Philip the Arab and Christianity

Philip the Arab was one of the few 3rd-century Roman emperors sympathetic to Christians, although his relationship with Christianity is obscure and controversial. Philip was born in Auranitis, an Arab district east of the Sea of Galilee. The urban and Hellenized centers of the region were Christianized in the early years of the 3rd century via major Christian centers at Bosra and Edessa, but there is little evidence of Christian presence in the small villages of the region in this period, such as Philip's birthplace at Philippopolis. Philip served as praetorian prefect, commander of the Praetorian Guard, from 242; he was made emperor in 244. In 249, after a brief civil war, he was killed at the hands of his successor, Decius.

During the late 3rd century and into the 4th, it was held by some churchmen that Philip had been the first Christian emperor; he was described as such in Jerome's Chronicon (Chronicle), which was well known during the Middle Ages, and in Paulus Orosius' highly popular Historia Adversus Paganos (History Against the Pagans). Most scholars hold that these and other early accounts ultimately derive from Eusebius of Caesarea's Historia Ecclesiastica (Church History).

The most important section of Eusebius' Historia on Philip's religious beliefs describes the emperor's visit to a church on Easter Eve when he was denied entry by the presiding bishop until he confessed his sins. The account is paralleled by John Chrysostom's homily, which celebrates Saint Babylas, Bishop of Antioch, for denying a sinful emperor entry to his church; and quotations of Leontius in the Chronicon Paschale which describe Philip seeking penitence from Babylas for the sin of murdering his predecessor. Given the parallels between the accounts, most scholars believe that Eusebius, Chrysostom, and Leontius are referring to the same event.

With the growth of scholarly criticism in the 17th and 18th centuries, fewer historians believed Philip to be a Christian. Historians had become increasingly aware of secular texts, which did not describe Philip as a Christian—and which, indeed, recorded him participating as pontifex maximus (chief priest) over the millennial Secular Games in 248. Modern scholars are divided on the issue. Some, like Hans Pohlsander and Ernst Stein, argue that the ecclesiastic narratives are ambiguous, based on oral rumor, and do not vouch for a Christian Philip; others, like John York, Irfan Shahîd, and Warwick Ball, argue that the ecclesiastic narratives are clear and dependable enough that Philip can be described as a Christian; still others, like Glen Bowersock, argue that the sources are strong enough to describe Philip as a man interested in and sympathetic to Christianity, but not strong enough to call him a Christian.

## Background

### Biography of Philip the Arab

Philip was born in a village in Auranitis, part of the district of Trachonitis, east of the Sea of Galilee in Palestine. Philip renamed the village Philippopolis (the modern al-Shahbā', Syria) during his reign as emperor. He was one of only three Easterners to be made emperor before the decisive separation of East and West in 395. (The other two were Elagabalus and Alexander Severus). Even among Easterners Philip was atypical, as he was an Arab, not a Greek. His father was Julius Marinus; nothing besides his name is known, but the name indicates that he held Roman citizenship and that he must have been prominent in his community.

The early details of Philip's career are obscure, but his brother, Gaius Julius Priscus, was made praetorian prefect under Emperor Gordian III (r. 238–44). If a fragmentary inscription (Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae 1331) refers to Priscus, he would have moved through several equestrian offices (that is, administrative positions open to a member of the equestrian order) during Gordian's reign. In the spring of 242, Philip himself was made praetorian prefect, most likely with the help of his brother. Following a failed campaign against Persia in the winter of 243–44, Gordian died in camp. Rumors that Philip had murdered him were taken up by the senatorial opposition of the later 3rd century, and survive in the Latin histories and epitomes of the period. Philip was acclaimed emperor, and was secure in that title by late winter 244. Philip made his brother rector Orientis, an executive position with extraordinary powers, including command of the armies in the Eastern provinces. Philip began his reign by negotiating a peaceful end to his predecessor's war against Persia. In 248, Philip called the Secular Games to celebrate the 1000-year anniversary of the founding of Rome.

In the Near East, Philip's brother Priscus' tax collection methods provoked the revolt of Jotapianus. At the same time, Silbannacus started a rebellion in the Rhenish provinces. He faced a third rebellion in 248 when the legions he had used in successful campaigns against the Carpi on the Danubian frontier revolted and proclaimed an officer named Pacatianus emperor. All three rebellions were suppressed quickly. In 249, to restore order after the defeat of Pacatianus, Philip gave Senator Decius, a native of the region, command of the Danubian armies. In late spring 249, the armies proclaimed Decius emperor. The civil war that followed ended in a battle outside Verona. Decius emerged victorious, and Philip either died or was assassinated. When news of Philip's death reached Rome, the Praetorian Guard murdered his son and successor Marcus Julius Severus Philippus.

#### Christianity and Philip's early life and career

No account or allusion to Philip's presumed conversion to Christianity survives. The Byzantinist and Arabist Irfan Shahîd, who argues in favor of Philip's Christianity in Rome and the Arabs, assumes that he had been a Christian before becoming emperor. He argues, therefore, that there is no need to explain the absence of evidence for Philip's conversion in contemporary Christian literature. Trachonitis, equidistant from Antioch in the north and Bosra in the south, and sited on a road connecting the two, could have been Christianized from either direction. Even if he was not himself Christian, Philip would probably have been familiar with Christians in his hometown as well as Bosra and other nearby settlements. Hans Pohlsander, a classicist and historian arguing against accounts of Philip's Christianity, allows that Philip "may have been curious about a religion which had its origins in an area so close to his place of birth. As an eastern provincial rather than an Italian, he may not have been so intense in his commitment to the traditional Roman religion that he could not keep an open mind on other religions." He also accepts that Philippopolis probably contained a Christian congregation during Philip's childhood. For the scholar of religion Frank Trombley, however, the absence of evidence for the early Christianization of Philippopolis makes Shahîd's assumption that Philip was Christian from early childhood unmerited.

If Philip had been a Christian during his military service, he would have not been a particularly unusual figure for his era—although membership in the army was prohibited by certain churchmen, and would have required participation in rites some Christians found sacrilegious, it was not uncommon among the Christian laity. The position of an emperor, however, was more explicitly pagan—emperors were expected to officiate over public rites and lead the religious ceremonies of the army. Christian scripture contains explicit prohibitions on this sort of behavior, such as the First Commandment: "You shall have no other gods before me". Whatever the prohibitions, people raised on the "more tolerant Christianity of the camp" would have been able to justify participation in pagan ritual to themselves. Such people did exist: the historical record includes Christian army officers, who would have been regularly guilty of idolatry, and the military martyrs of the late 3rd century. Their ritual sacrifice excluded them from certain parts of the Christian community (ecclesiastical writers tended to ignore them, for example) but these people nonetheless believed themselves to be Christian and were recognized by others as Christians.

### Christianity in Auranitis

Thanks to its proximity to the first Christian communities of Palestine, Provincia Arabia, of which Philippopolis was a part, was among the first regions to convert to Christianity. By the time of Philip's birth, the region had been extensively Christianized, especially in the north and in Hellenized settlements like those of Auranitis. The region is known to have had a fully developed synodal system (in which bishops from the dioceses in the region met to discuss Church affairs) by the mid-3rd century. The region sent six bishops to the Council of Nicaea in 325, and Eusebius' Onomasticon, a gazetteer of Biblical place-names, records a wholly Christian village called Cariathaim, or Caraiatha, near Madaba. Outside of the cities, however, there is less evidence of Christianization. Before the 5th century there is little evidence of the faith, and many villages remained unconverted in the 6th. Philippopolis, which was a small village for most of this period, does not have a Christian inscription that can be dated earlier than 552. It is not known when the village established a prelateship, but it must have been sometime before 451, when it sent a bishop to the Council of Chalcedon.

Christian beliefs had been present in the region's Arab community since about AD 200, when Abgar VIII, an ethnic Arab and king of the Roman client state Osroene, converted to Christianity. The religion was propagated from Abgar's capital at Edessa until its destruction in 244. By the mid-3rd century, Bosra, the capital of Provincia Arabia, had a Christian bishop, Beryllos. Beryllos offers an early example of the heretical beliefs Hellenic Christians imputed to the Arabs as a race: Beryllos believed that Christ did not exist before he was made flesh at the Incarnation. According to Eusebius of Caesarea, his views were condemned as heresy following debate at a local synod. The debate was most likely conducted in Greek, a language in common use among the well-Hellenized cities of the region.

### Christianity in the mid-3rd century

The 3rd century was the age in which the initiative for persecution shifted from the masses to the Imperial office. In the 1st and 2nd centuries, persecutions were carried out under the authority of local government officials. Septimius Severus (r. 193–211) and Maximin (r. 235–38) are alleged to have issued general rescripts against the religion and targeted its clergy, but the evidence for their acts is obscure and contested. There is no evidence that Philip effected any changes to the Christians' legal status. Pogroms against the Christians in Alexandria took place while Philip was still emperor. There is no evidence that Philip punished, participated in or assisted the pogrom.

No historian contests that Philip's successor Decius (r. 249–51), called a general persecution against the Church, and most would list it as the first. Decius was anxious to secure himself in the imperial office. Before mid-December 249, Decius issued an edict demanding that all Romans, throughout the empire, make a show of sacrifice to the gods. Libelli were signed in Fayum in June and July 250 as demonstrations of this sacrifice. If the persecutions of Maximin and Septimius Severus are dismissed as fiction, Decius' edict was without precedent. If the Christians were believed to be Philip's friends (as Dionysius of Alexandria presents them), however, it might help explain Decius' motivations.

