Pious Practices Research Articles

The Usefulness of Data in the Study of the Feminisation and Re-Masculinisation of Religion in Spain (1880-1930)

The feminisation of religion is a category used for organizing the knowledge on sexual difference in modern imaginary. Concerning Spain at the turn of the twentieth century, the analysis of data on the participation of men and women in pious activities can serve to enrich the study of the feminisation and re-masculinisation of religion. First, it allows us to assess that the pious practices related to the most significant dates in the Catholic calendar was, regularly, similar for both sexes. Moreover, the use of data can test the hypothesis that sometimes there existed a notion of feminisation of religion even in a context where there was no substantial difference de facto between sexes concerning religious practice. This phenomenon could be explained by such a notion being imported from places where such a trend was indeed underway. I do not argue for a return to the ways and methods typical of social history in its heyday; what I strive for is to engage with the current lines of research on the feminisation and re-masculinisation of religion and carry out a nuanced analysis of the available data that would enrich or modify the prevailing interpretation of both phenomena.

An'ām of Abdullah Ibn Salih from the Gornji Vakuf: Synergy of Picture and Text in Devotional Practice

An'ām is the name for manuscript codices that contain selected surahs from the Qur’an, prayers, blessings, pictures, graphics and seals that symbolically connect their owner or reader with the God Almighty, the Prophet Muhammad and holy places and important figures of Islamic history. These codices were long thought to be intended for private and socially restricted devotional use. However, the practice of enshrining them in public institutions, especially mosques and tekkes, as well as the existence of a large number of manuscript copies, shows that anʻām were very present and were used in wider social circles.
 In this paper, we will present the Anʻ'ām of Abdullah ibn Salih from Gornji Vakuf, stored in the manuscript collection of the Oriental Institute of the University of Sarajevo (OIS, R 86). By compiling selected religious texts and combining them with illustrations, Abdullah ibn Salih created a work that offers an insight into pious practices in Bosnia at the end of the 18th century and documented how the prayer texts were read, used and integrated into everyday life. Using a phenomenological approach in the analysis of Abdullah ibn Salih’s An'ām, we will point out the importance and role of text, representative images and graphics in the sacred context, and deal with their ritual use and the discovery of the hidden meanings of their empirical manifestation.

Faith Without Works?: Religious Salience, Pious Practices, and Adolescent Substance Use

An abundance of research has revealed that religious salience is negatively associated with delinquent behavior, including illicit substance use. However, absent from prior work is a consideration of whether youths’ participation in personal religious rituals and acts of devotion might amplify the protective effects of religiosity. Theoretically, it may be expected that these private expressions of belief and identity can strengthen religious commitments and reaffirm membership within specific moral communities. Using data from the National Study of Youth and Religion on a nationally representative sample of adolescents ages 13 to 17 ( N = 3,170), these findings reveal that religious salience inhibits cigarette use, alcohol use, drunkenness, and marijuana use, but only among youth who engage in at least some pious practices.

Images of Purgatory: Studies in Religious Imagination and Innovation (The Czech Lands, 1600–1800) by Tomáš Malý and Pavel Suchánek

