According to a beloved and now generally disbelieved story, the Cross upon which Jesus suffered was discovered some three hundred years after the event by the saintly Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, Rome's first Christian emperor. For centuries, this story enjoyed the greatest vogue, blossoming into a full-blown Legend of the Cross which traced its genealogy all the way back to the Garden of Eden. With the waning of the Middle Ages, however, came new criteria for evidence, and with them a scholarly predisposition to dismiss the discovery, as well as the legend, as pure bunkum. Put together all the pieces of the True Cross, it became common to say, and one could float a fine freighter.

Eusebius on the True Cross

This historical study examines in detail the first seven years of Athanasius's career as bishop of Alexandria from the time of his election and consecration as bishop in 328 to his banishment by Emperor Constantine following the Synod of Tyre in 335. Thoroughly examining the modern historical and literary tradition, which has arrived at a negative assessment of Athanasius, as well as original contemporary documents both within and outside the Athanasian corpus, Duane W. H. Arnold evaluates their veracity and reassesses ancient and modern charges of misconduct concerning the early years of Athanasius's episcopate.In the course of this volume particular attention is given to identifying the issues and events in Athanasius's career that have been in dispute, including the reliability of the Philostorgian narratives, the controversy over Athanasius's consecration, and his reaction to the Meletian schism in Egypt especially as it relates to the material contained within London Papyrus 1914 and the documents of the Synod of Tyre. A brief study is also made of the festival oration of Gregory Nazianzen for its information about Athanasius's character and conduct.Arnold suggests that an evaluation of the charges made against Athanasius both at court and in ecclesiastical gatherings indicates that although the motives of certain opponents may have been theological, the means used to remove Athanasius from Alexandria were essentially political; the Synod of Tyre functioned as a show trial with no real concern for either justice or equity.

The early episcopal career of Athanasius of Alexandria

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The Role and Status of the Catholic Church in the Church-State Relationship within the Roman Empire from A.D. 306 to 814

This dissertation focuses on images of Christ that date from the first half of Late Antiquity, defined as the three centuries between AD 200 and 500. The cultural dynamics of this period left a distinct impression on Christian art, and this dissertation traces that impact. Unlike other studies that attempt to resolve ambiguity within the corpus of Christ images, the argument here maintains that ambiguity was a key component in the creation and subsequent interpretation of the Late Antique Christian iconography. The dissertation proceeds in three parts, each comprising two chapters. In the first section, the history and historiography of the image of Christ is explored, and a methodology capable of accommodating the diverse meanings assigned to the Christ’s discrepant and ambiguous iconographies is developed. In order to better understand the socio-religious environment in which the first images of Christ were produced and interpreted, the second section of the dissertation moves away from material culture and towards method and theory. The notion that interpretation is a group level phenomenon is critiqued, and a model explaining how individuals in Late Antiquity could have made sense of ambiguous images of Christ is advanced. The final section turns back to the material culture and applies the framework developed in the second section to two artworks: (1) the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus and (2) the floor mosaic from the Hinton St. Mary Roman Villa now in the British Museum. By complementing the standard analyses of Christian art with interpretations grounded in the diverse interactions viewers had with artworks, new perspectives will emerge that provide a fuller picture of Late Antique Christianity and the iconography of its godhead alike.

The image of Christ in Late Antiquity

Interpretation and edification in Eusebius' Life of Constantine

Historians generally have concerned themselves with the reliability of the Vita Constantini of Eusebius, while ignoring an important contribution of the panegyricist, namely, the image of Constantine he projects to his readers. This image, or the “Eusebian Constantine,” involves four major elements: (1) all success and benefit derive from the favor of the divinity; (2) only the pious receive divine favor; (3) the most important indication of divine favor for a pious ruler is military victory; and (4) with the victory secured, divine favor will produce peace and unity for the realm. Constantine, being close to Eusebius, helped to mold his own image which is more than a representation of the first Christian emperor—it is a key to understanding the nature of Eusebius' panegyric as well as his notion of Constantine's relationship with the Christian God.

Rudolph H. Storch

Papers

The ‘Eusebian Constantine’