John Lydus: On the Months

its interpretation, as well as his clear interest in Neoplatonic philosophy.⁶⁵ Or, seen in another way, one's judgment will depend on the relative plausibility of Kaldellis's and Cameron's discussions. It is impossible to tease out an anti-Christian orientation in John except by innuendo and argument from silence. Maas argues that John had much in common with the mentality of the historian Zosimus, who pointed to Constantine's adoption of Christianity and the neglect of traditional rites as the beginning of the end for the Roman Empire—but that it is specifically the overtly anti-Christian attitude that John has pruned away.⁶⁶ Certainly no one could doubt John's showy reverence for tradition. More to the point, however, and clearly visible also in John's discussions, is local pride in his hometown, Philadelphia in Lydia (along with the cultural importance of Lydia more broadly), both in its association with the great philosophical genius of Proclus (De mens. 4.58) and in its veneration for antiquity as seen in its preservation of ancient rites (De mens. 4.2 and 58).⁶⁷ He certainly does not shy away from any of these associations; on the contrary, he highlights them. Still, given the kind of secular scholarly work he is engaged in as an antiquarian, those emphases should be seen as entirely understandable, regardless of any deeply held personal religious beliefs; the "neglect" of Christianity is easy to interpret as a literary choice rather than an expression of belief.⁶⁸ At most, although his "true" views are not directly accessible to the historian, one can say that De mensibus in particular demonstrates almost no interest in Christianity at all, and certainly not in the militant orthodoxy of Justinian's reign.⁶⁹ It would be easy but pointless to read too much into that. As Neil McLynn warns,

65. As Cameron points out, one of the weaknesses in Kaldellis's arguments is a failure of definitions: "His Christians are all well-informed zealots, who, if they refer to pagan gods, ideas, or even mythological stories, will always be careful to add 'as the Hellenes (wrongly) say.'... His pagans are people who positively and emphatically reject Christianity, conceal their true beliefs, and worship their own gods in secret" ("Paganism in Sixth-Century Byzantium," pp. 281–2). On the other hand, it is quite difficult to disprove the idea that John's interest in Proclus, for example, had no religious significance whatsoever, as opposed to its undeniable philosophical significance.
66. Maas, pp. 49–52.
67. For this local pride, compare Maas, pp. 30–31; Scott, pp. 211–12. Proclus himself had been particularly interested in the ancient (i.e., pagan) traditions still preserved in Lydia (Dubuisson-Schamp 1.1: xix). For the survival of pagan practices in Asia Minor at this period, see, concisely, Bell, p. 239; more extensively, F. R. Trombley, Hellenic Religion and Christianization c. 370–529, vol. 2 (Leiden, 1995), pp. 74–133; id., "Paganism in the Greek World at the End of Antiquity: The Case of Rural Anatolia and Greece," Harvard Theological Review 78 (1985), pp. 327–52.
68. On classicizing literary style, see briefly Baldwin, p. 64; and the classic discussions by Averil Cameron of Procopius's style and religious sensibilities, Procopius and the Sixth Century (London, 1985), pp. 113–33, by Alan Cameron of Claudian's poetry, Claudian: Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Honorius (Oxford, 1970), pp. 189–227, with the pithy observation (p. 214): "...whether or not Claudian was a pagan at heart, he was evidently not a pagan prepared to be a martyr for his beliefs."
69. As Maas, p. 78, puts it, "In Lydus's hands... antiquarianism resisted Justinian's version of Christian imperium imperial rule."