## In Greek ecclesiastical writing

The ancient traditions regarding Philip's Christianity can be divided into three categories: the Eusebian, or Caesarean; the Antiochene; and the Latin. The Eusebian tradition consists of Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea's Historia Ecclesiastica and the documents excerpted and cited therein, including the letters of Origen and Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria. The Antiochene tradition consists of the John Chrysostom's homily de S. Babyla and Leontius, bishop of Antioch's entries in the Chronicon Paschale. Most scholars hold that these accounts ultimately derive from Eusebius of Caesarea's Historia Ecclesiastica (Ecclesiastical History), but some, like Irfan Shahîd, posit that Antioch had an independent oral tradition.

### Eusebius

The most significant author to discuss Philip the Arab and Christianity is Eusebius, who served as bishop of Caesarea in Roman Palestine from ca. 314 to his death in 339. Eusebius' major work is the Historia Ecclesiastica, written in several editions dating from ca. 300 to 325. The Historia is not an attempt at a full history of the Church in the classical style, but rather a collection of facts addressing six topics in Christian history from the Apostolic times to the late 3rd century: (1) lists of bishops of major sees; (2) Christian teachers and their writings; (3) heresies; (4) the tribulations of the Jews; (5) the persecutions of Christians by pagan authorities; and (6) the martyrs. His Vita Constantini, written between Constantine's death in 337 and Eusebius' own death in 339, is a combination of eulogistic encomium and continuation of the Historia (the two separate documents were combined and distributed by Eusebius' successor in the see of Caesarea, Acacius).

Five references in Eusebius' Historia Ecclesiastica speak to Philip's Christianity; three directly, two by implication. At 6.34, he describes Philip visiting a church on Easter Eve and being denied entry by the presiding bishop because he had not yet confessed his sins. The bishop goes unnamed. At 6.36.3, he writes of letters from the Christian theologian Origen to Philip and to Philip's wife, Marcia Otacilia Severa. At 6.39, Eusebius writes that Decius persecuted Christians because he hated Philip. The remaining two references are quotations or paraphrases of Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, a contemporary of Philip (he held the patriarchate from 247 to 265). At 6.41.9, Dionysius contrasts the tolerant Philip's rule with the intolerant Decius'. At 7.10.3, Dionysius implies that Alexander Severus (emperor from 222 to 235) and Philip were both openly Christian.

#### Philip's visit to the church

##### Text, sources, and interpretation

Most arguments regarding Philip's Christianity hinge on Eusebius' account of the emperor's visit to a church at 6.34. In the words of the 17th-century ecclesiastical historian Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont, it is the "la seule action en laquelle on sache qu'il ait honoré l'Église", the "only action in which we know him to have honored the Church".

In Shahîd's reconstruction, this event took place at Antioch on 13 April 244, while the emperor was on his way back to Rome from the Persian front. The 12th-century Byzantine historian Zonaras repeats the story.

Eusebius introduces his account of Philip's visit with the words κατέχει λόγος' (katechei logos). The precise meaning of these words in modern European languages has been contested. Ernst Stein, in an account challenging the veracity of Eusebius' narrative, translated the phrase as "gerüchte", or "rumor"; the scholar John Gregg translated it as "the saying goes". Other renderings are possible, however; modern English translations of the Historia Ecclesiastica have "it is recorded" or "it is reported", as in the translation quoted above. The historian Robin Lane Fox, who translates logos as "story" or "rumor" in scare quotes, emphasizes that Eusebius draws a distinction between his "story" about Philip and the other material in the passage.

The substantiative issue involved is the nature of Eusebius' source; where "gerüchte" suggests hearsay (Frend explains that Eusebius' κατέχει λόγος' "usually means mere suggestion"), "it is recorded" suggests documentation. Given that Eusebius' major sources for 3rd-century history were written records, Shahîd contends that the typical translation misrepresents the original text. His source here is probably one of the two letters from Origen to Philip and Marcia Otacilia Severa, Philip's wife, mentioned at 6.36.3. Shahîd argues that an oral source is unlikely given that Eusebius composed his Historia in Caesarea and not Antioch; but others, like Stein and theologian Arthur Cushman McGiffert, editor and translator of the Historia for the Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, contend nonetheless that the story has an oral source.

Shahîd's position is reinforced by C. H. Roberts and A. N. Sherwin-White, who reviewed his Rome and the Arabs before publication. That is, that the proper interpretation of κατέχει λόγος is as a reference to a written account. Roberts notes that Χριστιανὸν ὄντα (Christianon onta, "being a Christian") was probably an editorial insertion by Eusebius, and not included in the logos he relates in the passage. Shahîd takes this as an indication that Eusebius did indeed vouch for Philip's Christianity. Roberts suggested that κατέχει λόγος might be translated as "there is a wide-spread report", but added that a broader study of Eusebius' use of the expression elsewhere would be useful. Sherwin-White points out Eusebius' use of the phrase in his passage on the Thundering Legion (at Historia Ecclesiastica 5.5), where it represents a reference to written sources.

However, because Eusebius nowhere categorically asserts that he has read the letters (he only says that he has compiled them) and as moderns are disinclined to take him at his word, some, like Pohlsander, posit that Eusebius did not get the tale from the letters, and drew it instead from oral rumors. Whatever the case, the wording of the passage shows that Eusebius is unenthusiastic about his subject and skeptical of its significance. Jerome and the Latin Christian authors following him do not share his caution.

##### Contexts and parallels

For many scholars, the scene at 6.34 seems to anticipate and parallel the confrontation between Theodosius and Ambrose in 390; Erasmus used the two situations as parallel exempla in a letter written to Francis I in 1523. That later event has been taken as evidence against Philip's Christianity. Even in the later 4th century, in a society that had already been significantly Christianized, the argument goes, Theodosius' humiliation had shocked the sensibilities of the aristocratic elite. It is therefore inconceivable that 3rd century aristocrats, members of a society that had experienced only partial Christianization, would accept such self-abasement from their emperors. Shahîd contests this parallel, and argues that Philip's scene was far less humiliating than Theodosius': it did not take place against the same background (Theodosius had massacred seven thousand Thessalonicans some months before), no one was excommunicated (Theodosius was excommunicated for eight months), and it did not involve the same dramatic and humiliating dialogue between emperor and bishop. Philip made a quick repentance at a small church on his way back to Rome from the Persian front, a stark contrast to the grandeur of Theodosius' confrontation with Ambrose.

Other scholars, such as ecclesiastical historian H. M. Gwatkin, explain Philip's alleged visit to the church as evidence of simple "curiosity". That he was excluded from services is not surprising: as a "heathen" in official conduct, and, as an unbaptized man, it would have been unusual if he had been admitted. Shahîd rejects idle curiosity as an explanation, arguing that 3rd-century churches were too nondescript to attract much undue attention. That Philip was unbaptized is nowhere proven or stated, and, even if true, it would do little to explain the scene: Constantine participated in Christian services despite postponing baptism to the end of his life—and participation in services without baptism was not unusual for Christians of either period.

#### Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria

> The mention of those princes who were publicly supposed to be Christians, as we find it in an epistle of Dionysius of Alexandria (ap. Euseb. l. vii c. 10.), evidently alludes to Philip and his family; and forms a contemporary evidence, that such a report had prevailed; but the Egyptian bishop, who lived at an humble distance from the court of Rome, expresses himself with becoming diffidence concerning the truth of the fact.
>
>
> Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. D. Womersley (London: Penguin, 1994 [1776]), 1.554 n. 119.

At 6.41, Eusebius quotes a letter from Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, to Fabius, bishop of Antioch, on the persecution at Alexandria under Decius. He begins (at 6.41.1) by describing the pogroms which began a year before Decius' decree of 250; that is, in 249, under Philip. At 6.41.9, Dionysius narrates the transition from Philip to Decius.

At 7.10.3, Eusebius quotes a letter from Dionysius to the otherwise-unknown Hermammon on the early years of Valerian's (r. 253–260) rule. In this period the emperor implicitly tolerated Christianity; Eusebius would contrast his early reputation with his later policy of persecution.

Dionysius is quoted saying that Valerian was so friendly to Christians that he outdid "those who were said to be openly Christians" (οἰ λεχθέντες ἀναφανδὸν Χριοτιανοὶ γεγονέναι, tr. Shahîd). Most scholars, Shahîd and Stein included, understand this as a reference to Severus Alexander and Philip. Because the reference is to a plurality of emperors, implying that Severus Alexander and Philip were both Christians, Stein dismissed the passage as entirely without evidentiary value. Shahîd, however, contends that genuine information can be extracted from the spurious whole, and that, while the reference to Severus Alexander is hyperbole, the reference to Philip is not. He explains the reference to Severus Alexander as a Christian as an exaggeration of what was actually only an interest in the Christian religion. Shahîd references a passage in the often-dubious Historia Augusta's biography of the emperor, which states that Alexander had statues of Abraham, Christ, and Orpheus in his private chapel, and that he prayed to them each morning. He also adduces the letters sent from Origen to Alexander's mother Mamaea (Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica 6.21, 6.28) to explain Dionysius' comment.

