Eric Fournier | West Chester University of PA (original) (raw)

Books by Eric Fournier

Research paper thumbnail of Heirs of Roman Persecution

Heirs of Roman Persecution. Studies of a Christian and para-Christian Discourse in Late Antiquity, 2019

The subject of this book is the discourse of persecution used by Christians in Late Antiquity (c.... more The subject of this book is the discourse of persecution used by Christians in Late Antiquity (c. 300-700 CE). Through a series of detailed case studies covering the full chronological and geographical span of the period, this book investigates how the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity changed the way that Christians and para-Christians perceived the hostile treatments they received, either by fellow Christians or by people of other religions. A closely related second goal of this volume is to encourage scholars to think more precisely about the terminological difficulties related to the study of persecution. Indeed, despite sustained interest in the subject, few scholars have sought to distinguish between such closely related concepts as punishment, coercion, physical violence, and persecution. Often, these terms are used interchangeably. Although there are no easy answers, an emphatic conclusion of the studies assembled in this volume is that "persecution" was a malleable rhetorical label in late antique discourse, whose meaning shifted depending on the viewpoint of the authors who used it. This leads to our third objective: to analyze the role and function played by rhetoric and polemic in late antique claims to be persecuted. Late antique Christian writers who cast their present as a repetition of past persecutions often aimed to attack the legitimacy of the dominant Christian faction through a process of othering. This discourse also expressed a polarizing worldview in order to strengthen the group identity of the writers' community in the midst of ideological conflicts and to encourage steadfastness against the temptation to collaborate with the other side.

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Papers by Eric Fournier

Research paper thumbnail of Eternal Persecutions: Cultural Trauma and Memory of the Martyrs in Vandal Africa

The Making of Saints in Late Antique North Africa, ed. by S. Panzram and N. Klinck (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2024), 2024

The paper analyzes the continuous use of martyrological discourse in texts of the Vandal-era thro... more The paper analyzes the continuous use of martyrological discourse in texts of the Vandal-era through the lens of cultural trauma and cultural memory theories. It argues that intertextual allusions to earlier martyrological texts constituted a weapon in the arsenal of disempowered Christians to attack empowered rival Christian factions (in this case Homoians). The theoretical framework helps better explain the continual use of martyrological literature at a time when persecutions of Christians (documented by this literature) had officially ended.

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Research paper thumbnail of Anticipating Disasters: Forbearance and the Limits of Religious Coercion in Late Roman North Africa

Studies in Late Antiquity, 2024

Following Valens’s defeat at the hands of the Goths at the Battle of Adrianople in August 378 and... more Following Valens’s defeat at the hands of the Goths at the Battle of Adrianople in August 378 and immediately before Alaric’s sack of Rome in August 410, both Gratian and Honorius issued temporary forbearance measures that relaxed the otherwise coercive religious policies against Donatists in North Africa. The present article analyzes these episodes as case studies in how the late Roman government reacted to disasters and crises in the religious sphere. These episodes are particularly puzzling because they go against the tendency of increasing coercion against schismatics and heretics expressed in late Roman laws and imperial propaganda. The article argues that late Roman religious policy that attempted to enforce theological orthodoxy was mainly the product of episcopal lobbying and petitions, and therefore it could be suspended when more pressing concerns, such as the loyalty of a crucial province for the food supply of the city of Rome, hung in the balance.

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Research paper thumbnail of Christianity in Roman Africa, I: Communities and Religious Movements

The Palgrave Handbook of African Christianity from Apostolic Times to the Present. Andrew Barnes and Toyin Falola, eds. London: Palgrave, 2024. ISBN: 9783031482694, 2024

This study presents an outline of the history of Christianity in the Maghreb during “long late an... more This study presents an outline of the history of Christianity in the Maghreb during “long late antiquity,” roughly 180-700 CE. In examining this history through the lenses of movements and community, it centers attempts at building community, consensus, and identity alongside responses and reactions to those attempts. In surveying the various controversies that contested them—Donatism, Arianism, the Three Chapters—the study follows a central thread at the heart of these early African Christian communities: the martyrs and their legacy. By approaching this history through the work of post-colonial scholars, this study examines these communities within the colonized landscape of the Roman Empire in the Maghreb. The picture that emerges presents a set of robust, assertive, and self-confident communities, firmly rooted in African identities, seeking to delineate their collective belonging while navigating a colonial (and then post-colonial) landscape defined by the memories and narratives of persecution. As such, readers will find an introduction to the major events and figures situated within an up-to-date understanding of the history of the late antique Maghreb.

