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Hippolytus and the Cabbage Question: Beyond Acceptable Discipline and Diversity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Christine Trevett
Christine Trevett*
Affiliation:
Cardiff University
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Extract

Usually it is those of the mainstream in religion who impose upon those going against the flow discipline, doctrine and uniformity in place of flexibility. Before Christian orthodoxy and heresy had achieved clear definition, however, there were against-the-flow innovators who opposed flexibility. By requiring greater rigour and regularity in Christian practices they highlighted questions of authority and what manner of people might exercise it. The Church’s own self-definition and status as an institution evolved in response to such things.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 43: Discipline and Diversity , 2007 , pp. 36 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2007

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References

1 ‘Montanism’, beginning in the 150s, is a fourth-century designation. ‘The New Prophecy’ may have been its original name. On Roman Montanism, see Trevett, Christine, Montanism: Gender, Authority and the New Prophecy (Cambridge, 1996), esp. 55–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Debate continues about the Hippolytan corpus: Simonetti, Manlio, Nuovo richerche su Ippolito, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 30 (Rome, 1989), 75–130 Google Scholar; Cerrato, J. A., ‘“Hippolytus” On the Song of Songs and the New Prophecy’, Studia Patristica 31(1997), 268–73 Google Scholar; idem, Hippolytus between East and West: the Commentaries and the Provenance of the Corpus (Oxford, 2002) and cf.Brent, Allen, Hippolytus and the Roman Church in the Third Century: Communities in Tension before the Emergence of a Monarch Bishop (Leiden, 1995), 204–365.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Wendland, Paul, ed., Hippolytus Werke III, Refutatio Omnium Haeresium (Leipzig, 1916)Google Scholar. Sources on fasting: Arbesmann, Rudolf, Dos Fasten bei den Griechen und Römern (Giessen, 1929)Google Scholar; idem, ‘Fasting and Prophecy in Pagan and Christian Antiquity’, in Kuttner, S., Strittmatter, A., and Quain, E., eds, Traditio 7: 1 (New York, 1949–51), 1–72 Google Scholar; Nagel, Peter, Die Motivierung der Askese in der alten Kirche und der Ursprung der Mönchtums, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur 95 (Berlin, 1966)Google Scholar [hereafter: TU]; Wimbush, V. M., ed., Ascetic Behaviour in Greco-Roman Antiquity: a Sourcebook (Minneapolis, MN, 1990)Google Scholar; McGowan, Andrew, Ascetic Eucharists: Food and Drink in Early Christian Ritual Meals (Oxford, 19991) CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Francis, James A., Subversive Virtue: Asceticism and Authority in the Second-Century Pagan World (Philadelphia, PA, 1995)Google Scholar.

4 For many of the sources for Montanism, see Heine, R., The Montanist Oracles and Testimonia (Macon, GA, 1989)Google Scholar.

5 See Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 5.16.6 (Anonymous), trans, in Lake, K., Eusebius: the Ecclesiastical History I, Books I-V, LCL (London, 1980)Google Scholar [hereafter: EH]; Hippolytus Refutation, 10.25. Origen (Frag. On the Epistle to Titus, PG 14, 1306) noted debate about whether Cataphrygianism (= Montanism) was heresy or schism and cf. Epiphanius’s early anti-Montanist source (Medicine Box, 48.1.1; 48.1.3-4; 48.1.6-7; 48.12.1), in F. Williams, trans., The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, 2 vols (Leiden, 1987–93).

6 Later and fragmented Montanism was at odds with some doctrines of the Church: Stewart-Sykes, A., ‘The Original Condemnation of Asian Montanism’, JEH 50 (1999), 1–22 Google Scholar, at 1–6; idem, ‘The Asian Context of the Epistula Apostolorum and the New Prophecy’, Vigiliae Christianae 51 (1997), 416–38; Paulsen, H., ‘Die Bedeutung des Montanismus für die Herausbildung des Kanons’, Vigiliae Christianae 32 (1978), 19–52 Google Scholar; Trevett, Montanism, 198–232; Trevett, ‘Spiritual Authority and the “Heretical” Woman: Firmilian’s Word to the Church in Carthage’, in Drijvers, J.-W. and Watt, J., eds, Portraits of Spiritual Authority: Religious Power in Early Christianity, Byzantium and the Christian Orient (Leiden, 1999), 45–62 Google Scholar (showing common liturgical practice with Catholics).

7 The edition of Tertullian’s writings used is E. Kroymann, Quinti Septimi Florentis Tertulliani Opera, CSEL 47 (Vienna, 1906).