#### Origen's letters

Origen's letters do not survive. However, most scholars believe that the letters that circulated in the era of Eusebius and Jerome were genuine. It is also reasonable that Origen, a man with close contacts in the Christian Arab community, would have taken a particular interest in the first Arab emperor. The scholar K. J. Neumann argued that, since Origen would have known the faith of the imperial couple, he must have written about it in the letters listed at 6.36.3. Since Eusebius read these letters, and does not mention that the emperor was Christian (Neumann understands the passage at 6.34 to reflect Eusebius' disbelief in Philip's Christianity), we must conclude that Philip was not Christian, and was neither baptized nor made catechumen. Against Neumann, Shahîd argues that, if Eusebius had found anything in the letters to disprove Philip's Christianity, he would have clearly outlined it in this passage—as the biographer of Constantine, it would have been in his interest to undermine any other claimants to the title "first Christian emperor". Moreover, this segment of the Historia is a catalog of Origen's works and correspondence; the contents of the letters are irrelevant.

#### Views on the Arabs

Eusebius' understanding of the Arab peoples is informed by his reading of the Bible and his knowledge of the history of imperial Rome. He does not appear to have personally known any Arabs. In his Chronicon, all the Arabs that appear—save for one reference to Ishmael—figure in the political history of the first three centuries of the Christian era. To Eusebius, the Saracens of the 4th century are direct-line descendants of the biblical Ishmaelites, descendants of the handmaid, Hagar, and the patriarch, Abraham. They are thus outcasts, beyond God's Covenant with the favored son of Abraham, Isaac. The twin images of the Ishmaelite and the Saracen—outcasts and latrones, raiders of the frontiers—reinforce each other and give Eusebius' portrait of the Arab nation an unhappy color. He may have been reluctant to associate the first Christian emperor with a people of such unfortunate ancestry.

In his Historia, Eusebius does not identify either Philip or Abgar V of Edessa (whom he incorrectly presumed to be the first Christian prince; he does not mention Abgar VIII, who was actually the first Christian prince), as Arabs. He does, however, identify Herod the Great as an Arab, thus tarring the Arab nation with the Massacre of the Innocents and the attempted murder of Christ himself. The Christianity of Provincia Arabia in the 3rd century also earns some brief notices: the heresy of Beryllos, bishop of Bostra, and his correction by Origen (6.33); the heretical opinions concerning the soul held by a group of Arabs until corrected by Origen (6.37); and the heresy of Helkesaites (6.38). Eusebius' account of Philip appears amidst these Arab heresies (at 6.34, 6.36, and 6.39), although, again—and in spite of the fact that Philip so often took on the epithet "the Arab", in antiquity as today—he never identifies him as an Arab. The image of the Arabs as heretics would persist in later ecclesiastical historians (like Epiphanius of Salamis). Shahîd, relating these facts, nonetheless concludes that "Eusebius cannot be accused in the account he gave of the Arabs and their place in the history of Christianity." The fact that he downplayed the role of Philip and Abgar in the establishment of Christianity as a state religion is understandable, given his desire to prop up Constantine's reputation.

#### Views on Constantine

In Shahîd's judgment, the imprecision and unemphatic tone of Eusebius' passage at 6.34 is the major cause of the lack of scholarly consensus on Philip's Christianity. To Shahîd, Eusebius' wording choice is a reflection of his own lack of enthusiasm for Philip's Christianity, which is in turn a reflection of the special position Constantine held in his regards and in his written work. A number of scholars, following E. Schwartz, believe the later editions of Eusebius' Historia to have been extensively revised to adapt to the deterioration of Licinius in the public memory (and official damnatio memoriae) after Constantine deposed and executed him in 324–25. Passages of the Historia incompatible with Licinius' denigration were suppressed, and an account of the last years of his life was replaced with a summary of the Council of Nicaea. Shahîd suggests that, in addition to these anti-Licinian deletions, Eusebius also edited out favorable notices on Philip to better glorify Constantine's achievement.

In 335, Eusebius wrote and delivered his Laudes Constantini, a panegyric on the thirtieth anniversary of the emperor's reign; his Vita Constantini, written over the next two years, has the same laudatory tone. The ecclesiastical historian, who framed his chronology on the reigns of emperors and related the entries in his history to each emperor's reign, understood Constantine's accession as something miraculous, especially as it came immediately after the Great Persecution. The final edition of his Historia has its climax in Constantine's reign, the ultimate "triumph of Christianity". Shahîd argues, it was therefore in his authorial interest to obscure the details of Philip, the first Christian emperor; hence, because of Eusebius' skill in narrative and deception, modern historians give Constantine that title.

Shahîd further argues that the facts of Philip's alleged Christianity would also discourage Eusebius from celebrating that emperor. Firstly, Philip lacks an exciting conversion narrative; secondly, his religion was private, unlike Constantine's very public patronage of the faith; and, thirdly, his reign only lasted five years, not long enough to enact much amelioration of the Christians' condition. In Shahîd's view, the insignificance of his reign to the progress of Christianity, Eusebius' subject, combined with Eusebius' role as Constantine's panegyrist, explain the tone and content of his account.

#### Vita Constantini

F. H. Daniel, in Philip's entry in the Smith–Wace Dictionary of Christian Biography, cites a passage of Eusebius' Vita Constantini as his first piece of evidence against Philip's alleged Christianity. In the passage, Eusebius names Constantine as (in the words of the dictionary) "the first Christian emperor".

Shahîd describes this passage as a mere flourish from Eusebius the panegyrist, "carried away by enthusiasm and whose statements must be construed as rhetorical exaggeration"; he does not take it as serious evidence against Eusebius' earlier accounts in the Historia, where he never refers to Constantine as the first Christian emperor. For Shahîd, the passage also represents the last stage in Eusebius' evolving portrait of the pair of emperors, Philip and Constantine: in the early 300s, in his Chronicon, he had nearly called Philip the first Christian emperor; in the 320s, during the revision of the Historia and the Chronicon, he turned wary and skeptical; in the late 330s, he could confidently assert that Constantine was the sole Christian emperor. John York argues that, in writing this passage, Eusebius was cowed by the anti-Licinian propaganda of the Constantinian era: as an ancestor of the emperor's last enemy, Philip could not receive the special distinction of the title "first Christian emperor"—Constantine had claimed it for himself. Perhaps, Shahîd observes, it is not coincidental that Eusebius would paint the Arabs in uncomplimentary terms (as idolaters and practitioners of human sacrifice) in his Laudes Constantini of 335.

### Chrysostom and Leontius

John Chrysostom, deacon at Antioch from 381, was made priest in 386. As a special distinction, his bishop, Flavian, decided that he should preach in the city's principal church. Chrysostom's contribution to the literature on Philip and Christianity is a homily on Babylas, a martyr-bishop who died in 253, during the Decian persecution. The treatise was composed about 382, when John was a deacon, and forms part of Chrysostom's corpus of panegyrics. Chrysostom's Babylas confronts an emperor; and, since Chrysostom is more interested in the bishop than his opponent, the emperor goes unnamed. He has since been identified with Philip.

Leontius was bishop of Antioch from 348 to 357. He is quoted in the Chronicon Paschale, or Paschal Chronicle, a universal chronicle of history based on the paschal cycle, as an authority on the martyrdom of Babylas. The quotation describes Philip seeking penitence from Babylas for the sin of murdering his predecessor.

Chrysostom and Leontius both lived in Antioch, the site of Philip's alleged humiliation and repentance, and wrote in the mid-4th century, one hundred years after the event took place. Shahîd takes this, along with the fact that Babylas is not named in Eusebius' account, as evidence of an independent local tradition. This tradition would have been perhaps partially oral in nature, and far removed from the written accounts in Eusebius' library at Caesarea. Many other historians trace Chrysostom and Leontius' accounts back to Eusebius: Hans Pohlsander counts Chrysostom and Leontius' accounts as later accretions to Eusebius original account, dependent on his Historia for their legendary core; John Gregg holds that this dependent relationship is most probable; and Stein claims all three Greeks as contributors to the same gerüchte.

## In Latin ecclesiastical writing

The Latin tradition consists of three authors writing in the later 4th and early 5th centuries—Jerome, Orosius, and Vincent of Lérins. The tradition is represented in Jerome's Liber de viris inlustribus and Chronicon, Orosius' Historiarum Adversum Paganos, and Vincent of Lérins' Commonitorum Primum. Most scholars hold that all of these accounts ultimately derive from Eusebius of Caesarea's Historia. These authors follow the Greek tradition, and probably takes all of their information from Eusebius, Eusebius' sources, or Jerome. These authors are more forceful in their claims than Eusebius, as demonstrated by their use of primus, or "first", as in "first Christian emperor", when referring to Philip. Jerome is the most important, both since he is the earliest of the three, and because, as the editor and translator of Eusebius' Chronicon (Chronicle), he is closest to Eusebius.

