:2; 1 Tim. 3:3, 8; Tit. 1:7; Pol. Phil. 5.2, 6.1.110 Apollonius ap. Eus. Hist. eccl. 5.18.2–4, 7–11.111 Cf. 2 Tim. 4:3–4 (unwilling to endure sound teaching, people accumulate teachers according to

their own desires); Ir. Haer. 1.13.3–4 (against prophecy on demand). On the topos of the venalityof false prophets and “heretics,” see further Campenhausen 1969: 184–5; Le Boulluec 1985: 145–8;Tabbernee 2007: 103–4.



them. As such, it represents a visible realization of a community’s standards,and the group’s sense of its own identity. In Diotrephes’ eyes, objection tohis censure of the Elder’s representatives constituted an intolerable breach ofthose standards, while his exclusion of the dissenters from fellowship merelyactualized the rupture that their dissent had already produced. We haveseen that this was a strategy by which Christians, sophists, and (to a lesserextent) philosophers sought to regulate membership in their communities,or claimed they did. In the Christian context, significant control overthis screening process plainly rested in the hands not only of charismaticauthorities or ordained clergy but also of patrons who controlled the spacesof assembly.112

The multiplicity of cells that comprised local and regional churchesagain complicates matters.113 3 John hints at the difficulties that suchdivisions could create: what would happen if the dissenters expelled byDiotrephes simply moved to Gaius’ congregation? Would we not thenhave two competing embodiments of legitimate Christianity in the samelocality? Hippolytus charges the bishop Callistus with producing exactlythat situation at Rome (Ref. 9.12.20–1):

If a Christian member of another congregation sins in any way, says [Callistus],that sin is not counted against him if he runs to the school of Callistus. Many,pleased with his standard and fixing their conscience to it, both those expelledfrom many heresies and even some whom we ejected from the church as moralcondemnation, have joined him and filled up his school.114

In his tendentious way, Hippolytus has put his finger on a serious problem:welcoming persons cast out of one congregation into another underminesthe first group’s efforts to make behavioral or doctrinal rules. This, inhis view, is the effect of Callistus’ action. Conversely, to insist on morerigorous standards than other local cells is to reject their definition ofChristianity; presumably that is how Callistus understood Hippolytus’

112 Again, there was considerable overlap among these categories. Control of penitential disciplinein particular has been identified as a patronal function gradually taken over by the episcopate:;see Stewart-Sykes 2002: 119–20; Rankin 2004: 310. More generally, Campenhausen 1969: 213–37discusses the evolution of penitential practice in the West, and friction over the growing episcopalmonopoly of discipline.

113 Campenhausen 1969: 214.114 ( �� ’ 3�� 4�� [�� 4�� ] )�� 4�, �M � [ "�=��., ��7 , �:

��7K�� :� � "��7�, �# ��=�� P. �& _��7�� 2��P.. �I � H�� 4�� << > �� 7�� 4�� R�� <�/> �� /��! ��%�� ,� � � �� 8� �� 9�� 1�%�� 8��7�� ’ �� 4�� , ��2!�-�� :� 8�-�� 4 ��>� �:�&.



response.115 Caught between these two standards, other local assembliescould be faced with a choice between breaking off communion with onegroup or tacitly accepting the disciplinary policies of both. The samechoice could confront extra-local communities, if they became aware ofdeviance in a church with which they had ties.116 In the extreme, the localdispute could spark a worldwide schism, as the Novatianist controversydid in the mid third century. In that way the disciplinary decisions ofchurch patrons (or the leaders they sponsored) could reverberate throughthe entire network of Christian communities around the Empire.

Householders and church patrons, then, had considerable influence overthe boundaries of local and even extra-local Christianity, whether throughdirect leadership or by indirectly shaping the teaching, practice, and mem-bership of the cells meeting in their homes. In this role they sometimesacted as part of an emerging local ecclesiastical hierarchy, sometimes in part-nership or at odds with it, and sometimes, as in the case of Origen’s patron,seemingly without reference to local clergy at all. Like elite pepaideumenoi,Christian authors concerned with the formation of “orthodoxy” tend towelcome patronal contributions when they conform to their own judg-ment. When patronal interventions produce less congenial results, theyresist the authority acquired through patronage in terms that closely echothe concerns of their academic peers: about the balance of power betweenpatrons and other types of leadership, whether ecclesiastical, charismatic,or educational; about the disruptive effects of money; about the likeli-hood that (non-expert) patrons will knowingly or unknowingly contradictexpert judgment about who and what should be accepted as authenticallyChristian.

In that light, it is notable that challenges to patronal competence inthis period are rarely cast in terms of the dichotomy between clergy andlaity, or expert and idiotes.117 Even the early third-century writers whoexpress the gravest doubts about the discernment of simpliciores do notuse that critique as a springboard for disputing the authority of patronsas such, as pepaideumenoi do. Perhaps Christian patrons were too socially

115 A parallel conflict roiled the Carthaginian church roughly a decade earlier, as Tertullian and otheradherents of the New Prophecy enforced their own disciplinary standards (Tert. Pud. 1.20–1, cf.4.4–5), charging that the bishop’s more lenient policies were turning the virgin church into abrothel (Pud. 1.7–8).

116 Brent 1995: 505–8.117 A possible exception is 1 Clement, whose insistence that worship be offered only in the right places

and times by the right (priestly) personnel (40–4) has been read as a bid to reduce patrons tothe status of laity and to diminish their authority, along with any (unordained) leaders they weresupporting; see Trevett 2006a: 60–85.


Conclusion: clerical expertise and its discontents 121

prominent, or patronal and clerical authority too closely intertwined, forpatrons simply to be sidelined as idiotai. Affluent patrons were presumablyalso likelier than most believers to have received the advanced educationthat most of our authors treat as at least one of the strands comprisingChristian expertise. Still, stories and warnings about the mishandling ofChristian identity by patrons may have served to help wedge apart thediverging roles of patron and bishop, and to promote the latter at theexpense of the former.

conclusion: clerical expertise and its discontents

While Second Sophistic pepaideumenoi strove to maintain their auton-omy from, and superiority over, non-professional idiotai and internal rivals(depicted as) aligned with them, for Christians, talking about idiotai servedboth to position their faith within and against Greek culture and to mapdivisions and hierarchies within the group. In late second- and early third-century Christian discourse, the mass of simpler believers occupy a positionincreasingly assimilated to that of idiotai in the realm of elite paideia, asuneducated “consumers” relegated to the margins of decision-making bytheir propensity for indiscriminate enthusiasms and damaging errors ofjudgment. At its most expansive this category encompasses the laity asa whole, including unordained patrons and charismatic figures, whoseauthority proponents of episcopal leadership sought to absorb into and/orsubordinate to the episcopate.This gravitational shift will have been par-ticularly detrimental to leadership by women, who were active as patronsand charismatic virtuosos but were admitted to clerical office only in verylimited ways in most strands of Christianity.118

This silenced majority stand over against the church’s leadership, a cat-egory in considerable flux during the second century and beyond. In tunewith a broad stream of sociologically informed scholarship, I consider itlikely that resident leadership developed out of the patronage structuresof the earliest house churches, although at all points patronal leadershipcoexisted with forms of authority rooted in charismatic and intellectualgifts; frequently, these categories will have overlapped. Official ministerialleadership was differentiated from patronage only gradually, which mayhelp to explain why patronal authority rarely sustains the kind of frontalchallenge in second-century Christian sources that it does among contem-porary pepaideumenoi. Still, the influence of patrons over the dimensions

118 Catalogued by Eisen 2000.



of local “orthodoxy” was not without critics; as the distinction betweenpatrons and presiders grew brighter, patrons found themselves classed withthe laity rather than the clergy. Some of the anxieties surrounding Chris-tian patrons and hosts recall the wariness of pepaideumenoi toward financialbackers and dispensers of offices and honors. In particular, concerns aboutthe distorting effects of money, which could incentivize or even incite error,closely track pagan critiques of the dangers of relying on wealthy patrons formaterial support. Likewise, charges that inexpert distribution of patronagehas elevated the unworthy or dishonored those more deserving find anecho in Christian fears that, as literal gatekeepers of local congregations,dissident or merely oblivious patrons will wittingly or unwittingly openthe door to “heresy.”

From its first appearance in the letters of Ignatius, the threefold clericalhierarchy is promoted (inter alia) as a means of bypassing the very weak-nesses outlined above. The rise of the monepiscopate to (near) universalityobviously represents a watershed in the centralization and homogenizationof leadership. On this model, the bishop forms the defining center of thelocal church, both socially and theologically: in Cyprian’s lapidary formu-lation, “the church is the people united with the priest . . . if someone is notwith the bishop, he is not in the church” (Ep. 66.8, 254 ce).119 It is mucheasier to achieve centralized supervision and at least nominal unanimity ifthere is only one such focal point in each locality.

On the other hand, the success of this approach in anchoring a uni-vocal “orthodox” identity or in crowding out other modes of authorityshould not be overstated. The clerical authority on which simpliciores areurged to rely was a moving target; the monepiscopate did not achieveempire-wide penetration until the start of the third century. Not all groupsthat functioned (or were accepted by others) as congregations were headedby ordained clergy, and the presence or absence of such figures is notnecessarily a guide to the “orthodoxy” or “heresy” of the group.120 Nordid the monepiscopate reduce local authority to a single point. Bishopsand presbyters continue to share initiation, preaching, and disciplinaryduties with lay members of their communities.121 Collegiality remains ahallmark of the Ignatian monepiscopate: presbyters and bishop harmonize

119 illi sunt ecclesia plebs sacerdoti adunata . . . si qui cum episcopo non sit, in ecclesia non esse.120 To take a classic example, the unordained teacher Justin Martyr and the Valentinian-leaning

presbyter Florinus both headed congregations at Rome in the mid-to-late second century. Justinand his group were written into the history of “orthodox” Christianity; Florinus and his werewritten out.

121 G. H. Williams 1958.


Conclusion: clerical expertise and its discontents 123

like strings of a kithara (Eph. 4.1), with little hint that the former aresubordinate to the latter.122 Local churches are still divided into multiplecells, each with its own patron(s) and/or presbyter(s), whose influence overinitiation, instruction, and discipline within their congregations endureslargely undiminished.123 Wealthy Christians like Origen’s patron continueto wield considerable influence over the shape of Christianity in theircities. And gifted teachers and charismatic virtuosos – prophets, martyrs,ascetics – represent an ongoing locus of non-institutional authority, whichdid not always dovetail with episcopally sanctioned conceptions of legiti-mate Christian identity.

Nor was the ordained clergy as homogeneous or as perfectly aligned withlater conceptions of “orthodoxy” as either its proponents or its detractors(ancient or modern) have supposed.124 While Ignatius does not coun-tenance the possibility that (true) ministers might deviate from clericalunanimity, later authors are only too aware that clergy do not always cleaveto “orthodox” consensus. Irenaeus concedes that persons “believed by manyto be presbyters” (crediti sunt quidem a multis esse presbyteri) do sometimesdepart from the truth (Haer. 4.26.2–4), while Tertullian warns against plac-ing too much stock in authorities of any kind: “What if a bishop, a deacon,a widow, a virgin, a teacher, or even a martyr should have lapsed from therule (of faith)? Will heresies therefore seem to hold the truth?” (Praescr.3.5).125 Clerical deviance, of which we have encountered many examples,should come as no surprise: despite a growing stress on expertise and atten-tion to the intellectual content of “orthodoxy” and “heresy,” social virtuesstill outweigh doctrinal competence among the qualifications for ministryat the turn of the third century. In short, the monepiscopate was neithera complete answer to the question of where authority lay, nor a decisivesolution to the problem of (perceived) impostors.

It did provide a powerful tool for centralizing and clarifying the lines ofauthority in the church, though. By the end of our period the Christianmovement had devised an institutional framework and a set of personsexplicitly empowered to define what it meant to be Christian, and whomet that definition, which is completely unmatched in the experience ofcontemporary pepaideumenoi. The consolidation of this hierarchy occurred

122 �$!� �� -�� 8��4�, '� 2�� =��. On the collegiality of ministry in Ignatius,see Schoedel 1985: 22, 46; Schollgen 1986: 148–50; Sullivan 2001: 106–23; Brent 2007: 32–4.

123 Dassmann 1984: 91–2; Osiek 1999: 59 n. 12.124 Lyman 1999: 78 critiques the tendency to treat (“orthodox”) bishops as foils for free-thinking

gnostic Christians.125 quod ergo si episcopus, si diaconus, si vidua, si virgo, si doctor, si etiam martyr lapsus a regula fuerit?

ideo haereses veritatem videbuntur obtinere?



in a feedback loop with the construction of the coalition later enshrined asorthodox, which successfully (if exaggeratedly) identified itself with clericalauthority and vice versa and leveraged that identification to marginalize itsrivals. Perhaps the strongest testimony to the success of the monepiscopatecomes from critics who found themselves outside episcopally sanctioned“orthodoxy.” Repudiating as “dry canals” “those who are outside our num-ber who name themselves ‘bishop’ and also ‘deacons’, as if they have receivedtheir authority from God,” the third-century Apocalypse of Peter (79.22–31)both concedes its adversaries’ monopoly of episcopal office and bears bitterwitness to its efficacy.

Both the impetus for episcopal development – desire for uniformityof thought and action – and its results mark a deep cleavage betweenChristians and pepaideumenoi. Nonetheless, the notion that the boundariesof an intellectual community can be drawn by (and around) a networkof linked individuals would have made perfect sense to a second-centurysophist or philosopher. The next two chapters will argue that the promotionof the ordained clergy as a “living norm” of orthodox Christianity,126

although alien in form to the structures of Second Sophistic intellectualmovements, was nonetheless informed by social strategies of legitimationthat early Christians shared with their academic counterparts.

126 Phrase borrowed from Sullivan 2001: 230.


chapter 4

Defining the circle of sophistsPhilostratus and the construction of the Second Sophistic

introduction

Once, the sophist Hippodromus of Thessaly dropped in unannounced atthe school of Megistias of Smyrna (Philoster. VS 618–19).1 Hippodromuslooked so unkempt that Megistias mistook him for the father of a student atfirst. Once Hippodromus had traded clothes with Megistias and declaimedfor him, though, Megistias recognized him as the great sophist he was. Eachman walked away from the encounter with his status not only confirmed,but enhanced: Hippodromus won a valuable endorsement from a respectedcolleague, and attendance at Megistias’ school soared while Hippodromuswas in residence.

The pages of Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists are full of episodes ofthis sort: complex dances of self-presentation and negotiation for status,whose implications reverberate out from the moment at hand to definewhat it means to be a sophist and who is worthy of that name. We haveconsidered already the role that social interactions like this one playedin drawing the contours of the circle of sophists: Hippodromus’ statushinges not only on how he looks and speaks but also on how he is treatedby other sophists. Relationships among sophists – students and teachers,relatives, allies, friends, rivals – are a constant preoccupation of the work.At stake is not only the position of particular sophists but also the statusof their biographer, Philostratus, with whom our understanding of theSecond Sophistic is inextricably bound up. This chapter will argue thatPhilostratus’ invention of the Second Sophistic as we know it is itself anact of self-fashioning, aimed at creating a hospitable context for his own

1 In this chapter, references otherwise unspecified are to the Lives of the Sophists. A version of thischapter appeared as Eshleman 2008.

125


126 Defining the circle of sophists

self-identification.2 In his Lives Philostratus does not showcase himself asan active participant in the literary culture he describes; on the whole, heis not a character in his own work. Rather, he mediates and shapes forreaders a movement whose zenith he places before his own birth, in theAntonine period. Yet his presentation of that movement serves to definehis own position in the present.

If Philostratus is not a participant in Antonine literary culture, neitheris he a disinterested observer of it. As a sophist, he is enmeshed in thenetworks of loyalty and affiliation that he charts; as we will see, one effectof the notoriously peculiar limitations of his survey is to spotlight hisown academic forebears and allies to the virtual exclusion of all others.As a biographer, meanwhile, he plainly intends his catalogue to constitutea sort of sophistic canon and to establish his own canonizing authorityin turn. These two forms of authorization are closely intertwined. Bothdepend on a now familiar premise: a vision of the circle of sophists as analmost incestuously self-contained, self-generating, self-regulating commu-nity. This “producer-driven” model of community formation, so crucial tothe posture of Philostratus’ colleagues and subjects, is one that he shares.In common with them, he presents the sophistic movement as consti-tuted entirely from within, by the consensus of insiders; the contributionsof outsiders – emperors, cities, patrons, audiences – are correspondinglydownplayed.

In Chapter 2 we saw that denying the relevance of external perspectivesis implicated as well in internal self-definition, simultaneously markingand effacing divisions within the group by insisting that identity-grantingauthority belongs only to legitimate members, so that being acceptedin that role itself becomes an index of insider status. This logic formsa cornerstone of Philostratus’ project in the Lives. In the world of thistext, not only is membership in the circle of sophists established by theagreement of insiders, but insider status is further confirmed by assent tothat consensus, which is thus imagined as having an objective, self-evidentreality independent of the negotiations by which it is created. Apparentchallenges to insider consensus, in the form of the quarrels and debatesover who is “worthy of the circle of sophists” that fill the pages of theLives, paradoxically serve to bolster, not undermine, its self-evidentiality:

2 The approach taken here complements recent narratological studies of the Lives, which emphasizePhilostratus’ narratorial self-presentation as exhibiting consummate sophistic knowledge and judg-ment, while in some ways transcending typical sophistic behavior: see Whitmarsh 2004; Schmitz2009; Konig 2011: 288–90.


Introduction 127

dissenters from the (Philostratean) canon reveal themselves as outsiders,while true insiders walk away with their positions confirmed.

This internal hierarchy is further articulated through carefully selectivemapping of personal and professional connections, positive and negative.On the theory that like attracts like, and that students usually resembletheir teachers, an individual’s position within this web of sophistic relationsis typically, although not invariably, regarded as an accurate predictorof his place within (or without) the sophistic movement.3 Accordingly,Philostratus’ tacit assertion that his Lives voice the consensus of the circleof sophists about its own membership both depends on and confirms hisclaim to stand within that circle. Supremely well connected to the men heidentifies as the leading lights of the sophistic movement, and presentinghimself as ultimate mediator (and arbiter) of insider judgment within thatmovement, Philostratus crafts a version of the Second Sophistic in whichhe is the ultimate insider.4

This chapter forms a pair with Chapter 2, casting its concerns ontothe literary plane, while seeking to demonstrate that each level, the liter-ary and the “real” (insofar as that is recoverable), fed continuously intothe other. Once again, I am asking not so much to whom – that is, towhat sort of orator – the name “sophist” was assigned, but how and bywhom such assignments were made and enforced. Of particular interest aremethods that advertise and exploit personal ties within the sophistic move-ment: attention to academic lineages, gestures of inclusion and exclusion,quarrels and alliances, and the sculpting of corporate memory throughrepeated narration (i.e. gossip). This mode of authority construction isof course not unique to sophists; in Chapter 6 we will consider the useof a subspecies of this approach, the succession list, in the legitimizingrhetoric of a broad range of intellectual groups. The Lives of the Sophists,however, offers an exceptionally good vantage point on the deployment ofthese strategies both in the day-to-day interactions of sophists and withina text that angles to establish its own authority as the definitive last wordon the Second Sophistic. The community-defining devices employed byPhilostratus’ subjects are mirrored in Philostratus’ own work and make hisself-definition possible. In the Lives Philostratus has crafted a version of thesophistic circle that, while not exactly false, is both partial and partisan,

3 On the notion that like produces like in ancient literature, see Buell 1999: 60–3, 84–3. In the Lives therule is most clearly stated in the breach, as when Philostratus remarks that Favorinus was as unlikehis teacher Dio Chrysostom as one who had never heard him (492).

4 Elsner 2009: 13 characterizes him as “a performer whose very attempt to sum up the entire sophisticplaces him above and beyond his subjects as the supreme sophist.”



designed to authorize his own position, as sophist and historian. In this, Iwill argue, he is entirely typical.

how to be a philostratean sophist

Notoriously, Philostratus makes no effort to provide a comprehensiveoverview of the Second Sophistic. He lists only about twelve prominentsophists active in each generation, an impossibly small number: the Clep-sydrion, Herodes Atticus’ inner circle of star pupils, alone had ten membersat any one time.5 Philostratus himself is aware of many more sophists thanhe includes as subjects of his Lives. Apart from the six sophists dismissedas “playthings of the Hellenes rather than sophists worthy of mention”(605),6 he names seven other sophistai, four men he calls rhetores, threeteachers of oratory, and five others who appear in contexts that suggestthat they were orators. Of these twenty-five, slightly more than half areotherwise attested as sophists or rhetors.7 Coins and inscriptions revealabout fifty other rhetores and nearly thirty sophistai not mentioned in theLives; literary sources add dozens more.8 The difficulty of dating manyof these inscriptions and securely identifying the figures they name makesan exact count impossible, but on a conservative estimate, we know thenames of at least 150 sophists and rhetors who do not receive biographiesin the Lives. We know very little about most of these men – the qualityof their oratory, their reputations, their professional connections, or whyPhilostratus might have excluded them. Many will have been practitionersof “retail sophistry,” undistinguished teachers working outside the greaturban centers of the Roman empire.9 Nonetheless, we will see that a faircase could be made for including some, at least, in the circle of sophists.In any case, the forty-two sophists who comprise Philostratus’ canon rep-resent only about a quarter of the Second Sophistic orators known to us,

5 G. Anderson 1986: 82–4.6 �� VE��- ! �� I�� >� [ J �� 4�� N5��.7 Sophists: Soterus of Ephesus, Sosus, Nicander, Phaedrus, Cyrus, and Phylax (605), Varus (540), Rufinus

of Smyrna (599, 608), Megistias of Smyrna (618), Cassianus, Aurelius, and Perieges of Lydia (627),Nicagoras of Athens and Apsines of Gadara (628). Rhetors: Ardys (513), Nicomedes of Pergamum, Aquilaof Gadara, and Aristaenetus of Byzantium (591). Teachers: Dardanus of Assyria (568), Quadratus (576),Zeno of Athens (606; possible attestation at Puech 2002: 473–4). Likely sophists/rhetors: Aristaeus,one of Philostratus’ sources (524); Demostratus (559–60, 563, 566); Marcianus of Doliche, 3�>�� ofApollonius of Naucratis and opponent of Heracleides of Lycia (613); Alexander of Cappadocia andNicostratus of Macedon, to whom Hippodromus and Aelian are respectively compared (618, 625).Names of orators known from other sources are italicized.

8 Puech 2002 collects the epigraphic and numismatic evidence.9 Jones 2008b: 115–16; cf. Brunt 1994: 26.


How to be a Philostratean sophist 129

which can be only a fraction of the working rhetoricians of the first threecenturies.

Moreover, as Graham Anderson has shown, with only a few excep-tions, the sophists in the Lives fall into three rough groups:10 (1) six aca-demic generations from Nicetes through Herodes Atticus to Philostratus,(2) Polemo and his associates, linked to the first group through the mutualadmiration of Polemo and Herodes, and (3) Isaeus and his students, a smallgroup with ties to Polemo. Herodes’ network is by far the largest, and hestands firmly at its center, with his student Hadrian of Tyre as a secondaryfocal point. The three groups are even more intertwined than Andersonrecognizes (Figure 1). Herodes not only admired Polemo but numbered himamong his teachers, at least in an honorary sense (539, 564); Polemo hadalso studied with Herodes’ teacher Scopelian (536) and may have shareda pupil with Herodes.11 The networks of Herodes and Isaeus convergein the person of Alexander the Clay-Plato, a student of both Herodes’teacher Favorinus and Isaeus’ student Dionysius of Miletus (576). More-over, Anderson’s exceptions are less exceptional than he allows. There areeight: Aspasius of Ravenna, Euodianus of Smyrna, Hermocrates, Phoenix,Hermogenes, Heliodorus the Arab, Varus of Laodicea, and Varus of Perge.Of these, Aspasius was a pupil of Pausanias and Hippodromus, both ofwhom belong to the line of Herodes (628, cf. 594, 591), while Phoenix wasa student of Philagrus (604). Euodianus may have studied with Polemo aswell as Aristocles (597),12 and Polemo’s great-grandson Hermocrates wasalso the student of Rufinus of Smyrna, yet another academic descendant ofHerodes, through his father and model, Apollonius of Naucratis (608–9,599–600).13 That leaves only four real outliers: Hermogenes (577–8) andHeliodorus (625–7), who seem to have been included for novelty value,Varus of Laodicea (620), whom Philostratus brings up only to reject, andVarus of Perge, who is loosely associated with Favorinus (576).

Several conclusions emerge from this prosopographical blizzard. First,Philostratus’ catalogue is not an exhaustive list of the leading sophists ofthe previous two centuries. Rather, it sketches fragments of a single tangled

10 G. Anderson 1986: 82–4, 108–9.11 Ptolemy of Naucratis studied with Herodes, but was more influenced by Polemo (595).12 As for Aristocles himself, he attended the lectures of Herodes at Rome (567), and shared students

with Herodes (598), Chrestus of Byzantium (612), and maybe Hadrian of Tyre (594). Aelius Aristidesis often counted as his student (581), but see n. 22 below.

13 G. Anderson 1986: 83 notes that Euodianus was the descendant of Nicetes, Hermocrates of Polemo,but omits the other connections. He also makes Phoenix a relation of one of Philostratus’ teachers,a connection obscure to me.


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web with Herodes Atticus at its center.14 This network weights the Livesheavily toward Athens and Smyrna, where Herodes, Polemo, and many oftheir students taught.15 Ephesus in particular suffers as both the politicaland cultural rival of Smyrna and a stronghold of the “Ionian” style thatPhilostratus dislikes (598).16 Second, prominent among the pepaideumenoiauthorized by association with Herodes is Philostratus himself: all three ofhis teachers – Proclus of Naucratis, Antipater of Hierapolis, and Damianusof Ephesus – were pupils of Herodes’ protege Hadrian of Tyre (602–7,cf. 585); another possible teacher, Hippodromus of Thessaly, studied withHerodes’ student Chrestus of Byzantium (591).17

Philostratus’ focus on the network of Herodes thus appears over-determined: academic self-promotion, civic partisanship, aesthetic taste,and access to sources converge to push to the fore an idiosyncratic subsetof the great sophists of the Antonine age. Most significant for present pur-poses is that his selective record of the Second Sophistic places him in anextremely privileged position, as a member three times over of the mostcentral branch of its central academic family tree.18 Part of what makes theidealized cultural world of the Lives ideal is that Philostratus can locatehimself with reference to it, as its privileged successor and mediator. Wemay describe his identification of Herodes and Hadrian as anchor pointsof the sophistic movement as an act of personal loyalty or of self-fashioningand self-promotion; the results are much the same either way.

This near-exclusive emphasis on the extended network of Herodes Atti-cus – that is, on Philostratus’ own academic lineage – may explain some of

14 As G. Anderson 1986: 83 puts it, “we are not dealing with a ‘Second Sophistic’ as such, but withlittle more than ‘Herodes and his circle’ . . . We might almost redefine a Philostratean sophist as a‘virtuoso rhetor with a demonstrable connection with Herodes.’”

15 Jones 2008b: 114–15.16 On Ephesus as a sophistic center, Keil 1953 remains fundamental; cf. Bowersock 1969: 17–18. Schubert

1995 argues that Naucratis is similarly promoted at the expense of Alexandria. An information biasis surely at work as well, as Schubert recognizes (180–1). Philostratus’ chief sources were his teachers,who were presumably most informative about their compatriots and local colleagues; see Swain1991; Billault 2000: 16–17. As the home of Philostratus’ teacher, Proclus, Naucratis inevitablyreceives disproportionate attention.

17 Pace Schmitz 2009: 55–6, Damianus should be retained as a teacher of Philostratus. Philostratusattributes to Damianus all his information about Hadrian of Tyre (605), which he elsewhere creditsto his teachers (585). He does not name Hippodromus among his teachers, although they werecertainly acquainted. It is often supposed that the length and warmth of his portrait bespeaksa pedagogical relationship (e.g. Billault 2000: 16; Bowie 2009: 24), but that could also reflectHippodromus’ closeness to Philostratus of Lemnos, indisputably his student (617).

18 Cf. Billault 2000: 76; Elsner 2009: 8. For Jones 2008b, civic rather than academic allegianceconditions Philostratus’ selections. But when Philostratus deviates from his geographic prejudices,most notably in his high praise of Damianus of Ephesus and low regard for Theodotus andDemostratus of Athens, academic loyalty seems to be the motivation. This suggests that self-promotion is an independent factor in his choices and, in my view, the dominant one.



the Lives’ quirky choices. Compare, for example, Philostratus’ treatment ofOnomarchus of Andros and Megistias of Smyrna. If virtuosity and celebrityare his main criteria of inclusion, as the famous description of sophists as“outstanding and brilliant orators” (� O�4�! �0� ��! �& =�� , 484) would suggest, why give a biography of Ono-marchus, who was “neither admired nor blameworthy” (�:� 8��=K�� , �: �� 8��7 ��, 598), but not of Megistias, who appearsas an eminent teacher (�� 8�� ) in the Life of Hippodromus(618–19)?19 Certainty is impossible, but we may note that Onomarchuswas a student of Herodes (598), while Megistias’ credentials are unknown;perhaps he did not belong to one of the interlocking networks outlinedabove.20

The same principle may be at work in reverse in the case of AeliusAristides. His presence is difficult to justify: he eschewed extemporization,disparaged those who taught for money, and refused to call himself asophist, a word he used almost exclusively as a term of abuse.21 Moreover, hejoins the professional web only tangentially, through one of his students.22

In short, he meets almost none of the professional or social criteria of thecategory “sophist,” and his precise classification has given scholars muchtrouble.23 Some of his contemporaries were equally puzzled, as his struggles

19 I have seen no explanation of Philostratus’ principles of inclusion that makes sense of this. Megistiaswas a physiognomist as well as a teacher of rhetoric, but why should that disqualify him as a “purerhetorician” (so Reardon 1971: 15) if it did not do so for Polemo? Nor can he be a victim of geographicalprejudice, nor a mere “retail sophist.” If anyone were to suffer from geographical/aesthetic bias, itshould be Onomarchus, who contracted “like ophthalmia” the Ionian style popular at Ephesus(598).

20 This cannot account for all of Philostratus’ omissions, either. For example, it does not explain whyClepsydrion members Amphicles and Sceptus (573, 578, 585) do not receive biographies. Perhapsthey did not go on to have careers as sophists (G. Anderson 1986: 84–5; Puech 2002: 57); we mayalso note that both ran afoul of sophists whom Philostratus favors. But even if their absence canbe explained, we must acknowledge that Philostratus includes only a small sample of his heroes’associates, and that the reasons for his choices cannot be fully known.

21 Behr 1968: 106–7; 1994: 1163–77; contra, Bowersock 1969: 13.22 From the Suda onward (s.v. X��7��), Philostratus’ notice that Aristides “studied in Athens while

Herodes was at the height of his powers, and in Asian Pergamum during the speaking career ofAristocles” (X�� Z�� < Vr�9�� < �� 8 P. X�7� A�� < X�� , 581) has been taken to mean that Aristides studied with those men,but it could also be a way of implying a connection, without actually asserting one. The Sudaalso makes Aristides a student of Polemo (s.v. X��7��; i�� ( X��!��7��; l��4��t�K�� K4�; A��! ), but this link, if historical, is ignored by (or unknown to) Philostratus; it isrejected by Boulanger 1923: 117, although accepted by Behr 1968: 12.

23 Those who classify Aristides as a sophist are forced to devise a definition of “sophist” in whichteaching is prominent but not requisite (cf. Introduction n. 16). Others prefer not to call him asophist, especially given his contempt for the term (e.g. Swain 1996: 97–100, 255), while others retainthe label as the best description of Aristides’ self-presentation, regardless of his own preferences (e.g.Flinterman 2002: 199).



to retain his liturgical immunities show: the proconsul Severus reasonablywonders how a man who does not engage in oratory or teach students canclaim status as an exempt orator (Aristid. Or. 50.87). Phrynichus reportsthat “certain people” consider Aristides overrated, although he disagrees.24

Philostratus, however, includes Aristides without hesitation (or commenton his anti-sophistic posturing) and stresses that he had paying students andsecretly admired improvisation, despite his lack of aptitude for it (605, 583).To suppose that Philostratus has annexed Aristides and assimilated him tothe sophistic template simply because “he is afraid to allow even one of hissubjects to escape from his chosen taxonomy” seems inadequate.25 Rather,we may note that the student who connects Aristides to the charmed circleof sophists is Philostratus’ teacher Damianus of Ephesus, who, by his ownaccount, spent a great deal of money to learn rhetoric from Aristides (605),and who is twice cited as a source for Philostratus’ information on Aristides(582–3). Both Damianus and Philostratus had a vested interest in claimingthis touchstone of their own credentials as a “real” sophist.26 In otherwords, while connection to Philostratus’ academic patrilineage is not theonly factor shaping the cast of characters of the Lives, it does seem to be adecisive one.

Not only the composition of the Lives but also its internal hierarchy seemto be conditioned by the relations of its subjects with each other. This isespecially clear where Philostratus departs from what he tacitly admitsis common opinion. Theodotus of Athens was well enough regarded forMarcus Aurelius to award him the inaugural imperial chair of rhetoric atAthens based on reputation alone (�� :� �45��) (566–7).Philostratus hints that Theodotus was the author of the famous speechgiven by his nephew Demostratus against Herodes27 – a speech that evenPhilostratus concedes was an “amazing” (8 ��7��) piece of work,full of memorable (�4�� N5��) expressions (563, 566). Nevertheless, hedismisses Theodotus as a man of vulgar character (� ��7! ) and

24 � �� X��7�� 45�� 8�=� � � N �� 7K�� (ap. Photius, Bibl. 101a; textfrom Jones 2008a: 254, whose interpretation I follow).

25 Swain 1996: 100.26 Similar connections may help to explain Phrynichus’ unusually high regard for Aristides. Jones 2008a

suggests that they may have crossed paths at Pergamum, perhaps as fellow students of Aristocles, towhom Phrynichus dedicated several books of his Sophistic Preparations, and shared a patron in L.Cuspius Pactumeius Rufinus, if the dedicatee of Sophistic Preparations book 9 is the Rufinus wholobbied on behalf of Aristides’ immunities.

27 Puech 2002: 462. On the relationship between Theodotus and Demostratus, see Puech 2002: 513–15,who argues persuasively that Theodotus’ wife, Aelia Cephesidora, was Demostratus’ aunt, not hisniece (pace Bowersock 1969: 97–8); for the stemma of this family, see Kapetanopoulos 1968; Byrne2003 stemma viii.



(merely) sufficient style (��2�� ) (566–7).28 While he does record thatTheodotus held the first imperial chair of rhetoric in Athens, Philostratushastens to add that this by itself might not be noteworthy, since “not all whomount this chair are worthy of mention” (�:� = �� / 8�%��o ��& ��4 �� 4�� N5��); what makes this award important isthat Marcus Aurelius chose Theodotus personally, although he had assignedHerodes to name the inaugural holders of the philosophic chairs (566–7).Philostratus seems to go out of his way to minimize the accomplishmentsof this man, quite likely because he had supported Herodes’ opponents.By contrast, Philostratus regards Chrestus of Byzantium as unjustly under-rated. Tellingly, his justification for thinking that Chrestus deserved a betterreputation than he attained focuses on his pedigree rather than his rhetor-ical excellence: “he was taught by Herodes, best among the Hellenes, andtaught many outstanding men, too” (590–1).29

We need not limit ourselves to cases where Philostratus holds anavowedly minority view, though. Indeed, we may doubt that there were anymajority views so universally accepted as to seem purely objective: in thefiercely competitive, contentious world of sophistic rhetoric, no one’s statuswas secure. Not everyone admired Herodes, Polemo, or Hadrian as muchas Philostratus did. Some people – worthless, trivial people (�/ Q�7�!��7 �� 7), in Philostratus’ opinion – called Herodes “the Stuffed Orator”(565), while the young Marcus Aurelius found little to enjoy in Polemo’soratory (Fronto, Ad M. Caes. 2.10.1), and Lucian apparently consideredHadrian a loathsome human being and a lousy sophist (Pseudol.).30 EvenAntipater of Hierapolis, who had studied with both Hadrian and Polluxof Naucratis, apparently did not share Philostratus’ esteem for Hadrian,since he chose to emulate Pollux instead (606–7). In short, every judg-ment that Philostratus offers in the Lives, even when it comes to his

28 ��2�� is elsewhere a term of approbation, used to contrast ample (��2�� ) invention withan unadorned style (524, 527, 613). Without further specification, though, this review seems tepid,especially compared with Marcus Aurelius’ praise of Theodotus as “a master of political oratory andan ornament to rhetoric” (��! ��< � �� 6 �4�! �� O�� C��,567).

29 N�� VE��- ! �� Vr�9�� 8��, ��0� � 8�7�� 7�� N ��.A glance at Figure 1 will show that Chrestus rivals Hadrian of Tyre as a secondary focal point in theLives.

30 Marcus on Polemo: videtur mihi agricola strenuus . . . omnia ad usum magis quam ad voluptatem,quaeque magis laudare oporteat, amare non libeat. Bowersock 1969: 49 attributes this lukewarmreaction to Marcus’ close relationship with Polemo’s rival Herodes. Phrynichus criticizes Polemo’sgrammar (Ecloge 395); cf. Gleason 1995: 25–6; Jones 2008b: 117–18. For Lucian’s Pseudologista asHadrian of Tyre, see Jones 1986: 112–15.



movement-defining superstars, represents a disputable critical choice, andhis artistic assessment consistently lines up with his personal affiliations.

It is easy to be misled into expecting disinterested, “reliable” truth fromPhilostratus, however, because he goes out of his way to present his sophisticcanon as a reflection of cold, hard fact – which is to say, of the consensusopinion of everyone who matters.31 The deft manipulations that permitthis tacit claim are richly represented in the defensive panegyric that openshis Life of Scopelian (514–15):

I will speak now about the sophist Scopelian, touching first on those who try tobadmouth him, for they consider him unworthy of the circle of sophists, callinghim dithyrambic, intemperate, and thick-witted. But the people who say this abouthim are quibblers, dull men not at all inspired by improvised speech; for by naturehumans are envious creatures . . . Thus it is no surprise if some tongue-tied peoplewho have set the ox of silence on their tongue and do not have any great thoughtsthemselves or agree with another great thinker should spit on and badmouth thereadiest, boldest and most elevated speaker among the Greeks of his day.32

This passage makes clear, first, that the composition of the elite inner “circleof sophists” was the subject of keen interest and debate, at least in somequarters. It is a reminder too that both the standards by which sophistswere evaluated and the evaluations of specific individuals were largely amatter of informal consensus, a situation bound to produce fluidity anddissent. Yet Philostratus would have us believe that while there is room fordisagreement, both about the criteria for membership (was a dithyrambic,sing-song style an asset or a defect?) and the degree to which a given oratormet those criteria (was Scopelian unusually adept or unusually sluggishat improvisation?), there are also self-evidently right and wrong answersto those questions. Deviation from those conclusions can only be theresult of malice or incompetence, the work of dull quibblers who have theox of silence on their tongue. Philostratus compares such critics to shortpeople who disparage the tall, the unmusical who criticize lyre players, or

31 Konig 2011: 288–90 discusses Philostratus’ (not always successful) efforts to portray himself as abovethe fray of sophistic competition.

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non-athletes who carp at trained athletes. In short, they are idiotai, whoseopinions count for nothing.

Nor is this case exceptional; the same principles consistently governPhilostratus’ handling of the sophistic in-fighting that bulks so large in hisnarrative. Far from simply collecting all the wisecracks and feuds he can findout of sheer love of the salacious anecdote, as is often supposed, Philostratuspresents a carefully curated selection whose outcomes correspond closelyto his own preferences.33 With very few exceptions, interactions betweensophists come in three varieties: (1) one good sophist expresses approvalof another, (2) an inferior sophist attacks a better one, revealing his ownineptitude, or (3) a superior sophist puts down an inferior. Rarely do wesee sophists of equal stature going head to head, and Philostratus virtuallynever records a successful hit against one of his favorites.34 Producing thisresult requires some finesse. Philostratus’ reporting is clearly highly edited:he relates and rebuts a fair amount of anonymous criticism of sophists helikes.35 Some story – a hostile encounter, a memorable zinger – must standbehind each of those tersely reported attacks, and the fact that Philostratusfeels obliged to answer them suggests that his hero did not emerge victoriousat the time.36

Those stories are not the ones we hear, however. The range of whatwe do hear is on display in the Life of Hadrian of Tyre: Herodes’ earlyrecognition of his talent (585–6), Hadrian’s extravagant compliment to

33 Konig 2011 analyzes this pattern in terms of the tension between competitive and anti-competitivepressures in elite self-representation; cf. Konig 2005: 261–7 on competition and disclaimers ofcompetitiveness in Galen.

34 Even Demostratus’ speech against Herodes is reframed as a compliment to Herodes: the speech isfamous in part because of the eminence of the target; the episode demonstrates Herodes’ patiencein the face of abuse (563–4). Heracleides of Lycia is a more difficult case. Philostratus gives him whatseems like a good review: 8��9�� by birth and even more distinguished as a sophist, popularas a teacher, and honored in Smyrna (612–13). In his professional encounters, however, Heracleidesis a consistent loser: he embarrasses himself by trying to correct the work of Nicetes (512), loses theAthenian chair of rhetoric through the machinations of Apollonius of Naucratis (613), incurs theenmity of the ab epistulis Antipater, which causes him to break down in front of Septimius Severus(614), and loses a declamation contest and insult exchange to Apollonius of Athens, which costs himhis immunities (601). Ptolemy and Apollonius of Naucratis both tease him for being a hard-workingplodder, and Philostratus seems to agree (614–15). What has happened? Perhaps Philostratus wasgenuinely ambivalent about this man, whose intellectual pedigree was impeccable (Figure 1) but whowas also widely despised – including by Philostratus’ teacher Antipater (607), the Naucratite crowd,and, perhaps, Aelius Aristides, if Behr 1968: 106 is right to identify the “thick-skinned custodian” ofOr. 51.38 as Heracleides.

35 Anonymous criticism of the great: Dionysius of Miletus (523–4), Scopelian (514–15), Polemo (542–3),Herodes Atticus (565, 586), Aelius Aristides (583–4), Hadrian of Tyre (590).

36 As G. Anderson 1986: 50 remarks, apropos of a deflected insult of Alexander the Clay-Plato (573),“Philostratus is evidently protecting one of his favourites from the fact that his reputation in otherquarters was very different.”



Herodes (586), his popularity in Athens (586–7) and Rome (589), how hewon the favor of both Marcus Aurelius and Commodus (589–90). Evenwhen criticized, Hadrian comes out on top. The fan of Chrestus whoheckles him is a trivial nobody (� ��9�� ) who becomes abusive whenignored; he does not survive his tangle with Hadrian (587–8). Chrestushimself – commonly supposed to be a rival of Hadrian37 – is nowhereto be seen in this episode. The consular Severus, a son-in-law of MarcusAurelius, disparages Hadrian’s oratory to Marcus, but this gives Hadrian achance to demonstrate his skills; he emerges vindicated and more lavishlyrewarded than he would have been otherwise (588–9).38 As for his othercritics, Philostratus does not see fit even to mention their names. Nor do wehear of Hadrian himself attacking anyone, apart from one sarcastic gesturetoward a stingy student (590). Unlike Lucian’s Pseudologista, Philostratus’Hadrian has few enemies.

Philostratus does not hold that scholarly enmities are always to beavoided, but they must be wisely chosen. The dangers of picking thewrong fight are illustrated by a tense exchange between Herodes Atticusand his student Sceptus of Corinth. Asked for his opinion of a lecture byAlexander the Clay-Plato, Sceptus quips that he has seen the clay but isstill looking for the Plato. Herodes cuts him off, warning, “Do not saythat to anyone else, because you will slander yourself as an ignorant judge”(573).39 Similarly, Antiochus of Cilicia goes too far in skewering Alexander’spenchant for elevated vocabulary; Philostratus coldly appends Antiochus’parody to a discussion of how impressive and delightful (�� 50 �� P.) that feature of Alexander’s style was (574). Like Sceptus, Antiochushas succeeded only in making himself look bad by taking on this favoriteof Herodes.

37 Bowersock 1969: 91–2.38 This is Cn. Claudius Severus, cos. II ord. 173, who introduced Marcus to Galen (On Prognosis 5 =

14.647 K.); he had earlier encountered the young Hadrian at Galen’s anatomical demonstrationsat Rome (14.629 K.); cf. Bowersock 1969: 62–4, 83–4. Severus appears as a patron of Hadrian inEphesus in the 160s, honored by him with a statue in return for an unspecified act of patronage(�$ �� 7��) (Keil 1953: 13–15). If they had a falling out in the interim, or if Severus hadalways harbored reservations about Hadrian, we cannot say. But Severus plainly had significant cloutas a patron, so his negative judgment could have been quite damaging. Following the principlesoutlined in Chapter 2, it is thus important to Philostratus that Severus’ criticism not be allowedto carry any real weight; Marcus’ testing (1��2��) of Hadrian, whom he had appointed to theimperial chair in Athens on reputation alone (588), is more tolerable, since it follows rather thanprecedes Hadrian’s appointment, and it ends by enhancing his prestige.

39 F�� & �� _��7 �� -�� , � � A�=! �K��> , 8��4! �:� ( Vr�9�� “��,” 1��, “�� M�� U�� , �� ,”1��, “��%��>� '� �� 7 � �.”



On the whole, then, praise and blame are dealt out with remarkablefairness in the Lives, at least in terms of Philostratus’ taste: the worthy arepraised, the unworthy denigrated, and the inept reveal themselves – anddisqualify their judgment – by transgressing this rule. Clashes betweentwo stars are highly embarrassing, and Philostratus does his best to ignorethem. When that proves impossible, he employs a range of damage-controlstrategies: either the feud is only temporary, or it can be blamed on someoneelse or on non-professional causes, or its results are ultimately beneficial;failing that, he seeks to mitigate the intra-sophistic nature of the quarrel.40

The care that he takes in doing so indicates that despite the prominenceof quarrels in the Lives, and while Philostratus is indeed a “connoisseurof the crushing remark,” it is not true that he revels in this “ethos ofpedantic rivalry and reprisal” for its own sake.41 Rather, his anecdotes arecarefully selected so that, as far as possible, they confirm his picture of theinternal hierarchy of the sophistic movement. Although Philostratus repeatsthe truism that like competes with like (491), he consistently representsdamaging competition as occuring only at or across the borders of the circleof sophists; its asymmetries confirm rather than disrupt those borders.Anecdotes of quarrels thus participate in a naturalizing discourse thatpromotes Philostratus’ idiosyncratic version of the sophistic canon as theinevitable opinion of everyone admirable, everyone trustworthy, everyonewho counts.

So when Philostratus remarks that Alexander the Clay-Plato has notyet attained the respect he deserves (574),42 he is following the opinion ofHerodes Atticus, not that of Sceptus of Corinth or Antiochus of Cilicia.The views of marginal or minor sophists carry little weight for him. In

40 Temporary: the antagonism between Scopelian and the camp of Timocrates is finally resolved byPolemo’s respectful gestures toward Scopelian (521, 536). Someone else’s fault: the quarrel betweenPhilostratus of Lemnos and Aspasius was exacerbated by the no-good sophists Cassianus andAurelius, who are otherwise pointedly omitted from the Lives (627–8); it also spurred both toimprove their art. Non-professional: the hostility of Demosthenes and Aeschines is attributed todiscordant temperaments and political views, rather than stylistic disagreement (507–8), a pointemphasized by the story that Aeschines complimented the speech of Demosthenes that caused hisexile (510). Not between sophists: the leading role in the conspiracy to unseat Heracleides from theAthenian rhetorical chair goes not to Apollonius of Naucratis, but to his associate Marcianus ofDoliche, otherwise unmentioned (613); the feud between Favorinus and Polemo appears in the Lifeof Favorinus (490–1), whom Philostratus classifies among the ambiguous philosopher-sophists; it isbarely alluded to in the Life of Polemo (536, 541).

41 G. Anderson 1986: 43, 45. Nor can his censure of inappropriate competitiveness be dismissed asmere hypocrisy, pace G. Anderson 1986: 79. Dissent on the part of an acknowledged authority isgenuinely distressing for Philostratus, since it threatens the consensus of right-thinking insiders towhich his canon is supposed to correspond.

