Revelation and Material Religion in the Roman East: Essays in Honor of Steven J. Friesen (Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies) [1 ed.] 9781032382678, 9781032382685, 9781003344247, 1032382678

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Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies

REVELATION AND MATERIAL RELIGION IN THE ROMAN EAST ESSAYS IN HONOR OF STEVEN J. FRIESEN Edited by Nathan Leach, Daniel Charles Smith, and Tony Keddie

“This volume of essays is striking in its consistent attention to material culture and the use of perspectives related to memory studies, institutional economics, ritual studies, and trauma studies. Its readers will derive both pleasure and profit from this innovative and refreshing collection.” Adela Yarbro Collins, Buckingham Professor Emerita of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation, Yale Divinity School “Steve Friesen is one of the leading contributors to scholarship on Revelation in our time. His innovative studies have reshaped the ways in which archaeology, mythology, and comparative religion are used to interpret biblical texts and their cultural contexts. The essays in this volume are a fitting tribute to his work. Varied and engaging, they pursue questions that open fresh perspectives on Revelation and the GrecoRoman world. A welcome and creative collection of studies.” Craig Koester, Asher O. & Carrie Nasby Professor of New Testament Emeritus at Luther Seminary (St. Paul, MN USA) “This expansive volume is a warm and fitting tribute to the person and the career of Steve Friesen. The seventeen contributors – an international group of scholars from Australia, Brazil, Hong Kong, Norway, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, and the United States – interact with and extend Friesen’s work in fruitful and fascinating ways. This volume both honors Friesen and constitutes an important contribution to the study of Revelation and material culture to which he has devoted his research over many years.” Adele Reinhartz, Distinguished University Professor, University of Ottawa “This rich and well-nuanced volume will be of interest to scholars and graduate students in classics, religious studies, and early Christian studies. Such an impressive feat is a fitting tribute to an amazing scholar and mentor, such as Steven J. Friesen. The contributors and the editors deserve our congratulations!” Ronald Charles, Associate Professor in the Department for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto “This sterling collection of essays brings into sharp focus the ways in which Steve Friesen has paved the way for our field to tackle key issues of power, financial precarity, social stressors, and claims of revelatory experience in exciting and fruitful ways.” Melissa Harl Sellew, Professor Emerita of Classical and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Minnesota

Revelation and Material Religion in the Roman East

This collection of essays from a diverse group of internationally recognized scholars builds on the work of Steven J. Friesen to analyze the material and ideological dimensions of John’s Apocalypse and the religious landscape of the Roman East. Readers will gain new perspectives on the interpretation of John’s Apocalypse, the religion of Hellenistic cities in the Roman Empire, and the political and economic forces that shaped life in the Eastern Mediterranean. The chapters in this volume examine texts and material culture through carefully localized analysis that attends to ideological and socioeconomic contexts, expanding upon aspects of Friesen’s research and methodology while also forging new directions. The book brings together a diverse and international set of experts including emerging voices in the fields of biblical studies, Roman social history, and classical archeology, and each essay presents fresh, critically informed analysis of key sites and texts from the periods of Christian origins and Roman imperial rule. Revelation and Material Religion in the Roman East is of interest to students and scholars working on Christian origins, ancient Judaism, Roman religion, classical archeology, and the social history of the Roman Empire, as well as material religion in the ancient Mediterranean more broadly. It is also suitable for religious practitioners within Christian contexts. Nathan Leach is a Lecturer in Religious Studies at Texas State University at San Marcos. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. His current research analyzes the Revelation of John as part of the wider social landscape of divinatory rituals. Daniel Charles Smith is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics at Whitman College. He earned his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2022. His research investigates how imperial and material processes shaped religion in the Roman Empire, including the Apocalypse of John. Tony Keddie is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Fellow of the Ronald Nelson Smith Chair in Classics and Christian Origins at the University of Texas at Austin, where he also received his Ph.D. He researches the intersections of religion and labor among Jews and Christians in the Roman Empire.

Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies

Recent titles include: Studies in Ancient Greek Philosophy In Honor of Professor Anthony Preus Edited by D. M. Spitzer Personal Experience and Materiality in Greek Religion K.A. Rask A Cognitive Analysis of the Main Apolline Divinatory Practices Decoding Divination Giulia Frigerio Processions and the Construction of Communities in Antiquity History and Comparative Perspectives Edited by Elena Muñiz-Grijalvo and Alberto del Campo Tejedor Didactic Literature in the Roman World Edited by T. H. M. Gellar-Goad and Christopher B. Polt Atheism at the Agora A History of Unbelief in Ancient Greek Polytheism James C Ford The Geographical Guide of Ptolemy of Alexandria An Analysis Duane W. Roller Revelation and Material Religion in the Roman East Essays in Honor of Steven J. Friesen Edited by Nathan Leach, Daniel Charles Smith, and Tony Keddie For more information on this series, visit: https://www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Monographs-in-Classical-Studies/book-series/RMCS

Revelation and Material Religion in the Roman East Essays in Honor of Steven J. Friesen

Edited by Nathan Leach, Daniel Charles Smith, and Tony Keddie

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Nathan Leach, Daniel Charles Smith, and Tony Keddie; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Nathan Leach, Daniel Charles Smith, and Tony Keddie to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-38267-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-38268-5 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-34424-7 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003344247 Typeset in Times New Roman by MPS Limited, Dehradun

To Steve and Janice and their family

Contents

List of figures List of tables Acknowledgments List of contributors List of abbreviations Introduction

xii xiv xv xvi xix 1

DANIEL CHARLES SMITH, NATHAN LEACH, AND TONY KEDDIE

Selected Publications by Steven J. Friesen

9

PART I

Materializing Revelation 1 Apocalypse beyond Dualism: Connectivity and Metamorphose among Modes of Existence

15

17

PAULO NOGUEIRA

2 Reading Enslavement in Revelation

32

LYNN R. HUBER

3 Disabling the Laodikeian Assembly: Power of Sight as Site of Power in Revelation 3:14–22

52

DANIEL CHARLES SMITH

4 Paul and the “Other” in Revelation’s Letters to the Seven Churches Revisited

65

GEOFFREY S. SMITH

5 Subversive Consumption: Revelation’s Food Discourse within Roman Narratives of Invasive Foreignness NATHAN LEACH

75

x

Contents

6 Blood Sacrifice in Revelation and Roman Asia: Encoding and Decoding Embodied Experience

92

TONY KEDDIE

7 (Inc)sensing Revelation: Incense, Senses, and the Agency of Incense Utensils in the Apocalypse of John

109

DOMINIKA KUREK-CHOMYCZ

PART II

Spatializing Religion and Power 8 The Institutional Function of the Agora and Its Relevance to New Testament Studies: A New Institutional Economics Approach to the Athenian Agora and the New Testament

127

129

ALEX HON HO IP

9 Disposable or Transforming Body? 1 Cor 15:35–57 in the Context of Gladitorial Games in Ancient Corinth

144

JIN YOUNG KIM

10 The Terrace Houses at Ephesos, Domestic Religion, and Pauline Discourses of Space

165

CHRISTINE M. THOMAS

11 “We’re Going to Need a Bigger Altar!” Evidence for a Massive Sacrifice of Young Sheep/Goats at Omrit in Northern Israel

177

DANIEL SCHOWALTER

12 Untempled Altars: Ritualized Space beyond the Temenos in Ancient Priene

204

ADELINE HARRINGTON

PART III

Politicizing Memory

223

13 Hera in the North-Eastern Peloponnese: Cult Epithets as Containers of Cultural Memory

225

JORUNN ØKLAND

Contents xi

14 The Lust for Recognition and Influence: Laodikeia and the Quest for Neokorate Status

241

ALAN H. CADWALLADER

15 Vibrant Pomegranates: Urbanism and New Materialism in Ancient Side

258

JAIMIE GUNDERSON

16 Problematizing the “Discovery” of Pepouza and Tymion

279

CAROLINE CREWS

17 Partaking of the Death-Proclaiming Meal for Life: Re-Reading 1 Cor 11:17–34 from the Lens of Post-Traumatic Growth

301

MA. MARILOU S. IBITA

Index of Ancient Sources Index of Subjects

314 328

Figures

1.1 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 11.7 11.8 11.9 11.10 11.11 11.12 11.13 11.14 11.15 11.16 11.17

Bamberg Apocalypse, Msc.Bibl. 140, fol. 10v, 11th Century CE Theatre at Corinth, Looking South Aerial Photograph of the Corinth Amphitheater “Arena Frieze” from the Corinth Theater, the First Group to the East of the Southern Refuge “Arena Frieze” from the Corinth Theater, Portraying a Charging Lion and Venator Aerial View of Omrit Temples Drawing of the Omrit Early Shrine Drawing of the Northeast Courtyard of the Omrit Early Shrine Entrance to the Omrit Early Shrine Podium of the Omrit Early Shrine, Bisected by Temple 1 Cella Wall Drawing of Omrit Temple 2 and Temenos Extant Opening in the Omrit Early Shrine Floor Fixture from Opening in Omrit Early Shrine Floor Track for Rolling Stone Door below Floor of Omrit Early Shrine Cylindrical Door Which Separated Chambers Below Floor of Omrit Early Shrine State Plan Showing Location of Sacrificial Deposit Niche in the West Enclosure Wall of the Omrit Early Shrine Locus 005 East of the Omrit Early Shrine West Enclosure Wall Profile of Locus 005 Contents of Locus 005, Close-up Intact Unguentarium from near the Omrit Early Shrine Ceramic Assemblage Found beneath the Ash-bone Deposit at Omrit

26 148 149 151 152 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 187 188 189 190 191 194 195

Figures xiii 11.18 11.19 11.20 12.1 13.1 13.2 15.1 15.2 15.3

15.4 15.5

15.6 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4

Marble Plinth Cut to Receive Tenon of a Stele or Small Statue (Omrit) Omrit Temple 1 Cella Wall Foundation from the West Repair on Interior of Omrit Temple 1 Podium Row of Altars Outside of the Antalya Museum Map of North-Eastern Peloponnese Map of Hera Akraia, Possibly Argos Plain Silver Stater with a Pomegranate on the Obverse and Athena’s Head on the Reverse Bronze coin with Bust of Domitian on the Obverse and Athena with a Pomegranate Stalk on the Reverse Bronze Coin with Caracalla on the Obverse and a Galley Sailing with a Statue of Athena on the Prow and a Pomegranate Tree Astern on the Reverse Manhole Cover in Modern Side with Pomegranate Decoration Participants in Steve Friesen’s 2022 Travel Seminar Pictured in Modern Side with a Promotional Graphic Cut-out Featuring a Pomegranate Logo of the Side Archaeological Museum Featuring a Pomegranate Hermitage Holes in the Ulubey Canyon Valley Grotto at the Highest Register of the Rock-cut Monastery in the Ulubey Canyon Valley The Lowest Level of the Rock-cut Monastery in the Ulubey Canyon Valley Individual Crouching in a Room at the Rock-cut Monastery in the Ulubey Canyon Valley

196 197 198 217 226 232 267 268

269 271

272 272 290 291 292 293

Tables

6.1 11.1

Comparison of Animal Sacrifice in Temples of Roman Asia and Revelation Artifacts from the Ash Layer at Omrit

100 192

Acknowledgments

It has been a joy to organize and prepare this volume in honor of Steve Friesen, who has been an exceptionally dedicated, selfless, and encouraging mentor to each of us. We are grateful to the Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins at the University of Texas at Austin for generous financial support; to Jordan Swanson for his careful work creating the indexes; to our anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions on the framing of the volume; to Lynn Huber, Olivia Stewart Lester, and Michelle Fletcher for their support planning a session engaging with this book at the 2023 Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting; and to all those who have kindly agreed to participate in that session. We are also deeply thankful to Amy Davis-Poynter and Marcia Adams for their sage guidance, and to the rest of the Routledge team for helping to bring this project to fruition. 1 May 2023 Austin, TX and Walla Walla, WA

Contributors

Alan H. Cadwallader is an Adjunct Research Professor at the Centre for Religion, Ethics and Society at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, Australia. Recent monographs have included Fragments of Colossae (ATF, 2015), The Politics of the Revised Version (T&T Clark, 2019), and Colossae, Colossians, Philemon: The Interface (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2023). He has edited a number of volumes on the interface of early Christianity, ancient culture, and contemporary issues: Colossae in Space and Time (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), Pieces of Ease and Grace (ATF, 2013), Where the Wild Ox Roams (Sheffield Phoenix, 2013), and Stones, Bones and the Sacred (SBL, 2016). He is currently completing an Earth Bible commentary on Mark’s Gospel (T&T Clark). Caroline Crews earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, USA in 2023. Her work focuses on early Christian textual production and transmission, examining the competing interests behind the preservation and reproduction of late antique texts. Her dissertation studies how the surviving manuscripts of the Perpetua and Felicity tradition shape and are shaped by conflicting conceptions of the ideal Christian woman. Jaimie Gunderson is an Assistant Professor in the Religious Studies Department at George Mason University, USA. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on affect, embodiment, and sense perception in the ancient Mediterranean world. Adeline Harrington is a Doctoral candidate in Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. She specializes in early Christianity, Greco-Roman traditions, and Late Antiquity. As a papyrologist and social historian, she explores material culture, lived religion, and marginalized voices, while challenging traditional dichotomies. Her current research interests include early Christian reading culture, orthodoxy and heresy, material philology, and the use of magic in ancient healthcare.

Contributors xvii Lynn R. Huber is the Maude Sharpe Powell Professor of Religious Studies at Elon University in Elon, NC, USA. Her research focuses on gendered imagery in Revelation, and she is the author of a feminist commentary on Revelation, published as part of the Wisdom Series by Liturgical Press. Ma. Marilou S. Ibita is an Associate Professor at the Department of Theology and Religious Education at De La Salle University in Manila, Philippines and a Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, Belgium. Her research interests include contextual approaches to the New Testament and its societal relevance. Alex Ip is an Associate Professor of New Testament at the Divinity School of Chung Chi College at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the author of A Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation of the Letter to Philemon in Light of New Institutional Economics (2017) and Loving Resistance and Resistance Through Love (2022). Ip served as CEO of a poverty-caring NGO before he became a university professor. Tony Keddie is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Fellow of the Ronald Nelson Smith Chair in Classics and Christian Origins at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. He received his PhD in Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean at the University of Texas at Austin. His publications include Revelations of Ideology: Apocalyptic Class Politics in Early Roman Palestine (Brill, 2018) and Class and Power in Roman Palestine: The Socioeconomic Setting of Judaism and Christian Origins (Cambridge University Press, 2019). His current research focuses on the intersections of religion and labor among Jews and Christians in the Roman Empire. Jin Young Kim is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Religious Studies Program at Oklahoma State University, USA. She received her Ph.D. in Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean from the University of Texas at Austin. Kim is a scholar of the New Testament and Early Christianity whose research interests include literary analysis of Luke-Acts, conversion in ancient Mediterranean religions, Paul and Judaism, and minoritized biblical hermeneutics. Dominika Kurek-Chomycz, Ph.D., KU Leuven, Belgium, is Associate Professor in New Testament Studies at Liverpool Hope University, UK. Her research interests include sense perception (and olfaction in particular), emotions, disability, women and gender in Early Christianity; various issues in Second Corinthians; New Testament textual criticism; and biblical hermeneutics. Nathan Leach is a Lecturer in Religious Studies at Texas State University at San Marcos and an Assistant Professor of Instruction in Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. His current research analyzes the Revelation of John as part of the wider social landscape of divinatory rituals and ritual agents.

xviii Contributors Paulo A. S. Nogueira is a Professor of Theology and Philosophy and researcher in the Graduate Program of Religious Studies at the Pontificia Universidade Católica de Campinas, Brazil. He specializes in the history and interpretation of Early Christian apocalyptic and narrative literature. He also has interests in the reception of the Bible in art and popular culture. Jorunn Økland is a Professor at the Centre for Gender Research and the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oslo, Norway. She is trained in Classics and Theology and received her Dr. Theol. from the University of Oslo. Until 2022, she was the Director of the Norwegian Institute in Athens. She is currently Chair of the Translation Committee for the Norwegian Bible Society and Chair of the Revision Project of the Norwegian Bible (appearing in 2024). Daniel Schowalter is an Emeritus Professor of Classics and Religion at Carthage College, USA. His research interests revolve around archeology and the religions of the ancient Roman world. He has excavated at Omrit, a Roman Temple site in northern Israel, and is an Academic Trustee of the Archaeological Institute of America. Daniel Charles Smith is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics at Whitman College, USA. He earned his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2022. His first book project investigates the ways imperial and material processes shaped the appeal and suspicion of exotic religion in the Roman Empire, with particular attention to the New Testament Apocalypse of John. His current research explores disablement and bodily difference and their deployment within religious texts and material culture from the Ancient Mediterranean. Geoffrey Smith is the current director of the Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins (ISAC) at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. He is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies and a Fellow of the Louise Farmer Boyer Chair in Biblical Studies. He received a Ph.D. in Religions of Mediterranean Antiquity from Princeton University in 2013. His most recent book, co-authored with Brent C. Landau, is The Secret Gospel of Mark: A Controversial Scholar, a Scandalous Gospel of Jesus, and the Fierce Debate over Its Authenticity (Yale University Press, 2023). Christine M. Thomas, Ph.D., Harvard University, is Cordano Chair in Catholic Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. A veteran of twenty years of archeological fieldwork in Ephesos, her publications include a catalogue of 609 votive reliefs from the Ankara Museum and numerous articles on religion in Roman Asia Minor.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations have been used sparingly in this volume. The following list is restricted to corpora and versions of literary texts; lexicons; and editions of papyri, coins, and inscriptions. Abbreviations of the titles of ancient literary sources cited in the volume may be found in the Index of Primary Sources.

AE BE BMC Phrygia

CIG CIL Epigr. Gr FD GCRE

HALOT

IAphRome IKosPH IEph IG

L’Année épigraphique Bulletin épigraphique, annually in Revue des études grecques A Catalogue of the Greek Coins in the British Museum: Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Phrygia. Edited by B.V. Head. London, 1906. Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum. Edited by A. Boeckh. Berlin, 1828–1877. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Berlin, 1862–. Epigrammata Graeca ex lapidibus conlecta. Edited by G. Kaibel. Berlin, 1878. Fouilles de Delphes, III. Épigraphie. Edited by É Bourguet et al. Paris, 1929–1976. Greek Constitutions of Early Roman Emperors from Inscriptions and Papyri. Edited by J.H. Oliver. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1989. L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, and J.J. Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Translated and edited by M.E.J. Richardson. 4 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1994–1999. Aphrodisias and Rome. Edited by J. Reynolds. London, 1982. The Inscriptions of Cos. Edited by W.R. Paton and E.L. Hicks. Oxford, 1891. Die Inschriften von Ephesos. IGSK 11–17. Edited by H. Engelmann et al. Bonn, 1979–1984. Inscriptiones Graecae. Edited by W. Dittenberger et al. Berlin, 1903–.

xx

Abbreviations

IGR (IGRR) IGSK IGUR IIasos ILaodLyk ILLRP

IPerge ISardis ISestos ISmyrna ITrall

LCL LXX LSJ

MAMA NRSV NRSVue NT P.Mich P.Oxy Py Tn

RPC SEG

Inscriptiones graecae ad res romanas pertinentes. Edited by R. Cagnat et al. Paris, 1906–1927. Inschriften griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien. Bonn, 1972–. Inscriptiones graecae urbis romae. Edited by L. Moretti. 4 vols. Rome, 1968. Die Inschriften von Iasos. Edited by W. Blümel. 2 vols. IGSK 28/1–2. Bonn, 1985. Die Inschriften von Laodikeia am Lykos. Edited by T. Corsten. IGSK 49. Bonn, 1997. Inscriptiones latinae liberae rei publicae. Edited by A. Degrassi. Florence: Biblioteca di studi superiori, 1963–1965. Die Inschriften von Perge. Edited by S. Sahin. 2 vols. IGSK 54, 61. Bonn, 1999. Sardis. VII, 1: Greek and Latin Inscriptions. Edited by W.H. Buckler and D.M. Robinson. Leiden, 1932. Die Inschriften von Sestos und der thrakischen Chersones. Edited by J. Krauss. IGSK 19. Bonn, 1980. Die Inschriften von Smyrna. Edited by G. Petzl. IGSK 23-24/ 1-2. Bonn, 1982–1990. Die Inschriften von Tralleis und Nysa: Teil 1. Die Inschriften von Tralleis. Edited by F.B. Poljakov. IGSK 36/1. Bonn, 1989. Loeb Classical Library Septuagint H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon. Revised by H.S. Jones and R. McKenzie. Oxford: Clarendon, 1996. Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua. Manchester and London, 1928–1993. New Revised Standard Version New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition New Testament Michigan Papyri. 1931–2018. The Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Edited by B. Grenfell et al. London, 1898–. The Pylos Tablets: A Preliminary Transcription. Edited by E. L. Bennett. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951. Roman Provincial Coinage. Edited by A. Burnett and M. Amandry. London and Paris, 1992–. Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum. Leiden, 1923–.

Introduction Daniel Charles Smith, Nathan Leach, and Tony Keddie

The essays in this volume have been prepared in celebration of the career of Steven J. Friesen on the occasion of his retirement from the University of Texas at Austin, where he held the Louise Farmer Boyer Chair in Biblical Studies from 2005 to 2022. Friesen received his B.A. in Religion from Fresno Pacific College in 1976, having spent an exchange year at Phillips-Universität in Marburg, Germany. After earning his M.Div. from Fuller Theological Seminary in 1979, he spent three years in Romania learning Romanian at the University of Bucharest and auditing doctoral seminars at the Romanian Orthodox Theological Institute in Bucharest. He then returned to the United States, where he completed his Ph.D. in the Study of Religion at Harvard University in 1990. Friesen went on to become a Project Fellow in the Cultural Studies Program at the East-West Center in Honolulu from 1991 to 1993 before joining the Religious Studies faculty at the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1993, where he earned tenure in 1999, was promoted to full professor in 2004, and served as department Chair from 2000 to 2005. He was then hired by the University of Texas at Austin in 2005 to become one of the founding members of its Department of Religious Studies, the first of its kind at a public university in the state of Texas. He also served as Chair of that department from 2015 to 2020. Friesen is a leading scholar of Religious Studies with particular areas of expertise in the fields of New Testament and Ancient Mediterranean Religions. In addition to his aforementioned departmental administrative roles, he has served on the Executive Council of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), including as Secretary; on the International Connections Committee of the American Academy of Religion (AAR); on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Biblical Literature; as Co-Chair and Steering Committee member of two SBL program units, “Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World” and “John’s Apocalypse in Cultural Contexts, Ancient and Modern”; and as a founding member of the AAR’s Indigenous Religious Traditions program unit. He also co-founded and for many years participated in organizing the Colloquium on Material Culture and Ancient Religions (COMCAR), which has brought multiple groups of scholars on summer study tours of archeological sites around the Mediterranean. Friesen’s intellectual DOI: 10.4324/9781003344247-1

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leadership is also evident in his role in co-organizing several conferences and co-editing their proceedings as high-quality edited volumes that initiate new directions in their areas of study. Friesen’s research develops interdisciplinary social-historical approaches to early Christianity that complicate traditional narratives beholden to uncritical interpretations of canonical texts. Like other scholars among the erudite cohorts who trained at Harvard in the 1980s and 1990s under Helmut Koester in New Testament and early Christianity and David Mitten in classical art and archeology,1 Friesen has advocated the study of material culture, particularly from cities in Greece and Turkey, as integral to the study of Christian origins. At the same time, Friesen’s scholarship has also been distinctly shaped by engagement with Harvard’s preeminent feminist theologian, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. This influence is clearest in Friesen’s adaptations of Schüssler Fiorenza’s model of intersectionality, or “kyriarchy,” in several of his articles—especially, “High Priestesses of Asia and Emancipatory Interpretation” (2003), “Junia Theodora of Corinth: Gendered Inequalities in the Early Empire” (2014), “Class Analysis in the Book of Revelation: Intersections of Economy, Religion, and Gender” (2021), and “New Testament Studies as a Kyriarchal Discipline” (2022). Schüssler Fiorenza’s influence also surfaces, however, in Friesen’s consistent dedication to theoretical precision and his transparent ethical commitment to amplifying the voices of underprivileged and marginalized people in both ancient and modern contexts. Over the course of his career, Friesen has contributed significantly to research on the Apocalypse of John (the New Testament book of Revelation), economic aspects of religion in the Roman East, the archeology of religion in cities of the Eastern Mediterranean, and ideological analysis of early Christfollowing groups and their urban neighbors. Among his many scholarly interventions, three stand out as his most influential. First, his monograph on Revelation, Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the Ruins (2001) combines postcolonial theory with nuanced analysis of material culture to situate the text as a complex refutation of worship at imperial cults in Roman Western Asia Minor (modern western Turkey). Second, his articles demonstrating the breadth of poverty in the Roman Empire and among the first assemblies of Christ-followers, especially his “Poverty in Pauline Studies” (2004) and “The Size and Distribution of Income in the Roman Empire” (2009, with Walter Scheidel) have helped to establish poverty, class, and economics as critical foci in the study of ancient Christianity. Third, in collaboration with scholars of ancient Mediterranean history, archeology, and religion, he has co-edited several high-quality volumes advancing the interdisciplinary study of material culture and religion within distinctive urban contexts in the Roman East: Urban Religion and Roman Corinth (2005), From Roman to Christian Thessalonikē (2010), Corinth in Context (2010), Corinth in Contrast (2014), Religion in Ephesos Reconsidered (2020), and Philippi, from Colonia Augusta to Communitas Christiana (2022).