Reviewed by: Images of Purgatory: Studies in Religious Imagination and Innovation (The Czech Lands, 1600–1800) by Tomáš Malý and Pavel Suchánek Marc R. Forster Images of Purgatory: Studies in Religious Imagination and Innovation (The Czech Lands, 1600–1800). By Tomáš Malý and Pavel Suchánek. Translated by Stuart Roberts. (Rome: Viella. 2021. Pp. xviii, 260. €36,00. ISBN: 9788833137421.) This detailed and densely argued study examines images depicting Purgatory in Catholic churches in the early modern Czech lands (Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia). The analysis of these images is placed in the context of the evolving theology of Purgatory, as well as the religious practices and popular beliefs that were linked to Purgatory. The authors show how Purgatory provides an excellent window into the nature and evolution of baroque piety in Early Modern Catholicism. The book is structured as a kind of top-down analysis of Purgatory. Chapter One discusses doctrine, Chapter Two the images, and Chapter Three pious practices around Purgatory. Chapter Four examines “popular culture,” that is unofficial beliefs and practices, sometimes called here “debatable” practices. This simple and somewhat old-fashioned structure does not do justice to the nuances of this study. The authors [End Page 205] are always interested in interactions between different media, social groups, and cultural traditions. Developments in the Czech lands are examined in the context of international Catholicism, with reference, for example, to pious literature from Germany, Spain, and France. The interactions between written texts and the images found in churches and chapels is also central to the study. The study is informed by wide reading in Czech, German, English, and French-language historiography and is methodologically sophisticated, particularly in its discussion of images. This study will open the eyes of historians who only know about the doctrine of Purgatory from Martin Luther’s critique of indulgences. Purgatory was confirmed at the Council of Trent, and gained importance in Catholic religious practice in the seventeenth century. Maly and Suchánek link much of the growing role of Purgatory to the Jesuits. From the beginning of the Society, the Jesuits promoted meditative practices that focused on imagination and emotion, most famously in the Spiritual Exercises. Purgatory, and images of Purgatory, were good for this kind of piety, with visions of tormented souls in Purgatory stoking the fears of punishment and appealing to the sympathy of the faithful. Pious practices around Purgatory were supported by, and in turn encouraged, other aspect of baroque piety. The authors highlight the growing importance of “privileged altars” (or indulgence altars), where people could pray for the release of family members and friends from Purgatory. The altars were often founded by confraternities and religious orders, important promoters of baroque religion. “The new altar allowed everyone, regardless of social status, to take an active part in commemorative rituals and was a reflection of the post-Tridentine concept of requiem culture with the principle of the exchange of merits between the living and the deceased” (p. 157). This “requiem culture” was also important in pilgrimage piety and processional practices, other important elements of Catholic culture in this era. The images of Purgatory drew on early modern ideas about the emotions. Emotions were understood to stimulate the “passions of the soul” and lead people to piety. Furthermore, the authors emphasize that “. . . in the case of Purgatory, negative emotions (fear, pain) and positive emotions (hope, the certainly of salvation–joy) were combined” (p. 88). The images presented in the book show the intensity of emotions as well as the “extraordinary multi-layered nature and diverse variety of the post-Tridentine iconography of Purgatory” (p. 81). This iconography reinforced Catholic doctrines of the Eucharist, the Passion, the cult of Mary, and the cult of St. Joseph, as the patron saint of the good death. Maly and Suchánek insist nevertheless, that the images of purgatory, while often didactic, also responded to the beliefs of the common people. For example, although fire was officially the only punishment found in Purgatory, the images also depict snakes, demons, dragons, and other creatures tormenting the souls in Purgatory. An important conclusion of Images of Purgatory is that the engagement with Purgatory changed perceptively over the period of this...

