Foreword
In March 2015 I was a guest of the Salerno Art.Tre association for an event dedicated to the Alexandrian philosopher Hypatia1, to whom I have dedicated many years of study2. By good fortune, my hosts had arranged for me to stay in Salerno Longobarda, near the places that had witnessed the flourishing of the medical school. Here was the church of San Pietro a Corte which at that time was open to the public, thanks to the volunteers of the Salerno Archaeological Group. Crossing the threshold of the church, I was led through the history of the medical school to the adoration of Saint Catherine of Alexandria3 and from there to visit the sepulchre of Socrates, a Byzantine notable who lived and died in Salerno at the end of the fifth century.
Socrates was also the name of one of the main historical sources regarding Hypatia, only this Socrates was from Constantinople and was better known as Socrates Scholastico. He was a dignitary, perhaps a lawyer and certainly a historian of the Church, whose vicissitudes he narrated from its origins up to the years of the government of Theodosius II4. His presumed date of birth (about 380 AD) means that he is not the Byzantine notable Socrates of Salerno5 but the geographical origins and temporal proximity of the two characters mean we should not exclude any connection between them. Both the cult of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, the Christian double of the philosopher Hypatia6 and the flourishing of the medical school in Salerno are indications of the potential influence of the cultural context which included Socrates of Constantinople and therefore there may well be a link between the “Socrates from Salerno” and his predecessor who lived in the Byzantine capital. We have no information about Socrates of Constantinople after 442/443, the year in which the empress Eudocia fell from grace (whose influence had permitted Socrates to express his thinking)7 and who left Constantinople to go into a exile that lasted the rest of her life.
Socrates of Constantinople: the paradox of a Christian Hellenist
The dates of his birth and death are not certain, but from his work the Storia Ecclesiastica or Ecclesiastical History, we can surmise that he was born between 380/390 AD and died after 442 AD 8. His Storia Ecclesiastica is also the main source for other details of his life: during the course of its historical narration, Socrates names his teachers, who were men known at the time as exponents of significant cultural and political contexts. We can draw some inferences from these details that concern not so much Socrates’ life in personal detail but more his political position and his cultural leanings. Following these and a few other traces does not allow us to create a profile of Socrates the individual, but it does at least allow us to understand the motives that led him to write the work which contains one of the most important testimonies concerning the philosopher Hypatia.
Socrates lived in Constantinople and in all likelihood came from a family that was sufficiently wealthy for him to follow a course of higher education which gave him a solid foundation as a jurist and a broad spectrum of knowledge and relationships. His family chose a name of undoubted Hellenic origin for him and inspired by a teacher of a school of thought that the future Church historian would not fail to mention in the course of his work9. Later, tradition combined it with the epithet of Scholasticus and it is this combination that has lasted up to the present 10.
The choice of the name Socrates might make one think of a pagan family in the fullest sense of the word, but nothing in his writings confirms this supposition. Two of his earliest teachers were certainly Greek, the grammarians11 Helladius and Ammonius, who had arrived in Constantinople in 391/392 after fleeing from Alexandria where they had respectively held the roles of priests of Zeus and the god Apis in the temple of Serapis12. The fact that Socrates followed the lessons of pagan teachers is not to be interpreted as proof of his possibly having been born to pagan parents: during this phase of late antiquity, in fact, public schools were mainly run by masters and teachers who were Greek by education and culture 13. In the fifth book of the Storia Ecclesiastica Socrates refers to having followed their lessons and listened to their teachings and in actual fact the historian’s testimony regarding the upheavals in the city of Alexandria at the end of the 4th century is highly dependent on them. After the ruin of the temple of Serapis14 and the public mockery of their objects of worship, the Hellenes of Alexandria, “especially those dedicated to philosophy”15, reacted violently and killed many Christians. Shortly after, frightened by their own reactions and the consequences that would ensue, they fled the city.
Socrates appears to have felt sympathy for the pagans and opposition to the violence of Christians who had even exposed to ridicule and mockery the only statue of the temple that had not been melted down in the fire16, but he distances himself from the grammarian Helladius who “used to boast about the fact that during the conflict he had personally killed nine men”17. The grammarian’s behaviour clearly did not reach the high moral exemplary standards of those closest to Socrates’ heart18 and indicates a distancing between the historian and his former teacher. The case of Aswanon, another of Socrates’ teachers during his early years, is different since he falls into that group of historical figures who in the Storia Ecclesiastica have a paradigmatic value both from the moral point of view and from the point of view of the evolution of the Christian Church 19. From Socrates we know that, at the time he made his acquaintance, Aswanon was a very old presbyter 20 at the Church of Constantinople and that Socrates had known him when he himself was “very young”21.