Introduction

3

Friesen’s diverse contributions are tied together by his enduring attention to the material dimensions of religion, from rituals, spaces, and objects to social relations and economic exchanges, as a window onto unequal distributions of power and resources in ancient societies. Through close, locally contextualized analysis of such wide-ranging sources as literary texts, inscriptions, sculptural reliefs, architecture, and osteological data, Friesen’s work illuminates the complex ways that religious texts and practices variously produce, reproduce, naturalize, obfuscate, transform, contest, and resist the imperialist ordering of society according to intersecting hierarchies of class, status, gender, and ethnicity. His work draws attention to local actors, histories, and iconographies in the formation of religion, illustrating the social and material production of memory in ancient cities across their changing political and cultic landscapes. Friesen has developed his approach to material religion not only through the study of ancient Mediterranean contexts but also modern societies. His articles on Lei Day in Hawaii, for instance, trace the commodification of a religious object (the lei) and the construction of a new holiday (Lei Day) in a changing colonial context, identifying the conflicting narratives and competing interests of indigenous Hawaiians and their colonizers as well as the exclusion of the voices of residents of Asian descent (“The Origins of Lei Day” [1996]; “The Hawaiian Lei on a Voyage through Modernities” [2004]). Much like his work has deciphered the colonial interests at work in constructing Lei Day as an ethnically inclusive holiday, Friesen has also shown how US right-wing political rhetoric in the Trump era presented the flag and cross as material symbols of what it means to be American, disguising exclusionary Christian nationalism as an inclusive identity (“Remembering 9/11” [2021]). In these studies of modern contexts, then, Friesen has identified material religion functioning toward some of the same political ends as the sculptural program of the Aphrodisias Sebasteion, where mythic patterns construct the violent incorporation of conquered nations into the empire as providential and benevolent, or John’s Apocalypse, where the nations’ inclusion in the New Jerusalem is contingent on their subordination to God and the Lamb. Metacriticism of Biblical and Religious Studies constitutes another noteworthy component of Friesen’s scholarship. In support of his development of an interdisciplinary materialist methodology, Friesen has critically examined scholarly frameworks of interpretation and their formation within distinctive modern material and geopolitical contexts. For example, he has argued that the abandonment of myth as a category of scholarly analysis in biblical studies was a consequence of modern European attempts at constructing Christian and national identities expunged of mythic elements deemed “primitive,” as well as modern American interests in “the eradication of native populations and their ‘primitive myths’” (“Myth and Symbolic Resistance in Revelation 13” [2004], 283). He has also drawn attention to the persistent and pernicious habit in New Testament scholarship of avoiding

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political, ideological, or economic histories of the field in favor of theological and intellectual reflections devoid of considerations of Euro-American political and economic power (“Revelation, Realia, and Religion: Archaeology in the Interpretation of the Apocalypse,” 1995). His work engages with critical scholars of religion like Charles Long and David Chidester to examine how Euro-American production of religious discourses relies upon concomitant processes of imperial conquest and subjugation (Imperial Cults [2001], 8–11; “A Useful Apocalypse,” 2017). In several other studies, Friesen has argued that late-twentieth-century scholarship on Christian origins has tended to emphasize status over class, individuals over collectives, mobility over inequality, wealth over poverty, and so on, because of the unstated capitalist assumptions and class interests of modern scholars. He has called this “capitalist criticism” and argued that it is a framework of interpretation that should be exposed to just as much critical scrutiny as any other interpretive method (among others: “Poverty in Pauline Studies” [2004], “The Blessings of Hegemony” [2008]). His recent article on “New Testament Studies as a Kyriarchal Discipline” (2022) synthesizes the insights of his different metacritical investigations by exposing the ways that four leading New Testament undergraduate textbooks advance ideologies that protect “white, male, capitalist, imperialist Christian hegemony.” He explains that the prevalence of idealist definitions of religion in the field (that is, religion defined in terms of individual ideas, beliefs, and experiences) is “a key factor for disciplinary descriptions of Christian origins in which the material connections to class, race, gender, and empire vanish, focusing attention instead on a limited range of abstract ideas” (4). Friesen’s focus on material religion, ancient and modern, thus seeks to disrupt dominant ideologies in contemporary society and academia that promote and naturalize social and economic inequalities. Summaries of Chapters The contributions to this volume all expand upon aspects of Friesen’s research, demonstrating the ongoing influence of his work while forging fruitful new directions. The essays are arranged into three parts: Materializing Revelation (Part I), Spatializing Religion and Power (Part II), and Politicizing Memory (Part III). Like Friesen’s scholarship, each chapter within these three parts engages in critical analysis of texts and material culture as products of localized ancient contexts. The chapters in Part I all build not only on Friesen’s interest in and work on Revelation, but also share his emphases on the material worlds the users of the text inhabit, the ways the text alludes to and interacts with that material world, and the social groups, stratifications, and conflicts at work in the text, between John and the communities he writes to, and between these assemblies and the social/civic world they are a part of. Additionally, many of these chapters are overtly or implicitly interested in metacritical analysis of the power production at work within scholarship itself in its uses of Revelation.

Introduction

5

Paulo Nogueira’s chapter argues that Western interpreters of Revelation have too often assumed that the work’s social frame of reference is one of transcendent dualism rather than the more immanent frame of ritual practitioners whose lives are entangled with a world of other-than-human beings, objects, and animals that continually metamorphose and blur strict boundaries. Drawing on ethnographic scholarship and Amerindian ontologies, Nogueira argues for a more immanent and metamorphic conceptualization of John’s cosmic world and his interactions with it in Revelation. Lynn Huber’s and Daniel Charles Smith’s chapters both address different ways interpreters of Revelation have chronically softened or elided elements of the text’s uncomfortable rhetoric, in the process obscuring the power production and negotiation at work between John and his readers and reproducing harmful power relations among modern readers. Huber focuses specifically on the metaphors of slaves (douloi) and enslavement in Revelation. Drawing on Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Huber traces the ways particular actions in Revelation—e.g., naming, branding, purchasing, and possessing—depend on (and reproduce) framing concepts rooted in the cultural normalization of dehumanizing enslaver logics familiar to Revelation’s readers from their own experience (as inhabitants of a slave economy/society, whatever their status in it). Similarly, Daniel Smith focuses on the ways discourses of sight and blindness in Rev 3:14–22 play upon wider cultural representations/productions of disablement to authorize John’s message over and against competing visions of assembly praxis. In both cases, Huber and Smith argue that commentators, by treating these metaphors as innocuous and their sense as obvious, routinely perpetuate the (racializing, enslaving, and disabling) sensibilities (re)produced through those metaphors in both ancient and modern contexts. Geoffrey Smith’s and Nathan Leach’s chapters both deal with the ways John adapts wider social discourses for use against his opponents within the Christ-following assemblies. Responding to the long-standing suggestion that John’s conflicts with other Christ-followers in Revelation 2–3 represent the clash of Johannine and Pauline (or neo-Pauline) traditions within Christianity, Smith argues that John is, in fact, drawing heavily on Pauline epistolary formulas and rhetoric. Smith locates Revelation amongst the many other texts in the late-first to early second centuries CE that all build in various ways on the growing authority of Paul’s letters, even as they each reshape and redeploy “Paul” and “Pauline” rhetoric against each other. In a related but divergent vein, Leach argues that Revelation’s gruesome imagery of blooddrinking and human-eating is connected to the work’s denunciation in Rev 2–3 of those in the Christ-following assemblies who eat idol-sacrificeassociated meat (eidōlothyta). Leach argues that John builds on wider Roman discourses of “foreign,” anthropophagic ethnic groups and ritual associations “consuming Romanitas from within” (discourses often deployed to marginalize Dionysiacs, Judaeans, and Christ-followers) to characterize both the Roman system and his (colluding) opponents within the Christ-following assemblies as a similar (self)consuming existential threat.

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Tony Keddie’s and Dominika Kurek-Chomycz’s chapters both deal with specific ritual objects and activities repeatedly referenced in Revelation and how their deployment in the work resonates both sensuously and practically with the assembly members’ wider experience. Keddie argues that—while iconographic representations of civic sacrifice offer a sterilized focus on elite officiants—Revelation focuses attention on the blood-soaked reality of sacrifice and on active (consumptive) public participation in it. In doing so, Keddie argues that John’s representation of blood encoded his audience’s perceptions of animal sacrifices as a form of Roman violence against (and consumption of) the holy ones, in contrast to a coming eschatological order in which divine violence makes one final sacrifice of the imperial system itself. In contrast, Kurek-Chomycz focuses on incense as the only offering envisaged in the heavenly Temple itself within the Book of Revelation and highlights how various utensils are used with it. Kurek-Chomycz argues that John utilizes a selection of wider cultural meanings ascribed to incense—presupposing the audience’s familiarity with the widespread use of incense in the cities of Asia—to construct an elaborate warning against other practices he considered idolatrous and to contrast them with what he sees as appropriate cultic attitudes and behaviors. The chapters in Part II, “Spatializing Religion and Power,” examine different ways that space is imbued with meaning. Attention to space is a key component of Friesen’s materialist approach. On the one hand, he has advocated studying literary and epigraphic texts as situated within particular urban spaces. On the other, he has identified religious spaces, in particular, as loci of domination and resistance. In Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John, for example, Friesen argues that “imperial cult institutions defined how space and time were to be experienced” (2001, 124), and elsewhere he draws on the theory of Michel de Certeau to frame imperial productions of sacred space as “strategies” that naturalize domination (2011). Revelation, he proposes, engages in its own ambivalent production of space and time that is both a “strategy” of control and a “tactic” of resistance against imperial spatial strategies. Taking different approaches, the studies in this part illuminate a range of ways ancient persons attributed socially inflected meaning to spaces. By focusing on space as dynamic, polyvalent, and multifunctional, these chapters eschew traditional conceptions of space as an empty container. Developing Friesen’s insights, they show rather that spaces are social sites at which individuals and groups produce and reproduce—or express, negotiate, and contest—religious and political power. Alex Hon Ho Ip’s chapter marshals insights from New Institutional Economics to illustrate how ancient agoras and forums were not simply places for gatherings and transactions but were instead institutionalized spaces with conglomerated commercial, civic, and entertainment functions. For Jews and Christ-followers, regular encounters with the sale of unclean foods and activities like sex work may have led to patterned perceptions of the agora as

Introduction

7

an immoral space, thus explaining some negative depictions of agoras in the New Testament. Jin Young Kim leads us from the agora to the spatial contexts of gladiatorial games in Corinth, and particularly the arena. She contends that the Corinthian arena was a colonial space designed to advance an imperial ideology that presents the exploitation and disposal of human bodies as a means of glorifying the Roman Empire. By carefully deciphering Paul’s allusions to gladiatorial games in 1 Corinthians 15, Kim shows how Paul both relied on and countered the imperial ideology of disposable bodies through his articulation of bodily resurrection. The essays by Christine Thomas, Daniel Schowalter, and Adeline Harrington similarly problematize widely held assumptions about sacred spaces in the study of ancient Mediterranean religions and early Christianity. Christine Thomas’s detailed analysis of religious objects and their find spots in the Terrace Houses of Ephesos reveals sacred spaces in domestic contexts that were more fixed than ephemeral productions through ritual. This observation complicates the usual understandings of Christ-followers’ rituals making houses sacred, and turning houses into “house churches,” since they were already religious spaces. Daniel Schowalter’s contribution examines a deposit of ash and burnt bones from a massive sacrifice of young sheep/goats at the Roman temple of Omrit in northern Israel. He presents evidence that the deposition was made near the Early Shrine during the construction of the final phase of the temple over top of it more than a century later. Although different scenarios are possible, the circumstances that prompted this sacrifice and related ritual activity evince ongoing investments in earlier sacred spaces as integral to the construction of new sacred spaces. Adeline Harrington’s chapter concludes Part II with an important call to recognize that temples were by no means the only spaces of ritual activity in Greco-Roman cities. Focusing on “untempled altars” in Priene, particularly those in the Bouleuterion, Agora, and Theater, she highlights the interconnectedness of untempled altars with cultic precincts and other urban spaces. Part III, “Politicizing Memory,” comprises a diverse set of engagements with the ways cities and regions in the Roman East conceived of their own pasts, as well as the ways subsequent writers and scholars have constructed pliable pasts for their own ideological projects. Whether collectives or individuals, the subjects under investigation in Part III deployed memory in the maintenance of their own trans-local, provincial, and imperial networks. These chapters take inspiration from Friesen’s textured tracings of civic, provincial, and imperial exchanges (1993; 2001) and how various groups marshalled the past in the effort to negotiate Roman imperial rule (2001; 2018). Friesen’s oft-cited analysis of the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias (2001, 77–131), for example, illustrates how local civic memories and dynamic relations of power in the eastern empire collide to forge pasts into tools for new political projects. His co-edited volumes analyzing cities around the Aegean Sea consider how local histories—both real and imagined—coincide with shifting regional and

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imperial politics. His work on ancient and modern receptions of the past (1995; 1996; 2010; 2017; 2021) draws further attention to the ways reception is not, as the term might imply, a passive process but rather an active project replete with political investments. The chapters in this section follow Friesen’s attention to the past and the manifold strategies for deploying it within political encounters. In Chapter 13, Jorunn Økland reads Pausanias’s reflections on Hera temples in the Northeastern Peloponnese in the context of Roman power in Greece, arguing that the travel writer enshrines a Greek past within a changing imperial landscape. The following two chapters explore the formation of civic memory in two cities of Asia Minor. Alan H. Cadwallader’s chapter traces the centuries-long struggle for neokorate status in Roman Laodikeia, where recently published inscriptions seem to suggest Hadrian had bestowed the coveted status of temple warden of an imperial cult to the city. Cadwallader argues instead that the claim misreads the evidence, while offering a fresh evaluation of Laodikeia’s struggle for neokorate status into the third century CE. In the following chapter, Jaimie Gunderson explores the human and material actors at work in the production of Side as the pomegranate city. As “the Big Apple” comes to define New York City (or “the Little Apple” comes to define Manhattan, Kansas), Side’s numismatic, sculptural, and discursive associations with the pomegranate constitute a place-specific sociality that shapes Sidetan identity. In Chapter 16, Caroline Crews traces the history of Pepouza and Tymion, archeological sites in Asia Minor that have come to be associated with Montanism (or “New Prophecy”) and the ways scholarship has projected ideologically fraught fantasies of charismatic, anti-Catholic Christianity onto ancient places whose material remains are anything but conclusive. In the final chapter of the book, Ma. Marilou S. Ibita calls for contemporary scholars and religious practitioners to consider the effects of trauma upon the formation of group identity by reading the meal conflict in 1 Corinthians 11:17–34 as illustrating and reenacting trauma around death, hunger, and crisis. In light of the contemporary world’s ongoing and overlapping crises around ecological devastation, pandemic death and suffering, and the ongoing war in Ukraine, Ibita considers the formation of trauma relating to food insecurity as a means of analyzing the traumas played out at the Lord’s supper in Corinth. Note 1 On Koester’s actions toward women graduate students while at Harvard, see the reflections in Elaine Pagels, Why Religion? A Personal Story (New York: ECCO, 2018), 24–26.

Selected Publications by Steven J. Friesen

Authored Books 2001 Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the Ruins. New York: Oxford University Press. 1993 Twice Neokoros: Ephesus, Asia, and the Cult of the Flavian Imperial Family. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 116. Leiden: Brill. Edited Books 2022 Philippi, From Colonia Augusta to Communitas Christiana: Religion and Society in Transition. Co-edited by Daniel N. Schowalter and Michalis Lychounas. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 186. Leiden: Brill. 2021 The Struggle over Class: Socioeconomic Analysis of Early Ancient Texts. Co-edited by G. Anthony Keddie and Michael Flexsenhar III. Writings from the Greco-Roman World Supplements 19. Atlanta: SBL. 2020 Religion in Ephesos Reconsidered: Archaeology of Spaces, Structures, and Objects. Co-edited by Daniel N. Schowalter, Sabine Ladstätter, and Christine Thomas. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 177. Leiden: Brill. 2014 Corinth in Contrast: Studies in Inequality. Co-edited by Sarah A. James and Daniel N. Schowalter. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 155. Leiden: Brill. 2010 Corinth in Context: Comparative Studies on Religion and Society. Coedited by Daniel N. Schowalter and James C. Walters. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 134. Leiden: Brill. 2010 From Roman to Christian Thessalonikē: Studies in Religion and Archaeology. Co-edited by Laura Nasrallah and Charalambos Bakirtzis. Harvard Theological Studies 64. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Theological Studies; distributed by Harvard University Press. 2005 Urban Religion in Roman Corinth: Interdisciplinary Approaches. Co-edited by Daniel N. Schowalter. Harvard Theological Studies 53. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Theological Studies; distributed by Harvard University Press. 2001 Ancestors in Post-Contact Religion: Roots, Ruptures, and Modernity’s Memory. Cambridge, MA: Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School; distributed by Harvard University Press. DOI: 10.4324/9781003344247-2

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1991 Local Knowledge, Ancient Wisdom: Challenges in Contemporary Spirituality. Honolulu: East-West Center. Articles and Chapters 2022 “New Testament Studies as a Kyriarchal Discipline: Making the World Safe for White, Male, Capitalist, Imperialist, Christian Supremacy.” The Bible & Critical Theory 18:1–27. 2022 “The Customs House Inscription from Ephesos: Exchange, Surplus, Ideology, and the Divine.” Pages 115–38 in Ephesos as a Religious Center under the Principate. Edited by Allen Black, Christine M. Thomas, and Trevor Thompson. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 488. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. In press. 2022 “The Serious Business of Singing a Hymn: Boy Choirs and the ‘Eternal Maintenance of Piety’ at Stratonikeia.” Pages 125–33 in Stein auf Stein. Festschrift für Hilke Thür zum 80. Geburtstag. Edited by Ursula Quatember, Karin Koller, and Elisabeth Trinkl. Graz: University of Graz. 2022 “Class and Ideology in Acts 16: The Philippian Narrative as a Failed Revolution.” Pages 278–95 in Philippi, From Colonia Augusta to Communitas Christiana: Religion and Society in Transition. Edited by Steven J. Friesen, Daniel N. Schowalter, and Michalis Lychounas. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 186. Leiden: Brill. 2021 “Remembering 9/11: Religious Maximalism in the United States of America Twenty Years after the Attacks.” Reflexão 46:1–19. 2021 “Class Analysis in the Book of Revelation: Intersections of Economy, Religion, and Gender.” Pages 347–64 in The Struggle over Class: Socioeconomic Analysis of Ancient Christian Texts. Writings from the GrecoRoman World Supplements 19. Edited by G. Anthony Keddie, Michael Flexsenhar III, and Steven J. Friesen. Atlanta: SBL. 2018 “Double Obfuscation of Class Struggle in Luke 13:10–17: Regulation of Labor, Alienation, and Failed Revolutions.” Pages 36–56 in Envisioning God in the Humanities: Essays on Christianity, Judaism, and Ancient Religion in Honor of Melissa Harl Sellew. Edited by Courtney J. P. Friesen. Westar Seminar on God and the Human Future. Eugene, OR: Cascade. 2018 “Material Conditions for Seeing the Divine: The Temple of the Sebastoi at Ephesos and the Vision of the Heavenly Throne in Revelation 4–5.” Pages 3–25 in Seeing the God: Image, Space, Performance and Vision in the Religion of the Roman Empire. Edited by Marlis Arnhold, Harry O. Maier, and Jörg Rüpke. Culture, Religion, and Politics in the Greco-Roman World 2. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. 2017 “A Useful Apocalypse: Domestication and Destabilization in the Second Century.” Pages 79–104 in New Perspectives on the Book of Revelation. Edited by Adela Yarbro Collins. Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 291. Leuven: Peeters.

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2016 “Embodied Inequalities: Diet Reconstruction and Christian Origins.” Pages 9–23 in Stones, Bones and the Sacred: Essays from the Colloquia on Material Culture and Ancient Religion in Honor of Dennis E. Smith. Edited by Alan Cadwallader. Early Christianity and Its Literature 21. Atlanta: SBL. 2014 “Apocalypse and Empire.” Pages 163–79 in The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature. Edited by John J. Collins. New York: Oxford University Press. 2014 “Junia Theodora of Corinth: Gendered Inequalities in the Early Empire.” Pages 203–26 in Corinth in Contrast: Studies in Inequality. Edited by Steven J. Friesen, Sarah A. James, and Daniel N. Schowalter. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 155. Leiden: Brill. 2014 “Inequality in Corinth.” Co-authored by Sarah A. James and Daniel N. Schowalter. Pages 1–13 in Corinth in Contrast: Studies in Inequality. Edited by Steven J. Friesen, Sarah A. James, and Daniel N. Schowalter. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 155. Leiden: Brill. 2011 “Normal Religion: A Conversation with Karl Galinsky.” Pages 23–26 in Rome and Religion: A Cross-Disciplinary Dialogue on the Imperial Cult. Edited by Jeffrey Brodd and Jonathan L. Reed. Writings from the GrecoRoman World Supplements 5. Atlanta: SBL. 2011 “Roman Imperial Imagery in Revelation: Space, Knowledge, and Time.” Pages 43–54 in Imagery in the Book of Revelation. Edited by Michael Labahn and Outi Lehtipuu. Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology 60. Leuven: Peeters. 2010 “The Wrong Erastus: Ideology, Archaeology, and Exegesis.” Pages 237–62 in Corinth in Context: Comparative Studies on Religion and Society. Edited by Steven J. Friesen, Daniel N. Schowalter, and James C. Walters. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 134. Leiden: Brill. 2010 “Introduction: Context, Comparison.” Pages 1–10 in Corinth in Context: Comparative Studies on Religion and Society. Edited by Steven J. Friesen, Daniel N. Schowalter, and James C. Walters. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 134. Leiden: Brill. 2010 “Second Thessalonians, the Ideology of Epistles, and the Construction of Authority: Our Debt to the Forger.” Pages 189–210 in From Roman to Christian Thessalonikē: Studies in Religion and Archaeology. Edited by Laura Nasrallah, Charalambos Bakirtzis, and Steven J. Friesen. Harvard Theological Studies 64. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Theological Studies; distributed by Harvard University Press. 2010 “The Economy of Paul’s Gospel: The Jerusalem Collection as an Alternative to Patronage.” Pages 27–54 in Paul Unbound: Other Perspectives on Paul. Edited by Mark D. Givens. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson. Reprinted in 2022 in a second edition through SBL Press in the series Emory Studies in Early Christianity, pages 41–78. 2009 “The Size of the Economy and the Distribution of Income in the Roman Empire.” Co-authored by Walter Scheidel. Journal of Roman Studies 99:61–91.

