The council of Ephesus in 431 which was later to be remembered as the third ecumenical council, was a miserable failure. Different parties of bishops convened and condemned each other, and thereby forced Emperor Theodosius II (408-450) to decide which council to endorse. The winner was Cyril of Alexandria (412-444) and his party, against the eastern dyophysite bishops who bitterly complained about Cyril’s unfair machinations and maneuvers. The sixth century Collectio Casinensis includes several documents that indicate that Cyril paid tons of gold to courtiers – the largest bribe known from antiquity. My talk discusses these documents within their immediate context: when did Cyril send gold and gifts to the court and to whom there? How were they disguised – if at all? Last but not least, why did he send these lavish bribes at all? This will be set within a larger framework of increasing ecclesiastical wealth in Late Antiquity, the discussion of gift giving vs. bribery and the Making of a (Cyrillian) Orthodoxy.
Volker Menze works on Ecclesiastical History in Late Antiquity. He published a monograph on Justinian and the Making of the Syrian Orthodox Church, he edited Syriac texts related to Eucharist communities and the early establishment of a non-Chalcedonian underground church, and his recent work includes an edited volume on Syriac hagiography (the Vita Barsauma), articles on the politics of church councils, book burnings, bribery, episcopal nepotism, and alternative ecclesiologies in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. He is finishing a monograph on The Last Pharaoh of Alexandria: Patriarch Dioscorus and Ecclesiastical Politics in the Later Roman Empire.
Zoom link:
https://ceu-edu.zoom.us/j/97413566507?pwd=bTJ4ZDBSelh1QmdidHNva1lEWW4xUT09
Meeting ID: 974 1356 6507
Passcode: 657640