Timothy Barnes | |
---|---|
Born | Timothy David Barnes 13 March 1942 Yorkshire, England |
Education | Balliol College, Oxford (BA, MA) Queen's College, Oxford (DPhil) |
Occupation | Historian |
Employer | University of Edinburgh |
Awards | Conington Prize, Philip Schaff Prize |
Timothy David Barnes FBA FRSC (born 13 March 1942) is a British classicist.
Barnes was born in Yorkshire on 13 March 1942. He was educated at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield, until 1960, going up to Balliol College, Oxford, where he read Literae Humaniores, taking his B.A. in 1964 and M.A. in 1967. He was Harmsworth Senior Scholar of Merton College, Oxford, 1964–66 and Junior Research Fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford, 1966–70. He was awarded his D.Phil. in 1970. In 1974 the University of Oxford conferred upon him the Conington prize.
On receiving his doctorate he was immediately appointed assistant professor of Classics at University College, University of Toronto, and in 1972 he was appointed associate professor. In 1976 he became professor of Classics, a post he held for thirty-one years until his retirement in 2007. He was three times associate chairman of Classics (1979–83, 1986–89, 1995–96). In the year 1976/7 he was a visiting member of the Institute for Advanced Study. 1983/4 he was Visiting Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford and 1984/5 he was Connaught Senior Fellow in the Humanities. In 1989 he was elected a Fellow of the University of Trinity College. He delivered the Townsend Lectures at Cornell University in 1994.
In 1982 he was awarded both the Philip Schaff Prize by the American Society of Church History for Constantine and Eusebius [1] and the Charles Goodwin Award of Merit by the American Philological Association. In 1985 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and in 2009 Foreign Member of the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters.
In December 2007, he officially retired from the University of Toronto, and returned to the United Kingdom. He is currently an honorary fellow at the University of Edinburgh's School of Divinity, [2] working with the Centre for the Study of Christian Origins. [3]
Constantine I, also known as Constantine the Great, was a Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337 and the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. He played a pivotal role in elevating the status of Christianity in Rome, decriminalizing Christian practice and ceasing Christian persecution in a period referred to as the Constantinian shift. This initiated the Christianization of the Roman Empire. Constantine is associated with the religiopolitical ideology known as Caesaropapism, which epitomizes the unity of church and state. He founded the city of Constantinople and made it the capital of the Empire, which remained so for over a millennium.
Eusebius of Caesarea, also known as Eusebius Pamphilius, was a Greek Syro-Palestinian historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist. In about AD 314 he became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima in the Roman province of Syria Palaestina.
The First Council of Nicaea was a council of Christian bishops convened in the Bithynian city of Nicaea by the Roman Emperor Constantine I. The Council of Nicaea met from May until the end of July 325.
Flavius Valerius Constantius, also called Constantius I, was a Roman emperor from 305 to 306. He was one of the four original members of the Tetrarchy established by Diocletian, first serving as caesar from 293 to 305 and then ruling as augustus until his death. Constantius was also father of Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of Rome. The nickname "Chlorus" was first popularized by Byzantine-era historians and not used during the emperor's lifetime.
Numerian was Roman emperor from 283 to 284 with his older brother Carinus. They were sons of Carus, a general raised to the office of praetorian prefect under Emperor Probus in 282.
Galerius Valerius Maximianus was Roman emperor from 305 to 311. While acting as Caesar under Emperor Diocletian, Galerius obtained victory warring against the Persian Sassanian Empire, defeating Narseh at the battle of Satala in 298 and possibly sacking the Sassanian capital of Ctesiphon in 299. He also campaigned across the Danube against the Carpi, defeating them in 297 and 300. Although he was a staunch opponent of Christianity, Galerius ended the Diocletianic Persecution when he issued the Edict of Toleration in Serdica (Sofia) in 311.
Maximian, nicknamed Herculius, was Roman emperor from 286 to 305. He was Caesar from 285 to 286, then Augustus from 286 to 305. He shared the latter title with his co-emperor and superior, Diocletian, whose political brain complemented Maximian's military brawn. Maximian established his residence at Trier but spent most of his time on campaign. In late 285, he suppressed rebels in Gaul known as the Bagaudae. From 285 to 288, he fought against Germanic tribes along the Rhine frontier. Together with Diocletian, he launched a scorched earth campaign deep into Alamannic territory in 288, refortifying the frontier.
