Mirrors for bureaucrats: expectations of Christian officials in the Theodosian Empire

Whelan, RE ORCID: 0000-0001-6664-3381 (2018) Mirrors for bureaucrats: expectations of Christian officials in the Theodosian Empire Journal of Roman Studies, 108. pp. 74-98. ISSN 0075-4358, 1753-528X

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Abstract

This article tackles a relatively understudied aspect of the Christianisation of the Roman aristocracy. It considers the influence of Christian norms on a key stage in the elite male life course: service to the state. Drawing on the letters of Isidore of Pelusium, Augustine of Hippo, and Theodoret of Cyrrhus to imperial officials, this article argues that a Christian rhetoric of officeholding had developed across the Mediterranean by the first half of the fifth century. It traces these authors’ varying expectations of how the religious identities of elite Christian men would shape their political agency. Their letters demonstrate the diffusion of Christian political ideas within the imperial state—and the terms on which Christian affiliations and traditional public careers were understood to be compatible—in the era of the Theodosian dynasty.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	religious identity, political culture, state, Christianity, elites, Augustine of Hippo, Isidore of Pelusium, Theodoret of Cyrrhus
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	23 Jan 2018 16:19
Last Modified:	01 Mar 2026 10:34
DOI:	10.1017/S0075435818000254
Related Websites:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3016699
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