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2008 “Injustice or God’s Will? Early Christian Explanations of Poverty.” Pages 17–36 in Wealth and Poverty in Early Church and Society. Edited by Susan R. Holman. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. Revised version of the 2005 chapter in A People’s History of Christianity (below). 2008 “The Blessings of Hegemony: Poverty, Paul’s Assemblies, and the Class Interests of the Professoriate.” Pages 117–28 in The Bible in the Public Square: Reading the Signs of the Times. Edited by Cynthia Briggs Kittredge, Ellen Bradshaw Aitken, and Jonathan A. Draper. Minneapolis: Fortress. 2006 “Sarcasm in Revelation 2–3: Churches, Christians, True Jews, and Satanic Synagogues.” Pages 127–44 in The Reality of Apocalypse: Rhetoric and Politics in the Book of Revelation. Edited by David L. Barr. Symposium Series 39. Atlanta: SBL. 2005 “Satan’s Throne, Imperial Cults, and the Social Settings of Revelation.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 27:351–73. 2005 “Injustice or God’s Will? Explanations of Poverty in Four Proto-Christian Texts.” Pages 240–60 in The First Century. Edited by Richard Horsley. Vol. 1 of A People’s History of Christianity. Minneapolis: Fortress. 2005 “Prospects for a Demography of the Pauline Mission: Corinth among the Churches.” Pages 351–70 in Urban Religion in Roman Corinth: Interdisciplinary Approaches. Edited by Daniel N. Schowalter and Steven J. Friesen. Harvard Theological Studies 53. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Theological Studies; distributed by Harvard University Press. 2004 “Ephesos B: The Upper City.” In The Cities of Paul: Images and Interpretations from the Harvard New Testament and Archaeology Project. CD-ROM. Edited by Helmut Koester. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress. 2004 “The Hawaiian Lei on a Voyage through Modernities: A Study in PostContact Religion.” Pages 325–42 in Beyond ‘Primitivism’: Indigenous Religious Traditions and Modernity. Edited by Jacob Olupona. New York: Routledge. 2004 “Myth and Symbolic Resistance in Revelation 13.” Journal of Biblical Literature 123:281–313. 2004 “Poverty in Pauline Studies: Beyond the So-Called New Consensus.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 26:323–61. 2004 “Religion and Politics in Early Christianity.” Pages 561–63 in Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide. Edited by Sarah Iles Johnston. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2003 “The Beast from the Earth: Revelation 13:11–18 and Social Setting.” Pages 49–64 in Readings in the Book of Revelation: A Resource for Students. Edited by David L. Barr. Resources for Biblical Studies 44. Atlanta: SBL. 2003 “High Priestesses of Asia and Emancipatory Interpretation.” Pages 136–50 in Walk in the Ways of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. Edited by Shelly Matthews, Cynthia Briggs Kittredge, and Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity International.

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2001 “Introduction: Modern Ancestors.” Pages xvii–xxix in Ancestors in Post-Contact Religion: Roots, Ruptures, and Modernity’s Memory. Edited by Steven J. Friesen. Cambridge, MA: Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School; distributed by Harvard University Press. 1999 “Asiarchs.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 126:275–90. 1999 “Ephesian Women and Men in Public Religious Office in the Roman Period.” Pages 107–13 in 100 Jahre Österreichische Forschungen in Ephesos. Akten des Symposions Wien 1995. Edited by Herwig Friesinger and Friedrich Krinzinger. Vienna: Austrian Archaeological Institute. 1999 “Highpriests of Asia and Asiarchs: Farewell to the Identification Theory.” Pages 303–7 in Steine und Wege: Festschrift für Dieter Knibbe zum 65. Geburtstag. Edited by Peter Scherrer. Vienna: Austrian Archaeological Institute. 1996 “The Origins of Lei Day: Festivity and the Construction of Ethnicity in the Territory of Hawaii.” History and Anthropology 10:1–36. 1995 “The Cult of the Roman Emperors in Ephesos: Temple Wardens, City Titles, and the Interpretation of the Revelation of John.” Pages 229–50 in Ephesos, Metropolis of Asia: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Religion and Culture. Edited by Helmut Koester. Harvard Theological Studies 41. Valley Forge, PA: Trinity International. 1995 “Ephesos A: City Center and Curetes St.” In Archaeological Resources for New Testament Studies (ARNTS) 2. CD-ROM. Edited by Helmut Koester. Valley Forge, PA: Trinity International. With the assistance of Christine M. Thomas. 1995 “Revelation, Realia, and Religion: Archaeology in the Interpretation of the Apocalypse.” Harvard Theological Review 88:291–314. 1987 “Olympia.” In Archaeological Resources for New Testament Studies (ARNTS) 1. CD-ROM. Edited by Helmut Koester. Philadelphia: Fortress. 1987 “Corinth A: Architectural Monuments of the Roman City.” In Archaeological Resources for New Testament Studies (ARNTS) 1. CDROM. Edited by Helmut Koester. Philadelphia: Fortress. With the assistance of Allan Janek, among others.

Part I

Materializing Revelation

1

Apocalypse Beyond Dualism Connectivity and Metamorphose Among Modes of Existence Paulo Nogueira

1.1

Introduction

The considerations I will present here are the result of ancient concerns and more recent readings and discoveries. My academic background is classical in Theology, and my area of expertise is New Testament exegesis. However, my interests have never been the traditional issues of biblical theology, such as doctrinal formation or the ecclesial power structures of Christianity in the ancient world. I have always been more interested in marginal groups, in concomitant and divergent lines of development in religious beliefs, that is, in their plurality. My special attention was always dedicated to the expressions of groups on the margins, poorly documented, whose ideas we usually know through apologists who criticized them or through apocryphal texts, texts from the margins. Even when I studied canonical texts, such as the Revelation of John, my interest was not exactly doctrinal and theological, but rather how it allied itself with movements opposed to Rome in the Jewish diaspora, the way its language articulated visionary ecstasy, and the polysemy of its imagery narrative. The mythopoetic structure of apocalyptic texts arouses my special interest in this today. These issues are considered secondary by traditional biblical exegesis, but they are not necessarily new in this field of study. In the last two decades, the adoption of perspectives from cultural studies in the area of biblical studies has given more and more space to this type of approach, to the critiques of gender relations and the appreciation of religious practices, both popular and marginal.1 The study of apocryphal literature gained a prominent place, with the arrival of new editions, translations, and approaches that relate it to the social and cultural world of the first Christians. I had received an invitation to participate in a panel at the prestigious Enoch Seminar in 2022, organized by Gabriele Boccaccini, where I was to present what, from my perspective, I considered a current trend in apoca­ lyptic research. The choice of theme and approach encouraged me to make my questions explicit. Although I am well aligned with cultural studies, with the analysis of models of popular mythopoetic thought at work in apocryphal literature, and give due importance to magical practices in early Christianity, there I would need to address a much greater challenge: to articulate what I DOI: 10.4324/9781003344247-4

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considered it to be a gap in a study area as rich as apocalyptic. Here I will seek to develop my argument focusing on the Revelation of John. I still present it with gaps and open questions, with the aim of promoting debate. For years, I have been reading authors who challenge me to understand religion beyond two traditional and consolidated paradigms: a) religion as an exclusive or priority relationship with the transcendent, and b) religion as an object of interpretation systems. This is nothing less than the two pillars of the way religion—and Christianity, in particular—is understood in the West. However, as a Brazilian scholar of theology and religious sciences, it has always bothered me that these paradigms do not apply to the many forms of Afroindigenous religiosity and to the syncretic and popular elaborations of the urban context of our Brazilian society. In Brazil, we are far from having our religious field defined in the preferred binary opposition of common sense, consisting of the opposition between Catholics and Evangelicals (Pentecostals being the vast majority of them). In Brazil, everything can be more compli­ cated, and more interesting, too. We have a dynamic, syncretic religiosity, in which both in traditional communities and in outskirt communities of large cities we find Amerindian, African, and Christian elements, and those of new spiritualities, merging into new practices and symbols. Even in Catholic and Evangelical-Pentecostal religious practices, there is a presence of these ele­ ments, resignified in a pervasive way. What draws our attention is the fact that, in these spiritualities, god (the divine entities and the sacred) do not manifest themselves as distant, as absolute otherness; rather, they are present and share in the struggles and needs of ordinary people. An African orisha fights, eats, has sex, and dances in a very concrete way in the bodies of his or her devotees or in their offerings. The Holy Spirit of contemporary Brazilian Pentecostalism is the divinity of small miracles, daily cures, job searches, prosperity, and small ev­ eryday life victories. These elements are very misunderstood by theologians who accuse them of financial materialism. Although divine beings are indeed worthy of honor, praise, and offerings, they are understood as partners. In the case of popular Catholicism, the Trinity may seem distant, but it is advised and made present by the saints and the Virgin. In this context of Brazilian—and I would say, Latin American—popular religion, religion therefore is not a matter of interpretation, of correct exegesis to arrive at a correct belief and doctrine.2 Religion is the subject of collective practices, or compositions within the scope of Lived Religion (McGuire 2008), that is, ways of relating to divine entities in the midst of everyday affairs and never outside of them. Thus, religion has more to do with ways of establishing relationships, through offerings, prayers, gestures, dances, trance, and magical operations, than with hermeneutic and exegetical procedures of hidden meanings, even though they obviously exist and are very fascinating.3 Religion is, therefore, relationship, coexistence, and sharing with divine entities, whether in the domestic sphere or in communitarian rituals. And in this model of religion—in line with the first characteristic pointed out above—relations take place with immanent and plural beings. Religion has to do with deities, orishas, spirits, saints, ancestors, the dead, and entities of the right

Apocalypse Beyond Dualism

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and left, but not only these. It also has to do with sacred spaces, with spaces we call nature, but that traditional cultures call relatives, ancestors. These relation­ ships also occur with animals, beings that are always more complex than our zoological classifications admit. That is, the world of relations of popular religi­ osities is made up of many beings (plants and animals), of spaces, of dead humans (ancestors—“enchanted,” “disincarnated” human beings), living humans (sacred men and women, a kind of unofficial “saints” called beatos, the blessed), and of divine beings, all very present in this world, in this space that we call “nature,” but nature understood here as an agent. 1.2

Religion in the Cosmic Polity

Religion is a space of immanent relationships between people and divine beings, accompanied by more-than-human agents. This definition of religion may seem exotic or even archaic, but here I do nothing more than stick to Marshal Sahlins’s provocative formulation in his posthumous book: The New Science of the Enchanted Universe. An Anthropology of Most of Humanity (2022). In a book filled with many reviews of ethnographic works on original cultures from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas, called by him “a book about books” (making a curious parody of Frazer’s Golden Bough), Sahlins’ defends the thesis that in all these cultures, however different they may be, the relationships between human beings, the more-than-humans, and the deities are immanent, concrete. These are relationships that he calls cosmopolitical, inspired by a concept used by Danowski and Viveiros de Castro (2017, 68–69) on the ontology of Amerindian peoples. I reproduce the quote presented by Sahlins (2021, 124): What we could call “natural world,” or “world” for short, is for Amazonian peoples a multiplicity of intricately connected multiplicities. Animal and other species are conceived as so many kinds of “people” or “societies,” that is, as political entities … . To be sure, we too – by which is meant us Westerns … think, or would like to think, that it is possible to be human in society, that man is a political animal, etc. But Amerindians think that there are many more societies (and therefore humans) between heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy and anthropology. What we call “environment” is for them a society of societies, an international arena, a cosmopoliteia. There is, therefore, no absolute difference in status between society and environment, as if the first were the “subject” and the second the “object.” Every object is another subject, and is more than one. Allow me one more long quotation, this time from Sahlins (2021, 264) himself, in which he explains once more the concept of “Cosmic Polity”: Human Society is heteronomous. Of itself, it is neither complete, sufficient, nor self-determining. Humans are surrounded above, below and on earth by a myriad of metahuman beings […], the in-dwelling persons of animals,

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Paulo Nogueira plants, and natural features, gods, exalted ancestors, recent ghosts, masters of species, myriad demons, etc. – who taken together, command the people’s vitality, mortality, and prosperity. For their own part, the metahuman powers-that-be are organized in a more or less systematic hierarchy of higher and lower beings of greater and more limited potencies. The highest gods typically encompass the lesser spirits, both temporally, as they have been present from the creation, and geographically, as they occupy inclusive celestial, wild, or organic space.

Sahlins’ argument continues in that same paragraph with the discussion of the case of the Dinka people of the East African Sudan, but for a moment one might imagine that he was describing—with an alteration here and there—the “Cosmic Polity” of the biblical world. However, that is not his argument. According to Sahlins, the exception to this model of Most of Humanity’s religiosity occurs in “axial” religions, including Judaism and Christianity. These are religions that relate to transcendent, powerful, but distant deities. We would, therefore, have two religious paradigms: the immanentist reli­ gions, in which human agents are inserted in a broader cosmos where the more-than-human agents, although hierarchically structured, are related and involved in everyday issues; and the transcendent religions, in which the sacred is transferred to a distant celestial world to which the human being must turn, turning his or her back on nature and its inhabitants.4 These religions and ontologies of immanence still survive in contemporary tradi­ tional and original cultures. Sahlins’s argument strikes me as compelling, but I leave it to my readers to make their own judgment. However, there is something I cannot agree with about one of his analysis’ consequences. If transcendent religions created something that is totally different from the religion of “most of humanity,” that would mean that Christianity, including Early Christianity, would be a religion with little connection to the everyday world, pointing only to the divine, celestial, and spiritual world, and to the future, the eschaton. In this case, Revelation of John would definitely be trapped in interpretation games regarding tran­ scendental cosmological and temporal realities. This raises some questions for us. Would Revelation really be a part of the theological, ideological, and cultural cement of Western dualism, as has often been assumed? Would Early Christianity have participated in this cultural process of sedimentation of a dualistic cosmovision that separates the divine world and human beings allied to it from nature, from the sensible world? Would the first Christians be gestating a religious ideology that would become the germ of an antiecological posture, in some way responsible for the destruction of nature? It is not uncommon to align Christianity with the ideals of Western modernity as its prerequisite. These questions indicate the direction toward a reading that seems to me too monolithic. I am always suspicious of these appropriations by ideological blocs. What does “Western” mean in this context? Much has

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already been “Westernized.” The Ancient Greeks, for example, were sub­ jected to a Hegelian scheme that made them the origin of European philos­ ophy, but which disregarded the intensity of their relations with the Eastern world. Was Ancient Greece “Western”? This very definition of Western thought seems to have been above all a modern construction. Nowadays, there are in­ itiatives to revisit Plato, for example, beyond the designation as a philosopher who articulated Western dualism, rereading his works more globally, as in the appreciation of concepts such as chôra in the Timaeus in their cosmological implications. The cosmogenesis of Timaeus allows us to attenuate the opposition between the world of ideas and the sensible world, according to authors such as Gregory Shaw and John Sallis (Shaw 2012; Sallis 1999). Regarding ancient Christianity, there is a very interesting effort to renew its understanding in the work of the ecofeminist Virginia Burrus, in her book Ancient Christian Ecopoetics (2019), which presents a fascinating reading of Christian origins. She develops an analysis of the ecological and connective aspects of Jewish, Greco-Roman, and Christian sources, reading authors as diverse as Plato, Philo of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius, Plotinus, etc. She boldly contradicts the academic koinê that Christianity is just an exclusivist, transcendentalist, and dualist version of monotheism. Burrus (2019, 6) points to some characteristics of the ecopoetic thought of ancient Christianity, of which I highlight just two: 1) “… the boundaries between Christianity and what we ourselves might think of as its religious ‘others’ were not always as evident to denizens of the ancient Mediterranean as they are to us. This ancient ecopoetics is all the more Christian because it is also Jewish and Platonic and polytheistic […].” 2) “… ancient Mediterranean Christians experienced humans as coexisting with a wide range of other lively, relational beings, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, angelic or demonic, divine or creaturely, large or small. This ancient ecopoetics is both materialistic and animistic.” This last topic is of special interest, as it evokes, in a different way, the ele­ ments that constitute the Cosmic Polity, according to the quotes by Danowski and Viveiros de Castro and Sahlis, reproduced above. It is a daring, experimental project which allows us to re-read ancient Christianity beyond preconceived and immobilized historical and philosophical schemes which retro-project our anxieties onto it, hastily making them “Western,” “dualist,” “male chauvinists,” “imperialists,” etc. It inserts us into a frame­ work of many agents, the more-than-human ones, in relational, perspectivist, metamorphic, and animist ontologies. These relationships are immanent and are structuring everyday life. However, there is a problem in Burrus’s ecofeminist project. She doesn’t go back chronologically enough in her reading of the sources. The New Testament is left out of her project. Perhaps this is due to the strange division practiced in

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academic departments between the New Testament area and Early Christian Studies.5 I have the impression that in New Testament studies these reflections have not advanced as much as in studies of Late Antiquity. My proposal in this essay is to plant the problem at the center of the interpretation of the New Testament, that is, in the Revelation of John. The challenge, therefore, is: a) To look for immanent relationships—in Burrus’ language, “materialist” and “animist” relationships—between human beings and the more-thanhumans, including the angels, the dead, the animals, the stars, the spaces (mountains, deserts, rivers, etc.); and b) To overcome the idea that Revelation is a text dedicated only to the deciphering of secrets—that is, a book on which techniques are applied that would reveal hidden doctrines or future events. Responding to these challenges, I here imagine Revelation as a book that promotes mediation between ways of existing and areas of reality. Perhaps the book is also an agent that magically unveils realities which are hidden, but which are there accessible to those who submit to the witness of Christ and to the astral journey as practiced by John. To meet these challenges, we have to find a crack in one of the pillars of the interpretation of Revelation of John. We all know the definition of “apoca­ lyptic” as a form of dualistic religion—that is, radically transcendent—that opposes divine and demonic forces in a non-negotiable way, claiming that this dualism is also organized in the cosmological opposition between the celestial and terrestrial worlds.6 It is, then, a double dualism: between heaven and earth, and, in each of these instances, between good and evil, between God and Satan. It would therefore be a kind of disjunctive religiosity which, in a very marked way, classifies the world through oppositions. This defini­ tion of apocalyptic as dualistic religious thought is always made explicit in studies and represents the backbone of the research field, serving to define the variants of apocalyptic, whether in Second Temple Judaism in general, or in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament in particular. With the devel­ opment of Christianity in the ancient world, apocalyptic loses something of its eschatological temporal urgency, but in symbiosis with popular MiddlePlatonism, it intensifies dualism by giving it metaphysical features. That is, in the case of ancient Christianity, the problem takes on new proportions, as it inherits the dualism of the apocalyptic and amalgamates it with MiddlePlatonic dualism. And that makes the task of finding alternatives to this transcendent religiosity an inglorious task. To try to open a fissure and re-propose the problem, I propose a provi­ sional redefinition of dualism in the Revelation of John. What if the dualism in the Revelation of John was above all a narrative scheme, a way of clas­ sifying actants, rather than a basic ontology? That is, what if the text had a dualistic plot which distributes actants in opposition, but within an

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ontological framework that privileges connections? I argue that the general definition of apocalyptic as a dualist religion has proven insufficient for at least two reasons (which we will explore further below): a) the metamorphic presence of animals and hybrid beings; and b) the relationship of connectivity between the different scopes of the cosmos narrated in the execution of the eschatological plagues. This is our proposal: the narrative of Revelation is structured in a dualistic way, but its base ontology is animist. 1.3

Revelation: Narrative of Connections and Metamorphoses Between Modes of Existence

Revelation is replete with animalistic forms. In the most important scene of the entire book, the enthronement of Christ to open the book with seven seals (Rev 5), he is announced as a Lion (5:5), and in the next verse seen as a slain Lamb. It is as a Lamb that he is exalted and praised in the cosmic worship that follows. This worship is attended by all creation, which presupposes that animals also participate in it. The Lion of the tribe of Judah and the slain Lamb would refer to traditions in the Jewish Scriptures, updated in the Christology of Early Christianity: Jesus is the promised messiah of Israel, the messiah killed for the sins of his people. Now, in eschatological time, before the divine throne, he is exalted and begins the judgment of the world. All of this is correct, and there is no reason to discount these messianic traditions in action. However, our academic exegetical practice quickly becomes satisfied with the symbolic interpretation, with the fact that animals represent messi­ anic associations and functions. Animals only point to these functions and their characteristics indicate them: strength and royalty in the first and sac­ rificial purity in the second. However, what about taking a step back and ask ourselves if these associations between divinity and animal do not refer to previous stages of cultures in which animals were divine agents that related to humans in a dynamic way, and in no way reproducing the models of sed­ entary cultures of animals as hunting prey or property?7 Would we have reminiscences of images of animal deities in the Revelation of John? In apocryphal literature, especially in apocryphal Acts, there is a considerable presence of animals who talk, who are agents, characters that interact with the apostles. It is possible that the relationship between the apocryphal Acts and Mediterranean popular culture, their cultural context of origin, favored the inclusion of these mythopoetic folklore elements. In Revelation, these elements are manifested in reports of visions which question the separation of the animal forms, among themselves and in relation to humans.8 In this context, we have to speak of the ubiquity of the monsters in Revelation of John. We use the word “monster” here in a basic sense: beings that defy forms, questioning conventional classifications. Let us initially think

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of the hayyot (the living beings) described in the vision on the divine throne in Chapter 4. The four hayyot are found around the divine throne—to be exact, “in the midst of it and around it,” “full of eyes in the front and back” (v. 6). Each of the four had a prevailing form: one of a lion, another of a calf, another one with a “human face” and, finally, an eagle. And each of them was winged, having six wings, with eyes all around and within. I do not have the slightest intention of unraveling the mystery of these beings, just indi­ cating that they resist assuming a single form, a so-called “natural” form, that, as a whole, they point to the fluidity of animal and humanoid forms, as potential beings, in front of the creator’s throne. It also calls our attention that in the vision of Chapter 4 God is not described, not even in human form. He is just “he who sits on the throne.” The absence of the divine form and the interpretation of the messiah and his closest divine helpers in animal form should open up possibilities for connective and not anthropocentric readings of Revelation. Animals are also fundamental in the constitution of the monsters as such in Revelation, in the beings that represent the demonic power that persecute the people of God. In Revelation 13, the monsters are described ther­ iomorphically. The first sums up the ferocity of the leopard with that of the bear and that of the lion, but in a hybrid form, joining the likeness of one with the feet of the other and with the mouth of the third. It was none of the animals, not even a mere sum of their features: it was a monster with ten horns and ten heads. There is no more frighteningly visual way to present the enemy power of God than a being who composes the ferocity of animals. Fearing animals is a way of respecting them. The second monster of Revelation 13 is a caricature of the lamb presented in Chapter 5, for it has the appearance of a lamb but the voice of a dragon. That is, a combination of animal and human characteristics in a bizarre way. These two monsters turn against the people of God, in non-negotiable antagonism. Here we have apocalyptic dualism at work. But in these accounts, are all relationships dualistic? This leads us to examine the most important dualistic text in Revelation, where its most fearsome monster appears. The vision of the woman clothed with the sun, adorned with the stars, with the moon at her feet, pregnant and threatened by a red dragon ready to knock down the stars and devour her child is perhaps the text that best ex­ presses the dualism of Revelation of John (Rev 12). It represents the combat myth, in which the world is experienced as a conflict between divine and demonic forces, as in the confrontation between Michael and his angels against Satan and his angels (vv. 7–9). There would be no text of more radical antagonism between its actants. However, underneath this radical opposi­ tion, there are a series of connections between the realms of nature and this astral woman. By the way, this woman’s body is adorned with sun, moon, and stars, indicating a cosmic and astrological structure. But when thrown down to earth, she is received and helped by various agents which we nor­ mally neglect in our analysis. The first of them is the desert, the place that

