Samuel Cohen
Sonoma State University, History, Faculty Member
- University of Toronto, History, Alumnusadd
- History, Ostrogothic Italy, Late Antiquity, Roman History, Medieval History, Ancient Greece and Rome, and 29 moreAncient Rome, Archeologia Tardoantica E Cristiana, Mediterranean Studies, Religion and Violence, Roman Empire, Religious Minorities, Heresy and Orthodoxy, Ancient Greek History, Heresy, Papacy (Medieval Church History), Archaeology, Early Christianity, Byzantine Studies, Jewish - Christian Relations, Religious Diversity, Historiography, Ravenna, Arianism, Western Arianism, Medieval Studies, Classics, Manichaeism, Pelagianism, History of the Papacy, Homoianism, medieval islam and Judaism, Ancient History, Late Antique Archaeology, and Late Antique and Byzantine Historyedit
- Ph.D. Toronto (that's me with a giant head of Constantine. I’m the one on the right). My research interests include ... morePh.D. Toronto (that's me with a giant head of Constantine. I’m the one on the right).
My research interests include the late Roman Empire, the evolution of the concept of heresy, the bishops of Rome, sacred topography, polemic and rhetoric, migration, as well as the place of minority and non-conforming peoples in late antique Christian society.edit
This introduction frames a collection of four papers, originally presented at the 13th Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity conference, that examine late antique episcopal responses to disaster, typically military defeats caused by the... more
This introduction frames a collection of four papers, originally presented at the 13th Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity conference, that examine late antique episcopal responses to disaster, typically military defeats caused by the barbarians. To contextualize what follows, this essay begins by introducing various ways disaster researchers define disaster, as well as the related concepts of hazard and vulnerability. The paper also examines several terminological and methodological challenges associated with the application of modern disaster studies to the ancient world. Importantly, disasters cannot be separated from their social context. Indeed, thinking of disasters as social phenomena encourages historians to look beyond the disaster events themselves, to consider why and how those in power reacted (or failed to react) and what the experience was like for the individuals who lived through them. Finally, this essay serves as an argument against the simplistic association of the period of Late Antiquity with disaster.
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This essay explores how Gregory I (bishop of Rome, 590–604) depicted two Lombard sieges of Rome, traditionally dated to 592 and 593. These events, when they are discussed, are typically presented in a litany of disasters that befell Rome... more
This essay explores how Gregory I (bishop of Rome, 590–604) depicted two Lombard sieges of Rome, traditionally dated to 592 and 593. These events, when they are discussed, are typically presented in a litany of disasters that befell Rome at the end of the sixth century. Plague, famine, flooding, and ultimately the “swords of the Lombards” were the depressing context of Gregory’s pontificate. However, a close examination of Gregory’s letters, the principal source for Rome in this period, reveals that the bishop’s presentation of these Lombard attacks evolved considerably between 591 and 595. Indeed, it was only in response to several controversies with the East, including criticisms by the exarch Romanus and especially the use of the title universalis episcopus (typically translated into English as ecumenical patriarch) by Patriarch John IV of Constantinople (582–95), that Gregory came to recast the Lombard campaigns as disasters for Rome and the causes of great suffering. Rome’s suffering then served as a rhetorical foil against which Gregory contrasted what he saw as the callous neglect of imperial officials and especially John’s prideful asceticism performed in the safety of Constantinople.
Research Interests: Christianity, Rhetoric, Late Antique and Byzantine History, Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, Disaster Studies, and 11 moreEarly Christianity, Papacy (Medieval Church History), Late Antiquity, Topography of Ancient Rome (Archaeology), Christianity and Rome, Ancient Rome, Gregory the Great, Lombard Italy, Siege Warfare, Lombards, and History of the Papacy
This chapter reconsiders the violence associated with the contested elections of three Roman bishops: Damasus (366–84), Boniface (418–22) and Symmachus (498–514). My focus on the Roman church is a consequence of the availability of... more
This chapter reconsiders the violence associated with the contested elections of three Roman bishops: Damasus (366–84), Boniface (418–22) and Symmachus (498–514). My focus on the Roman church is a consequence of the availability of evidence, but I will also consider how contested episcopal elections elsewhere in Italy compare to those at Rome. As we shall see, personal ambition, the size and complexity of the Roman church, the lack of clear procedures for episcopal elections, and the diminution of the coercive power of the state in the city from the late third century onwards increased the potential for intra-Christian conflict following the death of a bishop. These conflicts focused especially on controlling (or attempting to control) specific buildings and areas of the city. The descriptions of the resulting violence, which featured club- and sword-wielding thugs, massacres in churches and attacks against rival candidates in the streets, still shock with their apparent callous brutality. This has occasionally led to the mischaracterising of these episodes as riots or examples of mob violence, expressions that implicitly lay the blame upon the faceless, fanatical multitude. However, as I will argue below, the violence associated with contested Roman episcopal elections was intentional, carefully coordinated and deployed from the top down as part of deliberate strategy to gain control of the see of St Peter.