Eucharistic Adoration After Vatican II by Edward Foley

Reviewed by: Eucharistic Adoration After Vatican II by Edward Foley Michael Brummond Edward Foley Eucharistic Adoration After Vatican II Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2022 123 pages. Paperback. $16.95. The Church in the United States is currently in the midst of a National Eucharistic Revival intended to deepen the faithful's understanding of Jesus' Eucharistic presence, and to intensify devotion to, and worship of, the Eucharistic Lord. This is therefore an opportune time to reflect on the relationship between Christ's presence in the liturgy and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament outside Mass, a question with a somewhat checkered history. Pope Benedict XVI wrote in Sacramentum Caritatis that, shortly after the reforms of Vatican II, "the inherent relationship between Mass and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was not always perceived with sufficient clarity. For example, an objection that was widespread at the time argued that the eucharistic bread was given to us not to be looked at, but to be eaten. In the light of the Church's experience of prayer, however, this was seen to be a false dichotomy" (Sacramentum Caritatis, no. 66). Two years later, however, Fr. Richard McBrien could still write that, given the reformed liturgical rites now more accessible to the laity, "there is little or no need for extraneous Eucharistic devotions. The Mass itself provides all that a Catholic needs sacramentally and spiritually. Eucharistic adoration, perpetual or not, is a doctrinal, theological, and spiritual step backward, not forward" ("Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration," National Catholic Reporter, September 8, 2009). Edward Foley's Eucharistic Adoration after Vatican II continues this conversation, seeking to offer historical foundations and sound theological principles by which to ground liturgically centered Eucharistic spirituality and devotion in a post-conciliar Church. Fr. Foley is a Capuchin and retired professor of liturgy and music at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, and author of over thirty books. Much of his work is practical in orientation, directed toward liturgical praxis, and this book is no exception. Foley notes that while the council brought in its wake far-reaching liturgical reforms, "my multiple experiences of Benediction and other Eucharistic devotions [End Page 117] after the appearance of these innumerable reformed rites seems to be identical to what had been in place in the 1950s" (viii). This book is his attempt to articulate the relationship between Vatican II and contemporary Eucharistic adoration and other devotions. Unlike McBrien, however, for Foley, "a foundational belief behind this writing is that devotions of every kind contribute in a unique and essential way to my personal faith and that of the wider church" (ix). The book begins with a succinct history of Eucharistic devotions from the biblical and patristic ages through the reforms of Vatican II, considered both within the liturgy itself and as they eventually developed in extra-liturgical contexts. Written in a compelling and accessible manner, this chapter highlights not only the theological issues and controversies that prompted varied forms of Eucharistic devotion, but also the role played by cultural influences, other pious practices such as the veneration of altars and relics, and the desire of the lay faithful to see the consecrated host. In this historical survey, Foley naturally highlights the norms contained in Sacrosanctum Con-cilium. Unencumbered by excessive detail or minutiae, this historical review may be too concise for the trained academic, while being of greatest interest and value to the curious non-historian of liturgy. It is also refreshing that Foley generally refrains from value judgements regarding devotional excesses throughout history. "Instead, these ancient testimonies provide a vital context for pondering the present" (1). The chapter concludes with the pointed summary of the historical data, "Eucharistic devotions are honored preparations for and extensions of the Eucharistic liturgy" (34). The second chapter draws from the liturgy itself as a primary source, along with the dogmatic teachings of the Church, to formulate five theological principles to guide authentic Eucharistic devotion. Such devotions, Foley argues, will 1) center on Christ and 2) his Paschal Mystery as a visible sacrament of God's love; they will 3) have an ecclesial or communal dimension; and these devotions ought to 4) draw us to be missionary disciples, and 5) call us to reverence...

Freedom from Consumption: The Reformist Critique of Consumptive Islam in Indonesia

ABSTRACT The pious practices of contemporary Indonesian Muslims frequently take form as consumer commodification and material display. The article adds to knowledge of the role of materiality in religion and spirituality by describing and analysing the critique of consumerist piety cultivated by reformist Muslims in Indonesia. We trace the evolution of the ‘emancipation-based’ critique in the ideas of two significant reformist intellectuals of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Kuntowijoyo (1943–2005) and Moeslim Abdurrahman (1948–2012), both of whom are associated with the civil society organisation known as Muhammadiyah. Their objections to material religion are not concerned with the individual morality of consumers but are based on their rejection of Islamic particularity. Noting that Islamic particularity frequently manifests in material practices, they argue that such practices are signs of fragmenting processes that prevent social and political progress. Consumptive displays of piety are also objectionable because they succeed through a material-based sign system that asserts economic differences between people, when the authentic Islamic mission, according to these thinkers, is to work against the social exclusion brought about by those differences.

Religion and Confession as the Bedrock of Monarchy and Court in Early Modern Europe

At the moment of his coronation or succession, the early modern ruler, whether Catholic or Protestant, took on the role of bishop in the territory he ruled over. In addition, many rulers were imbued with a very real personal faith which underpinned their pious practices and those of their families. The first half of this article examines the monarch’s divine mandate and the reality of piety at court. The second half moves from the notion of religion as the foundation of the monarchical state, irrespective of confessional difference, to the impact that post-Reformation confessional divisions had on the lives of royal women by determining their marriage partners. It also discusses the way in which religion provided them with comfort in times of sorrow and the way in which they used the convent as a refuge from the world of the court.