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Research paper thumbnail of Exegesis, Exempla, and Invective: The Use of Scripture in Facundus of Hermiane's In Defense of the Three Chapters

The Bible in Christian North Africa. Vol. 2: Consolidation of the Canon to the Arab Conquest (ca. 393 C.E. to ca. 650 C.E.), ed. J. Yates and A. Dupont. The Reception and Interpretation of the Bible in Christian North Africa, 4/2. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2023

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Research paper thumbnail of ‘The Battalions of Impiety’: Victor of Vita’s Rhetorical Strategies and Perspective on the Vandal Migration as a Religious Event.

Migration: Rhetoric and Reality in Late Antiquity, special issue ofJahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, edited by A. Handl and S. Cohen, 2022

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Research paper thumbnail of Everyone but the Kings: The Rhetoric of (Non-)Persecution in Gregory of Tours' Histories

É. Fournier and W. Mayer (ed.), Heirs of Roman Persecution: Studies on a Christian and para-Christian Discourse in Late Antiquity (London and New York: Routledge, 2019), 2019

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Research paper thumbnail of 'To Collect Gold from Hidden Caves.' Victor of Vita and the Vandal 'Persecution' of Heretical Barbarians in Late Antique North Africa.

É. Fournier and W. Mayer (ed.), Heirs of Roman Persecution: Studies on a Christian and para-Christian Discourse in Late Antiquity (London and New York: Routledge, 2019)

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Research paper thumbnail of The Christian Discourse of Persecution in Late Antiquity: An Introduction

É. Fournier and W. Mayer (ed.), Heirs of Roman Persecution: Studies on a Christian and para-Christian Discourse in Late Antiquity (London and New York: Routledge, 2019), 2019

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Research paper thumbnail of Persecuting Heretics in Late Antique North Africa: Tolerant Vandals and Intolerant Bishops

Inclusion and Exclusion in Mediterranean Christianities, 400-800, ed. by Yaniv Fox and others. "Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages." Turnhout: Brepols, 2019.

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Research paper thumbnail of Les « silences » d'Ammien Marcellin et Victor de Vita : Témoins d'une polarisation religieuse dans l'Antiquité tardive ?

Silences de l’historien, edited by C. Jouanno. Coll. “Giornale Italiani di Filologia – Biblioteca.” Turnhout : Brepols, 2019.

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Research paper thumbnail of Constantin et la persécution présumée des donatistes.

Revue des Études Tardo-Antique. Supplément 5: Hommages à Bertrand Lançon, 2018

The traditional interpretation of Constantine’s dealings with Donatists considers that the empero... more The traditional interpretation of Constantine’s dealings with Donatists considers that the emperor persecuted them between 317 and 321. This view rests upon the Passio Donati (BHL 2303b), which depicts soldiers violently seizing a basilica from Donatists and even causing the death of Donatus. The latter text, the only one attesting this putative persecution, was in fact written later to commemorate the martyr’s anniversary, and describes mainly the resistance of Donatists against state intervention. The article argues that this view sits uneasily with what we otherwise know of Constantine’s religious policy of tolerance, starting with the so-called Edict of Milan. Rather, Constantine’s aim was to restore control of ecclesiastical properties confiscated during the persecution of Diocletian to the “Catholic” faith, which Donatists challenged. Once the councils of Rome and Arles, and an audience with the emperor in person, validated the claims of the Caecilianist faction to represent the Catholic faith in Africa, Constantine imposed the transfer of properties by ordering his men to seize the basilica, exiling Donatists who resisted. But this does not justify the view that Constantine persecuted Donatists.

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Research paper thumbnail of The Policy of Episcopal Banishment under Constantine's Immediate Successors: Solidifying the Pattern.

In Mobility and Exile and the End of Antiquity, edited by D. Rohmann, J. Ulrich and M. Vallejo, 51-67. Early Christianity in the Context of Antiquity, 19. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2018.

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Research paper thumbnail of The Vandal Conquest of North Africa: Origins of a Historiographical Persona

Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 2017

A close reading of sources documenting the Vandal conquest (429–39 ce) reveals that contemporary ... more A close reading of sources documenting the Vandal conquest (429–39 ce) reveals that contemporary authors did not present the event as a persecution. To be sure, they insisted on the devastation that the Vandals caused, the typical woes of war, but not on its religious motivation. The article argues that it was Augustine who, in his ep. ccxxviii, first presented a theological interpretation of the event that allowed later sources writing within the Augustinian tradition to frame the conquest retroactively as a persecution.

