Eusebius of Caesarea, in his Life of Constantine, reports that, in the 330s, the emperor Constantine built in Constantinople a sumptuous shrine, dedicated to the Twelve *Apostles (S02422), which he intended to be his mausoleum, with his sarcophagus placed in the middle of their tombs/cenotaphs. Written in Greek in Palestine, 337/339.
E00397
Literary - Other narrative texts (including Histories)
Eusebius of Caesarea
Eusebius of Caesarea, Life of Constantine 4.58-60
4.58.
*** αὐτὸς δὲ νεὼν ἅπαντα εἰς ὕψος ἄφατον ἐπάρας, λίθων ποικιλίαις παντοίων ἐξαστράπτοντα ἐποίει, εἰς αὐτὸν ὄροφον ἐξ ἐδάφους πλακώσας, διαλαβὼν δὲ λεπτοῖς φατνώμασι τὴν στέγην χρυσῷ τὴν πᾶσαν ἐκάλυπτεν· ἄνω δὲ ὑπὲρ ταύτην πρὸς αὐτῷ δώματι χαλκὸς μὲν ἀντὶ κεράμου φυλακὴν τῷ ἔργῳ πρὸς ὑετῶν ἀσφάλειαν παρεῖχε· καὶ τοῦτον δὲ πολὺς περιέλαμπε χρυσός, ὡς μαρμαρυγὰς τοῖς πόρρωθεν ἀφορῶσι ταῖς ἡλίου αὐγαῖς ἀντανακλωμέναις ἐκπέμπειν. δικτυωτὰ δὲ πέριξ ἐκύκλου τὸ δωμάτιον ἀνάγλυφα χαλκῷ καὶ χρυσῷ κατειργασμένα.
4.59.
καὶ ὁ μὲν νεὼς ὧδε σὺν πολλῇ βασιλέως φιλοτιμίᾳ σπουδῆς ἠξιοῦτο. ἀμφὶ δὲ τοῦτον αἴθριος ἦν αὐλὴ παμμεγέθης εἰς ἀέρα καθαρὸν ἀναπεπταμένη, ἐν τετραπλεύρῳ δὲ ταύτῃ στοαὶ διέτρεχον, μέσον αὐτῷ νεῷ τὸ αἴθριον ἀπολαμβάνουσαι, οἶκοί τε βασίλειοι ταῖς στοαῖς λουτρά τε καὶ ἀναλαμπτήρια παρεξετείνετο, ἄλλα τε πλεῖστα καταγώγια τοῖς τοῦ τόπου φρουροῖς ἐπιτηδείως εἰργασμένα.
4.60.
Ταῦτα πάντα ἀφιέρου βασιλεὺς διαιωνίζων εἰς ἅπαντας τῶν τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν ἀποστόλων τὴν μνήμην. ᾠκοδόμει δ’ ἄρα καὶ ἄλλο τι τῇ διανοίᾳ σκοπῶν, ὃ δὴ λανθάνον τὰ πρῶτα κατάφωρον πρὸς τῷ τέλει τοῖς πᾶσιν ἐγίγνετο. αὐτὸς γοῦν αὐτῷ εἰς δέοντα καιρὸν τῆς αὐτοῦ τελευτῆς τὸν ἐνταυθοῖ τόπον ἐταμιεύσατο, τῆς τῶν ἀποστόλων προσρήσεως κοινωνὸν τὸ ἑαυτοῦ σκῆνος μετὰ θάνατον προνοῶν ὑπερβαλλούσῃ πίστεως προθυμίᾳ γεγενῆσθαι, ὡς ἂν καὶ μετὰ τελευτὴν ἀξιῶτο τῶν ἐνταυθοῖ μελλουσῶν ἐπὶ τιμῇ τῶν ἀποστόλων συντελεῖσθαι εὐχῶν. διὸ καὶ ἐκκλησιάζειν ἐνταυθοῖ παρεκελεύετο, μέσον θυσιαστήριον πηξάμενος. δώδεκα δ’ οὖν αὐτόθι θήκας ὡσανεὶ στήλας ἱερὰς ἐπὶ τιμῇ καὶ μνήμῃ τοῦ τῶν ἀποστόλων ἐγείρας χοροῦ, μέσην ἐτίθει τὴν αὐτὸς αὐτοῦ λάρνακα, ἧς ἑκατέρωθεν τῶν ἀποστόλων ἀνὰ ἓξ διέκειντο. καὶ τοῦτο γοῦν, ὡς ἔφην, σώφρονι λογισμῷ, ἔνθα αὐτῷ τὸ σκῆνος τελευτήσαντι τὸν βίον εὐπρεπῶς μέλλοι διαναπαύεσθαι, ἐσκόπει. ἀλλ’ ὁ μὲν ἐκ μακροῦ καὶ πρόπαλαι τῷ λογισμῷ ταῦτα προτυπούμενος ἀφιέρου τοῖς ἀποστόλοις τὸν νεών, ὠφέλειαν ψυχῆς ὀνησιφόρον τὴν τῶνδε μνήμην ποιεῖσθαι αὐτῷ πιστεύων, θεὸς δὲ αὐτὸν καὶ τῶν κατ’ εὐχὰς προσδοκηθέντων οὐκ ἀπηξίου.
