March 1, 2019 | Veronika Wieser | HI Research Blog|
In late antique and early medieval societies, reflections on the present and future development of the Christian community were situated within an ongoing dialogue with the text of the Bible. In particular, the prophetical books of the Old and New Testaments, most prominently the Books of Ezekiel and Daniel, and the Revelation to John, provided central models for the perception of the world, for the individual’s confrontation with salvation and for the interpretation of socio-political changes. In the increasingly Christianised world of Late Antiquity, different notions of eschatology began to pervade late Roman society and we can observe a rising interest in prophetical texts and their apocalyptic interpretation. Particularly around the turn of the fifth century, Christian theologians and church authorities tried to integrate apocalyptic notions into a broader theological framework. This was reflected in the composition of new exegetical commentaries, including Jerome’s commentaries on Daniel and Ezekiel, as well as in the re-editing, correction and updating of earlier ones, such as the reworking of Victorinus of Petovio’s third-century Apocalypse commentary by Jerome and of Tyconius’ fourth-century one by Augustine. The reasons for this increased interest can be found not only in the gradual Christianisation of the late Roman world but also in contemporary political developments and the need to describe and interpret them. Christian church authorities, who often involved themselves in both ecclesiastical and political affairs, tried to interpret the political and military challenges of the time by means of the Bible in order to explore their eschatological dimension. Earlier anti-Roman apocalyptic interpretations, which antagonised the empire and its rulers, were reappraised in discussions about the empire’s stability and its perception of its enemies. Goths and Huns, who troubled the Roman army particularly in the decades around the turn of the century, could thus be interpreted as the apocalyptic peoples of Gog and Magog of Ezekiel 38/39 and Revelation 20, while questions about the duration of the empire could be answered according to the interpretation of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in the Book of Daniel. Thus, the end of the Roman Empire was no longer connected solely to military successes or failures, but could also be interpreted within an apocalyptic framework as a portent of the consummation of the world.
A large part of these late antique discussions of apocalypse, salvation and the Last Judgment, does not appear in lengthy exegetical commentaries, however, instead popping up as fragments in a variety of other genres, ranging from sermons and letters to hagiography, historiography and chronicles. Such interpretations were often expressed as spontaneous reactions to alarming events – like Hesychius of Salona’s musings on the significance of the appearance of a comet in 418 – as deliberations about political change – like Salvian of Marseille’s admonishments concerning God’s impending Judgment, prompted by the devastating wars and conflicts in Gaul – or as part of a spiritual attitude – like Sulpicius Severus’ conjunction of prophetic visions and ascetic ideals, as exemplified by his works on Martin of Tours.
When examining these expressions of apocalyptic thought and the efforts of contemporaries to understand the world they were living in, it becomes apparent that reality was often more complex than, for instance, the straightforward identification of barbarians with apocalyptic peoples would suggest. This stands at the core of my research. I examine the intersection of historiography, hagiography, political and religious developments and the use of the Bible in the transformative period of the fourth to sixth centuries in order to situate the different modes of apocalyptic thought within a larger social context and to explore its variety.
A particularly fruitful example for examining the connection between historiography, prophecy and apocalyptic thought is the chronicle of Hydatius, bishop of the Galician town of Aquae Flaviae, modern Chavez, in Portugal. Hydatius provided a detailed account of the history of the Western Roman Empire from 379 to 469, in which he connected Roman political history, vignettes of church history, biblical prophecies and different systems of reckoning to each other. Having closely read the prophetical books of the Old Testament canon and studied the apocalyptic passages in the New Testament, Hydatius concluded that God’s judgment was at hand and various portents would prove its imminence. Observing the political events unfolding around him, he was convinced that the end of the world would arrive on 27 May, 482.
The impact of the profound political changes, which had started at the beginning of the fifth century, became apparent in Hydatius’ time, as new political entities were created in the Western Empire. Hydatius addressed these political developments by documenting the events that lead to the gradual breakdown of central political power in the West. He told the history of the Roman provinces of Gaul and Spain, and focused on the continuous regional rivalries and conflicts between barbarian warlords, and on the consequences and afflictions for the Roman population down to his own day.
His historical account is permeated by an apocalyptic discourse. Elements of all three above-mentioned prophetic books – Daniel, Ezekiel and Revelation – can be found in the chronicle, where they are used as models of interpretation to give meaning to political events. The chronicle’s apocalyptic narrative starts with Hydatius’ account of the invasions of 409/410, in which he draws a parallel with passages from the Books of Ezekiel and Lamentations, which both narrate the horrors of warfare during Jerusalem’s besiegement, as well as with the section of Revelation on the opening of the fourth seal, for not only barbarians but also the four biblical plagues of ‘sword, famine, pestilence, and wild beasts’ were ‘raging everywhere throughout the world’:
As the barbarians ran wild through Spain and the deadly pestilence
continued on its savage course, the wealth and goods stored in the
cities were plundered by the tyrannical tax-collector and consumed
by the soldiers. A famine ran riot, so dire that driven by hunger human
beings devoured human flesh; mothers too feasted upon the bodies of
their own children whom they had killed and cooked with their own hands;
wild beasts, habituated to feeding on the bodies of those slain by sword,
famine, or pestilence, killed all the braver individuals and feasting on
their flesh everywhere became brutally set upon the destruction of the
human race. And thus with the four plagues of sword, famine, pestilence,
and wild beasts raging everywhere throughout the world, the annunciations
foretold by the Lord through his prophets came to fulfilment.