Pentecostalisation. A Catholic Voice in the Debate

Pentecostalisation is one of several contentious issues in the Catholic Church. While charismatic experience is welcome and refreshing, it is also connected with various spiritual and pastoral abuses, which is very concerning. When set in the context of the new evangelization and the charismatic reality, people become open to a new type of ecumenism, namely an ecumenism relying on forms of living the faith, on permeating pious practices, singing, and literature. Some people may ask if this features an exchange of gifts or rather indicates the rise of a new hybrid form of Christianity. An analysis of how Pentecostal spirituality has developed, particularly in the Catholic communities, does not lead to a conclusion that the new shape of spirituality poses a danger. Obviously, the theological and pastoral mistakes that do occur need to be corrected but a growth of the charismatic sphere that is integrated within a correct interpretation of faith and with the Tradition leads to a renewal of the Church and greater evangelization. The good outcomes of the catholic, i.e., universal, Charismatic Renewal cannot go unnoticed. In the increasingly secular world, it is only a return to the fundamental experience of apostolic evangelization and a testimony to a living faith of the baptized that may inspire non-believers to start looking for Jesus Christ. The Church cannot, therefore, be reduced to the hierarchical, sacramental, doctrinal, and moral reality only. It is necessary that the involvement of lay people increases and that they use charismatic gifts in a responsible and confident manner. For all this to happen, people must be open to new inspirations of the Holy Spirit.

Ambivalence, Virtual Piety, and Rebranding: Social Media Uses among Tablighi Jama'at in Indonesia

AbstractAdvanced smartphone technology and easy access to the internet have contributed to the embeddedness of social media in the daily lives of many Indonesians. However, among conservative Muslims, social media are regarded as potentially harmful, and their use is largely discouraged. The article discusses the ambivalence that characterizes social media usage within the Tablighi Jama'at, an Islamic reformist movement known for its missionary activities. Many Tablighis believe that social media potentially imperils their faith as it provides access to a wide range of non‐Islamic content, a perspective that has led to restrictions on smartphone use and internet access. Yet, as this article highlights, several social media platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook, are widely used among Indonesian Tablighis as they consider these platforms as a means to improve the efficacy of their face‐to‐face preaching and to display their pious practices as well as their personal transformations to a more pious self. In addition, their virtual piety goes hand in hand with attempts to rebrand their movement by countering negative stereotypes and by trying to position themselves as legitimate Islamic player in Indonesia.

De Juan Ambrosio Huerta a Mariano Holguín: episcopado, ultramontanismo y modernidad en Arequipa (1880-1935)

En el Perú, ante el avance de sectores liberales en Lima, Arequipa se constituyó como una ciudad baluarte del catolicismo. En este proceso, el episcopado jugó un papel clave como dinamizador de espacios de formación ultramontana para el clero y el laicado, de promoción de sociedades laicales apologéticas y ociales, de consolidación de prácticas piadosas y de construcción de una legitimidad pública para la Iglesia en la ciudad. En este sentido, este artículo estudia el proceso de afianzamiento del ultramontanismo y del catolicismo social de los episcopados de José Ambrosio Huerta, Manuel Ballón y Mariano Holguín. De esta manera, la Iglesia fortaleció su presencia en el espacio público regional y pudo articular un discurso sobre la modernidad desde la perspectiva católica, a favor de la presencia pública de la Iglesia como estructuradora de la vida política, social y moral en la ciudad.

A Florentine merchant’s visit to Canterbury Cathedral in 1444

ABSTRACT The article presents a hitherto unpublished text in Italian narrating a voyage to England and Flanders on board a galley undertaken in November 1444 by the Florentine merchant Mariano Ughi, which forms part of a quadernetto or ledger currently in an Italian private collection. The ledger is divided into two parts: the first contains accounts and information on Ughi’s business activity and network of contacts among the Florentine community of traders and bankers. The second, a diary, describes the towns and cities, monuments and pilgrimage sites he visited during the various stopovers. The core of the diary is dedicated to Ughi’s visit to the shrine of St Thomas Becket, in Christ Church Cathedral at Canterbury, with a detailed account which significantly contributes to our knowledge of the church and shrine in the mid fifteenth century, while revealing at the same time the pious practices of a contemporary merchant.

Disrupting Boundaries between Traditional and Transnational Islam: Pious Women's Engagement with Islamic Authority in Bosnia-Herzegovina

The contemporary Islamic landscape in Bosnia-Herzegovina is often depicted as marked by fault lines between different Muslim groups, many of which are described as products of foreign intervention. This paper argues that this image does not reflect the multiplicity of Islamic discourses and practices, and the many ways that Bosnian Muslims engage with, promote, and resist them on the ground. It explores how pious Muslim women can move between different approaches to Islam over time, engage with a range of Islamic actors simultaneously, and draw on their teachings selectively or situationally without necessarily claiming group membership. By engaging with a range of actors making competing claims to authority, women contribute to both the pluralization of Islamic authority and the continued relevance of authoritative actors. The paper argues that paying attention to pious women's practices allows us to challenge crude characterizations of the transformations of Islam in Bosnia and question the narrative of distinct Muslim groups at odds with each other.

