Manicheanism

"Presented at the International Medieval Congress, July 2009, University of Leeds, United Kingdom.

The collapse of the Western Roman Empire divided loyalties in Italy. Political divisions were compounded by Imperial intervention in a series of religious controversies which threatened to undermine the unity of both Church and Empire. One of our best sources for this turbulent period is a collection of biographies of the bishops of Rome known as the Liber Pontificalis (LP), compiled in the wake of the Acacian and Laurentian schisms which divided Rome and Constantinople (and the Roman Church itself) in the late fifth and early sixth centuries. This paper examines the LP's portrayal of Manichean and Arian heretics.  It is my contention that a close reading of the LP’s description of these heresies and their relationship to the bishops of Rome can illuminate the ongoing struggle for control and legitimacy within the Roman Church and between the Greek East and Latin West. Rome’s opposition to Manichaeism served to emphasize the orthodoxy of the See of St. Peter; the shifting view of Arianism in the LP demonstrates the malleable nature of heretical categories and the increasingly problematic nature of the Ostrogothic faith after the resolution of the Acacian Schism."

"Presented at the PMDG, University of Toronto, January 2014.

This paper considers the language of vigilantia – watchfulness, care, observation, even surveillance – as it was employed in the heresiological rhetoric of late antique episcopal sources, with a particular focus on the letters and sermons of Leo the Great, who was bishop of Rome from 440-461.

Vigilance is, of course, a feature of pastoral care – the care of the souls of the congregation entrusted to a bishop such as Leo. But when paired with heresy, the language of vigilance suggests something more comprehensive than the daily concerns of a bishop attending his flock. In the context of heresy, it constitutes a claim to the authority to delineate the boundaries of correct belief and an assertion of the expert knowledge needed to detect and expose a particularly perilous problem: the heretic who effectively mimicked orthodoxy. The most dangerous, the most sinister heretic was one who could simulate correct belief, hiding behind false claims of conformity with the ultimate intention of betrayal. This kind of heretic – the one you can’t see, who on the surface appears entirely orthodox – prompted the most vitriolic language from men such as Leo as they attempted to rhetorically inscribe the boundary between correct and incorrect faith. "