42 �:� �� 8� �� ! �� 3��& �45�� >�� >� qE�� .


Other sophists, other circles 139

fact, Antiochus is lucky to be counted as a sophist at all. We observed inChapter 2 that to impugn a man’s evaluative competence was to call hisprofessional standing into question; in the Lives dissident critics can findthemselves expelled from the circle of sophists altogether. In particular,Philostratus mentions Varus of Laodicea only to inform us that he doesnot deserve mention – and neither does anyone who thinks he does (620).43

True to his word, Philostratus refuses to name any of Varus’ teachers orstudents. There is no way to know who has been written out of the Lives onthis ground, but the message is clear. Not only is control over membershipin the circle of sophists a prerogative reserved for insiders, but insider statuscan be invalidated – or rather, exposed as fallacious – by association with orendorsement of the wrong person. In the Lives, in short, Philostratus offersa tightly limited vision of the sophistic movement, one defined aroundand by a very small number of canonical figures. No one who falls outsidethis definition and no one who challenges it by accepting an unacceptableperson can belong to that privileged community. Implicitly, the dangerof disqualification hangs over readers of the Lives as well: if we acceptPhilostratus’ claims to expertise, then we are challenged to display our ownpaideia by concurring with his critical judgments.44

other sophists, other circles

How, then, does Philostratus’ account of the Second Sophistic fit with theideas of other practicing sophists? On the one hand, the composition of hiscircle of sophists is not only highly selective but decidedly idiosyncratic;other interested observers would have made different choices. In a recentseries of articles Christopher Jones has begun to measure the gap betweenPhilostratean taste and the judgment of other contemporary and later crit-ics, in terms of both personal and aesthetic preferences.45 Among sophisticcenters left in the shadows by Philostratus’ focus on Athens and Smyrna,he spotlights Lesbos and Rhodes, whose luminaries included Lesbonax ofMytilene (a student of Polemo’s mentor, Timocrates [Luc. Salt. 69]), whowas still being read in the ninth century; Antipater of Rhodes, praised in along inscription as a “sophist distinguished among the Greeks for paideia”;and the Rhodian Aurelianus Nicostratus, holder of an imperial chair of

43 �/ � u�� `n�� 4�� 5��& �� :�� < �5��! �4��. Similarly, Lucian informsthe incompetent Lexiphanes that although non-experts (#��) were amazed by his recent use ofan unfamiliar word, the well-educated (�/ �� ) laughed at both him and his admirers(�� >� 8�� &�� 8��! , Lex. 24).

44 Schmitz 2009: 62–5. 45 Jones 2007, 2008a, 2008b.



rhetoric, probably at Rome.46 All three would have had a fair claim tostand within the circle of sophists. More broadly, Jones argues that alreadyin the late second century taste was shifting away from the improvisedpublic declamation that Philostratus considers the hallmark of the SecondSophistic, and toward the written oratory of Aelius Aristides, who emergesas the central figure of later accounts of second-century rhetoric.47 Onthis score, Phrynichus, who esteems Aristides highly while criticizing suchPhilostratean favorites as Favorinus, Polemo, Lollianus, and Alexander theClay-Plato, seems to represent “a more accurate barometer of later pref-erences than Philostratus.”48 Once again, defining what it means to bea sophist is intimately entangled with debates over who deserves to becounted as a sophist. Philostratus advocates an idiosyncratic perspective onboth questions.

On the other hand, within the world of early imperial sophists there wasnothing eccentric about advancing an eccentric, selective, self-interestedview of the membership of the circle of sophists, nor are Philostratus’canonizing methods idiosyncratic at all. His tacit assumption that only theopinions of sophistic insiders matter, excluding those of marginal sophistsor outside consumers and patrons, is frankly impossible. Nonetheless, wehave seen that the autonomy of sophistic self-definition is deeply ingrainedin the internal mythology of the movement, lived out in sophists’ carefulscrutiny of their social and professional interactions with each other as anindex of professional identity and status. Aelius Aristides’ encomium of histeacher, Alexander of Cotiaeum, encapsulates this attitude (Or. 32.6, 12):

Over his lifetime he became associated with all those who were most famous,as a student of the ancients, and a teacher or colleague of those who came afterthem . . . For those dedicated to oratory, it was a point of pride to have studiedwith him, and for those otherwise famous and illustrious, to be seen employinghim was worth more than any other source of distinction.49

Attempts to monitor professional access belong to an extensive repertoireof displays of approval and disapproval through which status negotiationand boundary maintenance were conducted within this (notionally) closed

46 Jones 2008b: 114–17. Antipater: �� [��] 8 ��7� � VE��= ! , � ��[= ];Jones 2007. Nicostratus: Puech 2002: nos. 187–8.

47 Jones 2008b: 117–25. 48 Jones 2008b: 119; cf. 2008a.49 8��D=�� >� 2�4 �� 7�� "= ! � 8 ��5�=! � � ��2��=!

��<�, � �’ 8� �� "= ! � � ��=��, � � �� . . . ; � �� >� �� 0� �4�� 7� 8��7 � �� >� N��!� 8 �45�� >� � ’ N�� #� � ��2�� 8��7 � 2�!�� 7 ��.



group. As has often been observed, public compliments and insults pro-vided a crucial medium for self-fashioning – for crafting a public personal-ity, for forming and advertising alliances, for enforcing what one took to bethe community’s standards or for promoting new standards – and hence forshaping the community as well.50 That sophistic feuds and friendships alsohad political and personal ramifications does not detract from their rolein the self-regulation of the movement.51 Philostratus’ paradoxical use ofstories of sophistic in-fighting to delineate a harmonious insider consensusthat coincides with his own views mirrors on a literary plane the functionthat such encounters served for his subjects.

We may see this process at work in the quarrel between Scopelian and thephilosopher Timocrates, which polarized the wealthy young men of Smyrna(536). Polemo, who had been a student of both, sided with Timocrates,with decisive consequences for his career. The point at issue was Scopelian’shabit of depilation, but taking a stand on preferred gender presentation waspart of a larger declaration of artistic allegiance: according to Philostratus,Polemo was attracted to Timocrates’ fluent, forceful and ready manner ofspeech, and we may infer that he picked up his own quick-witted, hot-blooded style from him (537, 542).52 This alignment lasted throughoutPolemo’s life (536), perhaps even into the next scholarly generation, sincewe find one of his students attacking Scopelian’s bombastic delivery (520).Inappropriately dithyrambic style and lack of fluent, ready speech, we recall,are exactly the charges leveled against Scopelian by those who consideredhim unworthy of the circle of sophists (514–15). We may thus see theadherents of Timocrates forming a self-conscious sophistic “orthodoxy,”a socially bound coalition that defines itself collectively over against anexemplary opponent, whose divergent aesthetic standards exclude himfrom membership in the community – in other words, a miniature localversion of precisely the kind of canon that Philostratus builds in the Lives.

Negotiations over status and standards were conducted not only inephemeral encounters, but even more in the stories preserved and cir-culated afterward. Such gossip was clearly of absorbing interest to other

50 See esp. Gleason 1995: 27–8, 145; Schmitz 1997: 114–27; Korenjak 2000: 63–5, 182–4; Whitmarsh2005: 37–40. Cf. Hahn 1989: 109–15 on philosophical quarrels.

51 Political: Bowersock 1969: 89–100 remains the classic treatment. Personal: friction is inevitablewithin an intellectually rarified profession that attracts highly strung people (G. Anderson 1993:35–9) and inculcates intense loyalties (e.g. Winter 2002: 125–9); Gleason 1995: 73 examines the roleof these quarrels in elite male socialization.

52 Polemo’s later feud with the effeminate Favorinus may also be no coincidence. Cf. Gleason 1995: 73,emphasizing his physiognomic, rather than rhetorical, motives. We might also note that Scopelian,the elder statesman of Smyrnaean rhetoric, was a more natural rival than Timocrates for theambitious young Polemo.



sophists besides Philostratus, since his information comes chiefly from thereminiscences of his predecessors: from his teachers (585), especially Dami-anus (582–3, 605–6); from “my elders” (�/ ��%�� 579), includingAristaeus, “the oldest of the Hellenes in my time and the most knowledge-able about sophists” (524), and Ctesidemus of Athens, who knew HerodesAtticus (552); and from the letters of Herodes himself (537–9, 552–4).53

Each of these men must have had his own store of favorite stories, culledfrom personal experience and hearsay. In repeated telling, these collec-tions of anecdotes promoted the storyteller’s vision of sophistic history.As Maud Gleason observes, “gossip generates shared meanings . . . it trans-forms events into stories, and stories shape a community’s memories ofitself.”54 Gossip about the warm reception or acerbic put-down of onesophist by another reinforces the message that such interactions are ofoverriding importance; of such things is a man’s reputation made. Thestories told and retold about such interactions come to constitute eachorator’s reputation in the group’s collective memory;55 these cumulativelysketch the profile of the community itself. If Philostratus’ informants wereas selective and partisan in the gossip they passed on as he is – if they, too,preferred to dwell on the triumphs of their favorites and the failures of thosethey despised – then each one’s recollections will have painted a pictureof the sophistic landscape that was no less idiosyncratic and idealized thanthe picture we are given in the Lives. If so, then it is possible to imaginethat there were as many variations on this picture as there were interestedobservers, all of them partial, all partisan, all composed in essentially thesame way.

What might some of those other maps of the circle of sophists havelooked like? Unfortunately, we can offer only speculative answers. Mostof the non-Philostratean sophistai and rhetores known from coins, inscrip-tions, and literary allusions remain shadowy figures. Aiming to define asophistic canon, Philostratus has succeeded in largely effacing those whomhe excludes.56 Any attempt to reconstruct a network of sophists that can

53 Aristaeus: ��%�=�� ’ 8� VE��- ! �� >�� #�4��. For “Hel-lenes” as a synonym for “persons of literary education” or students of rhetoric, see Russell 1983: 84n. 51; Follet 1991: 206–8.

54 Gleason 1998: 502–3.55 Gleason 1995: 27–8 comments of Polemo’s jibes at Favorinus that “what gained currency were

public witticisms, barbs designed to sting again with every repetition . . . Remarks like these wouldspread far and wide, reinforcing the public relations impact of Polemo’s personal appearance andostentatious baggage train.”

56 On the destructive effects of canonization, see Worthington 1994: 247–8.



stand against the Lives must accordingly remain highly conjectural and,ultimately, largely dependent on Philostratus himself.

Occasionally, though, inscriptions do provide information that standsin sharp and intriguing contrast to what Philostratus tells us and mayenable us to glimpse a genuinely divergent version of the Second Sophistic.One famous case is the Ephesian sophist Soterus. Philostratus lists himamong the “playthings of the Hellenes” (605), yet an inscription erected byhis students reveals that the Ephesians regarded him as a first-rate sophist(��< �� ), well worth the 10,000 drachma salary with whichthey lured him away from Athens for his excellence of life and rhetorical skill(� ’ �� %7�� 7�� 4��[��]).57 This discrepancy may reflectPhilostratus’ reliance on the opinion of Damianus of Ephesus, probably arival of Soterus.58

The same may be true of Flavius Phylax, another “plaything,” who isknown from a statue he erected at Olympia, presumably after his appear-ance in a Panhellenic competition, and from another that he and hisbrother Phoenix dedicated at Delphi in honor of their father and teacher,Flavius Alexander.59 Alexander, too, was a sophistes, at least in the eyes ofhis sons, as was Phoenix, who also received a statue at Delphi from hisstudents; this honor puts father and son in the company of luminariesincluding Herodes Atticus and Apollonius of Athens.60 Philostratus, how-ever, has nothing to say about Alexander. Phoenix does find a place in theLives, but he receives a conspicuously lukewarm review: “neither worthy ofadmiration, nor entirely to be slandered” (�:� ��=�� N5��, �:� �T��%��> = �, 604). The uniformity of Philostratus’ disdain for thisfamily is striking. It may well be that Alexander and his sons were simplymediocre sophists, but it seems at least possible that we have here a smallnetwork whose members have been marginalized because one of them ranafoul of a Philostratean favorite.

57 Keil 1953: 15–18; Puech 2002: 455–8. Schmitz 1997: 136–46 discusses the collocation of ��- vel sim.and rhetorical skill in early imperial inscriptions. A similar case is Polemo’s son Attalus: Philostratussilently passes over him with the remark that the only noteworthy descendant of Polemo was hisgreat-grandson Hermocrates (609). Yet Attalus was notable enough to be named on a Smyrnaeancoin as j�� -� (Jones 1980: 374–5).

58 Swain 1991: 158. Jones 2008b: 115 wonders if Soterus attracted Philostratus’ ire by twice desertingAthens for Ephesus.

59 Phylax: Inschr. Olympia 464 = Puech 2002: no. 205. Flavius Alexander: FD iii 4.474 = Puech 2002:no. 3. Cf. Puech 2002: 385–6.

60 BCH 1925, 82 = Puech 2002: no. 204. This is a fairly select group: in all, eleven sophistai and rhetoreswere honored with statues at Delphi in the first three centuries ce: Bouvier 1985: 130–5; cf. Puech2002: 44–5, 385.



Another network clusters around Claudius Demostratus and his uncleTheodotus, leaders of the opposition to Herodes Atticus at Athens. Philo-stratus has little good to say about either man: Demostratus appears in theLives only as an adversary of Herodes (559–60, 563, 566), while Philostratus’assessment of Theodotus seems jarringly out of step with his stature andtalents. Connected to these two by marriage is another Philostratean vil-lain, Cassianus Antiochus, one of the sophists whom Philostratus blamesfor exacerbating the quarrel between his relative Philostratus of Lemnosand Aspasius of Ravenna (627).61 Cassianus has a further strike against him:in the early third century the Cassiani were jockeying with the Philostratifor recognition as the leading family of the deme of Steira; as Puech drilyobserves, this political rivalry was perhaps not unrelated to the profes-sional antagonism between Cassianus and the Philostrati.62 Small wonder,then, that although Cassianus was “director of the Museion” (� 8� �&B��7�[�]) at Athens and, most likely, holder of the Athenian rhetoricalchair, Philostratus blasts him as opportunistic and unworthy and writeshim out of the Lives.63 Finally, also connected by marriage to this groupmay be Plutarch’s friend, the Corinthian orator Antonius Sospis, and hisgrandson Aelius Sospis, also a rhetor, honored in a Corinthian inscriptionfor his “noble character and every other form of excellence.”64 Neitherappears in the Lives.

Our evidence is too scanty to draw firm conclusions about how thesemen might have fit into anyone’s view of the circle of sophists, or how theythemselves would have constructed that circle. The antagonism betweenScopelian and Polemo (and others), both Philostratean favorites, may hintthat Philostratus’ roll call of the Second Sophistic, for all its limitations, isstill broader than the accounts many of his subjects would have produced.That rivalry shows, too, that social connections alone did not suffice todetermine allegiance: the young Polemo was compelled to chose between

61 On the relationship between our Philostratus and Philostratus of Lemnos, see de Lannoy 1997, whodemonstrates that the latter (Philostratus III) cannot be author of the second Imagines (PhilostratusIV), grandson of the author of the Lives (Philostratus II).

62 Puech 2002: 87, and 509–12 for the stemma of the Cassiani of Steira. They are connected to theClaudii of Melite through Cassianus Apollonius, perhaps the brother of the sophist, who married agranddaughter of Demostratus.

63 IG ii2 3712 = Puech 2002: no. 13. Puech 2002: 81–6 discusses the otherwise unattested Museion ofAthens and its probable relation to the rhetorical chair.

64 � ��7�� N�� ["]=��. Antonius Sospis: Plut. Quaest. conv. 723–4,739e–740f, 741c–743c. Aelius Sospis: Corinth viii.3.226 = Puech 2002: no. 241. For the likelihoodthat a daughter of Antonius Sospis married a Claudius of Melite, see Puech 2002: 453. This daughterwould have been Theodotus’ mother-in-law and Demostratus’ grandmother; Aelius Sospis wouldthen be a first cousin of Theodotus’ wife, and first cousin once removed of Demostratus.



his teachers Scopelian and Timocrates. The preferences of Lucian likewiseplay havoc with any simple map of professional affiliations: he is laudatoryof Herodes Atticus, at least as a benefactor and declaimer (Peregr. 19;Demon. 33), but abhors his student Hadrian; he idealizes Demonax butsavages Peregrinus, a fellow disciple of Demonax’s teacher, Agathoboulos(Dem. 3; Peregr. 17). And Philostratus’ own network brushes up againstthat of the Claudii of Melite at a few points.65 It would be unrealistic toexpect such a small, tightly interwoven professional and social elite to fallinto neat, hermetically sealed intellectual factions.

Still, Philostratus’ consistent disregard or disparagement of orators asso-ciated with this family is suggestive. Moreover, this group is loosely con-nected to the other: Theodotus was a student of Lollianus of Ephesus,as was Phoenix’s teacher, Philagrus, whose feud with Herodes Atticus weexamined in the Introduction (567, 604).66 Both, in other words, belong tothe network of Isaeus. Some of Isaeus’ academic descendants rate highly inthe Lives, but that group as a whole is very tenuously connected to Philostra-tus’ own, and its members repeatedly come into conflict with Philostratus’associates: Soterus and Phylax with his teacher, Damianus; Demostratus,Theodotus, and Philagrus with his hero and academic ancestor, Herodes;Cassianus with Philostratus’ own family, especially his younger namesake.67

For most of these men Philostratus has little respect. Might their repeatedpolitical and professional clashes with his favorites suggest that the feelingwas mutual?68

If so, then in the network centered on the disciples of Isaeus we mightbe able to locate an alternate center of gravity for the Second Sophistic, andperhaps a view of sophistry that could stand in opposition to the one we getfrom Philostratus. What would happen to the map sketched in Figure 1 ifwe moved Isaeus from the periphery to the center, added Soterus, Phylax,Flavius Alexander, Cassianus, and Demostratus, and awarded a larger placeto Philagrus, Phoenix, and Theodotus than Philostratus gives them? ThePhilostratean favorites who stood in opposition to this group – Damianus,

65 Demostratus’ nephew, the philosopher Ti. Claudius Sospis, studied with Chrestus of Byzantium(591; cf. Clinton 1974: 85); a granddaughter of this Sospis married Philostratus’ friend ValeriusApsines (IG ii2 4007 = Puech 2002: no. 30).

66 It is conceivable that Philostratus’ neglect of Rhodian sophists fits in here as well. As Jones 2007: 331points out, two Rhodians head the list of Soterus’ students. We know that students from the samearea tended to beat a path to the same teachers (pp. 000–000). Could a predilection of Rhodianstudents for Ephesian teachers factor into the obscurity of Rhodes in the Lives?

67 On connections within this network, and its conflicts with that of Herodes Atticus, see Papalas1979–80: 97–9 (over-imaginative on the Philagrus episode, but prosopographically sound).

68 This suggestion is anticipated by Boulanger 1923: 83–96, who saw an aesthetic opposition betweenthe schools of Nicetes and Isaeus.



Philostratus of Lemnos, Herodes Atticus himself – would be displacedto the margins or removed altogether. After all, without Philostratus wewould never have known that Damianus had a rhetorical career at all.69

The prominence of Herodes is securely established by other sources, buthe was a controversial figure; we can easily imagine an account of theSecond Sophistic that would not paint him in the glowing colors that theLives does. Suppose further that we dropped two of Philostratus’ mostcontroversial choices, Chrestus of Byzantium and Hadrian of Tyre, andwith them many of their students. Without changing the basic principlesunderlying its construction, we would be left with a Second Sophistic thatwas virtually unrecognizable.

conclusion: sophists and the discourse of canonicity

The procedure by which Philostratus and his colleagues arrived at theirpersonal sophistic canons could be described, to borrow a term fromearly Christian scholarship, as a sort of orthocratic method:70 within thepool of eligible orators, those connected by academic filiation or alliancewith those chosen as canonical insiders are privileged, while those whocast their lot with “outsiders” (i.e. the wrong insiders) are marginalizedby association. Ideally, participation in the process of canon formation islimited to legitimate insiders, so that each canon is self perpetuating. Asboth the impresario of the canon before us and one of its best-connectedmembers, Philostratus thus emerges as the consummate insider of (his)Second Sophistic. Narratological studies of the Lives have drawn attentionto the ways in which Philostratus constructs his narratorial authority in theLives as an expert insider, magisterially revealing the (true) history of thesophistic movement to an implied reader cast in the role of uninformedbut interested learner (480).71 As those studies show, although Philostratusis rarely an actor in his own narrative, he is overtly present throughout thetext, as editor, gatekeeper, and interpreter, and, in the later Lives, eyewitnessto the events he describes.72 At every turn, Philostratus marks out what

69 Puech 2002: 2, 194. 70 Wisse 1986: 185; cf. pp. 000–000 below.71 Schmitz 2009. Whitmarsh 2004: 435–9 notes inter alia the prevalence of revelatory language (i.e.

words built on the ��- root) in the Lives. Similarly, Goldhill 2009: 305 reads Letter 73 – whichhe accepts as genuine, contra Bowersock 1969: 104–5 – as constructing “a conversation across thegenerations which makes Philostratus the present embodiment of that tradition of Greek excellence”and “fashioning the paideia of Philostratus at the center of the empire and at the apex of Greektradition.”

72 Eyewitness observations: 604, 606, 607, 617, 626.


Sophists and the discourse of canonicity 147

is (and is not) worthy of notice, steers the process of explication, offershis opinion on disputed points, selecting the “truest” available account,and engages in polemic against the factual errors, ignorant literary criticalblunders, and malicious distortions of (usually unnamed) others.73 Thispolemic mirrors the contentious discussions that were a regular part ofsophistic performance; in this way, too, Philostratus replays on the textualplane the everyday professional conduct of his subjects.74 The effect is toframe the Lives as a boldly revisionist, and authoritatively true, account, andits narrator as a supremely reliable insider with whose judgments readersare constrained to agree, for fear of exposing themselves as ignorant ormalicious.75

The strength of this approach becomes fragility, however, the momentone of the cornerstones of the canonizing edifice is challenged. Differencesof opinion about the merits of leading sophists are not merely quibbles overtaste: change the gold standard of rhetorical artistry, and the entire map ofthe sophistic circle shifts. The center has moved, and with it the periphery;the web of social and professional relationships must be redrawn. Thosewho thought that Soterus was a first-rate sophist, that Theodotus andCassianus deserved their endowed chairs, or that Hadrian of Tyre did notdeserve his would no doubt have told a very different story of the SecondSophistic, one that might have had no place for Philostratus. Further,doubts about a sophist’s critical judgment are a threat to his insider statusas well: in the eyes of his dissenters, Philostratus could well have lookedlike Sceptus, slandering himself as an ignorant judge.76 Finally, the case ofSoterus may also highlight the limitations of a view of the sophistic worldthat discounts public opinion and patronage as irrelevant to professionalreputation. The disjunction between Philostratus’ evaluation of Soterusand his reception by the Ephesians points up the hollowness of orthocraticboundary construction.

73 Noteworthy and memorable: 536, 540, 545, 551, 556, 557, 563, 576, 591, 597, 624. Not worth noting:511, 566, 576, 605, 620. Explication: Whitmarsh 2004: 437 analyzes Philostratus’ use of �=� clausesto guide readers through the “inferential process that will allow them to deduce the point of theexample.” Truest/truer version: 516, 543, 559. Places where Philostratus states his own opinion aretoo numerous to collect. Factual errors: 497, 506, 523–4, 530, 543, 554–5, 562–3, 570. Literary criticalmistakes: 510, 512, 524, 528, 542, 555, 565–6, 583–5, 596–6, 598, 599–600. Malicious slander: 514–15,563, 590, 596.

74 Schmitz 2009: 59–60; cf. Schmitz 1997: 112–27; Korenjak 2000: 120–4. Konig 2011: 288–90 shows,however, that Philostratus also tries to distance himself from typical sophistic contentiousness andshowy self-display.

75 On similar (if more devious) strategies in Lucian, see Goldhill 2002: 84, 93.76 Noted by Schmitz 2009: 66–7.



Rhetorically, however, that vulnerability does not exist for Philostratusor his colleagues.77 Even when they diverge in their critical judgments, theyshare the assumption that there is no room for legitimate disagreement.As a matter of self-evident fact, orators are worthy of mention (�4��N5��) or not; they deserve to be counted as sophists or they do not.To impartial hearers who are neither well-disposed nor hostile (��=�L�� =� . . . �0� �-� �n �� -� �� , 593), the evidencespeaks for itself. In theory, there can be only one canon, which commandsautomatic universal assent, a result achieved by excluding dissenters fromparticipation. This tension between the rhetoric of timeless, clear-cut una-nimity and the reality of plurality exposes the hollowness of the notion ofthe self-evident, which rests on obscuring the very debates by which it isproduced. From our vantage point, however, that plurality can be elusive,since alternative orthodoxies exist for us only as already-discarded possi-bilities. The great authorizing power of retrospective intellectual historylies in its ability to freeze the kaleidoscope of views of its subject on oneparticular image.

The version of the glory days of sophistic oratory that we find in theLives of the Sophists is thus only one possible, partial view. We may lookpast Philostratus to reconstruct other views, but we should also appreciatehis construction of the Second Sophistic for what it is: a masterful attemptby Philostratus to define and legitimate his own position by conjuring up aworld in which he fits, and to convince readers to accept this construction asunquestionably self-evident. In employing this method of self-definition,Philostratus was not essentially different from his colleagues, only moresuccessful.

77 As Whitmarsh 2004: 435 puts it, Philostratus presents the Lives as a “project . . . largely uncomplicatedby doubt.”


chapter 5

Becoming orthodoxHeresiology as self-fashioning

introduction

As the architect of a highly partisan, yet highly durable, canon of the SecondSophistic that carves out an authoritative position for himself, Philostratusresembles the Christian heresiologists who will play a starring role in thischapter: Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus. Theirworks offer ever more elaborate catalogues of wrong ways to be Chris-tian, defining the boundaries of the legitimate Christian community bycharting the terrain that marks its outer limits. Against “heretical” out-siders, these texts marshal not only theological but also historical, social,and genealogical arguments that have close analogues in contemporaryintellectual historiography. From the genre’s first appearance with JustinMartyr’s lost Syntagma of Heresies (c. 150), heresiologists labor to organize“orthodoxy” and “heresy” into separate, competing family trees, naturaliz-ing the borders between the two as merely reinscribing pre-existing socialfault lines.1 In this way, plotting the nodes of social networks, real orinvented, buttresses, and at times substitutes for, theoretical argument.

From the first wave of Christian heresiologies, the texts that best fitthis template are Irenaeus’ Against Heresies (c. 180), Tertullian’s Prescriptionagainst Heretics (c. 203), and Hippolytus’ Refutation of All Heresies (c. 222–35), but Tertullian also produced a wealth of treatises attacking specific“heretics” and “heretical” errors, which employ similar tactics. Clement is

1 That the Syntagma – a “treatise against all the haireseis that have come into being” (�� ! �/��! �� , Jus. Apol. 26.8; cf. Eus. Hist. eccl. 4.11.9–10) –was the first heresiology and a major source for Irenaeus (Haer. 1.23–7, maybe 1.11) is generallyaccepted (Wisse 1971: 213–15; Le Boulluec 1985: 39–91), although the exact character and scopeof the work remain disputed. Lyman 2003a reframes it somewhat, locating Justin’s invention ofheresiology within second-century theories of philosophical and cultural universalism, rather than asan expression of an inherent Christian exclusivity. Iricinschi and Zellentin 2008b: 8 n. 29 go further,wondering if the Syntagma’s subject was philosophical ��, rather than Christian “heresies” assuch. The context in Apol. 26, however, strongly suggests that it had to do with some or all of the“heretics” catalogued there (Simon Magus, Menander, Marcion).

149


150 Becoming orthodox: heresiology as self-fashioning

a bit of an outlier: his Stromateis (c. 190–215) are a wide-ranging, hetero-geneous collection that seeks more to advance models for Christian lifethan to target “heresy” as such, but the negative foil of “heresy” is never farfrom view, especially in book 7. Much outstanding work has been done inrecent years on heresiology as a tool of early Christian identity formation,as scholars have shifted away from simply treating these texts as minesof information (reliable or unreliable) to focus instead on the work thatheresiological representations do.2 Although it will be impossible to avoidreplowing some of the same ground, I want to focus on two features ofthese works that have been less well recognized.

First, although rarely read by classicists, Christian heresiologies exhibitstriking parallels to early imperial texts such as the Lives of the Sophists orDiogenes Laertius’ Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Like Philostratus, Chris-tian polemicists craft partial, partisan maps of their community, mobilizingsocial connections – positive and negative, legitimizing and delegitimizing –to widen and justify the distance between insider and outsider. They tooseek to naturalize their distinctive visions as the self-evident, universalconsensus of (authentic, “orthodox”) insiders, in part through carefullyselective reporting of encounters between exemplary representatives of“orthodoxy” and “heresy,” and by excluding from consideration the viewsof dissenters reconfigured as outsiders. Like Philostratus, they representtheir accounts as comprehensive and definitive. For them, too, textualityprovides a means to freeze the kaleidoscope of shifting self-definition ona single image, realizing in the world of text the fantasy of control soughtoutside the text through expulsion of deviants and discounting the input ofmarginal persons (idiotai, “heretics”). If persuasive, these accounts estab-lish their authors as authoritative insiders and secure their positions at thecenter of Christian orthodoxy. While the ultimate stakes in play for theheresiologists, their readers, and opponents – metaphysical truth, eternalsalvation – are very different from those at issue for Philostratean sophists,the strategies of self-authorization employed in pursuit of those disparateends bear strong mutual resemblance.

Second, much like Philostratus’ Lives, heresiological representations ofChristianity replay strategies and rhetorical postures examined in earlierchapters; once again, textual representation and behavior “on the ground”

2 The landmark analysis remains Le Boulluec 1985. Among many outstanding studies, I have profitedespecially from Wisse 1971, 1972; Koschorke 1975; Cohen 1980; Vallee 1981; M. A. Williams 1996;Buell 1999; Inglebert 2001a and 2001b: 393–462; King 2003 and 2008a; Boyarin 2004; Iricinschi andZellentin 2008a.


Connections and credentials 151

feed into (and on) each other, even when they resist each other. Those lev-els are necessarily intertwined, since ephemeral face-to-face encounters andoral debate are accessible to us only through texts, which present carefullysifted narratives that confirm their own positions. The role of texts in shap-ing early Christian identity – both in what they memorialize and what theyforget – has taken center stage in recent scholarship.3 Within this dynamic,heresiologists lay claim to special authority, promising definitive bird’s-eyeviews of the entire Christian landscape. The discursive, textualized modesof personal and corporate identity formation that they employed, however,are informed by the same principles that animate small-scale techniques ofcommunity formation, both pagan and Christian: the equation of beingand belonging, and the concomitant effort to restrict participation in thecommunity and its regulation to a small elite of pre-approved insiders.

As in Philostratus’ Lives, the efficacy of these heresiological strategies hadlimits, which we will consider in the last section of the chapter. Second-and third-century Christians differed in their selection of canonical exem-plars of truth and falsity, so that the same cartographic techniques yieldedcontradictory maps, each of which called the validity of the others intoquestion. And some, it seems, rejected the premises of orthocracy itself,that the location of Christian truth could be determined by pointing tothe quality of its advocates and their connections to other “sound persons.”Indeed, even among advocates and beneficiaries of orthocracy, intuitivereliance on social affiliations as an index of identity rubs against a theoret-ical conception of membership in the community as depending on innerreality – correct practice, right belief, life according to the gospel.

connections and credentials

In Chapter 1 we explored the role that control of social access played indefining and policing the boundaries of “orthodoxy” at the local and con-gregational level. Early Christian authors regularly take for granted thataffiliations shape affinities of thought and behavior, and that affinities areregistered by, and can be read from, affiliations. Management of socialcontact within and across congregations accordingly furnished a mediumthrough which the (often tacit, even inadvertent) process of defining whatit meant to be Christian operated, while the position of individuals and

3 In addition to the works cited in n. 2, see esp. Cameron 1991; Lieu 2002: 171–89, 211–31 and 2004,emphasizing what is strategically forgotten as well as what is remembered; Castelli 2004.



groups within the social fabric of Christian networks indexed their con-formity to local standards of authenticity. Frederik Wisse has coined theterm “orthocracy” to describe this ad hominem character of early Chris-tian authorizing discourse. In the absence of a “comprehensive and widelyaccepted rule of faith which could function as a standard for truth andfalsehood,” he observes, “the truth claim of a teaching depended on theaccepted authority of the person who taught it”; sound doctrine tendsto mean “the doctrine of sound men,” whose credentials were evaluatedlargely in terms of their connections (real or invented) to other exemplaryfigures.4 It is only natural, therefore, that such connections would comeinto play, positively and negatively, in debates over correct doctrine andpractice.

The Easter Controversy – itself a dispute over social identity and unity –exemplifies orthocratic reasoning on the worldwide scale. When tensionsover when Easter should be celebrated reached a boiling point in theearly 190s, all three sides cited authoritative precedent in support of theirpositions. Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, who emerged as the spokesmanfor the Asian practice, produced a long list of apostles, bishops, prophets,and martyrs buried in Asia Minor, all of whom had followed Asian custom(ap. Eus. Hist. eccl. 5.24.1–6; cf. 3.31.2–3). These included the apostle Johnand the great Polycarp; Polycrates himself was the eighth bishop in hisfamily. Mediating between the two, Irenaeus pointed out that Romanbishops had historically tolerated Asian practice, and that when Polycarpvisited Rome, the bishop Anicetus remained in communion with himdespite their disagreement (ap. Hist. eccl. 5.24.14–17). Eusebius does notreport the arguments of Victor, bishop of Rome and the leading opponentof Asian praxis, but it is quite likely that he, too, cited the apostolicfounders of Roman tradition, as the Roman controversialist Gaius didwhen attacking the New Prophecy a few years later (Hist. eccl. 2.25.6–7; cf.3.31.4). For these disputants, sound practice is precisely the practice of soundmen (and women). Proximity to such persons – biological, institutional,or geographical – creates a presumption of continuity and agreement thatundergirds the credentials of both individuals and entire churches.

Irenaeus’ handling of the theologian Marcus Magus illustrates the corol-lary, that “heresy at this time was not so much a teaching that was at variancewith established doctrine, as it was a teaching – any teaching! – of someonewho was either unauthorized by the leadership or who for some reason

4 Wisse 1986: 184–5.


Memory and authorization 153

or other was considered unworthy and unacceptable.”5 Ad hominem andad doctrinam argument operate in tandem. Irenaeus excoriates Marcosianritual and gleefully holds up his numerological theories for ridicule (Haer.1.13.2–16.2, 21). Substantiating this ideological attack is a heavy emphasison Marcus’ character and connections, which position him as an outsidera priori. As Irenaeus tells it, Marcus comes doubly excluded, by his associ-ation with Valentinus and his condemnation by a certain “godly elder andherald of the truth” (( ��>�� %�� 5 �� 7��) whowrote a memorable poem against Marcus (1.15.6).6 This damning pedigreebears poisonous fruit: Marcus is a magician, swindler, sexual predator, andforerunner of the Antichrist, probably in league with demons (1.13.1–5).His disciples are replicas of himself, reproducing both his teachings andhis modus operandi (1.13.6). The views of such persons naturally fall out-side the bounds of acceptable Christian doctrine, and no one who adoptsthem can remain inside the community. As we have seen, Irenaeus turnsthis logic against local Christians who attend Marcosian gatherings. In hiseyes, mere contact with Marcosians threatens to place them beyond theboundaries of the true church; those who refuse to choose one or the otherhover awkwardly at the margins, “neither outside nor inside” (�-� 15!�-� 1�!, 1.13.7). About their actual convictions we hear nothing, but forIrenaeus that seems to be unnecessary; like the admirers and associates ofVarus of Laodicea (Philostr. VS 620), these believers are written out of theauthorized community on the strength of their social commitments.

memory and authorization

The success of Irenaeus’ bid to damn Marcus and his followers by associ-ation requires that connection to Valentinus be accepted as an automaticdisqualification, and the elder who opposed Marcus as a “godly herald ofthe truth.” Marcosians would presumably have reversed these evaluations,but their assessment of which was the “sound man” did not prevail. To suc-ceed, an orthocratic argument must not only marshal expert witnesses in itsfavor or authoritatively delegitimized figures in opposition but also persua-sively defend its labeling of those individuals. This section will explore the

5 Wisse 1986: 184–5.6 This elder has been variously, but inconclusively, identified as Polycarp, Melito of Sardis, and

Pothinus, Irenaeus’ predecessor as bishop of Lyons; see Unger and Dillon 1992: 214; Forster 1999:20–1.



rhetorical strategies, embodied and textualized, employed by early Chris-tians to construct themselves and others as authoritative exemplars of right(or wrong) belief and practice.

The best candidates for exemplarity, as Polycrates’ list indicates, arethe sorts of expert Christians we considered in Chapter 3: apostles, bish-ops, martyrs, prophets, ascetic virtuosos. These categories converge in thesupremely authorizing Polycarp, remembered by his church as an out-standing martyr (�=�� 15�2��, Mart. Pol. 19.1) and “the apostolic andprophetic teacher of our time, bishop of the catholic church in Smyrna”(16.2).7 We have tracked the ascent of bishops as a kind of insider’s insiderto whose judgment lay Christians were increasingly expected to defer. Asfor martyrs, prophets, and ascetics, the presence of such spiritual heroes inits midst gave a group a claim to privileged communion with the divinethat rivals could find difficult to refute. Adherents of the New Prophecyseem to have been especially quick to defend their views by pointing to themartyrs (Eus. Hist. eccl. 5.16.20) and prophets (Tert. Marc. 5.8.12, 15.5–6)they produced. We have seen, too, that charismatic gifts could be repre-sented as a kind of self-authenticating expertise, enabling individuals toact as guarantors of the truth of their own teachings in a way that evenordained ministry did not always ensure.

Not all such figures could be usefully placed in the scales of partisandebate, however: they had to be remembered, and remembered correctly.When Montanists touted the charismatics in their midst, their adversariesretaliated by alleging that Montanist martyrs were false martyrs (Anony-mous ap. Eus. Hist. eccl. 5.16.12–15, 20–2), their prophets demon-possessedfrauds (Anon. ap. Eus. Hist. eccl. 5.16.8, 16–17; cf. Tert. Pud. 21.8). In theend, the anti-Montanist narrative won out, although without challengingthe value of proximity to prophets and martyrs as such. Of the authori-ties cited by Polycrates, some, like Polycarp and John, retain their name-recognition, but others – Thraseas, Sagaris, Papirius, his seven episcopalrelatives – are otherwise virtually or completely unattested. One wondershow much traction their names had outside Asia Minor even in Polycrates’day.

The second-century prophets, martyrs, teachers, and bishops whoachieved lasting fame and authorizing power owe their survival as heroesof Christian history in no small measure to their preservation in texts:Ignatius’ correspondence; Polycarp’s Letter to the Philippians and martyr

7 8 �>� ��’ �� 2�4 �� =�� 4� �� 4� �� 4�� , 87�� 8 F�� . �� 8��7��.



act; Perpetua’s prison autobiography.8 These works belong to a larger pat-tern by which a sense of belonging to a unified ecumenical communitywas projected and cultivated in text. Letters and minutes from meetingsfly back and forth in the pages of Eusebius, weaving a picture not only of“orthodox” consensus, but of an “orthodox” coalition of participants in theepistolary circle.9 These three, further, were transformed in memory intoguarantors of the orthodoxy of others. Ignatius supports Polycarp (Ign.Eph. 21.1; pol. Phil. 9, 13) and Irenaeus, who quotes Ignatius as “one of ourpeople” (�� ! , Haer. 5.28.4). Polycarp in turn underwritesPolycrates, Irenaeus, and the entire church of Smyrna, which incorporatedthe anniversary of his death into its liturgical calendar (Mart. Pol. 18.3) andcirculated an account of his martyrdom (Mart. Pol. pr., 20, 22.2). Perpetua’svisions are cited by Tertullian (An. 55.5). In short, their claims to authoritysucceed to the extent that others hear, accept, and repeat them, especially inwriting. Conversely, the entire Montanist movement was sidelined alongwith the discredited martyrs and prophets it chose as sources of validation;they, too, become canonical figures of a sort, but not in the way their advo-cates intended. That marginalization did not take place all at once, butonly gradually, as hostile stories were repeated more often and with morecredence than the laudatory Montanist accounts. When we watch the fash-ioning of individuals as landmarks of the community (whether central ormarginal), we are always seeing double: both the immediate performancesof authority, approval, affiliation, or animosity, and the stories told aboutthem afterward. Gossip shapes the Christian community’s understandingof itself, as it does for the sophistic movement.

Exemplary individuals, then, are those whom the community remem-bers as exemplary; control of memory requires control of discourse. LikePhilostratus, the heresiologists are deeply invested in the history they relate,which is carefully sculpted to confirm their view of how the strugglebetween true and false belief was always destined to resolve itself. Theyrecount stories that showcase certain individuals as either stalwart guardiansof “orthodoxy” or embodiments of “heresy,” much as Philostratus corrob-orates his rhetorical canon by recording his subjects’ judgments of each

8 On the intersection of textuality, memory, and martyrdom in the shaping of Christian identity, seefurther J. Perkins 1995: 104–23; Boyarin 1999; Lieu 2002: 211–31 and 2004: 27–61; Castelli 2004.

9 As Trevett 2006b: 328 observes, “Christians’ texts were rhetorical implements of power, creatingtruth, cementing or refining relationships between individuals and churches, providing weaponryfor one fray or another . . . What survives is the correspondence of like with like: Ignatius withPolycarp; Polycarp with a Macedonian church seething about malpractice and erroneous teaching;lost to history are the texts addressed by those later marginalized as ‘heretics’ to each other or tothose remembered as ‘orthodox.’”



other, which confirm their good taste – and his. Anicetus’ warm receptionof Polycarp enhances the reputations of both, and locates them on the same“side,” in a coalition that includes Polycarp’s mentors John and Ignatius, hisstudent Irenaeus, and all of Anicetus’ episcopal predecessors and successors(Ir. ap. Eus. Hist. eccl. 5.24.14–17). Likewise, the story of Polycarp’s crush-ing rejection of Marcion provides crucial support for Irenaeus’ authorityas a heresiologist, which is grounded in part in his personal acquaintancewith an authoritative opponent of heresy; it justifies, too, Irenaeus’ call forthe segregation of “orthodoxy” from “heresy,” against those who drew thesocial boundaries less starkly (Haer. 3.3.4).10 That story is a doublet of onein which the apostle John refuses to bathe in the same bathhouse as the“heretic” Cerinthus, which Irenaeus claims to have heard from Polycarphimself (Haer. 3.3.4). If so, then Polycarp may have used this story abouthis hero John much as Irenaeus uses the anecdote about him, to establishthe impeccable anti-heretical credentials of the person who was the sourceof his own badge of orthodoxy.

Tales of this kind accumulated around Marcion – that is, they wereremembered or invented in unusual abundance. In later sources he isrejected or excommunicated four or five more times: in Sinope by hisown father, a bishop; in Asia Minor by John (and/or his supposed disciplePapias) and the presbyters of Ephesus; in Rome by presbyters and teachersthere.11 The popularity of scenes of this type is not difficult to explain: afterSimon Magus, whose rebuke by Peter (Acts 8:9–24) became the modelfor future encounters between true and false belief, Marcion occupied aspecial place in the annals of “heresy.” He is the first leader of a separatistChristian faction known to us by name, the chief target of the earliestknown heresiology, and a biographical and theological template for enemiesof “orthodoxy” in the early heresiological tradition.12 Definitively refutinghim was thus a task of high importance. Theological arguments could be,and were, brought to bear against his views, just as sophists could and didassess each other’s technical merits, but gossip about his repudiation bypersons of incontrovertible authority was an indispensable component ofthe campaign against him. By means of these stories, Marcion became not

10 Hoffmann 1984: 38.11 The sources are collected in Harnack 1960 [1924] ii: 11–14, 23–8. Moll 2008 refutes the common

view that these sources represent a single tradition derived from Hippolytus’ Syntagma and showsthat they preserve no reliable biographical information, apart from the debate at Rome.

12 Marcion as the target of Justin’s Syntagma: Harnack 1960 [1924] II: 18–19; Ludemann 1979: 87–8.This view rests on identifying Justin’s “collection (�� ) of all heresies” with his Syntagmaagainst Marcion (quoted by Irenaeus, Haer. 4.6.2; 5.26.2). Marcion as template: Ludemann 1979:94; Hoffmann 1984: 41–2; Deakle 2002: 179.



simply a person with wrong beliefs, but a prototype of the wrong way tobe Christian; in the future, anyone connected to or resembling him couldbe instantly recognized as a heretic. Such anecdotes also demonstrated theunwavering, unified “orthodoxy” of early church leaders (and hence theearly church), who unanimously rejected Marcion.

In our texts we usually see this strategy employed retrospectively, onbehalf of someone else. In Hippolytus’ Refutation of All Heresies, however,we watch a Christian controversialist in the act of crafting his own image.In this work Hippolytus is remarkably uninterested in his subjects’ dealingswith representatives of “orthodoxy” – unless that representative is himself.In contrast to Irenaeus, who leans heavily on his link to Polycarp, Hip-polytus’ heresiological credentials depend primarily on his own career asa “tried and true protector of the church, not blinking an eye or keepingsilent about the truth, but working untiringly with my whole soul and body,trying to repay God my benefactor fittingly” (1 pr.6).13 He advertises thisimage of himself throughout the ninth book of the Refutation, in a seriesof tangles with the fiendish Callistus and his puppet Zephyrinus. Wherethey collude with the monarchian teachers Epigonus and Cleomenes, Hip-polytus opposes them from the start and works unremittingly to bringtheir supporters in the church around to the correct (i.e. his) view. In onememorable public clash, he faces down Callistus, even when everyone elseis taken in: “Knowing his ideas, I did not go along <with him, but> vigor-ously refuting and taking a stand against <him, I fought with him> aboutthe truth. And he, yielding to madness because everyone except me wentalong with his hypocrisy, denounced me as a ditheist” (9.11.3, cf. 12.16).14

It was the personal intervention of Hippolytus, too, that mitigated thedamage done at Rome by the Elchasite missionary Alcibiades of Apamea,for whose teachings Callistus had set the stage (9.13.5).15

In the almost monotonously repetitive vocabulary of these three passages(� ��7��, [��]��2!, �: ��2!��!), Hippolytus’ public personasprings clearly into view. One can easily imagine his unquiet presence inthe Roman churches in the early decades of the third century, ever vigilant

13 �� 8��7�� , �:� Q�� =K�� :� �4�� Q�� !�� ,��’ �:� D�2P. �� 9�� 8��K4�� =� �� N5�� 57!� �� :��. � ��4 ��9�� . In the next three paragraphs, references otherwise unspecified are to the Refutation.

14 �I � �-�� 4 �� >� �: �� 2!��&�� <�:�, �� s��2� �� =L�� <�� :� � ��! �K4��> � � �� 7��. \� <� > �#� �4 �� 2!�� = �� :�& P. ��7�� 2�� , �� n, ��=�� .

15 “But I, taking a stand against this man, too, did not allow many to be led astray for long” (�� >� � ��= �� :� �#=�� 8� ��0 �� ). The Elchasites werea Jewish-Christian baptismal sect; for Hippolytus, their chief error consists in proclamation of asecond baptism for the remission of sins.



for “heretics” in the fold and taking every opportunity to set himselfagainst them. Public debates like these plainly played a crucial part inHippolytus’ self-presentation as the lone standard-bearer for “orthodoxy”in the embattled Roman church; his authority to draw the line between trueand false belief rests on his past track record. Accounts of such incidentsoccupy a correspondingly prominent place in his text. Crystalizing theseencounters in writing provides both a crushing blow against contemporarydissenters and further corroboration of Hippolytus’ own anti-hereticalqualifications. Further, Hippolytus (as tireless scholar) is almost as much acharacter in the first eight books of the Refutation as he is in the ninth.16

These books can be read as a literary simulation of the public tangles onwhich he based his reputation; the purpose of those literary refutations isas much (or more) to establish his credentials as it is to debunk “gnosis.”17

Complementing Hippolytus’ legitimizing self-portrait as a locus oforthodoxy is a polemic picture of his archenemy Callistus as a nexusof heterodoxy. As Hippolytus tells it, Callistus was implicated in all theheresies that Hippolytus so steadfastly resisted. Working through his allyZephyrinus, Callistus was an early supporter (�� 29��, �� 7��) ofmonarchian theologians; as a result, even though Zephyrinus and Callistuseventually withdrew their support, the “school” of the monarchian Noetusat Rome had survived to the time of writing (9.7.2–3; 10.27.1). Callis-tus embroiled the greedy idiotes Zephyrinus in doctrinal error, persuadinghim to issue ambiguous, incorrect christological statements that only Hip-polytus understood (9.11.1–3). He first encouraged and then betrayed themonarchian teacher Sabellius, while all but plagiarizing Sabellius’ doc-trines (9.11.2, 12.15–19). And although Hippolytus can allege no specificlink between Callistus and Alcibiades, he insists that the former’s lax pen-itential policies (9.12.20–6) paved the way for the latter’s proclamation ofremission of sins for anyone who believed in the book of Elchasai and was(re)baptized: Alcibiades was like a wolf among wandering sheep, but it wasCallistus who led the flock astray in the first place (9.13.4–5).18 Hippolytus

16 E.g. 1 pr.5, 10; 4.34.3–4; 5.17.1; 6.42.1–2; 8.11.1. On this aspect of Hippolytus’ persona, see Koschorke1975: 29–32; Osborne 1987: 190.