Aswanon was the living memory of highly significant events in the history of the Church, such as those which took place at Nicaea during the synod of 325 in which he had indirectly taken part as a young disciple of Acesius, bishop “of the Novatian sect” 22. As a disciple of Acesius, Aswanon had been introduced to the Novatian doctrine in the same way in which Socrates was introduced to this history by the then elderly Aswanon: this was a relationship in which “we recognize a form of discipleship that exists in the Storia also for the purpose of secular teaching: the theme of a pairing within a traditio or a succession (diadochv) is an idea dear to Socrates, based essentially on the old-young relationship” 23.
It is thus through Aswanon that Socrates has direct access to knowledge of the Novatian doctrine of the origins.
So if for us there is no longer the possibility of reconstructing the context in which this transmission of knowledge took place, it is however possible to recognize a form of paideia or instructional rapport between Socrates and Aswanon within the wider context of a web of encounters of which the Storia Ecclesiastica gives us some indication. This implies a deep pedagogical relationship: it is a sign of a formative link with the significance of a style of transmission within a greater tradition. Through Aswanon therefore, Socrates enters fully into the pedagogical transmission of the Novatian Church which is handed down from master to disciple via the Acesius-Aswanon-Socrates triad: such a position means that Socrates became an historian of the Church on the outer reaches of what precisely in those years was imposed as the ‘dominant’ Church24.
The Novatian schism enjoyed considerable success in the East and its presence in Constantinople at the time of Socrates’ youth and maturity was significant 25, given that imperial legislation had already begun to signal this group as a potentially prosecutable sect. The first law that refers to them as being among heretics is dated 423 (Cth. XVI V, 59) but in actual fact persecutions were being carried out even before this edict, above all on the initiative of the bishops of Rome and Alexandria: in Constantinople the group enjoyed benevolent protection during the period in which Theodosius II was joined in power by his wife Eudocia, a woman linked to the conservative Greek factions. This was the same period in which Socrates wrote his Storia Ecclesiastica.
The proximity of the young Socrates to the Novatians, therefore, far from being a sign of distance from the Hellenic environment is on the contrary the key to understanding the paradox of a Hellenistic Christian, such as our Church historian was 26.
What this paradox was and how it also manifested itself to Socrates’ contemporaries, can be seen from an anecdote about Sisinnius, bishop of the Novatian Church of Constantinople at the beginning of the 5th century and represented by Socrates as one of the illustrious examples of the true Christian spirit.
“He was a man […] both illustrious and profoundly learned in philosophy, very expert in dialectics, inclined above all to interpret the scriptures, so much so that the heretic Eunomius avoided his dialectical power. His standard of living was not simple; he was extremely wise, undoubtedly, but he also lived sumptuously. In fact he lived like a nobleman, dressed in white, always washing at the public baths twice a day. If someone asked him why, despite being a bishop, he washed twice a day, he replied that he was unable to do so three times a day. Another time, seeing Bishop Arsacius on the occasion of a celebration and being questioned by one of the retinue on why he was wearing a robe unworthy of a bishop since it was written that a priest should dress in white, he replied
“Tell me first where it is written that the bishop must wear a dark robe”. Finding that the other was having difficulty in answering, Sisinnius added: ‘But you cannot prove to me that the priest should wear dark robes. Instead Solomon tells us: ‘Let your clothes be white’; in addition, our Saviour in the Gospels showed that he was wearing white and he showed Moses and Elijah to the apostles also dressed in white” 27.
This dialogue shows the gap between a Christian man, Sisinnius, who cultivates an exquisitely Hellenic lifestyle and the related rituals (ablutions in public baths, a white robe, dedication to purification rites as a prerequisite for worship) and a Christian man who on the other hand, has already adopted that point of view of Christian religiosity which would go on to prevail over time and in whose point of view we still read today that same dialogue (black clothes, the negative judgment on sumptuousness that does not sit well with the choice of poverty as a moral option for the Church and the overturning of most purification rites)28.
But the Hellenic trait of Novatian religiosity is not limited just to this. What is of far more significance is the point concerning the correct ascent to Heaven, which is possible for those who do not fall into sinful ways for fear of persecution and who remain righteous in the sight of God. The just Novatian man, who in the course of persecution does not give in to temptation and does not abjure his faith, is comparable to the man who, in the parable of the sower29 corresponds to the good soil while the lapsi, or apostates who renounce their faith, seem instead to correspond to the soil which only appears to be good. The just Novatian man is therefore comparable to the good ground which in Hellenic culture, has a theoretical equivalent in the man who is ‘noble of soul’ (gennaivo~), one who thanks to the quality of his character, can undertake the path of perfection that leads to God.