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feeds her. She arrives in the desert flying with the “two wings of the great eagle,” in an animal–human cooperation. And when the dragon spits out chaotic water to drown the woman, she is rescued by the earth, which “helped the woman and opened its mouth and swallowed the flood that the dragon spewed out of its mouth” (v. 16). That is, the woman is supported by nonhuman agents: desert, eagle, and earth. They feed her, move her in her flight and save her from the chaotic waters. Two things are important to our argument: the fact that there are non-human agents, and their cooperation with the woman. She is associated with sun, moon, and stars and is helped by the eagle, the desert, and the earth. Perhaps we can even read the first version of the myth cooperatively, when “the two signs” are presented (vv. 1–6). There, the woman generates life, gives birth to the boy, while the dragon tries to devour him. She is adorned with the stars; the dragon, in turn, throws 1/3 of them to the earth. If we suspend historical time and think of primordial, mythical cyclical time, maybe this alternation between life and death, order and chaos, is just the constitutive game of creation, of balance amidst the tensions where life happens. The text inserts eschatological elements into this myth which transform it into a dualistic myth, either by the rescue of the child by the father, or by the association of “the witnesses” to the woman, as “her descendants” (v. 17). The naming of the dragon as “ancient serpent […] Devil and […] Satan” (v. 9) completely changes its meaning. In Chapter 13, the myth unfolds into allegory, with the powerful images and agents of Chapter 12 transformed into political metaphors. But in Chapter 12 there is an undeniable partnership and connection between the actors, perhaps even between the woman and the dragon. The plot of the myth is used by John in a dualistic way to structure a story of tension and conflict. But the basic ontology is one of animistic connection and cooperation between the agents. In interpretation history, animal forms were quickly replaced by allegorical references. In the illuminations of the Apocalypse of the Bamberg Bible (Figure 1.1), for ex­ ample, the four living beings are transformed into references to the four gos­ pels, and the Lamb is represented as a beardless young man, dressed as a Roman senator. However, there were preferences for animal forms, as in the case of the illuminations of the Beatus of Liébana (https://www.themorgan.org/ collection/commentary-apocalypse/110807/392), in an interpretative paradigm that resists anthropomorphization, insisting on Christ as a lamb. In the same way, the tradition of the Beatus prefers to represent the hayyot literally, without the allegorical reference. The lamb begins the opening of the seals in Chapter 6. With them starts the judgment of the “inhabitants of the earth” and of the cosmos. This judgment is the condition for the recreation of the world. So great is its importance that it forms the framework for most of the book, concluding only in Chapter 19 with the heavenly worship commemorating the destruction of Babylon. In fact, we could understand the worship of Chapter 19 also as a continuation of the one started in Chapter 5, when the lamb is enthroned for the execution of the plagues. In the second worship, when the “four hallelujahs are chanted,”

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Figure 1.1 Bamberg Apocalypse, Msc.Bibl. 140, fol. 10v, 11th Century CE. Courtesy of Bamberg State Library.

he completed this task. The conduction of the plagues by an animal-Christ as a judgment against various spheres of reality is so important in the plot of Revelation that it is described in three sequences of numbered plagues, that is, the seventh seal opens seven more trumpets, and the seventh trumpet gives

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way to seven bowls. And among these numbered series there are important unnumbered visions that anticipate or make explicit aspects of the plagues that are being applied. Among the plagues, there seems to be a certain pro­ gression. For example, in the trumpets prevails a principle of punishment or destruction of 1/3 of the affected realm, for example, of the sea turned to blood (8:8). In the bowl series, when the same realm is struck again, the destruction is total. There is, therefore, progression and repetition among the plagues. They reach all realms of the cosmos: what we call nature, like rivers, seas, mountains; stars, sun, and moon; human beings, their bodies; the world beyond, e.g., the angels descending from heaven and the demons coming out of the abyss; the monstrous beings; and finally, the world of war, commerce, and politics, with a focus on the Roman Empire interpreted as a demonic power. In fact, we have a dualistic plot, in which divine judgment visits the cosmos and purges it to make its renewal possible. But all realms of reality are connected: there is no consideration of politics without addressing the environment, no consideration of war that has no involvement of demonic powers. Religion is not a realm separated from reality. Everything is con­ nected, and divine justice can only be realized if this deep connection is recognized. There is absolutely no chance of an escape to the transcendent world, and an individual, exclusively human escape would be unthinkable. 1.4

Reading Revelation as the Experience of Radical Connection

We need to free Revelation from the fantasy that it deals with the realization of future eschatological events, from a teleological perspective. It’s not about events, probably even not for the original audience. Revelation is a book that promotes the experience of dense understanding of the present, the present of the time of revelation which is accessed in the celestial journey. It proposes an experience of revealing the complex connections of the time of crisis, the experience that all things are in relationship, in tense relationships, with each other and with God. The reader and practitioner of Revelation must become more decentered from himself and more connected with the world and with the divine salvation that operates in it. The idea that Revelation narrates future, linear events, in historical time, is a fantasy of modern biblical reading—ignored by most ancient and medieval readers9—which inspired, among others, the common conservative eschatology and, in the most ex­ treme case, the fundamentalist interpretation.10 On the contrary, the narra­ tive of Revelation is at the service of this experience of seeking to experience God amid catastrophes and sufferings of the human beings who are inserted in the cosmos. This happens through confronting the trauma, reopening the wound, narrating it, and seeing it. However, in it, human beings are not masters, nobody is at their service, and they are not the center of the nar­ rative. Everything in the text is a desperate search for a solution for all. In addition to common topics of early Christian prophecy, such as “Behold, I am coming without delay,” from Chapter 22, Revelation is a text

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aimed at mediating a dense reading of the present, of a cosmic present, from the perspective of the throne of God. Here, the human being is not alone, but connected with all beings and spaces, conceived as agents. Earth, sea, rivers, stars, sun, moon, animals, monsters, angels and demons, and the living and the dead are in tension and in connection. There is no human protagonism at all. Not even the human forms are fixed, a metamorphism seems to prevail. Human and animal forms mix, and animals mix with each other (see the monsters in Chapter 9); humans, in turn, connect with the dead who manifest themselves in various moments of the narrative (7:9–17). All are transformed and are connected with each other. In this total narrative, a redemption of the cosmos is sought. There is no political realm separate from the others. In the final worship, in Chapter 19, a “hallelujah” is chanted for the destruction of Babylon, which “corrupted” the whole earth (v. 2). It wasn’t just a question of political opposition, much less of a society of humans, even less of individuals. Revelation invites us to ex­ perience a deep cosmic connection, rather than a dualistic distancing in the face of a world heading for destruction. This cosmic transformation does not have the human being as an isolated protagonist. Everything that affects him or her negatively (judgment) or positively (salvation) is shared by the cosmos. In this tragic process, human beings are immersed in a bundle of connections and metamorphoses: all are involved (animals, sea, rivers, earth, stars, angels, demons, and Christ) and the beings are metamorphic (living and dead, hu­ mans and animals). In recent years, there has been in Brazil an appreciation of Amerindian thought based on what is conventionally called “reverse anthropology,” that is, the academic stance claiming that, when studying Indigenous worldviews, mythologies, and ontologies, we are willing to juxtapose our concepts of analysis to the concepts of the people studied. That is, to accept the challenge to review our categories from the elements collected from the ontologies of traditional peoples.11 One example: the Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa describes visions and dreams in which a catastrophic future, an end of the world, is about to knock down our planet and the humans by “a falling sky.” This catastrophe of cosmic dimensions arises from the exploitation of ores by the white people, ores that had been buried by primordial deities, as they were the result of conflicts in the mythical past. In other words, the economic exploitation of the Amazon rainforest is not restricted to the sphere of eco­ nomics and politics, not even of environmental struggles. Destroying the forest to excavate ore to satisfy the productive cycles of the “commodity people,” as he calls white and westerners, implies in the destruction of the world of the humans, but also of other fundamental agents, such as animals and trees, disrupting the organization of the cosmos, of the spirits and of the divinities themselves. Without wanting to reduce worldviews and different anthologies such as the Amerindian Yanomami and the Jewish and/or Christian Mediterranean of Revelation, I wonder if the effort to put these powerful accounts in dialogue would not be fruitful, with all the tensions and

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gaps that this may imply, even for us, westerners, as the third partners. In this imaginative exercise, we certainly would be rescuing Revelation from the hermeneutic prisons that have chained it for centuries, such as the insistence on temporal linearity in its interpretation, the clumsy equivalence between narrative and facts (past or future), the artificial separation of the realms of reality (political, economic, religious, and ecological), in the exclusive em­ phasis on transcendent aspects, in the disastrous operations of doctrinal de­ mythologizing of the story, or in the consideration of human beings as separate from the world. This kind of dialogic approach will certainly bring great benefits to the Brazilian and Latin American context—and I believe also to the North American one—which is buffeted by waves of radical fundamentalist thought that intends to legitimize itself in an interpretation of the last and most fascinating New Testament book. Notes 1 A good example, among many others, of this perspective is People’s History of Christianity, especially in its second volume, organized by Virginia Burrus. 2 This is the approach of the Brazilian popular culture theorist Camara Cascudo (2002; 2013). Rubem Alves criticized the protestant model of defining Religion in terms of “right doctrine,” as a foreign perspective, when faced with everyday “lived religion” (2005). More about religion as a complex composition of practices and symbols in everyday life in the work of Meredith McGuire (2008). 3 Stowers (2011) proposes an interesting model for understanding different modes of religion that overlap in a society, the most important being that of offerings in the Everyday Social Exchange, in which the gods are concrete entities with which communities can relate and from which they receive benefits. To create reciprocal relationships with these powerful entities, people make offerings and sacrifices of plants and animals. From this basic mode, other modes of religiosity have developed, such as that of the literate agent, of civic religion, and political power, but they do not necessarily replace the basic model of Everyday Social Exchange, which would be the most fundamental of popular and communitarian religion. 4 Sahlins associates the category of transcendent religions with the “axial age.” I avoid this terminology because of its connotations of a limited period of time when such change took place, its implications of linear development, and its often va­ luative contrast between pre- and post-axial as “primitive” and “evolved.” Nevertheless, the distinction drawn by axial theorists like Sahlins between con­ ceptualizations of religion as immanent and as transcendent is one I want to retain. 5 I develop my critique of this artificial and unproductive division of a New Testament area and Early Christian Studies in Nogueira 2022. 6 See The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature, edited by John J. Collins (2014) in general, and the chapter by Jörg Frey, “Apocalytic Determinism,” in particular. 7 We can think of more fluent relationships between animals and humans in, for example, pre-historic cave art ( Bataille 1955) and in the ontologies of the Amerindian peoples, who change their natural forms with animals in a perspec­ tival way, according to their position in the predatory scale ( Viveiros de Castro 2002). 8 Apocalyptic literature also contains many references to animals, as in the case of the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch. Even though the animals are allegories of

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peoples and groups in Israel’s history, the question of reminiscence of images of animal agents may be of value there as well. In this essay, however, we will focus on references to the Revelation of John. 9 This is the case in the interpretations of Revelation offered by Tyconius, Augustin, and the Beatus of Liébana, etc. ( Kovacs and Rowland 2004, 14–17). 10 We find an extreme futurist interpretation in the 20th Century evangelical move­ ment in best-selling authors such as Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye and in the influ­ ential Scofield Reference Bible. These authors and their eschatological perspectives have been very important in the conservative and fundamentalist Biblical inter­ pretation in Brazil. 11 Martin Holbraad and Morten Axel Pedersen (2017, 1–9) propose a radical exercise of revising our concepts when an experience or expression of a culture that is foreign to us cannot be understood by us. They propose it in the field of ethnology. I wonder if it wouldn’t be a good practice for the interpretation of texts from the past.

Bibliography Alves, Rubem. 2005. Religião e repressão. São Paulo: Loyola. Bataille, Georges. 1955. Lacaux or the Birth of Art. Milano: Skira. Burrus, Virginia. 2019. Ancient Christian Ecopoetics. Cosmologies, Saints, Things. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Burrus, Virginia, ed. 2010. Late Ancient Christianity: A People’s History of Christianity, Volume 2. Minneapolis: Fortress. Cascudo, Luis da Câmara. 2002. Superstição no Brasil. São Paulo: Global. Cascudo, Luis da Câmara. 2013. Tradição, ciência do povo: pesquisas na cultura popular do Brasil. São Paulo: Global. Collins, John J. 2014. The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Danowski, Déborah, and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. 2017. The Ends of the World. Cambridge: Polity. Holbraad, Martin, and Morten Axel Pedersen. 2017. The Ontological Turn: An Anthropological Exposition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kovacs, Judith, and Christopher Rowland. 2004. Revelation: The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ. Oxford: Blackwell. Kopenawa, Davi, and Bruce Albert. 2013. The Falling Sky: Words from a Yanomami Shaman. London: Belknap. McGuire, Meredith B. 2008. Lived Religion. Faith and Practice in Everyday Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nogueira, Paulo A.S. 2022. “Early Christianity as a Popular Religiosity in the Mediterranean World.” Revista Teologia 59.138: 45–70. Sahlins, Marshall. 2021. “Cosmic Economics.” Annals of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi 55: 255–278. Sahlins, Marshall. 2022. The New Science of the Enchanted Universe. An Anthropology of Most of Humanity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Sallis, John. 1999. Chorology: On Beginning in Plato’s Timaeus. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Shaw, Gregory. 2012. “The Chôra of the Timaeus and Iamblichean Theurgy.” Horizons 3: 103–129.

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Stowers, Stanley. 2011. “The Religion of Plant and Animal Offerings versus the Religion of Textual Meanings, Essences, and Textual Mysteries.” Pages 35–56 in Ancient Mediterranean Sacrifice. Edited by Jennifer Wright Knust and Zsuzsanna Varhelyi. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. 2002. A inconstância da alma selvagem e outros ensaios de antropologia. São Paulo: Cosac Naify.

2

Reading Enslavement in Revelation 1 Lynn R. Huber

2.1

Introduction

Classical historian Walter Scheidel estimates that approximately 10% of people living within the boundaries of the Roman Empire were enslaved (Scheidel 2012, 92). Other scholars suggest the percentage of enslaved people2 was higher, maybe even between 16 and 20% of the population, depending upon specific geographic location (Harris 1980, 118). Whether the number was closer to 10 or 20%, these staggering numbers reflect that the Empire was “the largest slave society in history” (Scheidel 2012, 89). Enslavement, moreover, was practiced throughout the Empire, including the provincial cities to which Revelation was addressed. For example, the ancient physician Galen estimated that Pergamon, his hometown, was home to 80,000 wives and enslaved people compared to 40,000 citizen men (Scheidel 2012, 91).3 While these numbers are not precise, the fact that Galen claimed such a high number of enslaved people (presumably half of the 80,000 were wives and half enslaved people) points to the ubiquity of the institution. Living in the first-century Mediterranean world meant familiarity with the institution of slavery, whether as an enslaver, enslaved person, or freed person. Within this context of slavery, John, author of Revelation, employs the language of slave (doulos) to characterize those who are faithful to God and, in addition, to the Lamb. The appearance of this language occurs twice in the very first verse of the book: Revelation is given by God to “his slaves” (tois doulois autou) via his slave John (autou tō doulō). In the closing verses of Revelation, John references again that the message of Revelation was sent to “his [God’s] slaves” and notes that an angel addresses him as a “fellow slave” (syndoulos) (22:6–9). The mirroring of slave language in the opening and closing of Revelation underscores the importance of this way of envisioning the faithful. Given the intentional framing of Revelation’s narrative, it is surprising that few scholars have examined John’s use of slave imagery.4 It is arguably one of the most important ways that John envisions faithfulness to God and a powerful juxtaposition to the description of God’s faithful as a kingdom of priests (1:6), an allusion to promises of the Hebrew Bible (Exod 19:6; Isa 61:6). DOI: 10.4324/9781003344247-5

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In the following, I outline some of the ways scholarship on Revelation engages the topic of slavery and downplays its significance and connection to ancient enslavement. I conclude by recommending scholars revisit the imagery more intentionally and provide an example of using Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) to explore this imagery. 2.2

Translating Doulos in Revelation

The Greek word doulos appears fourteen times in the Nestle-Aland text of Revelation (1:1 [2x]; 2:20; 6:15; 7:3; 10:7; 11:18; 13:16; 15:3; 19:2, 5, 18; 22:3, 6) and the related term syndoulos occurs three times (6:11; 19:10; 22:9). Popular English versions, including NRSV, NRSV-UE, NIV, and KJV, translate most of these references as “servant,” or “fellow servant,” respectively. The exception is when John uses doulos in conjunction with eleutheros, “free.” For example, John describes those who hide in the caves at the opening of the sixth seal as “the kings of the earth and the magnates and the generals and the rich and the powerful and everyone, slave (doulos) and free (eleutheros)” (6:15; NRSV).5 In 13:16 and 19:18, John similarly employs doulos and eleutheros, along with “small and great,” to indicate people from all walks of life. As we will see, these translation differences reflect a distinction scholars draw between what they see as a metaphorical use of doulos and a literal use (Aune 1997, 13). Doulos appears in most books of the New Testament,6 referring to people or characters who are enslaved and as a metaphor for being beholden to God or other forces, such as sin (e.g., Rom 6:20). English translations of doulos in these other texts seem to vary by book and passage. In the NIV, the undisputed letters of Paul, including 1 Corinthians and Galatians, doulos is often slave, while in Colossians it is a servant. In the NRSV, Paul describes enslaving himself (emauton edoulōsa) to Christ (9:19), even though in Galatians he is a “servant of Christ” (1:10). Despite this inconsistency, Moses I. Finley (1959, 146), describing the classical use of doulos, notes it was “strictly servile” and that other terms, such as oikeus, were more likely to point to someone who was a freeborn serf or servant. Finley (1964, 235) also associates doulos with “chattel slavery,” more specifically. It was the doulos that Aristotle famously described as a “living piece of property” (Aristotle, Politics 1253b33) (Vlassopoulos 2011, 115). This tendency to use “servant” instead of “slave” as a translation for doulos effectively distances the NT writings from the legacy of slavery. In a 1990 article “Womanist Interpretation of the New Testament,” Clarice J. Martin explains how “servant” serves as a euphemism that “widens” the range of possible meanings associated with doulos. The term could be referring to an enslaved person, someone who is owned as property, but it could also be someone who has chosen to work in service to another (Martin 1990, 46). This range of meaning creates plausible deniability for Christians who hold these texts as sacred and for biblical scholars who have the privilege of being uninterested in or uncomfortable with discussing enslavement. Effectively, it

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becomes unnecessary to address the pervasiveness of ancient enslavement if doulos can refer to being a servant. Furthermore, if the language of “slave” is translated out of NT writings, it becomes possible to ignore how these texts were employed within debates about slavery in the United States. For instance, J. Albert Harrill (2000, 151) explains how abolitionists specifically leveraged the translation of doulos as “servant” in the KJV to argue against enslavement, an obviously noble aim. They argued that translators of the KJV used “servant” and not “slave” because the NT authors meant the former, and servants were generally imagined as “hired servants, young apprentices, or employees.” This misunderstanding of the Greek supposedly revealed they were faithful to scripture when opposing slavery in the United States. While this is an example of how mistranslation can be used to challenge oppression, it still allowed interpreters to sidestep the ways the NT writings were easily used by others to justify buying, selling, and abusing human beings. Additionally, Martin (1990, 46) notes that the use of “servant” is an “abstraction” that “minimizes the psychological weight” of slavery. “Servant” downplays the ideas of coercion and lack of autonomy inherent to the notion of enslavement and “risks ‘masking’ socioeconomic or political verities that are of fundamental significance in assessing historical and symbolic meaning” (Martin 1990, 55). This means, on one level, the euphemistic use of “servant” for doulos makes it challenging to understand what an author such as John conveys even when using the word metaphorically. Downplaying the realities of enslavement obscures the extreme paradox the author of Revelation wants his audience to envision when he characterizes the faithful as both enslaved and enthroned. On another level, masking the ways a text like Revelation assumes and participates in the economies of slavery discourages readers from imagining the experiences and reactions of enslaved people in Revelation’s first audiences and makes it impossible for modern Christian interpreters to begin repenting of their tradition’s complicity in the dehumanization of generations of people. 2.3

Scholarly Discussions of Doulos in Revelation

For a text that yields such varied interpretations among scholars, there is an amazing amount of consistency in scholarly treatments of enslavement in Revelation. Given this, it is possible to note general trends, even though a detailed analysis of how modern scholars approach this language and imagery is beyond the scope of this project. First, even though modern scholars may acknowledge that doulos can mean “slave” or “servant,” the majority use “servant” when referencing the idea in Revelation, following the trend set by the NRSV (e.g., Aune 1997, 12; Beale 1999, 138; Blount 2009, 53; Schüssler Fiorenza 1991). 7 When he first addresses John’s use of doulos, David E. Aune explains that while the term can mean either, it is used metaphorically and refers to “Christians generally” in Revelation (Aune 1997, 12). Subsequently, he primarily uses servant for

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doulos throughout his three-volume commentary. There is, however, no obvious discussion of what might be lost by using one term instead of the other, even though the Word Biblical Commentary is based upon the author’s own translation.8 Gregory K. Beale similarly favors the language of “servant” for doulos. For instance, when doulos (or more specifically, the plural dative tois doulois) is first used by John in Rev 1:1, Beale (1999, 183) suggests the text refers to “Christian servants,” explaining that the language “refers to the community of faith, which has a general prophetic vocation.” Again, there is no discussion of how this translation might reflect interpreters’ bias. Second, some Revelation scholars emphasize doulos as a title or identity that conveys an element of honor. This is evident in Beale’s reference to “prophetic vocation,” an idea that appears in Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s earlier feminist commentary, Revelation: Vision of a Just World (1991). As Schüssler Fiorenza explains, John’s use of “servants” likely draws upon Amos 3:7 which states that God reveals divine plans to “his servants the prophets” (NRSV). If God reveals his plans through John, then both John and his audience members are servants and prophets. More recently, in the New Testament Library Commentary, Brian K. Blount (2009, 53) continues this line of interpretation, suggesting John identifies as a “servant-prophet” along with the other “servant-prophets” to which Revelation is addressed. Third, scholarship on Revelation tends to ignore or downplay both the ubiquity and brutality of ancient slavery when discussing John’s use of doulos for the faithful or as a self-designation. Reflecting the fact that most Revelation scholars follow the trend of translating doulos as “servant,” there are few discussions of Revelation in relation to ancient enslavement practices. The exception is in discussions of 18:13, where John does not use the word doulos, which I discuss more below. Additionally, very few commentaries on Revelation mention, let alone explore, the possibility of enslaved people being part of Revelation’s earliest audiences.9 One place where interpreters sometimes mention enslavement practices is Rev 7:3, John’s account of an angel ascending in the east with a seal who then proclaims, “Do not damage the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have marked the slaves of our God on their foreheads” (sphragisōmen tous doulous tou theou hēmōn epi tōn metōpōn autōn). Most commentaries note that here John likely draws upon the practice of tattooing or branding slaves, often on the face. For example, Beale (1999, 746) writes, “it was a common practice in the ancient world to mark slaves on the forehead to indicate who owned them to whom they owed service.”10 At the same time, interpreters seem reluctant to dwell on this imagery, explore its implications, or discuss the violence involved. So, Beale quickly shifts back to the language of “servant” when discussing the verse, even as he explains it signals “ownership,” which might be better described as “being owned.” In the Anchor Bible Commentary, Craig Koester (2014, 416–17) mentions that scholars, like Beale, make the connection between the mark on the forehead and slavery but he argues that John’s use of sphragis and not stigma, which is more commonly used to describe a tattoo, conveys a

