Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity. Claudia Rapp
prayer. The third and last part of the chapter studies a specific kind of intercessory prayer, namely, that for the remission of sins as it was offered by martyrs, holy men, and bishops. It is in this context that the nexus to ascetic authority is most pronounced, because the efficacy of intercessory prayer is thought to correlate directly with an individual’s personal conduct.
The critical modern reader may find it strange or unnecessary to treat spiritual authority in isolation, given that it is in reality often coupled with ascetic authority. But there are exceptions where spiritual authority is operative by itself—for example, in the holy fools who employed every trick in the book to disguise their holiness from their contemporaries. Moreover, since the Christian authors themselves deal with spiritual authority as a separate category, we must take them at their word. Finally, a clear (perhaps artificially so) definition of spiritual authority can serve as an important diagnostic tool in identifying the commonalities among holy men who practice different lifestyles.
CARRIERS OF THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT
Pneumatophoros and Christophoros
In the growing Christian communities of the first centuries, certain individuals were singled out by their spiritual authority—the presence of the Holy Spirit or a special connection with Christ made manifest in special gifts or qualities. When Jesus was gathering his disciples, they became his “brothers” and “sisters.” As children of the same “father” in heaven, they formed one large spiritual family, whose members had been touched, transformed, and elevated by their personal encounter with God. These men and women had associated themselves with Jesus before his death, had been in the presence of the resurrected Christ, or had received the grace of the descent of the Holy Ghost. The apostles’ personal experience with God lent a special force to their preaching, and those who followed their beliefs looked to them as leaders and teachers. Some of the men and women who had joined the Christian community after the events of Pentecost were privileged as recipients of the Holy Spirit, even though they had not known the living or the resurrected Christ. In the Jerusalem church described in the Acts of the Apostles and the communities to whom Paul addressed his epistles, some members had the gift of the Spirit to exorcise, speak in tongues, and utter prophecies. These people were recognized as bearers of the Spirit (pneumatophoroi; sing., pneumatophoros) or bearers of Christ (christophoroi; sing., christophoros).
The idea that certain individuals are invested with the gifts of the Spirit did not come to an end with the apostolic age. In subsequent centuries, the application of the designation “bearer of the Spirit” or “bearer of Christ,” which had originally been reserved for the prophets and teachers, was enlarged to include martyrs, monks, holy men, priests, and bishops. They were recognized as such because the Spirit was manifest in a myriad of different ways. As Pseudo-Macarius put it in the late fourth century: “And even though there are thousands of pneumatophoroi, [God’s] grace is manifest in them in this way or that, in many parts and in many ways.”1 The concept of Spirit-bearers is central to the writing of the theologians Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150–ca. 220) and Origen (185–253). It plays an important role in the monastic spirituality of the fourth century, especially among authors of a mystical bent, such as Pseudo-Macarius and Didymus the Blind. To bear the Spirit becomes such a distinctive feature in the monastic pursuit of holiness that many authors of the fourth century and later invoked this concept if they wanted to bestow especially high praise on certain holy men. The emphasis these authors placed on the possibility of the Spirit to make itself manifest in individuals in their own day and age enabled them to link the present with the past in way that transcended time and history.
The most prominent gift of the Spirit that a pneumatophoros communicates for the benefit of others is that of teaching and preaching. Anyone whose teaching was believed to be invested with divine authority was considered a pneumatophoros. The divinely inspired gift of teaching was given first and foremost to the apostles, the evangelists, and the prophets, as well as to Moses.2 The fourth-century biblical commentator Didymus the Blind remarked that the first verse of Psalm 20 was said “either by the man who was a bearer of the Spirit, or by the Holy Spirit himself who was in him.”3 Elsewhere, he compared the pneumatophoros to a flutist, playing on the double meaning of the Greek word pneuma as “breath” and “spirit”: “In the same way as the flute-player produces the sound through the breath (ek pneumatos), so also the Spirit-bearing men (pneumatophoroi) are praiseworthy flutists.”4 In other words, the Spirit flows through the pneumatophoros and inspires his words in the same way as the flute-player uses his breath to produce a tune, an idea that was revisited by Didymus’s contemporary Macarius of Alexandria.5 The same connection between the Spirit and inspired preaching was made by Epiphanius of Salamis in the late fourth century in his rebuttal of the teachings of Paul of Samosata: “Whom shall I believe? With whom shall I agree? From whom shall I receive life in their teaching? From the holy evangelists and Spirit-bearers, who speak the Word that has been sent by the Father, or from these followers of Paul the Samosatian?”6
In addition to preaching and teaching, the pneumatophoros has the gift of discernment. He is able to recognize the true character of people he encounters. According to Pseudo-Macarius, “The inner man, who is called soul and mind, precious vessel, can be recognized and known only by God and by those who are perfect and Spirit-bearers.”7 It was thus high praise when Palladius referred to his teacher Evagrius Ponticus, the great theorist of monasticism in the fourth century, as “the blessed Evagrius, a man who was a Spirit-bearer and who had discernment (aner pneumatophoros kai diakritikos).” 8 Discernment further enabled the bearer of the Spirit to recognize demons even of the most deceitful kind. The mere presence of a pneumatophoros could force demons who had long been concealed to identify themselves and to reveal truths about others. As Pseudo-Macarius put it: “The spirits of evil [are] burnt up when they come near to a Spirit-bearing soul.”9 Countless hagiographical narratives tell such stories. One incident involves Macarius himself, who came across a skull by the roadside. The skull first introduced himself as belonging to a pagan priest and then identified his interlocutor: “But you are Macarius the Spirit-bearer.”10 Of particular relevance to the present study is the ability of pneumatophoroi to pray on behalf of others, which will be explained in greater detail below.
It was crucial to distinguish the true bearers of the Spirit from charlatans and pretenders. How was this done? In the early second century, Hermas suggested: “Evaluate the person who says that he is a bearer of the Spirit, on the basis of his works and his life.”11 The “works” that confirmed the legitimacy of a pneumatophoros were usually miracles as the result of intercessory prayer. The “life” of a pneumatophoros that lent credence to his spiritual abilities had to show his observance of the scriptures at the very least, and intense ascetic practices at best. The frequent application of pneumatophoros to holy men, monastic leaders, and bishops thus begs the question of the interrelation of divine grace and spiritual authority, on the one hand, with personal conduct and ecclesiastical office, on the other.
The bearer of Christ (christophoros) is a related concept. While this designation does not apply to the prophets of the Old Testament, who came before Christ, it is frequently used with reference to the apostles and, more generally, all those who are followers of Christ. A spurious letter by Ignatius of Antioch employs both terms in its address: “To Hero, the deacon of Christ, and the servant of God, a man honoured by God, and most dearly loved as well as esteemed, who carries Christ and the Spirit within him (christophoros kai pneumatophoros), and who is mine own in faith and love.”12 In the same, over-arching sense, Athanasius referred to his fellow orthodox Christians as “lovers of Christ and bearers of Christ.”13 More specifically, though, the designation “Christ-bearer” was applied to martyrs and holy men whose lives, conduct, and deaths bore witness to their imitation of Christ. “After Christ [came] the Christ-bearers,” declared Gregory of Nyssa in his Encomium on Saint Stephen.14 Likewise, the martyrs of the Great Persecution were “Christ-bearers” who were “striving for the greater gifts,” according to Phileas of Thmuis.15 Women, too, could earn this epithet. In a letter attributed to Ignatius of Antioch, the author conveyed greetings “to Mary, my daughter, most faithful, worthy of God, and bearing Christ,”16