The Use of Devotional Objects in Catalan Homes during the Late Middle Ages

The purpose of this article is to study domestic devotion in Catalonia in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, based on the information provided by numerous post-mortem inventories and texts written by coetaneous spiritual authors such as Ramon Llull, Francesc Eiximenis and Saint Vincent Ferrer. Among the objects recorded in the inventories, pieces of furniture and devotional objects laypeople and clergymen used in their pious practices as “material” aid for personal prayer stood out. They were in keeping with the strong visual culture that pervaded the Late Middle Ages. There were retables, oratories and images of religious themes. However, the inventories also listed lesser known but equally recurring objects such as paternosters and Agni Dei. Painted cloths depicting religious scenes that decorated the homes of numerous wealthy Catalan-Aragonese families at that time were also present. Spiritual books such as books of hours and psalters, biblical texts, Legenda Aurea, etc., were mentioned as well. They were part of the incipient libraries of the laity in the Late Middle Ages.

Domini est salus. Gebetspraktische Aspekte in Text- und Bildausstattung des Amuletts Ms Princeton 235

Abstract In medieval Europe, Christian amulets comprised of illuminations and/or script were considered powerful apotropaic shields. This article focuses on a single example, Ms Princeton 235. It is argued that this object primarily functions as a prayer aid rather than as a magical object. Comparable to rosaries or prayer nuts, this amulet conveys its assumed protective powers through specific devotional acts. Its textual program prefigures such pious practices, which include carrying the amulet above one’s heart, folding and unfolding it, reciting a profession of faith and the divine names, making the sign of the cross, and contemplatively looking at a miniature showing the Arma Christi. Through an analysis of how the textual and visual features of Ms Princeton 235 prompt devotional practices, its claim to mediate divine grace and power become comprehensible.

A Reformation of Remembrance? Devotional Practices of Female Testators in Lincolnshire 1509-1558

ABSTRACTThis article examines the pious and commemorative practices of female testators in the Lincolnshire wills proved at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury between 1509 and 1558, held at The National Archives. Lincolnshire was one of the largest counties and formed part of the largest diocese in the country, so it provides a geographically extensive case study of female testamentary practice, important because the rate of female testators is low. Wills provided an opportunity for women to shape their pious identities and choose how they wished to be remembered after their deaths. Changing government policies impacted upon female attitudes towards remembrance and material culture and the ideals of the new Protestant religion also affected the nature of post-mortem charitable provision. The article explores how far these wills can be used to trace changes in religious attitudes across the period of the early Reformation in Lincolnshire.

Becoming Better Muslims: Religious Authority and Ethical Improvement in Aceh, Indonesia by David Kloos