Galerius Valerius Maximinus Daza, born as Daza, was Roman emperor from 310 to 313. He became embroiled in the civil wars of the Tetrarchy between rival claimants for control of the empire, in which he was defeated by Licinius. A committed pagan, he engaged in one of the last persecutions of Christians, before issuing an edict of tolerance granting Christians their freedoms back near his death. Maximinus Daza is the last to be referred as Pharaoh of Egypt.
Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius was a Roman emperor from 306 until his death in 312. Despite ruling in Italy and North Africa, and having the recognition of the Senate in Rome, he was not recognized as a legitimate emperor by his fellow emperors.
Flavia Julia Helena, also known as Helena of Constantinople and in Christianity as Saint Helena, was an Augusta of the Roman Empire and mother of Emperor Constantine the Great. She was born in the lower classes traditionally in the city of Drepanon, Bithynia, in Asia Minor, which was renamed Helenopolis in her honor, although several locations have been proposed for her birthplace and origin.
The Diocletianic or Great Persecution was the last and most severe persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. In 303, the emperors Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius issued a series of edicts rescinding Christians' legal rights and demanding that they comply with traditional religious practices. Later edicts targeted the clergy and demanded universal sacrifice, ordering all inhabitants to sacrifice to the gods. The persecution varied in intensity across the empire—weakest in Gaul and Britain, where only the first edict was applied, and strongest in the Eastern provinces. Persecutory laws were nullified by different emperors at different times, but Constantine and Licinius' Edict of Milan in 313 has traditionally marked the end of the persecution.
Elizabeth Mary Jeffreys was a British scholar of Byzantium. She was Bywater and Sotheby Professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek Language and Literature, University of Oxford, and a Professorial Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, 1996–2006.
William Sanday was a British Anglican theologian and priest. He was the Dean Ireland's Professor of Exegesis of Holy Scripture from 1883 to 1895 and the Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity from 1895 to 1919; both chairs were at the University of Oxford. He had previously been Master of Bishop Hatfield's Hall, University of Durham.
The Melitians, sometimes called the Church of the Martyrs, were an early Christian sect in Egypt. They were founded about 306 by Bishop Melitius of Lycopolis and survived as a small group into the eighth century. The point on which they broke with the larger catholic (universal) church was the same as that of the contemporary Donatists in the province of Africa: the ease with which lapsed Christians were received back into communion. The resultant division in the church of Egypt is known as the Melitian schism.
The civil wars of the Tetrarchy were a series of conflicts between the co-emperors of the Roman Empire, starting from 306 AD with the usurpation of Maxentius and the defeat of Severus to the defeat of Licinius at the hands of Constantine I in 324 AD.
Donald MacGillivray Nicol, was an English Byzantinist.
Sinnappah Arasaratnam was a Sri Lankan academic, historian and author, born during British colonial rule. Known as 'Arasa', he was a lecturer at the University of Ceylon, University of Malaya and University of New England (Australia).
Life of Constantine the Great is a panegyric written in Greek in honor of Constantine the Great by Eusebius of Caesarea in the 4th century AD. It was never completed due to the death of Eusebius in 339. The work provides scholars with one of the most comprehensive sources for the religious policies of Constantine's reign. In addition to detailing the religious policies of the Roman Empire under Constantine, Eusebius uses Life of Constantine to engage several of his own religious concerns, such as apologetics, as well as a semi-bibliographic account of Constantine.
The Conference of Carnuntum was a gathering of ancient Roman rulers on 11 November 308, intended to stabilize the power-sharing arrangement known as the Tetrarchy. It was convened by the Eastern augustus (emperor) Galerius in the city of Carnuntum, which at the time was located in the Roman province of Pannonia Prima. A dispute over the title of augustus in the West had been ongoing since the previous year, when consecutive invasions by Severus II and Galerius had failed to recover Italy from the usurpers Maxentius and Maximian. Present at the conference were the retired Diocletian, and his former colleague, Maximian.