### Jerome

Eusebius' first version of the Chronicon was written in 303, and his second in the mid-320s; Jerome's revision, translation and continuation dates to 380. The original Greek is lost; it is largely through Jerome's Latin and through an Armenian translation unrelated to Jerome that the substance of the original survives. Eusebius' original did cover Philip's rule—Jerome's continuation of the Chronicon only covers the period from 325 to 378—but the sections regarding Philip's Christianity do not survive in the Armenian translation. In the Armenian, all references to Arabs are omitted. Philip's celebration of the millennium is preserved, while his supposed Christianity is only implied in the entry on Decius' persecution. Jerome's Chronicon is, therefore, the nearest we can get to Eusebius' early statements on Philip's Christianity. That Jerome calls Philip primus in the Chronicon thus admits of two interpretations: either he found it in Eusebius, or he added it independently, based on other sources available to him. Shahîd argues that, while the text would offer a strong case for Philip's Christianity either way, the former interpretation is more plausible. Shahîd believes that primus appeared in Eusebius first version of the Chronicon, but may have been edited out for the second version—by the mid 320s, Eusebius had become Constantine's panegyrist, and was understandably loath to praise his subject's ignoble predecessors.

In his Liber de viris inlustribus, written twelve years later, in 392, Jerome mentions Philip in his chapter on Origen.

The passage contains two important features: first, the statement that the letters of Origen to Philip and his family were still extant in Jerome's time; and second, a strong affirmation of Philip's Christianity. The sentence also contains the false reference to Philip's mother (matrem) as the recipient of a letter from Origen—it was actually Philip's wife who received it. Jerome probably confused her with Alexander Severus' mother Mammaea. Bowersock characterizes the whole passage as a "confused copy" of Eusebius' evidence. Shahîd understands "quae usque hodie extant" to mean that Jerome had read the letters; that he refers to Philip as primus would thus mean that he either found positive evidence for Philip's Christianity in them or, at least, that he found nothing to disprove it.

Jerome otherwise had a dim view of the Arabs. His prejudices were those of a native Roman. Born in Strido (in modern Croatia or Slovenia), near Aquileia, and educated in Rome, Jerome was a lover of Latin, Italy, and the city of Rome. In about 374, he found himself accused in a dream while in Antioch on the way to Palestine: "Ciceronianus es, non Christianus", "you are a Ciceronian, not a Christian". In one of his letters, written while he was staying in the desert of Chalcis, he tells of the joy he had when he discovered that his correspondents had written a letter to him in Latin. All he had to hear during the day were the "barbarous" languages of the natives (that is, Syriac and Arabic). From this evidence, Shahîd concludes that Jerome would not honor the memory of an Arab emperor without a strong rationale.

### Orosius and the Origo Constantini Imperatoris

To Orosius, Constantine was the first Christian Roman emperor, except for Philip (he was the "primus imperatorum Christianus, excepto Philippo"). He probably took this judgment from Jerome—he had met the author in Bethlehem in 415, while on assignment from Augustine of Hippo. Although his judgment is thus not independent of Jerome, Shahîd contends that it is nonetheless valuable since Orosius did not have a bias towards either emperor. It presents Philip in the role Christian history merited: as precursor to Constantine. Because Orosius' Historiae adversum paganos served as the standard manual of universal history during the middle ages, his judgment on this matter was inherited, and generally accepted, by medieval European writers.

Orosius' wording is echoed by the Origo Constantini Imperatoris, an anonymous work usually dated to the late 4th century. "Constantine was also the first Christian emperor, with the exception of Philippus, who seemed to me to have become a Christian merely in order that the one-thousandth year of Rome might be dedicated to Christ rather than to pagan idols." ("Item Constantinus imperator primus Christianus, excepto Philippo, qui Christianus admodum ad hoc tantum constitutus fuisse mihi visus est, ut millesimus Romae annus Christo potius quam idolis dicaretur", tr. J.C. Rolfe) The scholar Samuel N. C. Lieu holds that this passage is a later interpolation, designed to give the work's pagan core a Christian gloss. According to Lieu, this passage, along with others, was probably taken from Orosius' history and inserted into the Origo Constantini during the reign of Constantine III (r. 417–21), a period that witnessed substantial anti-pagan polemic. Shahîd argues that, since the author of the Origo Constantini was a biographer of Constantine, and not a historian of the 3rd and 4th centuries, his reference to Philip is unnecessary. The conflicting claims of Philip and Constantine to primacy may have been at issue at the turn of the 5th century, when the Origo Constantini and Historia adversum paganos were written.

### Vincent of Lérins

In the chapter on Origen in Vincent of Lérins' Commonitorium primum, Vincent writes: "quos ad Philippum imperatorem, qui primus romanorum principum Christianus fuit, Christiani magisterii acutoritate conscripsit."; "with the authority which [Origen] assumed as a Christian Teacher, he wrote to the Emperor Philip, the first Roman prince that was a Christian." Vincent thus unites the commentary on Origen's letters with Philip's Christianity, as Jerome had done. It is possible that he was only following Jerome in so doing, but Shahîd argues that his note that the letters were written "Christiani magisterii auctoritate" implies that he has read the letters. Additionally, the variance between his wording and Jerome's (Vincent refers to Philip as a princeps, not a rex, and he calls the letters epistolae, not litterae), speaks for Vincent's independence of Jerome.

## In Zosimus and other secular writing

Zosimus, a pagan writing at the turn of the 6th century, wrote a work titled the Historia Nova (New History). Its detailed sections cover the period from the 3rd century AD to 410. Zosimus, like all secular historians in his era, addressed himself to the governing class of the later Roman empire: officers, bureaucrats, and the landed aristocracy. There was relatively little overlap between the reading audience of secular histories and the ecclesiastical histories of Eusebius and his successors. For most of the period it covers, the Historia is the most valuable—and sometimes the only—available source. Zosimus' history was written as a polemic, with the aim of establishing that barbarism and Christianity were the essential causes of the decline of the Roman state. Because of these themes, the Historia Nova is considered the first history of what moderns would call Rome's "decline and fall". Although skilled in literary rhetoric, Zosimus was a poor historian. He confuses dates and persons, is ignorant of geography, and treats his sources with naive simplicity. For the 3rd century, Zosimus follows Eunapius of Sardis and Olympiodorus of Thebes in Egypt. Since Eunapius' history began in 272, where the Chronicle of another historian, Dexippus, ended, Zosimus probably used Dexippus' Chronicle, and perhaps his histories of the German wars between 250 and 270. Dexippus, however, was as poor a historian as Zosimus. The surviving fragments of his work show an uncritical author, without strong sources, who prefers rhetoric to fact. (The secular sources for this period are all quite weak.) Zosimus, like all ancient secular historians of the era, says nothing of Philip's alleged Christianity.

Zosimus had no great respect for Philip, and offers an unfavorable judgment on his reign. Nonetheless, he offers a curiously detailed narrative of his reign. He devotes five sections of his Historia Nova to the emperor (1.18–22)—more than Alexander Severus, who only gets half a section (1.8). He even reverts to Philip in the midst of a discussion of the Peace of Jovian (363) two books later (at 3.32), taking the opportunity to recall Philip's own "disgraceful" peace with the Persians. In Shahîd's judgment, Zosimus makes this editorial decision to emphasize his central theme—the decline and "barbarization" of Rome. Zosimus' views on the latter phenomenon reflect his racial prejudice, and his account of Philip carries anti-Semitic overtones. In Zosimus' view, Philip was a barbarian operating at the highest levels of power. The unsavory character of Philip is contrasted with his ethnically Roman predecessor, Gordian (who Philip helped overthrow), and his Roman successor, Decius, who wins glowing praise from the historian.

As he disliked both Arabs and Christians, some scholars, such as Bowersock, have taken Zosimus' silence on the matter as strong evidence against Philip's alleged Christianity. Others, like historian Warwick Ball, view Zosimus' evident distaste for Philip as noteworthy, and suggest that Zosimus' anti-Christian polemic is indirect in his writing on the emperor. Shahîd construes Zosimus' silence as an argument for Philip's Christianity. Zosimus, he argues, would never have shown such distaste for a pagan. Septimius Severus was a "barbarian", an African born at Leptis Magna whose mother tongue was Phoenician and whose wife, Julia Domna, was a provincial from Emesa. But Severus gets a good press from Zosimus (1.8). Nor would Philip's assistance in the execution of Gordian be enough: the 3rd century was hardly a stranger to such bloodshed and treachery. Zosimus' hostility begins to makes sense, Shahîd contends, once we assume that he was aware of the tradition that viewed Philip as the first Christian emperor (and perhaps even accepted it). And it becomes perfectly clear once we understand the importance Zosimus attributes to the Secular Games, and the schematic incongruity he would behold when a Christian emperor was presiding over them.

In 248, Philip held Secular Games (Ludi Saeculares) to celebrate the thousandth anniversary of Rome's legendary founding by Romulus. It is presumed that he would have officiated over the games in his capacity as pontifex maximus, chief priest of the state cults. Allard accepts that he made no public notice of his private religion, and that he ran the games as a "prince païen", a "pagan prince". Pohlsander cites a number of early Christian theologians in support of his contention that "Christians generally condemned 'games' of any kind." Tertullian's de Spectaculis, Novatian's treatise of the same name (which does not survive), and Cyprian's disapproving comments in his ad Donatum are offered as examples. The later followers of Jerome, however, like Orosius and Bede, mention Philip's games approvingly—Orosius even claims that Philip did not sacrifice during the games. Pohlsander concedes that public games continued under Christian emperors throughout the 4th century (they were eventually outlawed in 404 under Honorius). Ball argues that even Constantine was deified, and that Philip had no choice but to publicly oversee the games, seeing as how the debacle of Elagabalus was still fresh in memory. Elagabalus had tried to force an Eastern religion onto Romans to disastrous consequences, which would motivate Philip, already in an unstable position, to keep his personal faith a private matter.

