Modestus at Edessa. Imperial officials in the ecclesiastical histories of Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret

Whelan, Robin ORCID: 0000-0001-6664-3381 (2023) Modestus at Edessa. Imperial officials in the ecclesiastical histories of Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret. Millennium, 20 (1). pp. 149-192.

Text Final Modestus to resubmit.pdf - Author Accepted Manuscript Access to this file is embargoed until 17 November 2024. Download (491kB)

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This article considers the depictions of imperial officials and their interactions with Christian communities in the genre of ecclesiastical history. It focuses on one particular episode where the emperor Valens ordered his praetorian prefect Domitius Modestus to disperse an assembly of Nicene Christians at the martyrium of Thomas at Edessa. The four fifth-century Nicene ecclesiastical historians Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret offer the same basic narrative of the events which led to the prefect’s abandonment of his mission. Yet they construe the causes and implications of his reluctance to persecute in strikingly different ways. These adaptations reveal their differing views of the role of imperial officials in matters concerning the church and, more broadly, of what Christian communities might expect from the imperial state in a Christian empire.</jats:p>

Item Type:	Article
Divisions:	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Histories, Languages and Cultures
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	01 Jul 2022 14:27
Last Modified:	22 Nov 2023 10:36
DOI:	10.1515/mill-2023-0009
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3157586