8 On Fasting, 10. Among Catholic Christians there had been choice, and a station was just a few hours long. Compare Hermas, The Shepherd: Similitudes, 5.1.

9 Pagels, Elaine H., ‘Adam and Eve, Christ and the Church: a Survey of Second-Century Controversies Concerning Marriage’, in Logan, A. B. and Wedderburn, A. J. M., eds, The New Testament and Gnosis: Essays in Honour of A. M. L. Wilson (Edinburgh, 1983), 146–75 Google Scholar. On Montanist compulsion versus Catholic flexibility about second marriages, see Epiphanius, Medicine Box, 48.9.4-8. Compare Tertullian, Against Marcion, 1.29.

10 Trevett, Montanism, 112–20; eadem, ‘“I Have Heard from Some Teachers”: the Second-Century Struggle for Forgiveness and Reconciliation’, in Cooper, Kate and Gregory, Jeremy, eds, Retribution, Repentance and Reconciliation, SCH 40 (Woodbridge, 2004), 5–28 Google Scholar.

11 Compare Apollonius of Tyana on his Pythagorean light, meatless diet of bread, vegetables (lachana – but for preference wild-grown herbs) and dried fruits (Philostratus, Life, 1.8; 2.37; 8.7; 18), in C. P. Jones, ed. and trans., Philostratus: the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, LCL, 2 vols (London, 2005).

12 See e.g. Grimm, Veronika E., From Feasting to Fasting: the Evolution of a Sin; Attitudes to Food in Late Antiquity (London, 1996), 104–39 Google Scholar (on Tertullian) and Stewart-Sykes, A., ‘Bread, Fish, Water and Wine: the Marcionite Menu and the Maintenance of Purity’, in May, G. and Greschat, K., eds, Marcion una seine kirchengeschichtliche Wirkung/Marcion and His Impact on Church History, TU 130 (Berlin, 2002), 207–20 Google Scholar. Compare Prisca’s Saying: They are flesh, and they hate the flesh’, in Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, 11.2.

13 Unlike some religious groups and philosophical schools, Montanists were not vegetarian and eschewed meat only during specific fasts. Haussleiter, J., Der Vegetarismus in der Antike (Berlin, 1935)Google Scholar; Spencer, C., The Heretic’s Feast: a History of Vegetarianism (Hanover, NH and London, 1995)Google Scholar; Osborne, Catherine, ‘Ancient Vegetarianism’, in Wilkins, J., Harvey, D., and Dobson, M., eds, Food in Antiquity (Exeter, 1995), 214–24.Google Scholar

14 (Marcus Gavius) Apicius is the cognomen of writers of the De re coquinaria, On the Art of Cooking, which is the product of several centuries: Edwards, J., The Roman Cookery of Apicius (London, 1985)Google Scholar.

15 Trevett, Montanism, 105–19.

16 ‘Innovations’, ‘deviations’ (Eusebius, EH, 4.27 [Apolinarius]), prophesying ‘contrary to custom’ and ‘abnormally’ (EH, 5.16.7 and 9 [Anonymous]) are early accusations preserved by Eusebius. Hippolytus decried their ‘countless books’ (Refutation, 8.19).

17 Nésteia, like Latin ieiunium, signified complete abstention from food and drink, but the word might also encompass something less strict, involving certain kinds of food only. See e.g. Acts of Thomas 20 (bread, salt and water): trans, in Bornkamm, G., Wilson, R. McL., ‘The Acts of the Holy Apostle Thomas’, in Hennecke, E. and Schneemelcher, W., eds, New Testament Apocrypha (London, 1974), 425–531, at 453.Google Scholar

18 The word in the text is in fact an emendation for an evidently corrupt form.

19 Stewart-Sykes’s summary of his findings on Melito’s Peri Pascha suggested that ‘The Quartodecimans at Sardis gathered, fasting in memory of the sufferings of the Lord, before midnight of the fourteenth Nisan/Xanthikos… and kept watch with their lamps lit. Around midnight they broke their fast and joined in a joyous table rite, with music and dancing, as they realised the presence of the risen Lord’. See Stewart-Sykes, A, The Lamb’s High Feast: Melito ‘Peri Pascha’ and the Quartodeciman Paschal Liturgy at Sardis, Vigiliae Christianae Suppl. 42 (Leiden, 1998), 206 Google Scholar, cf. 131.