Zosimus provides the lengthiest account of the games (at Historia Nova 2.1–7), but does not mention Philip. The games had a starring role in Zosimus' scheme of Roman history. To him, the fortune of the empire was intimately related to the practice of the traditional civic rites. Any emperor who revived or supported those rites—Augustus, Claudius, Domitian, Septimius Severus—earns Zosimus' credit, while the emperor who ended them, Constantine I, earns his condemnation. All the misfortune of the 4th century can be directly attributed to Constantine's discontinuation of the old rites. In this context, Shahîd argues, Zosimus' silence on Philip's Christianity and Philip's involvement in the games makes sense. First, it would have given lie to his thesis on that the practice of the traditional rites guaranteed the fortunes of empire, since the period following the games was hardly a happy one (and this argument remains valid even if both Philip's Christianity and Zosimus' awareness of the tradition is denied). And second, it would have dulled his attack on Constantine by disentangling the potent alignment between imperial disaster, Christianity, and the traditional cult. The last emperor to celebrate the games was also the first emperor to embrace Christianity. The incongruity of this fact proved too much for the historian to handle, so he ignored it.

## Historiography

Because of the continuing popularity of Jerome's Chronicon and Orosius' Historia, the medieval writers who wrote about Philip called him the first Christian emperor. The Chronica Gallica of 452, Prosper of Aquitaine (d. ca. 455), Cassiodorus (d. ca. 585), Jordanes (fl. 551), Isidore of Seville (d. 636), and Bede (d. 735) all follow Jerome on this point. One early medieval historian writing at the eve of the millennium, the Lombard Landolfus Sagax, held that Philip had confessed to Fabian, Bishop of Rome, instead of Babylas.

By the late 17th century, when Tillemont wrote his Histoire des Empereurs, it was no longer possible to make the argument that Philip was a Christian "sans difficulté", "without difficulty". And when Jean-Baptiste Louis Crévier wrote his L'Histoire des empereurs des Romains, jusqu'à Constantin in 1749, he affirmed the contrary, that Philip was not a Christian at all: "...it is easy to judge what degree of credit ought to be given to this story of his penance; which, besides, is not fully and exactly related by any ancient author. To make out an account of it any way tolerable, they have been obliged to patch several evidences together, and to supply and alter the one by the other. The shortest and safest course is not to admit of a perplexed and ill supported narrative. We have no great temptation to torture history in order to claim such a Christian."

Edward Gibbon, in the first volume of his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776), would take the same position: "The public and even partial favour of Philip towards the sectaries of the new religion, and his constant reverence for the ministers of the church, gave some colour to the suspicion, which prevailed in his own times, that the emperor himself was become a convert to the faith; and afforded some grounds for a fable which was afterwards invented, that he had been purified by confession and penance from the guilt contracted by the murder of his innocent predecessor." And the fable has—"as usual"—"been embellished". To Gibbon, the matter is "curious, rather than important", and the man he credits with disposing of it, Friedrich Spanheim (d. 1649), is said to have shown "much superfluous learning" in the task.

French historians of the 19th and 20th century were more favorable to the notion. Paul Allard, in his Histoire des persecutions pendant la premiere moitié du troisième siecle (1881); René Aigrain, in his chapter "Arabie" in the Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Géographie Ecclésiastique (1909); Henri Grégoire, in Les persécutions dans l'empire romain (1964); and Jean Daniélou and Henri-Irénée Marrou, in The Christian Centuries 1: The First Six Hundred Years (English tr., 1964), all strongly supported the notion. English and German scholars were less likely to accept it. Ecclesiastical historians of the 19th century, like John Mason Neale, B. J. Kidd, and H. M. Gwatkin, gave the notion some credence, but less than their full support. Critical historians, like Ernst Stein, Karl Johannes Neumann, and John Gregg, denied it entirely.

In the late 20th century, a small number of articles and book chapters discussed the matter. John York's "The Image of Philip the Arab" (1972) argued that the literary material on Philip's reign was deeply biased against the emperor. York attempted to correct the narrative, and rehabilitate Philip's reputation. He held that Eusebius' logos was derived from an oral tradition originating in Antioch, and that Origen's letters cannot have definitively proven Philip's Christianity, since (he follows Jerome's Liber de viris inlustribus 54 here) those letters were addressed to Philip's son. Because of this fact, York declared that Philip's Christianity was only "probable", not certain. H. Crouzel's "Le christianisme de l'empereur Philippe l'Arabe" (1975) argued that the Antiochene tradition, as represented by Chrysostom and Leontius, was independent of Eusebius, and that Eusebius was, likewise, ignorant of it. The sources of Eusebius' logos were instead Origen's letters to Philip and Severa. Crouzel is not entirely certain on this point; it is only "très probable", "very probable". In spite of Crouzel's arguments, Pierre Nautin's Origène (1977) was very skeptical of accounts of Philip's Christianity, and Hans Pohlsander's "Philip the Arab and Christianity" (1980), adducing Philip's commitment to traditional civic religion as evidence, denied all accounts of Philip's Christianity.

In a lengthy chapter of his 1984 book Rome and the Arabs, Irfan Shahîd argued that Philip deserved the title of "First Christian Emperor". The chapter is divided into five parts: (1) a brief listing of the sources; (2) a lengthy address to Ernst Stein's arguments against accounts of Philip's Christianity; (3) an explanation of Eusebius' caution and dissimulation; (4) an exposition of the Latin authors' accounts of Philip's Christianity; and (5) Eusebius' relationship with the unnamed bishop in his passage, Babylas, and Babylas' importance in ecclesiastical history. He follows the main body of the chapter with an appendix addressing the articles by York, Crouzel, and Pohlsander, "Philip the Arab and Christianity", and noting the judgments of the scholars who reviewed his draft.

Currently, there is no consensus on the issue of Philip's Christianity. Timothy Barnes, who reviewed Shahîd's chapters on "The First Christian Emperor" and "Eusebius and the Arabs" in 1979, would only say that Eusebius "[presents] Philip as a Christian", in his Constantine and Eusebius (1981). Warwick Ball, author of Rome and the East: The transformation of an empire (2000), argued in favor of Philip's Christianity. David Potter, author of The Roman Empire at Bay (2004), treated the matter dismissively: accounts of Philip's Christianity were simply "bogus", Potter wrote, and works that accepted them should be treated with less respect on that count alone. Some scholars, like Glen Bowersock, took a middle route. Bowersock, reviewing Shahîd's Rome and the Arabs for the Classical Review in 1986, wrote: "I doubt many will be convinced by the extreme position that [Shahîd] has taken, but his arguments do offer some basis for believing that Philip was seriously interested in the religion". He reiterated that view in his Roman Arabia (1980, 3rd rev. ed. 1994).

For the French Byzantinologist Gilbert Dagron, Philip's Christianity is a legend—albeit a very old one—that intended, in a Late Roman/Early Byzantine context, to foster the idea of a Roman Empire that was Christian almost from the beginning, thereby melding Roman Imperial ideology and Christianism, and therefore offering a base for other later legends showing Roman emperors, beginning with Augustus, to be aware and/or sympathetic to Christian revelation, forming a legendary corpus that was brought together during the 6th century by the chronicler John Malalas.

## See also

- Constantine I and Christianity

Religious beliefs of Philip the Arab


Michigan State Trunkline Highway System

The State Trunkline Highway System consists of all the state highways in Michigan, including those designated as Interstate, United States Numbered (US Highways), or State Trunkline highways. In their abbreviated format, these classifications are applied to highway numbers with an I-, US, or M- prefix, respectively. The system is maintained by the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) and comprises 9,669 miles (15,561 km) of trunklines in all 83 counties of the state on both the Upper and Lower peninsulas (UP, LP), which are linked by the Mackinac Bridge. Components of the system range in scale from 10-lane urban freeways with local-express lanes to two-lane rural undivided highways to a non-motorized highway on Mackinac Island where cars are forbidden. The longest highway is nearly 400 miles (640 km) long, while the shortest is about three-quarters of a mile (about 1.2 km). Some roads are unsigned highways, lacking signage to indicate their maintenance by MDOT; these may be remnants of highways that are still under state control whose designations were decommissioned or roadway segments left over from realignment projects.

Predecessors to today's modern highways include the foot trails used by Native Americans in the time before European settlement. Shortly after the creation of the Michigan Territory in 1805, the new government established the first road districts. The federal government aided in the construction of roads to connect population centers in the territory. At the time, road construction was under the control of the township and county governments. The state government was briefly involved in roads until prohibited by a new constitution in 1850. Private companies constructed plank roads and charged tolls. Local township roads were financed and constructed through a statute labor system that required landowners to make improvements in lieu of taxes. Countywide coordination of road planning, construction and maintenance was enacted in the late 19th century.

