18 August
751 BC rape of the Sabine women
feast of St. Helena
2004 Olympic Games return to Olympia, Greece
2004 disclosure that the spiral columns of St. Peter's in the Vatican came from the House of Nero at Olympia
2005 "Pilgrimage, Reenactment and Tourism" by Helena Augusta
Virtual Museum of Architecture
NonIci
Seroux d'Agincourt
old cad system
1996.08.18
"Maison Dom-ino Legacy"
1997.08.18
Campo Marzio: 3D modeling
Campo Marzio: contiguous elements
Campo Marzio archiving
1997.08.18
ideas
Quondam: narrative index
Quondam's Collection
Campo Marzio database
Porticus Neronianae/circle/square juncture
Quondam
1998.08.18
18 August -- the feast of Saint Helena
1999.08.18 17:34
epicenter
1999.08.18 20:41
www.quondam.com/first
rest of 1999
1999.08.18
Learning from Lacunae
2000.08.18
damnatio memoriae and palimpsest
2001.08.18 13:19
re-reading VITA CONSTANTINI Book III
2001.08.18 14:46
Happy Saint Helena Day
2001.08.18 15:32
Re: universal energy trickster
2003.08.18 10:14
to see in Philly
2003.08.18 12:37
2003.08.18 17:11
Re: why building another church (any kind)
2003.08.18 17:59
history of calendrical coincidence
2004.08.18 15:12
the agnostic design of spiritual space
2005.08.18 11:32
2005.08.18 13:12
Why do you think you're creative?
2005.08.18 13:25
2005.08.18 13:39
2005.08.18 14:29
2005.08.18 15:49
2005.08.18 16:59
2005.08.18 17:12
2005.08.18 17:22
2005.08.18 17:47
2005.08.18 18:15
2005.08.18 18:39
sacred or profane
2005.08.18 13:36
2005.08.18 16:06
Going to Rome...any advice?
2005.08.18 15:54
sacred or profane
2007.08.18 22:28
Why do you think you're creative?
2007.08.18 22:33
| |
re-reading VITA CONSTANTINI Book III
2001.08.18 14:46
The 'epicenter' of my hypothesis that Helena died late July 326 (1675 years ago) in Rome during the end of Constantine's Vicennalia celebration there, is with a re-reading, and thus new interpretation, of Eusebius' Vita Constantini Book III. I'm looking at two editions of this text, the one online at www.newadvent.org/fathers (which does not offer the source edition of this text, but no doubt it is an older, copyright free text) and Cameron & Hall's Eusebius: Life of Constantine (1999). It is in book III of the VC that Eusebius writes about the Council of Nicaea, church building in the Holy Land, Helena, and other church building in the East along with destruction of pagan worship/ritual sites. The deaths of Crispus and Fausta fit within this time frame, but are not mentioned. Through various other readings, plus Cameron and Hall's commentaries, I've come to understand that the sequence of Book III is not considered to follow a strict chronology, and just what the correct chronology might be has been much addressed in recent studies. I'm testing the sequence of Book III as if it is written by Eusebius in chronological order (and I think doing this 'experiment' via html and webpages along with occasional letters to lt-antiq will provide a very good 'laboratory' for the test.
For starters, I point out that in 'chapter 23', which is between the end of the Council of Nicaea and the beginning of the Holy Land Church building accounts, Eusebius writes:
"He [Constantine] also wrote countless other things of the same kind, and composed a great many letters. In some he gave instructions to bishops about what affected the churches of God; but on occasion he also addressed the congregations themselves, and then the Trice-blessed would call the laity of the Church his own 'brothers' and "fellow-servants'. But there may be an opportunity to assemble these in a special collection, so as not to disrupt the sequence of our present account."
Eusebius never did assemble the letters, although there are many letters by Constantine interspersed throughout the rest of Book III and Book IV of the VC. What's really interesting is that modern scholarship believes that the un-chronological sequence of Book III begins with the chapters immediately after what Eusebius wrote above. Was Eusebius then acting against his own intentions? Or are modern historians of the life of Constantine just better historians than Eusebius? No offense, but lets see what happens if we take Eusebius for his word.
In chapter 47 Eusebius writes about what appears to be Helena's conversion to Christianity prompted by Constantine himself. Since I believe that Helena (along with Eutropia, Prisca, and Valeria--all the (first) wives of Diocletian's tetrachy) was a Christian believer well before 28 October 312, the following passage gives me great pause.
"He [Constantine] deserves to be blessed, all else apart, for his piety to the one who bore him [i.e., Helena]. So far as he made her Godfearing, though she had not been such before, that she seemed to him to have been a disciple of the common Saviour from the first..."
Last night, in reviewing the case of the 'downfall' of Eustathius, bishop of Antioch, and it's seeming connection to his having said something about Helena, it is mentioned that Eustathius was anti-Arian while Helena seems to have been pro-Arian, and thus maybe Eustathius said something along these lines. [The fall of Eustathius occurred sometime 326-328, and is one of the factors that leads modern scholars to believe that Helena was in the Holy Land/East during that period. I think that Eustathius did fall because he said something about Helena, but that his real crime was that he said something about Helena after her death in Rome July 326. In other words, Eustathius broke the 'silence' regarding Helena and the Cross that was somehow enforced by Constantine, and Eustathius' losing his see is a clear example to those living then under Constantine of what will happen to you if you too break the 'silence'. Interestingly, it is Athanasius of Alexandria that first tells us of the Eustathius/Helena connection, and he was also a supporter of Eustathius. Athanasius was exiled to Trier (where he might not be heard so well?) during the latter years of Constantine's life.]
Anyway, back to Constantine's conversion of Helena, I'm now wondering whether what Eusebius meant is that, because of Constantine and the Council of Nicaea, Helena died no longer being pro-Arian.
The two excerpts above from the Vita Constantini are from Cameroun & Hall (1999).
|