(Chron. a. 409, § 16, ed. and transl. by Richard Burgess, p. 83)
Parallels to the text of the Bible:
For thus saith the Lord GOD; How much more when I send my four
sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the
noisome beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast?
(Ez 14:21)
Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:
their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with
hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of
the field. The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children:
they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
(Lamentations 4:8-10)
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him
was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto
them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with
hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.
(Revelation 6)
For Hydatius, the breakdown of moral values and social conventions, as exemplified by the image of mothers devouring their children, signals the end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the End Times.
For his apocalyptic interpretations, Hydatius did not turn only to the worrying political developments; he also turned his gaze towards the heavens. There are 28 entries in the chronicle that refer to disastrous portents, such as solar and lunar eclipses, comets, earthquakes, the aurora borealis and a halo. These are sometimes described precisely, stating the day of the week, the time of their appearance and the duration, as in the case of a solar eclipse occurring on Tuesday, 23 December, 447. Phenomena that were more distant chronologically from Hydatius’ time were described in less exact terms, and some of them were not even classified as true signa, but as natural occurrences. Some may be found in other sources, such as the famous eclipse of 19 July, 418. As witnessed in the works of Ovid and Pliny, there was a long antique tradition of studying and categorising celestial phenomena. Other chroniclers writing before Hydatius, like Eusebius and Jerome, had also documented exceptional natural occurrences, such as earthquakes, famines, plagues or comets. Later, early medieval chroniclers would frequently add information about weather conditions, ranging from the description of a harsh winter to a downpour of frogs, to news about the outcome of a battle or the death of a king. In Hydatius’ chronicle, however, the description and use of natural and celestial phenomena is particularly noticeable.
It is striking that the concentration of these phenomena, which are clearly defined as apocalyptic signs, is relatively dense in the 450s. This is especially true of the years between the death of Empress Gallia Placidia in 450, which was accompanied by an earthquake, and the murder of the Roman general Aëtius in 454, which was announced by a halo. The entry for the year 451, which features the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, is an especially instructive example, because it links events, biblical allusions to the Book of Daniel and portents closely to each other:
Placidia, the mother of the emperor Valentinan died in Rome. In Gaellaecia
there were constant earthquakes and a great many signs appeared in the
sky. On Tuesday, 4 April, after sunset, the northern sky became red like fire
or blood, with brighter streaks shaped like glowing red spears intermingled
through the fiery redness. The manifestation of this portent, which was soon
thoroughly explained by a momentous outcome, lasted from nightfall until
almost the third hour of the night. The tribe of the Huns broke the peace
treaty, pillaged the provinces of Gaul, and sacked a vast number of cities.
In the Catalaunian Plains, not far from the city of Mettis, which they had
sacked, the Huns were defeated and slaughtered with divine assistance,
fighting in open battle against the dux Aëtius and King Theoderic, who were
joined in peaceful alliance. It was the darkness of night which broke off the
fighting. King Theoderic died here after being thrown to the ground. Almost
300,000 men are said to have fallen in this battle. Many signs appeared this
year. On 26th of September the moon was darkened in the eastern sky. That
certain things seen in the sky in areas of Gaul around the following Easter did
occur is vividly proved by a letter of Eufronius, bishop of Augustodunum, to
the comes Agrippinus concerning these matters. A comet [Halley’s comet]
began to appear from 18 June; by the 29th it was visible at dawn in the eastern
sky and was soon perceived after sunset in the western sky.
(Chron. a. 451, § 140-143, ed. and transl. by Richard Burgess, pp. 100-103)
From the year 461 onwards until the last entry in 468, the portents become more pronounced, with the same number documented as appear in the previous 81 years combined. In this section of the chronicle, natural occurrences were primarily defined as portentous biblical manifestations; they always accompany or herald important events and are accorded a fitting apocalyptic interpretation.
Arguing from a historical perspective, Hydatius drafted a Christian history from its beginning to what he believed would be its eventual, biblical end. In the preface, he instructed his successors at the episcopal see to continue the task of documenting the Last Days ‘at that time at which they encounter them’. He was thus not only expecting the End Times, he was already living in ‘the time of the end’ (Agamben, Die Zeit, die bleibt, p. 75). The combination of Hydatius’ thorough studies of biblical prophecies, his careful observation and documentation of events, and his historical methodology generated a text with a historical as well as a prophetic dimension. Here lies one central challenge for understanding the chronicle. Although Hydatius’ text is a very valuable source for the history of the Spanish provinces in the fifth century, its entries always have a specific biblical dimension as well. This makes it difficult and sometimes even impossible to distinguish between information and interpretation, as the example of 409/410 demonstrates. Keeping that in mind, Hydatius’ chronicle allows us to examine how apocalyptic thought was integrated into Christian historiography and to gain a deeper understanding of the way one observer in the middle of the fifth century thought the end of the Roman Empire and the arrival of God’s kingdom would unfold.
