Religion In Late Antiquity Research Articles

Guy G. Stroumsa, The Making of the Abrahamic Religions in Late Antiquity

Guy G. Stroumsa, <i>The Making of the Abrahamic Religions in Late Antiquity</i>

Review: Sacred Scents in Early Christianity and Islam, by Mary Thurlkill

Mary Thurlkill, Sacred Scents in Early Christianity and Islam . Lanham/Boulder/New York/London: Lexington Books, 2016. Pp. xix + 191, ISBN: 9780739174524. $85.00. The historiography of late antiquity has awakened to the senses. Recent studies have elucidated the power of sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch for delineating religious experience and social boundaries throughout the late antique world. Susan Harvey's Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination (University of California Press, 2006) deserves special note here, alongside studies by Beatrice Caseau, Georgia Frank, Deborah Green, Rachel Neis, and many others. Mary Thurlkill's intervention in this growing bibliography compares the role of “sacred scent” in the religions of late antiquity and the Islamic world. The book's scope is highly ambitious, ranging from the role of incense in Roman sacrifice to the spice-infused purity rituals prescribed by medieval Islamic jurists. As the author herself emphasizes, comparisons on this scale are challenging, perhaps inherently “messy” (163). Readers who seek a sharp, linear argument may find themselves frustrated by the book's sometimes-meandering style. Its comparative framework, however, yields some valuable insights. “Sensory Worlds,” the first of the book's three parts, considers the role of scent in defining domestic and civic spaces (ch. 1), culinary practices (ch. 2), and health and disease (ch. 3). Each chapter includes Roman, Christian, Jewish, and Islamic material that shows both the material underpinnings of the scent economy—especially Indian Ocean commerce in spices—and the various social settings where scents were deployed. In the Roman world, these settings included baths, banquets, theaters, funerals, temples, and even the Senate, though Cicero chastised Senators who dishonored their togas …

Motions of Late Antiquity: Essays on Religion, Politics, and Society in Honour of Peter Brown eds. by Jamie Kreiner, and Helmut Reimitz

Reviewed by: Motions of Late Antiquity: Essays on Religion, Politics, and Society in Honour of Peter Brown eds. by Jamie Kreiner, and Helmut Reimitz Michael Edward Stewart Kreiner, Jamie, and Helmut Reimitz, eds, Motions of Late Antiquity: Essays on Religion, Politics, and Society in Honour of Peter Brown (Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 20), Turnhout, Brepols, 2016; pp. x, 353; 2 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. €90.00; ISBN 9782503549118. It has been nearly fifty years since the publication of Peter Brown's trailblazing The World of Late Antiquity (1971). It is fair to say that this work — which emphasized cultural germination in a period (200–800) long remembered for decay — played an essential part in establishing late antiquity as its own unique historical epoch. Yet, late antiquity has experienced some recent growing pains. Detractors have countered Brown's more optimistic vision of the break-up of the Western Roman Empire. Establishing clear spatial and temporal boundaries for the field also continues to spark debate. Into this contested arena arrives a second festschrift for Brown. Based on a conference held at Princeton to honour Brown in 2011, the seventeen essays in this volume offer readers keen insights into an assortment of regions, time-periods, and methodological approaches. Following an Introduction by the editors recounting Brown's vast contributions to the field, the opening chapters respond to some of the criticisms discussed above. Ian Wood maintains that late antique scholars should focus less on the 'creation' of modern Europe, and take a global approach by turning their attentions eastward to developments in Byzantium, [End Page 227] Persia and the Muslim world. Leaning heavily upon Brown's Through the Eye of the Needle, Walter Pohl downplays the economic and political ramifications of 'Rome's fall', positing instead that economic decline and social transformation in the period is better explained by shifting attitudes amongst Roman and non-Roman Christians towards wealth. In the post-imperial West, money flowed away from the secular elites and into the coffers of a Church more interested in salvation than finance. As is to be expected in a volume dedicated to Brown, numerous contributions deal with late antique religions. Philippa Townsend uses Brown's The Body and Society as a pivot to question the standard contention that the Manichaeans' cosmological dualism was matched by their 'social dualism'. Utilizing the fifth-century Life of Hypatius by Callinicus as a window into late antique views on class, Jaclyn Maxwell scrutinizes the author's attitudes towards a wide social spectrum of guests who visited his rural monastery. Callinicus, Maxwell concludes, did not favour rich or poor, but judged people as distinct individuals. Daniel Schwartz uncovers a similarly even-handed approach in his source, the metrical homily On the Fall of Idols by Jacob of Sarug (c. 451–521). Schwartz concludes that Jacob preferred 'persuasive and moral approaches to Christianization', rather than the violent approach frequently condoned by more rigorous Christians. Volker Menz, however, focuses on the more violent Vita of the mid fifth-century presbyter and Miaphysite, Barsuma. As a member of a threatened sect, the author of the life was far less interested in presenting Barsuma as a converter of 'Jews, pagans, and Samaritans, but as someone who purified the Holy Land by eliminating his enemies' (p. 244). David Michelson resituates the Syriac writings of the late fifth-century Roman Monophysite Philoxenos of Mabbug within an older tradition of Cappadocian theologians. Ariel López applies modern knowledge about the Nile's seasonal currents and flooding patterns to shed light on the core 'truths' concerning voyages, famine and premature death to be found in late antique Egyptian hagiography. Michael Maas turns to the complicated rivalry between two late antique agrarian empires, Byzantium and Persia. Rather than highlight discord, Maas examines instead three cases of potential collaboration. Bucking standard consensus, he takes seriously the mid sixth-century Byzantine historian Procopius's claim that the Roman emperor Arcadius (r. 395–408) had on his deathbed asked the Persian emperor Yazdgird I (r. 399–420) to act as guardian for his young son, Theodosius II (r. 408–450). Several chapters examine the shadowy rise of post-imperial worlds in...