Reviewed by: Becoming Better Muslims: Religious Authority and Ethical Improvement in Aceh, Indonesia by David Kloos Kristina Großmann (bio) David Kloos. Becoming Better Muslims: Religious Authority and Ethical Improvement in Aceh, Indonesia. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018. 240 pp. David Kloos’s book Becoming Better Muslims offers a refreshing new perspective to a topic and region that has already received a great deal of scholarly attention: Islam, politics, and agency in Aceh, the western-most province of Indonesia. Whereas most authors in recent years have tended to focus on classical topics of political Islam, such as Islam and nation building or Islamic law,1 Kloos instead chooses to stress “religious agency,” which includes religious practices as well as ethical improvement and its entanglement with Islamic authorities and the state. He therefore aims to shed light on the intertwinement between the personal space for action—thereby referring to an individual’s pious practices and agency—and norms established by state and religious institutions. Specifically, Kloos asks how “ordinary” Acehnese Muslims experience their daily lives and what religious routines they practice in their attempt to become good or better Muslims. The theoretical approaches that inform Kloos’s study are concepts of agency and practice in combination with ethics and morality. Aceh is a region of multidimensional transformation. Massive reconstruction has been ongoing since the catastrophic tsunami on December 26, 2004. In August 2005, Indonesian government officials and representatives of the Free Aceh Movement signed a Memorandum of Understanding that ended twenty-nine years of armed conflict. Thus, reconstructing the province both physically and ideologically since 2005 has been the overall paradigm. The slogan “Build Aceh Back Better,” used by former US President Bill Clinton after he made his first speech as the United Nations Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery, was not just a reference for physical post-tsunami, post-conflict reconstruction. It also encompasses the ideological reconstruction taking place as the provincial government, religious authorities, and ordinary Muslims explore and negotiate new possibilities and incorporate Islam as a political tool as well as a personal belief. Aceh, known as the Veranda of Mecca, is described as the abode of Islam in Indonesia because the first Islamic kingdom in the archipelago was founded in this region. Additionally, Aceh experienced an Islamization of its legal, political, and social spheres after the 2004 Tsunami when Islamic criminal law was rigidly enforced—and thus leading to violence and discrimination against minorities by state officials and individuals. However, Kloos doesn’t want to perpetuate the stereotype of Acehnese [End Page 107] being exceptionally pious and fanatic and aims to deconstruct the picture that Islam in Aceh is predominantly linked to violence. He rather wants to show how people negotiate and react to the increasing range of moral admonitions and pressure instigated by religious authorities legitimized by the state and other public actors. Kloos is looking at how Muslims play out their individual agency in response to normative forces that formulate what is good and bad. He describes religious agency not as a coherent and straightforward process, but rather as an ambivalent and unpredictable path. He thereby reveals that a revitalized Islamic identity and increased attention to religious practices are not the only ways that Muslims respond, since people’s perceptions and reactions are contradictory and guided by feelings of weakness and uncertainty. Thus, as Kloos argues, for many people in Aceh, notions of moral failure are inherently intertwined with ethical improvement and the process of becoming a better Muslim. He illustrates this argument best in the fifth chapter, where he points out the complexity and ambivalence in people’s dedication to Islam. Kloos combines historical analyses with rich ethnographic data. In his book, he first introduces the main political, economic, and religious aspects that have shaped Acehnese history. In chapter two, he describes how, especially during the New Order era, religious and political authority more and more became intertwined. This chapter is based on archival sources as well as on the articles and field notes of Chandra Jayawardena, who lived in the district of Aceh Besar from the 1960s to the 1980s. In chapters three, four, and five, Kloos comes to the present situation in Aceh...

Putting the spiritual into practice

The aim of this article is to examine how Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophical ideas were reflected and put into practice in the lives of the Finnish couple Olly (Olga) Donner (1881–1956, neé Sinebrychoff) and Uno Donner (1872–1958). They encountered anthroposophy in 1913 and subsequently embraced it as the guiding principle of their lives. Through a close examination of these two people we aim to shed light on how a new worldview like anthroposophy, which was gaining followers in early twentieth-century Finland, was also a manifestation of wider changes in religious culture in Europe. Our perspective could be described as biographical in the sense that it has been characterised by Simone Lässig (2008: 11) who writes that ‘the reconstruction of individual life courses helps to discover more about the context – for example, about daily rituals, pious practices, or kinship relationship’. Thus, the biographical perspective serves as a tool for grasping how something as deeply personal as an anthroposophical worldview was understood and practised, not only by Olly and Uno Donner, but also by a larger group of people who in the early twentieth century were looking for new ways to make sense of the surrounding world.

Introduction

Abstract This article introduces the special issue ‘Online Publics in Muslim Southeast Asia: In Between Religious Politics and Popular Pious Practices’ by discussing prominent approaches in the study of media and the public sphere in light of the specific history of digital media’s rise in Muslim Southeast Asia. It focuses on earlier and current expressions of mobile and Islamic modernity as well as on changing moralities and forms of Islamic authority. Referencing the other contributions to this special issue, it particularly emphasizes the (discursive and visual) contestations and social dramas that take place in the region’s media spaces providing for a variety of Islamic forms, practices, and socialities that can best be grasped, the authors argue, by considering politics, the pious, and the popular not as separate, but as mutually constitutive domains.