4.58
'... He raised the entire temple to ineffable height, and made it shine with ornaments of all kinds of stone, revetting it from the ground to the very ceiling. He divided the ceiling with delicate coffers and covered it all with gold. Up above this, on the roof itself, copper instead of tiling secured the building against rain, and abundant gold made this shine, so that it emitted flashes of light to those looking from afar, reflecting as it did the rays of the sun. Grilles circled the hall all round, carved in bronze and wrought with gold.
4.59
Such was the care the temple enjoyed by the great generosity of the emperor. Round about it was a huge court, wide open to the fresh air, and porticoes surrounded it in a quadrate arrangement, encompassing the open space with the temple itself, and imperial houses, baths, and light-towers (ἀναλαμπτήρια/analamptēria) stretched by the porticoes, and a great many other buildings suitably designed for the guards of the place.
4.60
The emperor dedicated all these things, immortalising the memory of our Saviour's Apostles before all mankind. He was, however, pursuing the construction having also another purpose in mind, which, although initially undisclosed, became manifest to everybody towards the end. Namely, he reserved for himself that place for the time of his demise, whenever it was to be, providing, in the exceeding enthusiasm of his faith (ὑπερβαλλούσῃ πίστεως προθυμίᾳ), that after death his body should partake in the veneration (πρόσρησις/prosrēsis) of the Apostles, so that he might enjoy the privilege of the prayers that were going to be offered there in honour of the Apostles even after his demise. And for that reason, he also ordered ecclesiastical services to be held there, and set up an altar in the middle. And he erected twelve tombs (θῆκαι/thēkai), sacred monuments (στῆλαι/stēlai) as it were, in honour and memory of the company of the Apostles, and placed his own sarcophagus (λάρναξ/larnax) in the middle, on either side of which stood six of the Apostles’. This then, as I said, was what he consciously decided with regard to the place where his body was to rest solemnly, once he had finished his life. Thus he indeed dedicated the temple to the Apostles having determined these things in his mind long in advance, trusting that he would make of the celebration of their memory a beneficial gain for his own soul. And God did not deny him any of the things he looked for in his prayers.'
Text: Winkelmann 2008.
Translation: Efthymios Rizos (using Mango 1990 and Cameron and Hall 1999).