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different meaning. Marking a slave’s forehead was used, he argues, primarily for punishment and as a way of demeaning a person, an idea Koester finds inconsistent with Revelation’s view of the faithful. Robert Mounce (1998, 258) similarly specifies that branding was done to enslaved people who were disobedient, but he mentions this only in reference to the mark worn by those who follow the Beast (13:16). He makes no connection to enslavement when discussing 7:3, focusing on its allusion to Ezk 9. When Aune approaches 7:3 in his commentary, he includes a multi-page excursus on tattooing and branding practices in which he outlines multiple purposes for these ancient practices. These types of bodily marks signal one’s belonging to a community (a practice associated with “barbarians”), serve as a form of punishing criminals and slaves, designate one’s ownership of livestock and enslaved people, and associate one with a deity. Aune also spends significant time discussing the use of “sealing” language to characterize Christian baptism (1998, 456–59), even though it is just as metaphorical as John’s use of enslavement imagery. Even though Aune concludes that the seal represents God’s “ownership and protection” of his “servants” (1998, 479), any allusions to the violence of marking another’s body or the idea of owning a person recede into the background. In addition, some scholars downplay Revelation’s enslavement imagery by implying that doulos is a title and not necessarily a bad title. Even though he is one of the few Revelation scholars to translate doulos as “slave,” David deSilva (2021, 55) writes, “While it is in no way demeaning to consider oneself a ‘slave’ of a divinity … , John uses the title democratically by applying it to his fellow believers as well.” DeSilva notes that John describes Moses as a “slave of God,” a common way of characterizing this heroic figure (15:3; see also Exod 14:31; Num 12:7; Deut 34:5). Moses may not be demeaned by being called “slave of God,” but the contrast between Moses’ stature and the title “slave” points not to his greatness, but God’s greatness. Similarly, Aune wants his audience to know that doulos can be understood as a “title of honor” (1997, 16; emphasis in the original). While it is true that John is not necessarily using this title to dishonor his audience members, being enslaved in John’s context was considered inherently dishonorable. This was the case even when the term was used metaphorically. Roman Stoics, for instance, thought being enslaved to one’s emotions or passions was vile (DuBois 2009, 63). Even though the term doulos was sometimes applied to honorable people, such as Moses, and even though enslaved people were sometimes considered to act honorably, dishonor was inherent to the ancient idea of enslavement. The academic impulse to lessen the impact of the term undermines the power of the metaphor. Sometimes, scholars soften enslavement imagery in the NT by highlighting manumission and/or the fact that some enslaved people in the ancient world held important roles or had prestigious jobs.11 Manumission was an ancient reality, and there are seemingly numerous funerary inscriptions from the Roman world for and by freed people. However, these monuments belie the

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fact that, as historian Kyle Harper puts it, “what little evidence there is suggests that manumission was not the fate of most slaves” (2010, 214). Others make enslavement imagery more palatable by highlighting the possibility of social mobility. In this vein, Aune explains that “a doulos could function as the agent of his master, possessing a representative authority” and, drawing upon the work of Dale B. Martin, notes that the enslaved “were frequently upwardly mobile” (Aune 1997, 17, drawing on Martin 2021[1980]). Again, while these may have been the case for some in the Roman world, they would not have been the norm. In fact, being an extension of one’s enslaver, posing representative authority, was not necessarily positive; as Jennifer A. Glancy (2002, 10) notes, it meant the enslaved person could be the target of abuse in place of their enslaver. Glancy, furthermore, offers a pointed critique of Martin’s depiction of upward mobility between ancient slaves, noting that he diminishes the distinction between being a patron’s client and being an enslaved person (2002, 125). By focusing on the possibility of upward mobility among a small percentage of enslaved people and the possibility that some enslaved people acted with authority granted by their enslavers, scholars effectively lessen the power of using slavery as a metaphor and present a distorted picture of enslavement in the ancient world. 2.4

Scholarly Attention to Enslavement in Rev 17–18

Scholarly discussions of enslavement also appear around Rev 17–18, John’s critique of Rome as a new Babylon. Ironically, these conversations occur in a place where John does not use the term doulos. One of the most detailed discussions of enslavement in relation to Revelation comes from Jennifer Glancy and Stephen D. Moore, who posit that John’s image of Babylon as a prostitute draws upon depictions of brothel workers, most of whom would have been enslaved. While John does not explicitly use slave language to describe Babylon, he does evoke the practice of tattooing or branding the forehead of an enslaved person (17:5), something which Glancy and Moore discuss in detail (Glancy and Moore 2011, 551–69). While the discussion about Babylon as an enslaved prostitute is persuasive, it is more common to find discussions of ancient slavery in relation to John’s description of Babylon’s fall in Rev 18 (e.g., Callahan 2009; Koester 2008; Martin 2005; Vasser 2018). Distraught, the merchants of the earth mourn Babylon’s judgment by listing the items that will no longer be purchased in the great city (18:11–13). The final “item” on this cargo list is an obvious reference to enslaved people. However, the text does not actually use the word doulos; instead, the word typically translated as “slaves” here (and not servants) is sōmatōn, “bodies” in English. This reflects the ancient practice of describing an enslaved person simply as a “body.” This euphemism was common, and its use highlights the idea that enslaved people were seen as objects and commodities. Thus, in 2 Macc 8:11, a Ptolemaic general, Nicanor, unsuccessfully plans to capture and sell Jewish “bodies” into

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enslavement. Likewise, “body” was often used in wills and other documents listing property (Glancy 2002, 10–11). John, however, complicates the idea that enslaved people were commercial property by tagging on the phrase psychas anthrōpōn, which literally means “human lives” or “human souls.” Thus, the NRSV translates the full phrase “slaves—and human lives.” Some argue that John’s reference to “human souls” immediately following “bodies,” which may seem somewhat redundant, signals John’s criticism of the Roman slave economy. In this vein, Clarice J. Martin (2005, 90) notes the phrase “human souls” challenges the ancient belief, associated most closely with Aristotle, that enslaved people were ensouled differently than free people. She explains that Aristotle’s view, a view held by other ancient theorists, posited that enslaved people, for the most part, “were thought to lack deliberation, spirit, and rationality. That is to say, they ‘possessed’ the capacity for reason only in a simplistic, childlike fashion … .”12 John’s addition of psychas anthrōpōn to sōmatōn is John’s way of “signifying” on Rome, taking an idea associated with Rome and recasting it in a subversive way. Arguing that this is an example of a hendiadys—when two terms are linked by a conjunction to express a single idea (e.g., “nice and warm,” to convey the idea of coziness)—Martin claims, “This slam on Rome at the climax of the list of commodities represents one of the most emphatic critiques of Roman ideology in Revelation—namely, that it is an empire that enslaves human souls” (2005, 100; emphasis in the original). Even if Rev 18:13 indicates that John found the practice of slavery by the Romans abhorrent and sinful, he continues to use enslavement throughout to describe the faithful. Craig Koester (2008) shines a light on this ambivalence by examining perceptions of the slave trade in the first century, focusing especially on cities to which Revelation is addressed. Since there was a widespread view that slave dealers were greedy and unscrupulous, they tried to ingratiate themselves within their local communities by courting the favor of elites through benefaction (Koester 2008, 775). In Ephesos, for example, dealers who worked in the slave markets sponsored an inscription praising the proconsul of Asia in 42–43 CE (Koester 2008, 778). Thus, Koester suggests, Revelation’s critique of the Roman slave trade may actually align with the view commonly held in John’s context—that those who saw the enslaved as cargo were worthy of derision and even judgment. But John goes further, even calling his audience members to disengage from the Roman slave economy (18:4), which Koester calls a “hallmark of Roman commerce” (2008, 785). Despite challenging the view that enslaved people were less than human, Koester argues that John uses enslavement imagery because he does not see the idea of enslavement as inherently negative; rather, John sees enslavement to God in positive terms, almost as the right relationship to God (Koester 2008, 767–68). For John, slavery “takes on its rightful form in relation to God but takes a debased form in relation to God’s opponents” (2008, 768).

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Even though few scholars articulate the issue in as much detail as Koester, John’s ambivalence toward enslavement is especially disturbing since it assumes the reality of a violent institution. Enslavement is not the only violent image employed by John and the scholarly reluctance to address Revelation’s violence is not limited to it. Susan E. Hylen (2011, 779) notes how interpreters quickly move from acknowledging the violence of Revelation’s imagery to offering explanations and more palatable interpretations. For instance, the Lamb of God slays with a sword, but it comes out of his mouth, and so the image must be about words of judgment. Hylen observes that this tactic seemingly assumes that it is possible to “negate the violent imagery itself.” This rush to “disarm” metaphors that make an interpreter uncomfortable or challenge an interpreter’s perception of the text misses the opportunity for ethical consideration. Instead of simply asserting Revelation’s use of doulos is metaphorical, interpreters would do well to spend time considering the imagery and the implications of its use in John’s world and what the implications are within the contemporary moment. 2.5

Reading Revelation’s Enslavement Imagery through Conceptual Metaphor Theory

By describing the faithful as God’s slaves, John is not suggesting that his audience members literally sell themselves to God, even though some people in Asia Minor were enslaved to temples, such as the temple of Artemis. Likewise, when John describes the faithful as parthenoi, literally young unmarried girls in Revelation’s context, John does not expect his audience members to transform into virgins (Huber 2008; Stenström 2010). Instead, John uses the language of “virgin” and “slave” metaphorically as a way of helping his audience members envision their identities in relation to God and the Lamb. Perhaps John invokes these identities because he envisions audience members as neither virgins nor slaves. This is the appeal of metaphor—it provides an opportunity to imagine one’s reality in radically new and different ways. Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) offers one way of understanding how metaphorical language, like that within an image-filled book like Revelation, works within its historical setting.13 The basic assumption of this theory is that humans use their understanding of concrete objects or experiences to envision and describe more complex and/or abstract ideas. This is done through conceptual domains, which are the networks of objects, ideas, relationships, and affects culturally associated with common concepts. In metaphorical thinking, these domains are “mapped” onto one another and sometimes even blended to illuminate an idea called a “target domain.” For instance, the “target domain” of the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A PATH is LIFE since that is the thing being understood or envisioned. PATH is the “source domain,” since it is the more concrete idea used to understand the target. Conceptual metaphors are initially cognitive, but can be expressed in writing, speech, gesture, or image. These expressions typically involve using only some salient aspects of the

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source domain to characterize the target domain. For example, if I say to a friend, “I was doing OK until things took a turn,” I’m drawing on just a few ideas associated with the domain PATH.14 These entailments include paths facilitating movement toward a destination, paths having branches leading in different directions, or even the possibility of a person veering off a path. Even though I only used a simple phrase, “took a turn,” and despite not using the terms “life” or “path,” I evoke all these ideas by referencing the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A PATH. Moreover, the conceptual mapping might prompt my friend to extend how I’m thinking about my life. They might bring up obstacles in my “path” that forced me to turn such as financial hardship or an injury, or they might encourage me to think about others traveling along this path with me. Metaphor is powerful because it communicates complex ideas through an economy of words, although it is simultaneously unwieldy since it invites audience members to make connections apart from authorial control. Even though a foundational idea of CMT is the cognitive basis for metaphorical thinking, cognition is embodied, and bodies are shaped by their historical and cultural contexts (von Thaden Jr. 2016, 287). Some conceptual domains, like PATH, may seem so basic as to be universal; however, cultural contexts and lived experiences tell us what is salient about a domain. As textual interpreters, this means we need to have a basic sense of what the context deems salient within specific conceptual domains, especially source domains. When reading a text like Revelation, attention to the material cultures, practices, and built environments that contribute to a source domain is helpful for imagining how the text communicates and how early audiences might have engaged with the conceptual metaphors it employs. Another way cultural context shapes conceptual metaphors is through the frame an author or an audience member brings to the metaphor. Frames are meta-conceptual domains which an author or audience uses to situate or interpret the metaphors within a text. In the case at hand, we might think of the concept ENSLAVEMENT as a general frame in which more specific metaphorical mappings are embedded. Specific words or images culturally saliant to ENSLAVEMENT, such as marking bodies or purchasing people, conjure the conceptual frame and potentially suggest multiple overlapping conceptual metaphors such as FAITHFULNESS IS ENSLAVEMENT, A FAITHFUL PERSON IS AN ENSLAVED PERSON, and THE WORLD IS A SLAVE MARKET. To understand when the author alludes to this particular frame, it is necessary for interpreters to understand how ENSLAVEMENT is understood in the text’s historical context. In other words, even though John may use ENSLAVEMENT metaphorically, understanding how he does this requires attention to the historical practices of enslavement. Furthermore, as interpreters, we must recognize that we bring different cultural frames to the text. As noted above, modern biblical interpreters, especially those in the United States, bring a frame of ENSLAVEMENT constructed in the wake of the Atlantic slave trade.

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At the same time, it is important to acknowledge that people in Revelation’s audiences held different perspectives on slavery based on their own statuses. We can imagine that the communities of Jesus-followers in Asia Minor to which Revelation is addressed included people who were enslaved, along with freed people and enslavers, like the communities and individuals addressed in Paul’s letters (e.g., 1 Cor 7:21; Philemon). Since the Roman world was a slave economy, the dominant perspective and the ideas culturally associated with the conceptual domain SLAVE represent the perspectives of enslavers and those who benefit from enslavement. Although it is beyond the scope of this piece, an illuminating project might involve using “critical fabulation,” a theoretical tool articulated by Saidiya V. Hartman (2008), to retrieve the experiences of enslaved Jesus followers. 2.6

The ENSLAVEMENT Metaphor in Revelation

By describing those who receive Revelation as douloi, John evokes the conceptual metaphor A FAITHFUL PERSON IS AN ENSLAVED PERSON in the first verse of Revelation. At further points in the narrative, John reengages this foundational conceptual mapping by using doulos/doulois to describe faithful individuals in the past (10:7; 15:3; 19:2) within the seven communities (2:20), and within the community to which he invites the audience members (1:1; 11:18; 19:5; 22:3, 6). In this case, the opening conceptual metaphor introduces the frame of ENSLAVEMENT for audience members, and John will bring the frame to mind throughout the narrative by referring to ideas, practices, and relationships embedded within the concept of ENSLAVEMENT. In what follows are some of the most obvious references to the ENSLAVEMENT frame, which support the A FAITHFUL PERSON IS AN ENSLAVED PERSON metaphor that runs throughout the narrative. 2.6.1

A HUMAN IS A COMMODITY

In 5:9 and 14:4, John suggests the faithful are “purchased” (agoradzō), although English translations generally use “redeemed” or “ransomed,” a translation that obscures the connection to ENSLAVEMENT. However, one of the only other times John uses the verb agoradzō occurs in reference to the cargo of the earth’s merchants, where it is typically translated as “buy” (18:11–13). The first reference to purchasing appears in a hymn praising the slaughtered Lamb who “purchased for God with your blood … ” (ēgorasas tō theō tō haimati sou), a line metaphorically implying ΒLOOD IS CURRENCY, and DEATH IS A FINANCIAL TRANSACTION (5:9) (Perry 2020, 332). What the Lamb’s blood purchases is not made explicit in Greek. There is no direct object, although the text suggests that the purchased comes from “every tribe and tongue and people and nation.” Despite the ambiguity,

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this phrase implies that ΗUMANS ARE COMMODITIES and THE WORLD IS A SLAVE MARKET (These conceptual metaphors set up the possibility that humans can be “purchased” by those other than God and the Lamb, namely, the Beast [13:16]). Even though the idea of purchasing a human suggests the verse draws on the concept of ENSLAVEMENT, English translations avoid making this clear. Instead of supplying the word “slaves” for the missing direct object, English translations insert “persons” (NIV), “peoples” (NASB), and even “saints” (NRSV and NRSV-UE). “Persons” and “people,” at least, allow for a reader to think it may be a reference to enslavement, but “saint,” arguably, takes the verse in a different direction by introducing the idea of holiness. “Saints” makes some sense since this verse appears in the context of heavenly worship; however, the reluctance to use “slaves” downplays the paradox created in the next verse, which affirms the purchased ones will be made a kingdom of priests (see also 1:6). The language of being “purchased” (A ΗUMAN IS A COMMODITY) appears again in 14:4 after the faithful 144,000 are described as having the name of God and the Lamb “written” (gegrammenon) on their foreheads (14:1). Ian Paul (2018, 245) offers an interesting interpretation of this verse, suggesting that the language of being purchased “from” (apo) humankind for God and the Lamb (tō theō kai tō arniō) evokes manumission. Although he does not say much about this, Paul implies the enslaved are purchased out of the slave market and freed to follow God and the Lamb. While this idea seems more palatable than the image of the 144,000 being purchased to be God’s slaves, it is difficult to see what in the verse implies manumission. Instead, the idea that purchasing people could function as a kind of “salvation” was part of the enslaver ideology of the ancient Roman world. Although coming from a later source than Revelation, the Justinian Institutes records, “Slaves [servi], however, are called this because generals order the sale of captives and because of this they tend to be saved [servare] and not killed” (Inst. 1.3.3).15 2.6.2

POSSESSING IS MARKING

In Rev 7:2–3, John sees an angel with a seal (sphragis) to mark the foreheads of the slaves of God (sphragisomen tous doulous tou theou … epi tōn metōpōn aoutōn). The term used to describe the seal suggests something like a signet ring, and elsewhere in prophetic and apocalyptic narratives, God uses a signet ring to mark things such as the foundations of the earth (T. Mos. 12:9. See also Apoc. Mos. 42:1). Here, however, the “things” being marked are clearly described as slaves (tous doulous), who are counted off in 12 groups of 12,000. The explicit numbering evokes a military census when soldiers count off (Bauckham 1988; Bauckham 1991, 99–115). This blends the concept of SOLDIER or CONQUEROR, a concept introduced in Rev 2–3, with the concept of ENSLAVED PERSON, an ironic move since war was the primary way Rome procured slaves. Here, the ENSLAVED and the SOLDIER are one and the same.

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The marked body of the enslaved was a notable theme within the cultural knowledge associated with ENSLAVEMENT in the ancient Mediterranean. As classicist Deborah Kamen (2010, 95) notes, the idea of the “marked slave,” whether marks were made through branding, tattooing, scarring, or other means, was a rhetorical topos across “all genres of literature” in ancient Greece and Rome. In a comedy of Plautus from the second century BCE, a slave is jokingly described as a “man of letters” (Cas. 401), likely referring to having been tattooed (Jones 1987, 148). In the first century BCE, Diodorus referred to Sicilian landowners who bought up slaves from the markets and “marked all with their arrogant brands” (pantas de tois huperēphanois charaktērsi katestidzon) (Bib. hist. 34/35.2.27). Likewise, Plutarch, writing in the first century CE, alluded to the ways the bodies of enslaved people might be marked in anger through “blows and branding-irons” (“On the Control of Anger,” Mor. 11). Furthermore, marking on the forehead is closely associated with ENSLAVEMENT. Plutarch, for example, described Athenian captives in Sicily who were “sold, [then] … branded in the forehead with the mark of a horse” (Lives. Nicias, 29). Elsewhere Plutarch reported that the Samians branded captive Athenians on the forehead with an owl since the Athenians had previously branded Samians with the image of a warship (Per. 26). While these are largescale examples of marking enslaved captives by Greeks, references to the marked bodies of the enslaved were nonetheless persistent. As discussed earlier, while many Revelation scholars observe that John could be evoking the practice of marking the enslaved in 7:3, some emphasize that sphragis was not, to scholars’ knowledge, used to describe marking slaves and does not relate to tattooing or branding (Koester 2014, 416). Rather, it is a tool for sealing a scroll, like the one in God’s hand in 5:1. However, John does not need to refer literally to the kind of tool used to mark enslaved people to evoke that practice. Rather, the frame of ENSLAVEMENT referenced through the use of tous doulous prompts a metaphorical connection between the seal and a branding iron or other marking implement (A SEAL IS A BRAND).16 Moreover, the seal or marking indicates that the faithful person is owned or possessed by God, just as the enslaved person is effectively possessed by the enslaver. Additionally, this passage, which shows the unmarked who will eventually appear as marked (14:4), implies that the act of marking or sealing the individual is effectively the act of possessing that individual (POSSESSING IS MARKING). Even when commentators acknowledge the allusion to enslavement in 7:3, they cast “sealing” in more benevolent terms than possessing. Rather, many read the seal as a sign of God’s protection, especially since it accompanies a call to delay harming the earth, trees, and sea. Unlike the temporary protection of these elements of the natural world, humans with God’s seal will be protected forever. Beale (1999, 744) writes, “The sealing enables them to respond in faith to the trials through which they pass, so that these trials become the very instruments by which

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they can even be strengthened in their faith.” However, the idea of a mark of protection belies a more sinister fact. An identifying mark on an enslaved person lets others know not to abuse or use the wearer. If you do, you have an enslaver to whom you must answer, since ancient enslavers were keen to keep their human property. Even though there was abundant supply in the Roman Empire’s slave economy, Kyle Harper explains that slaves were seen as valuable and profitable in that context. Males who were enslaved, in fact, retained their value as they aged (Harper 2010, 220). The enslaver maintained the value of the enslaved, moreover, by providing food, shelter, and clothing. Perhaps, some in Revelation’s audiences familiar with enslavement might associate the white garments given to the faithful who come through “the ordeal” as part of this kind of scenario (7:13–14). 2.6.3

POSSESSING IS NAMING

Another aspect of ENSLAVEMENT in the ancient world is the naming or renaming of the enslaved person by their enslaver, a practice associated with the conceptual metaphor AN IDENTITY IS A NAME. This metaphor appears notably in John’s depiction of Babylon the prostitute whose name is “written” on her forehead, “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations” (17:5). This imagery is one reason Glancy and Moore (2011, 559) argue Babylon appears as brothel prostitute, someone who would have been enslaved, and not a high-class courtesan. Names ascribed to the enslaved in the ancient world often indicated a place of origin or supposed place of origin (DuBois 2009, 83), and the name Babylon fits this pattern. Slave names could also indicate a relationship or significance to the one who owned the individual, even indicating their job in a household, such as “door opener.” In this case, we see the great prostitute named for both places of origin and significance. In these cases, as in the case of Babylon, the name is ascribed to the individual by another.17 Renaming a person, at least within the conceptual frame of ENSLAVEMENT, is an act of domination. It entails the erasure of a person’s past identity, including their connections to family and place of origin. As classicist Amy Richlin explains (2017, 93), “The name change for slaves is a mark of natal alienation … [constituting] a kind of capitis deminutio-literally, ‘diminishment of person’ … .” Stripping of the individual’s identity was meant to destroy past connections to align the individual’s identity with the person, the enslaver, who owns and controls them (DuBois 2009, 83). References to naming or being renamed are scattered throughout Revelation. The first reference appears in the message to the faithful in Pergamon. There, the risen Christ promises those who are victors a new and secret name inscribed upon a white stone (2:17). Revelation’s ENSLAVEMENT frame might prompt an audience member to interpret this promise as part of being God’s slave, even though it is not explicit. This is where an individual’s social status might shape how they hear the imagery.

