Schism and the Polemic of Heresy: Manichaeism and the Representation of Papal Authority in the Liber Pontificalis

Abstract

[514][515][516][517][518][519][520][521][522][523]. It is argued that these accounts are best understood as a heresiological motif employed by the compiler(s) of the Liber Pontifi calis in order to emphasize and reinforce the authority and the legitimacy of those who were said to have opposed Manichaeism. This conclusion is suggested by the nature of the Liber Pontifi calis itself, which was only one of a set of confl icting 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 disapprobation rather than an accurate descriptor of a particular sect or system of belief. The depiction of the fi ght against Manichaeism in the Liber Pontifi calis was thus 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.I would like to thank the editor of JLA and the two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments and suggestions. 1 Aug. De haer. 46 (CCSL 46: 312-20) and various letters and sermons of Leo I, especially Tr. 16 (CCSL 138: 61-67); Tr. 24 (CCSL 138: 109-16); Tr. 34 (CCSL 138: 178-87); Tr. 42 (CCSL 138a: 238-50); Tr. 76 (CCSL 138a: 472-86); and JK 405 = Ep. 7 (PL 54: 620-22). On Manichaeism in general and its reception by Christian and imperial offi cials, see for example

Eutychianorum furor! Heresiological Comparison and the Invention of Eutychians in Leo I’s Christological Polemic

“…On the positive and negative associations with the nomen Manichaeorum, see Lim (2008). On the transformation of 'Manichaean' into a term of abuse in late antique Roman polemical texts, see Cohen (2015). 37 Lyman (1993, 56-58); Gwynn (2010, 231-33); Gwynn (2007, 13-48); Williams (2017, passim, but esp.…”