This model is very distant from the penitential and impartial Catholic model that begins to prevail already in the 4th century AD and which requires salvation by forgiveness as mediated by the priestly figure. It is therefore the religious practice and not the doctrine of faith that holds the Novatians closer to the Greek philosophical circles – elitist and yet democratic – than to the egalitarian and hierarchical Catholic Christian circles that became entrenched during the 4th/5th centuries AD. Emblematic, in this context, is the dialogue which Socrates describes in Book I between the Novatian bishop Acesius and the Emperor Constantine on the occasion of the synod of Nicea which, among other things, sanctioned the schism between Novatians and Catholics. In reply to Constantine’s question “Why do you no longer practice communion (koinwniva~)?” Acesius referred to the events of the period of Decius which occurred during the persecution and exalted the rigour of the Church’s inflexible rule (tou` aujsthrou` kanovno~): that is, one should not consider those who after baptism had committed a sin that led to death to be worthy of the communion of the divine mysteries, since according to the expression of the divine scriptures, they should rather be lead to penance, because any hope of remission is received from God and not from priests: God and God alone in fact has the power and authority to forgive sins.
The Emperor answered these words by saying “Acesius, go and get a ladder and ascend to heaven by yourself (movno~ ajnavbhqi eijı oujranovn)!” 30.
Socrates embraces Acesius’ point of view, which is why his Storia Ecclesiastica gives ample space to the events of the Novatian Church and has a significant number of the life stories of illustrious personalities who represented on earth the ideal of ascent to the divine established by the Novatian bishop. The Storia Ecclesiastica goes in search of the bioi, or the lives of the best, considered possible examples of how to be both Church and Christian people and an alternative to the way of being part of the Church of power which at Socrates’ time seemed prevalent. It is via this route that Socrates encounters Hypatia31 and it is in this context of meanings that the historian considers it appropriate to pay the Greek philosopher so much attention.
The story of Hypatia appears as part of a gallery of portraits of mostly Christian wise men who through their wisdom are considered the earthly personification of a religious ideal focused on the divine that according to Socrates – a Christian of Hellenistic culture – epitomises the true ideal of Christianity. The statement is paradoxical and as such does not imply the conversion of Hypatia to Christianity; on the contrary, it refers to the existence of a Christianity structured in such a way as to permit the presence of a Greek woman among its points of reference: “On account of the magnificent freedom of word and action (parrhesia as Socrates puts it) which she had inherited from her culture (paideia), Hypatia was sensibly accepted into the presence of the leaders of the city; it was no shame for her to be among men”.
“In fact, because of her extraordinary wisdom, everyone respected her deeply and was in awe of her. For this reason envy was fomented (against her)32”. The central role in Socrates’ discourse is that of culture (paideia): it was the acquisition of this paideia that allowed Hypatia to exercise freedom of speech and action (parrhesia)33 which put her at the centre of the city’s political stage to the point of arousing envy of her. This envy came to a climax in the head-on clash between her and the newly installed bishop of the city, Cyril of Alexandria, to whom Socrates attributes the political responsibility for her murder.
Although a practicing Christian but critical of the shape that the dominant Church was taking on, Socrates of Constantinople placed Hypatia among the exponents of an ideal that was a model for a Christian lifestyle. Such a model was substantiated in the ability to meet God and to aspire to his forgiveness through culture understood as the exercise of reason starting from self-knowledge and the reading of texts and then through the sharing of responsibility in the management of public affairs. This lifestyle – which is also a way of exercising power – was on a collision course with the Catholicism embodied by Cyril, the Catholic bishop of Alexandria who was dedicated to a quest for power that, according to Socrates, had gone “Beyond the limit permitted for the priestly order” 34.
When Socrates wrote these pages of the Storia dell Chiesa, an unmistakeable and unretractable accusation aimed at Hypatia’s murderers and a testimony of a Christianity that might have been, his future options for life and thought were already diminishing. However he was temporarily supported by the empress Eudocia, an emulator of Hypatia and in turn the main character of the seventh and last book of Socrates’ historiographical work35. In 443, the year of Eudocia’s fall from grace, the empress Pulcheria, sister of Theodosius II and close ally of the bishop of Alexandria returned to power. The fate of Socrates followed that of his empress and we lose track of him: we do not know if he lived on, if he remained in Constantinople withdrawing from the public scene or if he found shelter in another city of the empire where the Christianity he cared about still had opportunities to express itself.
If we move away from the area of certainties and start looking closely at the chapter of hypotheses still to be verified along with the presence of a Byzantine Socrates in Salerno, younger than Socrates of Constantinople but not so distant from a chronological point of view, we might well open an investigation that would verify whether there are sufficient elements to connect the two personalities in a bond of either a family or culturally sympathetic nature. The research in question could well focus on the presence of traces of Novatian Christianity in Salerno in the mid 5th century AD and, why not, the effective presence here of a cult reserved for Saint Catherine of Alexandria, which allowed the history of Hypatia to cross the centuries of Christianity and carrying unchanged the message of a female scientific authority35 who was the patron saint of intelligence and the free lives of female Salerno doctors.
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Gemma Beretta 