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Another reference to being named or renamed appears in 14:1, as the seal with which the 144,000 are marked consists of the name of the Lamb and the Lamb’s father, God. Since Revelation has already described these folks as slaves of God, the imagery evokes the idea of being marked with the name of their enslaver or, in this case, enslavers. Likewise, those who follow the Beast wear the name or number of their enslaver upon their hands and foreheads (13:16–18). In both cases, whether one bears the names of God and the Lamb or the name of the Beast, John implies POSSESSING IS NAMING. Another conceptual frame in which naming plays an important role is HOUSEHOLD, a domain that overlaps with ENSLAVEMENT. In the ancient world, names were determined by the head of a household and reflected one’s place in that network of relationships (Salway 1994, 126). The practice of naming extended beyond the biological or nuclear family to include enslaved people and even the formerly enslaved. The latter were given the praenomen (forename) and nomen (familial name) of their patron, most likely their former enslaver (Salway 1994, 128). The enslaved person and formerly enslaved person were understood as members of the household (AN ENSLAVED PERSON IS A HOUSEHOLD MEMBER), even though they were typically not integrated into the household in the same way as a biological family member. Purchased with the Lamb’s blood (5:9), the enslaved faithful in Revelation similarly become part of a household in which God is patros or father (GOD IS A HUMAN FATHER), one of the few uses of this familial designation in Revelation (cf. 1:6; 2:28; 3:5, 21). Part of the metaphorical mapping AN ENSLAVED PERSON IS A HOUSEHOLD MEMBER is the tendency among ancient authors to rosily depict the cultivation of familial bonds between enslavers and the people they enslaved. Plutarch, for example, reported that the wife of Cato the Elder nursed the infants of their household slaves to foster “a brotherly affection for her son,” and Cato allowed an enslaved tutor to punish the younger Cato when appropriate (Cato Maj. 20.3–4). At the end of Revelation’s narrative, an even more intimate bond will be allowed between the enslaver’s son and the enslaved, as the 144,000 who are described as “virgins” or unmarried girls effectively become the Lamb’s bride (19:7–8). There were historically some parallels between enslavement and being a wife, as the right to control a girl had traditionally been transferred from father to husband at the time of marriage (Huber 2007, 151). Even though this practice, marriage cum manu, literally “with hand,” was out of favor in the first century, and married girls and women effectively stayed under the legal control of their family of origin’s male head of household (Chatelard and Stevens 2016, 29), there remained a sense that wives should align themselves with their husbands’ wishes (BEING A WIFE IS BEING ENSLAVED). At this point, it is probably important to remember that metaphors involve equating unlike things (Ricoeur 1976, 50). Being a wife is not the same as being enslaved, and neither is being faithful to God.

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Lynn R. Huber SLAVE and FREE as Binary Opposites

Among the cultural entailments assumed in the frame of ENSLAVEMENT is the idea that enslavement and freedom are binary opposites (Perry 2020, 331). This concept appears as John uses doulos to denote one of the extremes on a spectrum describing social status. The Beast, for example, “causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead” (13:16). Similarly, both “slave and free” hide in the rocks to escape the wrath of the Lamb (6:15; see also 19:18). Although it is important to acknowledge that enslavement in John’s context clearly included constraint and domination, this language offers a monolithic vision of enslavement and simplifies the relationship between enslavement and freedom in the ancient world. Katherine A. Shaner broaches the complexity of ancient enslavement in her monograph on enslaved leadership in the Christian communities of Ephesos. She sheds light on the variety of ways enslavement was configured in first-century Ephesos, including the religious roles that enslaved individuals performed within the community. Furthermore, Shaner (2018, xxi) suggests that the vision of enslavement entirely in terms of domination, a view popular in ancient literature and modern conceptions of the ancient practice, both erases the lived experiences of ancient people and “eliminate[s] the possibility for enslaved persons to be socially resistive persons.” In fact, there is evidence that the enslaved did resist in a variety of ways, ranging from organizing revolts (DuBois 2009, 96) to more subtle acts, such as mocking one’s enslaver by way of an unflattering piece of graffiti (Joshel and Petersen 2014, 76; Shaner 2018, 21). Still, Revelation’s understanding of enslavement primarily as the opposite of having freedom is so simplistic that it suggests the perspective of the enslaver rather than the enslaved. 2.6.5

GOD (CHRIST) IS AN ENSLAVER

John’s simple association of enslavement with domination and subordination includes depicting the enslaved one as fearing and even worshiping the enslaver, which in this case is God (GOD IS AN ENSLAVER). The text makes this connection by grouping the term with those who are described as rightly fearing God.18 For instance, the 24 elders around the throne note that God will reward “your slaves, the prophets and the saints and all who fear your name” (11:18), and, during a hymn celebrating the marriage of the Lamb, a voice from God’s throne commands, “Praise our God, all you his slaves, and all who fear him, small and great” (19:5). Given the source of the voice, this seems to be a case in which the “lord” explicitly demands that those he lordsover praise him and simultaneously implies that fear is the appropriate affect for them to embrace. This is not a unique claim, as in other places in Revelation, along with other apocalyptic and prophetic texts, fear appears as the reasonable response to encountering the divine. John, for example, falls as though dead when he sees a vision of the risen Christ, described as one like a son of man (1:17). John’s act demonstrates that he recognizes the power

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difference between the divine and himself as a slave of God. When John later falls before an angel, he is quickly reprimanded for mistakenly reading the relationship as hierarchical and requiring obeisance (19:10). The angel informs John that he is a syndoulos or fellow slave and not a proper object for such deference. Those who are enslaved to God should, from Revelation’s perspective, recognize and respect the status differential between enslaver and enslaved, powerful and powerless. The idea that the enslaved should show deference to their enslavers and even fear them appears throughout ancient depictions of enslavement, although some Roman writers balance this with calls for tolerance toward the less powerful and criticize enslavers who terrorize those under their control. One of the most striking examples of this is in Seneca’s On Mercy when he presents the negative example of Vedius Pollio, who purportedly fed humans he owned to lampreys as a form of punishment (Clem. 1.18.1–2). In contrast to Vedius Pollio is the obvious concern shown by Cicero in letters written to his enslaved secretary Tiro, who he would eventually free (Fam. 120–27; DuBois 2009, 101–2). Still, Cicero’s repeated calls for the apparently unwell Tiro to care for his health comes across as patronizing and somewhat selfserving since Cicero clearly wanted Tiro to be by his side and work for him. Within the ancient record, the enslaved are depicted as needing guidance and sometimes correction, even violent correction, an idea that appears in Revelation as well. In a message to the community in Thyatira, the risen Christ accuses a prophet or teacher, mockingly described as “Jezebel,” of seducing God’s slaves, members of the community, into committing fornication. This is the only time John refers to the community members as douloi in these chapters, which are specifically addressed to Revelation’s audiences. These “slaves” are not, according to the text’s logic, capable of making their own decisions about the teachings of Jezebel. They are vulnerable to the wiles of the seductress. Enslaved persons were understood as sexually available to their owners, and the topic of the sexual abuse of the enslaved was a theme in Roman humor (Hunt 2017, 106–11; Richlin 2017, 104–15). John adapts this theme metaphorically, peppering it with a heavy helping of misogyny to depict a teacher/ disciple relationship he finds unacceptable. Thus, instead of gentle yet persistent pleas to care for the health of the enslaved, like those from Cicero to Tiro, the risen Christ threatens both the purported abuser and the abused, whom he depicts as “children,” with violence (sexual violence in the case of Jezebel) and death unless they repent (2:20–22). Perhaps Seneca would put Revelation’s vision of the risen Christ in the same category as Vedius Pollio. 2.7

Conclusion

When modern interpreters choose to discuss Revelation’s enslavement imagery (and many do not choose this), they typically underscore its metaphorical nature or explain away the brutality of the ancient institution. The

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tendency is to rush past the verities of ancient enslavement and John’s depiction of the faithful as being enslaved by God and the Lamb toward more palatable and pleasant ideas. Commentaries resist thinking about how “sealing” and renaming evoke the physical and psychic abuse associated with purchasing humans. Moreover, we rarely examine the ethical and theological implications of John’s depiction of faithfulness by way of a metaphor that draws upon a conceptual domain in which the idea of domination is central. In fact, I have only scratched the surface of this seemingly paradoxical imagery which envisions fidelity, something that is meaningful precisely because it is not forced, through the filter of coercion. Hopefully, however, this introductory exploration of some of the ways ENSLAVEMENT undergirds Revelation’s rhetoric will prompt more careful consideration of how John employs this imagery and how Revelation’s interpreters perpetuate its assumptions. The writings of the New Testament are entangled with the modern legacy of slavery, and scholars in our field must acknowledge the ways our readings further racism and privilege whiteness (Tupamahu 2022). To do this, we must resist the tendency toward euphemism and openly discuss how books like Revelation, which replicates many of the assumptions inherent to the Roman slave economy, contribute to violence and inequity. Notes 1 This essay is written in honor of Steve Friesen, a generous scholar whose work is shaped by a commitment to social change and justice. 2 Throughout this essay I use “enslaved person” to signal that being enslaved is not intrinsic to a person’s identity. For an introduction to the study of enslavement, see Brooten 2010, 1–29. 3 Scholars often note that this number does not explicitly account for children, although some of the enslaved were likely children ( Warden and Bagnall 1988, 220 n. 1). 4 Peter S. Perry is one of the few scholars to address John’s use of slave language to characterize himself and his audience is in (2020, 325–40). 5 In these verses, KJV uses “bond,” short for “bond-servant,” instead of “slave.” 6 Books that do not use doulos include 1–2 Thessalonians, Hebrews, and 1–3 John. 7 Exceptions to this include deSilva 2021 and, to a lesser extent, Pattemore 2003. 8 See Hubbard et al. 1997, x. 9 An exception is Paul 2018, 84. 10 This is one of the only times (if not the only time) Beale uses “slave” in reference to those John describes as God’s douloi. 11 Ian Paul, for example, reads Revelation’s enslavement imagery in relation to manumission (2018, 247). 12 Martin specifies that Aristotle described “natural” slaves in this way, distinguishing between those taken into slavery through war and born enslaved, i.e., “natural slaves,” from freeborn people who may have sold themselves into slavery for a time to pay a debt. For this discussion in Aristotle, see Pol. 1.5, 1254b-20-23. 13 This discussion draws upon insights from Huber 2007, chap. 2. See also Hylen 2011, 777–96.

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14 CMT uses all uppercase letters to identify conceptual domains, signaling that the phrase refers to conceptual domains and not specific linguistic terms. 15 As quoted by Lenski 2016, 275. While the quotation from Justinian is about Latin etymology, it reflects a more widely held idea about enslavement. 16 This might also be described using conceptual blending theory. For an introduction to this method, see von Thaden Jr. 2016, passim. 17 Babylon’s name is given to “her” by John. In contrast she identifies herself as a queen (18:7). 18 Revelation does suggest the possibility that one can have a negative response, perhaps including fear, to the divine. For instance, people experiencing God’s wrath might seek death instead of repenting (6:15–17; 9:6).

Bibliography Aristotle. 1932. Politics. Translated by H. Rackham. Loeb Classical Library 264. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Aune, David. 1997. Revelation: 1–5. Word Biblical Commentary 52A. London: Thomas Nelson. Aune, David. 1998. Revelation: 6–16. Word Biblical Commentary 52B. London: Thomas Nelson. Bauckham, Richard. 1988. “The Book of Revelation as a Christian War Scroll.” Neotestamentica 22:17–40. Bauckham, Richard. 1991. “The List of the Tribes in Revelation 7 Again.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 42:99–115. Beale, Gregory K. 1999. The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Blount, Brian K. 2009. Revelation: A Commentary. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox. Brooten, Bernadette J. 2010. “Introduction.” Pages 1–29 in Beyond Slavery: Overcoming Its Religious and Sexual Legacies. Edited by Bernadette J. Brooten, and Jacqueline L. Hazelton. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Callahan, Allen Dwight. 2009. “Babylon Boycott: The Book of Revelation.” Interpretation 63:48–54. Chatelard, Aude, and Anne Stevens. 2016. “Women as Legal Minors and Their Citizenship in Republican Rome.” Clio. Women, Gender, History 43:24–47. Cicero. 2001. Letters to Friends, Volume I: Letters 1–113. Edited and translated by D. R. Shackleton Bailey. Loeb Classical Library 205. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. deSilva, David A. 2021. Discovering Revelation: Content, Interpretation, Reception. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Diodorus Siculus. 1933. Library of History, Volume I: Books 1–2.34. Translated by C. H. Oldfather. Loeb Classical Library 279. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. DuBois, Page. 2009. Slavery: Antiquity and Its Legacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Finley, Moses I. 1959. “Was Greek Civilization Based on Slave Labour?” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 8:145–164. Finley, Moses I. 1964. “Between Slavery and Freedom.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 6:233–249.

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Glancy, Jennifer A. 2002. Slavery in Early Christianity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Glancy, Jennifer A., and Stephen D. Moore. 2011. “How Typical a Roman Prostitute Is Revelation’s ‘Great Whore’?” Journal of Biblical Literature 130:551–569. Harper, Kyle. 2010. “Slave Prices in Late Antiquity (and in the Very Long Term).” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 59:206–238. Harrill, J. Albert. 2000. “The Use of the New Testament in the American Slave Controversy: A Case History in the Hermeneutical Tension between Biblical Criticism and Christian Moral Debate.” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 10:149–186. Harris, William V. 1980. “Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade.” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 36:117–140. Hartman, Saidiya. 2008. “Venus in Two Acts.” Small Axe 12:1–14. Hubbard, David A., Glenn W. Barker, John D. W. Watts, and Ralph P. Martin. 1997. “Editorial Preface.” Page x in Revelation 1–5. Word Biblical Commentary 52A. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. Huber, Lynn R. 2007. Like a Bride Adorned: Reading Metaphor in John’s Apocalypse. New York: T&T Clark International. Huber, Lynn R. 2008. “Sexually Explicit? Re-Reading Revelation’s 144,000 Virgins as a Response to Roman Discourses.” Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality 2:3–28. Hunt, Peter. 2017. Ancient Greek and Roman Slavery. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Hylen, Susan E. 2011. “Metaphor Matters: Violence and Ethics in Revelation.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 73:777–796. Jones, Christopher P. 1987. “Stigma: Tattooing and Branding in Graeco-Roman Antiquity.” The Journal of Roman Studies 77:139–155. Joshel, Sandra R., and Lauren Hackworth Petersen. 2014. The Material Life of Roman Slaves. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kamen, Deborah. 2010. “Corpus of Inscriptions: Representing Slave Marks in Antiquity.” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 55:95–110. Koester, Craig R. 2014. Revelation: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible Commentary. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Koester, Craig R. 2008. “Roman Slave Trade and the Critique of Babylon in Revelation 18.” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 70:766–786. Lenski, Noel. 2016. “Violence and the Roman Slave.” Pages 275–298 in The Topography of Violence in the Greco-Roman World. Edited by Werner Riess, and Garrett G. Fagan. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Martin, Clarice J. 1990. “Womanist Interpretations of the New Testament: The Quest for Holistic and Inclusive Translation and Interpretation.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 6:41–61. Martin, Clarice J. 2005. “Polishing the Unclouded Mirror: A Womanist Reading of Revelation 18:13.” Pages 82–109 in From Every People and Nation: The Book of Revelation in Intercultural Perspective. Edited by David Rhoads. Minneapolis: Fortress. Martin, Dale B. 2021. Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity. Reprint. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock. Mounce, Robert H. 1998. The Book of Revelation. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Pattemore, Stephen. 2003. The People of God in the Apocalypse: Discourse, Structure, and Exegesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Paul, Ian. 2018. Revelation: An Introduction and Commentary. Westmont, IL: InterVarsity. Perry, Peter S. 2020. “The People of God in the Book of Revelation.” Pages 325–340 in The Oxford Handbook of The Book of Revelation. Edited by Craig R. Koester. New York: Oxford University Press. Plutarch. 1914. Lives, Volume II: Themistocles and Camillus. Aristides and Cato Major. Cimon and Lucullus. Translated by Bernadotte Perrin. Loeb Classical Library 47. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Plutarch. 1916. Lives, Volume III: Pericles and Fabius Maximus. Nicias and Crassus. Translated by Bernadotte Perrin. Loeb Classical Library 65. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Plutarch. 1936. Moralia. 15 volumes. Translated by Frank Cole Babbitt. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Richlin, Amy. 2017. Slave Theater in the Roman Republic: Plautus and Popular Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ricoeur, Paul. 1976. Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning. Fort Worth, TX: Christian University Press. Salway, Benet. 1994. “What’s in a Name? A Survey of Roman Onomastic Practice from c. 700 B.C. to A.D. 700.” The Journal of Roman Studies 84:124–145. Seneca. 1928. Moral Essays, Volume I: De Providentia. De Constantia. De Ira. De Clementia. Translated by John W. Basore. Loeb Classical Library 214. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Scheidel, Walter. 2012. “Slavery.” Pages 89–113 in The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Economy. Edited by Walter Scheidel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. 1991. Revelation: Vision of a Just World. Minneapolis: Fortress. Shaner, Katherine A. 2018. Enslaved Leadership in Early Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press. Stenström, Hanna. 2010. “‘They Have Not Defiled Themselves with Women… … ’: Christian Identity According to the Book of Revelation.” Pages 33–54 in A Feminist Companion to the Apocalypse of John. Edited by Amy-Jill Levine, and Maria Mayo Robbins. London: T&T Clark. Thaden Jr, Robert H. von. 2016. “A Cognitive Turn: Conceptual Blending within a Sociorhetorical Framework.” Pages 285–327 in Foundations for Sociorhetorical Exploration: A Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity Reader. Edited by Vernon K. Robbins, Robert H. von Thaden Jr, and Bart B. Bruehler. Atlanta: SBL. Tupamahu, Ekaputra. 2022. “The Stubborn Invisibility of Whiteness.” Political Theology Network, November 12, 2022. https://politicaltheology.com/the-stubborninvisibility-of-whiteness-in-biblical-scholarship/. Vasser, Murray. 2018. “Bodies and Souls: The Case for Reading Revelation 18.13 as a Critique of the Slave Trade.” New Testament Studies 64:397–409. Vlassopoulos, Kostas. 2011. “Greek Slavery: From Domination to Property and Back Again.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 131:115–130. Warden, Preston Duane, and Roger S. Bagnall. 1988. “The Forty Thousand Citizens of Ephesos.” Classical Philology 83:220–223.

3

Disabling the Laodikeian Assembly Power of Sight as Site of Power in Revelation 3:14–22 Daniel Charles Smith

“Write on what makes you angry.” —Steven J. Friesen

3.1

Introduction

Revelation purports to provide a visionary experience given to John of Patmos in which angels guide him through a kaleidoscopic journey. Shimmering waves of crystals, myriads of heavenly beings, and visions of what is and what will be bringing John to the point of optical overstimulation. At other points, John hears one thing but sees another: told of a lion he instead sees a slain yet standing lamb, and told of the 144,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel he instead sees a great multitude from many nations. John sees (expressed through Greek verbs like blepō and eidon) and thereby comes to understand (expressed through verbs like oida) the world as seen from the heavenly throne room. These sights of splendor and judgment are transmitted, however, through a text that is to be read and heard among the assemblies in cities of Western Asia Minor, where the mythic and colossal visions are rendered into aural performance. John is commanded to write all that he sees (1:19). The text’s recipients are to hear (22:17–18) and obey. The Apocalypse reveals John as the sole seer among the assemblies. In the message to the assembly in Laodikeia (3:14–22), the one like the son of a human includes the following diagnosis: “For you say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.’ You do not know (ouk oidas) that you are suffering, pitiable, poor, blind (typhlos), and naked. Therefore, I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich, and white robes to clothe yourself and keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen, and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see (hina blepēs)” (3:17–18).1 This chapter considers how Revelation’s discourses of sight and blindness play upon ideas of disablement to authorize John’s message over and against competing visions of assembly praxis. Engaging with Disability Studies through the work of Esme Cleall and others, I argue that John of Patmos legitimates his authority as a prophetic seer by deploying discourses of disability alongside other means of social marginalization, linking blindness with DOI: 10.4324/9781003344247-6

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ignorance, poverty, and moral deviance and thereby reenforcing the authority of his power to see vis-à-vis the assemblies’ (purportedly inferior) ability to hear.2 The chapter brings insights from Disability Studies to bear on the message to Laodikeia as, in part, a corrective to the pervasive habit among biblical scholars which assumes an easy elision between sight and knowledge, blindness and ignorance and mistakes this idea as a natural or innate feature of human experience rather than the result of a contingent and socially mediated discourse of disablement. The chapter proceeds in three sections. Section 3.2 surveys recent scholarship on the oracle to Laodikeia with special attention to how scholars reckon with blindness in the message. Section 3.3 introduces ideas from Critical Disability Studies to consider ideological deployments of embodied difference, setting up the analysis in Section 3.4 on sight, blindness, and power in the Laodikeian oracle. 3.2

Blindness in Revelation Scholarship

Scholarship discussing disability in Revelation remains spartan and undertheorized. This section presents a representative example of how scholars engage disability in John’s Apocalypse before turning to recent scholarly analysis of the blind Laodikeians in Rev 3:14–22.3 The brief survey demonstrates need for attention to the logics of disablement in the Apocalypse. A recent article in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament opens its discussion of ekphrastic rhetoric in Revelation by considering whether R. H. Charles, writing a century earlier, was correct to deem John “disabled” in his ability to describe the heavenly scenes before him (Barnhill 2017; Charles 1920:1, CVII). Charles originally remarked that “The seer laboured under a two-fold disability. His psychical powers were generally unequal to the task of apprehending the full meaning of the heavenly vision, and his powers of expression were frequently unable to set forth the things he had apprehended” (Charles 1920:1, CVII; emphasis mine). Disability, for Charles, meant an inability; the term describes John’s supposed lack of perception and literary acumen. To be disabled in this view is to lack efficacious powers of visual comprehension and literary description. What Charles takes to be John’s impaired faculties of apprehension and articulation mark the Apocalypse as short of the standard, or “normate” capabilities one might expect.4 Charles thus employs disability as a stand-in for inferior performance at the task appointed to him by the one like the son of a human (Rev 1:19). Responding to Charles’s evaluation, Gregory Barnhill concludes that John is not disabled but rather that his apparent difficulties are instead a persuasive rhetorical tool. He writes “While Charles helpfully draws attention to the transcendent and difficult nature of the imagery of Revelation, in the manner of rhetorical ability he has sold the author short.” He continues “In other words, John was not ‘disabled’ in describing the divine, as Charles asserted, but rather he exhibits intentional shaping of his imaginative rhetoric as one

