Jews and Others
an archdeacon, an excellent man, into the theatre and beat him), and
beyond that also against those (bishops) who in Cilicia (still) insanely
resist (reconciliation).Introduction
This sudden side-light on Jewish-Christian relations in the fifth century
comes from Iohannes, archbishop of Antioch, writing to Proclus, his coun-
terpart in Constantinople, in . What we are reading is in fact a sixth-
century Latin translation of a letter originally written in Greek, and refer-
ring to the long-drawn-out and acutely controversial process by which, after
the Council of Ephesus in , most of the original supporters of the Nes-
torian, or ‘‘two-nature,’’ position had agreed to a formula of reconciliation
with the victorious proponents of a ‘‘one-nature’’ understanding of Christ,
led by Cyril of Alexandria. Iohannes himself, originally Nestorius’ main pro-
ponent, had yielded and now found himself regarded as a traitor by those
who still resisted, including the Cilician bishops to whom he refers.
Iohannes was writing fifty-six years after the accession of Theodosius I in
, which it is entirely reasonable to see as the decisive moment in the ad-
hesion of the Roman state to Christianity, in its commitment to the step-by-
step suppression of paganism, and also in the proclamation by the emperor,
a couple of years later, of the state’s support for what we can label as either
‘‘orthodox’’ or ‘‘catholic’’ belief, in essence subscription to the doctrine of the
consubstantiality of the Trinity.
Since that time, a division into twin empires, ruled from Rome or Ravenna
on the one hand and Constantinople on the other, had come about on the
death of Theodosius in ; while with the accession of Theodosius’ very
young grandson, Theodosius II, in an absolute and much-advertised
commitment to Christian piety had come to mark the imperial court in
Constantinople.
The position of the church might then have been perceived as wholly
secure. But, as Iohannes’ words show, that was not how it felt to Christians
at the time. The reverberations of the dispute over the nature, or natures, of
Christ, which had led to the Council of Ephesus, had been felt all round the
late Roman world, in the Latin West as well as the Greek East. Even apart
from that, an obsessive concern with the threat posed by long lists of named
heretical groups marks both Christian writing and the laws issued by the em-
perors. Similarly, pagans, though suffering repeated blows, and progressively
deprived of positive rights and of protection under the law, still functioned