Eucharist associated with cult
Cult PlacesCult building - independent (church)
Altar
Other (mountain, wood, tree, pillar)
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Use of ImagesPraying before an image
Non Liturgical ActivityConstruction of cult buildings
Burial ad sanctos
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesMonarchs and their family
Cult Related ObjectsPrecious material objects
Source
Eusebius wrote the Life of Constantine in the two years between the death of his hero (337) and his own (339). The author portrays the first Christian emperor as an ideal ruler, sent from God, who ended the persecution of Christians and led the Roman Empire to the true faith. Based on imperial documents, legal texts and personal communication, the Life of Constantine, though clearly biased, is one of our fundamental sources of information on the reign of Constantine.Discussion
This passage comes from the last sections of the Life of Constantine, where Eusebius seeks to demonstrate that the emperor was a fully convinced Christian by the end of his life, and that he died as a baptised member of the Church. One of the author’s arguments is that Constantine had planned his own burial in an ostensibly Christian setting, by building the temple of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. Eusebius’ description is the only contemporary testimony on this project, though it is doubtful if he ever saw the building himself. All that can be said about the building is essentially hypothetical, since it was destroyed in 1462, and there has been very little archaeology on the site, and there is virtually no prospect of any taking place in the future, because the site is now occupied by the Conqueror’s Mosque (Fatih Camii).Although this has not been pointed out so far, the Holy Apostles was perhaps the most significant of Constantine’s building projects for the development of the cult of saints and for the formation of imperial Christianity in Late Antiquity. Up to that point, there is no evidence for Christians dedicating religious buildings, or indeed anything, to their saints, except perhaps for revering the tombs of martyrs. The Holy Apostles is the first building anywhere, known to have been dedicated to a particular group of Christian holy figures, the Apostles, on a site which was completely unrelated to them. It is therefore a major landmark, since it introduces for the first time the votive practices of traditional religion to Christianity, or rather creates a Christian version of votive religion focusing on the saints. Both the dedication of a building and the use of commemorative monuments, possibly figurative or inscribed, would eventually become central aspects of the cult of saints, and, in this respect, Constantine’s Holy Apostles sets an archetypal example for the future development of this new aspect of the Christian religion.
The building
The Temple of the Apostles (Apostoleion) or Church of the Holy Apostles, was one of the great Christian buildings commissioned by Constantine. Built in the 330s, it was apparently ready in some form at Constantine’s death in 337. It stood on the peak of the Fourth Hill of Constantinople, the highest point of the Constantinian walled area, being visible from both the Golden Horn and the Marmara Sea, which fits with Eusebius’ statement that its shining gilded roof could be seen from afar.
Eusebius states that it consisted of a tall building within a sumptuous complex comprising an atrium with porticoes, palaces, baths, barracks, and the obscure analamptēria (ἀναλαμπτήρια), perhaps a sort of lighting towers or lampstands. This phrase has been variously interpreted as referring to buildings adjacent to the Holy Apostles, or to parts of the shrine itself. They may refer to the a palatial district later known as Constantinianae, the second most important palatial district of Constantinople during Late Antiquity (Janin 1964, 219, 372-373). Stretching on the south/southeast slopes of the fourth hill, between the later basilica of Saint Polyeuktos and the Holy Apostles, the Constantinianae included several sumptuous residences used by members of the imperial family, and one of Constantinople's major thermal complexes, built or finished under Constantius II. Much like the Great Palace, which stood on terraces with Saint Sophia at the highest point, the Constantinianae was probably a set of palatial buildings standing below the Apostles’ temple. The appearance of palaces including temples and mausolea in the same period is also known from palaces and villas built by the Tetrarchs (Diocletian’s villa at Split, Galerius’ palaces at Gamzigrad and Thessalonike, and the villa of Maxentius on the Via Appia in Rome).
Eusebius’ description is unclear about the plan of the Holy Apostles. Later sources describe it as a cruciform basilica with a domed rotunda attached at its east end, but it is known that the building was altered substantially during Late Antiquity. There is therefore a debate as to whether Constantine’s original building was the cruciform basilica or the rotunda. When describing basilicas, Eusebius normally refers to their colonnades, which he does not do here. On the other hand, in the case of the octagonal church built by Constantine in Antioch, he refers explicitly to its unusual shape, which he does not do here either. His reference to a coffered ceiling is also found in his description of the Holy Sepulchre Basilica in Jerusalem, and would fit a timber-roofed structure. Yet rotundas in this period were mostly domed.
Most of recent scholarship on the matter tends to accept the interpretation of Mango who reconstructs the building as a rotunda similar to the mausolea of Constantina, Helena, and Maxentius in Rome, or like the Rotunda of Thessalonike. Indeed, given that all the earlier imperial mausolea and those of the 4th century had the form of a rotunda, it is plausible to think that Constantine’s would follow this traditional plan (Mango 1990, 55-59; Dagron 2003, 138-143; Johnson 2009, 119-129; Bardill 2012, 367-373)
Character and religious importance
There is already extensive scholarship on the intentions of Constantine, based on this paragraph by Eusebius. Was the building initially built as a church, and secondarily dedicated as a mausoleum; was it a mausoleum from the beginning, but furnished in a novel way so as to host Christian services; or was it both from its very conception, as Eusebius wants us to believe?