17 Koschorke 1975: 55–92 argues persuasively that Hippolytus has little independent knowledge of orinterest in “gnosticism,” except as it sets the stage for his attack on Callistus and demonstrates his ownheresiological acumen; cf. Hamel 1951: 116. Vallee 1981: 45–7 unconvincingly disputes identificationof Callistus as the chief opponent of Ref. but agrees (62) that Hippolytus attacks “classical” errorsin order to paint “heresy” as a single cumulative tradition. For the same technique in Byzantineheresiology, see Vallee 1981: 70; Cameron 2005: 198–9.

18 “But he dared to invent these villainies, taking his impetus from the aforementioned dogma institutedby Callistus. For perceiving that many people were pleased by that sort of gospel, he thought that



appears to have little interest in the Elchasites themselves; his assault onthem here is merely a skirmish in his ongoing war against Callistus.19

Of the early heresiologists, Hippolytus is thus perhaps the one closest inspirit and method to his younger contemporary Philostratus; it is tantalizingto picture these two passing each other on the streets of early third-centuryRome.20 Both depict a period of vibrant activity and self-definitional dis-putes that, from their perspective, lies largely in the past; both, however,treat those disputes as still ongoing and themselves as actively participatingin them, especially through their literary activity. Both thus craft a visionof the past that is designed to validate their own position in the present:Philostratus as the academic descendant (and defender) of the great sophistsof the golden age of oratory, Hippolytus as the spokesman of “orthodoxy”against an eternal coalition of “heretics,” headed (or embodied) in his ownday by his enemy Callistus.

The stories about clashes between exemplars of “orthodoxy” and “heresy”in which Hippolytus and his fellow heresiologists delight thus play anauthorizing role that recalls Philostratus’ exploitation of sophistic gossip.Like Philostratus, they are rehearsing in text a key feature of the face-to-face discourse of identity formation. Their anecdotes surely belonged toa lively (and much larger) oral tradition; like Philostratus’ sources, mostChristian controversialists must have had their own fund of stories onwhich they could draw in polemic situations. Here too, textualizationconferred considerable advantages, offering the chance not only to mapthe web of interactions but to assert decisive control over which would beremembered, and how. Carefully culled, polished through repetition, andgranting their heroes the last word in perpetuity, the stories preserved bythe heresiologists seize the opportunity to set the record straight. In theirtexts, “orthodoxy” always wins.

Reality was not so tidy: public debates over doctrine and practice, thereal-life models for these stories, seem rarely to have satisfied their partic-ipants. Irenaeus, who claims to have met and interrogated Valentinians at

it was an opportune time to make a similar attempt . . . [But I showed that] he was like a wolfroused against many wandering sheep, whom Callistus had led astray and scattered” (�&� � 84�� 2 =�� -�� & �� 4�� < ��%9 , �I��-�� _=��. �� -�� 0� 8� <P.> ��. 8��7��:��7�!� 8 4�� <12�� H��> 8�2��> . . . �&� �� 7�� 8�� <�� s �� !�� %=�� >�, <G> �� 4�� ( _=��).

19 Koschorke 1975: 74–5; Luttikhuizen 1982.20 Hippolytus presents himself as active in the Roman church from the 180s into the 220s, while

Philostratus’ career in Rome must belong to the years c. 203–7 (Bowie 2009: 20).



length (Haer. 1 pr.2; 2.15.3, 17.9), plainly found the experience exasperat-ing. He complains that Valentinians are slippery as snakes (more serpentiumlubricos, Haer. 3.2.3), and that they continually shift the terms of debate,so that decisive victory is impossible.21 It seems clear that Hippolytus faredno better in his clashes with Callistus, despite his efforts to spin thoseepisodes as victories for himself. Tertullian famously concludes that publicdebate about scripture does not work to strengthen the wavering: sincethey see both sides placed on the same footing (aequo gradu), making thesame accusations, they go away more uncertain than ever about which iscorrect (Praescr. 18–19). Such ambivalent contests are not the ones theseheresiologists recount, though, or else they cease to be ambivalent in thetelling: whatever the historical outcome of Hippolytus’ showdown withCallistus, in his own text he has the last word. As memorialized in heresiol-ogy, debates between representatives of “orthodoxy” and “heresy” reliablyend with right triumphant and “heresy” in ignominious retreat.

Gossip about run-ins between Christian celebrities thus depends on, butalso confirms, the status of both participants as fixed markers of acceptableor unacceptable Christianity. Such authority did not flow automaticallyfrom institutional office or charismatic gifts but had to be discursivelyproduced. The stories Christian authors tell about encounters betweenprototypical embodiments of truth and error reinforce the emblematicstatus of those individuals, while drawing lines of affiliation (and presumedaffinity) among the representatives of “orthodoxy” and marking cleavagesbetween “orthodoxy” and “heresy.”

Into the webs of association thus created we may fit the heresiologiststhemselves, each of whom underscores his personal ties to the great fig-ures he memorializes, although each one takes a different tack. Irenaeusspotlights his youthful association with Polycarp and apparently eyewitnessrecollections of an anonymous elder or elders with apostolic connections.22

Clement recalls the geographically and intellectually wide-ranging searchfor knowledge that brought him to his mentor, Pantaenus, the “Sicilianhoney bee, culling the flowers of the prophetic and apostolic meadow,”

21 Refute them from scripture, and they insist that scripture cannot be understood without oral(apostolic) tradition; cite apostolic tradition, and they respond that they are wiser than the apostlesand the presbyters who preserve their traditions (Haer. 3.2.1–2; cf. 5.20.2); question or contradictthem, and they refuse to reply on the ground that you are incapable of comprehending the truth(3.15.2). Clement (Strom. 7.17.96–7) registers similar complaints.

22 “I have heard from a certain elder, who had heard it from those who had seen the apostles and fromthose who had taught it” (audivi a quodam presbytero, qui audierat ab his qui Apostolos viderant, etab his qui didicerant. Haer. 4.27.1). That passage ends by describing the source of this tradition asan “elder disciple of the apostles” (senior apostolorum discipulus, 4.32.1; cf. 1.15.6; 2.22.5), who mayor may not be Polycarp.


Reading affinity from affiliation 161

whose teaching distilled “the tradition directly from Peter, James, John,and Paul the holy apostles” (Strom. 1.1.11.2).23 Apparently lacking such adistinguished pedigree, Tertullian cites prophets active in his community(An. 9.4, 55.5; cf. Marc. 5.8.12, 15.5–6) and highlights his textual affilia-tions, carefully footnoting the luminaries whose work undergirds his own:Justin, Miltiades, Irenaeus, “our” Proculus, the New Prophet Prisca (Val.5.1; Res. 11.2). Hippolytus’ credentials are established by his hostile rela-tionships with local “heretics.” For all but Clement, these short-distancenetworks mesh with a more comprehensive framework that organizes theentire history of “orthodoxy” and “heresy into opposed genealogies.24 Theresult is to map “orthodox” Christianity as a single, cohesive, trans-localand trans-historical coalition, unmarred by dissent or error. If persuasive,each construction of the Christian community, much like the PhilostrateanSecond Sophistic, redounds as well to the credit of its author, who locateshimself firmly within its borders and positions himself as the mouthpieceof its unanimous self-understanding.

reading affinity from affiliation

Onto these maps could be plotted not only their chief landmarks, but allinhabitants of the Christian landscape, in the absence of, or even contra-dicting, further evidence. The views of students are inferred from those oftheir teachers (and vice versa), anonymous congregants assimilated to theirmore visible leaders. As in the Lives of the Sophists, where pedagogical andgeographical alignments converge, in Christian discourse church networksprovide a matrix in which the identity of individual believers is forged. Inthe Easter Controversy, not only individuals but entire local and regionalchurches are authorized by their ancestry. Geographical proximity, kinship,and institutional succession cohere to support a presumption of continu-ity and consensus, both between each community and its apostolic-agefounder, and among present-day members. This presumption underpinsthe promotion of apostolic churches as touchstones of “orthodox” apostolic

23 F��< � C � ; �� & � �� & �� N �� 4L�� . . . �f � < �� 7�� K� �� 7�� =�� :�0� �� A�� +^��9%�� A�� "�7! ��4�! . . . b�� < �0 �� #� ��.

24 Clement has little interest in either episcopal successions or genealogies of “heresy”; for him, it issufficient to demonstrate that modern “heresies” are post-apostolic, and hence cannot representapostolic teaching (Strom. 7.17.106–7). As Buell 1999 shows, though, he does make use of a richrepertoire of genealogical imagery to naturalize the lines he draws between “orthodoxy” and “heresy.”



tradition in the late second century.25 Tertullian both exploits this reason-ing and reverses it, capitalizing on the presumed mutuality of affinity andaffiliation: for him, apostolic churches are not only those founded by anapostle but also those in harmony with apostles (in eadem fide conspirantes,Praescr. 32.5–6); agreement is the necessary and sufficient criterion of apos-tolicity. That members of apostolic churches automatically accorded witheach other or their apostolic forebears was of course untrue, as Tertullianknew perfectly well: his own church, like the apostolic churches at Romeand elsewhere, was riven by dissent, in which he himself played no smallpart. Nonetheless, the equation of city and citizen – or in this case, a city’schurch and its constituents – was a piece of ancient common sense beyondthe need for logical justification. So was the expectation that membersof the same network would resemble each other, paralleled in the sophis-tic habit of assessing colleagues in terms of their teachers, students, andadmirers.

A corollary for the historian is that much of what early Christian polemi-cists tell us about the views and practices of their adversaries, and even allies,is not based on first-hand knowledge but deduced from their associations.It could hardly be otherwise. Without direct personal experience, our eval-uations of others naturally rely more heavily on “their participation incollective identifications,” such as gender, class, occupation, or, in thiscase, congregational affiliation.26 Still, it is useful to bear in mind how littlewe actually know about the views of specific early Christians, especiallythe quiet majority of ordinary believers, or what attracted them to onegroup or form of Christianity as opposed to any other.27 When Irenaeussays that certain women fell in with a Marcosian cell and were deceived(85��-��, Haer. 1.13.7), what changes of belief or behavior did their“deception” entail, if any? We should not assume that the features thesewomen found attractive or salient were the same ones that caught Irenaeus’attention. Irenaeus himself may have known no more about their commit-ments than he tells us; as far as he is concerned, their apostasy lies in theirsocial behavior.

Likewise, Hippolytus writes off the entire congregation of Callistus asa school (��>� ) whose members should be called “Callistians,”not Christians (Ref. 9.12.24–6). We cannot know, though, how muchthey understood, or cared, about the ethical and trinitarian questions

25 Ir. Haer. 3.4.1; Tert. Praescr. 20–1, 32, 36, Marc. 4.5.1–5.26 Jenkins 1996: 116. 27 Eshleman 2011.


Reading affinity from affiliation 163

that divided Callistus and Hippolytus.28 Not much, one suspects, givenCallistus’ success in persuading monarchians and “right-thinking” trini-tarians (�>� << > ��-�� &��) that they were substantially inagreement (� H�� > ) (9.11.2); Hippolytus implies that only hesaw through this argument (9.11.3).29 Distinguishing between Callistus andhis congregants is of no interest to Hippolytus, however: condemning andbreaking off communion with one applies to all. Nor is he concernedwith the ethics of individual members; their corporate willingness to sharecommunion with possible sinners places them all beyond the pale of thechurch (9.12.26).

We must be very cautious, then, about relying on heresiology to reveal thesociological or ideological contours of early Christian “heresy.” Tertullian’sAgainst the Valentinians suggests how tendentiously the beliefs of particular“heretics” could be read from their socio-religious affiliations. Faced withthe problem that reputed Valentinians neither call themselves Valentiniansnor conform to the Irenaean profile, Tertullian worries that he will beaccused of putting words in their mouth (dicemur ipsi nobis finxisse materias)(Val. 4–5.1).30 He insists, however, that it is right to label them Valentinians,“even though they do not seem to be, for they have distanced themselvesfrom their founder, but their origin is hardly erased, even if it is perhapschanged; the change itself is a testimony” (4.1).31 Accordingly, he discountsboth their public affirmations of “common faith” (1.4) and, it seems,their own account of their history, substituting the teachings and lineagereported by Irenaeus. The personal connections ascribed to these believersdefine their doctrinal position as far as Tertullian is concerned, even iftheir words seem to contradict the evidence of their alleged genealogy.The truth of the Irenaean account, too, is confirmed by its pedigree.Although Tertullian’s own research has failed to replicate Irenaeus’ results,those results come supported by the indisputable witness of “so manymen noted for holiness and distinction, not only our predecessors, but thecontemporaries of the heresiarchs themselves . . . such as Justin, philosopherand martyr, Miltiades, the sophist of the churches, Irenaeus, the mostcareful investigator of all doctrines, and our Proculus, outstanding example

28 For a later period, Sandwell 2007: 185–212 argues against overestimating the social and ideologicalcohesion of Christians in fourth-century Antioch, even those who attended the same congregations.

29 Similarly, Irenaeus presumes that many people involved with Valentinians are only superficiallyfamiliar with their teachings and would recoil in horror if they saw those doctrines for what theyreally are (Haer. 1.31.3–4; 3.23.8).

30 On this passage, see Koschorke 1978: 206–7, 247–8; Markschies 1992: 304–11.31 scimus cur Valentinianos appellemus, licet non esse videantur. abscesserunt enim a conditore, sed minime

origo deletur, et si forte mutatur: testatio est ipsa mutatio.



of chaste old age and Christian eloquence” (5.1).32 Behind this screenof footnotes, the actual profile of the “Valentinians” under discussiondisappears from view.

Moreover, it has increasingly been recognized that Irenaeus’ own accountrelies heavily on imputed genealogies to flesh out a system that, on its face,did not appear sufficiently “heretical.” His deductive reasoning reachesboth forward and backward. On the one hand, he asserts that the hiddenfoundation of Valentinian theology is a cosmogonic myth like the oneexpounded in the Apocryphon of John (Haer. 1.29; cf. 1.11.1), a claim cor-roborated by Valentinus’ damning (if vaguely imagined) gnostic ancestry(Haer. 1.22.2, 30.15; 2.13.10); on the other, he projects back onto Valenti-nus all the subsequent developments of his ideas by his students.33 Thisargument proved brilliantly successful: nearly all subsequent heresiologicalaccounts of Valentinus and his followers depend on Irenaeus, and his claimthat Valentinus had ties to Sethian gnosis of the sort represented by theApocryphon of John long governed scholarly reconstruction and interpreta-tion of Valentinian thought and “Gnosticism” in general; indeed, this viewcontinues to flourish despite mounting challenges. It is a notorious prob-lem that the extant fragments of Valentinus and some of the texts usuallyplaced in his orbit, such as the Gospel of Truth and Ptolemy’s Letter to Flora,do not sound very “Valentinian.”34 So powerful is the Irenaean framework,however, that scholars have often followed Tertullian’s lead, struggling toreconcile their own readings with the complex myths recorded by Irenaeus.Only relatively recently have they begun to question whether these contra-dictions should be smoothed away, and to challenge the Irenaean modelinstead.

As polemic tools, then, heresiological maps of Christianity possessedconsiderable power, not only explanatory but also predictive. In these

32 tot iam viri sanctitate et praestantia insignes, nec solum nostri antecessores sed ipsorum haeresiarcharumcontemporales . . . ut Iustinus, philosophus et martyr, ut Miltiades, ecclesiarum sophista, ut Irenaeus,omnium doctrinarum curiosissimus explorator, ut Proculus noster, virginis senectae et Christianae elo-quentiae dignitas.

33 Markschies 1992. In their recent monographs, Thomassen 2006 and Dunderberg 2008 argue forthe intellectual coherence of Valentinianism and the validity of interpreting Valentinus through thelens of other Valentinian and/or gnostic sources, but both largely follow Markschies in trying tounderstand Valentinianism outside the frame of “Gnosticism”.

34 This can mean that they do not sound “gnostic,” that they do not match the Irenaean accounts,and/or that they do not resemble other works classified as Valentinian. As Kaler and Bussieres 2006observe apropos of Heracleon, another “hard case,” much depends on how we define “Valentini-anism,” and whether our definition privileges academic filiation (as Tertullian and Clement do) ordoctrinal likeness (as in Origen). For recent review of scholarship, see Dunderberg 2008: 14–20. Onthe “Valentinian” character of Flora, see Lohr 1995; Markschies 2000. Thomassen 2006: 119–29 isless skeptical but speculates that it is an early work.


Discounting dissenters 165

works, social ties, real and invented, provide a basis for filling in the gapsof, or even contravening, ambiguous or refractory evidence. The inferen-tial process could run both ways: affinities of thought and behavior arededuced from (alleged) affiliations, affiliations inferred from (apparent)similarities. This procedure, which might look like methodological weak-ness, could instead be read as strength. It casts the polemicist as an author-itative expert, whose penetrating understanding of “heretical” thought andpractice, founded on his superior historical knowledge, can trump even theself-understanding of his subjects, who may be unaware of the (alleged) ori-gins of their (purported) doctrines or what they “really” mean. Tertullian’sflat contradiction of his “Valentinian” opponents is unusually forthright,but not unique. Hippolytus takes the same tone when he asserts that hisgenealogical research proves that the current leaders of the Noetian “heresy”at Rome are propounding as Christian the doctrines of the pre-Socraticphilosopher Heraclitus although they do not know it (Ref. 9.8.1).35 Faced withsuch magisterial scholarly proclamations, the reader can only agree, or, likeSceptus of Corinth, risk slandering herself as an illiterate judge (Philostr.VS 573) – as a “heretic” herself, or as one of those hapless simpliciores whocannot spot the obvious differences between truth and error.

discounting dissenters: heresiologists as the voiceof insider consensus

If readers risk exposing themselves as incompetent to judge Christianidentity, “heretics” have a fortiori disqualified themselves from that conver-sation. The dictum that it is pointless to dispute scripture with “heretics”(Tert. Praescr. 16–19) invokes a strategy familiar from the sophistic arena.This strategy seeks to control not only the content of discourse but also thepool of eligible participants by figuring dissidents as outsiders who are ipsofacto barred from joining in debate over the community’s contours. Heretoo, the self-fashioning of the heresiologist is at issue, as both authoritativeexpert and conduit of insider consensus. By definition, he stands in thethick of internal debates in which participation is notionally limited toapproved insiders and calibrated according to one’s competence. Whereasthe deviant views and/or affiliations of “heretics” betray their outsider sta-tus, the heresiologist’s position as a consummate insider is confirmed byhis flawless grasp of and alignment with the unanimous consensus of the

35 �:� M�� C � �& �� &, ��7K� � �� )��&.



one true church, which he undertakes to articulate for the reader. In con-trast with idiotai, who too readily mistake error for truth, the heresiologistpresents himself as a supremely knowledgeable expert, whose penetratingvision and magisterial command of even hidden facts makes his accountthe definitive insider’s map of the Christian terrain.

This tactic is espoused most nakedly in Tertullian’s Prescription, whosecentral thrust is to ban “heretics” a priori from entering into exegeticaldiscussion, on the ground that “they have nothing to do with the scriptures;for if they are heretics, then they cannot be Christians, since they do nothave from Christ that (teaching) which they follow by their own choiceand accept as heretics” (Praescr. 37.1–2).36 Crystallized in this formulais the fundamental heresiological premise that “heretics” are exposed bytheir opinions, practices, and/or associations as being something otherthan Christian. Either their unacceptable deviation has removed them(spiritually, if not yet in fact) from the community or it reveals that theyare interlopers masquerading as insiders. Effecting a social breach with suchpeople thus merely externalizes inner reality. As the author of 1 John putsit, “they went out from us but were not of us, for if they had been of us theywould have remained with us” (1 John 2:19).37 Manifestly, then, “they” canmake no contribution to determining “our” identity.

How such rhetoric fed into, and was fed by, congregational mechanismsof exclusion can be seen in the experience of the unhappy Valentinians who,Irenaeus reports, “complain about us because, although their beliefs aresimilar to ours, we abstain from communion with them for no reason, andalthough they say the same things and have the same doctrine (as us), we callthem heretics” (Haer. 3.15.2).38 As far as these believers are concerned, theyexhibit all the necessary taxonomic indicators of authentic Christianity,so that there is no reason to bar them from communion. For Irenaeus,who insists on a different set of criteria, the Valentinians’ exclusion provesthat they are out of step with Christian consensus, not only in doctrinebut also in their understanding of what the criteria of authenticity are.Characteristically, Tertullian puts it even more bluntly: “Heretics have no

36 constat ratio propositi nostri definientis non esse admittendos haereticos ad ineundam de scripturisprovocationem quos sine scripturis probamus ad scripturas non pertinere. si enim haeretici sunt, christianinon esse possunt, non a Christo habendo quod de sua electione sectati haereticorum nomine admittunt.

37 85 �� 85�� , ��’ �:� ;�� 85 �� : �# �� 85 �� ;�� , �� -�� [ ��’ �� :��’ � � �� !�� H� �:� �#�� = �� 85 �� . On this theme, see King 2003: 33; Lieu2004: 137–9. Campenhausen 1969: 214 collects references in the apologists to the idea that sinners,understood as apostates, either no longer are or never were Christians.

38 qui etiam queruntur de nobis quod, cum similia nobiscum sentiant, sine causa abstineamus nos acommunicatione eorum, et cum eadem dicant et eandem habeant doctrinam, vocemus illos haereticos.


Discounting dissenters 167

share in our discipline, since they are outsiders, as is attested by their veryremoval from communion” (Bapt. 15.2).39 Obviously, then, their notion ofwhere Christian consensus does or should lie is irrelevant. The partisans ofValentinus and other “heretics” thus find themselves in the same doublebind as the fans of Varus of Laodicea, who cannot vote to have their heroadmitted to the (Philostratean) sophists’ hall of fame because their supportfor him disenfranchises them. At the same time, just as the epigraphicrecord bears witness to the successful careers of sophists who escape thenotice of Philostratus, Irenaeus and Tertullian cannot conceal the realitythat participation in self-definitional debates was not limited to thosewhom they found acceptable. Only rhetorically and retroactively, in thewritings of the heresiologists, could dissenters be decisively denied a place atthe negotiating table; in second-century churches the question was whichChristians had the right to enter into debate as insiders.

There is an obvious difficulty here, since, by definition, “heretics” arenot outsiders but inhabit the (sometimes distressingly populous) no-man’sland between inside and outside.40 “Heresy” is troubling not because itdiffers from the truth but because it too closely resembles and, indeed,purports to be truth.41 Drawing on postcolonial theory, Daniel Boyarinand Virginia Burrus describe the “heretic” as both an unsettling mimic ofthe “orthodox” self and a hybrid figure who stands at the border betweenself and other, simultaneously holding “otherness” at bay and bringing itvertiginously close.42 Early Christian polemicists recognize that “heretics”occupy a gray zone between inside and outside. Outsiders are often sortedinto three classes: those who neither believe in the Father and the Sonnor know the scriptures (pagans), those who know the scriptures but donot believe in the Son (Jews), and those who claim to believe (dicuntse credere) in both Father and Son but do not properly study or obeyscripture (“heretics”) (Ir. Haer. 5.8.2; cf. Clem.Al. Strom. 7.18.109.1–110.1).

39 haeretici autem nullum habent consortium nostrae disciplinae, quos extraneos utique testatur ipsaademptio communicationis. Conversely, the truth of Tertullian’s own “rule of faith” is guaranteedby the fact that he (that is, his local church) is in communion, and hence doctrinal agreement,with apostolic churches: communicamus cum ecclesiis apostolicis quod nulla doctrina diversa: hoc esttestimonium veritatis (Praescr. 21.7).

40 This image comes from Lieu 2004: 141. Wilson 1995: 203 describes heretics as “wayward members ofthe community, but members nonetheless;” Kurz 1983: 1087 notes that in Catholic understanding,“a heretic is a baptized, professing Catholic; no unbaptized person, and not even a non-CatholicChristian . . . is guilty of ‘formal heresy’ . . . The heretic is, furthermore, differentiated from theschismatic or infidel, who is outside the church.”

41 As J. Z. Smith (2004: 275) puts it, the other is “most problematic when he is too-much-like-us,or when he claims to be-us.”

42 Boyarin and Burrus 2005; cf. Lyman 2003a, 2003b.



This classification acknowledges a basic dichotomy between pagans, whoare totally other, and Jews and “heretics,” who exhibit an important markerof Christian identity but do not quite qualify. Similar divisions appear inauthors whom Irenaeus and Clement would have placed on the far sideof the boundary. For example, the author of the Testimony of Truth –perhaps an Alexandrian contemporary of Clement – splits humanity into“the generation of the Son of Man” (true Christians) and “the generationof Adam” (all others) (49.6, 60.5–6, 67.7–10, 68.10), but within the lattergroup other Christians and Jews are clearly of special interest.43

This ambivalence about the propinquity of “heresy” to “orthodoxy” runsparallel with hesitations about whether, and to what extent, social divisionscould or should be imposed between dissenters and true Christians (Chap-ter 1). Once again we must be sensitive not only to the gap between rhetoricand reality – that is, between idealizing assertions of unanimity and thepersistence of plurality – but also to the multiple rhetorical stances avail-able within the discourse of orthodoxy, sometimes employed by the samewriters. Both Irenaeus and Clement hold out the possibility that “heretics”might yet repent and return to the church, while simultaneously insistingthat they are radically, even genetically, foreign to it.44 For his part, Ter-tullian both denies “heretics” the right to use scripture on the ground thatthey are not Christians (Praescr. 37.1) and refuses to let them draw on Greekphilosophy on the ground that they are not pagans either (Res. 3.3).45 Inthe language of deviance theory, Tertullian regards his rivals as somethingbetween dissidents and defectors.46 He concedes that they stand in a closerrelation to Christianity than pagans do, but he is less willing than Irenaeusor Clement to allow that they are in any sense Christian or recoverable bythe church. Tertullian thus bears witness (and contributes) to a subtle butvital shift occurring in the late second and early third century, as dissentis increasingly equated with defection. Hippolytus’ attempt to prove that“heretics” have never had any connection to Christianity at all but derivetheir ideas entirely from pagan sources represents a culmination of this

43 Provenance: Pearson in CGL 5.117–20. More precisely, the author polemically equates Christianswho take too high a view of Jewish scripture with Jews, since “there has taken hold of them [the] oldleaven of the Pharisees and the scribes [of] the Law” (Testim. Truth 29.12–15; cf. Ign. Magn. 10.2–3).For similar distinctions in the works of other marginalized authors, see Koschorke 1978: 116 n. 7;Dunderberg: 2008: 134–46.

44 Vallee 1981: 27 n. 48; Le Boulluec 1985: 174–84.45 etsi unum estis omnes qui deum fingitis, dum tamen hoc in Christi nomine facis, dum Christianus tibi

videris, alius ab ethnicis es (“Even if all of you who invent [another] god are united, nevertheless aslong as you do it in the name of Christ, as long as you seem Christian to yourself, you are separatefrom the gentiles”).

46 Wilson 2002: 441–2.


The limits of orthocracy 169

hardening of boundaries. A parallel intensification has been traced in theNag Hammadi texts.47

In this process, the figure of the Christian idiotes was pressed into serviceto resolve the ambiguous position of the “heretic,” used to wedge openthe gap between the authorized policy-makers by and around whom thechurch’s boundaries were being drawn and those whom they sought tobanish. In Valentinian usage, characterizing less advanced “psychics” suchas Irenaeus as idiotai serves to create an internal hierarchy, elevating thespiritually gifted few above both detractors and those who do not sharefull Valentinian understanding. Yet it also hints at a justification for thecoexistence of both models of Christianity within the same church: psychicidiotai depend on elite pneumatics as lay people do on craft specialists(an analogy drawn explicitly by Clement, Strom. 7.16.95.9). By contrast,Tertullian and Hippolytus maneuver the figure of the idiotes toward that ofthe “heretic” and vice versa: as they see it, “heresy” capitalizes on amateurishfaith, while idiotai are peculiarly prone to “heretical” error. Conceptualizingordinary believers as halfway toward “heresy” allows them to form a bufferbetween the defining core of the community and the “heretics” ranged at itsmargins, much as “heretics” mark the boundary between Christianity andits pagan and Jewish neighbors. A further consequence may be that thosepreviously classified as “heretics” are no longer needed to occupy the borderbetween Christian and “other” but can be pushed all the way across it. Agradual assimilation of “heretics” to pagans, especially Greek philosophers,in the first wave of Christian heresiology culminates in Hippolytus’ attemptto find ancestors for Christian “heresies” in pagan philosophy or religion;this will be met in later centuries by attempts to subsume pagan and Jewishthought directly under the rubric of “heresy.”48

the limits of orthocracy

The power of heresiology lies in part in its self-reinforcing claim to encap-sulate seamless, self-evident insider consensus. Its claims are vulnerable tochallenge, though, by those who question either the “data” they encodeor the methods by which they are generated. One obvious weakness isthat the same techniques could produce widely varied results. Althoughheresiological discourse largely succeeded in effacing rival constructions,we can be sure that some Christians who found themselves on the wrongside of its boundaries would have charted the social terrain of legitimate

47 Koschorke 1978: 250–5; Pearson 1990: 188–93. 48 Inglebert 2001b, esp. 424–9, 437–41, 449–56.



Christianity differently. Montanists and “Quartodecimans” like Polycrateshad their own touchstones of right belief, some shared with other Christiancoalitions, others unique to themselves.49 The existence of variant, overlap-ping versions of Christianity, constituted as social and spiritual networkscentered on particular individuals, points up a fundamental limitation oforthocratic methods of authentication. The selection of a given personas an in-group prototype was no more inevitable for Christians than forsophists. We saw that different critics – not to mention audiences andpatrons – had different ideas about who belonged in the circle of sophists;each of these parties had some power to translate their view into social real-ity. So too with Christians: Irenaeus complains not only about Christianswho are insufficiently discriminating, but also about those who discrim-inate too much, refraining from communion even with fellow believ-ers (etiam a fratrum communicatione) out of desire to avoid “hypocrites”(Haer. 3.11.9). These fastidious worshipers, such as Justin’s law-observantChristians who abstained from fellowship with the non-observant (Dial.47.1–3), have drawn the social boundaries of Christianity according to ahallowed method, which Irenaeus himself endorses, but with results thathe, like Justin, finds unsatisfactory. Still other self-identified Christiansdrew boundaries that would have placed Irenaeus and his coalition at oroutside the margins of acceptable Christianity.

Second, many believers defy Procrustean attempts at social and doctrinalcategorization: they have affiliations or affinities with both “orthodox”and “heretical” communities, or their views do not quite match those oftheir prominent associates. Justin Martyr’s student Tatian exemplifies thisconfounding of ancient (and modern) categories. A disciple of Justin andteacher of the anti-Marcionite author Rhodon (Eus. Hist. eccl. 5.13), Tatian’spedigree was impressive, his works cited with approbation (e.g. Clem. Al.Strom. 1.21.101.1; Tert. Val. 5.1; Eus. Hist. eccl. 4.16.7; 5.28.4–5). He linedup with Justin on most subjects, but his views on asceticism and thesalvation of Adam struck some western Christians as extreme. As a result,Irenaeus classifies him as a heretic; this anomaly forces him to posit thatTatian also had “heretical” ties (Haer. 1.28.1; 3.23.8; cf. Hipp. Ref. 8.16).50

This theoretical weakness could produce live pastoral problems, as theambiguous status of the women involved in both Irenaean and Marcosian

49 Quartodeciman is the name given to those who celebrate Easter on 14 Nisan (Passover) (Hipp.Ref. 8.18).

50 The vagueness of the link (connexio quidem) betrays it as conjecture. Clement solves the problem –if he was aware of it – by attacking the rigorist “Encratite” sect allegedly founded by Tatian (Ir.Haer. 1.28.1) without connecting it to Tatian (Paed. 2.2.33; Strom. 1.15.71.5; 7.17.108.2).



circles in Lyons reveals (Ir. Haer. 1.13.7). Alternatively, Christians withimpeccably “orthodox” credentials might still disagree with each other, asthe Easter Controversy painfully illustrated: if the heirs of Peter do onething and the heirs of John another, who is right, and how will Johanninebelievers living in Peter’s city be regarded?

Other second- and third-century Christians appear to have shied awayfrom orthocratic strategies of legitimation altogether. The names of con-temporary Christians are exceedingly rare in Valentinian fragments andthe Nag Hammadi corpus. Even where specific teachers appear to be inview – as when Ptolemy situates himself in the middle ground betweenMarcion and those who equate Creator and supreme God (Flor. 3.2–3)51 –they usually remain anonymous. The exceptions are tantalizing, but few.We are told that Basilides and Valentinus claimed apostolic connections(Clem.Al. Strom. 7.17.106.4), and Valentinus’ disciple Ptolemy alludes tostanding in apostolic succession (Flor. 7.9). When these claims began to bemade, however, and whether they originated with Basilides and Valenti-nus themselves or arose only later, in response to heresiological rhetoric,remains uncertain.52 Twice, rival factions are attacked metonymically, inthe person of their central figures. The Apocalypse of Peter blasts opponentsas “an imitation remnant in the name of a dead man, who is Hermas”(78.16–8). Hermas’ Shepherd was a controversial work, nearly canonical insome quarters (Eus. Hist. eccl. 3.3.6), a symbol of lax penitential disciplinein others (Tert. Pud. 10, 20). Accordingly, we might read this charge aseither a bid to undermine the credentials of another network’s hero, or anattempt to saddle adversaries with a discreditable ally. More intriguing, theTestimony of Truth sketches a short heresiological taxonomy, attacking inturn the Valentinians, Basilides’ son Isidore, who is said to resemble hisfather, and (probably) the Simonians (55.1–60.4). Within this cataloguea chain of disqualifying connections descends from Valentinus through ateacher who “completed the course <of> Valentinus. He himself speaksabout the Ogdoad, and his disciples resemble <the> disciples of Valenti-nus” (56.1–5). In these (probably) early third-century works, we might seecompeting versions – or imitations – of the heresiological mapping of socialties.

51 Dunderberg 2008: 87–90 argues that Ptolemy’s view of the Creator is actually quite close toMarcion’s, although he accepts that Ptolemy is positioning himself between Marcionite and non-demiurgical extremes.

52 The attribution of these claims to Valentinus and Basilides is usually accepted without demur buthas been questioned by Markschies 1992: 299–300; on Basilides, Lohr 1996: 20–3 remains agnostic.



Apart from these examples, though, the only named individuals whoappear in the Nag Hammadi treatises are primordial heroes and membersof the apostolic generation.53 The closest we come to coalition-buildinggossip is in stories about interactions among the apostles, which sometimeshint at (or seek to deny) fault lines within the present-day movement.54

Some texts, including the Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles and the Letterof Peter to Philip, assert the authenticity of their message by depicting itas the consensus teaching of all the apostles; the Apocryphon of John isquick to emphasize that John’s vision, although unique to him, rouses nohostility from the other disciples.55 In other cases, friction is visible. Inthe Apocryphon of James the disciples begin in harmony, each recordingthe revelations he received from the Savior (2.8–15), but James is at adistinctly higher level of understanding than Peter and the rest, who do notentirely welcome his report (16.2–11).56 In the Gospel of Thomas, Thomasconspicuously outdoes Peter and Matthew and is rewarded with secretteaching that he withholds from the other disciples for fear of being stoned(log. 13).57 The Gospel of Mary has Andrew and Peter challenge the validityof Mary’s private revelation. “I myself do not believe that the Savior saidthis. For these teachings seem to be (giving) different ideas,” grumblesAndrew (17.7–19.2, trans. Tuckett). She is defended by Levi, though, andin the end the apostles set out to preach a gospel that seems to incorporateher esoteric doctrine. The most overt conflict comes in the Gospel of Judas,where Judas is irreconcilably at odds with the other apostles; unusually,Judas’s hero does not come out on top but must await eschatologicalvindication. These texts map current configurations – real or ideal – ontointeractions between past exemplars of true and false (or deficient) belief. Inconspicuous contrast to the heresiologists’ self-authorizing stories, however,these works feature no contemporary authorities, nor do they even gestureat personal lines of transmission linking the present community to itsapostolic touchstone(s).58

53 P. Perkins 1980: 11, 175–6; Logan 1996: 280.54 A parallel may be found in the apocryphal Acts, where the apostles themselves are consistently in

harmony but are sometimes confronted by rivals who may represent contemporary Christians hostileto the author’s position, for example Simon Magus in the Acts of Peter, or Demas and Hermogenesin the Acts of Paul.

55 P. Perkins 1980: 77, 93–4, 122–8.56 P. Perkins 1980: 147–52 and 1994: 160. In the First Apocalypse of James, James has (female) allies in the

apostolic community, whom he is instructed to exhort (40.22–6), but he must rebuke the Twelveto jolt them toward the way of knowledge (42.14–24).

57 Cf. Thom. Cont. 138.29–37, where the apostles remain mere “apprentices” rather than “laborers,”while Thomas is singled out for revelation that elevates him above that level.

58 P. Perkins 1993: 159.



This is perhaps no accident. Pheme Perkins has argued that second-and third-century gnostic texts tend to adhere to an earlier model ofauthority which emphasizes personal access to the divine, resisting a ris-ing trend to seek mediation through a spiritual patron, whether teacher,holy man (or woman), prophet, martyr, or bishop.59 Tracing a parallelshift in second-century Jewish discourse, Daniel Boyarin maps this dif-ference in legitimizing strategies onto the church/sect polarity: “Whereasthe church will frequently present itself as the heir to an apostolic succes-sion . . . the sect will as frequently present itself as heir to a new revelation”;while “an ‘orthodoxy’ or a ‘church’ tends to ‘anchor their religious praxisin the living tradition of their fathers and forefathers,’” sectarian groupstypically “‘base their religious praxis on the halakhic rulings written inauthoritative and canonized texts.’”60 In these terms, the Nag Hammadiauthors write from a sectarian perspective, posing as an embattled rem-nant of the true community, rather than as orthodox “winners,” as theheresiologists do. To be sure, these texts do strike notes that could supportorthocratic logic. They emphasize the unity of truth and the division (anddivisiveness) of error (e.g. Tri. Trac. 110.5–18, 111.17–112.22; Treat. Seth60.3–62.25; Interp. Know. 15.21–6 and passim), and they denigrate oppo-nents as innately alien and/or inferior to those who embrace their insights.61

These tropes mesh readily with rhetorically figuring dissenters as outsiders– as when the Apocalypse of Peter sharply dismisses “those who are out-side our number who name themselves ‘bishop’ and also ‘deacons,’ as ifthey have received their authority from God” (79.22–7). On the whole,however, these authors do not take the step of legitimizing themselves,or seeking to delegitimize their adversaries, by pointing to their socialconnections.

In this disparity we may see not only clashing modes of self-fashioning,but also an unresolved tension about what the criteria of authenticity are.Among both Christians and pepaideumenoi, after all, belonging is meantto reveal, not substitute for, being. Even those authors who most loudlyadvocate social methods of legitimation do not understand membership intheir community purely in terms of social attachment. Justin acknowledgesthat a wide variety of beliefs are to be found among those who identify as

59 P. Perkins 1980: 11, 191–204. 60 Boyarin 2004: 50–1, quoting Adiel Schremer.61 E.g. Treat. Res. 43.25–34: “Some there are, my son Rheginos, who want to learn many things. They

have this goal when they are occupied with questions whose answer is lacking. If they succeed withthese, they usually think very highly of themselves. But I do not think that they have stood withinthe Word of Truth.” Cf. Apoc. Pet. 75.9–14: “Each source produces what is like itself. For not everysoul comes from the truth, nor from immortality.” See further Koschorke 1978: 72–3.



Christian or are accepted as such by others (Apol. 26.6),62 but he insiststhat neither self-identification nor social recognition suffices to confer thetitle “Christian” on those who deviate in belief or action (Dial. 35.1–6).Ignatius impatiently brushes away suggestions that correct social allegiancecan compensate for incorrect belief (Smyrn. 5.2): if a person praises Ignatiushimself but blasphemes the Lord by denying the incarnation, what goodis that? And the heresiologists spend the bulk of their works arguing fromscripture and tradition for the “orthodoxy” of their positions.

Still, just as Philostratus habitually falls back on social criteria in evalu-ating his subjects, early Christian polemicists regularly resort to social tiesin order to locate individuals and groups inside or outside the bounds ofauthorized Christianity. One reason must be that the beliefs and practicesof most other Christians were simply unknowable, especially in view ofthe segmentation of local church networks and the lack of effective screen-ing mechanisms. As a practical matter, assuming that believers mirroredthe leaders with whom they were affiliated was the most efficient way toorganize a divided community, even at the risk of creating dissident groupswhere none existed. Further, the fact that Justin and Ignatius feel compelledto argue that self-identification, recognition by others, and alliance with aknown proponent of “orthodoxy” are insufficient to prove legitimacy sug-gests that conventional wisdom assumed otherwise.63 Indeed, even thosewho have a detailed theological conception of “orthodoxy” will on occasiontake it for granted that social position is a sufficient index of “orthodoxy,”as when Irenaeus and Tertullian assert that “heretics” can be recognizedas such because they are excluded from communion with the “orthodox.”In this, they reflect assumptions that lay at the heart of the day-to-dayself-definitional practice of Christian congregations.

One way to reduce slipperiness while retaining essentially orthocraticpresuppositions is to find anchor points on whose centrality all parties

62 “All those who take their start from these [heresiarchs] . . . are called Christians, just as the name of‘philosophy’ is attributed to philosophers in common, even though their teachings differ” (= L�� / �� ! (��9�� . . . )�� & �� \ �4� �� / �: �� ! �& �� :� ��=! �>� ��4�� 8�� C �� 7�� 12�� ). The ambiguity of ��& �� – “call themselves” or “are called”? – may be intentional.In light of the analogy to philosophers, I have translated it as passive, with Wartelle 1987, but themiddle cannot be ruled out. Justin’s ultimate point here is that if “heterodox” believers pass asChristians they should be persecuted like Christians.

63 Similarly, Epictetus cautions against gauging friendship as others do (��’ 85�� < �&�’ G�/ N��), by asking whether individuals have the same parents, were brought up under the samepaidagogos, or are long-time schoolmates and companions (2.22.26, 29–33); elsewhere he warnsteachers against assuming that students who admire their discourses must possess good characterand philosophical aptitude (3.23.13–14).


Conclusion 175

could agree, and to trace all relevant affiliational networks back to them.Another is to strengthen institutional mechanisms of community defini-tion. Both solutions were adopted, and gradually merged, in the secondhalf of the second century: a direct-line connection to the apostles becamethe premier source of authorization and, at least within the emerging dom-inant coalition, the bishops of each local church came to be identified as theprimary, then the only, legitimate successors of the apostles. In this empha-sis on personal succession as the organizing framework of their community,past and present, Christians were again in tune with the spirit of the age,which saw the production of histories of a wide variety of intellectual dis-ciplines centered on personal and institutional successions. That mode ofauthorizing discourse, which both epitomizes and transforms orthocraticmodes of corporate identity formation, forms the subject of the next pairof chapters.

conclusion

This study began by observing that what constituted “orthodox” Christianpractice and doctrine was often articulated ostensively in terms of whobelonged inside the authorized (and authorizing) community. This wastrue both in face-to-face congregational life, in the form of negotiationsover participation in worship, and in more theoretical self-definitional dis-course. Controversial beliefs or practices were often evaluated in terms ofthe credentials of their most visible advocates, which depended in turnon the personal relationships – discipleship, kinship, friendship, enmity,geographic proximity or distance – of those figures whom others put for-ward as prototypically “orthodox” or “heretical.” While these were not theonly methods of managing internal diversity, we cannot fully understandsecond-century struggles over orthodoxy without recognizing how the par-ticipants’ conduct was shaped by their assumption that socio-religiousaffiliations were a reliable, if not transparent, guide to inner reality.

Reading Christian heresiologists beside Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophistsbrings to light not only the constant negotiation over the boundaries oflegitimacy going on within early Christian communities, but also the socialperformativity of those negotiations. In particular, comparison with sophis-tic quarrels highlights the self-fashioning dimension of Christian doctrinaldisputation: for Christian controversialists, as for Philostratean sophists,public interactions and debates offered an opportunity for adopting a self-authorizing posture as well as for promoting a theological position, both inthe moment and in later memory; heresiological polemic itself may be read



as a textual projection of such live debates. The parallel is particularly clearin Hippolytus’ recounting of his own exploits as a “heresy” baiter, where themere fact of performance and the stories told afterward nearly eclipse theevents themselves. Heresiology thus recapitulates – and feeds back into –the strategies and assumptions that drive face-to-face contests over identitywithin second-century churches. In these contests, textuality representsa powerful weapon, offering the chance to claim the decisive last word,permanently driving rival maps of the Christian terrain from the market.In this regard, the self-authorizing tactics of Christian heresiologists maybe profitably set alongside Philostratus’ own textual self-fashioning. Eachwriter seeks to authorize his vision by presenting himself as a championof the values of the authentic Christian community, an impeccably well-connected, authoritatively knowledgeable member of that community, andas such supremely well qualified to act as arbiter and voice of its self-evidentinsider consensus. Producing this result required considerable finesse, as itdid for Philostratus, but like him, the heresiologists contrive to disguisethe effort that went into their partisan and partial constructions of earlyChristian history. At the same time, Christian writers are more openly self-conscious about the struggles over corporate self-definition to which theirwords and actions contribute. In that sense, seeing the parallels betweencontemporary sophistic and Christian interactions allows us to recognizethe largely implicit community-constituting effects of sophistic alliancesand conflicts.


chapter 6

Successions and self-definition

introduction

Deployment of social networks to shape corporate identity reaches itsheight in a literary device that dominates imperial intellectual historiogra-phy: the succession list (��2-). Where Philostratus defines his SecondSophistic in terms of a densely interwoven, but relatively shallow web ofstudents and teachers, other early imperial authors peer much further intothe past, to chart the parameters of intellectual disciplines over the entiresweep of their history. In these works, diachronic chains of teachers, stu-dents, imitators, and office-holders provide the skeleton around which thehistory of a field is written; connection to, or conformity with, those cen-tral individuals offers one yardstick by which membership in the presentcommunity can be judged.1

This discursive, textualized method of identity formation, the subjectof Chapters 6 and 7, may feel remote from the direct face-to-face inter-actions with which we began. Yet succession narratives employ the samebasic methods – strategic inclusions and exclusions, gossip about personalinteractions, selective mapping of constitutive relationships – in service ofa similar goal: to define retrospectively the identity of a particular group.Like the other community-constructing mechanisms considered so far,successions cast intellectual affinities as social relationships, and vice versa;this is true both of those that serve to identify insiders and of those thatseek to marginalize alleged outsiders.2 Once again, personal ties can stand

1 Succession narratives represent a subspecies of a broader mode of engaging with the (personalized)past of a discipline, either by charting its development in a catalogue of its leading practitioners,as Cicero (Brutus) and Suetonius (On Grammarians and Rhetoricians) do, or by locating oneself ina tradition of writing in and on that discipline, as authors of scientific and encyclopedic treatisesoften do. On the latter, see Alexander 1993: 78–87; Harris-McCoy 2008: 41–5, 81–94 (Vitruvius),144–5, 152–64 (Pliny the Elder), 186–9 (Artemidorus). I will largely confine my attention to textsthat assemble those predecessors into a connected sequence, whether based on biographical links ordoxographical affinities; for this distinction, see Wehrli 1978: 12–14.