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Research paper thumbnail of 'Conquis par l'Afrique': L'importance des Donatistes pour comprendre l'Afrique vandale

Karthago, 2017

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Research paper thumbnail of Amputation Metaphors and the Rhetoric of Exile: Purity and Pollution in Late Antique Christianity

Clerical Exile in Late Antiquity, ed. J. Hillner, J. Enberg, and J. Ulrich. Frankkfurt: Peter Lang, 2016.

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Research paper thumbnail of Constantine and Episcopal Banishment: Continuity and Change in the Settlement of Christian Disputes

Clerical Exile in Late Antiquity, ed. J. Hillner, J. Enberg, and J. Ulrich. Frankkfurt: Peter Lang, 2016.

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Research paper thumbnail of Éléments apologétiques chez Victor de Vita : exemple d’un genre littéraire en transition

Shifting Genres in Late Antiquity, ed. G. Greatrex and H. Elton, Jan 2015

This chapter analyses the literary genre of Victor of Vita’s Historia Persecutionis Africanae pro... more This chapter analyses the literary genre of Victor of Vita’s Historia Persecutionis Africanae provinciae. It argues that Victor’s text is a hybrid one, since it presents the characteristics of three distinct literary genres – historiography, hagiography and apologia. These characteristics were required by the author’s intentions in compiling the Historia, as also by his perception of contemporary events. Indeed, the mysterious author of Vita regards the Vandals as indisputable persecutors and constructs a plot around the events that he describes as a repetition of past persecutions, especially the Great Persecution under Diocletian. Victor deploys certain characteristics that belong to hagiography in order to represent the Vandals as persecutors, as also some elements of the historiographical genre in order to ensure the credibility of his narrative. His presentation of documents, such as the royal edicts, for example, recalls Eusebius’ Church history, which Victor undoubtedly knew through the translation of Rufinus. His borrowings from the apologetic genre can also be explained by his perception of contemporary events as the repetition of past persecutions. The author thus, quite logically, resorts to the literary genre that had helped the Christians of the first four centuries overcome Roman intolerance and to galvanise the Christian communities against attacks by the Roman state. For Victor the only possible option in response to Vandal intolerance was to rally the ‘troops’ to face the assault, just like the Christians of earlier centuries. This chapter provides an example of the adaptation of literary genres to the new realities of Late Antiquity – the replacement of the dichotomy pagan/Christian with that of ‘barbarian’-heretic/Roman-Christian. Moreover, Victor offers an instance of the survival and transformation of a genre – apologia – usually associated with the first centuries of the Christian era and little studied in the context of Late Antiquity.

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Research paper thumbnail of "Victor of Vita and the Conference of 484: A Pastiche of 411?"

Studia Patristica 62, vol. X (2013).

""In 411 AD, following a century of religious conflicts within the North African provinces of th... more ""In 411 AD, following a century of religious conflicts within the North African provinces
of the Roman Empire, Nicene bishops succeeded in declaring their opponents
– ‘Donatists’ – heretics and thus liable to legal punishments. The ‘Catholic’ bishops
managed to reduce their religious opponents to silence through a council of bishops,
the conference of 411, which was in fact more a trial to convict ‘Donatists’ than an
open debate. The crucial factor in the triumph of the ‘Catholics’ was their success in
obtaining the support of civil authorities, first and foremost the Emperor Honorius, as
his edict of convocation to the conference indicates. Honorius wrote with the exasperated
tone of one eager to put this annoying conflict behind him, and looking forward to the
conclusion of this trial, the issue of which was already clear in his mind. ‘Donatists’,
realizing they had been trapped, resorted to all kinds of ‘diversion maneuvers’. But they
could not divert the outcome and were condemned. Victor of Vita’s depiction of a
conference between Nicene and Homoean – Vandal – bishops in 484 presents uncanny
similarities to the 411 conference. But in this case, the roles were reversed and the
Nicenes were in the position that ‘Donatists’ had found themselves in 75 years earlier.
This study argues that comparison between these two accounts, taken as representative of
the two great religious conflicts of late antique North Africa – ‘Catholics’ vs. ‘Donatists’
and Vandals vs. Nicenes – reveals a great deal of continuity in the methods of coercion
used to impose religious conformity, on the one hand, and, on the other, in the strategies
employed by the victims of these policies of religious unification. Indeed, Victor
included the edict of the Vandal king Huneric following the conference of 484, in which
the king admitted to recycling previous Roman anti-heretical laws. Conversely, Victor
depicted the Nicene bishops as having recourse to ‘diversion maneuvers’ similar to the
ones that ‘Donatists’ had used in 411. This strategy was a way for Victor to cast the
Vandals in a persecuting role and functioned as a tool of boundary maintenance, in order
to assert and reinforce distinctions between Nicenes and Vandals which were constantly
being eroded by the Vandal religious policy.""