Constantine’s burial scheme was unusual in many ways. Against the previously prevailing customs of imperial burial, Constantine chose to be buried without being cremated, and prepared a resting place on an intramural site. Up to that point, all emperors were cremated and buried outside the city walls (except for Trajan who was buried in his forum in Rome), respecting the ancient custom which forbade burial within cities. Both the imperial mausolea of Rome (of Augustus and Hadrian), and the mausolea built by the late 3rd century emperors and the Tetrarchs were extra-mural. By ancient mores, however, Constantine’s choice to be buried inside the new capital was not illegitimate: intramural burial followed by special posthumous veneration was an honour exceptionally bestowed on city founders (oikists) and civic heroes, and Constantine could rightfully claim to be the founder of Constantinople (Bardill 2012, 372).
According to Eusebius, Constantine’s mausoleum was to be used for the celebration of Christian services in honour of the Apostles. The imperial sarcophagus was surrounded by the twelve monuments, vaguely described as thēkai (which may mean tombs, sarcophagi, coffins or ossuaries) serving as stēlai hierai (which can mean funerary stelae with inscriptions, figurative depictions, or even statues). Was this a set of sarcophagi or was it a monument of columns, like those set up by Constantine in the sanctuaries of Saint Peter’s in Rome and of the Holy Sepulchre Basilica in Jerusalem? The phrase ‘and he placed his own sarcophagus (λάρναξ/larnax) in the middle, on either side of which stood six of the Apostles’’ seems to suggest that the apostolic monuments were also sarcophagi, apparently functioning as cenotaphs. Many Christians of the time might regard a veneration centred on lapidary monuments as idolatrous, but Eusebius avoids commenting on this delicate matter. Of course, it is possible that the plan was to fill the thēkai with the actual remains of the Apostles, in which case it would be the first instance of the translation of relics being conceived, even as a possibility. Eventually, a few years later, the relics of *Andrew, *Timothy, and *Luke were transferred and buried in the Holy Apostles (see $E###). Although it is debated whether this happened under Constantine in 336, or after his death (most sources would favour 356/7), it is the first recorded translation of relics in the history of Christianity, and its motivation clearly lies with the building of Constantine’s burial monument. These relics, however, were probably not buried in the thēkai, but in wooden caskets under the floor of the church, which were accidentally uncovered under Justinian (Procopius, Buildings 1.14.21). The apostolic monuments set up by Constantine are not mentioned by any other source after Eusebius, and it is unknown if they were kept or removed.
Eusebius’ description of the veneration is the most ambiguous part of the text, and has been the subject of a long scholarly debate. According to it, Constantine wished his body to be part of the veneration of the Apostles. The word πρόσρησις/prosrēsis (literally ‘calling, invocation, salutation, or naming’) is vaguely used to refer to the acts of veneration/commemoration of the apostles, without defining its character. Eusebius seems to be trying to persuade his reader that Constantine was so enthusiastic about the Christian religion that he wished to attend services even from his grave. His dead body would be present, participating as it were, in worship together with the Christians who would be venerating the apostles, and some spiritual benefit could be gained from this.
If Eusebius’ description of Constantine’s burial monument is accurate, the whole arrangement would seem to present the emperor’s body as an object of veneration together with the Apostles, rather than as its attendant/participant. It is perhaps too far-fetched to suggest with Bardill (2012, 375-376) that Constantine hoped to be venerated as Christ, but it seems likely that he envisaged his commemoration as a Christian holy figure of some kind, substituting for traditional imperial cult (as argued by Dagron 2003, 138-143). Being aware that after death he was to be worshipped as a god, the emperor perhaps wished to direct this veneration towards practices of a Christian character, and the closest option was the Christian devotion for tombs of martyrs and Apostles. The question whether the Holy Apostles of Constantine was primarily a mausoleum or a church, widely discussed in scholarship so far, is very probably a false dilemma: mausolea were anyway both tombs and shrines, housing the funerary rites offered to the important dead. Accordingly, Constantine’s imperial mausoleum introduced a reform of both the mode of burial and of the rites housed in the imperial mausoleum – indeed of the imperial cult itself. If a pagan imperial mausoleum was a temple housing the cult of deified emperors, Constantine’s Christian imperial mausoleum would accordingly be a church housing the commemoration of the Christian emperor, apparently in some liturgical form. The nature of this commemoration was perhaps intentionally left indefinite, and was certainly left undefined by Eusebius.
