Abstract
In this paper I present a model for describing the change in religion that took place during the Roman imperial period, a model that is built around a contrast between orthopraxy and orthodoxy. I begin with a brief survey of the most important earlier models of religious change in the Roman empire, followed by an initial sketch of my own proposed model. In the third and fourth sections I elaborate on this model in more detail by developing it through two brief case studies: the Graeco-Roman practice of animal sacrifice and the nascent Christian discourse around that practice. In analyzing animal sacrifice, I focus on its role in constructing the socio-political and cultural structures of the Roman empire. For the Christian discourse of sacrifice, I limit myself to one particular text, Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, which provides some of the earliest surviving reflections on sacrifice by a Christ-follower. I close with a few comments on some of the limitations as well as the potential of my proposed model.
Highlights
It is obvious, and was so even to contemporaries, that over the course of the first few centuriesCE there were significant changes in those aspects of Mediterranean culture that we would label ‘religion.’ These changes culminated in the 4th century, when the conversion of Constantine and the continued adherence to Christianity on the part of virtually all his successors resulted in the social and political promotion of Christianity and the gradual suppression of most traditional modes of interacting with the divine
I have been developing this model with the ultimate goal of employing it as the analytical framework for a large-scale study of animal sacrifice in the Roman empire, one that takes it as a focal point for exploring the nature of and the driving forces behind religious change in the Mediterranean
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at a workshop on ‘Empire and the Media of Religion’ at the University of California Los Angeles, the University of Virginia, the University of Michigan and a colloquium on ‘Religion before
Summary
Was so even to contemporaries, that over the course of the first few centuries. In the first section of this essay I provide a brief survey of the most important earlier models of religious change in the Roman empire, followed in the second by an initial sketch of my own proposed model. Both these case studies are deliberately limited in scope, in keeping with the overall goals of this essay. I close with a few comments on some of the limitations of my proposed model
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