2 Kienle 1961, esp. 33–5; Giannattasio Andria 1989: 21–7.

177


178 Successions and self-definition

in for, or even trump, intellectual coherence: as Jørgen Mejer notes, inphilosophical successions “it is the personal relationships between individ-ual philosophers that determine the sequence in which they are presentedrather than the affinity of their philosophical positions.”3 Yet doctrinalself-definition – loosely understood, since we will be dealing with a widespectrum of disciplines – is also at issue in these works, at least implicitly.Stephen White observes that “charting the origins and progress of a disci-pline is an effective way to characterize its scope and methods, as well as toorganize and assess its results, and a history of philosophy provides at leastan ostensive definition of philosophy itself.”4 In the successions format,this definitional project is carried out in personal terms, in debates overwho founded the field, who its central figures were, and how those figuresare to be connected.

In keeping with the fundamentally social modes of constituting intellec-tual communities that have been traced throughout this book, successionnarratives take a highly personalized, social view of the continuity andcohesion of a discipline over time. Rather than focusing on the progressof ideas or concentrating on written tradition more than its tradents, thisapproach to intellectual history depicts disciplines as embodied by theirpractitioners, with little existence apart from them. Tradition and tradentsgo closely together: a succession of recognized leaders (teachers, priests,scholarchs) is the channel through which a community’s constitutive tradi-tions, oral and written, are understood to be preserved and passed down.5

The group’s ability to name those successors supplies proof that transmis-sion has in fact occurred, buttressing the perceived unity and consistency ofits thought and practice across time and space, and grounding the identityof members in a sense of belonging to a “golden chain” of practitioners.6

Seeking to guarantee not only transmission but also fidelity across gen-erations, succession narratives capitalize on the expectation that, as a rule,social affiliates, especially students and teachers, mirror one other. Studentsare expected to be “zealous imitators” (K��!-�, aemulus) of their mentors;

3 Mejer 1992: 3561; cf. Mejer 1978: 62–74. By contrast, as Mansfeld and Runia 1997: 326–7 note, inthe doxographical tradition “the emphasis falls on the Placita, not those who hold them.”

4 S. A. White 2001: 198–9; cf. Rorty, Schneewind, and Skinner 1984: 7; Frede 2004; Warren 2007: 133.5 Bickerman 1952: 262–3; Javierre 1962: 175; Alexander 2001: 116. Thus Pliny the Elder denies that magic

could have endured for six thousand years in the absence of either a written tradition or especially(praeterea) a continuous succession (Nat. 30.4). Oral traditions are most obviously dependent fortheir survival on transmission from teacher to student, but Strabo (13.1.54) describes how Aristotle’slibrary (i.e. the primary collection of core Peripatic texts) was lost when the succession of its heirsfailed.

6 Dillon 1982: 66–7; cf. Dillon 1979: 77.


Introduction 179

our sources remark with surprise on students who break this rule, for exam-ple Parmenides, who, “although a hearer of Xenophanes, nevertheless didnot follow him” (D.L. 9.21).7 Taking the long view, and without peeringtoo closely into the details, a succession list represents a shorthand way ofasserting that the teachings of current members of a community correspondto those of its founder – even in the face of acknowledged development ordeviation.8 Ancient intellectual historians are not blind to the possibility ofinnovation and apostasy within successions; indeed, defection is the causetypically cited for the branching of a field into multiple sects. On the whole,however, they regard such community-fracturing deviations as deplorableexceptions.9 Further, standards for the degree of sameness desirable withina succession were on the rise in our period. Attitudes toward philosophicalinnovation grow increasingly negative from the first century bce onward,as the notion of philosophical progress gives way to the view that humanwisdom has degenerated from an original ideal, which philosophers mustlabor to recover. In emerging Platonist, Christian, and rabbinic traditionsof the second century ce, myths of a primordial golden age of perfectionand unity sharpen the ideological work to be done by diadochai: succes-sions of qualified tradents must serve to safeguard an original consensusagainst illegitimate deviations – namely heresy.10 The authorizing intentalways implicit in succession lists now lies very near the surface.

What makes diadochai an effective tool of authorizing discourse, how-ever, is precisely that they purport to be free of such ideological import.Simplicity and traditionality give the appearance of objective facticity. Thetypical succession narrative is a bare list of names, adorned only with a fewsayings and biographical details, and where we have multiple versions ofthe same genealogy, as with the philosophical diadochai, they are almostmonotonously uniform. Yet despite, or perhaps because of, their nearlycanonical fixity, succession lists provide a flexible vehicle for adapting to –or asserting – new configurations of a disciplinary landscape: middle Stoicattempts to rebrand Stoicism as more Platonic than Cynic by tweaking

7 H�!� �’ �T �� v� ��= �� :� h�� :�. Imitation need not mean homo-geneity, though: our sources are also surprised by students who add nothing to their teachers’ viewsand tend to gloss over them as not worth discussing (e.g. Cels. Med. pr. 11).

8 On the dissidence masked by the nominal uniformity of a shared school name and veneration ofthe same founder in philosophical and medical haireseis, see von Staden 1982: 85–96; Glucker 1988:35; Sedley 1989: 98–102; Alexander 2001: 113–15.

9 For Cicero’s disapproval of philosophical deviation, see Dyck 2003: 100–1. Wilson 2002: 452–4examines the negative connotations of ��7� in second- and third-century philosophicalwriters.

10 Cohen 1980 (rabbis); Brent 1993a: 372–8 (Christians and philosophers); Boys-Stones 2001: 123–50(Platonists).



its ancestry will be a case in point. Minute variations in the details of asuccession could significantly reshape the contours and character of a field,or the relations between its various parts. Behind the bland, conservativefacades of traditional succession lists, intense debates over identity wereconducted.

The ancient concept of succession has been extensively studied, not leastbecause it survives in the Christian doctrine of apostolic succession. Whilethe legitimizing work that rabbinic and Christian succession narratives dohas increasingly been recognized, however,11 the subtlety and audacity withwhich pagan writers deployed such lists has less often been appreciated.12

This chapter will examine some of the authorizing ends to which succes-sion lists were turned by intellectual historians in the first three centuries.Quintilian’s composition of a diadoche of rhetorical theorists serves to jus-tify his own approach to rhetoric, while for Pomponius the same devicefunctions to define and legitimate the discipline of jurisprudence itself, andto guarantee the credentials of its practitioners. Appealing to traditionalsuccessions of philosophers for support, Diogenes Laertius and Clement ofAlexandria take up opposite positions in a debate over the origins of philo-sophic wisdom, in which the value and cultural position of both Greekphilosophy and Christianity are at stake. Within that privileged culturalfield, contrasting accounts of the education of Zeno of Citium in Diogenesand Numenius distill a long history of attempts to define the identity ofStoicism by rewriting its ancestry. Finally, Numenius, seeking to securehis own interpretation of Plato against earlier competitors, registers anexceptionally high standard for the consensus ((��57�) required withina legitimate succession, in a way that chimes with concurrently developingChristian concepts of orthodoxy and heresy. In each case, we are again deal-ing with idealizing rhetorical constructions which seek to persuade ratherthan merely to describe historical reality. In their comprehensive scope andbid for monopolistic textual permanence, these histories represent the mostambitious attempts we have yet encountered to shape a group’s memoryand self-understanding by sculpting its social contours.

successions in the second sophistic

Succession lists are not unique to intellectual historiography, nor to theearly Empire. They were widely utilized in Mediterranean antiquity to

11 Rabbinic: Cohen 1980; Boyarin 2004: 74–86; Tropper 2004. Christian: Chapter 7.12 Notable exceptions include Giannattasio Andria 1989; von Staden 1999; Ludlam 2003: 46–7; Warren

2007.


Successions in the Second Sophistic 181

delineate the history and certify the antiquity, authenticity, and coherenceof institutions and disciplines.13 The Successions of Philosophers genre, thetemplate for all the lists discussed in this chapter, was inaugurated in theHellenistic period by Sotion of Alexandria (fl. c. 200 bce); its antecedentslie even earlier, in Plato, Aristotle, and early Peripatetic surveys of the his-tory of philosophy.14 Still, the prevalence of this historiographic mode inthe first three centuries suggests that it proved congenial to early imperialintellectual concerns. While the philosophical Successions literature peteredout with the decline of the Athenian schools in the first century bce,it enjoyed a lively afterlife in our period. The traditional diadochai pro-vide the backbone of Numenius’ On the Divergence of the Academy fromPlato (c. 150), Clement of Alexandria’s comparison of Greek and Hebrewphilosophy (Strom. 1.14.62–4), and Hippolytus’ overview of Greek phi-losophy in Refutation book 1.15 Their influence is visible as well in morestrictly doxographical works of the late Republic and early Empire.16 Thegenre itself was revived in Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of Eminent Philosophers(c. 200).17

Outside philosophy, meanwhile, this form of intellectual historiographywas achieving new vitality, part of a broader push toward the literarysystematization of knowledge that has been persuasively connected withthe Roman imperial project.18 Introductory technical handbooks fromthe early Empire regularly begin with a definition and history of theirfield and an overview of its leading representatives, often organized intosuccessions.19 Quintilian provides a loose succession of rhetorical writers

13 Examples are catalogued by Bammel 1990; Talbert and Stepp 1998.14 Kienle 1961 remains the standard treatment of the Successions literature. The fragments of Sotion are

collected by Wehrli 1978, other representatives of the genre by Giannattasio Andria 1989. The soleextant example before Diogenes Laertius is Philodemus’ Syntaxis of Philosophers, from which theIndex Academicorum and Index Stoicorum survive, edited by Dorandi 1991 and 1994. On antecedents,see Kienle 1961: 35–76; Mejer 1978: 66–7 and 2000: 45–6; Wehrli 1978: 10–14; Giannattasio Andria1989: 21–4; Mansfeld and Runia 2009: 84–5.

15 On the date of Numenius, see Frede 1987: 1038–9. Mansfeld 1992, esp. 1–43, discusses Hippolytus’relationship to the earlier doxographical tradition and creative manipulation of the traditional��2�7.

16 For example, the doxographies in Cic. N.D. 1.25–41 and, to a lesser extent, Ac. 2.118, largely followthe order of the traditional ��2�7. References to sects and successions are scattered throughoutthe Aetian Placita (late first century ce), and somewhat conflicting arrangements according to bothdiadochal order and doctrinal similarities are visible in Aetius i.3, as Mansfeld and Runia 2009:73–96 show; cf. Kienle 1961: 20–1.

17 On the date of Diogenes Laertius, see recently Mejer 2006: 30; Kienle 1961 and Mejer 1978 examinehis relationship to the earlier Successions literature.

18 See recently Konig and Whitmarsh 2007.19 On �� 2 �� literature as a comparandum for Diogenes Laertius and Pomponius respectively,

see Mansfeld 1990: 352–3 and Norr 1976: 533. The universality of diadochal organization in technical



(Inst. 3.1; c. 95 ce), while the Roman jurist Pomponius (mid second century)opens his introductory textbook, the Enchiridium, with a survey of thehistory of Roman law cum jurisprudence, embodied in a succession ofjurists (successio prudentium) from the early Republic to the present (Dig.1.2.2).20 Successions likewise structure the histories of medicine given inCelsus’ On Medicine (early first century), Pliny’s Natural History (29.1–7;77 ce), and Pseudo-Galen’s Introductio sive medicus (19.674.1–684.10 K.;late second century); a Successions of Doctors is attributed to Soranus ofEphesus (early second century).21 In the same period the nascent rabbinicmovement supplied itself with a legitimizing history in the form of a list oftradents of the oral Torah from Moses to Rabbi Judah the Prince (Avot 1–4;early third century).22 The language of succession is so firmly entrenchedthat Seneca even refers to a successio of Roman pantomimi, contrasting theunbroken continuity of that art with the lapse of the major philosophicalsuccessiones (Nat. 7.32.2–3).

As these examples show, by the imperial period the successions formathad come to be applied not only to transmission of an institutional office,but also to less formal connections.23 No formal offices are in view inQuintilian’s history of rhetorical theory, and in some cases, as with thelong jump from Theophrastus (c. 371–287 bce) to Hermagoras of Temnos(first century bce), he can intend only intellectual inheritence (Inst. 3.1.15–16). The institutionality of medical teaching varied across sects, cities, andperiods, but medical schools were rarely if ever organized as formally as

literature should not be exaggerated, however (n. 1). Comparison of the “bibliographies” of Varro(R. 1.1) and Columella (1.1.4–14) suggests that diadochic formating was to some degree a matter ofchoice. Both catalogue past agricultural writers, but while Varro offers a raw list of names organizedby genre, Columella puts his Roman authorities in chronological order, with some effort to linkthem (post hunc, deinde, mox, postremo, velut discipulus).

20 Pomponius’ career spanned the reigns of Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius; the Enchiridium is mostlikely a late Hadrianic work. See Norr 1976: 510–16, 540–3.

21 von Staden 1999: 269–70. On Soranus’ � #�� 2�7, see Van der Eijk 1999b: 401–2.W. D. Smith 1989 discusses Ps.-Galen’s Introductio (74–5 n. 3) and the lost body of Hellenisticwriting on medical successions on which all of these works presumably drew (103).

22 Appended as a preface to the Mishnah, the Avot consists of a list of sages and their apophthegmata,some linked by the formula “X received (Torah) from Y,” others by biological descent or contem-poraneity. Bickerman 1952 recognized the generic link to the Hellenistic Successions of Philosophers.Boyarin 2004: 74–86 and Tropper 2004: 102–7, 167–72, 226–36 analyze its legitimating functions.

23 Glucker 1978: 144–52; Wehrli 1978: 9–11; Le Boulluec 1985: 87–8; Tropper 2004: 161–5. Even thephilosophical ��2�7 do not always give institutional successions. Some sects (Cynics, Skeptics)had no institutional setting, and the equation of philosophical ��2�7 in general with scholarchshas been challenged by Ludlam 2003: 44–55. The assumption that succession lists are alwaysinstitutional (e.g. Glucker 1978: 337–64) must be discarded, along with its corollary, that compositionof a diadoche is proof of institutionality, as continues to be asserted of Roman law schools (n. 25),the Jewish patriarchate (critiqued by Boyarin 2004: 81–5), and the Christian episcopate.


Authorizing the author: quintilian 183

the Athenian philosophical academies;24 most of the links comprising themedical successions will have been between teachers and students, ratherthan successive office-holders. The precise character of the juristic scholaeor sectae remains controversial, but the Republican jurists whom Pompo-nius includes in his successio prudentium certainly did not operate withinan academic setting; there too, the continuity is intellectual rather thaninstitutional.25 For this reason, I will treat all these lists as species of thesame genus, without distinguishing institutional diadochai from intellec-tual or scholastic successions. What matters most for present purposes isthe use of personal connections to delimit the history and boundaries of afield, not the institutional formality of those connections.

authorizing the author: quintilian

A succession narrative inevitably reflects on its author, whether he insertshimself into it or merely presents himself as its mediator. Philostratus doesboth, arrogating the role of final arbiter of membership in the circle ofsophists, while also positioning himself as its privileged heir. By contrast,Quintilian, who also writes a very prosopographical, although very dif-ferent, history of rhetoric (Inst. 3.1.8–21), does not locate himself withinthat history except by implication: as the latest in a long line of rhetoricalwriters, he is in a sense heir to their tradition, but he does not name anyof them as his teacher. In fact, his authority to join their ranks stems inpart from his independence: “Nevertheless after so many and such greatauthors I will not be ashamed of having included my own opinion in someplaces. For I have not surrendered myself to anyone’s school, as if taintedby some fanaticism” (3.1.22).26

This detached posture is typical of writers of succession narratives.Neither Diogenes Laertius nor Pomponius can be assigned to a spe-cific school,27 and Celsus ends his overview of disagreements between

24 Nutton 1995: 17–21.25 Some legal historians view them as formal legal academies, often on the basis of Pomponius’ successio:

e.g. Schulz 1946: 121–2; Honore 1962: 18–19, 29, 35–6; Kodrebski 1976: 194–6; Bauman 1989: 36–8;Riggsby 2010: 60–1. General consensus, however, regards them as looser teaching or discussioncircles: see Jolowicz and Nicholas 1972: 379–80; Kunkel 1973: 114–15; Liebs 1976: 211–12; Giaro 2005:324; Mousourakis 2007: 115.

26 non tamen post tot ac tantos auctores pigebit meam quibusdam locis posuisse sententiam. neque enimme cuiusquam sectae velut quadam superstitione inbutus addixi. In this section, citations otherwiseunspecified will be to the Institutio oratoria.

27 While Diogenes describes his addressee as a fan of Plato (D.L. 3.47), his own allegiances have provedelusive; Mansfeld 1990: 347–8 and Warren 2007: 138 survey past proposals. Diogenes certainly hasopinions – e.g. a vigorous defense of Epicurus (D.L. 10.9–10) – but they do not add up to advocacy



Empiricists and Rationalists by adopting a careful compromise betweenthe two (Cels. Med. pr. 45–53). We have seen that even Philostratus, despitehis definite personal allegiances, takes a more expansive view of the circleof sophists than his subjects might have done. A certain self-consciousnon-partisanship, it seems, is requisite when charting the history of a fielddivided into rival semi-orthodoxies. Where others are mired in sectariandebates that call into question the truth claims of all concerned, com-posers of diadochai, like doxographers, offer a universalizing, even totaliz-ing, bird’s-eye view that encompasses and transcends the field as a whole.28

In this enterprise, while impartiality is neither possible nor desirable, theappearance of disinterest seems to be requisite.29 Of the authors surveyedabove, only Numenius violates this rule with his openly hostile accountof the Academic succession. He is not writing the history of a discipline,though, but engaged in intra-school debate. Simply writing a successionnarrative, then, can be a self-fashioning, self-authorizing move. The list dis-plays the author’s comprehensive knowledge of his field and positions himas a reliable expert whose freedom from factional attachments makes himcompetent to speak about the entire length and breadth of his professionor to judge decisively the competing strands of its history.30

More than the rest, Quintilian wears his self-authorizing motives on hissleeve. He begins by professing anxiety that even when he is reporting theopinions of earlier authorities some readers will object that he is departingfrom rhetorical orthodoxy. The problem is that “many authors, althoughaiming for the same goal, nevertheless devised different approaches, andeach one led his followers onto his own path; and they prefer whichever sortof road they first started down” (3.1.5–6; cf. 1 pr.2–3).31 As a result, there aremultiple competing orthodoxies, each dogmatically defended by its own

of any particular school; if anything, his position seems to be a dogged ecumenism. On Pomponius’independence, see Norr 1976: 511–12, more convincing than attempts to classify him as a Sabinian(Liebs 1976: 203), a Proculian (Baviera 1970 [1898]: 28–30), or a convert from one to the other(Honore 1962: 21–6).

28 Konig and Whitmarsh 2007: 13–18 describe doxography as a sort of “metaphilosophy” that irenicallybypasses the conundrum that while “ancient philosophical theory, almost by definition, oftenaimed at totalisation . . . by virtue of its exclusions, spoken or unspoken, philosophy necessarilyacknowledged the co-existence (albeit not the equal value) of alternative perspectives; ongoingborder disputes implied that the process of totalisation was never complete” (13). The same analysisapplies to the unifying synopses of diadochal historiography.

29 This is true even of a committed sectarian like Philodemus, who is more even-handed in his IndexStoicorum (Ind. Sto.) than in his harshly partisan On the Stoics (Sto.).

30 Cf. Konig and Whitmarsh 2007: 28 on technical and compilatory texts as “virtuoso authorialperformance[s] of mastery in the spheres of research, synthesis and exposition.”

31 plurimi auctores, quamvis eodem tenderent, diversas tamen vias munierunt atque in suam quisqueinduxit sequentes. illi autem probant qualecumque ingressi sunt iter.


Authorizing the author: quintilian 185

partisans. The overview of the history of rhetorical theory that follows thusfunctions simultaneously as an elaborate bibliography (a self-justifyingdevice in its own right),32 an elucidation of how this infinita dissensioauctorum arose, and a defense of Quintilian’s choice to synthesize differenttheoretical approaches rather than confining himself to the views of any oneschool. His history falls into two parts, a line of Greek orators and theoristsdescending from Empedocles to Apollodorus of Pergamum and Theodorusof Gadara, founders of eponymous schools (sectae), and a looser chainof Roman authorities from Cato the Elder to Quintilian’s contemporaryVerginius Plinius Tutilius. At times nothing more than chronological orgeographical proximity or even simple juxtaposition connects these figures,but the language of succession pervades both lists (quos insecutus, discipulus,auditor, praeceptor, his successere, secuti). Framing the history of rhetoric asa succession narrative allows Quintilian to pinpoint the place where eachbranch split off from the others, and thus to contextualize it among itsrivals.33 Rather than criticizing one school or another for deviating from thecorrect path, he stresses the continuity and common intellectual heritageof his mutually dissenting authorities, and hence the legitimacy of all ofthem – and the wisdom of his decision not to embrace one to the exclusionof the others.

The interpretive flexibility of succession lists shows here, since theseramifying lines could equally well bear the opposite construction. Scholasticdivisions within the medical tradition confirm for Pliny the Elder thescientific and moral bankruptcy of the art as a whole: if there were anytruth to medical doctrine, doctors would agree on it; as it is, their mutualdivergences expose them as greedy fame-seekers (Nat. 29.1–7). Factionalismand debate among philosophers likewise fueled Skeptical doubts about thetruth claims of all the schools and the feasibility of dogmatic knowledge atall, an argument eagerly turned against Greek philosophy (and Christian“heretics”) by Christian apologists.34 From that perspective, the fact thatthe various branches of a discipline could be slotted into a single genealogyundermined rather than certified their claims to authenticity, since theircommon lineage created a presumption of unity not borne out by reality.The successions format, then, is not inherently valorizing; it is a tool thatcould be used to tear down as well as to build up. That Quintilian’s narrative

32 Grafton 1997; Buell 1999: 5–6.33 Greek rhetoric is conceived in diadochal terms already by Aristotle, who alludes to the “many who

advanced it bit by bit, as if by succession” (�� *� 8� ��2�� 4 ! ,SE 24.183b17–34).

34 Boys-Stones 2001: 125–9, 176–202.



works to affirm a broad spectrum of approaches must be understood as adeliberate choice.

Further, the history to which Quintilian appends himself is conspicu-ously bicultural and modernizing in orientation. To my knowledge, hisis the only ancient history of rhetorical theory that combines Greek andRoman theorists in a single narrative.35 Early imperial histories of oratorytend to limit themselves to one side of the cultural-linguistic divide. AmongQuintilian’s Latin contemporaries, Suetonius’ survey of the development ofrhetoric is resolutely Romanocentric (Rhet. 25).36 The speakers in Tacitus’Dialogue on Orators (c. 100) are more cognizant of standing in a bilingualtradition,37 but their eyes, too, are chiefly trained on the Roman scene.On the Greek side, Dionysius of Halicarnassus celebrates the Augustan-erarevival of “ancient, sober rhetoric” (P. ��2�7� �� 9�� O��P.),which he says embraces Roman as well as Greek authors, but the Romansgo unnamed (Orat. vett. 1–3). Philostratus has little interest in Roman ora-tory, old or new; in the Lives non-Greeks, including Favorinus, Aelian, andHeliodorus the Arab, are curious anomalies, who in any case conductedtheir professional lives in Greek (VS 489, 624, 626). Quintilian, by con-trast, places Greek and Roman successions of rhetorical writers side by side.Moreover, all the roads of his history lead to Rome: the Greek successionconcludes with Apollodorus of Pergamum and Theodorus of Gadara, theteachers respectively of Augustus and Tiberius and founders of eponymousschools (opiniones, sectae) that dominated the Roman rhetorical scene inthe first century ce (3.1.17–18). Their shoes are now filled in a sense byQuintilian himself, as tutor to the great-nephews of the emperor Domitian(4 pr.2). Roman rhetoric – including Quintilian’s own efforts – is thus theproper heir of the Greek tradition, and fully its equal (10.1.105).

35 The standard account of early Greek rhetorical writers underlying Quintilian’s history derivesultimately from Aristotle’s lost F� ��!�< k�2 � (frr. 136–41 Rose), followed by Cicero (Brut.46–8; cf. Inv. 2.2; de Orat. 2.160). While Cicero does see the art of rhetoric as spanning Greek andRoman, his history of oratory in the Brutus does not extend the story of Greek rhetoric beyond thefourth century bce, and he attaches Roman eloquence to Greek precursors only to the extent ofnoting Greek influences on Roman orators; the two streams converge chiefly in the Greek educationof Cicero himself (Brut. 314–16). The author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium engages with (unnamed)Greek theorists only to dismiss their approach as ostentatious, derivative, and unhelpful (4.1–7).Some late antique commentators (Sopater; Anon. 6 and 13 Rabe) acknowledge a resurgence ofrhetorical theory in the Roman period, but this is exclusively Greek; summarized by Rabe 1995:xi–xiv.

36 Noted by Kaster 1995: xlv, who drily remarks that “this is something less than a fully rounded viewof the matter.” Kaster (xxi) dates the text to c. 107–18.

37 Bilingual tradition: Dial. 12.3–5; 15.3; 16.4–7; 31.5–7; 32.5–6; 37.6; 40.3. Date: Brink 1994 (anexhaustive review of current proposals); Mayer 2001: 8–9.


Succession as accreditation: Pomponius 187

Against those who think that “only the ancients are worth reading” (solosveteres legendos, 10.1.43), meanwhile, Quintilian pointedly includes livingpoets, historians, and orators in his canon of recommended reading forbudding orators (10.1.94, 96, 98, 102–3). His history of rhetorical theorylikewise extends to his own day. While he declines to name living persons,he expresses confidence that “their time for praise will come, since theirvirtue will endure to posterity, nor will envy reach them” (3.1.21).38 Thissentiment is a topos (cf. Tac. Dial. 23.6), but in deploying it here Quin-tilian is once more wading into a live debate, most famously dramatized afew years later in Tacitus’ Dialogue.39 The theme of the decline of oratorywas already well worn by the time that Quintilian wrote, including in hisown lost treatise On the Causes of the Corruption of Eloquence. In the con-test between admiration for modern artistry and a burgeoning classicism,Quintilian was hardly a modernist, as his sharp reservations about Senecaindicate (10.1.125–31). Still, in his evaluation of the contemporary scene,he poses as a defiant optimist, insisting that future historians of rhetoricwill find much to praise in his own time, since “the current crop of matureadvocates rivals the ancients, and the efforts of the most promising youngmen imitate and follow them” (10.1.122).40

Quintilian’s succession list thus serves as a means of staking his positionwithin a series of current critical debates. Carefully and atypically crafted,these lines of succession comprise a history of rhetoric through whichQuintilian defines its character and scope in a way that both affirms thevalue of his activity as a modern (and Latin) contributor to the field andjustifies his own critical synthesis against competing orthodoxies.

succession as accreditation: pomponius

Quintilian’s deployment of the history of rhetorical theory in defenseof his own work shows how tightly authorizing one’s predecessors andsources could entwine with locating (and thereby authorizing) oneself inrelation to them. The balance between those motives shifts, however; fewwriters reflect on their own position as openly as Quintilian does. Ournext subject, Pomponius, neither writes himself into his juristic successio

38 sunt et hodie clari eiusdem operis auctores . . . sed parco nominibus viventium; veniet eorum laudi suumtempus, ad posteros enim virtus durabit, non perveniet invidia.

39 Pernot 2005: 128–34 surveys the debate; Gudeman 1898: 119 collects further parallels for the topos.40 habebunt qui post nos de oratoribus scribent magnam eos qui nunc vigent materiam vere laudandi: sunt

enim summa hodie quibus inlustratur forum ingenia. namque et consummati iam patroni veteribusaemulantur et eos iuvenum ad optima tendentium imitatur ac sequitur industria.



nor draws from it any implications for his own professional activity. Theprimary intent of his history, it appears, is to valorize jurisprudence itselfand to identify it as the driving force in the development of Roman lawand legal institutions. For Pomponius, the quality of Roman civil law isguaranteed by the quality of the men who produced it. Accordingly heseeks “to make it clear by whom, and by what sort of men, these legaltraditions were developed and handed down” (Dig. 1.2.2.35).41

What guarantees the quality of those men, though? There was no processof professional certification for jurists.42 As with sophists and philosophers,there were some conventional markers of juristic authority in the imperialperiod – the offices of consiliarius and a libellis, possession of the iusrespondendi – but winning those honors was neither necessary nor sufficientto secure recognition as a jurist.43 Pomponius himself apparently held noneof those positions.44 In the absence of official qualifications, academicgenealogy provided one credential, a way of confirming that leading juristsdeserved their authority.

These genealogies form the centerpiece of Pomponius’ legal history.From the inception of classical jurisprudence with P. Mucius Scaevola, M.Brutus, M.’ Manilius, and their pupils, jurists begin to fall into teacher–student chains.45 Within a few scholarly generations these interlockingchains settle into two rival lines of succession, or “schools” (Dig. 1.2.2.47),which immediately come to dominate the juristic scene to the exclusion ofanyone else. Pomponius acknowledges that there were other jurists activewithin each school, but they are so completely eclipsed by the school headsthat he does not bother to describe them;46 outside those two schools, tojudge by Pomponius, there was no jurisprudence worth speaking of.47

Exclusive concentration on the heads of the two sectae confines Pompo-nius’ focus not only to the most professionally prominent jurists but alsoto the most socially and politically eminent: “Very many great men have

41 ut appareat, a quibus et qualibus haec iura orta et tradita sunt. Similarly, Cicero sets out to record“when [orators] began to exist, and who and what sort of men they were” (quando esse coepissent,qui etiam et quales fuissent, Brut. 5). On the view of jurisprudence advanced by Pomponius’ history,see Bretone 1971: 136–44; Norr 1976: 517–18.

42 Millar 2002: 75. 43 Kunkel 1973: 106–10; Millar 1977: 93–7, 2002: 72–5.44 Honore 1962: 26; Norr 1976: 509–10.45 Frier 1985: 154–71 charts the transformation of Roman jurisprudence begun by Scaevola, Brutus,

and Manilius and realized in the work of Q. Mucius P.f. Scaevola.46 For example, Pomponius names the younger Nerva and an equestrian called Longinus as contempo-

raries of Proculus, but he bypasses both in favor of Proculus, on the ground that his “authority wasgreater, since he was also the most capable” (sed Proculi auctoritas maior fuit, nam etiam plurimumpotuit, Dig. 1.2.2.52).

47 For correctives to this picture, see Liebs 1976: 200–1; Frier 1996: 972.


Succession as accreditation: Pomponius 189

professed the science of civil law: but of them, we must at present makemention especially of those who were the most distinguished in the eyes ofthe Roman people” (Dig. 1.2.2.35).48 His enumeration of the public officesheld by jurists from the decemvir Appius Claudius to Neratius Priscus (cos.98) reads like a response across two centuries to Cicero’s complaint thatthe principes lost their monopoly on jurisprudence in the late Republic,sending the profession into decline (Off. 2.65). Pomponius agrees that thestatus of jurisprudence as a whole depends on the character and rank of itspractitioners, but he tacitly insists that there has been no degeneration. Hissuccession list thus serves a dual authorizing function: not only are juristsauthorized by their place in distinguished lines of succession, but the fielditself is elevated by those successions. Pomponius’ tightly constricted mapof the Roman legal landscape bears only a partial resemblance to the actualteaching and practice of the ius civile at Rome – it certainly has littlein common with the “numerous circles of teachers of the law at Rome”(plerisque Romae stationibus ius publice docentium) attested by Aulus Gelliusa decade or two later (Gell. 13.13.1)49 – but his aim is not only to describebut also to valorize his profession. For that purpose his succession-basedhistory is perfectly suited.

Further efforts to raise the profile of jurisprudence may lie behind thecurious backward drift of the foundations of the Sabinian-Cassian andProculian schools, to which Pomponius contributes. When we first hear ofthe former school, in a letter of Pliny the Younger, it is the Cassiana schola,of which C. Cassius Longinus is “the chief figure and parent” (princeps etparens, Ep. 7.24.8, 107 ce). Tacitus likewise makes Cassius the leading juristof the late 40s, although his teacher, Massurius Sabinus, was still activethen (Ann. 12.12.1). Half a century later, however, Pomponius’ youngercontemporary Gaius is referring to “Sabinus and Cassius and the otherauthors of our school” in a way that seems to treat Sabinus as the sole or jointfounder of that school.50 In other mid-century authors, Cassius has nearlyfaded from view and members of the school are commonly referred to asSabiniani, the name they retain in modern scholarship.51 Pomponius pushes

48 iuris civilis scientiam plurimi et maximi viri professi sunt: sed qui eorum maximae dignationis apudpopulum Romanum fuerunt, eorum in praesentia mentio habenda est.

49 For the chronology of Aulus Gellius, see Holford-Strevens 2002: 15–21.50 Sabinus et Cassius ceterique nostrae scholae auctores (Inst. 4.79; cf. 1.196; 2.79, 195, 244). Gaius seems

to hesitate similarly between regarding the elder Nerva or Proculus or both as founders of the rivalProculian school, referring to Nerva vero et Proculus et ceteri diversae scholae auctores (Inst. 2.15). Onthe dates of Gaius and his relationship to Pomponius, see Honore 1962: 1–17. References to bothschools outside Pomponius and Gaius’ Institutes are collected at Liebs 1976: 201–3.

51 The name Sabiniani is first attested in the Antonine jurist Marcellus (ap. Ulpian, Dig. 24.1.11.3).They remain Cassiani for the Severan jurist Paul, however (Dig. 39.6.35.3; 47.2.18).



the origin of both schools back still further, reporting that although juristsare conventionally divided into Cassians and Proculians, that division reallyoriginates with the Augustan jurists Ateius Capito and Antistius Labeo, “thefirst to create, as it were, opposed sectae” (Dig. 1.2.2.47).52

What exactly these shifts in nomenclature and origin signify is muchdisputed. One possibility is that Cassius did in fact found the Cassianschool, perhaps by gathering the pupils or partisans of Sabinus into anorganized teaching establishment.53 Another is that by calling Cassius theprinceps et parens of the Cassiana schola, Pliny does not mean that Cassiuswas the sect’s founder, but only its leading light.54 The name change,however, suggests that more is going on. Tony Honore has made theattractive proposal that the two schools repeatedly revised their histories,each striving to establish its own lineage as the most prestigious.55 On thisview, the politically important Cassius was the most visible member ofthe teaching circle or doctrinal faction with which he was associated in themid first century, outshining his less aristocratic mentor Sabinus.56 Cassius’influence waned after his death, however, while Sabinus grew to becomeone of the dominant figures in Roman legal writing. As his reputationeclipsed that of Cassius, it became advantageous for followers of the latterto emphasize that their intellectual ancestry could be traced back beyondCassius to Sabinus.57 Perhaps in response, the origin of the Proculianschool was then pushed back into the Augustan age. Labeo, the most-citedof the Augustan jurists, provided that school with a longer pedigree anda more reputable ancestor than either the socially obscure Proculus or hispredecessor, the legally undistinguished Nerva. At the same time, Proculianjurists may have advanced Labeo’s less prolific rival and political oppositeCapito as the founder of the rival school.58 Neither lineage has much to

52 hi duo primum veluti diversas sectas fecerunt. Cf. Dig. 1.2.2.52: “Some are called Cassians, othersProculians, (a division) whose roots started with Capito and Labeo” (appellatique sunt partimCassiani, partim Proculiani, quae origo a Capitone et Labeone coeperat).

53 Schulz 1946: 119–20; Honore 1962: 19; Stein 1972: 9–10; Liebs 1976: 206.54 Sherwin-White 1966: 433; Jolowicz and Nicholas 1972: 379. 55 Honore 1962: 20–1.56 Liebs 1976: 207–9, 211–13; Frier 1996: 970. Sabinus was so poor (by elite Roman standards) that he

was forced to depend on his students for financial support (Dig. 1.2.2.50). On Cassius, see esp. Tac.Ann. 12.11–12, 13.48, 14.42–5, 16.7–9.

57 This explanation is more consistent with the dates above and the relative reputations of the twomen than the theory of Bauman 1989: 117–18, that the school, first named under Cassius, renameditself Sabiniani when Cassius was exiled by Nero, and that the name oscillated thereafter.

58 Honore 1962: 20–1 points out that Sabinus is cited in the Digest 236 times to Nerva’s 35 and Proculus’179, while Labeo beats Capito 401 citations to 5. On the opposition between Labeo and Capito, seeTac. Ann. 3.75. Kodrebski 1976: 191–2 regards the co-opting of Capito as a Sabinian maneuver, butthis obsequious informer and minor jurist is such an undesirable founding father – as Kodrebskiconcedes – that I am inclined to agree with Honore that Capito was foisted on the Sabinians bytheir rivals.


Philosophy and Hellenism 191

recommend it, historically speaking,59 but their dubious historicity hasnot impaired their persuasive power for legal historians from Pomponiusonward.60

Why Pomponius chose to promulgate this version of the founding of thetwo schools is beyond recovery. Perhaps he simply opted for the longest,and hence most prestigious, pedigrees available,61 or perhaps the famousLabeo and politically successful Capito (cos. suff. 5) suited his notion ofthe dignity of jurisprudence. It seems clear, however, that multiple versionsof the origins of the juristic sectae were circulating in the early secondcentury, and that different founding ancestors were spotlighted in differentcontexts, in part out of polemic and self-authorizing motives. In composinghis history, Pomponius could not avoid taking sides.

locating the community i: philosophy and hellenism

Origins are at issue as well in Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of Eminent Philoso-phers, which opens with a broadside against writers who think that thestudy of philosophy originated among barbarians (D.L. 1.1): such people“attach to barbarians the accomplishments of the Greeks, with whom notonly philosophy but the human race itself began” (1.3).62 These wordspropel Diogenes into the thick of a long-standing debate over the historyof culture: where did philosophy begin, and what was the relation betweenGreek philosophy and the wisdom of the East?63 That Diogenes’ workis committed to demonstrating the pure Greekness of philosophy is wellknown. Less often remarked is just how far outside the mainstream of bothhis genre and his own time Diogenes stood on this point.64

59 Better known as an antiquarian than as a legal scholar, Capito is never cited as the source of anySabinian doctrine, nor there is any evidence that Labeo headed a school or taught either Nerva orProculus: see Kodrebski 1976: 191; Liebs 1976: 207, 210; Frier 1996: 791 n. 57.

60 Pomponius’ genealogies are unconvincingly defended by Bauman 1989: 27–35, 39–40, and repro-duced without comment in Mousourakis’ recent handbook (2007: 114).

61 Liebs 1976: 206.62 � � VE��- ! ��9��, ��’ ] �< H� �� 7�, �� 9!

;�5�, %��%=�� =� ��. In this section, references otherwise unspecifed are to DiogenesLaertius.

63 On the history of this debate, see esp. Droge 1989 and Boys-Stones 2001, to which the followingdiscussion is indebted. I will treat Diogenes’ position as his own, although it is always possible thathe absorbed it from a source. In this I follow a growing body of scholarship that regards Diogenes asan author with his own perspective that he deliberately crafted his work to advance, rather than as ahapless copyist: see Mejer 1978: 1–59 and 1992; Mansfeld 1990: 343–428; Hahm 1992; Gugliermina2006; Warren 2007.

64 An exception is Frede 1992: 318–19, but he does not pursue the point. Canfora 1994 argues rightlythat Diogenes’ polemic is directed against contemporary views as well as the authors he cites, but I donot follow him in seeing Clement of Alexandria as Diogenes’ chief target (n. 97 below). Gugliermina



As Diogenes is well aware, early historians of Greek philosophy consid-ered barbarian wisdom at least relevant to their inquiry. Hippias of Elis’scompendium of earlier wisdom (late fifth century bce), the first knownwork of its kind, included “prose writers, both Greek and barbarian” along-side the poets Orpheus, Musaeus, Homer, and Hesiod (Diels – Kranz 86b6 = Clem.Al. Strom. 6.2.15.1–2). While pointedly excluding the ancientmythographers,65 Aristotle’s surveys of the prehistory of philosophy touchon Persian cosmology (On Philosophy fr. 6 Rose = D.L. 1.8) and the Egyp-tian invention of mathematics (Metaph. 1.1 981b24–6). The early Academicand Peripatetic authors who cemented the outlines of early philosophicalhistory evidently followed his lead; Diogenes’ overview of claims aboutbarbarian “philosophy” draws heavily on their work (D.L. 1.6–11).66 Sotionincluded Magi, Chaldaeans, gymnosophists, and perhaps Druids in hisSuccessions (frr. 35–6 W. = D.L. 1.1, 6–7),67 while stories about the travelsof Democritus and Pythagoras among barbarians appeared in the Suc-cessions of Antisthenes of Rhodes (fr. 12 GA = D.L. 9.35) (c. 208/4–169bce) and Alexander Polyhistor (fr. 10 GA = Clem.Al. Strom. 1.15.70.1)(d. c. 40 bce).68 Although we cannot necessarily infer, as is commonlydone, that any of these authors held that barbarian wisdom was the sourceof Greek philosophy, or even classified it as philosophy stricto sensu, theycertainly regarded it as a kindred phenomenon.69

Further, whatever the position(s) of these authors, Diogenes read themas proclaiming the barbarian origin of Greek philosophy, perhaps becausethat was the majority view in his own day. The roots of that thesisran deep. The priority of various barbarian peoples, along with theirclaims to be the source of Greek culture, was a central theme of “native”

2006: 217–41 finds an extensive tacit critique of contemporary philosophy in the Lives, especially intheir warm treatment of the Cynic Diogenes – a suggestive reading, but highly speculative.

65 Metaph. 1.3–4 983b28–984a4, 984b23–31, 3.4 1000a9–19; Frede 2004: 30–3.66 S. A. White 2001: 198–203; cf. Gigon 1960: 43–51. As White shows, the status of early Greek

and barbarian “philosophy” was a hotly contested topic in the fourth century bce, about whichearly Peripatetics apparently reached no consensus. In particular, Dicaearchus excludes the SevenSages from the ranks of philosophoi (frr. 36–7 Fortenbaugh–Schutrumpf) and may have dismissedbarbarian wise men as well, since he speaks of them in similar terms (frr. 58–61 F–S).

67 Opinions differ on whether Sotion, writing c. 200 bce, can have included Druids, largely unknownbefore the work of Posidonius more than a century later. E. Schwartz 1905: 751–2, followed bySpoerri 1959: 56–7, 62, Gigon 1960: 44–7, and Kienle 1961: 80–1, regards this as unlikely, but hisview is discarded without explanation by Wehrli 1978: 66, followed by Giannattasio Andria 1989:143.

68 Dates of Antisthenes and Alexander Polyhistor: Giannattasio Andria 1989: 30–4, 115–16.69 The caution of Spoerri 1959 on this point is well taken, if overstated. He rightly points out that

Sotion dealt with barbarian wisdom at the end of his work, not the beginning, as we would expectif he asserted the barbarian origin of Greek philosophy.



historiography in the Hellenistic and early Roman periods.70 That ideatook on new dimensions from the first century bce onward, as Posidoniusand Cornutus and other stoics reinterpreted myths of a primordial GoldenAge as evidence that primitive humans had possessed a pure, universalwisdom from which all later philosophy descended.71 A theory plausi-bly attributed to Posidonius held that philosophy had been invented, ordisseminated, on each continent in parallel: in Asia by the PhoenicianMochus, in Europe by Zamolxis of Thrace, and in Africa by the LibyanAtlas (D.L. 1.1).72 Lucian’s Runaways advances a light-hearted version ofthis thesis: when dispatched by Zeus to enlighten humanity, Philosophydecided to visit barbarians first, starting with India, since she expected thatthey would be more difficult to teach than Greeks (Fug. 6–8). On thisview, the Ur-philosophy appeared first among the oldest barbarian racesand only later reached Greece. If so, then current Greek philosophy couldonly be an inferior derivative of the original; recovery of that primordialwisdom, the fountainhead of Greek thought, was the proper task of thephilosopher.73 In contrast to the Aristotelian understanding of philosophyas progressing upward from rudimentary beginnings, this model saw onlydecline from primitive (barbarian) perfection.

By the late second century ce philosophical consensus had swung heav-ily in favor of this position. The new prevailing view is summed up in thepronouncement of the Platonist Celsus that “from the start there existsan ancient doctrine, with which both the wisest races and wise cities andmen have always been concerned” (ap. Origen, Cels. 1.14); conformity withthat universal true logos became the yardstick of philosophical truth.74

(For Celsus, the problem with Christianity was its repudiation of thatlogos.) The main open question was who best preserved that ancient wis-dom in the modern world. Appropriating the Stoic theory, Platonists, forexample Celsus and Numenius, argued that Plato’s teaching had fully andperfectly distilled the “true doctrine” of the ancients, either directly orthrough Pythagoras.75 Meanwhile, fusing the new Stoic-Platonist modelwith Hellenistic Jewish arguments for the priority of the Jews, Christianapologists championed Hebrew scripture as the first, purest articulation of

70 Momigliano 1975: 92–3; Droge 1989: 2–48; Sterling 1992: 103–310; Boys-Stones 2001: 60–95.71 Hyldahl 1966: 112–40; Most 1989: 2019–22; Boys-Stones 2001: 3–27, 44–59.72 Gigon 1960: 42. 73 Frede 1997: 220, 229–30; Boys-Stones 2001: 105–50.74 1�� 2�>�� N !�� 4��, �� \ �< �� 1� � � ��9�� 4�� N ��

�� . On Celsus’ Platonism, see Frede 1997: 223–8.75 Frede 1987: 1044–9, 1992: 318, 1997: 229–30; Droge 1989: 70–81; Boys-Stones 2001: 114–22; Athanas-

siadi 2002: 273–5; Kalligas 2004: 47–8.



the primordial philosophy.76 Underlying both claims is the hypothesis ofthe barbarian roots of Greek philosophy.

Diogenes stands firmly against the tide of contemporary opinion. Hisrepudiation of the theory of barbarian origins rests, first and foremost,on the traditional philosophical successions and, above all, on locatingthe wellsprings of those successions. Where others posited that philosophymight have arisen in diverse places and forms, Diogenes insists that genuinephilosophy appeared only once – among the Greeks – and in only oneform – that represented by the thinkers who descend from Anaximanderand Pythagoras.

His proof that Greek philosophy is not just the best or most famous butthe only legitimate claimant to that name rests on a deft sleight of hand.After rattling off a list of barbarian groups and individuals sometimesadduced as founders and practitioners of philosophy (1.1–2), Diogenesbreaks off to complain that these barbarians are getting credit for Greekaccomplishments. His own preferred candidates are Musaeus of Athensand Linus of Thebes, whom he paints as precursors of nearly the whole ofpre-Socratic natural philosophy (1.3–4).77 When he returns to the subjectof possible non-Greek fathers of philosophy in the next chapter, however,the figures named in 1.1–2 are no longer under consideration. Instead,Diogenes implies that the only serious barbarian contender for the roleis the previously unmentioned Thracian Orpheus (1.5).78 The segue fromLinus and Musaeus to Orpheus is understandable, since they make afrequent trio, but in separating Orpheus from the other two Diogenes isonce again swimming against the tide. While accepting Orpheus’ Thracianorigin, most Greek and Roman authors unblinkingly classify him amongthe ancient Greek theologoi. A robust tradition makes him a relative of Linusand Musaeus, and even of Homer and Hesiod,79 and Diodorus (4.25.3)calls him the greatest of the Greeks (�� 8�� VE��- ! )with regard to theology, initiations, poetry, and song. Even when Orpheus’foreignness receives notice, it is usually no bar to enrolling him as a father

76 Droge 1989; Boys-Stones 2001: 76–95, 162–202; cf. Le Boulluec 1985: 54–60 (although doubting theStoic roots of this model).

77 Gigon 1960: 39–41. For example, Diogenes attributes to Musaeus the doctrine that all things comefrom and are resolved into unity, an idea elsewhere credited to Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes,Heraclitus, Hippasus and Xenophanes, while he makes Linus the source of Anaxagoras’ teachings.

78 “But those who assign the invention (of philosophy) to them [the barbarians] also put forthOrpheus the Thracian, claiming that he was a philosopher, and a very ancient one” (�/ � < �$�� 4 �� 8��7 �� =�� +`�� c��, �� 4�� 2��4�� ).

