Possidius of Calama: A Study of the North African Episcopate in the Age of Augustine (Oxford Early Christian Studies)

269 Pages·2008·1 MB·English

by  Erika Hermanowicz

POSSIDIUS OF CALAMA
THE OXFORD EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES series includes scholarly vol-
umes on the thought and history of the early Christian centuries. Covering a
wide range of Greek, Latin, and Oriental sources, the books are of interest to theo-
logians, ancient historians, and specialists in the classical and Jewish worlds.
Titles in the series include:
The Body in St Maximus the Confessor
Holy Flesh, Wholly Deifi ed
Adam G. Cooper (2005)
The Asketikon of St Basil the Great
Anna M. Silvas (2005)
Marius Victorinus’ Commentary on Galatians
Stephen Andrew Cooper (2005)
Asceticism and Christological Controversy in Fifth-Century Palestine
The Career of Peter the Iberian
Cornelia B. Horn (2006)
Marcellus of Ancyra and the Lost Years of the Arian Controversy 325–345
Sara Parvis (2006)
The Irrational Augustine
Catherine Conybeare (2006)
Clement of Alexandria and the Beginnings of Christian Apophaticism
Henny Fiskå Hägg (2006)
The Christology of Theodoret of Cyrus
Antiochene Christology from the Council of Ephesus (431) to
the Council of Chalcedon (451)
Paul B. Clayton, Jr. (2006)
Ethnicity and Argument in Eusebius’ Praeparatio Evangelica
Aaron P. Johnson (2006)
Union and Distinction in the Thought of St Maximus the Confessor
Melchisedec Törönen (2007)
Contextualizing Cassian
Aristocrats, Asceticism, and Reformation in Fifth-Century Gaul
Richard J. Goodrich (2007)
Ambrosiaster’s Political Theology
Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe (2007)
Coptic Christology in Practice
Incarnation and Divine Participation in Late Antique and Medieval Egypt
Stephen J. Davis
Possidius of Calama
A Study of the North African Episcopate
at the Time of Augustine
ERIKA T. HERMANOWICZ
1
2008
3
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Preface
We do not know much about the friends of Augustine, the bishop of Hippo.
The intellectual and historical infl uence that he exerted has pulled them so
tightly into his orbit that their personalities have become distorted, at times
to the point of obfuscation. The moments we do see them as distinct per-
sonalities are brief and usually mediated through Augustine’s writings. We do
know that Alypius watched in astonished silence as Augustine wept and pulled
his hair in frustration (conf. 8.8 [20]). Evodius once caused embarrassment to
the African Catholics when he was deliberately rude to an important Donatist
bishop in what was supposed to be an amicable debate (ep. 33.2–3). Anthony
of Fussala, the young man Augustine took in as a boy and elevated, too soon it
seems, to the episcopate, dramatically stormed out of a meeting with Augus-
tine and returned moments later, with a great deal of screaming, to reiterate his
displeasure (ep. 20*.25). These rare glimpses of character are welcome, if only
because they help satisfy a prurient wish to know what Augustine’s colleagues
were like as men. But what did they believe? On matters such as theology, law,
discipline, and literature, many assume that they thought as Augustine did.
The assumption is off the mark, as it turns out, yet this false impression is
not entirely of Augustine’s, or history’s, making. In times of crisis, the bishops
themselves presented a unifi ed front.
This book is about Possidius of Calama, an episcopal colleague and friend of
Augustine’s, who wrote the only contemporary biography about the bishop of
Hippo. The Vita Augustini depicts Augustine as the single, dominant religious
force in North Africa. The other bishops, whom Possidius never even identi-
fi es by name, comprise an amorphous crowd of grateful supporters, and this
is because his portrait of Augustine engages in a great deal of wishful thinking,
informed more by the fear that Augustine’s reputation was waning in the years
after his death than by a strict adherence to events. The fact is that Augustine’s
episcopal colleagues, Possidius included, had their disagreements with the
great man, and they prevailed more often than Possidius liked to admit.
TheVita Augustini was written at a diffi cult time. Augustine was dead and
the Vandals now held the cities and territories the bishops had spent their
careers traversing. Possidius, well aware that Augustine’s theological views
were meeting stiff resistance among Christians in Africa, Italy, and Gaul, was
entangled in his own religious diffi culties. There is a good chance he wrote
the Vita Augustini after he was deemed intractable by the Vandal king and
consequently exiled from Africa. Under these circumstances, it is easy to see
viii Preface
why Possidius would want to depict Augustine’s career as one of unmitigated
success, but the same circumstances make it harder to explain why Possidius
would also choose to contradict so much of what Augustine wrote about him-
self. Possidius garbles the events surrounding Augustine’s conversion, an event
we know well from the Confessions. Possidius mistakenly attributes the writ-
ing of the Retractationes to Augustine’s realization that he was close to dying,
when in fact the bishop had at least eighteen more years to live when he fi rst
conceived of the project. Very basic errors such as these do not make sense
when read against the Vita Augustini which consists of successive allusions to
Augustinian text, like baubles on a chain, strung together to create a narra-
