Military priests in Late Empire armies?

[tlclark]

David,

Carlton is quite right on the structure of military clerical/relations in the late period. The local bishop would have been the person most likely consulted by soldiers for the two rites that seemed to have been practiced before arrival on campaign: blessings of protection, and the eucharist.

In many ways this is probably not all that different than in pagan times. While there were attached pagan priests in earlier times, military leaders were not above consulting any local religious leaders for blessings, or augury.

A centurion who sought out a local Christian Bishop to bless his troops, hear confessions or offer the eucharist, would not be all that different from Roman leaders who sought out local pagan ascetics or sybils to perform the same function.

Also Metropolitans had numerous officers and deacons to assign to various duties. It is not impossible that he would assign a clerical officer, at least on a temporary basis, to a military unit, if requested.

As far as Arian rites go, the truth is that they were probably not all that different, if different at all. Certain invocations about the Trinity which are common to the liturgy, would doubtless be different, but I know of no recorded formula for the Arian trinity in the liturgy.

In large part it wasn't a dispute over ritual as much as theology. When Ravenna is re-conquered under Justinian, the only significant changes to the Churches of San Apollonaire Nuovo are to remove images of Theodoric and the ruling family and that's a political consideration, not a religious one. Likewise, the Arian baptistery continues to be used with little or no modification until much later, and that was largely for practical reasons. Though the presence of the Orthodox baptistery would suggest a new facility was warranted, it's almost impossible to decide what is "Arian" about the earlier one.

You wouldn't catch an Arian using the Creedal formulas, but other than that, I'm not sure what they would have done that would have been so different.

Travis