79 Descendant and/or student of Linus: test. 8–9, 43 Kern. Teacher and/or father of Musaeus: test. 15,18, 97, 99, 165–72 Kern. Ancestor of Homer and Hesiod: test. 7–9 Kern.



of Greek philosophy.80 For Diogenes, however, a bright line separates the“barbarian” Orpheus from his Greek counterparts.81

Having narrowed the pool of possible inventors of philosophy to threepersons, of whom two are Greek, Diogenes then demolishes the claim ofthe lone barbarian by saddling Orpheus with unacceptable (and otherwiseunattested) views on theodicy.82 Thus Diogenes has turned Musaeus andLinus into “authentic” philosophers in the pre-Socratic mold, while makingthe “barbarian” Orpheus a prototypical anti-philosopher and writing offall of barbarian philosophy with him.

In 1.6–11 Diogenes reverts at last to the purported barbarian philosopherslisted in 1.1–2. After rejecting Orpheus, though, there is no possibilitythat he will accept any barbarian as a true philosopher. The clincher isthat the very words “philosophy” and “philosopher” were invented by aGreek, Pythagoras (1.12, cf. 1.4). For Diogenes, Pythagoras represents thecritical transition from Greek pre-philosophy – constituted by the vagueand inaptly named category of “wise man” (��-�, ��4�), like theSeven (or so) Sages – to philosophy proper (1.12–13). On this view, theSages too fall outside the scope of philosophy as such. Diogenes insists sorigidly on the distinction between sage and philosopher that he excises thesage Thales of Miletus – enshrined since Aristotle as the first philosopher(Metaph. 1.3.983b21–2) – from the very Ionian diadoche named after him(1.13).83 Exclusion of the Sages combines with the rejection of Orpheus tooffer an implicit definition of what it means to be a philosopher: philosophyin the Pythagorean mode entails reverence for the gods (unlike Orpheus),and active pursuit, rather than merely possession, of wisdom (unlike theSages).84 At the same time, Greek philosophy has been doubly insulatedagainst barbarian influence with a second layer of Greek prehistory: not

80 Plutarch, for example, sets Orpheus alongside Zoroaster and Egyptian or Phrygian sages as possiblesources of the insight that demi-gods occupy a middle space between gods and men (Def. orac. 10,415a). In Lucian’s Runaways, Orpheus and Eumolpus are Philosophy’s ambassadors to the Greeks(Fug. 8).

81 The closest parallels I have found for this emphatic distinction are in Jewish and Christian assertionsof the barbarian roots of Hellenism. Hellenistic Jewish apologetic sometimes makes Orpheus Jewishand/or a student of Moses (Bloch 2009); Tatian (Orat. 1.1–2) and Clement (Strom. 1.15.66.1) bothclaim him as a barbarian source of Greek culture (but cf. Orat. 41.1–2, which lists Orpheus amongthe Greek pre-Homeric sages).

82 Gigon 1960: 41.83 Because traces of the standard position of Thales appear throughout the work (esp. at 1.21, 122; 8.1),

Goulet 1992: 168–72 argues that the inclusion of the Sages and consequent amputation of Thalesfrom the Ionian line were results of a late, clumsy editorial change. Even so, that decision mesheswith a consistent program.

84 Warren 2007: 142–4.



only its ultimate ancestry (Linus, Musaeus) but also its immediate parentage(the Sages) is solidly Greek.85

The true origins (��2�7) of philosophy thus lie with the lines of succes-sion beginning with Pythagoras and Anaximander (1.13–15). Two �� . . . ��constructions in 1.11–13 shepherd the reader toward this proposition: somuch (�� ) for the barbarian invention of philosophy, but (��) philosophyreally starts with Pythagoras, who first gave it a name and called himselfa philosopher, improving on the old Greek wise-man concept; the classicwise men are the Sages (�� ), but (��) philosophy itself begins with thegeneration of their students and belongs to – or is synonymous with – thelines of succession that descend from them.86 The overview of the classicphilosophical diadochai that follows (1.13–15) confirms that not only doesphilosophy have purely Greek roots, but for the entire and breadth of itshistory it has been practiced exclusively by Greeks. The prestige of philos-ophy is enhanced by its characterization as a purely Greek phenomenon,while Greeks are exalted as the sole, independent inventors of philosophy.

This thesis is sustained throughout the work, which requires some cre-ative massaging of the biographical tradition, since many of the Athenianscholarchs were of non-Greek origin. Diogenes’ struggles against his sourcematerial are especially visible in his Life of Zeno of Citium, where “bar-barianness” is a running theme. All the authorities he cites regard Zenoas a Phoenician, some unproblematically (2.114; 7.3), others as a poten-tial sticking point. Antigonus of Carystus notes with surprise that Zenonever denied his birthplace (ap. 7.12), while the Stoic Zenodotus defendsZeno’s Phoenician birth, pointing out that Cadmus too was Phoenician(ap. 7.31). Among hostile witnesses, the Skeptic Timon mockingly refersto him as “the Phoenician lady” (@�7 ��, ap. 7.15), while the Aca-demic Polemo accuses Zeno of stealing his doctrines and dressing them inPhoenician clothes (ap. 7.25).87 By contrast, Diogenes is at pains to describeCitium as a Greek city with Phoenician settlers (��7�� VE�� &,@�7 �� 8�7�� 8�2��4��, 7.1). In this way, although he once alludes toZeno’s “barbarian stinginess” (%��%�� 7��, 7.16), Diogenes

85 It is conceivable that Diogenes was also a bit uneasy about the Sages, whose Greekness was not beyondchallenge. Some lists, although not the one Diogenes prefers (1.13), included the Scythian Anacharsis(1.41). Even Thales was open to question, as Diogenes acknowledges (but quickly dismisses): p. XXXbelow.

86 (11) �� !� ]�� 12��. (12) ��7� �� m�� m 4�� A��4�� 3�� 4�� . . . (13) �� 8 ��7K� � �� . . . �� / �� 7. ��7�� 4 �� 2�7.

87 Cf. Lucian, who alludes to Zeno casually, but hardly innocently, as a barbarian from Cyprus(Pisc. 19).



allows us to infer that the father of Stoicism was of Greek, not barbarian,origin.

Similar patterns are visible elsewhere. Although he cannot avoid men-tioning Plato’s studies in Egypt (3.6) or Pythagoras’ travels among Egyp-tians, Chaldaeans, and Magi (8.2–3), Diogenes skates lightly over thesetraditions, in comparison with the emphasis they received in second-and third-century Platonist and Neopythagorean circles.88 He does notattribute any of their teachings to barbarian influence; instead, he twicequotes Aristoxenus’ assertion that Pythagoras acquired most of his ethicaldoctrines from the Pythia (8.8, 21), and he describes Plato’s system as builton the strictly Greek foundation of Heraclitus, Pythagoras, and Socrates(3.8). When summarizing Plato’s doctrines (3.67–80), Diogenes largely fol-lows the lines of Middle Platonist handbooks.89 Yet although his accountdraws heavily on the Timaeus, Diogenes does not perceive in that workthe debts to barbarian wisdom that struck other contemporary readers.90

Only in the case of Pyrrho does he admit to barbarian influence on Greekphilosophical doctrine: citing Ascanius of Abdera, Diogenes reports thatthe Skeptical concepts of akatalepsia and suspension of judgment wereinspired by Pyrrho’s visit to the Indian gymnosophists and Magi (9.61).91

As often, though, it is difficult to know whether Diogenes accepts, ormerely records, the information of his source; these influences do not reap-pear in his review of possible forerunners of Skepticism, all impeccablyGreek (9.71–3).

Staunch Hellenizing has also been held responsible for the peculiarlyearly end points of Diogenes’ work. His treatment of most schools ter-minates in the Hellenistic period; the only exceptions are the Pyrrhoniansuccession, traced into the second century ce (9.116), the Epicurean, whichDiogenes says endured without interruption into his own day, withoutnaming names (10.9), and possibly the Stoic, if the lost end of book 7continued into the first century ce.92 Even those exceptions are fairlynugatory, though, since Diogenes does not record the lives or teachings ofany post-Hellenistic philosopher. Nor does he take account of the Platonist,

88 On Platonist exploitation of these travel traditions, see Droge 1989: 70; Boys-Stones 2001: 116–18.89 Mejer 1992: 3569–73; Dillon 1996: 408–10.90 For example, Hippolytus asserts that the Timaeus is entirely Pythagorean, and that the ideas of both

Plato and Pythagoras stem from Egypt (Ref. 6.21–2; cf. 4.51.1 with Mueller 1992: 4326); cf. Numen.frr. 1a, 52 des Places.

91 H�� 4�� > ��, � �� D7�� 8�2�� #��9 .92 If the list of the �4�!� of book 7 that appears in some manuscripts represents a table of contents,

then Diogenes’ account of Stoicism continued as far as Cornutus (fl. 60s ce): Rose 1866; Mejer1978: 55; Mansfeld 1990: 356–8; contra, Glucker 1978: 349–51.



Aristotelian, Neopythagorean, or Cynic revivals and reinterpretations of theimperial period. In those decisions, some have seen a deliberate occlusionof the Roman-dominated present and recent past, a silent protest againstcurrent “orientalizing” (and other) tendencies, and/or an archaizing atti-tude typical of the Second Sophistic.93 Caution is in order, however, sinceother explanations are available. Most obviously, Diogenes is resuscitating agenre that died out in the Augustan age; his work largely ends where earlierSuccessions did. The doxographical tradition, which did continue into theRoman era, has a similar Hellenistic bias.94 Also Diogenes has been seen asa provincial writer, working at a distance from the intellectual hubs of theRoman empire; on this view, his “somewhat old-fashioned erudition” andlimited engagement with recent trends indicate less an ideological stancethan lack of access to an up-to-date library.95 It would be over-confident,then, to attribute the backward-looking orientation of the Lives primarilyto Diogenes’ insistence on the exclusive Greekness of philosophy. Thosetwo features of the work do, however, reinforce each other.

Against a prevailing acceptance that Greek philosophy was an offshootof a primordial barbarian wisdom, then, Diogenes’ history of philosophyis constructed so as to demonstrate that philosophy had been invented byGreeks and practiced solely by Greeks, joined to each other in a single intel-lectual family tree. The latter claim is implicit already in the equation of thehistory of philosophy with successions of (Greek) philosophers; Diogeneshas simply made it explicit and strengthened it through careful curationof the biographical traditions available to him. The former depends onminute adjustments to the prehistory of the diadochai, delicately pruningaway all the non-Greeks identified as possible forebears by earlier historiansof philosophy. This seemingly trivial manipulation has significant impli-cations for defining the character, scope, and present aims of philosophy.Why exactly Diogenes adopted this eccentric position is impossible to say.It is tempting to read his stance as a protest against contemporary philo-sophical or cultural trends, but his allegiances remain too elusive to explainhis views in terms of any specific philosophical current, past or present.96

Still, he is plainly part of the Second Sophistic conversation about the

93 Mejer 1978: 56–8 and 2000: 54; Gugliermina 2006: 217, 224–5, 241. Warren 2007: 148–9 considersthe possibility of opposition to Rome in the Lives, but rightly cautions that “it is equally possiblethat Diogenes was simply unconcerned with tackling Rome’s relationship to philosophy.”

94 Mansfeld 1990: 358. 95 Mansfeld 1990: 346–7; Runia 2004: 452 (“old-fashioned erudition”).96 Diogenes’ understanding of philosophy bears some resemblance to that of Dicaearchus (n. 66

above), whose exclusion of the Sages he cites (1.40–2). Closer to his own time, the Platonist Atticus(fl. 176) produces a sketch of Plato’s predecessors that names only Greeks and omits Pythagoras (fr.1 des Places), and it snappishly informs rival interpreters that “they must excuse us if on the subjectof Plato’s doctrines we rely on what he himself, being Greek, has said to us Greeks in clear anddistinct speech” (�7�� =� �#�� > �� 9�� , �# �� ! A�=! �


Philosophy as a subsidiary of Christianity 199

nature of Greek culture and its relation to non-Greek others. Within thatdebate, Diogenes firmly rejects the notion that philosophy’s chief task isto recover a universal ancient wisdom first propounded and preserved bybarbarians.

locating the community ii: philosophy as a subsidiaryof christianity

Contemporary with Diogenes, Clement of Alexandria argues precisely thatthesis in his Stromateis, relying on the same set of “data”: the traditionalsuccessions and biographies of Greek philosophers. Clement maintainsnot only that Greek philosophy originated in barbarian wisdom but thatthe founding Greek philosophers were themselves barbarians. Thus, whereDiogenes doubly (or even trebly) insulates early Greek philosophy againstbarbarian contributions, Clement makes it doubly (or even trebly) barbar-ian. It seems unlikely that these two were directly responding to each other;rather, both are participating in the same cultural debate.97 The differencesbetween them are a further lesson in the tendentious flexibility of even themost canonically fixed succession narrative.

Clement’s reconstruction of universal intellectual history starts fromthe premise that although the truth is one, it has been dismembered likePentheus, so that all the sects of barbarian and Greek philosophy possessfragments of it, which they mistake for the whole; only Christianity pos-sesses the whole body intact.98 In support of this claim, he cites the classicphilosophical diadochai as evidence that all of Greek philosophy is morerecent than, and derived from, barbarian wisdom, both at its point(s) of

�� *� �:�� qE�� ? �� qE�� > �� 4�� 7��,fr. 4 d.P.). Both remarks can be read as striking at the burgeoning Pythagorizing and “orientalizing”trend represented by Numenius and others (Kalligas 2004: 48–54; Dillon 1988: 117 suggests that thetarget is Calvenus Taurus, from Beirut), in a way that Diogenes might have found congenial. SinceDiogenes does not address those trends, though, we cannot confidently place him in dialogue witheither Atticus or Numenius.

97 Whitmarsh 2007: 38–9, pace Canfora 1994. Since the barbarian origin of philosophy was the majorityview in the late second century, I see no reason to single out Clement as Diogenes’ main target,or to suppose Diogenes was aware of him at all. Diogenes’ location is unknown, but the case forBithynia, based on his reference to Apollonides of Nicaea as ( ��’ �� (D.L. 9.109), is strongerthan that for Alexandria, which rests on his knowledge of the “recent” Alexandrian Eclectic Potamo(D.L. 1.21); see Mansfeld 1990: 346–7.

98 �� 7 � �n�� 7�� (� �� D�&�� 7�� 8�� 12��), ��=�� # %=�2�� & A� ��!� ��-�� # �� 7�� %��%=�� VE�� /��, 3�=�� H�� 1��2� '� �� :2�> < ��-�� (1.13.57.1). The image of philosophytorn apart like Pentheus also appears in – and could be inspired by – Numenius (Plato’s doctrinedismembered by his successors: fr. 24.71–4 d.P.) and Atticus (philosophy before Plato’s synthesis: fr.1.21–3 d.P.), but it evokes too the description of schisms rending the limbs of Christ in 1 Clem. 46.7.In this section, references otherwise unspecified are to the Stromateis.



origin and throughout its history (1.14.59–16.80). Among barbarian wis-doms, Hebrew is the oldest (1.15.72.4, 21.101–47) and the wellspring of therest (1.23.153.4), through a chain traceable back to the primordial activity ofdivine Wisdom (6.7.57.2–59.1). Therefore, Hebrew wisdom is the ultimatesource of Greek philosophy, both indirectly, through other barbarians,and directly, in that much of Greek philosophy is lifted straight fromHebrew scripture. The latter claim, the so-called dependency hypothesis,99

explains both why Greek philosophy contains useful glimmers of truthand why it is inferior to Hebrew wisdom, of which it is merely a garbledfragment.100

Clement was not the first Christian author to make this claim: Justin,Tatian, Theophilus, Tertullian, and even Clement’s Christian opponentsCassianus (ap. 1.21.101.1), Valentinus, and Isidore (ap. 6.7.52–3) all exploredvariants on the dependency theme.101 He does, however, seem to have beenthe first to draft the Greek philosophical succession in service of thatargument. In Clement’s hands, the diadochai not only demonstrate thebelatedness of Greek philosophy but also reveal that many of its forerun-ners, founders, and leading lights were themselves barbarians; these becomechannels through which barbarian thought flowed into the discipline as awhole. He concludes: “That most of [the older Greek sages and philoso-phers] were barbarian by race and educated among barbarians, what moreproof is necessary, if indeed Pythagoras has been shown to be Tyrrhenianor Tyrian, Antisthenes a Phrygian, and Orpheus Odrysian or Thracian?”(1.15.66.1).102

Notably, while Clement’s diadochai are nearly identical with Diogenes’,he takes the opposite view to Diogenes on virtually every controver-sial point. He accepts that philosophy flourished first among barbarians,

99 This theme pervades Clement’s work, but its most sustained expositions are at 1.17.87.1–3, 21.101–26.170; 5.14.89–141; 6.3.8–34. On the dependency thesis in Clement, see Molland 1936: 63, 1938:52–67; Droge 1989: 138–49; Ridings 1995: 29–140; Boys-Stones 2001: 188–94.

100 Other explanations entertained by Clement include that philosophy was given directly by God tothe Greeks as propaideia (e.g. 1.5.28); that it was given to humanity by the devil or fallen angels whostole it (1.16.80.5, 17.81.4–5; rejected at 6.8.66, 17.159.1–160.3) or benevolent angels assigned to eachnation (6.17.157.4–5; 7.2.6.4); that Greeks stumbled into glimpses of true philosophy by accident,by the exercise of some innate, God-given conception (��< 1 ��) or universal intellect (�� &�), or by a mental reflection of truth (1.16.80.5, 19.94.1–3, 7). See Molland 1936: 57–76; Lilla1971: 12–34; Droge 1989: 139–42; Ridings 1995: 118–32.

101 Droge 1989: 49–123; Stroumsa 1999: 60–72; Boys-Stones 2001: 176–88; Nasrallah 2010: 65–70,150–2. In particular, Tatian’s chronological calculations of the priority of Moses (Orat. 31, 36–41)supply a cornerstone of Clement’s argument.

102 '� � �/ ��>�� :� %=�%�� %��%=�� , 7 ��> �� , �M �� k�� J k�� ( A��4�� 8��7� ��, X �� @�05 ; �� +`��0�+`�� J c��5;


Philosophy as a subsidiary of Christianity 201

especially Egyptian prophets, Babylonian Chaldaeans, Celtic Druids, Bac-trian Samanaeans, Persian Magi, and Indian gymnosophists (1.15.71.3–4;cf. 1.15.68.1), a roster very like the one rejected by Diogenes (D.L. 1 pr.1–2).Where Diogenes makes Linus and Musaeus the sole forerunners of Greekphilosophy, Clement omits Musaeus and includes Orpheus (1.14.59.1) –although he does agree in classing Orpheus as a barbarian (1.15.66.1). UnlikeDiogenes, he does not draw a sharp distinction between sage and philoso-pher (1.14.59–61), which allows him to capitalize on the “Hebraic andenigmatic” style of the Sages’ utterances ( VE%��s�� # ��9��,1.14.60.1), and to keep Thales in his usual place at the head of the Ioniandiadoche (1.14.62.1, 3). Clement also reverses Diogenes’ handling of Thales’ethnicity. While Diogenes acknowledges the tradition that Thales’ par-ents were Phoenicians (cf. Hdt. 1.170), he affirms that most authorities(�/ ��7��) make him a Milesian of distinguished family (D.L. 1.22).Clement, by contrast, dismisses that as a minority view (� �� -L��, 1.14.62.3) and treats Thales as a Phoenician throughout (cf. 1.15.66.1).Pythagoras, too, he claims for the barbarians, noting that “according tomost writers” (�� 0� ��7��) he was of foreign origin, whetherEtruscan, Syrian, or Tyrian (1.14.62.2).103 Finally, he works as hard to playup the exotic travels of Pythagoras, Thales, and the rest (1.14.62.3, 15.66–70)as Diogenes does to minimize them. On many of these points Clement ismore in line with conventional wisdom on the history of philosophy thanis Diogenes,104 but he takes these traditional ingredients in a radical direc-tion, to argue that the only true philosophy is Christianity, from whicheverything good in Greek philosophy directly or indirectly derives.

Diogenes and Clement, then, writing (probably) at nearly the sametime, have put their hands to the same set of “data” – the traditionalsuccessions of Greek philosophers – and subjected it to a similar set ofstrategies – editing, tweaking, and reweighting the available biographicaltraditions – in service of radically opposed ends. Where Diogenes strivesto enhance the prestige of Hellenism by confirming its monopoly on realphilosophy, and to burnish philosophy by proving its pure Hellenicity,Clement seeks to elevate the standing of Christianity by establishing it as

103 Kienle 1961: 101 nn. 5–6 unravels the (deliberate?) misunderstandings at work here. The ideathat Pythagoras was Etruscan stems from misinterpreting k�wO� 4� as “Tyrrhenian,” rather than“from a Tyrrhenian island,” i.e. Lemnos (cf. D.L. 8.1). That he was Syrian arises from confusingPythagoras with his mentor, Pherecydes of Syros, and misconstruing F�� as “Syrian.” k��appears to be a textual variant in Clement’s source(s).

104 Clement has been seen as participating directly in contemporary Platonist discussion, perhapsdirectly influenced by Numenius and responding to Celsus. See Lilla 1971: 34–41; Droge 1989:147–52.



the one true philosophy, both superior to and the source of – and henceencompassing – everything of worth in its Greek offshoot.

In this effort, Clement must strike a delicate balance. He must putphilosophy firmly in its place, as younger than, derivative of, and inferiorto Christian wisdom – a mere imitation of truth that “knows nothingbeyond this world” (�� & �& �4�� :� M�� :�� ,6.7.56.1–2) – while simultaneously affirming its value for Christian readers,at least as propaideutic. Further, the usefulness of this maneuver dependsin part on the cachet of Greek philosophy itself: claiming to surpass andcontain Greek philosophy does Christianity no good if philosophy has nocultural authority worth appropriating.105 As Rebecca Lyman remarks, thisgambit “shifted cultural categories rather than destroyed their validity.”106

We may thus see Clement, like Justin before him, as engaged in an attemptto construct Christianity as another metaphilosophy that subsumes andtranscends Greek philosophy while laying claim to its “global-imperialstatus.”107 Clement stakes that claim explicitly: while Greek philosophyremained confined to narrow sects and teacher–student pairs, Christianityhas spilled out from Judaea to spread through the entire world, Greek andbarbarian alike (6.18.167.2–3). For Clement, the philosophical diadochaiserve to concretize the relationship between Greek and barbarian – as theydo for Diogenes. That the same basic successions could be turned to suchincompatible ends illustrates once more the protean flexibility of the form.

defining the community: genealogy as branding

More nuanced exploitations of this flexibility lie behind contrasting treat-ments of the training of Zeno of Citium in Diogenes and Numenius. Bothauthors agree on the broad outlines: that Zeno studied under the CynicCrates of Thebes, the Socratic Stilpo of Megara, and Plato’s successorsXenocrates and Polemo (D.L. 7.2; Numen. fr. 25.6–10 d.P.). Their chrono-logical ordering of those teachers differs, however, with consequences for

105 On the question of Clement’s attitude to philosophy, my view thus falls between those who seehim as engaged in a positive recuperation of philosophy for Christian use, and those who regardhim as hostile to Greek philosophy, whose shortcomings he emphasizes.

106 Lyman 2003a: 217, speaking of Justin Martyr. Similarly, Konig and Whitmarsh 2007: 19 observethat when the Brahmans in Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius assert the superiority of Indian thoughtto Greek philosophy, “the tyranny of Hellenocentrism is not so much overthrown as subtlyreconfigured,” since Indian philosophy turns out to sound suspiciously Greek.

107 Konig and Whitmarsh 2007: 13–16, at 16; cf. Nasrallah 2010: 73–6 (Justin). Annexing Greek paideiafor Christianity had implications for intra-Christian contests over authority as well: see Buell 1999:120–1 and pp. 000–000 above.


Defining the community: genealogy as branding 203

their evaluation of Stoicism. Their disagreement opens a window onto cen-turies of revision and reinterpretation of the Stoa’s ancestry by both Stoicsand Academics, part of a long struggle to fix definitively the character ofStoicism and its precise place in the history of Greek philosophy.

In Diogenes, Zeno starts with Crates, from whom he defected (��)to study with Stilpo and the Platonists, apparently in that order (D.L. 7.2–4,24); from these strands Zeno developed his own synthesis, which he taughtto his own followers (D.L. 7.5). Plotting Zeno’s trajectory in this wayasserts that the Stoa’s chief debt was to Cynicism, with the Academy andMegarian dialectic supplying ingredients that could not be derived from theCynics.108 This is the standard version of Zeno’s education, printed withoutrival in modern handbooks. The central position occupied by Crates surelyderives from early Stoic tradition, beginning with Zeno’s own Memoirs ofCrates (D.L. 7.4). Yet accepting this version, which highlights Zeno’s Cynicrather than Platonic affiliations, is not a philosophically neutral choice.Equally freighted is Diogenes’ promotion of a more historically dubiousbut ideologically potent genealogy that attaches Stoicism to Socrates by wayof Cynicism. This tradition, which has its origins in Stoic self-definitionalmaneuvering, annexes the Socratic Antisthenes as the father of Cynicism,relegating the likelier founder Diogenes of Sinope to second place.109 Inthe Lives these alignments are written into the initial survey of the Socraticsuccession (D.L. 1.15) and confirmed by architecture of the work as a whole,which postpones the Cynics to sit next to the Stoics.110 Further support isprovided by a Stoicized account of Cynic teachings, which underscores thecommonalities (�� ! 7�) between the two schools (D.L. 6.104);111 thisgeneral doxography is also deferred to the end of the Cynic book (6.103–5)in order to serve as a bridge to the Stoics in book 7.112

The genealogy Socrates–Antisthenes–Diogenes–Crates–Zeno was notinevitable: an early alternative traced Zeno’s roots to Megarian dialecticthrough Diodorus Cronus (D.L. 7.25) or Stilpo of Megara (D.L. 2.114, 120;

108 Mansfeld 1990: 373–4.109 Antisthenes’ status as the founder of Cynicism was decisively challenged by Dudley 1998 [1937]:

1–8, whose arguments have been widely, if not universally, accepted. See recently Gugliermina2006, esp. 93–102; contra Navia 1996, esp. 17–20, 60.

110 Traces linger of an earlier organization that placed Antisthenes and the Cynics (± Stoics) among theSocratics (book 2), as in the On Sects tradition, rather than after Plato et al.; particularly dislocatedare the transitions at D.L. 2.47 and 6.19. See Mansfeld 1990: 360–1, 364–6; Goulet 1992: 173–6;Goulet-Caze 1992: 3882–9; Gugliermina 2006: 203–16.

111 Goulet-Caze 1986: 31–4, 1992: 3937–41; Mansfeld 1990: 374–89; Gugliermina 2006: 41–63, 117–40.112 Diogenes usually summarizes a school’s doctrines in the Life of its founder. The bridge function of

this doxography is discussed by Mansfeld 1990: 356; Goulet-Caze 1992: 3927; Gugliermina 2006:186.



7.24), while omitting Cynicism from the Socratic diadoche entirely (Hip-pobotus ap. D.L. 1.19; cf. 6.103).113 The Cynic–Stoic filiation had evidentlysurfaced by the late third century bce, though, since it was incorporatedinto Sotion’s Successions.114 For its early Stoic devisers, this sequence laidclaim to the Socratic tradition for themselves, reasserting its ethical coreagainst Plato’s metaphysical speculations.115 Affirming Antisthenic ances-try also staked a position in internal Stoic debates over the precise extentand nature of the Stoa’s debt to Cynicism. To one side, Panaetius (fl. 129–110 bce) and other critics sought to distance Stoicism from the shamelessindecency of Cynicism by decoupling the two. In response, promotingAntisthenes as the first Cynic allowed proponents to recuperate the Stoa’sCynic inheritance by downplaying the more embarrassing elements of Dio-genic teaching in favor of the gentler, more Stoic-sounding doctrines ofAntisthenes.116

This strategy came in multiple inflections, each of which cast Cynicism,its relationship to Stoicism, and hence the nature of Stoicism itself in slightlydifferent light.117 Two are reflected in Diogenes’ Lives. On the one hand,the two schools are harmonized by means of a Stoicized Cynic doxographythat most likely derives from Apollodorus of Seleucia. A fellow studentof Panaetius, Apollodorus probably intended a rehabilitation of the Stoa’sCynic heritage against Panaetius’ criticism; he may even have affirmed thecontinuing value of Cynicism itself, as a legitimate “shortcut to virtue”(ap. D.L. 7.121; cf. 6.104). In so doing, he may also have sought to defendZeno’s “heterodox,” Cynicizing disciple Aristo of Chios – singled out asa nexus between the two schools (D.L. 6.103, 105) – as a representive ofauthentic Zenonian tradition.118

113 This view is associated especially, although not exclusively, with Hippobotus, who also shatteredthe internal Cynic ��2- by linking Crates not to Diogenes but to the obscure Bryson ofAchaea (ap. D.L. 6.85): see Mansfeld 1990: 371–3; Goulet-Caze 1992: 3923–6; Hahm 1992: 4122–3;Gugliermina 2006: 76–89, 105–6, 108–9, 114, 177–9. A date in the late third/early second centurybce seems likeliest for Hippobotus (von Arnim 1913; Mejer 1978: 69), especially if Sotion used hiswork (Wehrli 1978: 15), but he has also been placed as late as the first century bce (Glucker 1978:176–9).

114 Brancacci 1992: 4051–8; Goulet-Caze 1992: 3927–30. Sotion’s ��2- did not prevail immediately:among later authors of Successions, Sosicrates of Rhodes (late second century bce) did not acceptthe Socratic roots of Cynicism (frr. 15–16 GA); the positions of the rest are unknown.

115 Long 1988: 160–2; Boys-Stones 2001: 131.116 The fullest analysis of this strategy is now Gugliermina 2006.117 Philodemus (Sto. cols. 11–15; cf. Ind. Sto. col. 4) catalogues other Stoic attempts to mitigate the

damaging legacy of Cynicism: excusing Zeno’s embarrassingly Cynic Politeia as a juvenile work orexcising troublesome passages (cf. D.L. 7.34); bypassing Zeno to paint the Stoa as a Socratic schooldescended from Antisthenes and Diogenes; mimimizing Zeno’s contributions to Stoic doctrine;challenging the authenticity of Diogenes’ Politeia.

118 Suggested by Goulet-Caze 1986: 22–4 n. 22 and 1992: 3941–51; Gugliermina 2006: 135–40.


Defining the community: genealogy as branding 205

On the other hand, the Laertian account of Zeno’s education, proba-bly stemming from Apollonius of Tyre (first century bce), reflects a moreequivocal approach: not only is (Antisthenic) Cynicism refashioned inthe image of the Stoa, but it is firmly subordinated to its offspring.119

Crates retains pride of place among Zeno’s teachers, but he shares thespotlight with Stilpo and the two Academics. The relationship betweenthe two sects is further defined by a composite conversion narrative whichdepicts Zeno as a man on a pre-existing philosophical quest that neitherbegins nor ends with Crates (D.L. 7.2–4); Cynicism thus represents onlyone, intermediate phase of Zeno’s philosophical formation.120 The pointsof contact and rupture between the two schools are precisely marked:drawn to Crates as a pure embodiment of Socratic ethics, Zeno is finallyrepelled by his antisocial shamelessness. The mainstream Stoic classifi-cation of such behavior as morally indifferent but inappropriate actionthus stands out as the Stoa’s crucial improvement on Cynic teaching.Aristo, who rejected this innovation, is marginalized in book 7 as a deviantwhose doctrines represent not fidelity to Zeno but regression toward animmature Cynicism.121 On this construction, presupposed by Diogenesthroughout book 7, Zeno’s education is figured as an ascent from theincomplete foundation of Cynicism to the fully realized perfection ofStoicism.

Numenius paints almost the opposite picture, beginning by invertingthe sequence of Zeno’s teachers: he has Zeno begin as a student (� 9��)of Xenocrates and Polemo, later defecting to study under Crates and Stilpo(fr. 25.4–10 d.P.). Platonism thus becomes Zeno’s starting position, ratherthan an added ingredient in his thought. This version of Stoic history,too, has roots in middle Stoic self-definitional debate. Seeking to shed thebaggage of Cynicism and to shore up the Stoic position against Academiccritiques, Antipater (fl. 150s–140s bce), Panaetius, and their circle evidentlyplayed up Zeno’s Academic connections in order to rebrand Stoicism asa descendant of Plato.122 This realignment was adopted in turn by theAcademic Antiochus of Ascalon (c. 130/120–68 bce) in service of his effort

119 What follows draws on Hahm 1992; cf. Mansfeld 1990: 66–71. The relationship between the Cynicdoxographies in book 6 and the Stoic doxography in book 7 remains obscure, but if Apolloniusused the Cynic doxography developed (on Goulet-Caze’s reconstruction) by Apollodorus, then heapparently subjected it to reinterpretation.

120 Hahm 1992: 4089–102 shows that this narrative welds together four distinct traditions that, takenseparately, present very different (and mutually conflicting) pictures of the relationship betweenCrates and Zeno.

121 Hahm 1992: 4155–62. On Aristo’s thought and place in Stoic memory, see Porter 1996; Sedley 2003:14.

122 Glucker 1978: 28–31; Sedley 2003: 20–4.



to rescue what he saw as authentic Academic tradition from the skepticalturn of the “New” Academy: if Zeno, like Aristotle, could be claimed as alegitimate, albeit dissident, heir to Platonic tradition, differing from Platomore in terminology than in substance, then Stoic doctrine could be minedto restore the original teachings of Plato.123

Numenius accepts this version of Zeno’s curriculum vitae, but not itsrecuperative thrust. Rather, his Zeno is a man who was in possession oftrue philosophy and threw it away under the pressure of outside influ-ences and competition with his rival Arcesilaus, father of the SkepticalAcademy: “And so they, Arcesilaus and Zeno, having started out fromPolemo, under the influence of such helpers, in their war of words againsteach other, forgot the beginning from which they had started, Polemo”(fr. 25.83–7 d.P.).124 Where Diogenes charts the development of Zeno’sthought as a synthesis of Socratic traditions, Numenius considers Stoicismmerely an unforgivable betrayal of Plato. The basic arc of Zeno’s careeris the same in both versions but, by reordering Zeno’s academic affilia-tions, Numenius gives them a radically different spin. For him, the Stoicbrand is nothing but a hopelessly compromised counterfeit of Platonictruth.

continuity, deviance, and disruption

Numenius’ evaluation of Zeno as an apostate Academic raises a final issuethat will resurface in the use of succession narratives by Christian authors.The disparity between Numenius and Diogenes does not result solelyfrom their different ordering of Zeno’s teachers, but also from contrastingnotions of how much continuity successions should guarantee, and whatkind. For Numenius, authentic succession admits no deviation. Exemplaryon this score are the Epicureans, whom he praises, somewhat hyperbolically,for “never contradicting each other or Epicurus in any way” (fr. 24.26–8d.P.).125 It eats at him that Plato’s successors, who possessed far superiorteaching, “did not suffer everything and make every effort to preserve onevery point and in every way complete doctrinal agreement ((��57�)

123 Substantive agreement between Old Academy, Aristotle, and Zeno: Cic. Ac. 1.17–43, 2.15; Fin. 3.10,5.22; N.D. 1.16. Zeno as dissident pupil of Polemo: Cic. Ac. 1.35; Fin. 4.3.

124 �/ �’ �T 1 �� , H � +,��7�� x- ! , �� ! ��!�� , �� ! �4�! , �� 2�� H�� 8� A��! �� '��-�� 8�� = � ��.

125 ��5� � 8� �& 8� ��>�� >� �� +E��7�� ’ �:�>� �#�> ! 8 � 7� �n� ��-�� n� +E�� .


Continuity, deviance, and disruption 207

with Plato” (fr. 24.16–18 d.P.).126 On this view, innovation represents aculpable abandonment, not development, of the founder’s thought – apremise inscribed in the very title of his work, On the Divergence of theAcademy from Plato; for Numenius, not only was the defector Zeno but alsothe dissident Arcesilaus an apostate in all but name (fr. 25.66–7 d.P.). Bycontrast, while Diogenes sometimes construes defection negatively, he doesnot equate dissent with defection.127 Rather, he accepts that a philosophermay depart from or develop his predecessor’s teachings without disruptingthe continuity of the tradition; indeed, successors who add nothing to thefounder’s thought receive short shrift from him, as they do in the Successionsliterature generally.128 For him, Arcesilaus remains a legitimate tradent ofPlato’s teachings.

This difference of perspective is in part a difference of genre. Retro-spective history of philosophy is one thing, active philosophical inquiryanother. Numenius is concerned not with demonstrating the continuityof his school’s traditions over time but with asserting the correctness ofhis formulation of that tradition against internal rivals. As David Sed-ley has emphasized, in the context of internal school discourse, neitherinstitutional authority nor personal connections are accepted as sufficientguarantees of philosophical truth; rather, in each school the founder’s writ-ings represent the locus of authority, fidelity to those texts the criterionof orthodoxy.129 In such debates, accusations of illegitimate deviation areinevitable; otherwise there would be no cause for dispute. Nor do scholarchshold any special authority, either as privileged conduits for the founder’sthought or as a doctrinal pace-setters in their own right. Numenius’ attackon the Academic scholarchs follows this mode of intra-school debate: hepositions himself as a loyal defender of the founder’s views (correctly under-stood) against those who erroneously or willfully alter them, who can anddo include the founder’s successors.

Admittedly, this analysis of the norms of scholastic debate stands in ten-sion with a high valuation of the role of succession in establishing identityand orthodoxy, since it suggests that the primary locus of philosophi-cal authority and continuity was a body of canonical texts, rather than a“golden chain” of teachers. To a degree, the two models are complementary:in ancient education, access to texts and their authorized interpretation waslargely mediated through teachers; fidelity to (a particular reading of ) the

126 �� =� �� H� �< � 1��4 � �� 1��! ��K� �� A�=! � �� = � = �. �� (��57� .

127 Wilson 2002: 452–4, 2004: 104–9; Gugliermina 2006: 229–32. 128 Ludlam 2003.129 Sedley 1989, 2003: 13–18, 28–9; Long and Sedley 1987 i: 5.



founder’s writings and fidelity to one’s teacher will often have been muchthe same thing.130 Deciding which element to accent was to some extenta matter of discretion: we have noted elsewhere the friction between therhetoric of disinterested philosophical inquiry and the reality that philo-sophical commitments are often shaped by personal affiliations.

Yet the difference between these two scholarly models also points up agenuine tension in ancient conceptions of what it meant to be an authenticPlatonist (or Epicurean, Stoic, etc.). Ordinarily assumed to coincide, thesetwo grounds of identity – personal ties to a teacher and loyalty to thefounder’s writings – could be brought into competition; at need, eithercriterion of authenticity could be exploited to challenge the other. We haveseen that even the strongest Christian proponents of clerical authority rec-ognized that bishops and presbyters sometimes diverged from (what theyconsidered) correct interpretation of scripture. In such cases, polemicistssuch as Irenaeus and Tertullian are prepared to wield the criterion of scrip-tural fidelity to delegitimize an ordained minister – while continuing toaffirm against unordained rivals that the clerical succession is the privilegedsite of “orthodox” exegesis. For Numenius, seeking to buck the trend ofgenerations of Academic teaching, privileging fidelity to Plato’s writingsas the yardstick of Platonist identity was a necessary counter to the pre-sumption that philosophers linked to Plato are trustworthy exponents ofhis thought. Paradoxically, though, Numenius’ bitter repudiation of Plato’ssuccessors as apostates bespeaks exceptionally high expectations for the sortof doctrinal uniformity that academic succession should guarantee.

Underpinning this heightened demand for homodoxia is a second dif-ference between Numenius and Diogenes, namely, their conception of thehistory of philosophy. Numenius is a vocal exponent of the theory of auniversal Ur-philosophy that Diogenes so vigorously rejects. Reconstitutedand sublimely expressed by Pythagoras and Plato, this primordial wisdomwas the doctrine handed on by Plato to his successors; the best the modernPlatonist could achieve was to revert as closely as possible to that originalteaching. This historical model does not admit the possibility of improve-ment but only of maintenance, decline, or conservative repair. If truth hasalready been fully and perfectly grasped, nothing but absolute fidelity to

130 Snyder 2000, esp. 223–7, outlines a spectrum of relationships between teacher and text. Thedependence of students on their teachers for interpretation of texts at the most basic level isillustrated by a discussion in Aulus Gellius about the correct reading of a line in Ennius: therhetor Antonius Julianus insists that anyone with a “teacher or tutor worth a cent” (si magistrumpraelectoremque habuisset alicuius aeris) knows that Ennius wrote eques rather than equus, althoughsome of Gellius’ friends recall reading equus with their grammar teachers (Gell. 18.5.5–7; cf. 17.3.3;18.9).


Continuity, deviance, and disruption 209

it can be philosophically justifiable. Numenius’ articulation of this idealrepresents a major step in the direction of equating dissidence with defec-tion – an equation increasingly drawn in Christian circles as well in thelatter half of the second century.

Indeed, much about the late second-century Christian use of successionnarratives to authorize and exclude recalls – or runs parallel with – Nume-nius. Beginning with Numenius’ approximate contemporaries Justin Mar-tyr and Hegesippus, Christian bishops are increasingly cast as successorsof the apostles, and the ideal of homodoxia within successions is adducedto underwrite their authority. If the proper action of an apostolic followeris to agree with the apostles (si apostolicus cum apostolis senti, Tert. Carn.Chr. 2.3), then it is reasonable for bishops, present-day apostolici, to becredited with full knowledge of and agreement with apostolic teaching andaccorded nearly the same authority as their forebears. Numenius’ explana-tions for breaches of homodoxia also chime with Christian thinking: forboth, deviation stems from ambition, divisive contentiousness, and, aboveall, affiliation with outsiders.131 At each inflection point on the road awayfrom Plato, Numenius detects corruption by external agents: Crates makesZeno a Cynic (fr. 25.6–15 d.P.); Arcesilaus’ loyalty to Plato is disruptedby a string of outside teachers, culminating with Pyrrho, with whom heremains in all but name (fr. 25.15–74 d.P.); slaves versed in Stoic sophistriesbefuddle Arcesilaus’ successor Lacydes (fr. 26.52–98 d.P.); instead of pre-serving his teacher’s doctrines as he ought, Carneades reverts to those ofArcesilaus (fr. 27.1–5 d.P.); Antiochus of Ascalon acquires foreign ideas fromhis association with the Stoic Mnesarchus (fr. 28.12–15 d.P.). The contam-inated paternities of the Academic scholarchs, which Numenius sees asinvalidating their Platonism, find an echo in contemporary genealogies of“heresy” developed in order to invalidate “heretical” teachings by tracingtheir descent from illegitimate, outside sources. And for Numenius, as forChristian heresiologists, the failure of dissidents to agree with their (real orpurported) antecedents even in error is a further strike against them.132

Most fundamentally, Numenius’ vision of the proper functioning of phi-losophy has much in common with the heresiological view of Christianity.Whether this congruence can be attributed to direct influence or inter-action between Numenius and his Christian contemporaries, especially131 Le Boulluec 1985: 159–60 and Boys-Stones 2001: 136–42, 159–60 give further examples in second-

century Platonist and Christian polemic.132 Thus Carneades should have preserved all the teachings of his predecessor, Hegesinus, both those

that reflected “undisturbed” Platonism and those that did not (2��6 ��=5�� H�’ ��7 �� H�� , fr. 27.1–2); cf. pp. 000–000 for Christian accusations of dissension within the“heretical” succession.



the Platonically trained Justin Martyr, remains an open question.133 Theycertainly belonged to a common intellectual milieu, however: the Stoic-Platonist model of cultural history that underpins Numenius’ work wasappropriated by Christian authors such as Justin, Tatian, and Clement, whoemployed it both to position Christianity against Greek philosophy and tomarginalize internal dissidents.134 In line with that model, the architects ofChristian “orthodoxy” frame their faith as Numenius does Platonism: asa single homogeneous movement, rather than as a field that can encom-pass multiple haireseis under the same umbrella.135 Coherent group identityrequires unblemished homodoxia with the founder, and hence among allmembers, while deviation constitutes defection. The boundaries of themovement can thus be described equally in terms of its central teachingsand of the individuals who adhere to those teachings. The communityitself is envisaged as a closed system that can and must be defended againstalien ideas by prohibiting affiliations with outsiders and deviant insiders(“heretics,” Stoics, etc.). Ideally, the founder’s institutional successors pro-vide the yardstick of what constitutes authentic insider tradition and whatdoes not. The heresiologists rely heavily on this expectation, while Nume-nius laments that the Academy failed to meet it. They share, however, theideal that succession should guarantee faithful transmission.

conclusion

From the above survey of succession narratives in early imperial literature,four main conclusions emerge. First, despite their appearance of giving“just the facts, ma’am,” succession narratives are not a neutral historio-graphic device. They do not simply reflect but construct a community’shistory. Such histories are not necessarily inaccurate or dishonest, but theyare crafted for a purpose: to authorize the author within his field, the

133 That Numenius had Christian readers is certain, since he is cited by Clement (Strom. 1.22.150.4= fr. 8 d.P.) and used heavily by Origen and Eusebius. Although his authorship of the famousquestion “What is Plato but Moses speaking Attic?” (fr. 8) may be challenged (Edwards 1990:67–8), Clement at least believed that those were Numenius’ words. Direct or indirect connectionsbetween Justin and Numenius have often been posited but cannot be proven: see des Places 1984;Droge 1989: 71–2; Edwards 1991; cf. Andresen 1952/3 on Justin and Middle Platonism generally.

134 Shared model of cultural history: Hyldahl 1966: 112–40; des Places 1984: 438–9; Droge 1989: 69–72and 2006: 235–7. Heresiological adaptation: Boys-Stones 2001: 151–75; Lyman 2003a: 216–22.

135 Athanassiadi 2002: 273–5 identifies Numenius as a turning point toward exclusivist orthodoxy inPlatonism; for parallels with the Christian concepts of “orthodoxy” and “heresy,” see Le Boulluec1985: 39–64, esp. 56–7; Norris 1998: 47; Boys-Stones 2001: 154–62. The link cannot be drawn tootightly, though: Numenius’ word for deviance is not �� or even 3��57� but �=��.


Conclusion 211

discipline itself (as ancient and/or illustrious), the wider culture that pro-duces or contains it, a particular formulation of its identity, or all of theabove. Second, the same device, even the same list, can be adapted toserve widely divergent ends; the same “data,” differently culled, arranged,contextualized, or interpreted, can yield very different meanings. The drilyfactual, almost tediously predictable surface of traditional diadochai masksconsiderable flexibility. Origins prove especially fertile sites of revision andreinterpretation, as the point at which a group’s history is most obscureand minute changes most consequential. Third, the constructive powerof succession narratives lies especially in the limitations they impose. Byconstricting or expanding the pool of founding ancestors and the linesof descent recognized as legitimate and/or significant, authors of succes-sion narratives manipulate the boundaries of the fields whose history theychronicle. Successions mark the center of a community across time but cancome to establish its full scope as well. While Diogenes, Pomponius, Quin-tilian, Philostratus, and the rest plainly do not describe the full breadthof their disciplines but simply follow a few representative threads, thosethreads overshadow the rest of the fabric. We often learn, for example,that a given philosopher had many students, but that we will hear aboutonly the most famous or institutionally prominent (e.g. D.L. 3.46–7; 4.66;10.22). Those whom we do not follow quickly disappear from view, andtheir academic descendants are left marooned in increasingly isolated back-waters; if they have a distinctive approach to their school’s teachings, it isnot enshrined as part of the mainstream.136 Finally, the idea that successionis effective, even indispensable, as the mechanism of survival of a disciplineand its central goods over time depends on the assumption that successorstypically resemble their predecessors. In practice, the perception of con-tinuity can accommodate a fair amount of development, even deviation.Yet the ideal of perfect sameness can be activated at need to marginalizedeviants.