In the early 20th century, the constitutional prohibition on state involvement in roads was removed. The Michigan State Highway Department (MSHD) was created in 1905, and the department paid counties and townships to improve roads to state standards. On May 13, 1913, the State Reward Trunk Line Highways Act was passed, creating the State Trunkline Highway System. The MSHD assigned internal highway numbers to roads in the system, and in 1919, the numbers were signposted along the roads and marked on maps. The US Highway System was created in 1926, and highways in Michigan were renumbered to account for the new designations. Legislation in the 1930s consolidated control of the state trunklines in the state highway department. During the 1940s, the first freeways were built in Michigan. With the introduction of the Interstate Highway system in the 1950s, the state aborted an effort to build the Michigan Turnpike, a tolled freeway in the southeast corner of the LP. Construction on Michigan's Interstates started in the latter part of that decade and continued until 1992. During that period, several freeways were canceled in the 1960s and 1970s, while others were delayed or modified over environmental and political concerns. Since 1992, few additional freeways have been built, and in the early years of the 21st century, projects are underway to bypass cities with new highways.

## Numbering

### Usage

The letter M in the state highway numbers is an integral part of the designation and included on the diamond-shaped reassurance markers posted alongside the highways. The state's highways are referred to using an M-n syntax as opposed to Route n or Highway n, which are common elsewhere. This usage dates from 1919, when Michigan's state trunklines were first signed along the roadways, and continues to this day in official and unofficial contexts. Michigan is one of only two states following this syntax, the other one being Kansas.

Although M-n outside of Michigan could conceivably refer to other state, provincial, local, or national highways, local usage in those areas does not mimic the Michigan usage in most cases. In countries like the United Kingdom, M refers to motorways, analogous to freeways in the United States, whereas M-numbered designations in Michigan simply indicate state trunklines in general and may exist on any type of highway. M-numbered trunklines are designated along a variety of roads, including eight-lane freeways in urban areas, four-lane rural freeways and expressways, principal arterial highways, and two-lane highways in remote rural areas. The system also includes M-185 on Mackinac Island, a non-motorized road restricted to bicycles, horse-drawn carriages and pedestrians.

The highest numbers used for highway designations include M-553 in the UP and Interstate 696 (I-696) running along the northern Detroit suburbs. The lowest numbers in use are M-1 along Woodward Avenue in the Detroit area and US Highway 2 (US 2) across the UP. Most M-numbered trunkline designations are in the low 200s or under, but some have been designated in the low 300s. MDOT has not assigned a designation outside the Interstate System in the 400s at this time. No discernible pattern exists in Michigan's numbering system, although most of the M-numbered routes lower than 15 are typically located in or around the major cities of Detroit and Grand Rapids.

### Numerical duplication

Unlike some other states, there are no formal rules prohibiting the usage of the same route number under different systems. Motorists using Michigan's highways may encounter I-75 and M-75, as well as both US 8 and M-8. Many of the state's US Highways were assigned numbers duplicating those of state trunklines when the US Highway System was created in 1926. The introduction of the Interstate Highway System in the late 1950s further complicated the situation, as each mainline Interstate designation has an unrelated M-n trunkline counterpart elsewhere in the state.

Many former US Highways in Michigan have left an M-numbered highway with the same number as a relic of their existence. For example, M-27 runs along a portion of former US 27. In addition, there are two occurrences of original M-numbered state routes which became US Highways with the same designations: all of M-16 became US 16 and most of M-10 from Detroit to Saginaw was assumed into the route of US 10 in 1926. In fact, each iteration of M-10 has existed in whole or part along a former or future alignment of US 10.

There are also instances of M-numbered state highways that once existed as extensions of US Highways. M-25 was originally an extension of US 25 before the latter was decommissioned in Michigan, and M-24 was once an extension of US 24 before routing changes separated the two highways. M-131 was an extension of US 131 until US 131 was routed onto the former M-131. There was also once an M-112 that served as an alternate routing for US 112 (both have since been changed to I-94 and US 12, respectively).

## Highway systems

There are four types of highways maintained by MDOT as part of the overall State Trunkline Highway System. In addition, there are systems of roads maintained by the federal government and local counties. There are frequent overlaps between designations when different types of highways share the same stretch of pavement in concurrencies. As just one example of the phenomenon, the freeway between Flint and Standish carries both the I-75 and US 23 designations for around 75 miles (121 km).

### State Trunkline Highways

The State Trunkline Highway System comprises four types of highways: Michigan's portions of the Interstate Highway System and United States Numbered Highway System (US Highways), and the regular state trunklines; the fourth type, special routes, are variations of the other three types of highway, and are distinguished by special plates placed above the route marker. The plates indicate the routes as business or connector routes. Business loops and spurs of the Interstate Highway System use a special green version of the standard Interstate marker which places the word "Business" at the top where "Interstate" would otherwise appears. These business loops and spurs connect downtown districts to main highways after realignments and bypasses have routed the main highway out of the downtown area. Another category, connector routes, serve to connect two highways as their names suggest; most of these connectors are unsigned. The highways names for special routes are formulated by prefacing the parent highway with the type of special route. The full names are commonly abbreviated like other highways: Business Loop Interstate 196 (BL I-196), Business M-60 (Bus. M-60) or Connector M-44 (Conn. M-44). As of 2010 there are 9,669 miles (15,561 km) of state trunklines in Michigan, making up about eight percent of the state's roadways. Of that mileage, some 4,415 miles (7,105 km) of state-maintained highways are included in the National Highway System, which are highways selected for their importance to the country's economy, defense, and mobility. The state trunkline highways in Michigan carry approximately 51 percent of the state's traffic, as of 2007.

The highways in the system range in length from the unsigned Business Spur Interstate 375 (BS I-375) at 0.170 miles (0.274 km) and signed M-212 at 0.732 miles (1.178 km) to I-75 at 395.40 miles (636.33 km). Some trunklines in Michigan are maintained by MDOT but bear no signage along the route to indicate so. These unsigned trunklines are mostly segments of former highway designations that have been moved or decommissioned. They remain under state control until their respective city or county accepts jurisdiction of the roadway from the state.

Highways in the state maintained by MDOT range from two-lane rural highways up to 12-lane freeways. In addition to the Interstates, other trunklines are built to freeway standards. Sections of US 10, US 23, US 31, US 127 and US 131 have been upgraded to freeway standards. All or part of several state trunklines are also freeways. In the Metro Detroit area, M-5, M-8 (Davison Freeway), M-10 (Lodge Freeway), M-14, M-39 (Southfield Freeway), M-53 (Van Dyke Freeway), and M-59 have such sections. In the rest of the state, M-6 near Grand Rapids, Conn. M-13 near Bay City, M-47 near Midland, M-60 near Jackson, and Bus. US 131 near Kalamazoo are also freeways, for all or part of their respective lengths. Sections of US 12, M-20, M-37, M-46, M-55, M-66 and US 223 have been routed to run concurrently with other freeways as well.

As of January 2013, there are three sources of revenue that contribute to the Michigan Transportation Fund (MTF): fuel excise taxes, vehicle registration fees and federal aid. Michigan levies an excise tax of 18.7 cents per gallon on gasoline and 15 cents per gallon on diesel fuel to generate approximately \$955 million in revenue per year. Vehicle registrations account for about \$868 million while federal aid from federal fuel taxes accounts for the last third of funding in Michigan. Money from the MTF is distributed between MDOT, county road commissions, city or village street departments and local public transit agencies. For fiscal year 2013, MDOT has budgeted approximately \$1.2 billion on the highway system, including \$273.4 million in routine maintenance. The remainder financed major projects in terms of planning, right-of-way acquisition or construction. In terms of winter maintenance, MDOT classifies all state highways into two priority levels for snow removal, authorizing overtime to clear some highways in the state.

### County roads and other systems

MDOT assigns the numbers for a parallel system of county-designated highways in the state; the numbers are assigned in a grid system by the department. These highways, while signed from connecting trunklines and shown on the official MDOT map, are maintained by the various counties. They were started in 1970 as a supplement to the main trunkline system and carry a letter-number combination on the national standard pentagon-shaped marker in blue and yellow. The letter component of the name corresponds to a zone of the state; zones A–F are in the Lower Peninsula while G and H are in the Upper Peninsula. The numbers correspond to a numbered grid within each lettered zone. Other county systems are designated and maintained in each of the 83 counties, and signage and numbering practices vary. The state's 533 incorporated cities and villages also maintain their own street networks, but townships in the state have no jurisdiction over roads.

The U.S. Forest Service and Federal Highway Administration designate Federal Forest Highways providing access to the handful of National Forests in the state. In addition, Michigan participates in the Great Lakes Circle Tour program, signing tours along the state-maintained highway closest to Michigan's Great Lakes shorelines. The Michigan Heritage Route System was created in 1993 to highlight trunklines with historic, recreational or scenic qualities; the name was changed to Pure Michigan Byway on December 30, 2014.

## History

### 19th century

The history of the highway system in Michigan dates back to the old Native American trails that crossed the state. These trails were pathways no wider than approximately 12–18 inches (30–46 cm), permitting single-file traffic. Many of the modern highways in the state follow the path of these old trails, including the Great Trail from Fort Pitt to Fort Detroit which is now US 24 from Detroit to Toledo, Ohio. This trail connected with Braddock's Road which led to the Atlantic Coast.

The Michigan Territory was established in 1805, and the territorial governor established the first road districts. The districts built farm-to-market roads to serve the agricultural needs of the farming population of the area at the time; they connected farmers with markets in their local communities. The local streets in the individual communities were the responsibility of those communities. At the same time, Detroit created 120-foot-wide (37 m) rights-of-way for the five great avenues in the city following a fire.