The Making of the Abrahamic Religions in Late Antiquity. By Guy G. Stroumsa.

Joram Rozov’sMount Hebron, which adorns the jacket of Guy Stroumsa’s new book, is a landscape of terrible desolation beneath a darkening sky. Is the choice of cover a subtle comment on the legacy of Abraham? Or is the emptiness of the scene a reminder that the figure of Abraham is as imagined as the religions that claim his patrimony? The word ‘making’ in the title hints at the latter but demands more precision. Indeed, the lack of a sharper title turns out to be the harbinger of a missing thesis. Yet this is not altogether surprising, since nine of the book’s ten chapters, as well as the final ‘Envoi’, are ‘derived from’ previous publications (p. xi). Following an introduction, frustrating at times for its lack of clarity and metaphorical mix, two chapters make up Part I, ‘Transformations of Religion in Late Antiquity’. Stroumsa attributes ‘The End of Sacrifice’ (ch. 1) principally to the rise of ‘book religion’. But this begs the question whether sacrifice ever really ended or was reimagined, and in the process rendered portable (as well as a whole lot cheaper). Stroumsa’s observation, that ‘Christianity, a religion centered upon a sacrificial ritual celebrated by priests, represents a more obvious continuity with the religion of Israel than that of the rabbis’ (p. 36), is brilliant, but sadly undeveloped. In ‘Patterns of Rationalization’ (ch. 2), Stroumsa finds one in the rejection of Gnosticism by the ‘church fathers’, but struggles to explain how their ‘disenchantment of the world’ occurred at a time of increasing fascination with ‘magic’ (p. 47; cf. p. 121). If this sounds Weberian, it is, and there is more to come. Though Stroumsa recognizes ‘how complex things are’ (p. 49), his claim that ‘[p]atristic Christianity and rabbinic Judaism … follow different patterns [of rationalization]’, with the former emphasizing ‘orthodoxy’ and the latter ‘orthopraxy’ (p. 53), oversimplifies. The analysis here is much too impressionistic, and more asserted than argued.

Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions

Introduction: 'In Heaven as it is on Earth' Ra'anan S. Bouston and Annette Yoshiko Reed Part I. Between Earth and Heaven: 1. The bridge and the ladder: narrow passages in late antique visions Fritz Graf 2. 'Heavenly Steps': Manilius 4.119-121 and its background Katharina Volk 3. Heavenly ascent, angelic descent, and the transmission of knowledge in 1 Enoch 6-16 Annette Yoshiko Reed 4. 'Connecting Heaven and Earth': the function of the hymns in Revelation 4-5 Gottfried Schimanowski 5. Working overtime in afterlife or, no rest for the virtuous Sarah Iles Johnson Part II. Institutionalising Heaven: 6. Earthly sacrifice and heavenly incense: the law of priesthood in Aramaic Levi and Jubilees Martha Himmelfarb 7. Who's on the throne?: revelation in the long year John W. Marshall 8. The earthly monastery and the transformation of the heavenly city in late antique Egypt Kirsti B. Copeland 9. Contextualising heaven in third-century North Africa Jan N. Bremmer 10. Bringing the heavenly academy down to earth: approaches to the imagery of divine pedagogy in the East-Syrian tradition Adam H. Becker Part III. Tradition and Innovation: 11. Angels in the architecture: temple art and the poetics of praise in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice Ra'anan S. Bouston 12. The collapse of celestial and chthonic realms in late antique 'Appollonian Invocation' (PGMI 262-347) Christopher A. Faraone 13. In heaven as it is in hell: the cosmology of Seder Rabbah di-Bereshit Peter Schafer 14. The faces of the moon: cosmology, genesis and the Mithras Liturgy Radcliffe G. Edmonds III 15. 'O Paradoxical Fusion!': Gregory of Nazianzus on baptism and cosmology (Orations 38-40) Susanna Elm.

The State of the Question: Religion, Medicine, Disability, and Health in Late Antiquity

This essay provides an overview of the scholarship on the intersections between religion and health-related topics (specifically, medicine, illness, and disability) in Late Antiquity. We characterize the dominant approaches in two, somewhat distinct scholarly trajectories—the History of Medicine and Disability Studies—and urge future scholars to better integrate the insights of each approach. We also identify a range of common methodological missteps that plague the scholarly work to date in the hopes of refining the methodology of future scholarship.

Before and After Muḥammad: The First Millennium Refocused by Garth Fowden (review)

Reviewed by: Before and After Muḥammad: The First Millennium Refocused by Garth Fowden Stephen J. Shoemaker Before and After Muḥammad: The First Millennium Refocused Garth Fowden Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014. Pp. 248. ISBN 978–0-691–15853–2 In this book Garth Fowden develops his earlier work, in From Empire to Commonwealth, on the “long” or “late” late antiquity by essentially making the period both longer and later, as well as redrawing its focus on Muhammad, whose emergence he marks as the central event of this era (for example, 198). As in his previous work, Fowden shows strong influence from Peter Brown, Glen Bower-sock, and other advocates of the “long” Late Antiquity, yet he parts company with them in their decision to define the period in question between the years 200–800 ce. Fowden draws inspiration from their efforts to include the emergence of Islam within the boundaries of Late Antiquity, even as he maintains that once Islam has been introduced, a new periodization is required (12). The main argument of the book is that letting go of the idea of Late Antiquity and focusing instead on the first millennium will provide deeper understanding of both the past and our present situation. One should note, however, that Fowden does not completely reject earlier periodizations focused on the idea of Late Antiquity, but instead advocates the first millennium as a more useful and underutilized vantage point. Fowden also argues for a shift in emphasis to the East, which actually, it would seem, has already taken place: over the past two decades the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East have emerged as a significant center of gravity in late ancient studies. The book begins with a chapter arguing for the inclusion of Islam within Late Antiquity, again, a change that seems already to have occured. The second chapter is a historiographical excursus that traces the roots of late ancient studies from Gibbon through the present, with an eye toward Islam. Chapter 3 makes the case for refocusing our periodization away from Late Antiquity and instead around the first millennium, and chapter 4 makes the case for a shift to the East as mentioned above. Chapters 5 and 6 explore the themes of Aristotelian philosophy and legal cultures as areas where this new focus can provide new perspectives. The final chapter seems more like an epilogue, reflecting on the first millennium from the perspective of four different medieval centers: Tūs, Baṣra, Baghdad, and Pisa. The main question, I suppose, is does this alternative perspective deliver? Does [End Page 247] it have much to offer beyond what the long Late Antiquity already provides? I suspect that different readers will come to different conclusions in this regard, but for myself, I must say that I am not persuaded by the argument’s presentation, nor do I see any real advantages for my own work in embracing what essentially amounts to a very long Late Antiquity—even though I frequently work across the traditions and the periods in question. According to Fowden, a turn to the first millennium is important in part because this perspective is particularly “relevant to Europe’s task of assimilating its Muslim populations” (83). Perhaps, then, Europeans will find this construct more useful than Americans. This is, after all, a rather European book: while the footnotes offer a tour de force of European scholarship, a great deal of American scholarship on religion in Late Antiquity is absent, with some notable exceptions (most especially, that emanating from Princeton). A shift from Late Antiquity to the first millennium also has some value in that it moves away from Christianity as the defining element of our historical periodization. Nevertheless, as Fowden himself acknowledges, his alternative simply replaces Christianity with Islam as the definitive cultural force. Accordingly, specialists on early Islam may find this alternative perspective especially useful. Yet during the period in question, one might note, Christians remained in the majority even in western Asia, as Fowden himself occasionally acknowledges. Could one not then just as easily conceive of this era as “the Christian Millennium” instead of “Before and After Muhammad”? As one would certainly expect from...