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Research paper thumbnail of Rebaptism as a Ritual of Cultural Integration in Vandal Africa

Shifting Cultural Frontiers in Late Antiquity, edited by D. Brakke, D. Deliyannis and E. Watts, 243-54. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012.

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Research paper thumbnail of Heirs of Roman Persecution

Heirs of Roman Persecution. Studies of a Christian and para-Christian Discourse in Late Antiquity, 2019

The subject of this book is the discourse of persecution used by Christians in Late Antiquity (c.... more The subject of this book is the discourse of persecution used by Christians in Late Antiquity (c. 300-700 CE). Through a series of detailed case studies covering the full chronological and geographical span of the period, this book investigates how the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity changed the way that Christians and para-Christians perceived the hostile treatments they received, either by fellow Christians or by people of other religions. A closely related second goal of this volume is to encourage scholars to think more precisely about the terminological difficulties related to the study of persecution. Indeed, despite sustained interest in the subject, few scholars have sought to distinguish between such closely related concepts as punishment, coercion, physical violence, and persecution. Often, these terms are used interchangeably. Although there are no easy answers, an emphatic conclusion of the studies assembled in this volume is that "persecution" was a malleable rhetorical label in late antique discourse, whose meaning shifted depending on the viewpoint of the authors who used it. This leads to our third objective: to analyze the role and function played by rhetoric and polemic in late antique claims to be persecuted. Late antique Christian writers who cast their present as a repetition of past persecutions often aimed to attack the legitimacy of the dominant Christian faction through a process of othering. This discourse also expressed a polarizing worldview in order to strengthen the group identity of the writers' community in the midst of ideological conflicts and to encourage steadfastness against the temptation to collaborate with the other side.

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Research paper thumbnail of Eternal Persecutions: Cultural Trauma and Memory of the Martyrs in Vandal Africa

The Making of Saints in Late Antique North Africa, ed. by S. Panzram and N. Klinck (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2024), 2024

The paper analyzes the continuous use of martyrological discourse in texts of the Vandal-era thro... more The paper analyzes the continuous use of martyrological discourse in texts of the Vandal-era through the lens of cultural trauma and cultural memory theories. It argues that intertextual allusions to earlier martyrological texts constituted a weapon in the arsenal of disempowered Christians to attack empowered rival Christian factions (in this case Homoians). The theoretical framework helps better explain the continual use of martyrological literature at a time when persecutions of Christians (documented by this literature) had officially ended.

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Research paper thumbnail of Anticipating Disasters: Forbearance and the Limits of Religious Coercion in Late Roman North Africa

Studies in Late Antiquity, 2024

Following Valens’s defeat at the hands of the Goths at the Battle of Adrianople in August 378 and... more Following Valens’s defeat at the hands of the Goths at the Battle of Adrianople in August 378 and immediately before Alaric’s sack of Rome in August 410, both Gratian and Honorius issued temporary forbearance measures that relaxed the otherwise coercive religious policies against Donatists in North Africa. The present article analyzes these episodes as case studies in how the late Roman government reacted to disasters and crises in the religious sphere. These episodes are particularly puzzling because they go against the tendency of increasing coercion against schismatics and heretics expressed in late Roman laws and imperial propaganda. The article argues that late Roman religious policy that attempted to enforce theological orthodoxy was mainly the product of episcopal lobbying and petitions, and therefore it could be suspended when more pressing concerns, such as the loyalty of a crucial province for the food supply of the city of Rome, hung in the balance.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Christianity in Roman Africa, I: Communities and Religious Movements

The Palgrave Handbook of African Christianity from Apostolic Times to the Present. Andrew Barnes and Toyin Falola, eds. London: Palgrave, 2024. ISBN: 9783031482694, 2024

This study presents an outline of the history of Christianity in the Maghreb during “long late an... more This study presents an outline of the history of Christianity in the Maghreb during “long late antiquity,” roughly 180-700 CE. In examining this history through the lenses of movements and community, it centers attempts at building community, consensus, and identity alongside responses and reactions to those attempts. In surveying the various controversies that contested them—Donatism, Arianism, the Three Chapters—the study follows a central thread at the heart of these early African Christian communities: the martyrs and their legacy. By approaching this history through the work of post-colonial scholars, this study examines these communities within the colonized landscape of the Roman Empire in the Maghreb. The picture that emerges presents a set of robust, assertive, and self-confident communities, firmly rooted in African identities, seeking to delineate their collective belonging while navigating a colonial (and then post-colonial) landscape defined by the memories and narratives of persecution. As such, readers will find an introduction to the major events and figures situated within an up-to-date understanding of the history of the late antique Maghreb.