Eusebius’ effort to explain the emperor’s intentions provides a good example of how Constantine’s burial arrangements were received by some of his Christian supporters. In his effort to justify the emperor’s funerary display, Eusebius talks, perhaps for the first time in Christian literature, about burial in the vicinity of saints (or rather at a place where saints would be worshipped) being potentially beneficial for one’s soul after death. Still, however, the author is very careful and vague in his phrasing, and presents the whole thing as a personal view of the emperor resulting from his enthusiasm for the faith. Different readings of the burial arrangement are likely to have circulated, and Eusebius’ interpretations may indeed be addressing some of them. His insistence on stressing the consciously Christian conception of Constantine’s church/mausoleum could be addressing scepticism about the sincerity of the emperor’s Christian conversion, and about the character of his burial. At the same time, his effort to demonstrate the piety behind Constantine’s decision to be buried in a church, and to set up a cult of apostolic cenotaphs accompanying his sarcophagus, is likely to have addressed Christian embarrassment about these unprecedented innovations.
Whatever the character of the cult celebrated at the Holy Apostles may have been in the decades following Constantine, it is doubtful if it was regularly used as a church. The dedication of the basilica of the Holy Apostles is dated by later chronicles to Easter Sunday of AD 370, and it is possible that it was only then that the building started to function as a proper basilica (for the sources see Mango 1990, Dagron 2003, Johnson 2009, and Bardill 2012).
It is also unknown if Constantine planned the Holy Apostles to be his personal mausoleum only. Whatever the case, already under his successor, Constantius II, it started to be used as a dynastic mausoleum, and it served as the imperial mausoleum of the Byzantine capital until the mid 9th century, receiving the burials of almost all the emperors and many other imperial family members.
Bibliography
Text:Winkelmann, F. (ed.), Eusebius Werke, Band 1, Teil 1: Über das Leben des Kaisers Konstantin (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte; 2nd rev. ed.; Berlin / New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008).
Translations and Commentaries:
Cameron, A., and Hall, S.G., Eusebius, Life of Constantine (Clarendon Ancient History Series; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999).
Dräger, P., Eusebios, Über das Leben des glückseligen Kaisers Konstantin = (De vita Constantini) : griechisch/deutsch (Bibliotheca classicorum; Oberhaid: Utopica, 2007).
Pietri, L., and Rondeau, M.-J. Eusèbe De Césarée, Vie De Constantin (Sources Chrétiennes 559; Paris: Editions du Cerf, 2013).
Schneider, H., and Bleckmann, B., Eusebios von Caesarea. De vita Constantini = Das Leben des Konstantin (Fontes Christiani; Turnhout: Brepols, 2007).
Tartaglia, L., Eusebio di Cesarea Sulla vita di Costantino (Quaderni di Koinōnia; Napoli: M. D'Auria, 1984).
Further reading:
Bardill, J., Constantine, Divine Emperor of the Christian Golden Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
Baynes, N.H., Constantine the Great and the Christian Church (Raleigh Lecture on History; London: Humphrey Milford for the British Academy, 1929).
Dagron, G., Emperor and Priest: The Imperial Office in Byzantium (English translation; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 138-143 (with a survey of the very extensive earlier bibliography)
Dagron, G., Naissance d'une capitale. Constantinople et ses institutions de 330 à 451 (Bibliothèque Byzantine – Etudes; Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1974), 401-409.
Drake, H. A., Constantine and the Bishops: the Politics of Intolerance (Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).
Janin, R., Constantinople Byzantine - développement urbain et répertoire topographique. Vol. 4A (Archives de l'Orient chrétien; 2 ed.; Paris: Institut français d'études byzantines 1964).
Johnson, M.J., The Roman Imperial Mausoleum in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 119-129.
Leeb, R., Konstantin und Christus. Die Verchristlichung der imperialen Repräsentation unter Konstantin dem Großen als Spiegel seiner Kirchenpolitik und seines Selbstverständnisses als christlicher Kaiser (Arbeiten zur Kirchentgeschichte; Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1992), 93-120.
Mango, C., “Constantine's Mausoleum and the Translation of Relics,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 83 (1990), 51-61.
Efthymios Rizos
19/05/2015
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S02422 | All Apostles | Ἀπόστολοι | Certain |
|---|
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