The Invention of Peter: Apostolic Discourse and Papal Authority in Late Antiquity. By GEORGE E. DEMACOPOULOS.

D emacopoulos , Director and Co-Founder of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University, has written in the series Rereading Late Antique Religion a fascinating study with a provocative title (the word ‘invention’ is used within quotation marks only on p. 167) and cleverly chosen cover-picture (Fra Angelico), suggesting secrecy. It is indeed ‘a revisionist history of papacy’ (p. 2), a ‘reconsider[ation of] the traditional narratives of the early papacy’ (p. 169). Demacopoulos introduces his book as being ‘devoted to understanding the emergence of … the Petrine discourse, which helped to make possible what we might now call a papal theory’ (p. 1). The author takes a closer look at the occasional but deliberate use of the Petrine discourse by a few fifth–sixth-century key figures because, in this period, ‘notions of imperial, paternal, episcopal, and dogmatic authority coalesced around the figure of Peter in a way that redefined the nature, scope, and authority of the papacy’ (p. 11). He also provides a critical narrative of the development of this discourse and ultimately studies it as deliberate rhetoric for ‘spreading power and influence’ (p. 6). In other words, Democopoulos is not writing a new institutional history of papacy. Rather, he employs discourse analysis for getting a better idea of how and for which purposes Peter was rhetorically linked to the See of Rome, what made such an exclusive association possible, and how it served certain contemporary local concerns. A key contention of Demacopoulos is that popes employed the Petrine discourse mostly ‘in moments of papal anxiety or weakness’ (p. 2; cf. pp. 41, 50–1, 60, 71, 73–4, 98, 124, 153, and 171). It functioned as an attempt to establish the reality it proclaimed, rather than as a calm affirmation of what was already securely established and universally recognized.

Jörg Trelenberg, Tatianos. Oratio ad Graecos. Rede an die Griechen (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012); x + 308 pp.

The Journal for Late Antique Religion and Culture is a full text open access online journal, edited by members and associates of the Centre for Late Antique Religion and Culture and published by Cardiff University Press.

What is Philosophy in Late Antiquity?

The Journal for Late Antique Religion and Culture is a full text open access online journal, edited by members and associates of the Centre for Late Antique Religion and Culture and published by Cardiff University Press.

The Syriac Aristotle Between Alexandria and Baghdad

The Journal for Late Antique Religion and Culture is a full text open access online journal, edited by members and associates of the Centre for Late Antique Religion and Culture and published by Cardiff University Press.

