Lucilla and the Bone: Remarks on an Early Testimony to the Cultof Relics

Robert Wi�niewski

Journal of Late Antiquity, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 2011, pp. 157-161(Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University PressDOI: 10.1353/jla.2011.0011

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Journal of Late Antiquity 4.1 (Spring): 157–161 © 2011 The Johns Hopkins University Press 157

Robert Wisniewski

Lucilla and the Bone: Remarks on an Early Testimony to the Cult of Relics

This paper deals with the story of Lucilla of Carthage, described by Optatus of Milevis in his Contra Parmenianum 1.16.1, written between 364 and 367. According to Optatus, before the outbreak of the Diocletianic persecution Lucilla used to kiss a martyr’s bone before receiving the Eucharist. The aim of the article is to demonstrate that this episode cannot be considered a description of any actual late third-century custom, but rather as an exag-gerated and grotesque presentation of certain practices contemporary to Optatus himself.

In scholarly discussions about the beginnings of the cult of relics, the name Lucilla of Carthage invariably appears. Lucilla was a devout and wealthy lady who in the second decade of the fourth century played a signifi cant role in the emergence of the Donatist Schism. Supposedly using her money and infl uence, she induced a group of African bishops to reject the election of Caecilian as bishop of Carthage, and to entrust this offi ce to a certain Majorinus, a mem-ber of her own household. Optatus of Milevis, when describing these events, explained the infl uential lady’s aversion to Caecilian thus:

No one is unaware that this took place in Carthage after the ordination of Caecilian, and indeed through some factious woman or other called Lucilla, who, while the church was still tranquil and the peace had not yet been shat-tered by the whirlwinds of persecution, was unable to bear the rebuke of the archdeacon Caecilian. She was said to kiss (libare) the bone of some martyr or other—if, that is, he was a martyr—before the spiritual food and drink, and, since she preferred to the saving cup the bone of some dead man, who if he was a martyr had not yet been confi rmed as one, she was rebuked, and went away in angry humiliation.1

1 “Hoc apud Carthaginem post ordinationem Caeciliani factum esse nemo qui nesciat, per Lucillam scilicet, nescio quam feminam factiosam quae ante concussam persecutionis turbinibus pacem, dum adhuc in tranquillo esset ecclesia, cum correptionem archidiaconi Caeciliani ferre non posset, quae ante spiritalem cibum et potum os nescio cuius martyris, si tamen martyris, libare dicebatur, et cum praeponeret calici salutari os nescio cuius hominis mortui, et si martyris

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Scholars who deal with the history of the cult of relics usually consider this passage a testimonium to a real practice, although they admit that the practice was controversial and deviated from the accepted norm of the church.2 The only problem seriously discussed was the meaning of the essential verb libare in this context and, thus, the question of how Lucilla expressed her veneration for the martyr’s bone—by kissing or simply touching it.3

This testimony is all the more intriguing because the event happened before the outbreak of Diocletian’s persecution, which would mean that Lucilla had worshipped a detached bone of some martyr half a century before the earliest known disinterrings and translations, not to mention division, of saints’ bodies occurred. This gap alone should incline us to be cautious when interpreting the text of Optatus. One could, of course, explain such a shift by suggesting that the practice of enshrining dissociated fragments of the body had existed for a long time but left no trace in the sources; such supposition cannot be entirely rejected. However, there are reasons to think that the case of Lucilla does not tell us much about any real custom at the turn of the third and fourth centuries.

In order to appreciate the testimony of Optatus it is necessary not only to examine Lucilla’s episode, but also to take a look at its context, and especially at the circumstances of its composition and the intentions of the author. Con-tra Parmenianum was written in the years 364–367,4 over sixty years after the event in question and, signifi cantly, a few years after the fi rst movements of the saints’ relics through the Mediterranean.5 When Optatus described the case of Lucilla, the opening of saints’ graves and translation of their bodies

sed necdum vindicati, correpta cum confusione irata discessit”: Contra Parmenianum 1.16.1, M. Labrousse, ed., Optat de Milève, Traité contre les donatistes, SC 412 (Paris, 1995); M.J. Edwards, tr., Optatus of Milevis: Against the Donatists (Liverpool, 1997), 16.

2 See J. Dölger, “Das Kultvergehen der Donatistin Lucilla von Karthago. Reliquienkuss vor dem Kuss der Eucharistie,” in Idem, Antike und Christentum, vol. 3 (Münster, 1932), 245–52; H. Delehaye, Les origines du culte des martyrs (Brussels, 1933), 60; V. Saxer, Morts, martyrs, reliques en Afrique chrétienne aux premiers siècles. Les témoignages de Tertullien, Cyprien, et Augustin à la lumière de l’archéologie africaine (Paris, 1980), 233–35; P. Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago, 1981), 34; B.D. Shaw, “African Christianity: Disputes, Defi nitions and ‘Donatists,’” in M.R. Greenshields, T.A. Robison, eds., Orthodoxy and Heresy in Religious Movements: Discipline and Dissent (Lewiston, 1992), 5–34, at 25–26 (although he remarks that the account may have a rhetorical character); P. Cox Miller, “‘Differential Networks’: Relics and Other Fragments in Late Antiquity,” JECS 6 (1998), 113–38, at 121–23.