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Research paper thumbnail of Exegesis, Exempla, and Invective: The Use of Scripture in Facundus of Hermiane's In Defense of the Three Chapters

The Bible in Christian North Africa. Vol. 2: Consolidation of the Canon to the Arab Conquest (ca. 393 C.E. to ca. 650 C.E.), ed. J. Yates and A. Dupont. The Reception and Interpretation of the Bible in Christian North Africa, 4/2. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2023

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Research paper thumbnail of ‘The Battalions of Impiety’: Victor of Vita’s Rhetorical Strategies and Perspective on the Vandal Migration as a Religious Event.

Migration: Rhetoric and Reality in Late Antiquity, special issue ofJahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, edited by A. Handl and S. Cohen, 2022

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Research paper thumbnail of Everyone but the Kings: The Rhetoric of (Non-)Persecution in Gregory of Tours' Histories

É. Fournier and W. Mayer (ed.), Heirs of Roman Persecution: Studies on a Christian and para-Christian Discourse in Late Antiquity (London and New York: Routledge, 2019), 2019

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Research paper thumbnail of 'To Collect Gold from Hidden Caves.' Victor of Vita and the Vandal 'Persecution' of Heretical Barbarians in Late Antique North Africa.

É. Fournier and W. Mayer (ed.), Heirs of Roman Persecution: Studies on a Christian and para-Christian Discourse in Late Antiquity (London and New York: Routledge, 2019)

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Research paper thumbnail of The Christian Discourse of Persecution in Late Antiquity: An Introduction

É. Fournier and W. Mayer (ed.), Heirs of Roman Persecution: Studies on a Christian and para-Christian Discourse in Late Antiquity (London and New York: Routledge, 2019), 2019

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Research paper thumbnail of Persecuting Heretics in Late Antique North Africa: Tolerant Vandals and Intolerant Bishops

Inclusion and Exclusion in Mediterranean Christianities, 400-800, ed. by Yaniv Fox and others. "Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages." Turnhout: Brepols, 2019.

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Research paper thumbnail of Les « silences » d'Ammien Marcellin et Victor de Vita : Témoins d'une polarisation religieuse dans l'Antiquité tardive ?

Silences de l’historien, edited by C. Jouanno. Coll. “Giornale Italiani di Filologia – Biblioteca.” Turnhout : Brepols, 2019.

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Research paper thumbnail of Constantin et la persécution présumée des donatistes.

Revue des Études Tardo-Antique. Supplément 5: Hommages à Bertrand Lançon, 2018

The traditional interpretation of Constantine’s dealings with Donatists considers that the empero... more The traditional interpretation of Constantine’s dealings with Donatists considers that the emperor persecuted them between 317 and 321. This view rests upon the Passio Donati (BHL 2303b), which depicts soldiers violently seizing a basilica from Donatists and even causing the death of Donatus. The latter text, the only one attesting this putative persecution, was in fact written later to commemorate the martyr’s anniversary, and describes mainly the resistance of Donatists against state intervention. The article argues that this view sits uneasily with what we otherwise know of Constantine’s religious policy of tolerance, starting with the so-called Edict of Milan. Rather, Constantine’s aim was to restore control of ecclesiastical properties confiscated during the persecution of Diocletian to the “Catholic” faith, which Donatists challenged. Once the councils of Rome and Arles, and an audience with the emperor in person, validated the claims of the Caecilianist faction to represent the Catholic faith in Africa, Constantine imposed the transfer of properties by ordering his men to seize the basilica, exiling Donatists who resisted. But this does not justify the view that Constantine persecuted Donatists.

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Research paper thumbnail of The Policy of Episcopal Banishment under Constantine's Immediate Successors: Solidifying the Pattern.

In Mobility and Exile and the End of Antiquity, edited by D. Rohmann, J. Ulrich and M. Vallejo, 51-67. Early Christianity in the Context of Antiquity, 19. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2018.

