Like so many other late antique literary practices with roots in the Greco-Roman world, letter-writing was characterized by notable continuities with classical tradition. In the manner of their classical predecessors, late antique letter-writers routinely described their correspondences as conversations in absentia. They lamented silence and reproached a correspondent who failed to respond quickly or substantially. They longed for an absent correspondent and protested the failings of the letter they received. They used conventional forms (for example, consolation, recommendation) and language (friendship, kinship). While the content of letters evolved to reflect contemporary sociohistorical circumstances, the forms and functions of individual letters (and collections of letters) remained remarkably consistent as the Roman Empire rose, converted to Christianity, and ultimately disintegrated.
Despite the overwhelmingly traditional forms and language of late antique letters, the influence of Christian ideology nevertheless produced some distinctive innovations on classical practice. Paulinus of Nola, for instance, reformulated the traditional notion that letters were an imperfect substitute for presence. Catherine Conybeare suggests that, as Paulinus theorized the matter, letters ‘‘become a crucial constitutive part of the expression of friendship. . . Contact through letters - ideally, at any rate - comes to be considered as superior to the enjoyment of the physical presence of the friend’’ (Conybeare 2000: 67). The absent correspondent could be linked by analogy to the absent divine, allowing Paulinus to arrive at the brilliant, if idiosyncratic, conclusion that letter exchange, properly performed, was a sacramental act (Vessey 1993: 187). While the steady stream of traffic passing through Nola reminds us that Paulinus was generally spared the enactment of this ‘‘ideal’’ expression of Christian friendship, it is nonetheless significant that his radical Christianity (by late fourth-century standards) compelled him to theorize a new, specifically Christian, function for letter exchange.
Augustine’s argument that frank censure is appropriate to a letter of friendship is another remarkable epistolary innovation. Both Pseudo-Demetrius, whose Typoi
Epistolikoi (‘‘Letter Types’’) likely dates to some time after the second century ad, and Pseudo-Libanius include sample letters of censure in their epistolary treatises (Malherbe 1988: 35, 81). In basic terms, the addressee is urged to correct his errors and avoid further rebuke. In each case, however, the relationship between correspondents is assumed to be contentious rather than friendly. When Augustine incorporates censorious rhetoric into letters that purport to be friendly, he is conflating two apparently incompatible letter types and, it seems, hinting at the influence of the apostle Paul on his formulation of Christian friendship (L. M. White 2003: 307-8 explicates Paul’s conflation of friendship and censure in the epistle to the Galatians).
As Augustine presents it in the Confessions, an essential feature of his conversion to Christianity was a new understanding of the Roman social institution of amicitia. When once his friendships were ‘‘a bright path’’ (luminosus limes amicitiae, 2. 2. 2) and his friends ‘‘the other half of my soul,’’ now he understands that friendship between mortals is an ‘‘enormous lie’’ (ingens fabula, 4. 8. 13) because it leads to false belief (in this instance, Manichaeism). Yet Augustine does not altogether abandon the possibility of true friendship. Rather, he theorizes what he identifies as Christian friendship (Christiana amicitia; Carolinne White 1992: 189-90; Burt 1999: 57-76), that is, friendship inspired by love (caritas). For Augustine (and Paulinus), temporal friendship was a reflection of the devout Christian’s love for God. All Christians are ‘‘friends’’ of one another; and there are no distinctions to be made within performances of friendship, since all men are equal in the eyes of God. Likewise, friendship is conceived of as reciprocal, involving both teaching and learning (Conf. 4. 8. 1-14; Carriker 1999: 128-31). Consequently, argued Augustine, the frank censure of faults in the friend (and the self) should be considered a normative feature of Christian friendship.
Of course, there is nothing uniquely Christian about such a conception. The role of self-disclosure and honest criticism in the rhetoric of friendship has a long history in classical philosophy, going back at least to the Cynics and Philodemus (Konstan 1997: 151; Fitzgerald 1996). Cicero observed that the occasional rebuke could be enormously beneficial to a friendship (Off. 1. 17. 58). The fourth-century pagan philosopher Themistius wrote a treatise on friendship (Peri philias), in which he argued that flattery had no place in true friendship (Konstan 1997: 153). This failure of sincerity, of ‘‘plain talking,’’ he warned, posed a serious threat to all friendships, broadly conceived, in the Later Roman Empire. Ambrose likewise advocated the importance of self-disclosure and honest criticism in the third book of his De officiis (Konstan 1997: 150). Still, we might suspect that such endorsements of frank criticism worked better in theory than in practice. The rebuke of a friend was presumably a delicate matter, to be done in private so as to avoid public humiliation.
The distinctive feature of Augustine’s use of censure in apparently friendly letters is his unwillingness to admit a difference between friendship itself and the letter exchange as a tool for managing a friendship. Letter exchange was central to the practice of friendship in imperial Roman culture. We might even say - as John Matthews has about Symmachus’ letters - that letters are the textual remains of performed amicitiae (Matthews 1974: 62-5). Still, we must take care not to assume that the rules of friendship, writ large, can be applied without modification to the practice of letter exchange. Classical letter-writers, for instance, avoided anything smacking of direct censure. Cicero was not above the occasional indirect jab at a correspondent, but it was always carefully couched in impersonal, formulaic language. Similarly, Cicero’s friends attempted to rouse him from his mourning following the death of his daughter by gently criticizing his excessive grief and neglect of social duties (Wilcox 2005). Pliny, who published an artfully arranged selection of his letters, generally highlighted his extreme deference toward his amici (Hoffer 1999: 10-13; Morello, forthcoming). When he censured Regulus’ behavior, he did so indirectly and almost certainly post-mortem (Hoffer 1999: 55-9). Even in Late Antiquity, there was a clear expectation that any criticism of a correspondent ought to be circumspect and modulated. As the correspondence of Gregory of Nazianzus and Eusebius concerning Basil’s strained relationship with Eusebius nevertheless illustrates, this expectation could be manipulated by a savvy writer.