Succession narratives represent the most comprehensive, textualizedexpression of the premise that the boundaries and identity of a branchof intellectual culture can be defined and regulated in terms of the inter-linked individuals who comprise it. As such, they point to both the powerand the limitations of textuality. Some of our authors largely succeededin imposing their visions of the disciplinary histories they record, drivingcompeting versions from the market: the histories of Roman jurisprudence

136 For notable omissions in Diogenes’ account of Epicureanism and Cynicism, see Clay 1989: 314–15 and Gugliermina 2006: 200–3. Von Staden 1999: 269 notes the “silences and . . . pregnantsequencing” in Celsus’ presentation of post-Hippocratic physicians.



and Greek philosophy printed in modern handbooks are substantiallythose of Pomponius and Diogenes, even where those authors admit thatthey are offering controverted or synthetic views. Rival versions such asthose of Numenius and Clement – influential in their own domain, if noton modern historiography – are a reminder that even the most traditionalsuccessions remained perpetually open to challenge and reinterpretation.Textuality alone did not guarantee an author the last word.


chapter 7

“From such mothers and fathers”Succession narratives in early Christian discourse

introduction

Near the end of his catalogue of “heresies,” Irenaeus pauses to justify hisinclusion of Marcion and to explain the logic of his “heretical” successionas a whole (Haer. 1.27.4):

We will argue against this man separately, since he alone dared openly to cut upthe scriptures and abuse God more impudently than anyone else . . . But it wasnecessary to mention him at this point, so that you might know that all who inany way falsify the truth and harm the preaching of the Church are students andsuccessors of Simon, the Samaritan magician. Although they do not confess theirteacher’s name, in order to lead others astray, nevertheless they are teaching hisdoctrine: holding out the name of Christ Jesus as an incentive, but introducingSimon’s impiety in various ways, they cause the death of many.1

As Irenaeus presents him, Marcion is unique (solus), isolated from both trueChristians and other “heretics.” Yet at the same time he is neither isolatednor unique at all: as a falsifier of the truth, he belongs to the large companyof discipuli et successores of Simon Magus, the prototypical “heretic.” Atbottom, therefore, Marcion’s doctrine must be the same as Simon’s; thedistinctive surface of his teaching is only a mask for the fatal blasphemy ofSimon.

This strategy, evidently pioneered by Justin Martyr,2 gathers the historyof Christian error into a single family tree, where it can be comprehendedand excluded at one stroke. It projects onto the history of Christianitythe premise traced throughout this book: that the validity of particular

1 sed huic quidem, quoniam et solus manifeste ausus est circumcidere Scripturas et impudorate super omnesobtrectare Deum, seorsum contradicemus . . . nunc autem necessario meminimus eius, ut scires quoniamomnes qui quoquo modo adulterant veritatem et praeconium Ecclesiae laedunt Simonis Samaritani magidiscipuli et successores sunt. quamvis non confiteantur nomen magistri sui ad seductionem reliquorum,attamen illius sententiam docent: Christi quidem Iesu nomen tamquam irritamentum proferentes, Simonisautem impietatem varie introducentes, mortificant multos.

2 Ch. 5 n. 1.

213


214 Succession narratives in early Christian discourse

beliefs and practices could be indexed by the social integration of theiradvocates into (legitimate) Christian communities. This chapter exploresthe uses to which second- and early third-century Christian authors putsuccession lists, both to create and authorize “orthodox” selves, and toexclude “heretical” others. This heresiological tactic operated in dialoguewith efforts to articulate social borders between true and false Christianities:assertions that “heretics” were historically alien to the true church werebolstered by and used to justify the exclusion of “heretics” from “orthodox”communion.

That Christians made use of succession narratives will not be news tomost readers; much of the ground covered in this chapter has been inten-sively plowed before. I will highlight ways in which Christian exploitationof this device mirrors, adapts, and transforms pagan strategies of self-representation. Locating Christian concepts of succession culturally hasbeen a pressing scholarly concern, not least because episcopal ordinationin apostolic succession remains a centerpiece of Anglo-Catholic ecclesiol-ogy and a painful obstacle to ecumenical dialogue.3 Its origins have beensought in Jewish successions, whether royal, high-priestly, or rabbinic, andin the historiography of Greek philosophy. Responsibility for introduc-ing this model into Christianity has been variously attributed to JewishChristians,4 philosophically attuned gnostic Christians,5 apologists adapt-ing the idiom of their pagan addressees,6 or to some combination of theabove.7 At stake, often, is affirmation or repudiation of the Catholic doc-trine of apostolic succession: Jewish influence is typically held to be earlierand more native to Christianity, and hence favorable to Catholic eccle-siology; derivation from Hellenistic models, especially by way of gnostic

3 Sullivan 2001: 1–16, 231–6 offers a sensitive Catholic perspective on apostolic succession as a “church-dividing issue.”

4 E.g. Ehrhardt 1953: 35–82; Grant 1972: 179–80; Thornton 2003. Hegesippus, frequently identified asa Palestinian and/or Jewish Christian, is often regarded as the chief spokesman for Jewish Christiannotions of succession, and perhaps the vector by which they entered wider circulation, but thatview is supported only by the dubious evidence of Eusebius; it is cogently challenged by Hyldahl1960: 103–12. Boyarin 2004: 74–6 points out that the rabbinic succession cannot be the model forChristian apostolic succession, since it is not attested until the early third century; if anything, thediscursive pressure runs in the other direction.

5 E.g. Campenhausen 1969: 158–61, 167–8 and Brakke 2010: 118–20; persuasively challenged by P.Perkins 1980: 196.

6 Lyman 2003a offers a sophisticated version of this theory.7 Kemler 1971: 192–3 posits that different strands of Christianity derived the notion of succession

separately from different sources. Le Boulluec 1985: 80–2, 85–6, 107–8 sees Justin as the inventorof both apostolic and “heretical” successions but argues that they have different proximate models(rabbinic and philosophical successions, respectively), although both are ultimately modeled on thephilosophical ��2�7.


Introduction 215

Christianities, implies a late, even “heretical,” intrusion.8 In fact, the ideathat succession guarantees continuity and legitimacy is so pervasive inancient Mediterranean thought that it makes little sense to speak of theidea’s entering Christianity at all, much less to search for a single source orpoint of entry. Rather, early Christian succession lists should be understoodas participating in the broader cultural and political discourse of the earlyEmpire.9

In structuring Christian history around successions, Christian authorswere drawing on a resonant idiom that implicitly situated their movementamong the intellectual disciplines of the Roman empire, while simultane-ously asserting its priority and superiority to the rest, especially philosophy.In doing so, they employed many of the same tricks as contemporary intel-lectual historians. Christian writers use succession lists to display theirmastery of their field and/or to authorize their interpretive positions, asQuintilian does. Once again, an advantage of the device is its apparentneutrality: polemicists who cite diadochai in the heat of controversy pose asreporters of objective fact. Like their pagan counterparts, Christian authorsextend or curtail the lineages they report in order to make (or disrupt) alink to a prestigious ancestor, or to saddle rivals with a discreditable origin.Continuities between Christianity, Judaism, and Hellenism, and the direc-tion of travel among them, continue to be of special concern, as they werefor Diogenes and Clement. Histories of “heresy” prove particularly usefulin establishing distances within those intersecting cultural categories andarticulating hierarchies among them. “Heretical” genealogies also recall thepolemic use of successions by Pliny and Numenius to delegitimate entiredisciplines or rival interpretations of a shared tradition; the charge thatdeviation invalidates succession will be repeated more than once.

At the same time Christian authorizing discourse has distinctive features.Most conspicuously, there is no exact parallel to Christian successions of“heretics.”10 Pliny, Numenius, and others repurpose and tweak traditionalintellectual genealogies, but they rarely invent entire new pedigrees for theiradversaries, as Christian polemicists do. This points to a second, broaderdifference. While those chronicling other areas of intellectual history couldmanipulate classic diadochai to yield radically opposed reconstructions, thefirst heresiologists had no ready-made histories to reinterpret, apart fromphilosophical and Jewish successions to which they sometimes assert or

8 J. Z. Smith 1990: 36–84 incisively analyzes the Protestant anti-Catholic undertones of debates aboutChristian influences and critiques the use of Judaism to “insulate” Christianity from Hellenism.

9 Brent 1993a; Tropper 2004: 224–6; Lyman 2003a; Boyarin 2004: 75–6. 10 Inglebert 2001a: 105–6.



deny a link.11 For them, the flexibility of succession narratives comes intoplay as they experiment with different ways of using successions to maptheir past, and hence to fashion their collective identity in the present.Finally, the ideology of Christian successions stands closer to Numenius’ideal of Platonist homodoxy than to the bifurcated disciplinary historiesrecorded by Quintilian, Pomponius, and others: the univocal cohesionclaimed as the hallmark of “orthodox” Christianity does not brook devia-tion or splintering into multiple, equally valid lines. As a result, Christianhistorians seldom pose as impartial mediators who stand above the frayof sectarian squabble, except in the sense that they offer comprehensivebird’s-eye views of Christian history and that, as members of the one truechurch, they do not belong to any “sect.” Accordingly, the use of genealogyas branding appears chiefly in the ongoing search to find the best locationfor “heresy.” Authors of authorizing successions may experiment with dif-ferent founding ancestors (e.g. apostles versus prophets), but there is littleroom to relocate subgroups from one stream of the tradition to another, asin debates over Stoic ancestry.

The chapter begins with the idealized constructions of “heresy” and“orthodoxy” encoded in “heretical” successions. Competing accounts ofthe history of “heresy” reveal a struggle to define the precise relationbetween true and false Christianities: what exactly was “heresy,” and whenand how had it entered the field of play? Tracing the lineage of “heresy”back to a single ancestor, Justin and Irenaeus emphasize the sinister unityconcealed behind “heretical” diversity; by naming the apostolic-era villainSimon Magus as the father of error, they construe “heresy” as an assaulton apostolic truth. By contrast, Hegesippus (c. 175) depicts “heresy” asboth post- and pre-apostolic: it originates in opposition to the second-generation church leadership rather than the apostles, but its roots lieearlier, in sectarian Judaism. This conception stresses the multiplicity of“heresy” rather than its unity and paints it as a belated, exotic intruderbent on destabilizing the institutional church. Finally, Hippolytus repre-sents “heretical” error as almost entirely pre- and non-Christian. Whilelargely retaining the Irenaean framework, he also traces each “heresy” backto a pagan antecedent, especially in Greek philosophy; the social cohesionof Christian “heresy” is supplemented by the unified (diadochic) history ofphilosophy. This move further situates “heresy” within a universal history

11 By the fourth century, by contrast, the narratives established in the second century had become tra-ditional, creatively repackaged by late antique heresiologists to meet current concerns; see Inglebert2001b; Cameron 2005.


Heretical successions 217

of human knowledge. Like Clement, Hippolytus identifies Christian truthas the primordial wisdom from which all other epistemic systems derive.Tying current Christian error to pre-Christian philosophy and religionlocates the point of “heretical” deviation in the distant past, before theincarnation of Christ; at the same time, Hippolytus points the way towardannexing Greek philosophy (and Judaism) to the rubric of “heresy.”

From constructions of the outer limits of Christianity, we will turn toattempts to locate the center(s) of the faith, again in terms of chains ofexemplary individuals. Early Christians composed successions to definetheir movement, to defend their own position within it, and to write outothers. Taken together, these lists paint a diverse, and potentially capaciouspicture of Christian history: we find successions of prophets, martyrs,teachers, bishops, linked not only by successive office-holding but also bydiscipleship, kinship, geographic proximity, imitation, or perceived affinity.The late second century, however, witnesses a retrospective constrictionof the Christian past, and hence the present bounds of “orthodoxy,” asthe ranks of significant ancestors and descendants are steadily thinned.On one side, a select subset of apostles come to be figured as uniquecornerstones of authentic Christian teaching and practice. Meanwhile, asthe episcopate gradually achieves institutional dominance and asserts amonopoly over “expert” discourse, bishops are increasingly recast as theapostles’ sole legitimate successors.12 In this way Christian authors bothecho the tunnel vision of early imperial intellectual historiography andharden its terms by (re)institutionalizing the concept of diadoche.

heretical successions

Sons of Simon: Justin and Irenaeus

The genealogy of “heresy” developed by Justin and expanded by Irenaeusforms the basis or point of contrast for all subsequent versions. At its headstands Simon Magus, who enjoyed a vibrant career as the father of falsebelief after Justin cast him in that role. His tantalizingly vague appearancein the canonical Acts made him well suited for the part. He appears as

12 P. Perkins 1980: 198 discusses the strategy of “limit[ing] the community which can be evoked aswitness to the tradition” in Irenaeus. Boyarin 2004: 74 describes a parallel move in rabbinic Judaism,as rabbis cast themselves as the sole heirs of the oral Torah communicated at Sinai, disenfranchising“the previous holders of knowledge/power, the priests, and other traditional sources of knowledge,including perhaps women.”



a magician formerly hailed as “the power of God called great,” stinginglyrebuked by Peter for requesting the power to confer the Holy Spirit (Acts8:9–24), but no more. Simon is thus a doctrinal blank slate onto which eachauthor can write the terms of the debate between orthodoxy and heresy ashe understands it.13 For Justin, who regards heresy chiefly as diabolic andhuman rivalry of Christianity,14 Simon is a demonically gifted magicianworshiped as a god at Rome and in Samaria (Apol. 26.1–3, 56.1–2; Dial.116.4–6). Irenaeus, who sees Christianity locked in pitched battle betweenthose who accept the Creator as God and those who do not, paints Simonas the first challenger to the uniqueness of both Creator and Christ.15

Whatever the historical reality of that portrait, its function is to set thestage for Irenaeus’ main targets, Marcion and Valentinus.16

Succeeding Simon is his disciple Menander, another Samaritan magi-cian (1.23.5, 3.4.3; cf. Jus. Apol. 26.4, 56.1).17 Inspired by them (ex his . . .occasionem accipientes), Saturninus and Basilides develop their teachings innew directions (1.24.1). From Menander and/or other “Simonians” therealso sprouts, mushroom-like, a miscellaneous crowd of gnostics (1.29.1; cf.1.23.4, 3.4.3),18 including the debauched Carpocrates and his Roman mis-sionary Marcellina (1.25; 2.31.1). From these gnostics stem Marcion (1.27.4)and Valentinus, “the first to adapt principles from the so-called gnosticheresy to the peculiar stamp of his own school” (1.11.1).19 To this point,Irenaeus has been following Justin, although Valentinus may be his ownaddition.20 To these, Irenaeus appends an assortment of Jewish Christians(1.26; cf. 3.11.1). They make an odd match for Simon, and Irenaeus leavestheir precise relation to him unspecified, but somehow they, too, must be

13 Together with Cerinthus, Simon serves as a generic foil for the apostles in the Epistula Apostolorum(mid second century). He may stand in for Paul in the Jewish Christian Pseudo-ClementineRecognitions (third century) and perhaps also in Apoc. Pet. 74.27–34 (Koschorke 1978: 41–2). He alsodoes a memorable, if theologically indistinct, turn as an arch-villain in the Acts of Peter (late secondcentury). Ferreiro 2005 surveys the late antique and medieval tradition, where Simon is pressed intoservice as the forerunner of everything from Priscillianism to Irish tonsure practice to Islam.

14 Le Boulluec 1985: 64–7, 81–4. 15 Vallee 1980, 1981: 16–23; King 2003: 26–7, 30.16 Meeks 1977 reviews the problem of the historical Simon and Simonians.17 In the rest of this section, references otherwise unspecified are to the Against Heresies.18 ex his qui praedicati sunt Simoniani multitudo Gnosticorum exsurrexit, et velut a terra fungi manifestati

sunt.19 ( � �� l !�� /��!� �� 2�� #� M�� 2��

��7�� 4��, `:�� > ��. Cf. 1.30.15, 2.13.8–10; 3 pr.20 At Dial. 35.6 Justin lists Marcionites, Valentinians, Satornilians, and perhaps Carpocratians as

current “heresies.” Since Valentinus is not named in the earlier Apology, it remains an open questionwhether he appeared in Justin’s Syntagma: see e.g. Ludemann 1979: 88 (no); Le Boulluec 1985: 83–4(yes). Given the stress that Irenaeus lays on incorporating Valentinus into the “heretical” succession,it seems probable that this was his innovation.



the offspring of the father of all heresies (1.23.2; 2.9.2; 3 pr.).21 Last comesJustin’s student Tatian, a radical ascetic who (says Irenaeus) combinedelements from Saturninus, Marcion, and Valentinus (1.28.1; 3.23.8), somelibertines inspired by Basilides and Carpocrates (1.28.2), and a motley crewof other Simonian gnostics (1.29–31.2).

This genealogy is enormously valuable for Irenaeus’ project of writinga border between true Christianity and its rivals. It permits him to weavetight the fabric of social affiliation and theological affinity, with each patternfilling in the gaps of the other as needed. His method takes for grantedthat the spiritual profile of his opponents cannot be divorced from theirsocial-historical location, and that each can be used as the key to the other.Irenaeus glides back and forth between metaphorical and literal models ofsuccession – or rather, he deliberately effaces the difference between thetwo, so that insinuations of doctrinal resemblance become accusations ofpersonal association, and vice versa.22 This inferential feedback loop worksto bind Marcion and Valentinus in particular to the “heretical” network,quarantining them from the history of legitimate Christianity, to whichthey otherwise stood in distressing proximity.

With Marcion, Irenaeus’ logic starts from affiliation. When Irenaeuscalls Marcion the “student and successor” of Simon, he means that Mar-cion’s teachings are not merely like Simon’s, but actually come from Simon,through a channel that he is at pains to specify. A shadowy figure namedCerdo supplies the crucial link. This man, Marcion’s purported mentor,is said to have taken his start from the followers of Simon. Relocatingto Rome, he was succeeded there (��5=�� ) by Marcion, who builtup his school (�n5�� >� , 1.27.1–2; 3.4.3). Irenaeus reportsthat Cerdo, like Marcion, distinguished between the just God of Hebrewscripture and the good Father of Christ, but he does not explain how thisdoctrine reflected Simonian teaching. Indeed, it is difficult to find anybut the most general parallels between the views of Cerdo-Marcion andthe theology Irenaeus ascribes to Simon.23 It may be precisely this lackof resemblance that makes the demonstration of social unity so vital: the

21 Elsewhere, the connection seems to be that, like Simon and his “gnostic” successors, Jewish Christianschallenge the divinity and/or unity of Christ (3.11). On the imputation of doctrinal similarities, andhence genealogical ties, between Simon and the groups catalogued at 1.23–8, see Ludemann 1996:19–20.

22 Le Boulluec 1985: 167–9. M. A. Williams 1996: 44–5 and King 2003: 32 draw attention to thepersistence of this elision of (putative) genealogy and phenomenology in modern scholarship.

23 Le Boulluec 1985: 168–9. Irenaeus records that both Simon and Marcion denigrate creation andthe Creator(s), hold that there is a separate supreme God from whom salvation comes, and rejectthe Hebrew scriptures. In its details, however, “Simonian” teaching – especially its identification ofSimon himself as supreme God and redeemer – is completely at odds with Marcionite doctrine.



historical link assures us that, however dissimilar he appears on the surface,Marcion does have a verifiable tie to Simon, so that some subterraneancontinuity of belief between the two can safely be inferred. The link isalmost certainly spurious: even if Cerdo was a historical person, and not(as seems likely) a heresiological creation based on Marcion himself, it isimplausible that Marcion was in any sense his successor.24 We have seen,though, that historical accuracy is not necessary for a succession to bepersuasive. Enshrined in writing and repeated from one text to another,spider-web historical fictions quickly achieve the air of solid facticity.

Irenaeus’ reasoning follows the opposite path in the case of Valentinus.The goal is the same: to demolish the view that his opponent’s school fallswithin the bounds of “orthodoxy” by revealing its secret ties to SimonMagus. In this case, however, the proof runs in reverse – or rather, itruns in both directions at once. On the one hand, Irenaeus asserts thatdoctrinal affinities between Valentinus and Simon prove that they mustbe connected, even if no specific link can be found: the stated purpose ofhis “heretical” catalogue is “to demonstrate plainly that the followers ofValentinus [come] from such mothers and fathers and ancestors as theirown opinions and principles show them to be” (1.31.3).25 Corroborating thistheological detective work is the thesis that all falsifiers of the truth have tiesto Simon, as Marcion’s ancestry has already confirmed. Since Valentinusfalsifies the truth, he, too, must be an intellectual descendant of Simon.Thus, once you know what the Valentinians really believe, it is easy to seewhere they come from; once you know where they come from, it is obviousthat they are not “orthodox” Christians.

At the same time, this lineage serves to fill in the blanks of Valen-tinian theology. To much of Irenaeus’ audience, the family resemblancebetween Valentinians and the “gnostics” was far from obvious. As he him-self concedes, Valentinians “look like us and say the same things that wedo” (3.16.8).26 Even previous crusaders against “heresy” had been “unable

24 Harnack 1960 [1924]: 31–9; Hoffmann 1984: 37–44; Deakle 2002. Cerdo seems to be unknown toJustin, who juxtaposes Marcion with Simon and Menander, without explicitly connecting them(Apol. 26, 56–8).

25 a talibus matribus et patribus et proavis eos qui a Valentino sint, sicut ipsae sententiae et regulae ostendunteos, necessarium fuit manifeste arguere. The link between Simon and the multitudo Gnosticorumlikewise seems to be deduced not from known (or invented) student–teacher relations, but fromtheological commonalities: “the falsely so-called gnosis got its start from the Simonians, as one canlearn from their own assertions” (Simoniani, a quibus falsi nominis scientia accepit initia, sicut ex ipsisassertionibus eorum adest discere, 1.23.4). Since Irenaeus stresses that “heretics” try to conceal theirancestry, these assertiones must be teachings that betray their origin.

26 similes nobis apparent, eadem nobiscum loquentes. Cf. 1 pr.2; 3.15.2, 17.4.



to refute these Valentinians sufficiently because they did not know their‘rule,’” the hidden substructure (regula, �4��) of Valentinian doctrine(4 pr.2; cf. 1.8.1).27 Two breakthroughs enabled Irenaeus to reconstructthat regula: access to Valentinian writings unavailable to his predecessors(1 pr.2; 2.17.9; 3.11.9), and the crucial insight that Valentinian teachingrecapitulated all the “heresies” that formed its collective ancestry (recapitu-lationem esse omnium haereticorum, 4 pr.2; cf. 1.22.2, 31.3–4). Against thosewho regard Valentinianism as acceptable variation, Irenaeus points to itshistory, “so that, recognizing their most lofty ‘depth,’ you might knowthe tree from which such fruits have descended” (1.22.2).28 Genealogy ishis trump card, enabling him to unmask the profound deviance lurkingbehind the apparently “orthodox” surface of the Valentinian confession.Since Valentinus recapitulates the entire family in toto, the deviant beliefsand practices of each member can be ascribed to him, while “overturningthese [Valentinians] overturns heresy as a whole” (4 pr.2; cf. 2.31.1).29 Ire-naeus’ expose of Valentinian doctrine justifies grafting Valentinus onto the“heretical” family tree, while the genealogy lends credence to his allegationsabout Valentinian theology, which run counter to the experience of manyof his readers.

The chief dividend of the “heretical” succession for Irenaeus, then, isthat it supplies a historical and theological context in which to locate hismain opponents.30 Most of the “heretics” listed in book 1 barely recur in therest of the work, which is overwhelmingly directed against the positionsof Valentinus and Marcion, with Basilides running a distant third. Thenetwork into which Irenaeus slots his primary targets extends not onlydiachronically, from Simon to his successors, but also synchronically, tyingMarcion and Valentinus to each other and to a host of embarrassingspiritual uncles and cousins, whose doctrines and practices combine toform a single mosaic of error. The comparative specificity of the lines oftransmission connecting Simon to his descendants reinforces the “natural”presumption of sameness within a succession.

At the same time Irenaeus capitalizes on that presumption to accuse hisopponents of dissenting from their supposed social and theological affines:

27 quapropter hi qui ante nos fuerunt, et quidem multo nobis meliores, non tamen satis poterunt contradicerehis qui sunt a Valentino, quia ignorabant regulam ipsorum. On this passage, see Koschorke 1978: 242–6.

28 uti sublimissimum ipsorum Bythum cognoscens, intellegas arborem de qua defluxerunt tales fructus.Irenaeus is punning on a��4� (“depth”), one of the names of the divine source/Father in Valentinianmyth.

29 qui hos evertunt, evertunt omnem haeresim. 30 Wisse 1971: 211.



“heretics” are simultaneously too much and too little alike.31 In contrastto the unity of the true church, whose changeless unanimity across spaceand time proves the truth of its teachings (1.10; 3.3–4), “heresy” multiplies,hydra-like (velut Lernaea hydra, 1.30.15). Driven by ambition, “heretics”are perpetual innovators, “always holding different opinions on the samesubjects over time, and never having a stable doctrine, since they want tobe sophists of words rather than disciples of truth” (3.24.2; cf. e.g. 1.18.1,21.5, 28.1).32 The “heretical” genealogy gives this argument its teeth: it isprecisely because Irenaeus’ opponents comprise a single body that theirdiversity is damning.

This line of attack finds Irenaeus, and Justin before him, in tune withthe cultural polemics of their day. Like Numenius, they defend the uniqueauthority of their own interpretation of their community’s tradition. Theydo so not only by saddling opposing versions with an unflattering lineagebut by portraying that lineage as riven by internal dissension, which callsinto question the truth claims of all its constituents, since true wisdom isunified and universal. Rooted in Skeptical critiques of dogmatic philoso-phy, this premise also informs Numenius’ attempt to discredit the skepticalAcademy and Pliny’s diatribe against medicine. Internal dissension, theresult of outside contamination and ambitious innovation, is Exhibit Ain Numenius’ case against the Academic succession, since it signals devi-ation from original Platonic doctrine. For Pliny, the very fact of medicalprogress – “no art has been more inconsistent or subject to more frequentchanges, even now” (Nat. 29.1.2)33 – betrays the fraudulence of medicineas a whole. Second-century Christian authors, including Justin and Ire-naeus, appropriated this reasoning to assert the superiority of Christianity(ancient, united) to Greek philosophy (recent, derivative, fragmented).34

Heresiology is also imbricated in the effort to make a difference betweenChristianity and Hellenism, since “heretics” are figured as mimicking thesectarian diversity as well as the ideas of Greek philosophy (e.g. Jus. Apol.26.6; Dial. 2.1–2, 35.5; Ir. Haer. 2.27.1).35

31 As King 2003: 31 observes, “genealogy provided a powerful metaphor that allowed Irenaeus to lumpall his opponents together under one rubric, heresy, despite the enormous variety of their beliefsand practices. Whereas diversity illustrated their falsehood, a common genealogy proved that theypossessed a common root and essence in demonic error.”

32 aliter atque aliter per tempora de isdem sentientes et numquam sententiam stabilem habentes, sophistaeverborum magis volentes esse quam discipuli veritatis.

33 nullam artium inconstantiorem fuisse aut etiamnunc saepius mutari.34 Of course, Christianity was vulnerable to the same charge, unless dissenters could be definitively

excluded: Clement must answer doubters who cite sectarian discord as a reason for resisting con-version (�< ��> �� < ��! 7� � �/��! , Strom. 7.15.89–92, at 89.2).

35 Le Boulluec 1985: 79–91; Inglebert 2001b: 433–9; King 2003: 48–52; Lyman 2003a.



Irenaeus’ “heretical” genealogy thus encodes a clear image of “heresy” asexotic, fractious and fragmented – too “Greek” – over against a contrastingpicture of “orthodoxy.” At the same time, the choice of Simon as foundercasts “heresy” as a deviant or corrupted form of Christianity, rather thanan intrusion from without. In the person of Simon, “heresy” is also funda-mentally anti-apostolic, decisively rejected by the apostles themselves at themoment of its birth. The struggle between “orthodoxy” and “heresy” hasthus been a near-constant feature of Christian history, with both positionsperduring, essentially unchanged, from the apostolic age to the present.On this view, authentic Christianity stems from the apostles; the contentof “orthodoxy” is equated with apostolic tradition. Only in post-Irenaeanretrospect does this go without saying: not all second-century histories of“orthodoxy” awarded such a privileged position to the apostles. Againstthe apostles and their successors stands the network constituted by Simonand his descendants. Wide diversity of belief and practice characterize thissociety, but its members are nonetheless united by their shared descent,which imprints on them indelible theological commonalities. Accordingly,Irenaeus is able to read the history of “heresy” both forward and backward:the whole future course of Christian error is already encapsulated in Simon,while Valentinus recapitulates everything that came before him. Thus whilethe struggle between “orthodoxy” and “heresy” continues, it is simply thesame battle, fought again and again under new guises.36 Moreover, thatbattle has been over since it began. Peter and the other apostles beat Simonin the first round by a knockout; subsequent contests are unavoidable, butsuperfluous.

This model has the merit of projecting the contest to define normativeChristianity into the apostolic past, where it can be safely played out inadvance among people of incontestable status. But that strategy also hasdrawbacks. Locating “heresy” in the apostolic age sits awkwardly with theheresiological principle of principalitas veritatis et posteritas mendacitatis(Tert. Praescr. 31.1; cf. Ir. Haer. 3.3–4). It also risks conceding too muchto the claims to apostolic tradition made by “heretics” themselves. Laterwriters accordingly continue to struggle to locate the historical bound-ary between truth and falsehood. Replaying Irenaeus’ hesitation betweendepicting Marcion as a unique innovator and depicting him as a replica ofhis “father” Simon, Tertullian embraces Irenaeus’ genealogy and accountof Simon’s doctrine (An. 23, 34–5; Marc. 1.2), while insisting that no onebefore Marcion ever dreamed of setting another God alongside or above the

36 P. Perkins 1994: 153–4.



Creator (Marc. 1.21; Praescr. 34). Tertullian grants, even emphasizes, that“heresy” existed already during the lifetime of the apostles.37 Yet he findsMarcion’s dualism so pernicious that he cannot bear to admit that the apos-tles were familiar with any comparable idea, even to repudiate it; insteadhe refutes it by showing that it was unknown before the mid second cen-tury. Clement of Alexandria goes further, asserting that “heresy” itself didnot appear until the reign of Hadrian, long after the apostolic age (Strom.7.17.106.4–107.1). Attempting to reconcile this claim with the image ofSimon as heresiarch produces chronological incoherence: Clement mustdisplace Simon to the early second century, slightly after Marcion (��’ \ F7�! 8’ Q�7�� ).

The discomfort exhibited by Tertullian and Clement may help to explainwhy the Irenaean schema, although popular, was not the only history of“heresy” advanced in our period. The conflicting accounts offered by Hege-sippus and Hippolytus, to which we now turn, bear witness to an ongo-ing struggle to conceptualize the character and contours of “heresy” –a struggle that intertwines with concurrent contests to pinpoint thebeginning of philosophy and the relation between Greek and non-Greekwisdom.

From the seven heresies: Hegesippus

According to the lost Memoirs of Hegesippus, the purity of the church wasfirst disturbed after the death of Jesus’ brother James, when their cousinSimeon was chosen to succeed James as head of the Jerusalem church(ap. Eus. Hist. eccl. 4.22.5–6):

But because he had not become bishop himself, Thebouthis began to corruptit from the seven heresies among the people, to which he himself belonged.From them came Simon, source of the Simonians, and Cleobius, source of theCleobians, and Dositheus, source of the Dositheans, and Gorthaeus, source of theGorthaeans [and Masbotheans]. From these came the Menandrists, Marcianists,Carpocratians, Valentinians, Basilideans, and Satornilians, each separately anddifferently introducing their own doctrine. From these came false christs, falseprophets, and false apostles, who sundered the unity of the church.38

37 He argues that many “heresies” current in his own day simply revive doctrines and practices alreadydescribed and rejected by the apostles, which should make them easier to dismiss (Praescr. 33; cf.Carn. Chr. 24; Marc. 2.8.1).

38 N�2�� ( c�%�� < �� :� 87�� 7�� 3��/��! , ] �� :�� ; , 8 � ��, ��’ ] F7�! , H�� F��! �� 7, �� _��4%��, C�� _��%�� 7, �� i��7��, H�� i�� 7, �� l��>��, H�� l�� 7 [�� B��%!��7].�� ! B� � �� B�� _�� `:��



Placed alongside the Irenaean version, this account is at once familiar andstrange. Many of the same figures reappear: Simon, Menander, Marcion,Carpocrates, Valentinus, Basilides, Satornilus. Yet they are preceded byothers who place the character of “heresy” and its relation to “orthodoxy” inrather different light. Irenaeus portrays “heresy” as an internal phenomenonthat first arose during the lifetime of the apostles and in opposition tothem. Hegesippus, by contrast, renders it both pre- and post-apostolic,both external and internal to Christianity.

This difference is evident from the first line, where the role of father of“heresy” goes not to Simon but to one Thebouthis, a sectarian Jew and dis-appointed office-seeker, otherwise unknown. This substitution postponesthe origin of “heresy” to the second generation of Christianity. Hegesip-pus, like Clement, seems concerned to affirm the harmonious “orthodoxy”of the primitive church. Eusebius heralds this passage as proof that “thechurch remained a pure, undefiled virgin” during the lifetime of the “holychorus of apostles”; only after their death did “the association of godlesserror take its beginning through the deceit of heterodox teachers” (Hist.eccl. 3.32.7–8).39 He has grasped the essential point: Hegesippus paints“heresy” as a late disruption of the original unity of the church, whichendured undisturbed to the end of its first generation.

In spotlighting “the holy chorus of apostles,” though, Eusebius may bereading his own preoccupations into Hegesippus.40 In fact, the apostlesare conspicuously absent from this account. They enter only at the end,when divisive imitators appear in the guise of false christs, false prophets,and false apostles (cf. Matt. 24:24; 2 Cor. 11:13). The leader with whomThebouthis clashes is not an apostle but a bishop, and Peter’s rebukeof Simon receives no notice. For Hegesippus, it appears, “heresy” doesnot represent an assault on apostolic authority or tradition. Instead, heunderlines its institutional illegitimacy.41 His “heretics” are characterizedless by false teaching, which he does not describe, than by their resistanceto the church’s rightful leaders. We will see that a similar stress on bishops

a�� F�� , U�� #�7!� �� 3��7!� #�7� �45� ��=�� ,�� ! D��42��, D��4��, D��4��, �� 8�� < U !�� 8��7��.

39 ��2�� 4� 2�4 ! �� =�� 1�� 8��7� . . . '� �’ ( /�� 4�! 2�� =�� #�-�� & %7�� . . . � ��&� �� = ��2< 8�=�%� � � �� 3��=�! �=��.

40 Abramowski 1976 and Le Boulluec 1985: 100–1 argue convincingly that this language is a Eusebianicparaphrase, rather than a direct quotation of Hegesippus.

41 Inglebert 2001b: 412.



as the guarantors of “orthodoxy,” without reference to the apostles, marksHegesippus’ approach to authorizing succession.

Yet while Thebouthis introduces corruption into the church, he is notits originator. Nor are Simon Magus or the other founders of what seemto be Samaritan Jewish groups.42 Credit for that goes instead to “theseven sects among the people,” from which Thebouthis, Simon, and hiscohort emerge. These haireseis – Sadduccees, Pharisees, Essenes, Galileans,Hemerobaptists, Masbothei, and Samaritans (listed ap. Hist. eccl. 4.22.7) –are first-century Jewish sects, already in existence in the lifetime of Jesus;most are familiar from the gospels.43 Elsewhere in Hegesippus, the “sevensects” feature as deadly enemies of the family of Jesus, engineering themartyrdoms of James and Simeon (ap. Hist. eccl. 2.23.8–18; 3.32.2–3). Toidentify them as the ultimate source of Christian error is to construe“heresy” as pre-apostolic, even pre-Christian.

In fact, the model of “heresy” unfolded by Hegesippus’ history is capa-cious and protean, embracing three distinct conceptions, each of whicharticulates the relationship between Christianity and Judaism differently.44

This narrative can be read as tracing not only the genesis of “heresy” butalso the gradual construction of a boundary, or perhaps three concentricboundaries, whose (re)production is the aim of the narrative itself. The storyof Thebouthis figures “heresy” as external contamination, with Judaism –that is, wrong (sectarian, “heretical”) sorts of Judaism – as the contaminant.Thebouthis is quickly eclipsed, though, by a parallel narrative in which falsebelief flows directly from the “seven sects” through Simon Magus and theother Samaritan heresiarchs to the classic “heresies” catalogued by Justin. Inthis sequence, no crossing of the border with “orthodoxy” is marked untilthe end, when the new groups import (��=�� ) their idiosyn-cratic doctrines. Only with the signaling of this breach does a boundarybetween “heresy” and church (or Judaism and Christianity) become visible.Finally, in the last stage we encounter “heretics” who operate in a specifi-cally Christian milieu, in the nameless array of false christs, prophets, andapostles who divide the church. Not until the end of its evolution, in otherwords, does “heresy” metamorphose into a “difference within” that definesa border between Christianity and others.45

42 Pearson 1992: 301–2. 43 Cf. Jos. AJ 18.1.2–6; Jus. Dial. 80.2–4.44 On the role of heresiology in the mutual differentiation of Christianity and Judaism, see Cameron

2003; King 2003: 38–47; Boyarin 2004.45 Le Boulluec 1985: 106 comments on this seemingly paradoxical transformation of heresy from

external attacker to internal corruption. I would like to unsettle the distinction he draws betweenexterior (= Jewish) and interior (= Christian), though. For heresy as a “difference within,” seeBoyarin 2004: 15, adapting Homi Bhabha.



Of these models, the second offers the greatest contrast to the Irenaeanframework. At first glance it appears to assert that “heresy” is essentiallyexternal to Christianity, gestated “outside,” among sectarian Jews.46 Yet thenotion of Judaism as an isolated nursery of error clashes with the fact that upto this point the traffic between the “seven sects” and the church has beenconspicuously fluid. In fact, Hegesippus seems to regard the Jewish sectsnot as sources of Christian “heresy” but as Christian “heresies.” That is, thetradition from which they have deviated is not Judaism but Christianity –or, rather, the two are the same. Hegesippan heresiology thus affirms thatthe church represents the true Israel, the sole extant manifestation of pris-tine Judaism, from which most Jews had fallen away even before the birthof Christ.47 As a result, his definition of “heresy” embraces not only oppo-sition to the church but also any opposition to the true faith of Israel.Hegesippus was not the first to claim the mantle of verus Israel for thechurch, or to treat Jewish sects as illegitimate (“heretical”) departures froma normative tradition.48 He does, however, seem to have been the first totake the next step, of assimilating Jewish sects to the rubric of Christian“heresy.” The result is to frame the differentiation of “orthodoxy” and“heresy” as a contest between the ancient faith of Israel, now preservedby the institutional church, and a cascading series of deviations from thatfaith, from (other, non-Christian) Jewish sects to direct rivals of the churchitself.

Hegesippus’ conception of “heresy” contrasts with Irenaeus’ in otherways too. Where Irenaeus seeks to unveil the fatal unity behind the sur-face diversity of “heresy,” Hegesippus underscores only its multiplicity. Hisgenealogy is generational and collective, linking groups rather than indi-viduals. The formula “from these [came]” (�� ! ), which joins eachstage to the one before, suggests that they are meant to be connected, in asense even succeeding each other, but the precise historical or ideologicalties binding them are left unstated. Further, aside from Thebouthis, nomember of Hegesippus’ catalogue stands alone. In stark contrast with theharmonious singularity (U !��) of the church, false belief is divided atevery stage of its evolution: seven Jewish sects, four Samaritan heresiarchs,six false doxai, numberless false christs, prophets and apostles.49 Thesegroups belong to the same broad stream of resistance to scriptural truth,

46 So Kemler 1971: 190–3, and, to a degree, Le Boulluec 1985: 95–106.47 Le Boulluec 1985: 95–106; Inglebert 2001a: 115.48 Cf. Jus. Dial. 80.3–4. This move echoes (and fuels?) a rhetoric of orthodoxy emerging in nascent

rabbinic Judaism, as Le Boulluec 1985: 70–8 notes, with useful corrections by Boyarin 2004: 40–4.The classic treatment of the verus Israel theme in early Christian literature remains Simon 1986[1948].

49 Le Boulluec 1985: 103–4.


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and somehow each stage flows into the next, but for Hegesippus it is therebellious plurality of “heresy,” not its inner continuity, that exposes itsfalsehood.

Heresy as world-historical phenomenon: Hippolytus

Hippolytus, finally, combines and expands the two earlier models to pro-duce yet a third construction of “heresy.” Following Irenaeus, Hippolytusassembles his “heretics” into lines of succession, although his lines formtwo interlocking networks, one descending through Simon Magus, theother from a renegade deacon named Nicolaus (Figure 2).50 Like Hege-sippus, he locates the origin of those networks in the pre-Christian era,again presupposing a vision of Christianity that transcends the historicalchurch founded on the revelation of Christ. On the other hand, whileHippolytus includes Jewish sects in his catalogue and charges them withfracturing the teaching of Moses (9.18–30), he does not trace the roots ofChristian “heresy” to sectarian Judaism. Instead, he locates its ancestry inpagan philosophy and religion, finding a Greek or barbarian source for each“heretical” teacher and group. In this way, “heresy” is woven into a universalhistory of human knowledge broadly shared with his older contemporaryClement and their Platonist peers. For Hippolytus, Christian truth is theprimordial, natural wisdom of humanity, the religion of Abraham, Noah,and Adam; “heresy” is the end product of a protracted corruption of thatfaith.51

In rough outline, Hippolytus follows Irenaeus’ genealogy of “heresy,”with a few additions, most notably his own opponents within the Romanchurch. As in Irenaeus, this genealogy serves to expose the underlyingunity of “heresy.” We hear, for example, that Valentinus’ mythology isderived from Simon’s, with only the names changed (6.20.4; cf. 4.51.9,6.7.1), and that Cerdo likewise took his principles from Simon and other“gnostics”; Marcion borrowed and augmented this dogma, and his studentLucian did the same (7.37). All of these ultimately belong to the many-branching (��2��) Ur-heresy of the Naassenes, all “declaring the samethings in different words” (5.6.4).52 Like Irenaeus, Hippolytus thus knits

50 With Irenaeus (Haer. 1.26.3; 3.11.1), Hippolytus identifies the deacon Nicolaus of Antioch (Acts 6:5)as the founder of the “Nicolaitans” criticized at Rev. 2:6, 15. In this section, references unspecifiedare to the Refutation.

51 This view of Christianity as primordial natural law is not unique to Hippolytus; see Simon 1986[1948]: 80–5.

52 85 ] �� 2�� < �� 8�7�� <�T�� > �7� ��4��Q 4�� :� �� .



those whom he regards as false Christians into a single network, so thatrefutation of one contributes to the refutation of all. He too regards theapparent discrepancies between “heretical” systems as deceptive, designedto conceal the true origin and content of each group’s teachings. And, likeIrenaeus, he holds that the hidden intellectual coherence of the oppositionto “orthodox” Christianity is revealed by its historical continuities, whichare betrayed in turn by the doctrinal affinities among its members.

Yet Hippolytus’ succession departs from the Irenaean schema in sev-eral telling ways. Some connections are simplified so that, for example, nointermediaries separate Valentinus and Cerdo from Simon, as they do in Ire-naeus. In such cases Hippolytus seems to eschew even minimal concern forhistorical plausibility. Other links are altered, for unclear reasons. Menan-der, universally identified as the successor of Simon, is associated insteadwith Satornilus and Nicolaus (7.28.1). Basilides, Carpocrates, Cerinthus,and the Ebionites are also transferred from the line of Simon to that ofNicolaus (7.20–36); Cerdo is made to descend from both (7.37.1). SimonMagus is again dethroned as the lone father of Christian “heresy.”53 Stillother ties are obscured, including the crucial relationship between Mar-cion and Cerdo. Hippolytus retains the connection but mentions it onlyin his chapter on Cerdo (7.37; cf. 10.19.1), which comes after his noticeon Marcion (7.29–30). In the discussion of Marcion himself, Cerdo isinvisible; Marcion is lambasted as a disciple of Empedocles, not Cerdo(7.29.2). Finally, some post-Irenaean “heretics” escape enrollment in thesuccession, while others, for example the Montanists and Elchasites, touchit only very tangentially.54 In aggregate, these changes yield a historio-graphic scheme that is at some points simpler and more schematized, atothers less tidy, than Irenaeus’. Hippolytus’ bifurcation of the origin ofheresy and his cavalier disregard for the sequence Simon–Cerdo–Marcionsuggest that, while exposing the unity of “heresy” is fundamental to hisproject, that unity does not reside solely within the “heretical” successionitself.55

53 It is possible that Hippolytus did understand Nicolaus et al. as the offspring of Simon. At 6.7.1he writes that “we will show that the following [heresies], too, taking their starting points fromhim [Simon], dared to do similar things under different names” (��’ �I �� 0� ��75�� %4 �� 3�� Q 4�� H�� ). I take “the following” to bethe groups described in book 6, but this umbrella designation could be meant to embrace the entirerest of the Refutation.

54 The “heresies” of book 8 – the Docetae, Monoımus, Hermogenes, the Quartodecimans, Montanists,and Encratites – find no place in the network, except for a Montanist faction that embraces Noetiantheology (8.19.3). The Elchasites are tenously associated with Callistus (9.13).

55 Koschorke 1975: 11, 56, 83–5.



Moreover, neither Nicolaus nor Simon is the ultimate ancestor of Chris-tian “heresy” for Hippolytus. Like Hegesippus, he relegates Simon to sec-ond place, as the first among many who split off from the Naassenes and theother “snaky” Ophite groups of book 5 (5.6.4, 28; 6.6).56 Theologically, thehallmark of these groups is their hybridity: the Naassenes are said to overlayscriptural exegesis on elements derived from Greek, Phrygian, Chaldaean,and Egyptian myth and mystery religions, poetry, and medicine (5.6–10).Historically, their salient feature is that they come before Simon, and hencebefore the apostolic age. If Christian “heresy” originates with the Naassenesand their ilk, it is decidedly both pre- and non-Christian.

This charge is amplified in a second reconstruction of the ancestry of“heresy,” which supplements and at times threatens to supplant the inter-nal succession. The real center of gravity of Hippolytus’ history of error,and the source of its unity, is the thesis that Christian “heresies” derivefrom pagan sources, especially Greek philosophy. In this way Hippolytushopes to establish that rival Christianities “take nothing from the holyscriptures, nor do they preserve the succession of any holy person in theirrush toward these things, but their opinions take their beginning fromthe wisdom of the Greeks” (1 pr.8).57 This strategy too has good heresi-ological precedent. Irenaeus dismisses Valentinian doctrine as a cento ofGreek philosophical teachings, especially Pythagorean numerology (Haer.2.14.1–6),58 while Tertullian calls philosophers the “patriarchs of heretics”(haereticorum patriarchae philosophi, Herm. 8.3; cf. An. 3) and enumeratesthe philosophical antecedents of various heresiarchs (Praescr. 7.3–6). Hip-polytus carries this line of attack much further, though, assigning a paganancestor to nearly every “heresy” in his catalogue. Of greatest importanceare affinities between Valentinus and Pythagoras–Plato (6.21–8), Basilidesand Aristotle (7.14–19), Marcion and Empedocles (7.29), and the monar-chian Noetus of Smyrna and Heraclitus (9.9–10), but a host of other, minorconnections fill out the picture.

The chief objective of this approach is to counter “heretical” claims topreserve teachings of Christ and the apostles, a goal Hippolytus shares

56 All four systems in Ref. 5 feature a serpent in a prominent role, hence their designation as Naassenes(from Hebrew nahash) or Ophites (from Greek C��). Irenaeus has these groups descend fromSimon, not the other way around (Haer. 1.30).

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58 On philosophy and “heresy” in Irenaeus, see Le Boulluec 1985: 123–7; Mansfeld 1992: 157–60,168–72.



with earlier heresiologists. But where his predecessors sought to delegit-imize “heresy” by proving that its founders were post-apostolic, Hippolytusargues that “heretical” doctrine cannot be apostolic because it existed longbefore the apostles.59 So, for example, although the followers of Basilides“say that Matthew told them the secret words that he heard from the Savior,who taught him in private” (7.20.1),60 Hippolytus insists that Basilideandoctrines are really the teachings of Aristotle, not Christ (7.14.1).61

The Aristotelian origin of Basilides’ system precludes any connectionbetween it and the apostles, and between his adherents and the apostolicchurch.

At first blush, this academic filiation seems to float free of the hereticalsuccession, even to contradict it.62 Heretical parentage and philosophicaldebts do not always line up. In the sequence Simon–Cerdo–Marcion, forexample, Hippolytus has Simon borrow his views from Pythagoras (4.51.9),while Marcion follows Empedocles (7.29). Between them, Cerdo does notseem to belong to either camp: he neither reproduces Simon’s Pythagore-anism nor appears to share Marcion’s enthusiasm for Empedocles.63 Insuch cases, the ties between philosophy and “heresy” seem to undercut thetheological unity of the heretical succession.