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Research paper thumbnail of The Vandal Conquest of North Africa: Origins of a Historiographical Persona

Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 2017

A close reading of sources documenting the Vandal conquest (429–39 ce) reveals that contemporary ... more A close reading of sources documenting the Vandal conquest (429–39 ce) reveals that contemporary authors did not present the event as a persecution. To be sure, they insisted on the devastation that the Vandals caused, the typical woes of war, but not on its religious motivation. The article argues that it was Augustine who, in his ep. ccxxviii, first presented a theological interpretation of the event that allowed later sources writing within the Augustinian tradition to frame the conquest retroactively as a persecution.

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Research paper thumbnail of 'Conquis par l'Afrique': L'importance des Donatistes pour comprendre l'Afrique vandale

Karthago, 2017

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Research paper thumbnail of Amputation Metaphors and the Rhetoric of Exile: Purity and Pollution in Late Antique Christianity

Clerical Exile in Late Antiquity, ed. J. Hillner, J. Enberg, and J. Ulrich. Frankkfurt: Peter Lang, 2016.

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Research paper thumbnail of Constantine and Episcopal Banishment: Continuity and Change in the Settlement of Christian Disputes

Clerical Exile in Late Antiquity, ed. J. Hillner, J. Enberg, and J. Ulrich. Frankkfurt: Peter Lang, 2016.

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Research paper thumbnail of Éléments apologétiques chez Victor de Vita : exemple d’un genre littéraire en transition

Shifting Genres in Late Antiquity, ed. G. Greatrex and H. Elton, Jan 2015

This chapter analyses the literary genre of Victor of Vita’s Historia Persecutionis Africanae pro... more This chapter analyses the literary genre of Victor of Vita’s Historia Persecutionis Africanae provinciae. It argues that Victor’s text is a hybrid one, since it presents the characteristics of three distinct literary genres – historiography, hagiography and apologia. These characteristics were required by the author’s intentions in compiling the Historia, as also by his perception of contemporary events. Indeed, the mysterious author of Vita regards the Vandals as indisputable persecutors and constructs a plot around the events that he describes as a repetition of past persecutions, especially the Great Persecution under Diocletian. Victor deploys certain characteristics that belong to hagiography in order to represent the Vandals as persecutors, as also some elements of the historiographical genre in order to ensure the credibility of his narrative. His presentation of documents, such as the royal edicts, for example, recalls Eusebius’ Church history, which Victor undoubtedly knew through the translation of Rufinus. His borrowings from the apologetic genre can also be explained by his perception of contemporary events as the repetition of past persecutions. The author thus, quite logically, resorts to the literary genre that had helped the Christians of the first four centuries overcome Roman intolerance and to galvanise the Christian communities against attacks by the Roman state. For Victor the only possible option in response to Vandal intolerance was to rally the ‘troops’ to face the assault, just like the Christians of earlier centuries. This chapter provides an example of the adaptation of literary genres to the new realities of Late Antiquity – the replacement of the dichotomy pagan/Christian with that of ‘barbarian’-heretic/Roman-Christian. Moreover, Victor offers an instance of the survival and transformation of a genre – apologia – usually associated with the first centuries of the Christian era and little studied in the context of Late Antiquity.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of "Victor of Vita and the Conference of 484: A Pastiche of 411?"

Studia Patristica 62, vol. X (2013).

""In 411 AD, following a century of religious conflicts within the North African provinces of th... more ""In 411 AD, following a century of religious conflicts within the North African provinces
of the Roman Empire, Nicene bishops succeeded in declaring their opponents
– ‘Donatists’ – heretics and thus liable to legal punishments. The ‘Catholic’ bishops
managed to reduce their religious opponents to silence through a council of bishops,
the conference of 411, which was in fact more a trial to convict ‘Donatists’ than an
open debate. The crucial factor in the triumph of the ‘Catholics’ was their success in
obtaining the support of civil authorities, first and foremost the Emperor Honorius, as
his edict of convocation to the conference indicates. Honorius wrote with the exasperated
tone of one eager to put this annoying conflict behind him, and looking forward to the
conclusion of this trial, the issue of which was already clear in his mind. ‘Donatists’,
realizing they had been trapped, resorted to all kinds of ‘diversion maneuvers’. But they
could not divert the outcome and were condemned. Victor of Vita’s depiction of a
conference between Nicene and Homoean – Vandal – bishops in 484 presents uncanny
similarities to the 411 conference. But in this case, the roles were reversed and the
Nicenes were in the position that ‘Donatists’ had found themselves in 75 years earlier.
This study argues that comparison between these two accounts, taken as representative of
the two great religious conflicts of late antique North Africa – ‘Catholics’ vs. ‘Donatists’
and Vandals vs. Nicenes – reveals a great deal of continuity in the methods of coercion
used to impose religious conformity, on the one hand, and, on the other, in the strategies
employed by the victims of these policies of religious unification. Indeed, Victor
included the edict of the Vandal king Huneric following the conference of 484, in which
the king admitted to recycling previous Roman anti-heretical laws. Conversely, Victor
depicted the Nicene bishops as having recourse to ‘diversion maneuvers’ similar to the
ones that ‘Donatists’ had used in 411. This strategy was a way for Victor to cast the
Vandals in a persecuting role and functioned as a tool of boundary maintenance, in order
to assert and reinforce distinctions between Nicenes and Vandals which were constantly
being eroded by the Vandal religious policy.""