20 Tertullian contrasted it with a rich, carefully prepared diet (On Fasting, 15), comparing it with the ‘angelic bread’ which the Israelites complained of in the wilderness (On Fasting, 5). Canon 50 of the fourth-century Council of Laodicea described the Lent-long ‘fast’ as xerophagy. Percival, H. R., The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church: Their Canons and Dogmatic Decrees (Oxford, 1900), 123–60 Google Scholar, esp. 155. Xerophagy is maintained still among Orthodox Christians: see Ware, Kallistos and Mary, Mother, trans., The Lenten Triodion (1977; rpt. London, 1994)Google Scholar.

21 McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists, 164, takes this to mean ‘periods without drink’. Catholics saw no apostolic precedent for xerophagy (Tertullian, On Fasting, 9).

22 In On the Art of Cooking (de re coquinaria) almost half of the recipes are for sauces. See Flower, B. and Rosenbaum, E., The Roman Cookery Book: a Critical Translation of The Art of Cooking (London, 1958), 19 Google Scholar. Montanist practice may show the first regularized Christian use of it. See Arbesmann, ‘Fasting and Prophecy’, 2 n. 9.

23 In addition to the literature in n. 3 above, see too Wilkins, Harvey, and Dobson, Food in Antiquity, 218–38.

24 This is not synonymous with the ‘drying’ diet especially advocated for some women, which might include taking little fluid, eating the ‘dry’ domesticated pigeon and no bitter greens.

25 McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists, 167.

26 Lampe, G. W. H., ed., A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford, 1961), 1215.Google Scholar

27 Legge, F., Philosophumena, or the Refutation of all Heresies (London, 1921), 114 Google Scholar. Cerrato similarly assumes the meaning to be vegetables and roots (Hippolytus between East and West, 213), while McGowan (Ascetic Eucharists, 167) refers to ‘cabbage-eating’. Contrast Macmahon, J. H., Hippolytus, Bishop of Rome, vol. 1: The Refutation of All Heresies (Edinburgh, 1868), 325 n. 2.Google Scholar

28 More probably on the side of John the Seer of the Apocalypse than of the female prophet nicknamed ‘Jezebel’, who countenanced food ‘sacrificed to idols’ (Rev. 2: 29).

29 See Arbesmann, Fasten, 118–22 on the ancient schools of medicine.

30 Compare M. Porcius Cato, On Agriculture, 156.1 and 157.10. Cabbage types (Pliny, Natural History, 19.8.41) and their juice treated a huge range of ailments. The simple brassica and brassica erratica (wild cabbage) were common food and not for gourmets. Apicius mentioned only the smaller, more refined ‘sprout’ varieties (De re coquinaria, 3.9; 4.4; 5.5).

31 Hooper, W. D., trans., Marcus Porcius Cato On Agriculture. Marcus Terentius Varro On Agriculture, LCL (London, 1934), esp. 156–7 Google Scholar (157.3 was quoted).

32 On Agriculture, 157.12. After Cato the humble brassica was scarcely mentioned, giving way to the gourmets’ greens. It was food for the poor.

33 Neither the de-tox process nor the cabbage-soup diet (not far removed from Cato’s recommendations) are new. To some the radish (associated with flatulence) was ‘vulgar’ but beneficial for many ailments: Pliny, Natural History, 20.10.12-13, trans, in W. H. S. Jones, Pliny. Natural History, LCL (London, 1951).

34 Quartodeciman (‘fourteener’) Christians celebrated Easter on the day of fourteenth Nisan, the Jewish Passover.

35 Ford, J. M., “Was Montanism a Jewish-Christian Heresy?’, JEH 17 (1966), 145–68.Google Scholar

36 Lohse, B., Dos Passafest der Quartadecimaner (Gütersloh, 1953)Google Scholar; Hall, Stuart G., ed., Melito of Sardis: On Pascha and Fragments (Oxford, 1979)Google Scholar; idem, The Origins of Easter’, Studia Patristica 15 (1984), 554–67; Talley, C.J., The Origins of the Liturgical Year (New York, 1986), 5–53 Google Scholar; Bradshaw, Paul F. ‘The Origins of Easter’, in Bradshaw, and Hoffman, L. A., eds, The Passover and Easter Origins and History to Modern Times, Two Liturgical Traditions, vol. 5 (Notre Dame, IN, 1999), 81–97 Google Scholar and (in the same volume) Yuval, Israel J., ‘Easter and Passover as Early Jewish-Christian Dialogue’, 98–124 Google Scholar; Stewart-Sykes, Lamb’s High Feast.