Outside of Detroit, the situation was quite different. Maps of the territory were printed with the words "interminable swamp" across the interior until 1839. Reports of the first explorers and government surveyors crossing the future state only seemed to confirm the assessment that Michigan land was unsuitable for agriculture or other productive activities. The few roads in the area were impassable for half of the year. The poor quality of the early roads meant that most transportation in the state was by way of the lakes and rivers at first. Commerce was limited to trade to and from Canada.

These roads proved inadequate to the needs of the military during the War of 1812. Territorial Governor Lewis Cass lobbied the federal government for road construction funding to bolster defensive needs as well as aid in settlement of the territory. Military roads debuted in 1816 with the construction of the Detroit–Fort Meigs Road to Toledo as a response to transportation needs. More roads were built with Congressional appropriations in the 1820s and 1830s connecting Detroit to Port Huron, Saginaw, Grand Rapids and Chicago.

Townships were given authority to construct roads under the supervision of county commissioners in 1817. This supervision was difficult since in one case, one county covered all of the Upper Peninsula and several of today's counties in the Lower Peninsula. Direct supervision over construction was granted to the townships in 1827, and federal involvement in road building ended with the 1837 grant of statehood.

The first state constitution encouraged state involvement in internal improvements like roads. The Panic of 1837 devastated the new state's efforts, and the government defaulted on bond payments. Private construction companies built roads starting in 1844 to fill the void in long-distance road construction left by the departure of the federal government. The first roads were corduroy roads; to build these, logs of all sizes were placed across the road. The gaps between the logs were filled in with smaller logs or earth. In swampy or marshy areas, brush was laid down first for drainage. In time, the logs would rot, leaving large gaps to the roadway that would catch wagon wheels or draft animal feet. Later, roads were built with oak planks. The plank road companies had to be chartered by the state after passage of legislation in 1848. According to the plank road law, these companies had to build their roads to a set of minimum specifications. These specifications included 2–4 rods (33–66 ft; 10–20 m) in total width, a road surface 16 feet (4.9 m) wide with at least 8 feet (2.4 m) made of 3-inch (8 cm) planks. Later amendments to the law allowed the companies to substitute gravel for the planks. Starting with the enactment of a new state constitution in 1850, the state was prohibited from being "a part to, or interested in, any work of internal improvement"; this provision ended the state government's involvement in Michigan's roads.

The early plank roads were funded by tolls; these fares were collected at turnstiles every few miles along the roads, at rates of \$0.02/mile for wagons pulled by two animals (equivalent to \$ in ). As time passed, the planks would warp and rot. The tolls were insufficient to fund the maintenance necessary to keep the roads in good repair. Even Mark Twain remarked, "The road could not have been bad if some unconscionable scoundrel had not now and then dropped a plank across it," after a trip to Grand Rapids. The planks were removed over time and replaced with gravel roads. The longest chartered road was a distance of 220 miles (350 km) from Zilwaukee to Mackinaw City by way of Traverse City; the shortest was a mile (1.6 km) near Sault Ste. Marie.

Townships continued to maintain and build local roads using the "statute labor system". An able-bodied man residing in a local road district was expected to pay his road taxes by performing 30 days of labor on the roads in his district. If he was unable to work off the tax, a rate of \$0.625/day was assessed (equivalent to \$ in ). This road maintenance was performed under the guidance of the township road overseer, a separate elected township official, according to the wishes of his constituents, often without any county-level planning or coordination. Often the "improved roads" were in worse condition than unimproved roads due to the amateur nature of the maintenance.

An early form of federal aid contributed to the road network in the state starting in the 1850s. Congress granted certain forest and swamp lands to the state in 1850. A stipulation on the grant stated that the proceeds from the lands would be used to reclaim them for use. The Michigan Legislature established several roads to be built by contractors, paid with the proceeds from the sale of the land adjoining the roads, or with land itself. Despite these efforts, only 1,179 miles (1,897 km) of the 5,082 miles (8,179 km) of plank roads authorized by the state were ever built by 89 of the 202 chartered plank road companies.

The tax system was partially reformed in 1881, allowing for direct payment of road taxes instead of relying totally on the statute-labor system. The first road district larger than the township level was created in Bay County in 1883 under Public Act 278. This road district encompassed eight townships and provided for better coordination and planning of road construction. Other county systems were created in 1893 with passage of legislation which allowed other counties to follow the lead of Bay County. By 1900, the plank roads were generally abandoned. While a few were still in good repair, most consisted of rotting logs with intermittent patches of gravel. Toll houses were empty shacks, and the ditches were clogged with duck ponds. Only 23 of the original 202 plank roads chartered by the state were still in operation.

The Good Roads Movement, borne out of the needs of the bicycle craze of the 1880s and 1890s, turned its attention towards the needs of automobiles at the turn of the century. Horatio S. "Good Roads" Earle, a state senator from Detroit, was elected national president of the League of American Wheelmen in 1901. Earle worked on a committee report that called for the removal of the prohibition on road improvements from the state constitution. That report also recommended the creation of a commission and system for state highways.

### Early 20th century

The first state road agency, the Michigan State Highway Department (MSHD), was created on July 1, 1905. At first the department administered rewards to the counties and townships for building roads to state minimum specifications. In 1905, there were 68,000 miles (110,000 km) of roads in Michigan. Of these roads, only 7,700 miles (12,000 km) were improved with gravel and 245 miles (394 km) were macadam. The state's statute labor system was abolished in 1907. Instead, a property tax system was instituted with the funding only for permanent improvements, not maintenance. Rural farmers opposed the state's efforts, and even Henry Ford was against the idea of reforming road construction and maintenance. In response to this opposition, the department's work was decentralized; standards for road improvement came from the state, but work was carried out by the townships and counties. The nation's first mile of concrete roadway was laid along Woodward Avenue in 1909 between Six Mile and Seven Mile roads in Detroit; this section of street was 17 feet 8 inches (5.38 m) wide and cost \$14,000 (equivalent to \$ in ).

Passage of the State Reward Trunk Line Highways Act on May 13, 1913, provided for 3,000 miles (4,828 km) of roadways in a state-financed system. The system comprised 10 divisions, several of which had associated branches, that ran along existing roads throughout the state. After the creation of the system, the Huron Shore Road Association scheduled a Road Bee Day on June 13, 1913; some 5,000 men, 200 women, 3,000 teams of horses and 750 automobiles participated in the effort that improved 200 miles (320 km) of roads in the state. Further legislation at the time allowed for special assessment taxing districts for road improvements, taxation of automobiles based on weight and horsepower, and tree-planting along highway roadsides. Congress passed the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916, and the state passed a constitutional amendment in 1917 to qualify for federal aid with state funding matches.

The first centerline was painted on a state highway in 1917 along the Marquette–Negaunee Road which was designated Trunkline 15, now County Road 492 in Marquette County. Winter maintenance started during World War I to keep 590 miles (950 km) of strategic highways clear; some \$13,200 (equivalent to \$ in ) was appropriated with partial funding from the War Loan Board.

In 1919, the legislature passed the Aldrich Act; combined with the approval of the Bond Issue Act during an election that April, the MSHD was authorized to assume responsibility over the roadways that composed the State Trunkline Highway System. The state highway commissioner was required to sign the state trunkline highways, and Michigan became the second state after Wisconsin to do so. Alan Williams, Ionia County engineer, helped to design the diamond marker used to sign the highways; he is also known for placing a picnic table alongside US 16 (Grand River Avenue) in 1929 south of Saranac, considered the first in the country. Other sources say that the first roadside park in the country was created by Herbert Larson near what is now US 2 near Iron River in 1919–20. The first crows nest traffic tower in the US was installed at the intersection of Woodward and Michigan avenues in Detroit on October 9, 1917. The tower elevated a police officer above the center of the intersection to direct traffic before it was replaced in October 1920 with the world's first four-way traffic light.

While Michigan was the second state to post route designations along its highway system in 1919, Michigan actually began assigning internal trunkline designations for internal inventory purposes as early as 1913. From 1918 to 1926, only the M-numbered highway designations existed on state highways throughout Michigan, while the creation of the US Highway System in 1926 caused several existing designations to be either reassigned or retired altogether. Public Act 131 of 1931 allowed the MSHD to take control over the city and village streets that carried state highways through cities and villages in the state. The 1932 McNitt Act consolidated all of the township-controlled roads into 83 county road commissions. On May 4, 1935, the state opened the first highway welcome center next to US 12 in New Buffalo near the Indiana state line; Michigan was the first state in the country to do so at the time.

### Mid-20th century

The state passed legislation in 1941 that authorized the creation of limited-access roadways; the MSHD could prohibit access to a state trunkline from the adjacent properties. Around the same time, single-digit highways like M-9 were renumbered to set aside those numbers for future freeways in the state. During World War II, the Willow Run Expressway, the Detroit Industrial Expressway and the Davison Freeway were built, ushering in the beginnings of the state's freeway system. These highway improvements were financed by the Defense Highway Act of 1941 to aid in national defense. After the war, the MSHD and the Good Roads Federation studied the highway needs of the state. Their study reported that road maintenance and improvement deteriorated since the Great Depression. It also stated that funding needed to be increased to deal with pressures from traffic increases after the war.