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Rebaptism as a Ritual of Cultural Integration in Vandal Africa

Shifting Cultural Frontiers in Late Antiquity, edited by D. Brakke, D. Deliyannis and E. Watts, 243-54. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012.

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Research paper thumbnail of The 'Adventus' of Julian at Sirmium: The Literary Construction of Historical Reality in Ammianus Marcellinus

The Rhetoric of Power in Late Antiquity: Religion and Politics in Byzantium, Europe and the Early Islamic World, edited by E. DePalma Digeser, R.M. Frakes, and J. Stephens, 13-45. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2010.

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of The Reign of Constantius II, by Nicholas Baker-Brian

Journal of Early Christian Studies, 2024

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of Cult of the Dead: A Brief History of Christianity, by Kyle Smith

Church History, 2023

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of 'A Companion to Julian the Apostate,' edited by Rebenich and Wiemer

Studies in Late Antiquity, 2022

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of La construction sociale du sujet exclu (IVe-XIe siècle). Discours, lieux et individus, edited by S. Joye, M.C. La Rocca and S. Gioanni.

Le Moyen Âge, 2022

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of Christianity, Book-Burning, and Censorship in Late Antiquity, by Dirk Rohman

Augustinian Studies 52.1 (2021): 109-114

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of Bishops in Flight: Exile and Displacement in Late Antiquity, by Jennifer Barry

Church History 89.3 (2020): 665-7

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of Mens immobilis: recherches sur le corpus latin des actes et des passions d’Afrique romaine (IIe-VIe siècles), by S. Fialon,

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2020.07.04

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Research paper thumbnail of Civitas confusionis: de la participation des fidèles aux controverses doctrinales dans l'Antiquité tardive (début IIIe s. - c. 430), by M.-Y. Perrin

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2019.07.32

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of Being Christian in Vandal Africa. The Politics of Orthodoxy in the Post-Imperial West, by R. Whelan.

Journal of Late Antiquity 12.1 (2019): 264-6.

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of A History of Pannonia in the Late Roman Period, I (284-363), by P. Kovács.

Journal of Roman Archaeology 31 (2018): 890-2.

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of "Constantine: Religious Faith and Imperial Policy," edited by A. Edward Siecienski.

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2018.04.16.

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of Theoderic and the Roman Imperial Restoration, by Jonathan J. Arnold

Journal of Early Christian Studies, 2017

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of La "Passio sancta Salsae" (BHL 7467). Recherches sur une passion tardive d'Afrique du Nord, éd. S. Fialon and J. Meyers.

Antiquité Tardive 24 (2016): 530-4.

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of The Donatist Schism. Controversy and Contexts.

Studies in Late Antiquity: A Journal 1.2 (2017): 103-108.

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of "The End of the Pagan City," by Anna Leone.

Journal of Early Christian Studies 24.4 (2016): 608-9.

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of Littérature, politique et religion en Afrique vandale, edited by Étienne Wolff

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2016.11.50.

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of Julia Hillner, Prison, Punishment and Penance in Late Antiquity

The Ancient History Bulletin Online Review 6 (2016): 13-7.

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of Christianity in Roman Africa: The Development of Its Practices and Beliefs, by J. Patout Burns and Robin M. Jensen

Catholic Historical Review 102.1 (2016): 132-3.

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of Les Vandales et l'Empire Romain, by Yves Moderan

BMCR 2015.07.09

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of Banishment in the Later Roman Empire, 284-476 CE, by Dan Washburn

Journal of Early Christian Studies 23.3 (2015): 486-487.