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strategy for persuading his hearers to adopt his message” (Barnhill 2017, 235–6; emphasis mine). Barnhill takes Charles’s assertion of disability at face value and determines that we can instead understand John’s efforts as thoroughly “abled” rather than disabled. Here the question of John’s disability is answered not with reference to information about his somatic difference or discussion of the ways the text might illumine elements of how he engaged with the world around him; rather, John’s persuasive rhetoric is the ground upon which claims of disability ought to be dismissed. Because John employs persuasive rhetoric (in the tradition of Aristotelian rhetorical techniques) to convince his audiences “to embrace both a critical distance from Roman imperial ideology as well as a commitment to the confession of Jesus as lord over against the deceitful powers of empire” (Barnhill 2017, 356), John cannot be disabled. In the above examples, disability becomes a taxonomic mechanism for sorting skillful, efficacious literary production from that which fails to persuade or impress. Normate, able-bodied prophets, or seers are expected to perform to a (subjective) standard of observation and literary production, while those who do not perform to such requirements would qualify as disabled. The latent logic of disablement operative in the diagnoses of Charles and Barnhill reenforces a pathological or “medical” definition of disability, which “conceives of disability as a lack and deficiency inherent in nonnormative bodies” (Ben-Moshe 2017, 120). The disabled status of John of Patmos hinges upon the degree to which he is able to perceive and describe the vision before him to a satisfactory level of performance. As Disability Studies scholars have often pointed out, such pathologized definitions of disability take as given what should otherwise be understood to be socially mediated ideas of normate, standard bodies against which the disabled body is shaped. Mistaking the culturally contingent for the natural and inevitable, these discourses of disablement reenforce static, individualized, and pathologized notions of disability rather than attending to the social and material conditions within which some somatic differences—and not others—are made to matter.5 In the above examples, disability qua taxonomy offers little for analysis and instead functions as a shorthand for evaluations of skillful/unskillful performance. There remain, however, relevant and important questions pertaining to disability in the Apocalypse.6 In the message to the assembly in Laodikeia, John of Patmos deploys discourses of disablement to authorize his practices over and against those of the Laodikeians. Scholarship on the oracle to the Laodikeian assembly interprets the assertion of blindness within a collection of metaphors insisting on their spiritual inability. Craig R. Koester reads the claim of blindness within “five ways [the assembly members] are lacking” (Koester 2014, 338). In this reading, “blind” functions within a cluster, so to be blind is at least associated with being miserable, pitiable, poor, and naked. The blindness is metaphorical for Koester, who writes that the Laodikeians “may have physical sight,

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but they are ‘blind’ to their own condition” (Koester 2014, 346). Moreover, the blindness functions alongside their ignorance, as Koester remarks concerning all these accusations against the assembly that “Christ knows the Laodiceans, but they do not know themselves” (Koester 2014, 346).7 Here, Koester reads the text’s alignment of sight and knowledge as a metaphor needing little explanation to his Modern audience. The command for the assembly members to buy eye salve to gain sight goes largely without comment.8 Other scholarly treatments of blindness in the oracle to the Laodikeian assembly make similar conclusions regarding the use of blindness. David E. Aune comments that blindness “refers to the inability of the Laodiceans to understand or comprehend their true condition” (Aune 1997, 259). It is here again a sign of unknowing, as “The ignorance of the Laodicean church is in explicit contrast with the knowledge of the risen Christ” (Aune 1997, 259). Beale (1999, 304) remarks that the assembly members “were the opposite of what they thought,” their “witness to Christ” is “impotent,” and they are “on the verge of being considered an unbelieving community.” The need to buy eye salve for regaining sight “emphasizes the Laodiceans’ lack of spiritual discernment” (Beale 1999, 305). Scholarship on blindness in this oracle replicates an ancient, metaphorical rendering that equates the physiological phenomenon with a statement about intellectual capability, moral uprightness, or a combination of the two. In John’s articulation, to see is to comprehend and practice properly, while blindness connotes ignorance, inability, moral decay, or outsider status. Within scholarly discussions of this trope the easy association between blindness and ignorance appears to be assumed and reproduced, mutatis mutandis, rather than demonstrated or questioned, laying bare the ways modern academic writing on the ancient world naturalizes ideological evaluations of embodied difference. These approaches to blindness in the Laodikeian oracle also give insufficient attention to the ways blindness functions apart from the other statements about the assembly. The explanations of the demand to buy eye salve are often interpreted apart from the accusation of blindness and the attendant logics of exchange. John’s unparalleled visions and his attendant claims to unique authority are disaggregated from the accusations he casts against the unseeing Laodikeian assembly. Scholars have left unquestioned the text’s elision of sight and knowledge, blindness and ignorance/deviance and, in so doing, naturalized John’s disabling discourse while overlooking the relations of power built upon it. Insights from Disability Studies scholarship can reorient these unresolved questions and offer an account of the oracle to Laodikeia grounded in critical approaches to disability, power, and authority. 3.3

From Difference to Disablement

How are discourses of embodied difference deployed alongside other strategies for legitimation and authority? Disability Studies, a field rooted in

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materialist approaches to history and Poststructural theory, necessitates analysis anchored in the assertion of disability’s contingency, plasticity, and potency within social worlds ancient and modern.9 Disability, an etic category of analysis,10 is neither an essential element of an individual nor a static feature of human life but rather a category undergoing constant flux to fit the material and social demands of each given context. First-century Western Asia Minor, for example, has its own history and formations of disability in which some bodies are marginalized on account of their differences, while those same physical differences may not be experienced or understood as a disability in twenty-first-century North America.11 An account of disablement in Revelation, then, should account for the discursive construction of somatic difference as it relates to a “normate” body in the text. In this section, I think with ideas from Esme Cleall’s Missionary Discourses of Difference to interrogate how physical differences were made to matter and mapped onto the text’s ideological projects. Difference, Cleall suggests, is one means by which authority is constructed, maintained, and asserted in religious discourses. Differences relating to the body, whether grounded in the logics of race, gender, and/or disablement, allow for the legitimation of power over those marked as the inferior kind of body. Difference is made “in multiple ways simultaneously,” as it can be “negotiated through the institutional structures of the state, internalized in the psyches of individuals and of communities, performed in social relations, embodied in experiences, relived through memory, articulated through language and ‘seen’ on the body” (Cleall 2012, 8).12 Cleall’s analysis turns to the correspondences among privileged imperial actors, situated in both an imperial metropole and across its colonies, to illustrate how difference could be deployed in service to the project of recasting British imperial subjugation as not only inevitable but necessary to the potential well-being of colonized actors.13 Interrogating the archive of letters and publications between Christian missionaries in Southern Africa and South Asia, employed by the London Missionary Society, and their sponsors, fundraisers, and colleagues in the imperial metropole, Cleall shows how the consistent need to articulate and justify British imperial rule and cultural supremacy was itself grounded in discursive claims about bodily difference. London missionaries were healthy, benevolent, purified bodies seeking to convert—and thereby heal—the dark, malformed, and savage bodies of Southern Africans and South Asians (Cleall 2012, 84). The white bodies of missionaries and those in Britain often go unmarked, an assumed normate positions against which the “deviant,” “deficient” bodies of Africans and Asians can be measured. In the mid-nineteenth century, amid changing financial and political circumstances—as well as differing responses to the London Missionary Society among indigenous groups—British missionaries altered their activities in Southern Africa and South Asia to prioritize medical services as a foundation from which they could extend into healing the “hearts and minds” of their physically and spiritually unwell patients (Cleall 2012, 86–90). These

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changing conditions “produced as well as reflected divergent ways of writing about the body across colonial sites” (Cleall 2012, 88). Privileged imperial actors in Britain and in the colonies could appeal to their authoritative knowledge of “science” against which indigenous “superstitions” around medicine could be placed in inferior positions, the mark of “uncivilized” bodies and cultures (Cleall 2012, 88–94). Accounts of medical missions often contain formulaic healing narratives, whereby the bodies of colonized actors were healed alongside their souls, presenting the opportunity for difference to be in some ways mediated—their bodies and spirits could find healing—yet also maintained through their dependency on the benevolence and powerful bodies of the missionaries (Cleall 2012, 94–7). In these encounters, the colonized actors are placed within economies of exchange, whereby they could attain physical healing and offer themselves as object lessons in British Christian virtue. Sickness and disability are discursively potent tools for asserting or reenforcing the power of some bodies over others. The London Missionary Society presented their missionaries as normate, unmarked physicians of bodies and souls who offered colonized actors opportunities for (partial) restoration. Disability is here asserted alongside other forms of subjugation to claim authority over the bodies of others, and these claims shift and adapt alongside changing relations of power. These concepts, while put to work in a much different context, will also prove fruitful for analyzing the ways John’s Apocalypse deploys somatic differences in pursuit of authority for its titular seer. 3.4

The Power of Sight in the Oracle to Laodikeia

This section analyzes the oracle to the assembly in Laodikeia with insights from Disability Studies in mind. Focusing on the description of the assembly as blind (3:17) and the admonition to buy eye salve (3:18) alongside the imperative to hear (3:20, 22), I argue that John deploys disablement to leverage his normate authority as seer over the Laodikeian assembly that insufficiently attends to John’s prophetic instructions. Blindness is inscribed upon the assembly alongside poverty and deviance to differentiate their bodies as malformed and in need of the healing offered by the one whom only John can see. A brief overview of the Laodikeian oracle reveals a multisensory experience. Commentators have often noted that the message to the assembly in Laodikeia is the only such message wherein the one like the son of a human does not offer praise (Yarbro Collins 1984, 158; Schussler Fiorenza 1991, 130).14 Instead, the angelic figure proclaims that he knows (oida) their works, “neither cold nor hot,” and they subsequently deserved to be vomited (emesai) out of his mouth (3:14–16).15 Alongside the revelation that the assembly does not know (ouk oidas) they are blind, the one like the son of a human declares they are also unwittingly suffering (talaipōros), pitiable

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(eleeinos), poor (ptōchos), and naked (gymnos, 3:17). He commands them to “see” (idou, 3:20) his knocking at the door and the sound of his voice,16 and if they heed his call, he will enter and eat (deipnēsō) with them. At the close of this seventh oracle, the angelic Christ proclaims that anyone with an ear is commanded to listen (akousatō) to what the spirit says to the assemblies (3:22). Feeling and retching the tepid temperatures, listening to the assertions of blindness and sight, recalling the feeling of nakedness, hearing the sight and sound of a visitor knocking and calling at the door, and anticipating the taste of a shared meal all work together to engage a variety of senses in the message. In the midst of these sensory engagements, blindness stands out as the only reference to embodied difference. John invokes blindness and sight within lists of apparent deficiencies and possible cures. The assembly is told, despite their confident assertions (“I am rich, I have grown wealthy, and I am without need”), that they are in fact blind (typhlos) (and also suffering, pitiable, poor, and naked). It is one like the son of a human who knows (oida) and the assembly members who do not know (ouk oidas) of their disability. The Apocalypse reveals the “trustworthy and true” words to John (21:5), who saw these things (22:8) and was commissioned as a prophet to the assemblies (1:11), who are called to listen and obey (1:3). Within the hierarchy proposed in the Apocalypse, the assembly in Laodikeia is subordinated to John, who mediates on behalf of the angelic Christ. In this arrangement, the discourse of blindness functions as a disabling mechanism that reenforces and justifies the relations of power at work in the Apocalypse. Somatic difference becomes not only a sign of inferiority but a justification for it; John’s one like the son of a human knows/sees them as disabled, while the text asserts that the assembly members are ignorant of their own blindness. As with the London Missionary Society’s portrayals of indigenous Africans and Asians as disabled, sick, and deviant, here Revelation defines the Laodikeians as disabled to assert John’s power over the assembly members. It is within this discursive arrangement that the bodies of John and the one like the son of a human are revealed as potent, normate, and able to see, as they know and assert the truth of John’s message. John’s body occupies the position against which the Laodikeians are measured; while he writes down all that he sees, the Laodikeians are unable to see and must instead listen for the one like the son of a human to come calling. John’s body, despite being overwhelmed, confused, and misguided by what he sees throughout the Apocalypse, defines the normate, capable body.17 The Laodikeians’ blindness becomes a disability on account of their comparative inability to see how John sees and know what John knows. John calls the Laodikeian assembly blind while also naming them as suffering, pitiable, poor, and naked. This confluence of traits works together as a means of marginalizing the assembly members in ways that accentuate their vulnerability and, moreover, reveals something of the logics of disablement at work in the Apocalypse. To be blind (typhlos) in the Apocalypse is to be

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incapable of seeing all that is revealed. A blind assembly must rely upon John the seer for the unveiling of the divine message, and his mediation here again reenforces his position of authority. Placing blindness among these other traits demonstrates Revelation’s assessment of this somatic difference among poverty, suffering, and other means of social marginalization and disempowerment. As with Cleall’s missionaries who tied disability to sickness, savagery, heathenism, and other (often racializing) logics, Revelation defines disability by means of its association with other signifiers of difference and deviance. The one like the son of a human advises the Laodikeians to buy gold refined in fire so that they may be rich, white robes so they may be clothed and without the shame of nakedness, and “salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see” (kollourion egchrisai tous ophthalmous sou hina blepēs, 3:18). The Laodikeians have now been told, contrary to their own knowledge, that they are blind and, moreover, the angelic Christ recommends purchasing salve so that they may gain their sight. John, in other words, has not only discursively created a problem but also insisted upon a solution mediated by him. The text then calls for repentance (3:19), so that the assembly can come into line with John’s authoritative message. The admonition to the assembly focuses upon exchange as a means of healing: Revelation suggests that their disablement can be erased through proper observance of John’s instructions. Thus, the assembly can gain their sight as long as they offer their allegiance to the angelic Christ, mediated through John. Revelation’s suggestion that blindness can be healed in exchange for proper observance of its message fits well with the practices of British medical missionaries in Southern Africa and South Asia. Physical illness and disability were not only put forward as signs of deviance and justifications for subjugation, but rather they could be leveraged within attempts to convert colonized actors to the church. Missionaries wrote in their correspondences and publications that medical services provided an opportunity for attending to both body and soul, and that the provision of medical care produced the right circumstances for spiritual restoration when the heart was “softened” by disease (Cleall 2012, 85, 95). The actual exchange of medical services for conversion goes beyond what is described in the oracle to Laodikeia, yet the logics of exchange remain useful. The assembly members, diagnosed with their disability, are told that the only way to gain full, normate status is to repent and adhere to the teachings revealed by John. To follow the advice of the one like the son of a human, the assembly is told to respond to his call and accept the reprimand as a demonstration of his love (3:19). Relief from their disablement means reintegration into the teachings revealed by John. An important difference between the disabling logics of the London Missionary Society and Revelation’s oracle to the Laodikeian assembly rests in their distinct relationships to colonial power. British missionaries in colonized Southern Africa and South Asia occupy an unquestioned position of power over those whom they are seeking to convert. Their attempts at proselytizing colonial subjects into Christian institutions are inextricable

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from Britain’s concomitant political authority over its imperial subjects (Cleall 2012, 2–4). John, on the other hand, does not write with the winds of colonial conquest at his back but rather as a diasporic, perhaps displaced Jew, operating within an imperial government whose ruling family grounded their claim to the throne in subjugated Judean soil.18 In this way, John’s deployment of disablement is better understood not as a reenforcement of extant colonial relations of power but as the imperially mediated striving of a diasporic prophet seeking to carve out a place for his ritual offerings despite conflict and competition. Revelation’s assertions of disability are not backed up with the material power or cultural hegemony of a global empire. Instead, he appeals to somatic differences as a point of leverage within a competitive environment wherein he attempts to assert his prophetic power. Disability becomes one tool among many for John to position himself within a place of authority and ability among the assemblies. His discourses of disablement reflect and reenforce the ways that embodied differences become focal points in the creation and maintenance of power. 3.5

Conclusion

Positioned within his own Apocalypse as a divinely commissioned prophet revealing trustworthy and true words to the assemblies in Western Asia Minor, John of Patmos holds the keys of his own discursive kingdom. He gives shape and name to the bodies and spaces across the cosmos and reveals to the assemblies a world mediated through his prophetic imagination. Within the confines of this world, John insists both on the power of sight as the true means of apprehending God and also on his own body as the one able to glimpse the divine realm. While Satanic pretenders and false prophets lurk all around the assemblies, John presents himself as the true seer into the throne room of God and the fate of the world. The assembly in Laodikeia is blind and, what is more, unable to see their own blindness. Their riches are in fact poverty, thinking they are full of wealth they are instead naked and pitiable. John’s one like the son of man knows and sees them for who (John says) they are, disabled and in need of a salve which only John’s angelic Christ can provide. To receive this healing, they are to listen to John’s words and align themselves with the instructions of his prophetic message. In the message to the Laodikeians, disability has been asserted upon their bodies as a mechanism for claiming John’s power over the assembly. Their supposed ignorance and blindness, along with his offer to heal, prescribe reliance upon John’s message. This method of defining disability and insisting on a solution is, of course, not limited to John of Patmos. The London Missionary Society, working nearly two millennia later, would cite other canonical words of Jesus to insist upon the physical and spiritual disabilities of those whom they sought to convert and control (Cleall 2012, 80–1). Equating physical difference with spiritual deviance, whether in the Apocalypse of John or in the publications of the London Missionary

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Society, is a discursive strategy, not an inevitable outcome. The choice to equate blindness with ignorance and sight with knowledge is neither obvious nor natural but a decision to replicate John’s ruinous world rather than to fight for a better one. Notes 1 All translations are the author’s. 2 See the references to hearing in the Laodikeian oracle at 3:20: “Listen, I stand at the door knocking. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with you, and you with me,” and 3:22: “Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the spirit is saying to the assemblies.” 3 Scholars have for some time noted the complex ways John engages with visuality and sight. For recent examples and bibliography see Barnhill 2017; Leach 2021; Whitaker 2015. 4 By “normate” I here refer to the foundational work of Rosemary GarlandThompson to the critical study of disability: “‘Normate,’ then, is the constructed identity of those who, by way of the bodily configurations and cultural capital they assume, can step into a position of authority and wield the power it grants them.” The normate subject position emerges “only when we scrutinize the social processes and discourses that constitute physical and cultural otherness,” ( GarlandThompson 1997, 8). On the normate body in biblical studies see also Henning 2021; Lawrence 2013; Moss 2011; Wynn 2007. 5 Bogdan 1988; Davis 1995; Garland-Thompson 1997; Groce 1985; Rembise et al. 2018; Rose 2017. 6 This essay takes up one such question, but many more remain understudied, including the ways disability functions as a sign of judgment for those unsealed by God, the enfreakment of the lamb on display in Rev 5, the hierarchy of senses displayed throughout the Apocalypse, and much else. 7 Note also the correlation between sight and knowledge, blindness and ignorance which Koester supplies in his analysis: “By telling the Laodiceans about their poverty, nakedness, and blindness in matters of faith, the speaker seeks to open their eyes to the truth about themselves so they heed the call for repentance and perseverance. By seeing the truth in this way, readers share the promise of finally seeing God face-to-face,” 348, emphasis mine). 8 Koester (2014, 339) rightly refutes a scholarly trope from William Ramsay and subsequent commentators that Laodikeia was known for its production of eye salve and that the admonition ties into local civic practice by noting the ubiquity of eye salve production in the Roman world and the thin literary and material record for such a claim (contra Ramsay 1904, 419, 429; Hemer 1989, 196–9). Koester (2014, 348) also includes a brief discussion on eye salve production. 9 See the disciplinary history in Rembise et al. (2018). 10 Or “second-order” category, rather than an “emic” or “first-order” category. 11 An early demonstration of this point in Disability History came in Nora Groce’s (1985) monograph concerning deafness and Sign Language on Martha’s Vineyard. The book traces how, from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries, deafness and Sign language were sufficiently common in the local culture so that deafness did not function as a means of disablement and, what is more, the inability to sign resulted in a disability within the community. See Henning (2021) for a similarly complex rendering of disability as “holy impairment” regarding the altered speech of Peter and others at Pentecost in Acts 2. On Disability History in the Ancient Mediterranean world generally see Garland 1995; Kelly 2011; Laes 2017; 2022; Rose 2003.

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12 This dexterity and artificiality should not, however, be mistaken for a lack of impact, as “The insidiousness of difference is that it is not only imagined and fluid but that it is also lived, and often appears resiliently fixed. However constructed, the experience of being made different, seen as different and seeing oneself as different from an imagined norm is very real,” ( Cleall 2012, 8). 13 Cleall’s interest in illustrating her subjects’ constant reassertions of difference despite moments of uncertainty and strain demonstrates the significance of the missionaries’ discursive project, but it also suggests a presentation of colonial history which appears inevitable rather than contingent. As Prevost (2014) argues, such a narrative risks foreclosing on “a historical project that was in fact always subject to the contingencies of the social and political context in which it developed.” 14 Koester (2014, 236) claims that Sardis is also mostly criticized, but note the praise of the “few” who remain “worthy” in 3:4. 15 Ramsay 1904 began a disconcertingly durable story that this message is a reference to the city’s tepid water supply from the hot springs of Hierapolis and the cold flows from Colossae. Such an attempt at the archeological background of the Apocalypse is implausible. Laodikeia had its own water supply from an aqueduct fed by a spring to the south, having nothing to do with these distant cities—the mineral-rich water of Hierapolis was not likely meant for drinking in any case (see Corsten 1997, 48–49; Koester 2003, 409–410). On Ramsay’s approach to archeology and the Apocalypse, see Friesen 1995. 16 Or perhaps “behold,” rather than the literal “see.” The NRSV translates this idou as “listen,” in order to make sense of the command alongside the sounds of knocking and of his voice. 17 This tension between the purported seeing power of John alongside his misapprehensions and confusions about what, exactly, he is seeing demonstrates a degree of slippage between his authoritative claims and his uncertain encounters. Here it is helpful to keep in mind that the normate body is not an actualized experience but an imagined state of non-deviance and unmarked bodily expression. It is no surprise, then, to find that even bodies marked as normative encounter disruptions and somatic differences and that the construction of normativity is a social, discursive project rather than a default mode of humans. See Garland-Thompson 1997. 18 The Flavian emperors appealed to their conquest over Judea as the founding victory of their new Roman dynasty. Like the Julio-Claudians who grounded their claims to rule in the Augustan annexation over Egypt, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, each made use of their successful quelling of the Judean Revolt (66–73 CE) to justify their imperial rule. See Edmondson et al. 2005; Keddie 2018.

Bibliography Aune, David. 1997. Revelation: 1–5. Word Biblical Commentary 52A. Nashville: Thomas Nelson. Barnhill, Gregory M. 2017. “Seeing Christ through Hearing the Apocalypse: An Exploration of John’s Use of Ekphrasis in Revelation 1 and 19.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 39:235–257. Beale, Gregory E. 1999. The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text. The New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Ben-Moshe, Liat. 2017. “The Institution Yet to Come: Analyzing Incarceration through a Disability Lens.” Pages 119–131 in The Disability Studies Reader. Edited by Lennard J. Davis. New York: Routledge.

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Bogdan, Robert. 1988. Freakshow: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Charles, Robert H. 1920. The Revelation of St. John. International Critical Commentary. New York: Scribner’s. Cleall, Esme. 2012. Missionary Discourses of Difference: Negotiating Otherness in the British Empire, 1840–1900. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Collins, Adela Yarbro. 1984. Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse. Philadelphia: Westminster. Corsten, Thomas, ed. 1997. Die Inschriften von Laodikeia am Lykos. Volume I. Bonn: Habelt. Davis, Lennard J. 1995. Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness, and the Body. London: Verso. Edmondson, Jonathan, Steve Mason, and James B. Rives, eds. 2005. Flavius Josephus in Flavian Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Friesen, Steven J. 1995. “Revelation, Realia, and Religion: Archaeology and the Interpretation of the Apocalypse.” Harvard Theological Review 88:291–314. Garland, Robert. 1995. The Eye of the Beholder: Deformity and Disability in the Greco-Roman World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Garland-Thompson, Rosemary. 1997. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press. Groce, Nora Ellen. 1985. Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language: Hereditary Deafness on Martha’s Vineyard. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Hemer, Colin J. 1989. The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in their Local Setting. Sheffield: JSOT. Henning, Meghan R. 2021. “Holy Impairment: The Body as the Nexus of Apocalyptic Ekphrasis in Acts 2:1–13.” Journal of Biblical Literature 141:533–552. Keddie, G. Anthony. 2018. “Iudaea Capta vs. Mother Zion: The Flavian Discourse on Judeans and Its Delegitimation in 4 Ezra.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 49:498–550. Kelly, Nicole. 2011. “The Punishment of the Devil was Apparent in the Torment of the Human Body: Epilepsy in Ancient Christianity.” Pages 205–222 in Disability Studies in Biblical Literature. Edited by Candida R. Moss and Jeremy Schipper. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Koester, Craig R. 2003. “The Message to Laodicea and the Problem of Its Local Context.” New Testament Studies 49:407–424. Koester, Craig R. 2014. Revelation: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Yale Bible. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Laes, Christian, ed. 2017. Disability in Antiquity. New York: Routledge. Laes, Christian, ed. 2022. A Cultural History of Disability in Antiquity. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Lawrence, Louise J. 2013. Sense and Stigma in the Gospels. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Leach, Nathan A. 2021. “Revelation and Divination: Performative Access to Divine Knowledge in Oracles, Mysteries, and the Apocalypse of John.” Ph.D. diss., The University of Texas at Austin. Moss, Candida R. 2011. “Heavenly Healing: Eschatological Cleansing and the Resurrection of the Dead in the Early Church.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 79:991–1017.