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This essay introduces our special volume of »Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum«, which examines the relationship between migration and religious identity in the late antique Mediterranean world, and how this relationship was described... more
This essay introduces our special volume of »Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum«, which examines the relationship between migration and religious identity in the late antique Mediterranean world, and how this relationship was described and occasionally manipulated in our surviving sources. The contributions, which began as papers presented at two workshops organized by András Handl (KU Leuven) and Samuel Cohen (Sonoma State University) entitled »Migration. Rhetoric and reality in Late Antiquity« held at the XVIII International Conference on Patristics Studies at Oxford University in the summer of 2019, explore how religious ideas spread through the movement of men and women across the Mediterranean; the reception of new arrivals by religious authorities and the influence migrants had upon their host communities; and how the emerging landscape of Christian sacred topography transformed assumptions about boundaries. What unites these different approaches is a shared interest in the rhetorical strategies employed in both artistic and textual sources to describe migrants and migration.
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This article examines the relationship between heresy, charity, and community in mid fifth-century Rome through the lens of Leo I’s anti-Manichaean persecution of 443/44. Importantly, Leo’s preaching against Manichaeism took place in the... more
This article examines the relationship between heresy, charity, and community in mid fifth-century Rome through the lens of Leo I’s anti-Manichaean persecution of 443/44. Importantly, Leo’s preaching against Manichaeism took place in the context of migration. According to the bishop, Manichaean heretics had migrated to the city of Rome due to »a disturbance in other places« (aliarum regionum perturbatio), almost certainly a reference to the Vandal conquest of North Africa. In addition, his preaching coincided with a reimagining of Rome’s social structure away from traditional notions of citizenship bound by civic euergetism towards a new Christian conception of society, which emphasized the deserving poor – the populus dei – receiving alms administered by the church under the authority and patronage of its bishop. In this context, the Manichaean functioned didactically as the ultimate ›other‹. As heretics and outsiders to the city, they were the perfect foil against which Leo could contrast his populus dei, and thereby delineate the boundaries of his community. Indeed, Leo’s condemnations of Manichaeans can be found principally in sermons about other topics including charity, a theme that was particularly well-suited to address questions of community and belonging.
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This article considers the rededication of two formerly "Arian" churches, S. Severinus and S. Agata dei Goti, by Gregory I, Bishop of Rome from 590 until 604. These rededications are investigated from three perspectives. Part I sketches... more
This article considers the rededication of two formerly "Arian" churches, S. Severinus and S. Agata dei Goti, by Gregory I, Bishop of Rome from 590 until 604. These rededications are investigated from three perspectives. Part I sketches the historical and topographical context of the buildings. Part II considers Gregory's motives. Without denying the practical benefits of church restorations, rededication was an inexpensive way for Gregory to display papal authority during a time of diminished resources and an opportunity to publicly perform and reinforce Rome's orthodox Christian identity. The final part of this paper examines the rhetorical strategies employed by Gregory to describe the rededication of S. Agata in the Dialogues. Importantly, the story of S. Agata is part of a series of vignettes illustrating the victory of Christian orthodoxy over heresy, especially Arianism. This narrative took on added significance in the early 590s as the Lombards threatened the city of Rome. The saints chosen by Gregory to rededicate S. Agata and S. Severinus may have been intended to evoke both the Arian past and the orthodox present of these churches. And although the rituals used to make S. Agata fit for Catholic worship were not significantly different from those used to dedicate any church in late antique Rome, Gregory transformed the rededication ceremony into a dramatic story of the triumph of the city's orthodox community, its church, and its bishop.
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This essay examines the relationship between Gelasius, bishop of Rome from 492 to 496, and the Ostrogothic court, which occasioned several jurisdictional questions: the Roman church’s authority to adjudicate controversies within... more
This essay examines the relationship between Gelasius, bishop of Rome from 492 to 496, and the Ostrogothic court, which occasioned several jurisdictional questions: the Roman church’s authority to adjudicate controversies within suburbicarian Italy, the proper venue to judge disputes involving clerics, and the appropriate involvement of the Ostrogoths in resolving these questions. Importantly, Gelasius did not identify the Ostrogoths as Arian heretics; but neither did he view their religion as equivalent to his own. This ambiguity, together with Theoderic’s stated aim of preserving traditional Roman law, provided Gelasius with rhetorical ammunition as he attempted to navigate the vexing jurisdictional landscape that characterized Ostrogothic Italy.