3 Dölger, “Das Kultvergehen”, 245–52.4 See M. Labrousse, “Introduction,” in Optat de Milève, Traité contre les donatistes, 12–14.5 Luke, Andrew, and Timothy transferred to Constantinople in 356–358: Hier. Chron. 356/7

and 357/8; Babylas carried from Daphne in 362: Chrys. Pan.Bab. 67–69; Soz. HE 5.19; the ashes of John the Baptist brought to Jerusalem and to Alexandria: Ruf. HE 11.28.

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(for the time being the entire bodies, apart from those which had turned into ashes) already had been a familiar, even if still new, phenomenon.

Equally important as the date of Optatus’ work is its aim. It was written as a polemic against Parmenianus, Donatist bishop of Carthage and author of a treatise against Catholics. One of the crucial elements of Optatus’ argument is the description of the genesis of the schism in chapters 16–18 of Book One. This description is highly partial and should not be taken as a faithful record of what happened more than half a century earlier.6 According to Optatus, the breakaway resulted from the resentments of three people, or groups of people. The fi rst were lay seniores of the church of Carthage, who turned against Caecilian because they did not want to part with the treasure of the church, which had been committed to them during the persecution. The sec-ond were Botrus and Caelestius, who had been disappointed in their hope to seize the bishopric of Carthage. The third was Lucilla, who declared against Caecilian because of the reasons presented in the quoted passage. Briefl y put, Optatus portrayed the schism as a result of actions taken by a group of greedy and dishonest nobles, two ambitious clerics, and a woman, who, as the sequel to the story shows, played a crucial role.

The mere fact that it was a woman who was founded Donatism should have been enough to discredit this movement in the eyes of the Optatus’ audi-ence.7 But the author was not satisfi ed with just this and took pains to paint a hideous picture of this woman, potens and factiosa. Now, in Latin literature factiosus is a rare but well known word, used several times by Sallust, and Optatus’ readers probably associated Lucilla with the repulsive nobiles factiosi described in De bello Iugurthino.8 What is more, she was a vengeful person-age and did not submit to rules of the church (“Lucilla quae iamdudum ferre non potuit disciplinam cum omnibus suis potens et factiosa femina commu-nioni misceri noluit”: C.Parm. 1.18.3). Now, it seems that a short description of her religious practice served a similar purpose. First, the choice of the verb depicting her behavior was conscious. Optatus used the word libare probably not because it described so well the technical side of Lucilla’s practice; in any

6 T.D. Barnes, “The Beginnings of Donatism,” JThS 26 (1975), 13–20, at 15, justly says that modern scholars tend to believe the Catholic version of the beginnings of the controversy. A good example is Saxer, Morts, martyrs, 233–235, who takes for granted even Lucilla’s emotions described by Optatus.

7 Optatus is more ready to talk about women in the Donatist than in the Catholic church, see R. Lockwood, “Potens and Factiosa Femina: Women, Martyrs and Schism in Roman North Africa,” AugStud 20 (1989), 165–182, at 175. In the sixth century Primasius of Hadrumetum equated Donatism with Montanism because the founders of both movements were supported by women: Prim. In Apoc. 3.9.

8 The word appears eight times in Sallust: Iug. 8.1, 15.3, 27.2, 28.4, 77.1, 85.3; Cat. 18.4, 51.32, 54.5; and only twenty-two times in all the rest of Latin literature prior to Optatus (CLCLT 5).

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case, the extant ancient texts in which this verb occurs hardly permit determi-nation of what exactly she did with the bone. Rather, he employed it because of its strong association with pagan cult practices. In Christian literature this verb was used in religious contexts to refer to heathen or, rarely, biblical sac-rifi ces and spiritual offerings, not to describe contemporary pious customs.9 Optatus’ aim was probably to play on these associations and to present Lucil-la’s custom as a pagan practice. Second, the very object of the veneration, a bone of a presumed martyr,10 was shocking. For the Christians in the middle of the fourth century, holding separated body fragments was unacceptable, because, in spite of their respect for the corporal remains, the pagan horror of touching the dead body did not disappear altogether, and because to the end of the fi fth century the bodies of the saints, even if they were taken from the original places of burial and deposited in other places, were not divided and treated as portable relics.11 Third, Lucilla venerated a bone of a dead man before partaking of the Eucharist, which suggests that she preferred it to the “saving cup.” All this was written in order to arouse disgust among readers toward the rebellious, resentful, and superstitious “foundress” of Donatism. It is a rhetorical picture, not a truthful description of an actual practice.