Elsewhere, however, Hippolytus employs the philosophical pedigreeof “heresy” to color in the intellectual lines connecting the “heretics”themselves. Embroidering on Irenaeus’ charge that Valentinian theologyis merely Pythagorean numerology in disguise, Hippolytus asserts thatnot only is Valentianism built on a Pythagorean substructure (�4��,6.21.1), but Simon Magus, too, took over Pythagorean teaching, chang-ing only the names (4.51.9, 14). In fact, “practically every heresy” (�2�� ) utilizes the Pythagorean hebdomad and theories of arith-metical projection (4.51.1). This shared intellectual ancestry yields the mostdetailed explanation to date of what, exactly, Valentinus and the others aresupposed to have in common with Simon.64

59 As Simon 1979: 101–4 notes, Hippolytus forms an exception to the classic patristic view illuminatedby Bauer 1971 [1934], that wrong belief always and everywhere appeared after right belief and as adistortion of it.

60 �� #�� B��7� �:�� 4�� , �d� Z�� & �!�� ’#�7� ��2��7�.

61 Similarly, Hippolytus counters the Naassene claim to preserve traditions handed down by theapostles James, Mary Magdalene, and Thomas by asserting that their teachings are really of Greekand barbarian origin (7.1–2, 20).

62 So Koschorke 1975: 12.63 Deakle 2002: 180–1. Hippolytus links Cerdo to Empedocles in the chapter headings to Ref. 7, but

not in his exposition of Cerdo’s doctrine (7.10, 36).64 Osborne 1987: 69.



Moreover, Greek philosophy has its own social and doctrinal unity;philosophers also come in lines of succession. In the first book of theRefutation Hippolytus offers an idiosyncratic variation on the traditionaldiadochai that plays up their unity in a way congenial to his heresiologicalproject; this is further revised in later books.65 In particular he reshufflesmembers of what are usually two or three distinct lines into a single chaindescending from Pythagoras through Empedocles and Heraclitus to Plato,Aristotle, and the Stoics; these supply nearly all the philosophical precursorsthat he adduces for Christian “heresy.” The annexation of Plato and Aris-totle as Pythagoreans takes place gradually: in Refutation. 1, both belong,as usual, to the Ionian succession derived from Thales. In Refutation. 4–9,however, Hippolytus adopts a Neopythagorean reading of Plato (6.21–8,37; cf. 4.8.1; 8.17). As Plato’s successor, who “agrees with Plato on mostpoints” (1.20.3), Aristotle too is partially assimilated to Pythagoras (esp.6.24.2), as are the Stoics (9.27.3).66 This move not only reflects the driftof contemporary Platonism but also allows Hippolytus to create a moreseamless pre-history of “heresy.”

Feeding into the historical and theological cohesion of Christian “heresy”is thus a tight-knit sequence of Greek philosophers. Empedocles is a dis-ciple of Pythagoras (1.3.1); Empedoclean Marcion is not so far removedfrom Pythagorean Simon after all. As a follower of Aristotle, Basilidesis philosophically more distant from Simon – just as he is in Hippoly-tus’ “heretical” diadoche. At the same time, making Greek philosophy thebackdrop of Christian “heresy” allows Hippolytus to attach certain outliersmore firmly to the “heretical” family tree. In particular, the monarchianNoetus joins the heretical succession rather peripherally through Callistus,who (we hear) mingled Noetian doctrine with the christology of Theodotusof Byzantium (9.3). As a devotee of Pythagoras’ academic grandson Hera-clitus, however, Noetus can be situated in the same intellectual milieu asSimon, Marcion, and Valentinus (9.9–10). Far from disrupting the unity ofthe “heretical” succession, then, the Greek philosophical succession turnsout to mirror and explicate it and at some points bridges the gaps inHippolytus’ historical and theological narrative.

With historical roots in the pre-Christian era and its intellectual ancestryin Greek philosophy, Hippolytan “heresy” is opposed to “orthodoxy” onlyin the broadest sense, as the end product of a long history of degradation

65 Mansfeld 1992: 20–56 meticulously examines the details of Hippolytus’ ��2�7 and their rede-ployment in Ref. 4–9; he shows that Hippolytus cannily manipulates his source material for his ownpolemic ends.

66 Mansfeld 1992: 48–9.



of the one, original truth.67 Like Clement, Hippolytus enters the fray ofSecond Sophistic cultural debate by arguing that Christianity – that is,monotheistic worship of the Creator – represents the primordial wisdomof humanity. Where Clement exploits the Greek philosophical successionsto subordinate philosophy to Christian truth, though, Hippolytus takes thenext step, using a reworked version of the same diadochai to subordinate“heresy” in turn to philosophy. Since all humanity descends from Noah,a worshiper of God (��%�7�), and disciple (��-�) of other God-fearers, all other races and religions must be posterior (�� )deviations from this faith (10.30–1). That survived intact only among theJews, descendants of Noah’s son Shem. All others borrowed from them, atever greater removes, and in increasingly garbled form: first Egyptians, thenGreeks, and last of all “heretics” (9.27.2–3).68 Hippolytus, grappling with“heretical” doctrines that were current in his own lifetime and acceptedby many, including the bishop of Rome, as legitimate Christian teaching,thus gives us the widest, most attenuated view of “heresy” yet, as the latestproduct of a long history of apostasy whose roots stretch back to the sonsof Noah.69 Although Hippolytus confines his discussion of “heresy” properto errors that pretend to reflect the message of Christ and the apostles, henonetheless comes close to suggesting that any and all deviation from thatoriginal religion constitutes heresy.70

This broad conception stretches orthocracy to its limits. In connectingChristian “heresy” to Greek philosophy, Hippolytus has in view doctrinalaffinities between the two, not historical relationships; he makes no effort,for example, to attach Valentinus to living Platonists or Pythagoreans. Evenwithin the “heretical” succession itself, Hippolytus evinces little concern fordrawing concrete, historically plausible links among the heresiarchs. Thelanguage of personal discipleship and succession persists, but for the mostpart it is applied metaphorically, to highlight perceived similarities amongthe various “heretics.” Vestiges of polemic network formation linger, butchiefly when it comes to Hippolytus’ own rivals. For the rest, that method

67 Koschorke 1975: 22–4, 76–82; Vallee 1981: 55.68 Koschorke 1975: 80–1 collects further references to the sequence Jews–Egyptians–Greeks in Ref.

After Moses, the Jews themselves fragmented the divine law (9.18.1) and then betrayed it altogetherby rejecting Jesus as the Messiah (9.30.5). Only Christianity preserves the primordial truth fullyintact.

69 Nonetheless, this view is compatible with understanding “heresy” as a falsification of apostolictradition and succession, as the example of Basilides shows. By distancing “heresy” as far as possiblefrom the apostles, Hippolytus acts as the agent of the self-protection of their heritage (1 pr.6).

70 Late antique heresiologists carry this idea to its logical conclusion, classifying both Jewish sectsand “paganism” as heresies. See Vallee 1981: 63–77; Inglebert 2001a: 113, 120–5 and 2001b: 424–9;Cameron 2003.


Successions of prophets and martyrs 235

proves too limited to accommodate the world-historical context in whichHippolytus wants to locate Christianity and its dissenters.

Second- and third-century heresiology thus offers three related con-ceptions of the history of “heresy”: as a concerted attack on apostolictradition and authority; as a rippling series of corruptions of the true faithof Israel, now instantiated in the institutional church; and as the culmi-nation of a long history of deviation from primordial wisdom that masksits ancient origin under the guise of apostolic tradition. Each model of“heresy” projects a corresponding image of authentic Christianity. Alongwith these oblique reflections, the same polemicists offer more direct con-structions of “orthodoxy,” to which we now turn.

successions of prophets and martyrs

Alongside the first genealogies of “heresy” in the middle of the second cen-tury, we encounter a wide variety of other successions designed to defineand legitimate (particular versions of ) Christianity. Out of this thicketemerged one model that became the centerpiece of mainstream ecclesiol-ogy: the claim that the historical, doctrinal, and institutional continuityof Christianity was guaranteed by an unbroken line of transmission fromthe apostles to their chosen successors, bishops. Yet the apostles had notalways and everywhere been regarded as the sole foundation of authenticChristianity, nor was it obvious to all that bishops were the only legiti-mate conduits of apostolic tradition and authority. The deutero-PaulineEphesians speaks of apostles and prophets as the foundation on which thechurch was built (Eph. 2:19–20). The prophetic line championed by JustinMartyr takes no account of apostles, while the Asian prophetic successionfeatures an apostle only qua prophet. Where apostles appear in such lists,their charismatic confederates, emulators, and tradents are not presentedas heirs to a distinctively apostolic office or role, even when they are alsoministerial office-holders.

As successions, the chains of prophets and (perhaps) martyrs producedby second- and third-century authors are rather loose, to say the least.Even when explicitly couched in diadochal language, the links remainvague. Rather than hand-to-hand transmission or successive occupationof a formal office, the tie is typically a matter of emulation, sharing ofthe same Spirit, or geographic proximity. Nonetheless, the implication ofpersonal continuity is not incidental. Justin, Tertullian, and the Anony-mous anti-Montanist all hold that a continuous prophetic succession is thenecessary precondition of true teaching, and an indispensable hallmark of



a legitimate religious community. And all of the individuals and groupsconsidered below rely on connections to an authoritative past to supplycredentials for themselves or their heroes and to confirm their legitimacyagainst competing positions. In our period, charismatic successions serveto position Christianity vis-a-vis Judaism (and, by extension, Hellenismand “heresy”) and to champion the validity of one brand of Christianityalongside, or to the exclusion of, others. In all cases, possession of a suc-cession of (genuine) prophets is taken to demonstrate the continuity, andhence the identity, of the present community with the prestigious past.

In his Dialogue with Trypho Justin argues that Christians are in possessionof a continuous prophetic succession which picks up where Jewish prophecyleft off (Dial. 51–2, 82), an assertion that dovetails with the supersecessionistclaim that Christians have displaced Jews as “the true, spiritual Israelite raceof Judah, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham” (Dial. 11.5).71 At issue is the validityof Christian exegesis: had prophecy not ceased among the Jews, thenthe correct interpretation of scriptural prophecies might be in question,but since prophecy now belongs solely to Christians, competing Jewishreadings have no traction (Dial. 51.1). This reasoning redirects an argumentmade by Josephus, among others, that prophetic (and priestly) successionwas the channel through which Jewish historical knowledge had beenpreserved. For Josephus, this chain of transmission guarantees the accuracyof Jewish historical claims, thereby verifying the apologetic boast thatHebrew wisdom is older than, and the source of, Greek philosophy (Ap.1.1–10, 29–46). But where Josephus concedes that the “exact succession ofprophets” (< � �� %� ��2- ) failed after the timeof Artaxerxes (Ap. 41), Justin extends the Jewish prophetic succession as faras John the Baptist, who (he says) was compelled by Jesus himself to stopprophesying (Dial. 51.2). This chronological revision allows Justin to implythat Hebrew prophecy flowed uninterrupted into Christian revelation,since from that time “prophetic gifts have been present among us, evenup to the present day, from which even you ought to understand thatthe gifts that once existed in your race have been transferred to us” (Dial.82.1).72 Justin does not spell out a line of Christian prophets who followedJohn, but mere allusion to such a succession suffices to assert Christianinheritance of the spiritual gifts that once certified the truth of Jewishexegesis.

71 +^�� 4 , ��4 , �� +^�� +^��6% �� +^�� +,%��=�.Lieu 1996: 136–40 discusses Justin’s “language of competition and take-over.”

72 �� > �� 2�� & �� 2��7��= 8�� , 85 �I �� :�� Q��7��H� � =�� 8 � �� C � �#� �� .



In this instance, succession does not serve to confirm the credentialsof the diadochoi themselves, who go unnamed. Instead, possession of this(notional) chain of exceptional individuals authenticates the Christiancommunity as a whole, demonstrating its superiority both to the Jews,who have forfeited to Christians everything guaranteed by the propheticsuccession and, implicitly, to the Greeks, whose wisdom is a mangledderivative of Hebrew prophecy. Much as Diogenes Laertius employs thephilosophical diadochai to define and valorize Hellenism as the unique siteof philosophy, Justin cites the Christian absorption of the Jewish propheticsuccession as proof of its status as verus Israel and the unique validity of itstruth claims. At the same time, reference to this succession functions as asort of footnote corroborating Justin’s own exegesis, as in Quintilian.

This argument takes aim at Christian rivals as well. Presenting Christianprophets as continuing the Jewish diadoche strikes not only at Jewish exege-sis but also at false teachers (D��=��), whom Justin identifies asdoubles for biblical false prophets (Dial. 82.1). For Justin, only those whopresent themselves as inheritors of Israel and whose teachings are backedby spiritual gifts can be accepted as Christian. Although he does not specifywhich teachers of “atheistic blasphemies” (N�� %�=��, Dial. 82.3)he has in mind, one target must be the arch-blasphemer Marcion (Apol.26.5), who recognized no continuity between Judaism and Christianityand whose churches allegedly produced no prophets (Tert. Marc. 5.8.12).Half a century later Tertullian explicitly argues that this failure betrays thespeciousness of Marcionite theology (Marc. 5.15.5–6): if Marcion’s unknownGod is real, let him inspire some prophets!

A more precise prophetic succession figures in disputes over the NewProphecy that roiled the Asian churches in the last decades of the secondcentury.73 Under debate was the status of the Prophets and the legitimacyof their movement: did the Prophets and their rigorist teachings standinside the church’s prophetic tradition or outside it? Were their preceptsinspired by the same Spirit who spoke through earlier prophets and theapostles, and hence worthy of equal authority (Tert. Pud. 12.1, 16.21, 21.7;Virg. 1.6–11), or were they the work of an “insolent spirit that taughtthe catholic church everywhere under heaven to blaspheme” (Anon. ap.Eus. Hist. eccl. 5.16.9)?74 The controversy was framed in part as a contestover valid succession. Opponents, represented by an anonymous Asianpresbyter, seized on the Prophets’ ecstatic mode of prophecy as proof

73 Trevett 1996: 26–45, followed by Tabbernee 2007, locates the beginnings of Montanism in the 160s.74 < � ��4�� < �� :�� 8��7� %��> ��=�� &

�� .



of their estrangement from “the custom according to the tradition andsuccession of the church from the beginning” (ap. Hist. eccl. 5.16.7).75

Indeed, insists the Anonymous, “they will not be able to show that anyof the prophets, either those in the Old Testament or those in the New,was inspired this way, nor will they boast of Agabus or Judas or Silas orthe daughters of Philip, or Ammia of Philadelphia or Quadratus, or ifthere are any others unrelated to these” (ap. Hist. eccl. 5.17.2–3).76 Parti-sans of the Prophets, meanwhile, evidently claimed that they did belongto this succession. The Anonymous continues: “if after Quadratus andAmmia of Philadelphia the Montanist women succeeded (��5� �) tothe prophetic gift, as they say, let them show who among them succeededthe followers of Montanus and the women” (5.17.4).77 Writing around theturn of the third century, the Roman Montanist Proclus alludes to a sim-ilar list, naming the apostle Philip, his four prophetic daughters, andan earlier man as authorities buried in Hierapolis; this geographic con-nection was presumably meant to confirm the continuity of the NewProphecy with earliest Christian tradition (ap. Hist. eccl. 3.31.4; cf. 2.25.5–7;6.20.3).78

Perhaps the most striking feature of this exchange is the high degreeof agreement between the adherents of the Prophets and their anony-mous opponent. Both recognize the existence of a succession of Christianprophets and, like Justin, affirm that Christian prophets are the heirs of theancient Jewish prophetic tradition. They seem to agree on the make-up ofthe diadoche itself, up to Ammia and Quadratus. Further, this propheticsuccession, much like Justin’s, works to validate both the Christian commu-nity as a whole and the particular group(s) to which its members belong.The Anonymous equates it with the diadoche of the whole church; the

75 �� =�� 2< N !�� 8��7��. On the Anonymous, seeTabbernee 2007: 3–7, who dates his treatise to c. 192/3.

76 �&� � �4� �n� � � � �� < �� n� � �� < �� < ��L�� -� ��>5�� -�� , �n� j��%� �n� +^�� n� F7�� n� ��@��7�� , �n� < 8 @��7� +,��7� �n� _��o , �n� �# �- � �� N�� :�>� ��-�� 2-�� . The first four appear in Acts 11:28, 21:10 (Agabus),15:22, 32 (Judas Barsabbas and Silas), 21:9 (Philip’s daughters). Eusebius calls Quadratus a prophetin the first rank of the apostolic succession (Hist. eccl. 3.37.1). Ammia is otherwise unknown.

77 �# �� _�� < 8 @��7� +,��7� , W� �� , �/ �� B� � � ��5� �� >�� 2=��, �0� �� B� � �& �� 7 �� ’ �:�>��5� �, ��5=!�� .

78 The identity of the earlier man (�� &� ) is unknown, whether an apostle (Grant 1968: 304),an earlier prophet, e.g. Quadratus or Silas (Tabbernee 1997b: 208), or someone else. For identifi-cation of this Philip as the apostle rather than the evangelist, see Tabbernee 1997a: 504–6; 1997b:207–8.



Prophets no doubt agreed.79 It also legitimizes the diadochoi themselves:all parties apparently take for granted that Montanus, Maximilla, Priscilla,and the rest are true prophets if (and only if ) they belong to a recognizedline of prophetic succession. Finally, both assume that genuine successorsresemble their antecedents, and vice versa. The Prophets must have insistedthat their predecessors had also prophesied in ecstasy, while the Anonymousmaintains that they did not, which proves that Maximilla and Priscilla haveno connection to them.

In a sense, then, the disagreement comes down to a question of historicalfact: are the Prophets successors of Quadratus and Ammia, or not? Ifso, then ecstatic possession must represent normative ancient practice,and Montanist rigorism authoritative Christian doctrine; if not, then theyare but diabolic imitators, their teachings heretical blasphemy.80 When itcomes to the role of the prophetic succession in establishing orthodoxy,though, the two sides are substantially in accord. This controversy bearswitness to a detailed prophetic succession list that was being adducedamong Asian Christians in the 190s to establish where – that is, withwhom – the true church was to be found. For a Christian movementsuch as the New Prophecy, locating its founders within this succession wasaccordingly a crucial authorizing gesture, proof that it belonged inside thewider church – or, indeed, was coterminous with it. This contest over theProphets’ lineage recalls the wrangling over where to locate Stoicism amongthe descendants of Socrates.

Running in parallel with and supporting the prophetic diadoche, theremay also have been a more loosely conceived succession of martyrs. Accord-ing to the Anonymous, adherents of the New Prophecy saw confirmationof their charismatic endowment in the large number of martyrs they pro-duced. When they find themselves rhetorically boxed in, he complains,“they try to take refuge in martyrs, saying that they have many martyrsand that this is a reliable proof of the prophetic spirit said to exist amongthem” (ap. Hist. eccl. 5.16.20).81 As we have seen, martyrs were coupled withprophets in the imaginations of many Christians. They might possess or

79 Ehrhardt 1953: 69–76 suggests that prophetic succession was a uniquely Asian alternative to apostolic-episcopal succession, but that is going too far. The Anonymous belongs to a web of ordained clerics towhom he ascribes substantial authority, whether derived vertically, from the apostles, or horizontally,from each other.

80 Debates about whether the spirit inspiring the Prophets was divine or demonic asked essentially thesame question in a different way; attempts were made to exorcise both Maximilla and Priscilla (Eus.Hist. eccl. 5.16.17, 18.13, 19.3).

81 H� �7 � 8 �� >� �#�� 8��2�� -�!�� , 8� �0� �=�� , �� 0� 12�� =�� &’ �� -�� =��!��& ��’ �:�>� �� & ��.



gain special access to divine insight as they neared death, as Ignatius (Phld.7.1), Polycarp (Mart. Pol. 5.2, 16.2), and Perpetua and her companions did;some authors treat martyrdom as a mark of true prophecy.82 A successionof prophets is thus often a succession of martyrs, and vice versa. Given thisclose association, it is tempting to ask if some churches kept successionlists of martyrs as well as prophets.

Evidence for such lists is slim, but suggestive. Martyrs rub elbows withprophets, bishops, and apostles in the list of forebears that Polycrates pro-duced in defense of Asian Easter praxis (ap. Hist. eccl. 5.24.4–5): the apostlePhilip and his prophetic daughters, buried in Hierapolis and Ephesus(cf. Hist. eccl. 3.31.4, 37.1; 5.17.3); the apostle John, priestly teacher andmartyr, in Ephesus; in Smyrna, the martyr-bishops Polycarp and Thraseasof Eumeneia; the bishop and martyr Sagaris in Laodicea; Papirius (other-wise unknown) and Melito, bishop of Sardis; seven bishops in Polycrates’own family. Neither the martyrs nor the prophets, apostles, or bishops aredescribed as successors of each other; the focus is on the relation betweenthese authorities and their ritual and geographical affiliates. Yet implicitlines of transmission are being drawn, from the apostles Philip and Johnthrough all the martyrs, prophets, and bishops of Asia, including Poly-crates’ relatives, to Polycrates and the Ephesian church; in aggregate, thiscloud of ancestors is a potent witness to the antiquity and “orthodoxy” ofthe Christianity then dominant in Asia.

Elsewhere, one of Polycrates’ forerunners, Polycarp, appears in an at leastimplicit chain of martyrs. The Martyrdom of Polycarp notes that he wasthe twelfth martyr in Smyrna, which suggests that someone was keeping alist and perhaps expected that future martyrs would be added to it (Mart.Pol. 19.1). After his death the Christians of Smyrna plan to gather at histomb on the anniversary of his martyrdom “both in memory of those whocontested before, and for the training and preparation of those to come”(18.3).83 Keeping count of martyrs and liturgically commemorating theirdeaths does not necessarily translate to conceiving of them as a diadoche. Itdoes, however, enshrine them as touchstones of the local community. Tothe believers of Smyrna, Polycarp offers a model for imitation (19.1) and afocal point for their history. “The father of the Christians” (12.2), Polycarp

82 Ignatius cites the persecution of biblical prophets as a sign that they were Christians avant lalettre (Magn. 8.2, 9.2), while the Anonymous argues that the fact that the New Prophets were notpersecuted by Jews proves that they were impostors (ap. Eus. Hist. eccl. 5.16.12).

83 1 �� '� �� > �� 8 ��=�� 2�� 5�� ( _�� 8��> < �&��7�� :�& �� , �M� � < � ��4! � -�� 4 ! N��7 � �� 3��7� .



becomes an authorizing ancestor not only for future martyrs but for theAsian churches as a whole.

That martyrs could be presented in explicitly diadochal terms, moreover,is demonstrated by a succession of martyrs preserved in a fourth-centuryManichaean hymn.84 This text lies outside our period but it is usefullyillustrative. In this hymn, persecution and martyrdom are the hallmarksof true Christianity. Like Ignatius, the author holds that all the proto-Christian heroes of Hebrew scripture suffered persecution (142.10–11). Thecatalogue of martyrs continues through the apostles and their followers,culminating with Mani himself: “All the godly [that] there have been,male and female, all have suffered, down to the Glorious One, the ApostleMani. Our Lord Mani himself also was made to drink the cup. He receivedthe likeness of them all, he fulfilled all their signs” (142.15–18). Martyrdomconfirms legitimacy: only those who suffer are certifiably godly. Once againcontinuity with Judaism is underscored by a shared line of succession, thistime of martyrs. This series makes Mani the imitator and image of theapostles; indeed, he ranks among them as a new apostle. The text impliesthat he attained this status in part qua martyr, leaving open the possibilitythat readers might do the same. In the closing section of the hymn theManichaean faithful are exhorted to “join with them in the suffering andrest in their rest.” This call is laced with the language of imitation, filiation,and inheritance: martyrs “are the true sons, the heirs (�� 4��) of theirFathers” (142.21, 23).

The language of the hymn here approaches that of the Martyrdom ofPolycarp, which proclaims that “everyone desires to imitate [Polycarp’s]martyrdom” and prays “that we may be found in his footsteps in thekingdom of Jesus Christ” (Mart. Pol. 19.1, 22.1). Both exhort readers (orhearers) to imitate a heroic martyr and father figure, thereby securingthemselves an unchallengeable place in the legitimate Christian lineage.Mani’s position at the apex of a glorious line of martyrs mirrors (andsurpasses) the description of Polycarp as the latest and greatest of themartyrs of Smyrna. The parallels between the second-century martyr actand the fourth-century Manichaean hymn make it conceivable that somesecond- and third-century Christians recorded successions of martyrs andindicate how such a list could serve to give concrete shape to the historyand present identity of a Christian community.

84 On the date of Manichaean Psalm-book, see Allberry 1938: xix–xx; text and translation of the Hymnof Endurance are at Allberry 1938: 141–3.



One final point: the notion of succession on view in such lists is notmerely discursive. It is embodied in physical places and objects – tombsand reliquaries of apostles, martyrs, and prophets – and in the ritual lifeof congregations. The Christians of Smyrna commemorate the anniver-sary of Polycarp’s martyrdom each year at his grave. Proclus enumeratesthe prophets buried on the home turf of the New Prophets. His Romanopponent, Gaius, retaliates by pointing out that the tombs of Peter andPaul can be found on the Vatican and along the Ostian Way (ap. Eus. Hist.eccl. 2.25.7); the historical tie concretized by those monuments confirmsthe apostolicity of current Roman views on prophecy and church disci-pline. Quite probably, these tombs, like Polycarp’s, had already becomeobjects of veneration for local Christians. There is reason to believe thatthe tombs of Philip and the New Prophets too became sites of worship forMontanist Christians. A fifth-century inscription survives from a (proba-bly) Montanist martyrium of “the holy and glorious apostle and theologianPhilip” at Hierapolis, while literary evidence attests a Montanist shrinethat housed the bones of “Montanus and the women” at Pepouza in thesixth century;85 forerunners of both shrines may have existed already in thesecond century.86

For the Montanist faithful, maintaining and worshiping at the tombsof Philip and the others will have been a visible way of advertising theirconnection to figures they claimed as founding ancestors, the sources andguarantors of their own traditions.87 The same is true of Polycrates inEphesus, Gaius in Rome, the Christian “children” of Polycarp, and, nodoubt, many others. In these cases the details of the lines of succession andtransmission take a back seat to the simple assertion of continuity: in ven-erating the tombs of their honored predecessors, these believers spotlighttheir nearness to the source of their teachings, rather than the mediatinglinks in between. Nonetheless, the justification that each derives from localmonuments of the illustrious dead is predicated on a sort of rudimentarysuccession narrative: the presupposition that an unbroken chain of faith-ful tradents binds the founder to the descendant who now invokes his orher authority. Such affirmations of identity (and orthodoxy) transcend theliterary genre of diadochai. Authentication through spiritual genealogy, orsuccession, is not an abstruse, alien notion available only to sophisticated,philosophically trained intellectuals such as Justin or Valentinus. Rather,

85 Tabbernee 1997a nos. 83 and 2. The Hierapolis inscription does not identify the shrine as Montanist,but fifth-century Hierapolis was a stronghold of Montanism: Ramsay 1931: 10–14; Tabbernee 1997a:497–502.

86 Grant 1968: 303; Tabbernee 1997a: 216; MacMullen 2009: 9–10. 87 Tabbernee 1997a: 209.


“Direct from the holy apostles” 243

implicit appeals to succession were built into the ritual life of churchesfrom the second century onward.

“direct from the holy apostles”

Compared with apostolic successions of bishops, chains of prophets andmartyrs are conspicuously, and uncomfortably, elastic. Even the Anony-mous anti-Montanist, while denouncing the New Prophets as intrudersinto the Asian prophetic diadoche, must entertain the possibility thatthere may be true prophets outside that line (� �� N�� :�>��-�� , ap. Eus. Hist. eccl. 5.17.3). While he, like his opponents,professes confidence that all genuine prophets conform to the same pat-tern, the Anonymous tacitly acknowledges that prophetic inspiration isnot confined to one place or time. In principle, at least, new prophets canarise at any time, extending established successions in new directions orinaugurating new ones. By contrast, the first Christian generation repre-sents a limited, non-renewable pool of authorizing ancestors. It requiredsome labor to collapse that generation to include only the apostles, prunethe ranks of the apostles to only the Twelve (plus Paul), and affirm theirmutual consensus against clear scriptural testimony to the contrary. Thepayoff was considerable, however. Much as Diogenes Laertius sought toregulate philosophy by narrowing its ancestry, privileging the apostles asthe only meaningful ancestors of Christian offspring works to streamlineand clarify the outlines of the Christian community: only those who cantrace their descent to this closed circle have a legitimate claim to belongwithin the church. The advantage of this thesis for any coalition that cansuccessfully claim a monopoly on apostolic ancestry is unmistakable.

The ingredients of apostolic succession were not new.88 Apostolicity isa central theme already for the author of Acts, who is concerned to placeJesus’ disciples at the head of Christian history and to draw attention to thelinks that connect them to the later church, especially the Pauline mission.89

Early in the second century Papias of Hierapolis proudly proclaims that hisknowledge of the precepts of Jesus derives through oral tradition from the“elders” (i.e. apostles): “if one of the companions of the elders ever came,I asked him about the words of the elders, what Andrew or Peter said,or what Philip or Thomas, James, John, or Matthew, or any other of theLord’s disciples, or what Aristion and the elder John, the Lord’s disciples,

88 On embryonic notions of apostolic succession in late first- and early second-century texts, seeJavierre 1962: 173–83; Campenhausen 1969: 151–7.

89 Grant 1968: 288–93.



were saying” (ap. Eus. Hist. eccl. 3.39.3–4).90 In 2 Timothy preservation ofthe deposit (��-��) of truth is guaranteed by a chain of transmissionrunning from Paul to Timothy to “faithful people who will be suitableto teach others as well” (1:14, 2:2).91 Irenaeus embraces this conception,singling out the apostles as privileged conduits of Christian truth. Layingclaim to this tradition – protecting it, he would say – is his overridinginterest, which drives his appeal to episcopal succession.

This is a polemic construction, intended to foreclose rival interpreta-tions of Christian tradition. Nonetheless, the basic equation of Christiantruth with apostolic tradition is one that Irenaeus’ chief adversaries broadlyaccepted. As Pheme Perkins has shown, the bulk of the Nag Hammadidialogues seek to establish the identity of their teaching with the revelationof Christ and the teaching of some or all of the apostles, although they donot uniformly represent the apostles as united, and some dialogues pit theauthority of other disciples, especially Mary or James, against that of theTwelve.92 Marcion set out to distill genuine apostolic (i.e. Pauline) teachingin Christian scripture from what he considered spurious accretions.93 Dis-puting both Marcionite and Irenaean theologies, the Valentinian teacherPtolemy assures his reader that his own position is backed by the authorityof apostolic tradition, “which we too have received in succession” (p 8��2�� >� ��-�� , Flor. 7.9).

Where Irenaeus and his opponents diverge is on the question of how thattradition has been handed down, what it contains, and how to interpret it.Like Numenius, Marcion held that the founder’s doctrine had been hope-lessly mangled by subsequent tradents and called for a return to a (carefullyrestored) original text. More troublesome to Irenaeus, Valentinian teach-ers claimed to have access to oral teachings of the apostles that modifiedtheir public statements, without which scripture could not be interpretedcorrectly.94 From our (post-Irenaean) vantage point, such claims may sound

90 �# �� 9� �� >� ��%�� 1��, �0� � ��%��! � �� 4��, 7 +, �� J 7 A�� J 7 @7�� J 7 c!�� J +^=�!%�� J 7 +^!= �� JB��>�� Z �� U�� & ��7�� , R � X��7! �� ( ��%�� +^!= ��,�& ��7�� 7, �� . Dates ranging from c. 90 to c. 140 have been proposed for Papias’book; Schoedel 1993a: 236–7, 261–2 reviews the problem. For interpretation of this vexed passage,see Schoedel 1993a: 250–2.

91 �� G Z�� ’ 8��& �� ! , �&� ��=�� >� � ��9��, �� /�� 1�� 3�� =5��.

92 P. Perkins 1980 and 1994: 156–64; cf. Pagels 1978: 421–6.93 The classic treatment of Marcion’s scripture is Harnack 1960 [1924]: 35–73, 177–255; for more recent

work, see Gamble 2006: 205–11.94 They say that “the truth can not be discovered in these [scriptures] by those who do not know

tradition. For that has been handed down not in writing, but orally” (non possit ex his inveniri veritas


“Direct from the holy apostles” 245

audacious, but they reflect the conditions of second-century Christianity,within which Irenaeus himself operates: a largely oral, rather than fixedtextual relationship to the Christian past, in which bishops have not yetsecured a monopoly of interpretive discourse to the exclusion of teachers,prophets, or other spiritual virtuosos.95

On this score, Valentinians stand close to Clement of Alexandria, on theother side of the retrospective divide between “orthodox” and “heretical.”96

While rejecting their exegesis, Clement shares their view that teachers,rather than bishops or presbyters as such, are the chief tradents of the apos-tles (Strom. 7.16.103.5), the channels through whom apostolic knowledgehas been handed down in succession (�� 2=�, Strom. 6.7.61.3).His own pedigree consists of a line of teachers who “preserv[ed] the truetradition of the blessed teaching, direct from Peter, James, John and Paul,the holy apostles, each son receiving it from his father” (Strom. 1.1.11.3).97

And although Clement has a high regard for written scripture, he alsoconcurs that some of the Lord’s teachings were not revealed openly; thesewere not preserved in writing but passed down orally by apostles, prophets,evangelists, shepherds, and teachers (Strom. 1.1.13, citing Eph. 4:11), whoseguidance is necessary to understand written texts, including his own (Strom.1.1.14.1–2). Further, this sort of apostolic connection does not require ordi-nation. Rather, “enrollment in the roster of apostles” remains open toanyone who “lives perfectly and gnostically according to the gospel”; sucha person is the “real presbyter of the church . . . not ordained by people orconsidered righteous because he is a presbyter but enlisted in the presbyterybecause he is righteous” (Strom. 6.13.106.1–2; cf. 7.16.104.1).98 A generationafter Irenaeus, then, exclusive focus on the apostles as unique sources ofChristian truth did not yet automatically translate to reliance on bishopsand presbyters as their privileged conduits.

ab his qui nesciant traditionem. non enim per litteras traditam illam sed per vivam vocem, Haer. 3.2.1;cf. 2.27; 3.5.1, 12.6).

95 P. Perkins 1980: 196–8; Reed 2002. 96 Buell 1999: 66–8; Brakke 2010: 125–7.97 �f � < �� 7�� K� �� 7�� =�� :�0� �� A��

+^��9%�� +^!= �� A�� "�7! ��4�! , �>� �� 8��24�� .98 15�� T �� & �>� ��>� 8 ��-�� 8 ��>�, �� :�� 7!� %�9�� L

�� !��, �#� < 8��< � ��4�! 8�� . �T�� %��4� 8�� C � �� 8��7�� . . . �:2 �’ � ��9! 2�� :�’ H� ��%��, �7�� K4�� , ��’ H� �7��, 8 ��%��7� ��4�� . On the vexed question of whetherClement and his teacher Pantaenus were ordained presbyters or unordained teachers – a thin dis-tinction in early third-century Alexandria – see Van den Broek 1996: 200–1 (no); Van den Hoek1997: 66–79 (a sensitively nuanced yes). More relevant here is that Clement has an expansive notionof apostolic succession, to which teaching and imitation of the apostles, rather than ordination, arecentral.



Irenaeus, however, considers this fluid relationship to apostolic traditiondangerous. To his mind, claiming that scripture could be understood onlyin the light of secret oral tradition amounted to asserting simultaneouslya monopoly on apostolic truth and superiority to the apostles, since thoseoral traditions provided the basis for rewiring what seemed to him the plainmeaning of scripture (Haer. 1.8–9, 20; 2.27–8; 3.2.2; 4.6.1). To prove thathis interpretations, and not his opponents’, mirrored those of the apostles,he therefore needed to show that his “orthodoxy” was connected to theapostles by a more robust channel than his rivals claimed for themselves:the episcopal succession.

bishops as apostolici

The notion of episcopal succession too has roots in earlier developments.1 Clement famously describes the first bishops and deacons as apostolicappointees (42.4), while Ignatius promotes bishops as the unique focalpoint of each church. Neither Clement nor Ignatius presents bishops assuccessors of the apostles, though; a bishop himself, Ignatius expects toattain parity with the apostles only as a martyr (Eph. 12.1, Rom. 4.2–3;cf. Trall. 3.3). The innovation of the late second century is the convergenceof these two models of authority and succession, displacing all others.99

Our first reference to episcopal succession lists comes from Hegesip-pus. In the fifth book of his Memoirs (ap. Eus. Hist. eccl. 4.22.2–3; cf.4.11.7), Hegesippus describes a trip he took to Rome around 160, withthe goal of visiting as many bishops as possible on the way ('� ��7��8��4�� 75�� ). He records with pleasure that he received thesame teaching from all, and that “in every succession (��2-) and inevery city, it was just as the law, the prophets, and the Lord proclaim.”100

At Corinth in particular, he was “refreshed in the true word (� Q��4��),” to which the Corinthians had remained faithful until the episco-pate of Primus, evidently the current bishop.101 Finally, at Rome he “madea succession (��2- 8��=�� ) as far as Anicetus, whose deacon wasEleutherus.”

From his reference to “every succession and every city,” it seems likelythat Hegesippus drew up (or consulted) succession lists not only in Rome,

99 C. H. Turner 1918: 114.100 8 3�=��. � ��2P. �� 8 3�=��. 4�� $!� 12�� '� 4�� / ��

( ��.101 Starting with Eusebius, who glosses Q�� 4�� as ��7�, scholars have generally assumed

that the phrase means “pure, i.e. apostolic, doctrine.” Abramowski 1976: 326–7, however, arguesthat for Hegesippus, as for Philo, Q�� 4�� simply means “scripture” – i.e., that it is synonymouswith “what the law, the prophets, and the Lord proclaim.”


Bishops as apostolici 247

but in other cities as well.102 Implicit in his project is that bishops standat the head and heart of each local church. Unlike Justin, Polycrates,or the Montanists, Hegesippus does not look to prophets or martyrs totake the spiritual temperature of the communities he visits, nor does hecanvas the cities’ other presbyters, teachers, and spiritual guides. Instead,like Ignatius, he assumes that each local church speaks with one voice – thebishop’s. Further, he affirms that all those bishops collaborate in preservingthe same faith, namely that proclaimed by the Hebrew scriptures and thegospel.

In Hegesippus’ view, then, true Christianity is coterminous with theinstitutional church, centered on successions of bishops. Compared withcharismatic models of succession, this is a strongly exclusive claim: Hege-sippus leaves no room for alternate authorizing patrilines that might standalongside episcopal successions. It is also a self-justifying, normative claim.Offered as confirmation of the churches’ uniform fidelity to the “trueword,” Hegesippus’ diadochai in fact represent an intervention in contestsover that very standard of authenticity. This passage is the twin to Hegesip-pus’ heresiology, which depicts a cohesive, if vaguely delineated, lineage of“heretics” united in opposition to “the law, the prophets and the Lord” andto episcopal authority. Against those who question what exactly the Lordtaught and whether Hebrew scripture is authoritative for Christians, Hege-sippus asserts that the orthodoxy of his brand of Christianity is confirmedby the credentials of the bishops who defend it, and by their unanimityin doing so. His episcopal diadochai – whether spelled out, like the Asianprophetic succession, or merely gestured at, like Justin’s prophetic tradi-tion – establish personal lines of continuity between current congregationsand the “pure, undefiled virgin” church (ap. Hist. eccl. 3.32.7–8). The har-mony prevailing among modern bishops is understood to recreate the unityof the primitive church. With his collection of episcopal successions, Hege-sippus thus outlines a worldwide “orthodox” network, its nodes suppliedby bishops who are connected vertically by their shared location withinchurch history, and horizontally by their mutual likeness to each other.

One thing Hegesippus does not do is attach this network to the apos-tles. Although Eusebius praises him for reporting “the unerring traditionof the apostolic preaching” (< �� =�� & ��&

102 Eusebius’ phrasing leaves us in the dark about whether Hegesippus researched and composed hisown lists or simply copied and/or extended lists maintained by the churches themselves. Indeed,since Eusebius does not quote any of Hegesippus’ ��2�7, we cannot even be sure whetherthe Memoirs contained or merely alluded to these lists. But given that Eusebius’ account of theearly history of the Jerusalem church draws heavily on Hegesippus (Hist. eccl. 2.23.4–24; 3.11, 32;4.22.4; Grant 1980: 67–9), it seems probable that Hegesippus traced the episcopal succession ofthat church, and it is plausible that he did the same for Corinth and the rest.



��, Hist. eccl. 4.8.1–2), extant quotations from Hegesippus con-tain no references to the apostles as such. The sole exception is a fragmentin which he criticizes Paul for saying that the Lord has prepared thingswhich “neither eye has seen nor ear heard nor human heart conceived”(1 Cor. 2:9); in his view, Paul “said these things in vain, and those whosay them (now) speak falsely” (ap. Photius v.288b).103 This hardly suggestsesteem for Paul as an unchallengeable authority. We have seen, too, thatthe apostles are largely absent from his history of “heresy.” Where theapostles appear in Eusebian paraphrases of the Memoirs, Eusebius seemsto be projecting his own (Irenaean) preoccupations onto his source.104 Forreimagining of episcopal succession as succession to the apostles, we mustlook to Irenaeus.105

As we have seen, Irenaeus aimed to shut down rival interpretations ofscripture that rested on oral teaching traditions (Valentinus) or repudiationof the apostolic succession as a whole (Marcion). To that end, he assertsthat the bishops of apostolic churches not only were appointed by the apos-tles but also were their chosen successors, and as such fully and accuratelypreserved their teachings, whether public or private. Irenaeus can “enumer-ate these successors down to our own time” and confirm that “they nevertaught or even knew of anything like the madness of these people”; if theapostles had had secret doctrines that they shared only with an elite few,these men would surely have been in the know (3.3.1–2; cf. 5.20.1).106 Acase in point is the Roman church, for which he details an unbroken lineof bishops from its foundation by Peter to the present (3.3.2–3). Enhanc-ing the value of this succession is the survival of a letter attributed to itsthird bishop, Clement. Since Clement knew the apostles personally, rea-sons Irenaeus, the theology of 1 Clement must mirror their teachings intoto. Moreover, complete knowledge of apostolic doctrine will have passedforward from Clement to each of his successors in turn. It follows thatthe current bishop’s preaching is identical with that of the apostles, andthe same must be true in every apostolic church (3.2.2; cf. 3.3.2; 4.32.1,

103 �=� � �#�� &� �� D�� 0� �&� �� .104 C. H. Turner 1918: 119 puts his finger on the problem when he says that if Eusebius’ summaries

are reliable, then Hegesippus, like Irenaeus, “must have conceived of the successions as being,fundamentally, the successions from the apostles.” Turner accepts Eusebius’ trustworthiness, butlater scholars have persuasively challenged it: see Kemler 1971 and nn. 41, 101 above.

105 Le Boulluec 1985: 86–91 conjectures that Justin pioneered this strategy as the correlate to his“heretical” genealogy, but the evidence is purely speculative.

106 habemus adnumerare eos qui successores eorum usque ad nos, qui nihil tale docuerunt neque cognoveruntquale ab his deliratur. etenim, si recondita mysteria scissent apostoli, quae seorsum et latenter ab reliquisperfectos docebant, his vel maxime traderent ea quibus et etiam ipsas ecclesias committebant. Referencesin the next four paragraphs are to the Against Heresies.



33.8). There is no need to look elsewhere for genuine, unabridged apostolictradition (3.4.1).

This tight link between apostles and bishops is intended to foreclose,or at least obviate, the claims of Irenaeus’ adversaries to have receivedsuperior, secret apostolic tradition through their teachers. His bishops’authority depends heavily on their personal ties to their apostolic fore-runners. Clement saw and conversed with (��%�%��9�) the apostles(3.3.2); Polycarp and other Asian presbyteroi knew John and other apostlespersonally (3.3.4; cf. 2.22.5; 4.27.1, 32.1). Whom would you rather believe,asks Irenaeus, witnesses like those, or Ptolemy, who never saw the apos-tles or followed an apostle’s footsteps even in his dreams (2.22.5)?107 Theconsensus said to prevail among bishops further confirms their commoninstitutional pedigree, which in turn bolsters the presumption of mutualagreement, although it is not a guarantee; presbyters can lose their place inthe apostolic succession by deviating from apostolic tradition (4.26.3–4).108

As often, social location can fill in the blanks of an individual’s religiousaffinities but not overwrite them entirely. Finally, this succession reflects onIrenaeus himself, although he does not write himself into it, except as anacquaintance of Polycarp. Like his carefully researched catalogue of “here-sies,” Irenaeus’ ability to produce a list of named individuals stretchingfrom the apostles to the present day demonstrates his extensive commandof Christian history. It may also give his argument an air of gritty facticitymissing from his adversaries’ more allusive pedigrees.109

In addition, the element of selection distinguishes the ordained clergyas the privileged – the only! – successors of the apostles. Directed primarilyagainst rival teachers, this way of framing the debate has the perhapsinadvertent effect of occluding other forms of succession as well. In trying todetermine who has most fully and accurately reproduced apostolic teaching,Irenaeus presupposes that the apostles are the source of divine truth mostworth contesting, and he envisages that truth as a fixed deposit. Thisconception leaves little room for a notion of Christianity as subsisting incontinually renewed prophetic revelation or of the apostles as standingbeside or at the head of lines of prophets and martyrs. In the ferocity

107 quibus magis credi oportet? utrumne his talibus, an Ptolomaeo, qui apostolos numquam vidit, vestigiumautem apostoli ne in somnis quidem adsecutus est?

108 That is, Irenaeus’ conception of succession is doctrinal rather than institutional or sacramental: seeMolland 1950; Campenhausen 1969: 169–73; Brent 1993a: 380–2.

109 Clement reports that Valentinus and Basilides did claim precise apostolic connections, Basilidesthrough Glaucias, an interpreter (3�� ) of Peter, Valentinus through Paul’s companion (� 9L��) Theodas (Strom. 7.17.106.4, 108.1), but this has been convincingly challenged by Markschies1992: 299–300.



of Irenaeus’ assault on dissident claims to apostolic tradition, alternativeforms of authenticating succession silently disappear from view.

The Irenaean strategy finds an eager imitator in Tertullian, who builds onboth elements of Irenaeus’ argument – the apostolic and the episcopal – tomake an orthocratic end-run around Christian dissenters in his Prescription.The debate over “orthodoxy,” he argues, can be reduced to the questioncui competat possessio scriptuarum (“to whom does scripture belong,” 15.4),which can be answered by establishing “by whom, through whom, when,and to whom the teaching that makes people Christians has been handeddown” (19.2).110 The answers are obvious: Christian revelation comes fromJesus Christ, who taught it to his disciples and, through them, to the nations(Praescr. 20.1–4). Tertullian, like Irenaeus, insists that the apostles are thesole recipients and tradents of Christian truth. Jesus appointed the Twelve,and only them, he argues; no other preachers deserve a hearing (alios nonesse recipiendos praedicatores quam Christus instituit, Praescr. 21.1). Whilepost-apostolic churches may be adopted into apostolicity if they exhibitagreement with the apostles, no new or alternative sources of authenticationmay be considered (Praescr. 32).

Tertullian also accepts that the apostles entrusted their teaching aboveall to the churches they founded, that is, to their bishops (Praescr. 20.6–8,32). He challenges dissenters to “unroll a sequence of their bishops thatruns down in succession from the beginning, such that the first bishop wasappointed and preceded by some apostle or follower of the apostles whoactually remained (in accord) with the apostles” (Praescr. 32.1).111 Claiminga direct line of contact with the apostles is not enough; when it comesto teaching and church leadership, at least, a succession of bishops is theonly source of legitimacy worth considering. Without this credential, ordemonstrable agreement with a church that possesses it, no faction canclaim orthodoxy for its views or membership in the Christian communityfor itself.