Lions in Insular British Artwork, 650-1000 AD

The Journal for Late Antique Religion and Culture is a full text open access online journal, edited by members and associates of the Centre for Late Antique Religion and Culture and published by Cardiff University Press.

Les Frontieres du profane dans l'antiquite tardive. Edited by ERIC REBILLARD and CLAIRE SOTINEL.

This varied collection of essays explores the boundaries of ‘the profane’ in the late antique religions of the Mediterranean. These are chiefly represented by Greek and Roman paganism and Christianity; there is also one essay on Judaism. The book begins, as it must, with a careful and thoughtful introduction by the editors aimed at defining what is meant by profane. There is a glance at Robertson Smith, Durkheim, and Eliade, who describe the profane as that which is not sacred, and vice versa (p. 1). This, of course, begs the question. The editors remark that most people can spot the sacred when they see it, so that the profane is the weak link in that particular binary opposition. Indeed, one cannot really have structuralist oppositions of this kind in the first place if one pole defies definition. The editors come round to the view that secularization (whatever that might be) produces une sphère neutre religieusement. In this way, the Lupercalia can be said (p. 5) to be neutral because they formed a focus for the celebrations of an entire city without, apparently, upsetting confessional groups such as Christians. Since these attempts at global definition are rarely satisfactory, the book wisely moves into detail very soon. It is organized (in a way that almost recalls the wise monkeys) into three parts: talking about the profane (dire le profane), seeing the profane (voir le profane), and studying the profane (étudier le profane).

Syriac Studies in Rome in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century

The Journal for Late Antique Religion and Culture is a full text open access online journal, edited by members and associates of the Centre for Late Antique Religion and Culture and published by Cardiff University Press.

Cyprian of Carthage. Studies in his life, language, and thought. Edited by Henk Bakker, Paul van Geest and Hans van Loon. (Late Antique History and Religion, 3.) Pp. xx+307. Leuven: Peeters, 2010. €65. 978 90 429 2397 3

Cyprian of Carthage. Studies in his life, language, and thought. Edited by Henk Bakker, Paul van Geest and Hans van Loon. (Late Antique History and Religion, 3.) Pp. xx+307. Leuven: Peeters, 2010. €65. 978 90 429 2397 3

Christianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity. By Jeremy M. Schott. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. Pp. 272. $59.95.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewChristianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity. By Jeremy M. Schott. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. Pp. 272. $59.95.Elizabeth DePalma DigeserElizabeth DePalma DigeserUniversity of California, Santa Barbara Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by History of Religions Volume 51, Number 3February 2012 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/662193 Views: 35Total views on this site © 2012 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Greek and Geʿez in the propaganda of King ʿEzana of Axum: religion and diplomacy in late antiquity

King ʿEzana of Axum, who reigned in the 4thcentury AD, was the author of several inscriptions celebrating his exploits. According to these texts he was a pagan who later converted to Christianity. While some of his inscriptions were written in Geʿez, others are in Greek. What were the reasons behind the use of Greek in ʿEzana’s inscriptions? Why do the religious invocations in Geʿez differ from those in Greek? The article proposes some new answers to these questions.

Margaret Mitchell, Paul, The Corinthians and the Birth of Christian Hermeneutics (Cambridge University Press, 2010); xiv+178 pp. ISBN: 9780521197953. £50.

The Journal for Late Antique Religion and Culture is a full text open access online journal, edited by members and associates of the Centre for Late Antique Religion and Culture and published by Cardiff University Press.

From the Chaldean Oracles to the Corpus Dionysiacum: Theurgy between the Third and Sixth Centuries

The Journal for Late Antique Religion and Culture is a full text open access online journal, edited by members and associates of the Centre for Late Antique Religion and Culture and published by Cardiff University Press.

Virginia Burrus, Mark D. Jordan, Karmen Mackendrick, Seducing Augustine: Bodies, Desires, Confessions (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010); xi + 174 pp.

The Journal for Late Antique Religion and Culture is a full text open access online journal, edited by members and associates of the Centre for Late Antique Religion and Culture and published by Cardiff University Press.