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Research paper thumbnail of 12-Deogratias.pdf

Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity. Edited by P.J.J. van Geest, D.G. Hunter and B.J.L. Peerbolte. Leiden: Brill, 2022 (forthcoming)., 2022

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Research paper thumbnail of 11-Cerealis.pdf

Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity. Edited by P.J.J. van Geest, D.G. Hunter and B.J.L. Peerbolte. Leiden: Brill, 2022 (forthcoming)., 2022

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Research paper thumbnail of “The Church of the Martyrs: A North African Tradition, c. 250-500.”

SBL 2018, Denver, CO. Session S19-310: Contextualizing North African Christianity – Exploring the Meaning of African Identity among Christians in Vandal Africa.

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Research paper thumbnail of Excluding Heretics: Intolerant Bishops and Tolerant Vandals

According to the traditional interpretation, following the narrative of Victor of Vita’s History ... more According to the traditional interpretation, following the narrative of Victor of Vita’s History of the Vandal Persecution, Vandals were cruel persecutors of Nicene Christians in North Africa, particularly during the reigns of Geiseric and Huneric. In recent decades, however, critical studies have nuanced this one-sided approach in numerous ways and insisted that such Vandal religious policies were in continuity with previous Roman policies. In the words of Chris Wickham, “their religious persecution was entirely Roman” (The Inheritance of Rome, 77). Indeed, several studies have shown that the Vandal strategies of coercion to impose the Homoian confession throughout their kingdom were strongly inspired from anti-donatist legal measures enacted by the court of Honorius (395-423).
What these studies have missed, however, is the apparent selection process that Vandals effected from the abundant legal measures of Honorius’ court against Donatists. It is the argument of the present paper that in selecting the Roman legal precedents he was redeploying (HP 3.3 and 7: retorquere) following his own council of bishops in 484, which provided ecclesiastical justification for the religious unification he desired, Huneric and his court seem to have intentionally chosen the least coercive of the measures enacted by Honorius’ court. Indeed, while some of Honorius’ laws had prescribed the death penalty for Donatists who persisted in their beliefs and refused to join the Nicene faith (e.g. CTh. 16.5.44-5, 51; Sirm. 14; Aug. Ep. 100), Huneric’s regime recycled laws that used mainly fines and banishment. By contrast, the bishops whose petitions were at the root of the harshest laws seem, in definitive, responsible for the exclusion and increasingly harsh forms of coercion that heretics suffered in North Africa, before Vandals even crossed the strait of Gibraltar.

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Research paper thumbnail of Victor of Vita's Rhetorical Strategies: The Making of a Persecution in Vandal Africa

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Research paper thumbnail of ‘Persecution’: A Rhetorical Term of Polemic in Late Antiquity

This introduction will consist in a presentation of examples to highlight the polemical and rheto... more This introduction will consist in a presentation of examples to highlight the polemical and rhetorical aspects of the discourse of persecution that Christian authors developed against rival Christian factions after Constantine. While such examples are most obvious in Nicene writers living under non-Nicene rulers, such as Hilary of Poitiers, Lucifer of Cagliari, and Athanasius of Alexandria about Constantius II, Jerome, Epiphanius and Gregory Nazianzus on Valens, Victor of Vita about Vandal kings, they are also found in Augustine’s writings to defend against Donatist accusations of persecution. Passages of this sort are also ubiquitous in ecclesiastical historians of the fifth century.
Collectively, these examples illustrate that none of these claims to be victim of persecution were a neutral description of what happened. They constitute, rather, a discourse aiming to attack the claims to orthodoxy and legitimacy of the faction in power. As such, these claims are rhetorically constructed and belong to a context of strong polemic, a context of hotly contested debates on what constituted orthodoxy and what was the proper role of the emperor in its establishment and enforcement. This introduction will provide a few specific examples to illustrate how these authors constructed their argument to be victims of persecution. It will argue that these examples demonstrate the highly elusive nature of the term ‘persecution’ in this Christian context.

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Research paper thumbnail of The omissions of Ammianus Marcellinus and Victor of Vita: Witnesses of a religious polarization in Late Antiquity?

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Research paper thumbnail of Les silences d'Ammien Marcellin et de Victor de Vita: Témoins de la polarisation religieuse dans l'Antiquité tardive?

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Research paper thumbnail of Patristics on the Silver Screen: Hypatia and the Case of Agora

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Research paper thumbnail of L’Historia Persecutionis Africanae Prouinciae de Victor de Vita : un genre littéraire hybride

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Research paper thumbnail of Constantine and the Alleged Persecution of the "Donatists".

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Research paper thumbnail of Victor of Vita and the Conference of 484: A Pastiche of 411

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