37 Ford, Jewish-Christian’, 149.

38 Montanists’ appeal to Scriptures and prophets, their observance of ‘days’ and ‘months’ and abstinence from certain foods, smacked of judaism (On Fasting, 2; 14; cf. Gal. 4: 10; 5: 1). Tomson, Peter J., ‘Jewish Food Laws in Early Christian Community Discourse’, in Brenner, A. and van Henten, J.-W., eds, Semeia 86: Food and Drink in the Biblical Worlds, Society of Biblical Literature (Atlanta, GA, 2001), 193–213.Google Scholar

39 Johnson, Maxwell E., ‘Preparation for Pascha? Lent in Christian Antiquity’, in Bradshaw, P. F. and Hoffman, L. A., eds, Passover and Easter: the Symbolic Structuring of Sacred Seasons, Two Liturgical Traditions, vol. 6 (Notre Dame, IN, 1999), 36–54.Google Scholar

40 Stewart-Sykes, A. and Newman, J., Early Jewish Liturgy: a Source book for Use by Students of Early Christian Liturgy (Cambridge, 2001), 3 Google Scholar. So too Stewart-Sykes, Lamb’s High Feast, 31–54.

41 Bradshaw, ‘Easter in Christian Tradition’, 1–7; idem, ‘The Origins of Easter’, 81–97; Hoffman The Passover Meal in Jewish Tradition’, 8–26; Yuval, Israel J., ‘Early Jewish- Christian Dialogue’, 98–124 Google Scholar, all in Bradshaw and Hoffman, Passover and Easter.

42 This was common and cook-shop fare: D. and Brothwell, P., Food in Antiquity: a Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples (Baltimore, MD and London, 1998), 105–6.Google Scholar

43 Daniel avoided pollution, eating ‘seeds’ (70 suggests pulse-eating/ospriophagy, Latin has legumina). Daniel proved strong (1: 15), with knowledge of mysteries, visions and dreams (1: 17; cf. Tertullian, On Fasting, 7 and 9, and Bel and the Dragon, 31–9).

44 Lane Fox, Robin, Pagans and Christians in the Mediterranean World (Harmondsworth, 1986), 374–418 Google Scholar, at 396 assumes Montanist xerophagy served to elicit dreams and inspiration, as in pagan cults and oracles.

45 See Arbesmann, ‘Fasting and Prophecy’, 3–25, 59.

46 Trevett, Montanism, 22–6 on interest in 4 Ezra.

47 Compare I Kings 19: 3–11 and Tertullian, On Fasting, 6 and 9; Hermas, The Shepherd, Visions 2.2.1; 3.1.2; Ascension of Isaiah, 2.7-11. See too Arbesmann, ‘Fasting and Prophecy’.

48 See P. and M.-T. Nautin, eds, Origene: Homélies sur Samuel, SC 328 (Paris, 1986), on I Samuel 28. On Origen’s homily concerning the woman of Endor and for the opposition of Eustathius (De engastromytho contra Origenem), see Simonetti, M., ed. and trans., La maga di Endor, Biblioteca Patristica 15 (Florence, 1989)Google Scholar; Connor, Steven, Dumbstruck: a Cultural History of Ventriloquism (Oxford, 2000), 75–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49 Generally the upper classes found ascetic practices objectionable: Francis, Subversive Virtue, xvii, but ‘to view the socially deviant aspects of asceticism as a “cry of the oppressed” is incorrect’ (ibid.).

50 Trevett, Montanism, 15–55, on its rise in troubled times.

51 On posited conflict between rural (Montanist) and urban Christianities, W. H. C. Frend, Town and Countryside in Early Christianity’, in Baker, Derek, ed., The Church in Town and Countryside, SCH 16 (Oxford, 1979), 25–42 Google Scholar; idem, ‘Montanism: a Movement of Prophecy and Regional Identity in the Early Church’, BJRULM 70 (1988), 25–34 and cf.Williams, D. H., ‘The Origins of the Montanist Movement: a Sociological Analysis’, Religion 19 (1989), 331–51 Google Scholar; Kyrtatis, Dimitris J., The Social Structure of the Early Christian Communities (London, 1987), 94–5 Google Scholar; Stewart-Sykes, ‘Original Condemnation’.

52 See Trevett, ‘Spiritual Authority’.

53 Fasting Montanists identified with the suffering and grieving (Tertullian, On Fasting, 13), and giving to the poor what was saved (cf. Hermas, The Shepherd: Similitudes, 5.3-5).

54 McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists, 268–9: some Christians’ and many Cynics’ diet ‘had an economic as well as a ritual aspect to it’; the early Christian ascetic meal pattern did not have ‘an entirely élite social origin’. See too P. Garnsey’s valuable study, Food and Society in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge, 1999).

55 There is no anathematization in our source. Compare Tertullian, On Fasting, 1. The extant Refutation may be a draft, intended to become more detailed.