The success of the theory of apostolic-episcopal succession is vividly illus-trated by a frontal attack on the episcopal half of that theory mounted byTertullian himself in his Montanist-period treatise On Modesty (c. 210).112 Atissue is whether or not those who commit adultery after baptism may per-form penance and be readmitted to communion. The bishop of Carthage110 a quo et per quos et quando et quibus sit tradita disciplina, qua fiunt christiani.111 evolant ordinem episcoporum suorum ita per successionem ab initio decurrentem ut primus ille episcopus

aliquem ex apostolis vel apostolicis viris qui tamen cum apostolis perseveraverit habuerit auctorem etantecessorem.

112 On Tertullian’s evolving ecclesiology, see Rankin 1995: 53–201, arguing for an essential continuityof position whose articulation shifted in response to claims to greater clerical authority.



has declared his willingness (and power) to pardon penitent adulterers, withthe evident assent of most of the local church (Pud. 1.6).113 Following theprecepts of the New Prophecy, however, Tertullian takes a stricter line: notonly are adulterers beyond recovery, but adultery should be understood toinclude not only moechia (sex with another man’s wife), but also fornicatio(any non-marital sex) and even remarriage (Pud. 1.15–21, 4.2–3). Central tothis debate are competing interpretations of scripture; exegetical questionsoccupy the bulk of the text. Yet to the extent that the competence of eachside’s leaders to interpret scripture and set policy is also at stake, questionsof succession become critical. Both sides claim that their authorities areheirs of the apostles, speaking with their voice and wielding their power.

That the bishop’s supporters regarded him as a successor and heir of theapostles ex officio is evident from Tertullian’s angry rejection of that claim(Pud. 21.9):

I ask now about your opinion, from what source you usurp this right of the church.Because if the Lord said to Peter, “On this rock I will build my church, I havegiven to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” or “Whatever you have boundor loosed on earth will be bound or loosed in heaven,” on that basis do you assumethat the power of loosing and binding has descended to you?114

To the contrary, insists Tertullian, the bishop’s office entitles him, at most,to the apostles’ teaching function, not to their power (Pud. 21.1, 6); thatbelongs to prophets, not bishops. As he argues in another work from thesame period, the apostles were prophets, and prophets apostles; accordingly,“the authority of both offices should be set equal, from one and the sameLord of apostles and prophets” (Marc. 4.24.8–9).115 Only spiritual persons,namely apostles and prophets, possess the power of Peter and the otherapostles (Pud. 21.17). Apostolic succession thus depends not on institutionalstatus but on spiritual endowment. If the bishop could prove that he werea prophet then perhaps he too could claim apostolic power to forgive sins,but that is unlikely (Pud. 21.5). By contrast, it is obvious that the sameParaclete who guided Paul and the rest now speaks through the Prophets

113 Brent 1995: 503–35 revives the identification of Tertullian’s episcopus episcoporum as Hippolytus’enemy Callistus. It seems likelier, though, that Tertullian is combatting a local leader, since hisdescription of the bishop’s penitential procedure at Pud. 13.7 seems to reflect first-hand observation;cf. Beyschlag 1964; Micaelli and Munier 1993: 15–39.

114 de tua nunc sententia quaero, unde hoc ius ecclesiae usurpes. si quia dixerit Petro Dominus: superhanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam, tibi dedi claves regni caelestis, vel: quaecumque alligaverisvel solueris in terra, erunt alligata vel soluta in caelis, idcirco praesumis et ad te derivasse solvendi etalligandi potestatem?

115 tam enim apostolus Moyses quam et apostoli prophetae. aequanda erit auctoritas utriusque officii, abuno eodemque domino apostolorum et prophetarum.



(Pud. 21.7; cf. 16.21). Tertullian lacerates those who deny this connection,supposing that “they have received a different Paraclete in and through theapostles” (Pud. 12.1).116 Accordingly, the Prophets, not the bishop(s), arethe true successors of the apostles. They alone rightly command the fullauthority of the apostles in the church and constitute its defining center.As Tertullian tartly proclaims, “the church is (defined by) the Spirit thatexists in spiritual persons; a collection of bishops is not the church” (Pud.21.17).117

This dispute is a gem of orthocratic reasoning, recast for the age of thenear-triumphant monepiscopate: a debate over church policy that involvesa contest over the authority of the chief advocates of each position, whichhinges in turn on competing claims to apostolic succession. Tertullian’sargument shows the complete ascendance of the apostles as the only autho-rizing ancestors worthy of note. His defense of the New Prophets is par-ticularly striking in that regard. The Asian prophetic diadoche on whichthe Prophets’ early Asian and Roman followers had staked their claims toauthority is completely invisible in Tertullian. For him, the Prophets arespiritual heirs of the apostles, not of other prophets. Evidently the Asianprophetic succession has lost its power to authorize over the interveningdecades and miles; its overwhelmingly local associations may not haveresonated as strongly in Carthage.118 In third-century Carthage not onlypartisans of the local bishop but also Montanist dissidents regarded theapostles as the sole wellsprings of Christian truth.

At the same time this tangle uncovers a rising certitude amongCarthaginian Christians that, by virtue of their office, bishops, and onlythey, were successors and heirs of the apostles, and as such invested withthe full range of apostolic knowledge, powers, and responsibilities.119 Inattempting to disrupt the elision of apostle and bishop, Tertullian is swim-ming against the tide. Nearly dominant already in Tertullian’s lifetime,by the middle of the third century that equation is virtually unassail-able. Legitimate episcopal succession increasingly forms the cornerstoneon which claims to orthodoxy rest, even for those on the losing end ofthe historical argument. For example, in a third-century debate betweenRoman adoptionists and their trinitarian rivals, both sides argue that theirposition is confirmed by its apostolic and episcopal credentials (Eus. Hist.

116 qui alium Paracletum in apostolis et per apostolos receperunt. My interpretation of this difficultsentence follows Le Saint 1959: 237; Micaelli and Munier 1993 ii: 383–4.

117 ecclesia spiritus per spiritalem hominem, non ecclesia numerus episcoporum.118 Trevett 1996: 33. 119 Campenhausen 1969: 235.



eccl. 5.28.1–6). The adoptionists insist that their christology had been thestandard teaching of the Roman church and its bishops from the apostlesto the time of Zephyrinus, who abandoned it. The author of the LittleLabyrinth, Eusebius’ source for this story, rejects their argument as histori-cal fantasy: neither scripture, nor earlier Christian writers, nor Zephyrinus’predecessor Victor accepted this doctrine.120 For present purposes, thetheological differences between these two groups are less significant thantheir evident agreement that bishops are the premier arbiters of apos-tolic tradition. By the 250s Cyprian can take the equation of apostle andbishop as self-evident: “the Lord chose apostles, that is, bishops (or over-seers) placed in charge” (apostolos, id est episcopos et praepositos, dominuselegit, Ep. 3.1.1).

To be sure, this framing of the contest over legitimacy was not withoutdetractors. Pheme Perkins has highlighted the way that the Apocryphon ofJames turns Irenaean rhetoric back on the emerging mainstream, so that“orthodox claims for the reliability of their apostolic tradition are portrayedas ignorant and malicious fraud.”121 More directly, the Apocalypse of Peterrepudiates the authority of “those who are outside our number who namethemselves ‘bishop’ and also ‘deacons’” (79.22–31). Like Tertullian, theauthor invokes Petrine authority and reformulates the major scripturalsupports for episcopal authority in an attempt “to drive a wedge between[ecclesiastical] authority and the teaching of Peter, the true apostle.”122 Yetsuch resistance, like the notion that teachers, prophets, or martyrs mightstand as legitimate (and legitimizing) successors of the apostles, was fastbecoming a marginalized minority position.

The rhetorical advantages of the Irenaean marriage of apostolic andepiscopal succession are not difficult to see. First, a smaller pool of found-ing ancestors permits tighter control over the identity of the communityauthorized by descent from them. Second, although particular apostleswere associated by tradition with particular locations and/or strains ofChristianity, the apostles as a group had a supra-local name recognitionnot shared by most prophets and martyrs. As the church became moreself-consciously ecumenical, the apostles presumably had more universalappeal as spiritual ancestors. Relevant, too, is the emergence of an increas-ingly fixed scriptural canon that valorizes the apostles as the sole sourcesof textual witness to the life and teachings of Christ. Tertullian scornfully

120 On the date (mid third century) and authorship of this treatise, see Fitzgerald 1998: 126–44, whoargues that it cannot be attributed to either Hippolytus or the anti-Montanist Gaius.

121 P. Perkins 1980: 145–56, 161, at 154. 122 P. Perkins 1980: 116–22, 129, at 129.



notes that since his opponents reject the living voice of the Spirit, they areconfined to the static revelation of apostolic scripture (Pud. 12.1). Yet hehastens to affirm that there is no conflict between prophetic revelation andapostolic teaching. In his Prescription, possession of apostolic scripture andthe right to interpret it are the hallmarks of legitimate Christianity.

Third, apostolic-episcopal succession implies a somewhat different rela-tion between present and past than do other models of succession. Thediadochal relationship is not without friction. Although the rhetoric ofsuccession is grounded in the presumption that like produces like, therelationship is not entirely symmetrical. Founders are invested with specialauthority to which successors are subordinated, tasked with following loy-ally in the guru’s footsteps, rather than striking out in new directions. As aresult, we have encountered differing ideas about how precisely successorsmust conform to the founder’s pattern. For Diogenes and earlier authorsof Successions, the continuity provided by the succession itself can absorba certain degree of innovation. By contrast, Numenius – operating in thecontext of intra-sect debate and with a revised model of philosophic truth –insists on complete homodoxia between founder and followers. The ten-sion between these two models can be felt as well in Christian appeals tosuccession; in Christian heresiology, “heretics” are charged simultaneouslywith cleaving too closely to their (alleged) founders, and with deviating toomuch, both from “orthodoxy” and from their fellow “heretics.”

The prickly tension about whether or not to credit successors with thefull power of their predecessors may be particularly acute in the case ofcharismatic authority, which is rooted in direct access to the divine, ratherthan preservation of past teaching. In ancient thinking, the initiative forreligious change lay with the divine, by means of prophets or divination,rather than with priests, an attitude that Tertullian appears to share.123

The redactor of the Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas complains aboutreflexive veneration of the past, pointing out that new proofs of the faithare no less valuable than old exempla: “after all, soon these, too, will beancient and then they will be useful to later (readers), too, even if rightnow, in their own time, they are accorded less authority because of aprejudiced veneration of antiquity” (1.1–2).124 For this editor, probably aMontanist, contemporary martyrs and prophets provide evidence of the

123 Potter 1994: 4–15.124 si vetera fidei exempla et Dei gratiam testificantia et aedificationem hominis operantia propterea in

litteris sunt digesta . . . cur non et nova documenta aeque utrique causae convenientia et digerantur? velquia proinde et haec vetera futura quandoque sunt et necessaria posteris, si in praesenti suo temporeminori deputantur auctoritati propter praesumptam venerationem antiquitatis.



action of the Spirit that carries no less weight than the achievements ofprevious generations (apud veteres, 1.5).125 Rather than transmitting a fixedtradition handed down from persons who stand closer to the originalsource, these men and women are recipients of a fresh outpouring of thesame Spirit; their access to divine power and truth is as direct as that enjoyedby the veteres. Prophets exercise this authority at their own risk, though:too much innovation, or too unwelcome, and they may find themselveslabeled “heretics,” as the New Prophets did. For the church as a whole, theprospect of a destabilizing authority conflict was worrying: if prophets andapostles stand on the same footing, how is one to know which authorityto privilege if they fail to agree?

Apostolic succession of bishops bypasses such tensions, at least in prin-ciple. Inclusion among the Twelve is an unrepeatable status. Whereas thesuccessor of a prophet is another prophet, the apostles were not succeededby new apostles, but by teachers, clerics, and congregations.126 The apos-tles thus stand at the apex of a steep, clearly delineated pyramid. Tertullianputs it succinctly: “if you are a prophet, prophesy something; if an apostle,preach in public; if an associate of the apostles (apostolicus), agree withthe apostles; if you are merely a Christian, believe what has been handeddown” (Carn. Chr. 2.3).127 This formulation elevates the apostolici as reli-able mouthpieces of the apostles, while denying them the apostles’ mandateto give new shape to the Christian message. At the same time, it placesthem distinctly above “mere Christians.” Apostolici form the privilegedchannel through which apostolic tradition flows to the mass of ordinarybelievers. This hierarchical ordering of Christian history and faith chimeswith the concurrent discursive marginalization of lay idiotai to which Ter-tullian contributed. It goes a long way, too, toward supplying a warrantfor the kind of clarity and centralized control so distressingly absent fromsecond-century churches and intellectual movements.

Bishops thus have the merit of standing in a clearer hierarchical rela-tionship to their precursors than do prophets or martyrs. With the riseof the monepiscopate, they also formed a sharply limited group, and onewith near universal distribution. In contrast to the secrecy of Valentinianoral tradition, moreover, bishops occupied a verifiable public office whose

125 Moriarty 1997 shows that, as in Hebr. 11–12 and Mart. Pol. 1, these veteres must be both thecloud of Old Testament witnesses and the first generation of Christians. We may be reminded ofQuintilian’s decision to extend his history of rhetoric into his own day, on the ground that currentorators were no less talented than the veteres.

126 Molland 1954a: 9–12.127 si prophetes es praenuntia aliquid, si apostolus praedica publice, si apostolicus cum apostolis senti, si

tantum Christianus es crede quod traditum est.



selection procedures were gradually being standardized and brought underepiscopal control toward the end of our period. Apostolic-episcopal suc-cession, then, entails a double, or even treble, constriction of the pool ofarbiters of Christian identity: not only is the Christian community nowbuilt exclusively around the successors of the apostles, namely bishops, butthere is only one such person in each local church. Around this small, inter-connected group of men can be drawn a clearly delineated, easily mappednetwork of “orthodox” congregations and believers that carries with it anobjective, even self-evident, criterion of membership. Cyprian’s lapidarydefinition of the authentic church as “the people united to its priest . . . ifanyone is not (in communion) with the bishop, he is not in the church”(Ep. 66.8) renders the payoff of apostolic-episcopal succession abundantlyplain.128

conclusion

Apostolic-episcopal succession represents the latest, most developed, andmost enduring version of a strategy of self-definition and authorization thatpervades early Christian discourse, both textual and “on the ground.” Allthe inflections of this strategy surveyed in this book aim at supplying (orshoring up) a social context for legitimacy – or, in the case of the “heretical”successions, a historical concretization of illegitimacy. All rest on essentiallythe same principle: that like associates with like and produces like, so thatthe “orthodoxy” (or not) of individuals and groups is revealed by theiraffiliations. At times, the language of succession seems primarily intendedto highlight similarity between two figures, whatever their historical rela-tionship: affinities of doctrine or practice reveal (or create) connections,while dissent can disprove or dissolve them. Elsewhere, personal contactholds center stage. The mere fact of association, real or alleged, is takento prove agreement, even to the point of obscuring the distinct profiles ofindividual affiliates. At such moments, the individual diadochoi are all buteffaced, so that Tertullian can argue that all “Valentinians” adhere to thedoctrine of Valentinus, no matter what they actually profess (Val. 4), whileIrenaeus can state with confidence that the varying abilities of “orthodox”church leaders are irrelevant to the consistent transmission of Christiantradition (Haer. 1.10.2).

128 illi sunt ecclesia plebs sacerdoti adunata . . . si qui cum episcopo non sit, in ecclesia non esse.


Conclusion 257

What both Tertullian and Irenaeus have in view – and what the rhetoricof succession helps to achieve – is the sorting of the diverse, fluid Christianmovement into reified categories with coherent, clearly defined identities,and the authorization of some of the resulting groups at the expense of oth-ers. The creation of heretical genealogies aids the construction of “heresy”(or “Valentinianism,” or “gnosis falsely so-called”) as a cohesive entitywith a history, theology, and organizational reality distinct from “orthodoxChristianity.” These genealogies serve as well to articulate the relation-ship of Christianity to Judaism and Greek culture. Construing “heresy”as an outgrowth of sectarian Judaism, Hegesippus figures Christianity asa direct continuation of Judaism and as distinct from, and vulnerable tocontamination by, rival Judaisms. Hippolytus, by contrast, charts Jews,Greeks, and “heretics” as a line of progressive divergence from primor-dial (Christian) truth, with Jews closest, and “heretics” furthest out. Onthis view, Hellenism is both derived from Christianity and the source ofits corruption, the penultimate link in a chain leading away from truewisdom.

On the other side of the coin, legitimizing successions place Christianauthors and their allies within a cohesive, identifiable coalition that origi-nates with and has exclusive claim to an authoritative Christian past. Thiscoalition is defined with increasing precision in the late second century,not only doctrinally but also in terms of the diadochai that undergird it.Justin points to a Christian prophetic succession to establish both the iden-tity of Christianity as (true) Judaism and the correctness of (his) Christianreadings of scripture; in Asia Minor, Christians from a variety of perspec-tives locate the defining center of the church in diadochai of prophets and,perhaps, martyrs. By contrast Hegesippus relies on bishops as guardiansof correct logos against “heretical” challenges, but without aligning themspecifically with the apostles; still other Christians – Ptolemy and Clementamong them – trace the transmission of apostolic tradition through chainsof teachers, with little regard for episcopal succession. Irenaeus and hisimitators resolve this historiographic pluralism into the narrowest possiblecombination: the “orthodox” community is identified as the one autho-rized by its direct descent from the apostles in lines of episcopal succession.This model brought formidable advantages. In addition to their translo-cal appeal and close identification with the nascent scriptural canon, theTwelve formed a limited, tightly controlled set of founding ancestors,who stood in a clearer hierarchical relationship to their successors thandid prophets, martyrs, or teachers. With the rise of the monepiscopate,



meanwhile, bishops represented clearly defined social and theological focalpoints for the churches, which claimed a near (although never com-plete) monopoly of “expert” decision-making. This conception prevailed.By the middle of the third century Cyprian can treat it as given that“orthodoxy” is composed exclusively of churches gathered around bishopswho stand in legitimate succession from the apostles and communion witheach other.

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Conclusion

This book has explored ways in which social connections shaped intel-lectual and religious commitments in the world of the Second Sophistic,and ways in which such connections were interpreted and manipulatedin order to assert and police the boundaries of a set of contested identitycategories: sophist, philosopher, (“orthodox”) Christian. These categoriesrepresent coherent groups only in a fairly loose sense. Yet members ofeach frequently define their identity with reference to an imagined collec-tive, which they in turn define ostensively, in terms of individuals whomthey recognize as comprising it. This approach to self-definition is clearestin intellectual historiographies that chart the histories of disciplines andreligious groups around their leading representatives and the connectionsbetween them. In Christian heresiology this takes the form of competing(and partly intersecting) catalogues of exemplary figures of various kinds setagainst genealogies of excluded individuals and groups who mark the outerboundaries of the faith. These attempts at comprehensive social and intel-lectual synopsis mirror strategies of individual and corporate self-definitionemployed at every level from authorizing text to intimate interactions inhouse church and lecture hall.

Most concretely, this approach to identity formation equates groupmembership with attendance at and full participation in the group’sdefining activities. As a result, each group’s boundaries were continu-ally reasserted and renegotiated through decisions about which personsto admit and which to exclude. The implicit notion that the “circle ofsophists” or the worldwide church was coterminous with those participat-ing in classrooms, declamations, or worship services around the empireis obviously fantastic. Attendance at those activities was not and couldnot have been restricted to group members, however defined, nor for themost part would our subjects have wanted it to be, especially on nar-rower conceptions of expert insider status. Nor was it possible to regulatewho gathered under the guise of congregation or school, or where. Yet

259


260 Conclusion

despite – or because of – this patent fluidity, sophists, philosophers, andChristians all treat participation and social contact with other insiders asan index of insider status. Members of all three groups implicitly andexplicitly portray themselves as defending their community’s borders byopening their doors to the worthy and excluding the unworthy. Sharedcommunion, hearing or being heard by professional peers, public gesturesof respect and welcome, and literary exchanges are all carefully parsed assigns of mutual recognition; ruptures of belonging are read as invalidatingthe status of one party or the other.

This was a rhetorically potent stance. Although none of these groupswas as exclusionary in practice as its representatives claimed, holding outexclusivity as an ideal, and making good on that threat often enough thatit remains a live possibility, enhances the value of inclusion and its abilityto serve as a mark of identity. Doing so also affirms a “producer-driven”model of community formation, which holds that the composition andidentity of the group are determined solely from within, by those whoseinsider status and sense of where the group’s boundaries lie are confirmedby the authority granted to their judgment. Claims that the community isa socially self-generating closed circle dovetail with attempts to present itsidentity as self-evident, occluding the very work of construction in whichthis rhetoric is engaged.

That logic blends into assertions that authority to define each group’sidentity, membership, and internal hierarchies is reserved for “expert” insid-ers. For pepaideumenoi, this means willful denial of the relevance of whatthey represent as external categorization: idiotai – audiences, admirers,patrons, honor-granting bodies, and even members of rival disciplines –are held to be incapable of conferring or withholding status as a sophistor philosopher, at least when it suits; only a specialist is qualified to eval-uate another specialist. Disparaging the competence of non-expert idiotaialso serves to draw boundaries against both competing (and overlapping)disciplines and rivals within one’s own discipline, either by downgradingthem to amateur status or by asserting that their shabby pseudo-expertiseappeals only to ignorant lay people. Among Christians, the figure of theidiotes serves as a device for positioning Christianity within and againstGreek culture. Like Socrates, early Christian authors cast themselves asidiotai with respect to Greek paideia in order to outflank its claims toprestige while simultaneously presenting Christianity as a superior kindof paideia, both more effective and more universal. In the latter half ofthe second century this tactic comes increasingly to be directed inwardas well, to plot distinctions within the Christian community. On the one


Conclusion 261

hand, ironic claims to humble amateurism are turned against theologi-cally sophisticated rivals; on the other, mastery or lack of advanced paideiabecomes a means of differentiating an inner core of elite decision-makers –whether spiritually gifted teachers, learned exegetes, or ordained ministers –from the “merely faithful,” “simpler” believers gradually reconfigured aslaity and/or idiotai, their competence to define what it meant to be Chris-tian minimized. By the time of Tertullian and Hippolytus, Christian idiotaiare at best cast as non-participants in self-definitional debate, at worst asunwitting handmaids of “heresy.”

Much of what we know about the behavior of early imperial Christiansand pepaideumenoi is mediated through texts which seek to intervene inthat behavior. Of particular interest to me have been a body of texts thataim at presenting comprehensive, definitive overviews of a given field: toone side, Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists and the intellectual historiogra-phies featured in Chapter 6; to the other, early Christian heresiologies.Each author advances an eccentric, partial vision of his community thatmatches his own sense of its (and his) identity and supplies an advantageousmatrix for his own activity. At the risk of circularity, I have attempted toshow that these authors are thereby engaged in acts of self-creation thatmimic the strategies employed by their colleagues “on the ground”; in eachcase, social bonds continue to play a major role. Philostratus depicts theSecond Sophistic as a tightly woven social network in which all the linesconverge on his own position; despite the fractiousness of his subjects,he insists that this network arises through the harmonious consensus ofthose whose opinions matter most. Contemporary heresiologists, mean-while, portray themselves and/or their heroes and allies as participating ina socially cohesive “orthodox” coalition, knit together by affection, com-munion, common lineage and institutions, the circulation of texts, and theaffinities of thought and action by which affiliations are both created andrevealed. The borders of this society are further defined by an opposingnetwork ranged around it, whose mutual interconnections both exposeand are exposed by hidden continuities of belief and behavior among itsmembers. Such claims to superior knowledge and insight on the part ofboth intellectual historians and heresiologists further position these authorsas consummate insiders within their communities; readers challenge theirjudgments at the peril of their own status.

In every case each of our groups can be seen making use of and adaptingto its own needs a common set of culturally available strategies of self-definition, which seek to regulate and map the group’s identity in terms ofits social make-up. This process of appropriation and adaptation continues


262 Conclusion

beyond the chronological terminus of this study. I conclude with one briefexample. In 380 the emperor Theodosius I laid down guidelines by whichorthodoxy was to be evaluated (Cod. Theod. 16.1.2pr.):

We wish for all the peoples whom the administration of Our Clemency rules topractice that religion which the divine apostle Peter handed down (tradidisse) tothe Romans – the religion which makes plain up to the present day that it wasintroduced by him and which the Pontiff Damasus plainly also follows, as doesPeter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic sanctity. That is, that accordingto apostolic teaching and evangelic doctrine, we shall believe in the single Deityof the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in the condition of equal majesty andHoly Trinity.1

This edict melds orthocratic methods of social control with the languageof post-Nicene orthodoxy. Identity as a (Catholic) Christian is defined interms of assent to Nicene trinitarianism. Certifying the apostolic originsof that doctrine, however, are two chains that stretch back from the bish-ops Damasus and Peter to the apostles; the network radiating out to allthe faithful in communion with them establishes the dimensions of the“orthodox” community. “Heretics” outside this network are presumed tobe physically outside as well, segregated in their own assemblies as if ininsane asylums (dementes vesanosque); the following extract sternly enjoinsthat “their meeting places shall not receive the name of churches” (Cod.Theod. 16.1.2.1).2 These networks, vertical and horizontal, positive andnegative, and the logic that underlies them, are the bequest of the secondcentury to the fourth (and the twenty-first). As such, they also representa legacy of the Second Sophistic authorizing discourse in which the earlyChristian formation of “orthodoxy” was deeply implicated.

1 cunctos populos, quos clementiae nostrae regit temperamentum, in tali volumus religione versari, quamdivinum Petrum apostolum tradidisse Romanis religio usque ad nunc ab ipso insinuata declarat quamquepontificem Damasum sequi claret et Petrum Alexandriae episcopum virum apostolicae sanctitatis, hoc est,ut secundum apostolicam disciplinam evangelicamque doctrinam patris et filii et spiritus sancti unamdeitatem sub parili maiestate et sub pia trinitate credamus.

2 nec conciliabula eorum ecclesiarum nomen accipere.

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Index

ab epistulis, 84, 85Acts of Paul, 172Acts of Peter, 113–14, 172Aelian, 85–6Aelius Aristides, 39, 140

Against Those Who Burlesque the Mysteries(Or. 34), 73, 77

Funeral Address in Honor of Alexander(Or. 32), 140

On a Remark in Passing (Or. 28), 41, 72, 73orator–audience relationship, 73professional classification, 36–7, 86–8, 132–3Sacred Tale 1 (Or. 47), 78Sacred Tale 4 (Or. 50), 36–7, 86–8, 133Sacred Tale 5 (Or. 51), 39, 136teachers, 132, 140To Those Who Criticize Him Because He Does

Not Declaim (Or. 33), 38, 41, 73Aeschines, 138Alexander the Clay-Plato, 40, 129, 137, 140Alexandria, 30, 32–3, 35, 44, 96, 117, 131Ammia of Philadelphia, 238Ammonius Saccas, 45Amphicles of Chalcis, 7–10, 21, 43, 132Anicetus of Rome, 60, 152, 156, 246Anonymous anti-Montanist, 154, 235, 237–9, 243Antiochus of Ascalon, 205, 209Antiochus of Cilicia, 137Antipater of Hierapolis, 131, 134, 136Apollonius of Tyana, 44, 84apostolic churches, 112, 161, 248, 250apostolic succession, see successionsApuleius, 3, 17Arcesilaus, 206, 207, 209Aristocles of Pergamum, 40, 129, 132, 133Aristotle, 47, 181, 185, 186, 192, 193, 195, 231, 232,

233Aspasius of Ravenna, 138Athens, 7, 41, 82, 131, 137, 139Atticus, Platonist philosopher, 198, 199Atticus Herodes, father of the sophist, 78–9

Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, 1, 25, 47, 208pseudo-intellectuals exposed, 35, 42teachers and learned friends, 5, 27, 28, 45, 47,

78

Basilides, 56, 171, 218, 221, 225, 230, 231, 232, 233,249

bishops, see clergy; successionsBlastus, deposed presbyter, 59, 60

Callistus of Rome, 29, 63, 64, 93, 109, 120, 157,158–9, 160, 162–3, 233, 251

Caracalla, 85Carpocrates, 56, 218, 225, 230Carthage, 30, 91, 96, 120, 162, 250–2Cassianus Antiochus, 138, 144, 145Cassius Dio, 85, 110Celsus, anti-Christian philosopher, 50, 193, 201Celsus, On Medicine, 182, 183Cerdo, 219–20, 229, 230, 232Cerinthus, 156, 230chairs, endowed, 8, 26, 36, 78, 85, 134, 140Chrestus of Byzantium, 84, 131, 134, 137, 146Christians

alternative histories, 169–71appearance, 14as verus Israel, 227, 236, 237, 257attitudes toward Greek paideia, 13–15, 25, 92,

103–4, 108, 185, 202, 260diversity, 5, 30–3, 174, 222forms of worship, 31–2, 58preserve primordial wisdom, 199–200, 201,

234public debates, 157–8, 160, 175relation to Greek culture, 4, 54–5, 121, 169,

210, 215, 222, 236, 237, 257, 260relation to Judaism, 4, 51, 52, 54–5, 60, 169,

215, 226–7, 236–7, 241, 257social level, 14–15

Cicero, Brutus, 68, 177, 186, 1881 Clement, 97, 98, 105, 120, 199, 246, 248

288


Index 289

Clement of Alexandria, 29, 32–3, 161, 168, 170,210

model of Christian authority, 107–8, 112, 245,257

on idiotai, 103–4, 107–8, 169Paedagogus, 14, 107spiritual pedigree, 160, 245Stromateis, 25, 64, 93, 149, 222, 245; heretical

genealogy, 224; history of philosophy, 180,181, 195, 199–202

Clement of Rome, 249; see also 1 Clementclergy, 92

as experts, 94, 102, 106–7, 112, 154as guardians of orthodoxy, 16, 65, 94, 106,

122–4, 225challenges to, 110–11, 112, 123, 124, 173, 208,

250–2, 253charismatic authority and, 95, 97–100, 101,

246church patronage and, 93, 96, 100–2, 113, 120,

121–2defining center of church, 28, 97, 116, 122,

258development, 96–7, 121–3diversity among, 116–17, 119–20, 123duties and qualifications, 95, 96, 97, 99,

100–2, 122, 123female, 98, 100, 101, 113, 121Pauline, 101see also monepiscopate; successions

confessors, see martyrscongregations

analogues for, 17, 28, 32connections among, 30, 60, 119–20openness of, 29–30size and number, 30, 119venues for, 23, 28

conversion, 4, 37, 43, 57, 101Corinth, 30, 82–3, 103, 246Cyprian, 122, 253, 256, 258

Damianus of Ephesus, 131, 133, 142, 143, 146Demosthenes, 138Demostratus, Claudius, 131, 133, 144, 145dependency hypothesis, 200, 237diadochai, see successionsDicaearchus of Messana, 192, 198Didache, 50–1, 53, 54, 95Dio Chrysostom, 48, 77, 84, 85, 127

Alexandrian Oration (Or. 32), 44, 48, 49On His Exile (Or. 13), 74–5

Diogenes Laertius, 150, 180, 181, 183, 191–9, 201,202–5, 207, 254

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 186Dionysius of Miletus, 40, 84, 85, 129

docetism, 52, 116doxography, 178, 181, 184, 198

Easter Controversy, 59–60, 152, 161, 171Ebionites, 230education, see schoolsElchasites, 157, 158, 230elitism, charges of, 25, 29, 106Empedocles, 230, 231, 232, 233Ephesus, 34, 131, 143, 240, 242Epictetus, 35, 36, 37, 43–4, 48, 70, 71, 84, 174

handling of undesirable students, 45, 47on idiotai, 73–4

Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 32–3, 59–60, 117,152, 155, 224–9, 246–8, 253

exclusivityamong Christians, 10–13, 29–30, 53–65,

115–16, 118–19, 156, 166–7, 168, 170, 214among philosophers, 22, 43–9among sophists, 9–10, 41–3attractions, 23–4, 43–6, 61–2, 260limits, 24–5, 42–3, 46–9, 50, 62–4

excommunion, see exclusivity

Favorinus, 28, 39, 45, 75–6, 77, 82–4, 85, 127,129, 138, 140, 141

Corinthian Oration, 82–3immunity case, 83On Exile, 72

Florinus, 59, 122Fronto, M. Cornelius, 42, 134

Gaius, Roman anti-Montanist, 152, 242Galen, 17, 38

On Prognosis, 42, 137On the Errors of the Soul, 44, 48On the Order of My Own Books, 37On the Passions of the Soul, 35On the Therapeutic Method, 26–7

gnostics, “Gnosticism”, 158, 164, 173, 214, 218,220, 229, 257

Gospel of Judas, 93, 172gossip, 141–2, 155–60

Hadrian, emperor, 83, 85Hadrian of Tyre, 43, 129, 131, 134, 136–7, 146Hegesippus, 209, 214, 257

episcopal succession, 246–8heretical genealogy, 216, 224–9on apostles, 225, 247–8

Heliodorus, C. Avidius, 84, 86, 87, 88Heliodorus “the Arab,” 85Heraclas of Alexandria, 33, 65, 102Heracleides of Lycia, 84, 136, 138Heraclitus, 231, 233


290 Index

heresiology, 149–51, 155–76, 209–10, 213–14,216–35, 254, 259

heresy, hereticsas Jews, 52, 60, 168, 226–7as philosophers, 56, 165, 169, 174, 222, 229,

231–3as sophists, 14, 104, 105, 222conceptualization, 29, 53, 63–5, 111, 165–9,

216–35, 254, 257diversity among, 221–2idiotai and, 92, 108–10, 111, 112syncretism of, 29, 231

Hermas, Shepherd, 64, 118, 171model of Christian authority, 96, 98–9

Herodes Atticus, 1, 8, 10, 21, 40, 69, 79, 129, 131,134, 136, 137, 142, 146

as patron, 78, 100feud with Demostratus, 133, 144

Hierapolis, 238, 240, 242Hippias of Elis, 192Hippodromus of Thessaly, 40, 125, 131Hippolytus

Commentary on Daniel [dub.], 110–11, 112; onidiotai, 104, 109–11, 112, 169

Refutation of All Heresies, 58, 109–10, 114, 118,149, 165; conflict with Callistus, 29, 63, 93,102, 119–20, 157–9, 160, 162–3;heresiological authority, 157–9, 161, 176;heretical genealogy, 29, 168, 216, 229–35,257; history of philosophy, 181, 197, 233;model of Christian authority, 112

identityChristian, 1, 3–4, 10–13, 173–5, 210, 214, 237,

253, 257, 262defined by attendance and participation,

21–4, 38–49, 53, 165, 166–7, 174, 259defined by doctrinal agreement, 3, 35, 36, 51,

52, 174, 206–10, 247defined by honors, 36, 68, 82–8, 188defined by location, 22–4, 26–9, 35defined by loyalty to founder, 28, 36,

207–8external categorization, 38, 67–8, 86internal definition privileged, 38, 43, 49, 67–8,

92, 140, 146, 260philosophical, 1, 3, 24, 35, 195, 210social formation of, 2–4, 5–7, 67sophistic, 8–9, 21, 138–9, 140textuality and, 6–7, 150–1, 154–5, 159, 176, 180,

261idiotai, 102–12, 136, 139, 166, 255, 260

Christian laity as, 92, 102, 112, 121ironic self-designation, 69–70, 92, 103,

260

means of self-definition, 73, 74–6, 89, 91, 107,111, 112, 169, 260–1

see also simpliciores, 35–6, 68–77Ignatius, 56, 95, 156

date, 52Ephesians, 52, 54, 62, 123Magnesians, 52, 240model of Christian authority, 96–7, 98,

116–17, 123, 246Philadelphians, 52–3, 98, 240Polycarp, 15, 116Romans, 98Smyrnaeans, 28, 52, 54, 116–17, 174Trallians, 52, 94, 98warns against heretics, 52–3, 54

impostors, fear of, 34–5, 50–3Irenaeus, 208

Against Heresies, 10–13, 14, 21, 102, 149, 168,170, 218; episcopal succession, 248–50;heresiological authority, 12, 155, 156, 160,249; heretical genealogy, 12, 57, 170, 213,216, 217–23, 227, 229; model of Christianauthority, 94, 96, 106–7, 112, 123, 244, 246,248–50, 256; on idiotai, 104–7, 111; onIgnatius, 155; on Marcion, 213, 219–20; onMarcosians, 57–8, 114–15, 152–3, 162; onValentinians, 57, 104–6, 159, 163–4, 166,220–1, 231

Easter Controversy, 59, 152fr. Syr. 28, 59, 96

Isaeus, network of, 129, 145

John, apostle, 152, 156, 240Josephus, Against Apion, 236Judaism as (source of ) heresy, 52, 60, 168, 169,

226–7, 229Justin Martyr, 15, 101, 122, 163, 202, 209, 210,

214, 222, 2481 Apology, 4, 68, 95, 103, 1732 Apology, 68, 71, 103Dialogue with Trypho, 14, 28, 54–7, 170, 174;

prophetic succession, 235, 236–7, 257heretical genealogy, 56, 216, 218, 220Syntagma of Heresies (lost), 149, 156, 213

laity, Christian, 92, 97, 102, 255see also idiotai

Lesbos, 139Linus of Thebes, 194, 195Little Labyrinth, 253Lollianus of Ephesus, 140, 145Lucian, 15

Demonax, 49, 71, 75–6, 145Double Indictment, 71Eunuch, 3, 36, 45


Index 291

Fisherman, 77, 196Harmonides, 72Hermotimus, 37Herodotus, 40Ignorant Book Collector, 73Lexiphanes, 71, 73, 139Menippus or Descent into Hades, 70Nigrinus, 45, 80on idiotai, 71–2, 73, 75On the Dance, 71, 72On the Hired Academic, 48, 79–81Peregrinus, 51, 71, 99, 145Professor of Public Speaking, 14, 39, 41, 71, 77Pseudologista, 71, 134Runaways, 34, 193, 195Symposium, 22, 70The Hall, 71The Scythian, 78

Manichaean Hymn of Endurance, 241Marcion, 10–13, 14–15, 56, 63, 156–7, 171, 213,

218, 219–20, 221, 223, 224, 225, 229, 230,231, 232, 233, 237, 248

scripture, 15, 213, 244Marcus Aurelius, 36, 133, 134, 137Marcus Magus, Marcosians, 57–9, 114–15, 152–3,

162, 170Marcus of Byzantium, 40–1, 70Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas, 99, 155, 240,

254–5Martyrdom of Polycarp, 15, 154, 155, 240, 241martyrs, 98–100, 104, 118, 123, 154, 239–43, 246

tombs venerated, 242–3Megistias of Smyrna, 40, 125, 132memory, 141–2, 153–61, 180

see also gossipMenander, disciple of Simon, 218, 225, 230monarchianism, 91, 108, 158monepiscopate, 94, 96–7, 122–3, 252, 255, 257money, tensions surrounding, 48, 51, 81, 93,

117–18, 122Montanism, 31, 118, 120, 152, 154, 155, 170, 230,

237–9, 242, 243, 250–2, 254–5Musaeus of Athens, 192, 194, 195, 201Musonius Rufus, 5, 36, 43, 44mystery, as metaphor, 25, 41, 80

Naassenes, 229, 231Nag Hammadi Codices

Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles, 172Apocalypse of Peter, 63, 124, 171, 173, 253Apocryphon of James, 172, 253Apocryphon of John, 164, 172First Apocalypse of James, 172Gospel of Mary, 172

Gospel of Thomas, 172Gospel of Truth, 164heresiology in, 168, 169, 171Interpretation of Knowledge, 105Letter of Peter to Philip, 172model of Christian authority, 172–3, 244, 253social networks, 171–2Testimony of Truth, 63, 168, 171Thomas the Contender, 172Treatise on the Resurrection, 173

Naucratis, 131New Prophecy, see MontanismNew Testament

Acts of the Apostles, 103, 217, 2431 Corinthians, 29, 101, 1032 Corinthians, 103Ephesians, 2351 John, 1662 John, 52, 54, 60, 113, 1143 John, 115–16, 118, 119Philippians, 101Revelation, 63Romans, 98, 1012 Timothy, 244

Nicetes of Smyrna, 15, 41, 129Nicolaus, deacon, 229, 230Noetus of Smyrna, Noetians, 114, 158, 165, 231,

233Numenius, 15, 193, 201

On the Divergence of the Academy from Plato,180, 181, 184, 199, 205–10, 215, 222, 254

parallels with Christian heresiology, 209–10

Onomarchus of Andros, 132Origen, 32–3, 117

Against Celsus, 37, 48, 50, 61–2Orpheus, 192, 194–5, 201orthocracy, 146, 147, 151, 152, 169–75, 234

P.Oxy. xviii 2190, 27, 35, 37Papias of Hierapolis, 156, 243patrons

Christian, 92–3, 100–2, 113–22divine, 86, 88of intellectuals, 26, 70, 77–88, 100Roman, 79, 81

Paul, apostle, 29, 55, 97, 101, 103, 248Paul of Antioch, 32–3, 117Peregrinus, 26, 71, 99, 145

see also Lucian, PeregrinusPerpetua, 155

see also Martyrdom of Perpetua and FelicitasPeter, apostle, 113, 218, 223, 248, 253, 262Philadelphia, 52Philagrus of Cilicia, 7–10, 21, 34, 43, 145


292 Index

Philip, apostle, 238, 240, 242Philiscus of Thessaly, 85Philodemus, 181, 184, 204philosophers

appearance, 1, 14, 28, 34, 36, 71as physicians of souls, 48–9barbarian wisdom and, 191–4, 197, 199–201,

234, 236, 237differentiation from sophists, 45, 69, 74exile as credential of, 83Greekness of, 194–9orthodoxy among, 24, 46, 180, 206–10Skeptical critique of, 185, 222Stoic-Platonist history of, 179, 192–4, 201,

208, 210see also successions

Philostratus, 159academic pedigree, 10, 131date, 16, 159Life of Apollonius, 44, 202Lives of the Sophists, 3, 7–10, 13, 39, 40–1, 72,

77, 81, 82, 83, 85–6, 125–48, 150, 183, 184,186; emperors and sophists, 85;geographical biases, 131, 132, 139, 145;narratorial authority, 13, 126, 146–7;principles of inclusion, 129–33; quarrelanecdotes, 136–8; sources, 141–2

Philostratus of Lemnos, 131, 138, 144, 145Phoenix of Thessaly, 145Phrynichus, 133, 134, 140Phylax, Flavius, 143, 145Plato, 25, 181, 208, 231, 233

barbarian influences, 193, 197Crito, 69Euthydemus, 69on idiotai, 69Republic, 69, 104, 109

Pliny the Elder, 178, 182, 185, 215, 222Plotinus, 26, 45–6, 78Plutarch

On Listening to Lectures, 77On the Decline of Oracles, 195Table Talk, 22, 26, 69, 79, 100That the Philosopher Ought to Converse

Especially with Men in Power, 80Polemo, Antonius, 40–1, 70, 71, 72, 81, 129, 132,

134, 140feuds, 39, 138, 141, 144

Polycarp, 10–13, 14–15, 60, 152, 154, 156, 240, 242apostolic connections, 10, 12, 249Philippians, 11, 154see also Martyrdom of Polycarp

Polycrates of Ephesus, 152, 155, 170, 240, 242Pomponius, Encheiridion, 180, 182, 183, 187–91Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, 45–6

Proclus, Roman Montanist, 238, 242Proclus of Naucratis, 26, 131prophets, 58, 95, 97, 99, 118, 123, 154, 161, 235–9,

243, 254as successors of the apostles, 251–2

Ps.-Tertullian, Against All Heresies, 60Ptolemy, 52, 249

Letter to Flora, 164, 171, 244, 257Pythagoras, 195, 196, 197, 201, 208, 231, 232, 233

Quadratus, prophet, 238Quartodecimans, see Easter Controversy;

Polycrates of EphesusQuintilian, Institutes, 180, 181, 182, 183–7

recommendations, 37–8Rhetorica ad Herennium, 186rhetors, see sophistsRhodes, 139, 145Rome, 8, 15, 30, 58–60, 63, 95, 96, 101, 137, 156,

157–9, 186, 219, 242, 246, 248Rufinus, L. Cuspius Pactumeius, 86, 88, 133

sacrificial purity, 22Saturninus (Satornilus), 56, 218, 225, 230Sceptus of Corinth, 132, 137schools

juristic, 183, 189–91medical, 182openness of, 27–8, 47polemic label, 28, 33, 104, 162venues for, 24, 25–8, 42, 44

Scopelian, 34, 78–9, 129, 135–6, 138, 141, 144scripture

canonization, 16, 253criterion of orthodoxy, 208, 247, 254disputes over, 25, 32, 52, 109, 110–11, 160, 166,

167, 213, 231, 236, 244, 246, 247, 248, 250,251, 253, 257

Second Sophistic, 13alternative histories, 139–40, 142–6, 147periodization, 16

Seven Sages, 192, 195–6, 201Severus, C. Julius, procos. Asia 152/3, 36, 86, 133Severus, Cn. Cornelius, 137Simon Magus, 12, 114, 156, 171, 213, 216, 217–18,

219, 220, 223, 224, 225, 229, 230, 232, 233simpliciores, 57, 93

see also idiotaiSmyrna, 14, 34, 38, 39, 41, 86, 131, 139, 155, 240,

242sophists

“circle of,” 3, 126, 135; appearance, 14, 36, 71;audiences, 39–40, 42, 73, 77, 89

definition, 1, 4, 8–9, 21, 24, 36–7, 132


Index 293

omitted from Lives of the Sophists, 128–9, 138,139, 143, 144

Platonic view of, 8, 69, 104, 109quarrels, 2, 39, 136–8, 141social level, 14

Soterus of Ephesus, 143, 145Sotion of Alexandria, 181, 192, 204Stoic genealogy, 179, 202–6, 233successions

apostolic, 180, 209, 214, 217, 235, 243–6,248–56

Christian, origins of, 214–15episcopal, 209, 217, 235, 246–56, 257heretical, 12, 65, 213–14, 216–35impartiality of, 183–4, 216in doxography and technical literature, 181institutionality of, 182–3, 217, 235, 251juristic, 180, 182, 187–91literary genre, 177–83, 254medical, 182of Christian teachers, 217, 245, 257of martyrs, 217, 239–43, 257omissions from, 186, 188–9, 211philosophical, 26, 180, 191–210, 214prophetic, 217, 235–9, 251–2, 254–5, 257rabbinic, 179, 180, 182, 214rhetorical, 180, 181, 183–7

Suetonius, On Rhetoricians, 177, 186symposium, 2, 22, 26, 27, 32, 100

Tacitus, Dialogue on Orators, 186, 187Tatian, 15, 170, 210, 219

Oration to the Greeks, 13, 195, 200Taurus, Calvenus, 26, 44, 45, 47, 48Tertullian, 96, 97, 168, 208

Against Hermogenes, 32, 231Against Marcion, 223, 237, 251Against Praxeas, 91, 99, 108Against the Valentinians, 107, 161, 163–4, 256Apology, 32heretical genealogy, 223–4, 231model of Christian authority, 112, 123, 250–2,

253, 255

Montanism, 31, 109, 237, 250–2on apostolic churches, 112, 162, 250On Baptism, 32, 166on idiotae, 104, 108–9, 169On Modesty, 99, 109, 120, 250–2, 254on prophetic succession, 235, 251–2On the Pallium, 14, 36On the Soul, 155, 161, 223On Veiling Virgins, 108Prescription against Heretics, 15, 29, 112, 123,

149, 160, 162, 166, 168, 223, 231, 250,254

Resurrection of the Flesh, 108, 161, 168Scorpiace, 30, 109spiritual pedigree, 161Testimony of the Soul, 103The Flesh of Christ, 255To His Wife, 31To the Martyrs, 99, 104

Thales of Miletus, 195, 201, 233Thebouthis, 225Theodosian Code 16.1.2, 262Theodotus of Athens, 131, 133–4, 144, 145Timocrates, 34, 138, 141, 145Trajan, 85

Valentinians, 29, 32, 56, 57, 59, 64, 104–6, 109,159, 163, 166, 171, 232, 256, 257

claims to oral tradition, 160, 244, 246, 248,255

genealogy, 163–4, 171, 220–1, 244, 249model of Christian authority, 112, 244–5regard psychici as idiotai, 92, 105, 107, 111,

169Valentinus, 63, 153, 164, 171, 218, 223, 225, 229,

231, 233, 234, 249Varus of Laodicea, 139Victor of Rome, 59–60, 65, 96, 152, 253

Xenophanes, 22

Zeno of Citium, 180, 196–7, 202–6, 207, 209Zephyrinus, 109–10, 112, 118, 158, 253


294