tive. Possidius knew Augustine’s corpus well, so why he deliberately tried to
manipulate it, as well as distort various facts about Augustine’s life, constitutes
one of this book’s principal areas of investigation.
Possidius’ ideas on the use and meaning of the written word differ signifi -
cantly from Augustine’s. The bishop of Hippo always placed texts in a subordi-
nate relationship to scripture. Scripture alone contained truth; all other texts,
even trustworthy ones like transcripts from Church councils, were human
creations and consequently subject to error. Possidius’ attitude toward the
written word, on the other hand, crystallized in the years he engaged the law.
All African bishops, Augustine included, were well versed in the solicitation of
directives from the imperial consistory, and this book seeks to articulate the
close relationship to Roman law enjoyed by both Donatist and Catholic clergy.
While Augustine regarded favorable legislation as useful, his gaze remained
focused on the Bible. The Vita Augustini, however, where heresy is thwarted
and Catholicism made victorious by the circulation of Augustine’s books and
accompanying legal injunctions from the emperor, suggests that Possidius’
trust in the effi cacy of text was both deeper and more broadly applied. And
why not? The bishop of Calama had seen what the written word could do.
The law dispersed the Manichaeans, broke the Donatist hold on Africa, and
compromised the status of those who supported Pelagius. Possidius himself
traveled to the imperial court twice, personally appealed to the emperor to
initiate what would become the conference of 411 and, as far as we know,
spent a great deal of time in his city of Calama lobbying the municipal council
and other men of infl uence by use, not of scripture, but of transcribed records
from the town council or the latest directive from Ravenna.
Like most urban bishops, Possidius’ career largely revolved around eviden-
tiary dossiers. His was the age of the document, and matters such as ownership
of church property, appeals on behalf of prisoners, and questions regarding
heresy required that the appropriate texts be presented to authorities for scru-
tiny. Council minutes, episcopal correspondence, the transcripts of debates,
and even the theological writings of Augustine were acceptable as evidence,
Preface ix
and since such dossiers decided what, exactly, constituted orthodoxy—a mat-
ter of imperial law—the infl uence they exerted on Possidius’ imagination was
considerable. In the Vita Augustini, we can see the beginnings of what we now
call patristic literature: the use of nonscriptural works for theological proof.
It is a striking departure from what Augustine thought the proper use of text,
but thoroughly consonant with Possidius’ manipulation of Augustine’s liter-
ary corpus. Augustine’s intellectual vibrancy was in large part a measure of
his willingness to reassess his beliefs. He could change his mind, and when he
did so, he liked to share that experience with his readers. To the contrary, Pos-
sidius was interested in defi nitive statements and the intractability of imperial
pronouncements. Consequently, at a time of retrenchment and assessment of
losses, Possidius grabbed hold of Augustine’s life and text and tried to make
them stop moving. The Vita Augustini is very much like an evidentiary dossier,
giving us a man who consists of the books he wrote, which, unchanging and
unchanged, affi rm religious and legal truth. Had Augustine the opportunity
to read Possidius’ biography, he might have found it perplexing, but I do not
think he would have been surprised. Possidius had always exercised a great
deal of independence, even in the presence of Augustine.
This book began as a doctoral dissertation submitted at Princeton Univer-
sity in 1999. Peter Brown was my adviser, and I thank him for being such a
wonderful man and teacher. His wife, Betsy Brown, is one of the most gracious
people I have ever known. Elaine Fantham, Robert A. Kaster, and Mark Ves-
sey, whose generosity continues unabated to this day, comprised my reading
committee. Mark’s critique of my work at the initial stage of rewriting changed
my entire way of thinking about Possidius. I am grateful to him for the chal-
lenge. I thank Peter Brown (again), Nancy Felson, Christine McCann, Jane
Merdinger, Naomi J. Norman, James J. O’Donnell, Sarah Spence, and Maureen
A. Tilley for reading and commenting on parts or the whole book manuscript.
Kevin Uhalde helped me restructure the penultimate draft. Gillian Clark and
the anonymous reader at Oxford University Press offered sound criticism and
good direction. I apologize to them, and to all the other people listed here, for
at times ignoring their excellent advice.
My research was supported by an Andrew W. Mellon Research Fellowship
for Junior Faculty from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)
in 2003–4. I am most grateful to the ACLS. I also thank Betty Jean Craige and
the Willson Center for the Humanities and Arts at the University of Georgia
for a research fellowship in the spring semester of 2007. The fi nal editing of
the manuscript was supported by the President’s Venture Fund through the
generous gifts of the University of Georgia Partners. I offer my thanks to Ellen
Harris for her excellent work. Mr. Tom Perridge at Oxford University Press
was very kind in guiding me through the intricacies of submitting successive