Of course, one may ask whether Lucilla, undoubtedly a real person, could not be in fact a woman addicted to the curious practices described by Opta-tus.12 This is highly improbable for two reasons: First, as has already been pointed out, the fi rst traces of the cult of relics date back to the times of Opta-tus, not those of Lucilla. It is, then, diffi cult to imagine that the latter fl aunted her veneration for a dismembered part of a body in a time when tombs of martyrs were still inviolable and the very idea of the veneration of body parts did not exist yet. Second, the account of Lucilla’s customs is not the only passage in which the author describes the partisans of Donatus as people who break the most sacred customs. We read here about Donatists tearing out foetuses from the wombs of their mothers (2.18.5) and, later on, about a

9 TLL does not cite any passage in which libare would denote a Christian devout custom. In CLCLT 5 there are several dozen passages in which libare describes pagan sacrifi ces, but, it seems, only one text in which it is used in the context of a Christian religious practice: Paul.Nol. Carm. 23.112; in a few other passages it stands for a vague spiritual offering: Min.Fel. Octav. 32.3; Tert. De pat. 13.6; Paul.Nol. Carm. 16.10–11; Victr. De laude 5; Cass. Inst. 8,2,2.

10 The anxiety about the authenticity of venerated martyrs: August. Op. mon. 28.36; Sulp.Sev. VMart. 11.

11 Greg.Nys. VMacr. 35 (Gregory seized by horror when opening the grave of his parents); Chrys. Hom. in Mt. 37.6 (people wash themselves on coming back from the tombs). Body frag-ments: J. Wortley, “The Origins of Christian Veneration of Body-Parts,” RHR 223 (1/2006), 5–28, presents the early evidence.

12 So, e.g., A.C. de Veer, “Le rôle de Lucilla dans l’origine du schisme africain,” in Bibliothèque augustinienne. Oeuvres de saint Augustin 31 (Paris, 1968), 799–801.

WIŚNIEWSKI ^ Lucilla and the Bone 161

Donatist bishop who fornicated with a virgin, to whom he himself had given the veil (2.19.4). The image of a woman handling a dead man’s bone, which evoked associations with magic,13 might have belonged to the same category of rhetorical devices, and it is risky to take it more literally.

Optatus is not the only author to mention Lucilla’s role in the rise of Donatism. Augustine too makes her guilty of bribing bishops gathered in Car-thage. He calls her “praepotens, pecuniosissima, et factiosissima femina” and asserts that her hatred of Caecilian began when she was rebuked “pro discip-lina ecclesiastica.”14 However, he does not specify what exactly led Caecilian to reprimand the rich lady. Augustine was familiar with Optatus’ work, so he knew about Lucilla’s form of venerating relics. And yet he did not mention even a word about it. The reason for this could have been the fact that during the fi fty years that separated Contra Parmenianum from Contra Cresconium physical contact with relics had become more common. In Augustine’s time, kissing relics may still have raised controversy,15 but it was no longer unani-mously considered unacceptable and thus it was not so obviously useful to attack the “founding mother” of Donatism as it had been fi fty years earlier.

This discussion does not yield only a negative conclusion. If Lucilla’s episode is of little use for a student of the customs related to saints’ corporal remains at the turn of the fourth century, it shows quite well how, more than a half century later, Christians caricatured the cult of relics, and therefore it allows us to defi ne the limits of acceptable practices in this period. It may also suggest that, another half-century later, the picture painted by Optatus had ceased to seem grotesque because others now venerated relics in a simi-lar fashion.

The University of Warsawr.wisniewski@uw.edu.pl

13 See e.g. Apul. Met. 3.17.14 Bribery: August. Epist. 43.6 and 9; Enar.psalm. 36.2.19; Serm. 46, CCL 41.1045; “prae-

potens et pecuniosissima”: C.Cresc. 3.28.32; “pecuniosissima et factiosissima”: C.Epist.Parm. 1.3.5; reprimand: Epist. 43.6; see also Hier. Epist. 133.4.

15 Victr. De laude sanct. 6; Hier. C.Vig. 4; Gr.Nyss. Thdr. 62.25; Thdt. HR 21.19–20; Eger. Itin. 37; Prud. Peri. 2.517–20, 5.337–40, 9.99–100, 11.193–94; August. Serm. 277A (MiAg 1.243). For further see M.P. Penn, Kissing Christians: Ritual and Community in the Late Ancient Church (Philadelphia, 2005) 78–79 and nn. 54–55.