Gregory had first become acquainted with Basil during his school days in Caesarea, and over the years the two had enjoyed a close, if complicated, friendship (Van Dam 2003a: 139-84). On several occasions, Gregory went out of his way to preserve good relations with Basil after some difficulty or period of separation. Given his strong commitment to the idea of friendship, Gregory was surely troubled by news of Basil’s difficulties with Eusebius, particularly at a time when the Cappadocians desperately needed to present a united front to the external threat of Arianism. In pointed but not overly aggressive language, Gregory censured Eusebius’ treatment of Basil and assured him that Basil would reciprocate any gesture of reconciliation (Ep. 16).
We might expect that such delicate and potentially embarrassing negotiations would be conducted either viva voce or through a trusted intermediary, yet Gregory instead opted for the far less secure, if more convenient, form of a letter. Eusebius’ epistolary response is not extant, but two subsequent letters from Gregory suggest that his correspondent was not pleased by Gregory’s methods. In one letter, Gregory defended himself from the accusation that he wrote ‘‘in an insolent spirit’’ (Ep. 17). In the second, he reminded Eusebius, ‘‘I was never meanly disposed towards your Reverence’’ and rationalized his behavior as the result of the impending Arian threat (‘‘But if I had once been so mean and ignoble in my sentiments, yet the present time would not allow such feelings, neither the wild beasts which are attacking the Church, nor your own courage and manliness which so purely and genuinely fight for the Church,’’ Ep. 18).
Gregory excused his blunt honesty by paraphrasing a familiar philosophical maxim: ‘‘It is the duty of a lofty soul to accept more readily the liberty of a friend than the flattery of an enemy’’ (Ep. 17). Of course, as Eusebius may have pointed out, the performance of friendship and the performance of letter exchange - though closely connected in antiquity - were not synonymous. It was one thing to offer a friend frank censure in private, quite another to commit it to a letter that could be lost, intercepted, or copied.
By recording his criticisms of Eusebius in a letter, Gregory forced his correspondent to respond. Considering the gravity of the crisis, Eusebius had little choice but to agree to Gregory’s request. Had he refused, Eusebius would have risked public accusations of putting personal enmity above the welfare of the ‘‘orthodox’’ church.
He could not ignore Gregory’s letter without risking the chance that Gregory would “accidentally’’ release his letter into public circulation, thereby revealing Eusebius’ obstinacy. Even Gregory’s effusive praise and conscious deference to Eusebius’ superior episcopal status did not sufficiently assuage Eusebius’ anger at being ambushed by a friend.
Left with no viable alternative, Eusebius apparently agreed to invite Basil to return to his post as priest at Caesarea. In a letter to Basil, Gregory informed his friend of his success and encouraged him to expect Eusebius’ olive branch: ‘‘let us anticipate him then, either by going to him or by writing to him, or rather, by first writing and then going’’ (Ep. 19). Gregory encouraged Basil to announce his return with a letter so that Basil would be the first to construct the public narrative of his reconciliation with Eusebius. Having received such a letter, followed by a personal visit, Eusebius could not renege on his promise to Gregory without losing face.
In his letter to Eusebius, Gregory took care to avoid direct accusation and apologized for speaking whatever came to his mind, without the usual artifice (Ep. 16). The situation demanded that Gregory employ every available means to reconcile Eusebius to Basil, but he did his best to avoid direct censure. In other letters, Gregory reminded his correspondents that friendship imposed limits on criticism (Ep. 139. 2-3; 187. 2). Even when upset with a correspondent, Gregory was reluctant to put his censure in a letter (Van Dam 2003a: 137). In this respect, Gregory was typical of his age. Late antique letter-writers did not refrain from publicizing the faults of an enemy in treatises ( libri or libelli) but were careful to avoid direct censure of friends in their letters (though they were not above censuring one friend in a letter to another friend!). Even if criticism was an important feature of ancient friendship more generally, it was avoided in the rather public form of a letter.
In this context, Augustine’s importation of the censorious epistolary style into the traditional friendship letter is unusual. Where others, including Christians, avoided using letters for the blunt censure of friends, Augustine justifies his practice as an expression of Christian caritas and, especially, as a defense against heresy. His violation of traditional epistolary mores did not, however, go unchallenged. In the remainder of this chapter, I shall consider a striking example of this Augustinian epistolary innovation in his strained correspondence with Jerome. This rich letter exchange - one of the most extensive in Latin literature - has already been the subject of two extensive studies (Hennings 1994; Furst 1999). I do not propose to undertake a comprehensive reading of the exchange, which must be understood in the broader context of Augustine’s and Jerome’s intersecting social networks. I simply want to analyze one aspect of this complicated set of texts: Augustine’s introduction of censure to the ‘‘friendly’’ letter exchange and Jerome’s resistance to what he perceived as a violation of epistolary decorum.
Raymond Van Dam has observed that ‘‘the greatest challenge to preserving a friendship was... alteration and innovation’’ (Van Dam 2003a: 138). The persistence of these long-distance relationships depended on predictability and close observance of traditional epistolary mores. Any violations generated suspicion and disrupted the smooth exchange of letters. Augustine defends his surprising behavior by explicitly characterizing his innovation as Christian. Taken together with my earlier observations about Paulinus’ avant-garde epistolary views, we can see that, in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, there was some attempt by select Latin letter-writers to theorize a specifically Christian practice of letter-writing.
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