Pious Practices and Secular Constraints: Women in the Islamic Revival in Europe. By Jeanette S. Jouili

Journal of Church and State to Klaus Scholtissek’s contextualization of the story of the foot washing in John 13:15 with Greco-Roman sources in order to deter- mine that ritual’s significance. The discussion continues along the same useful and informative lines in “Part 3, Imperial Ideology and Other Christian Texts.” In connection with his analysis of “The Shepard of Hermas and the Roman Empire,” Mark Grundeken comes up with a discerning for- mulation that applies more widely: “Hermas does not envision ac- tive resistance but passive dissidence” (p. 200); Grundeken dates Hermas between the end of the first and the middle of the second centuries and argues that the author lived close to Rome—hence the strong orientation towards pragmatism and realism. When the latter were not the guiding attitudes and martyrdom was sought, such a choice elicited not admiration from pagan contemporaries as in the case of the death of Socrates and others, but rather con- tempt as is meticulously documented by Paul Middleton in his “Noble Death or Death Cult? Pagan Criticism of Early Christian Martyrdom.” The volume concludes with another well-focused and concisely-written essay by Marco Frenschkowski on “Nero Redivivus as a Subject of Early Christian Arcane Teaching.” Besides shedding new light on the relations of Nero’s and Pseudo-Nero to the Antichrist, Frenschkowski foregrounds an aspect of early Christianity that is often underemphasized, i. e., a hankering after secrecy: “not everything in ancient Christianity was public” (p. 245). In sum, this is a very judicious and well-researched volume. It qui- etly demonstrates that the previous anti-imperial turn is largely an emperor without clothes. Karl Galinsky University of Texas at Austin Austin, Texas doi:10.1093/jcs/csw104 Advance Access publication December 16, 2016 Pious Practices and Secular Constraints: Women in the Islamic Revival in Europe. By Jeanette S. Jouili. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015. 258pp. $90.00 cloth; $19.57 paper; $27.95 e- book. Pious Practices and Secular Constraints is premised on the image of a secular state under siege by Muslims who persist in religious prac- tices that challenge Europe’s identity, including the highly public

Armeniske bøger fra 15-1700-tallet i Det Kongelige Biblioteks samlinger

In 2012, through various presentations and exhibitions, the 500th anniversary of thefirst printed book in Armenian was celebrated. Thus, 19 Armenian books printed from1565 to 1745, belonging to the collections of the Royal Library, were on display in theBlack Diamond.These books are described in their original historical contexts above. It is underlinedthat initiatives taken by the Armenian Church were important in the early historyof Armenian printing. For example, the Armenian Catholicos was active in establishinga printing house in Amsterdam, and quite a few of the early books were intendedto meet ecclesiastical needs for books of ritual and pious practices, including the Psaltereditions: Venice 1565, Amsterdam 1664, Marseille 1677; a Hymn Book: Amsterdam1664; and a Breviary: Amsterdam 1705.On the other hand, the publishing of certain books must be seen in the context ofRoman Catholic missionary endeavours, e.g. the publication of documents concerningthe Gregorian Calendar, translated into Armenian as early as 1584 (printed in Rome),a translation of Thomas à Kempis’ Imitatio Christi (printed in Constantinople 1700),and a collection of fourteenth century Dominican sermons (printed in Venice 1704).The collection also contains early editions of important works by medieval Armenianauthors, including Moses Khorenatsi (Amsterdam 1695), Gregory Narekatsi(Constantinople 1701) and Nerses Shnorhali (Venice 1660). In addition, there area couple of contemporary Armenian works: Arakel’s ‘histories’ about seventeenthcentury Armenian history (Amsterdam 1669) and eighteenth century Constantinoplepatriarch Yakob Nalean’s Commentary on Gregory Narekatsi (Constantinople 1745).In some cases, various owners’ ex libris or marginal notes allow glimpses into theuse of the books by Western scholars and their routes through the hands of booktraders and collectors. To name just a few: 1) M.V. de la Croze, the famous orientalist,on the basis of a Lipsian manuscript, added a fairly large number of collational notesto the text of the 1695 Moses Khorenatsi edition; 2) one of the two copies of the 1664Psalter is dedicated to Frederik III of Denmark by Theodore Petraeus, a Danish scholarwho was active in the Armenian-Dutch publishing world in the 1660s; 3) and some150 years after Theodore, another Danish Orientalist, Bishop Fr. Münter, is seen tohave acquired an old Armenian grammar (Amsterdam 1666).The 19 books do not represent a collection that has been systematically built upaccording to a master plan by any librarian or scholar of the time. However, it can beconsidered to be broadly illustrative of the Armenian culture of that period, not leastof its early links with Western printers, binders, artists and authorities, and the trendthat shows Eastern centres (Constantinople and others) gaining ever increasing importancethroughout the centuries in focus.