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This essay examines the use of heresiological rhetoric in the letters and tractates of Leo I (bishop of Rome, 440–461) written in defense of the Council of Chalcedon (451). In these texts, Leo claimed the Constantinopolitan monk Eutyches... more
This essay examines the use of heresiological rhetoric in the letters and tractates of Leo I (bishop of Rome, 440–461) written in defense of the Council of Chalcedon (451). In these texts, Leo claimed the Constantinopolitan monk Eutyches and his supporters, the Eutychians, were an existential threat to the faith. However, Leo’s Eutychians were a heresiological confabulation. Heresiology employs polemical comparison and hostile classification to demarcate the boundaries of authentic Christianity. Because heresiology understands heresy genealogically, contemporary error could be described and condemned thanks to its affiliation with previous heretical sects. This was largely a taxonomic exercise; naming heresies allowed their supposed errors to be categorized and compared, especially with its (imagined) antecedents. Leo employed precisely this kind of comparison to associate Eutyches with earlier heresiarchs. He then reduced all opposition to Chalcedon to ‘Eutychianism,’ the error named for Eutyches, or else to its opposite and equally incorrect counterpart ‘Nestorianism’—both of which were, according to Leo, part of the same diabolically inspired misunderstanding of Christ. In short, Leo transformed Eutyches, the man, into a ‘hermeneutical Eutychian,’ a discursive construct intended to advance Leo’s own theological agenda, especially the creation of an orthodox identity coterminous with adherence to Chalcedon.
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Focusing on the example of Liberius (352–366), this chapter examines the theme of cemetery exile in late antique polemical texts, which made explicit the implicit link between asceticism, the cult of the saints, and the discourse of... more
Focusing on the example of Liberius (352–366), this chapter examines the theme of cemetery exile in late antique polemical texts, which made explicit the implicit link between asceticism, the cult of the saints, and the discourse of exile. It also examines the bishop of Rome’s contested relationship with the extramural sacred topography of Rome in Late Antiquity.
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This chapter examines the diverse religious landscape of Ostrogothic Italy. More specifically, it will consider the two most prominent non-Catholic groups in this period, the Jews and the Ostrogoths, and investigate how they were... more
This chapter examines the diverse religious landscape of Ostrogothic Italy. More specifically, it will consider the two most prominent non-Catholic groups in this period, the Jews and the Ostrogoths, and investigate how they were understood by our sources, why this understanding changed over time, and more generally how religious minorities could transgress boundaries imposed upon them. A particular focus will be to problematize our available terminology – especially “Arian” as it applies to the religion of the Ostrogoths. “Arian” was a heresiological epithet rather than an accurate descriptor and its use creates an exaggerated division between Catholic and Gothic Christianity that in reality was less precise. Indeed, although we tend to imagine the various religious groups that populated 5th- and 6th-century Italy as being largely isolated from one another, the reality on the ground may well have been more fluid.
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This article investigates the language of heresy in the Liber Pontificalis (LP), a collection of papal biographies first compiled in the context of the sixth-century Symmachian/Laurentian Schism. More specifically, it considers the... more
This article investigates the language of heresy in the Liber Pontificalis (LP), a collection of papal biographies first compiled in the context of the sixth-century Symmachian/Laurentian Schism. More specifically, it considers the reported actions of the bishops of Rome in opposition to the heresy of Manicheanism, focusing on the biographies of Gelasius (492-496), Symmachus (498-514), and Hormisdas (514-523). It is argued that these accounts are best understood as a heresiological motif employed by the compiler(s) of the LP in order to emphasize and reinforce the authority and the legitimacy of those who were said to have opposed it. This conclusion is suggested by the nature of the Liber Pontificalis itself, which was only one of a set of conflicting polemical sources that debated the recent past of Rome’s episcopacy. Moreover, as it was employed by Christian controversialists, ‘Manichean’ had, by the sixth-century, become an epithetical term of approbation rather than an accurate descriptor of a particular sect or system of belief. Taken together, the depiction of the fight against Manicheanism in the LP was a small part of a larger discursive project intended to represent the Roman Church – and Gelasius, Symmachus and Hormisdas in particular – as the consummate enemies of heresy, the defenders of orthodoxy, and the locus of authentic and legitimate authority.
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Cohen, Samuel, “Church of Rome”, in: Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity Online, General Editor David G. Hunter, Paul J.J. van Geest, Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte. Consulted online on 20 July 2022... more
Cohen, Samuel, “Church of Rome”, in: Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity Online, General Editor David G. Hunter, Paul J.J. van Geest, Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte. Consulted online on 20 July 2022 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2589-7993_EECO_SIM_036352>