Public Act 51 of 1951 amended and clarified the current system of jurisdiction over roads in the state. The existing tri-level system was maintained, splitting road jurisdiction between the state, counties and cities, as well as subdividing each level into several classifications. Further legislation redefined the exact distribution, but Act 51 set up a system to distribute road funding from gas taxes from a single funding source, currently the Michigan Transportation Fund. Funding was increased during the 1950s as the fuel taxes were increased. Whereas those revenues during the war dropped to levels barely sufficient to keep existing highways in usable condition, they were increased during the following decade to deal with increasing traffic. The state highway department was also authorized to sell bonds to provide funding for the proposed road improvements.

The Michigan Turnpike Authority (MTA), an agency created in 1951, proposed the construction of a toll freeway to run north–south in the state. The original termini for the Michigan Turnpike were Bridgeport and Rockwood. The state highway commissioner at the time, Charles Ziegler, distrusted a separate agency dealing with statewide road building at the time and worked to stall progress on any proposed turnpikes. He also opposed the idea because the state had three freeways under planning or construction. Ziegler and the MSHD announced plans for a full freeway to run north through the Lower Peninsula and continue across to the Upper Peninsula. This announcement derailed the efforts to build the Michigan Turnpike. The Interstate Highway System was authorized by the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, and the state had already designed several freeways for its portion of that system. Seizing the opportunity brought by a 1957 state law, the department sold \$700 million in bonds (equivalent to \$ in ) in the late 1950s and early 1960s to finance land purchases and construction of the new freeways. The first Interstate Highway in the state was signposted in October 1959 when I-75 signs were first installed along the Detroit–Toledo Expressway. These signs replaced US 24A signage in the Monroe area, after the state received final approval for the numbering system to be used in the state. Michigan was the first state to complete a border-to-border Interstate Highway in 1960 with the completion of I-94. The last gravel state highway was paved in the early 1960s as well; bids were let in March 1962 to finish paving M-48 in Chippewa County.

The original goal of Michigan's freeways was to connect every city with a population of more than 50,000 people with a network of roads that would accommodate traffic at 70 mph (110 km/h). Following the start of these highway improvements, the MSHD adopted a policy to allow traffic to use the state's trunklines every day of the year regardless of the weather. The state also invested in improving non-freeway roads in the highway system; better materials and construction methods were used to improve safety and traffic flow throughout the state.

The post-war years were also a period of major bridge building in the state. The Mackinac Bridge opened on November 1, 1957, the Portage Lake Lift Bridge, the largest double-deck lift bridge was completed in August 1959, and the International Bridge opened across the St. Marys River three years later on October 31, 1962. The State Highway Department started erecting mileposts along the Interstates in 1963, and later expanded the practice to other freeways and used the mileages to number the interchanges along I-94.

### Late 20th century

Freeway construction continued through the 1970s. On April 6, 1972, the New Buffalo Welcome Center was relocated from its previous location next to US 12 to one adjacent to I-94. Later that year, the state switched paint colors for its centerlines; yellow was used for the lines separating directions of travel and white for lines separating lanes traveling in the same direction. Also in 1972, a gas tax increase was passed to facilitate US and state highway improvement projects. The final section of I-75 between Alger and Roscommon was opened on November 1, 1973, in a dedication by Governor William G. Milliken, completing the longest highway in the state. In 1974, the state implemented mileage-based exit numbers along the remaining Interstates in Michigan. By late 1977, the state highway department shifted its focus from construction of new highways to improvements of the existing system.

During the 1960s and 1970s, various freeway projects in the Detroit area were cancelled or scaled back in scope. The route of I-96 along Grand River Avenue was cancelled in response to freeway revolts in the city, and a new routing along the C&O Railroad right-of-way in Livonia was used instead. Plans to transfer the Davison Freeway in the 1970s to state control and extend it west to I-96 (Jeffries Freeway) and east to a Van Dyke Freeway (extended M-53) were dropped. Another freeway project near Lansing, the Van Atta Connector, was proposed in 1961 to provide an eastern freeway beltway around East Lansing, but by 1981 the highway's impact to neighboring elementary schools along with larger economic impacts led to the project's cancellation.

The Michigan Highway Commission canceled the northern section of I-275 on January 26, 1977, after it spent \$1.6 million (equivalent to \$ in ) the year before purchasing land for the roadway. This northern section was not planned as an Interstate Highway at that time, bearing the designation M-275 instead. Opposition to construction came from various citizen's groups, different levels of local government, and both The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press. The Detroit City Council, led by then-Chairman Carl Levin, opposed the plan as well. Levin said at the time, "At last I think people are waking up to the dangers of more and more expressways. At some point we've got to say enough. And I think we've reached it." The United States Department of the Interior reviewed the state's environmental impact study of the project and stated the project "will cause irreparable damages on recreation lands, wetlands, surface waters and wildlife habitat." The total project to link Farmington Hills with Davisburg with the 24-mile (39 km) freeway would have cost \$69.5 million (equivalent to \$ in ) and saved drivers an estimated eight minutes off travel time around the city of Detroit. Other freeway projects cancelled during the 1970s included an extension of the US 131 freeway northward to Petoskey, an extension of the US 23 freeway from Standish to Alpena, and a freeway running across the southern Lower Peninsula toward Chicago. These ventures, along with the I-275 extension, were dropped over concerns related to rising construction costs, the environment and the Arab Oil Embargo. Even with these cancelled highways, several proposals were left to be completed.

At the end of the 1970s, MDOT took part in a FHWA-backed initiative called the Positive Guidance Demonstration Project, and the two agencies audited signage practices in the vicinity of the I-96/M-37 and I-296/US 131 interchange in Walker near Grand Rapids. MDOT determined that usage of the I-296 designation was "a potential source of confusion for motorists." FHWA agreed with the department's proposal to eliminate all signage and public map references to the designation in April 1979. MDOT then received permission from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) on October 13, and from the FHWA on December 3, 1979, on the condition that MDOT would continue to use the designation on official documents. The approval explicitly retained the highway in the Interstate system for funding and other purposes. The last state map to show the I-296 designation was published in 1979, as the 1980 map lacks any reference to the designation.

Following this program, the Reflective Systems Unit at MDOT reviewed the state of two- and three-way concurrencies along the highway system in Michigan. They approached the department's Trunkline Numbering Committee and the district traffic and safety engineers on October 19, 1982, for proposals to reduce or eliminate the various overlapping designations to "avoid driver confusion and save funds". When the unit released its final recommendations on March 17, 1983, the memo recommended 19 changes to eliminate various concurrent routings, including the truncation of US 2 to St. Ignace, changes to the routing of US 10, and the removal of US 33 from the state. These changes were implemented October 1983, 1985, and 1986, respectively. Other changes recommended at the time, like the truncation of M-54 to remove it from the wrong-way concurrency with M-83 near Birch Run, has never been implemented.

### Into the 21st century

The final section of the controversial I-696 opened at a cost of \$436 million (equivalent to \$ in ) on December 15, 1989; the freeway's central segment was delayed over concerns related to its routing through Detroit's northern suburbs. The 1,241-mile (1,997 km) Interstate Highway network in Michigan was completed in 1992 with the last four miles (6.4 km) of I-69 near the Lansing area. Since the completion of these freeways, a handful of major projects have added to the trunkline system and the end of the 20th and the start of the 21st centuries. A bypass of St. Johns along US 27 (now US 127) opened on August 31, 1998. M-6, a southern freeway bypass of Grand Rapids first proposed in the 1960s, was built between 1997 and 2004; that freeway was controversial based on the choice of a minority-owned subcontractor and route location. Bypasses of Cadillac and Manton opened in 2001 and 2003, extending the US 131 freeway northward. The final segment of the M-5 Haggerty Connector opened to traffic on November 1, 2002. Another venture was the construction of a new bridge over the Grand River in Ottawa County for a highway designated M-231; that highway opened in October 2015.

## Future

There are several future highway projects current in stages of planning or construction. One is looking at improvements to US 131 in St. Joseph County, which includes the bypass of Constantine that opened in October 2013. MDOT continues to purchase parcels for right-of-way to be used for future upgrades of US 127 along the expressway section between Ithaca and St. Johns.

Another project would complete the St. Joseph Valley Parkway, a section of US 31 in Berrien County. The original plan for the freeway would have routed US 31 to connect directly into the I-196/US 31 interchange on I-94. Concerns over the habitat of the Mitchell's satyr butterfly meant this routing would need to be redesigned with a set of bridges to cross the habitat unobtrusively in the Blue Creek Fen. In 2001, MDOT began a study of a new design alternative to route the US 31 freeway to connect with I-94 at the BL I-94 interchange just south of the I-196/US 31 interchange. In the interim, MDOT built a 9.1-mile (14.6 km) freeway segment north to Napier Avenue that was opened on August 27, 2003, at a cost of \$97 million (equivalent to \$ in ). The department intends to start construction on the missing link in 2021.

The United States Congress legislated a highway proposal in 1991 known as I-73. Originally set to run along I-75 to Detroit, the definition was amended in 1995 to include a branch that would run along US 223 and US 127 to Grayling, then on a continuation along I-75 to Sault Ste. Marie. MDOT examined three options to build the freeway, but abandoned further study after June 12, 2001, diverting remaining funds to improvement of safety along the corridor. The department stated there was a "lack of need" for sections of the proposed freeway, and the project's website was taken offline in 2002. According to 2011 press reports, a group advocating on behalf of the freeway is working to revive the I-73 proposal in Michigan, but state and local governments continue to express disinterest in resurrecting the freeway.

## See also

- Michigan left

Highway system in Michigan