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Prevost, Elizabeth E. 2014. “Review of Esme Cleall, ‘Missionary Discourses of Difference: Negotiating Otherness in the British Empire, 1840–1900.’” American Historical Review 119:982–983. Ramsay, William. 1904. The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia and Their Place in the Plan of the Apocalypse. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Rembise, Michael, Catherine Kudlick, and Kim E. Nielsen, eds. 2018. The Oxford Handbook of Disability History. New York: Oxford University Press. Rose, Martha. 2003. The Staff of Oedipus: Transforming Disability in Ancient Greece. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Rose, Sarah. 2017. No Right to be Idle: The Invention of Disability 1840’s–1930’s. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Schussler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. 1991. Revelation: Vision of a Just World. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress. Whitaker, Robyn J. 2015. Ekphrasis, Vision, and Persuasion in the Book of Revelation. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 410. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Wynn, Kerry H. 2007. “The Normate Hermeneutic and Interpretations of Disability within the Yahwistic Narratives.” Pages 91–102 in This Abled Body: Rethinking Disabilities in Biblical Studies. Edited by Hector Avalos, Sarah J. Melcher, and Jeremy Schipper. Semeia Studies 55. Atlanta: SBL.

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Paul and the “Other” in Revelation’s Letters to the Seven Churches Revisited Geoffrey S. Smith

4.1

Introduction

In Chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation, John warns the seven churches in Asia Minor about teachers who, in his opinion, pose a threat to members of the church.1 Chief among his accusations is that the opponents are pseudo-apostles and pseudo-Jews, and that they eat meat sacrificed to idols and are sexually immoral. Yet despite John’s repeated warnings, scholars have struggled to identify with precision John’s opponents. Scholars even debate whether John is warning against Jews or Christians, or some group in between.2 There is also no agreement as to whether John opposes one group or several groups.3 Who are the “others” John has in mind? One proposal, which has gained traction in recent years, is that of David Frankfurter (2001), who argues that John’s opponents are none other than followers of the apostle Paul. Building on the work of scholars before him, particularly members of the so-called Tübingen School,4 Frankfurter locates John’s pseudo-Jews (Rev 2:9, 3:9) within the Jesus movement and identifies them as “Pauline and neo-Pauline proselytes” whose attitudes toward the law were more permissive than his own. Though they may have claimed the title “Jew,” they were not “in John’s eyes (and many others’ in the first century), halakhically pure enough to merit this term in its practical sense” (Frankfurter 2001, 403). In the words of Elaine Pagels (2012, 54), who agrees with Frankfurter, “the very practices John denounces are those that Paul had recommended.”5 In this chapter, I revisit the evidence for identifying John’s opponents as Pauline Gentile Jesus-followers. A careful analysis of the parallels between Paul’s letters and the warnings to the seven churches suggests, however, that John is not taking aim at Pauline or even “neo-Pauline” Jesus-followers, but that he is drawing upon Paul’s own polemical rhetoric to construct and discredit opponents of his own. I am not arguing that Pauline polemical rhetoric accounts for all aspects of John’s warnings. Paul neither speaks of anyone named Jezebel nor does he mention Nicolaitans or those who follow the teaching of Balaam. Nor am I arguing that John’s warnings are little more than empty rhetoric—that John has no real opponents but is regurgitating Pauline DOI: 10.4324/9781003344247-7

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polemic merely to scare his readers. John writes with the urgency of someone who considers himself to be embroiled in a real sectarian controversy, and progress has been made in profiling at least some of the groups John opposes.6 Rather, I am arguing that the presence of Pauline language in Revelation 2–3 strongly indicates that John has redeployed many of Paul’s warnings against opponents in service of his own struggles against the Nicolaitans, followers of Jezebel, and others he considers to be a threat in his own day. Therefore, John’s warnings are not only evidence of sectarian infighting among rival prophetic movements, as many have already pointed out; they also speak to the growing influence of Paul’s letters toward the end of the first century CE. 4.2

‘Pauline’ Communities, Epistolary Style, and Rhetoric

Let’s first review Frankfurter’s argument. Frankfurter points to several passages in Paul’s letters where the apostle’s own teachings resemble those criticized by John. He draws a parallel between Paul’s “liberal” attitude toward eating meat sacrificed to idols in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10 and John’s repeated warnings (Rev 2:14, 20) about those who eat “food sacrificed to idols” (eidōlothyta, Frankfurter 2001, 416).7 In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul responds to questions he received from the Corinthians “concerning food sacrificed to idols” (8:1). Some members of the community apparently wanted to know whether such food can be eaten. Paul initially responds that such food can be eaten or not—it doesn’t really matter, since “no idol in the world really exists” (8:4). “Food will not bring us close to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat and no better off if we do” (8:8). According to Frankfurter, while Paul adopts the position he does in an effort to appease prominent leaders in the community who advocate a more permissive attitude toward eating meat sacrificed to idols, from John’s perspective, Paul’s compromise could be seen as “promoting the acceptance of heathen food” (Frankfurter 2001, 416, emphasis original). Frankfurter again looks to 1 Corinthians to account for John’s warnings against those who promote sexual immorality (porneusai). He has in mind 1 Corinthians 7, where Paul discusses marriage and sexual ethics. Paul’s preference is for men and women to remain unmarried, since “it is good for a man not to touch a woman” (7:1). Yet he does allow for marriage and intercourse as a concession to those who cannot control themselves (ei de ouk egkrateuontai gamēsatōsan, 7:9), to prevent them from descending into sexual immorality (dia de tas porneias, 7:2). Frankfurter sees Paul’s own justification for allowing couples to marry as a departure from the “traditional Jewish grounds of procreation,” perhaps because the question of childbearing becomes moot if the end of the world is near (1 Cor 7:26–31). Nonetheless, Paul’s endorsement of “sexual activity based solely on physical need and pleasure” (Frankfurter 2001, 416) would have appeared to someone like

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John, whose attitude toward sexuality was more rigorous, to be the promotion of sexual immorality (Frankfurter 2001, 417–20). Frankfurter’s Pauline backdrop for “those who say that they are Jews and are not” (Rev 2:9; 3:9) is more complicated. He proposes that, though Paul “at one time admonished Gentiles who ‘call themselves Jews’ (Rom 2:17),” a later generation of Gentile Jesus-followers in Pauline communities may have actually called themselves Jews when the label could prove advantageous (Frankfurter 2001, 420). Yet for Frankfurter gentile converts who might call themselves Jews don’t represent a break with Paul’s teachings as much as an extension of them. These false Jews are gentiles who observe “some degree of Jewish practice according to Pauline instruction” (Frankfurter 2001, 422, emphasis mine). In any case, whether such people were being true to the teachings of Paul would not have mattered much to John. In his eyes such gentiles would be “‘acting the part of Jews’ … observing some halakhic requirements, as Paul had instructed, and intrinsically participating in Jewish practice … ” (Frankfurter 2001, 420). But identifying John’s opponents as members of Paul’s communities is not without its problems.8 Paul’s own position on eating meat sacrificed to idols is far from clear, and linking John’s accusation that some are promoting sexual immorality to Paul’s concession on marriage seems less than obvious, especially since the term John uses, porneia, can refer to a host of sexual improprieties. Additionally, Paul claims that Gentile Jesus-followers should not consider themselves Jews (Rom 2:17). Frankfurter himself seems to admit as much. He suggests that those John opposes might not be Pauline, but “neoPauline” and leaves open the possibility that they are “distorting Paul’s words,” though, he insists, “not … substantially” (Frankfurter 2001, 148, emphasis original). Many of John’s warnings do relate to matters under dispute in Pauline communities, but these warnings do not appear to represent Paul’s own views. Perhaps the biggest challenge to Frankfurter’s thesis is that John himself makes use of Paul’s letter-writing conventions in his prescript to the letters to the seven churches.9 While John’s “letters” to the churches draw upon literary conventions more akin to imperial edicts—not surprising considering John credits Jesus, “the ruler of the kings of the earth” (1:5), with the authorship of these “letters”—he prefaces the letters to the seven churches with a letter of his own that does conform to known epistolary conventions.10 In Rev 1:4 John writes: “John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come … .” Those familiar with Paul’s letters will see the obvious similarities: Paul opens all of his letters with the name of the sender in the nominative (superscriptio), followed by the recipient in the dative case (adscriptio), and a salutation (salutatio) of grace and peace. Paul frequently also specifies the ultimate source of the salutation in a subsequent prepositional phrase as we find here in John’s epistolary prescript. The only surviving Pauline letter lacking this source clause is 1 Thessalonians, widely regarded to be Paul’s

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earliest surviving letter. So it would seem that once Paul’s letter-writing career began in earnest, he decided to include a final prepositional phrase specifying the divine source of his salutation. Much has been written on Paul’s epistolary style, and while Paul does draw extensively on prior epistolary conventions, Paul’s literary form is an “experiment” in Jesus-follower letter writing (Koester 1979). As Helmut Koester (1979, 33) has noted, “ … when 1 Thessalonians was composed, no species or genre of the Christian letter existed, nor was there a pattern for the incorporation of particular sub-genres and forms, nor had the literary vocabulary and terminology of this type of writing been established.” While Koester’s statement requires some nuance—1 Thessalonians is best understood as a Hellenistic Jewish letter and as such it is not wholly without precedent—Koester is correct in emphasizing the novelty of the Pauline letter. Paul adapts existing epistolary forms to create a style of his own. Consider, for example, Paul’s salutation language of “grace” and “peace,” which differs from other Jewish and Greco-Roman epistolary formulas of the day. Scholars suspect that Paul has adapted the conventional Greek “greetings” (chairein) and combined it with the traditional language of “peace” (shlvm) found in Jewish salutations and blessings to create a salutatio of his own.11 If the prescript in Revelation closely resembles the openings of Paul’s letters, it is likely because John was familiar with at least some of Paul’s letters, and deliberately chose to emulate the apostle’s style. John is not alone in making use of Paul’s epistolary style; Paul’s letters became an epistolary template for later followers of Jesus. At around the same time, people writing letters in Paul’s name are likewise drawing upon his epistolary style (e.g., Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians, and Titus), as are those writing under different pseudonyms or even their own names (e.g., 1 Peter, 1 Clement, Ignatius; Koester 1979, 33). But John’s adoption of Paul’s epistolary style raises an important question: if Frankfurter is right that John seeks to guard members of the seven churches against the demonic influence of Pauline teachings, we might wonder why John would preface the letters to the seven churches with a prescript composed in Paul’s epistolary style. The choice is odd–inconsistent, if not contradictory. At the same time, it is hard not to sense the specter of Paul behind many of the warnings in Revelation 2 and 3.12 The constellation of terminology that appears in the letters to the seven churches—eating of things sacrificed to idols, pseudo-Jews, sexual immorality, and the testing of false apostles—all point to Paul’s letters as, in some way and at least in part, the backdrop for John’s warnings. While these accusations do appear elsewhere in Jewish literature of the day, to find them all coalesce in Paul and Revelation 2–3, the work of an author, who demonstrates an awareness of at least some of Paul’s letters, strongly indicates that John is here drawing on Paul. A fresh review of the evidence suggests that rather than viewing John’s “others” as gentile converts within Pauline communities, we should consider the possibility that

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John is adapting Paul’s polemical rhetoric for his own purposes in the letters to the seven churches. John might not be opposing Pauline Jesus-followers as much as he is allowing Paul’s language of discredit to structure his own. Consider the parallel that Frankfurter and others have drawn between John’s warning against those who say they are Jews yet are not (Rev 2:9, 3:9) and Romans 2:17. In Romans Paul is critical of those who might claim the name Jew: “If you call yourself a Jew … ” (ei de sy Ioudaios eionomazē … ). There is some debate among scholars whether Paul has in mind here gentiles who claim to be Jews (Frankfurter 2001, 420–21), or a pretentious teacher whom Paul uses rhetorically as a hypothetical interlocutor (Stowers 1994, 150–52), but what is clear is that Paul is critical of such a person. A few verses later (Romans 2:22, 24), Paul will imply that a person who makes a false claim to Judaism might also be guilty of “adultery” (moicheueis) and “blasphemy” (to gar onoma tou theou di’ hymas blasphēmeitai), language strikingly similar to John’s other accusations in the letters to the seven churches and elsewhere in Revelation (e.g., 2:14, 20, 21; 13:6). John even explicitly characterizes the claims of the pseudo-Jews as “blasphemy” in his initial warning in 2:9, i.e., “the blasphemy (blasphēmia) of those that say they are Jews yet are not.”13 It would seem that if John did know Romans 2, he is not criticizing members of Pauline communities, but borrowing some of Paul’s language of discredit and repurposing it for his own polemical aims. A similar argument could be made on the basis of John’s possible use of 1 Corinthians 8 and 10. Frankfurter has argued that John objects to Paul’s liberal attitude toward eating idol meat, and that it is members of Paul’s own communities that John accuses of eating “things sacrificed to idols” (2:14, 20). But Paul’s stance on consuming idol meat is not as clear cut as Frankfurter and others have presented it. While it is true that the apostle does appear initially to adopt a liberal attitude toward it, by Chapter 10 he has seemingly reversed his position: “ … if someone says to you, ‘This has been offered in sacrifice,’ then do not eat it … ” (1 Cor 10:28). To understand why Paul appears to equivocate here, we must recognize that in Chapters 8 and 10, Paul is in dialogue with an influential group within the community. These believers have from time to time been identified as “gnostics,” but they are better understood to be Jesus-followers who believed they were more knowledgeable than other members of the community. As I have argued elsewhere (Smith 2018, 98–9), I understand these members of the community, whom I term the knowers and the sages, to have been a prominent charismatic faction within the Corinthian community. They came to see themselves as the inheritors of God’s eschatological gift of knowledge, and fragments of their own teachings surface occasionally in 1 Corinthians as pithy truisms that scholars customarily refer to as the Corinthian slogans. Several of these slogans appear in Paul’s discussion of meat sacrificed to idols. Apparently, the knowers and sages had strong views on the matter. Rather than confront these prominent members of the community directly (the way he does with the so-called “super apostles” in 2 Corinthians), Paul

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here adopts a subtler approach. He responds by first finding common ground, and then later by introducing his own position, which differs from that of his Corinthian rivals. Paul even quotes their own slogans back to them. What some scholars point to as evidence of Paul’s own view on eating meat sacrificed to idols are actually the views of the knowledgeable Corinthians Paul is quoting: “all of us possess knowledge” (8:1), “no idol in the world really exists” (8:4), etc. But Paul’s own view does become clear later in Chapters 8 and 10, where he exhorts the Corinthians to avoid eating idol meat out of consideration for others (di’ ekeinon … kai tēn syneidēsin … tou heterou) (10:28–29). Therefore, it is not Paul who holds the liberal attitude toward eating meat sacrificed to idols, but members of one particular faction in Corinth. Paul’s view is more conservative and more nuanced. Paul’s rivals believe that idols are “nothing,” whereas he himself considers idols to be avatars of demons (10:20–21) and exhorts the Corinthians not to eat anything sacrificed to demons. If John knew these passages, he may well have made use of Paul’s own position against eating meat sacrificed to idols—“do not eat it” (10:28)—in his warnings against opponents. It remains an open question whether John’s warning should be understood as a literal warning against those who consume idol meat or as a metaphorical warning issued against those whom John considers to be unfaithful to God, but in either case the Pauline inspiration for John’s warnings is apparent.14 In light of these similarities in language between Paul’s and John’s polemics, it is worth discussing also John’s reference to false apostles. To the church in Ephesos, John writes “I know your works, your toil and your endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them to be false” (Rev 2:2). Interestingly, John’s recognition of the “works” (erga), “toil” (kopos), and “endurance” (hypomonē) of the Ephesians closely resembles Paul’s language at the beginning of 1 Thessalonians, where he recalls the “work of faith” (ergon tēs pisteōs), “labor of love” (kopos tēs agapēs), and “steadfastness of hope” (hypomonē tēs elpidos) of the Jesusfollowers in Thessaloniki (1 Thess 1:3, Aune 1997, 142). John seems not only to be aware of Paul’s polemical language, but of his language of commendation as well. While it might be tempting to follow Frankfurter and understand John’s false apostles to be a reference to Paul himself, in light of the pattern we’ve established of John echoing Paul’s polemical rhetoric, it seems more likely that John is again simply repurposing Paul’s own polemic against so-called false apostles in 2 Corinthians 11:13–15. Paul characterizes his rivals as “false apostles (pseudepostoloi), deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.” Paul goes on to liken the false apostles to Satan, who “disguises himself as an angel of light” (11:14), and in language that resembles John’s notion of the “synagogue of Satan” in Revelation 2:9, Paul calls the false apostles ministers of Satan (“his ministers,” hoi diakonoi autou) in 2 Cor 11:15.15

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Conclusion

I agree with Frankfurter and others who have detected Paul in the backdrop of John’s letters to the seven churches. However, careful examination of the parallels between Revelation and Paul strongly suggests a different relationship than has been posited thus far. John does not appear to be issuing warnings against Pauline or even “neo Pauline” Jesus-followers. Instead, I have argued that John is actually aware of Paul’s own polemical rhetoric and that he is repurposing it for his own aims. By arguing that John borrowed some of Paul’s polemical rhetoric to discredit his opponents, I am not suggesting that John would have agreed with everything he read in Paul’s letters. The two authors disagree on key points of theology and practice. For example, John’s eschatological timeline differs from Paul’s and is much more elaborate (cf. 1 Thess 4:16–17), and unlike Paul, he may even expect his gentile audience to observe the Law, at least in part (Rev 12:17; 14:12).16 It is hard to know whether John would have acknowledged his disagreements with Paul or simply reconciled Paul’s teachings with his own through creative interpretive strategies or even selective reading of the apostle’s letters. John’s reason for making use of Paul’s rhetoric of discredit, however, is more apparent. One of John’s main objectives in the letters to the seven churches—one that he actually shares with Paul—is to convince his audience that all need to be vigilant, since difficult days are ahead. One even suspects that by incorporating Pauline language into his own warnings, John is attempting to establish some degree of continuity between Paul and himself in demonstrating that they are engaged in a common enterprise, since the kinds of people who tried to derail the church in the past continue to pose a threat to the church in his own day. For John, salvation lies in the future, not the past, and only “the one who conquers” (ho nikōn), an expression that appears in each of the seven letters to the churches (2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21), will receive salvation. Even those in good standing according to Revelation 2–3 need to worry about their fate, since they too must make it through the impending trials and tribulations if they are to become conquerors. The warnings Paul issues to motivate his audiences to cling to his teachings, then, enable John to do the same—to create a sense of uncertainty, fear, and anxiety among his readers so they hold fast to his teachings. If I am correct that John is borrowing Paul’s polemical language from texts like 1–2 Corinthians and Romans, and using it to discredit the Nicolaitans, followers of Jezebel, and other groups he considers to be a threat in his own day, then John’s warnings in Revelation 2–3 not only help us profile the rival prophetic groups that he contended with, but also speak to the increasing popularity of Paul’s letters in Asia Minor in the late first century CE. Understanding John to be an interpreter of Paul also suggests a more complex relationship between the Pauline tradition and the book of Revelation

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than Frankfurter has posited. Whereas Frankfurter finds in Revelation 2–3 evidence of sectarian rivalry between Pauline and Johannine Jesus-followers, I recommend that we shift the focus to the intertextual relationships between John and Paul. If we do, we will come to see John not as a rival of Paul, but as someone who is building upon the Pauline tradition. It is certainly true that John never mentions Paul by name, nor does he endow his message with the authority of the apostle, preferring instead to credit Jesus as the ultimate source of his revelation (Rev 1:1). It is true too that John’s own beliefs and practices differ significantly from Paul’s. But it is also apparent that John’s own religious outlook in the letters to the seven churches was, at least in part, shaped by Paul’s, and in this way, John’s letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2–3 belong to the Pauline tradition. Notes 1 Strictly speaking the letters to the seven churches are pseudepigraphic, since they were allegedly dictated by Jesus, who died several decades before Revelation was written and was likely not literate. But for the sake of simplicity, I will attribute them to John. Additionally, many scholars prefer to characterize John’s “letters” as “messages,” since they are not properly epistles ( Friesen 2001; Stewart Lester 2018). However, since these seven passages in Revelation 2–3 are customarily referred to as letters, I will retain that language throughout to avoid confusion with the oracular “messages” that appear later in Revelation. See my additional note below about the epistolary prescript of Revelation 1:4–5, where John does make use of a traditional epistolary form. 2 See Marshall 2001. See also Friesen 2006, who suggests that “neither ‘Christian’ nor ‘Jewish’ is particularly helpful” (141) in understanding the dispute in Rev 2–3. 3 For a recent summary of scholarly views on whether John opposes one or multiple groups in Revelation 2–3, see Koester 2014, 88–89. 4 See especially Baur 1864, 207–30; Volkmar 1862, 80–85. 5 Here Pagels is building upon her previous article on the topic, Pagels 2006. 6 For a recent discussion and bibliography, see Stewart Lester 2018, 31–99. 7 All biblical translations are taken from the NRSVue unless otherwise noted. 8 Friesen also disagrees with Frankfurter’s argument, though on somewhat different grounds. Friesen (2006, 135) argues that the language of “synagogue” in John’s mention of the “synagogue of Satan” likely did not originate in a Pauline context, nor does he share the view of Frankfurter that John cared much about Jewish halakhic practice. 9 Others have also pointed out that John made use of Pauline epistolary conventions. See e.g., Koester 2014, 109–112. 10 On the seven letters as imperial edicts, see Aune 1997, 126–29 and his citations. 11 See e.g., Weiss 1910, 4–5. 2 Maccabees 1:1 serves as another example of a Second Temple author combining Hellenistic and Jewish epistolary forms: “greetings… and … good peace” (chairein… kai … eirēnēn agathēn). See Holloway 2017, 68. 12 On the possible use of New Testament writings in Revelation, see Koester 2014, 80–4. 13 This translation is my own. The similarity between Romans 2:24 and Revelation 2:9 is masked by the tendency to translate blasphēmia as “slander” here (e.g., ESV, NRSV, and NIV).

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14 For discussion of these interpretive options, see Aune 1997, 186–88; Koester 2014, 99–101. 15 Paul’s language in 2 Cor 11:14 may also inform John’s warnings in 2:13 (“Satan’s throne,” “where Satan lives”) and 24 (“deep things of Satan,” possibly in contrast to the depths of God” in 1 Cor 2:10?). 16 Whether this is what John means by “keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus” (12:17), however, is a matter of debate. See e.g., the differing interpretations in Friesen 2006, 135; Frankfurter 2001, 411; Marshall 2001, 16–18.

Bibliography Aune, David E. 1997–1998. Revelation. 3 volumes. Word Biblical Commentaries 52. Nashville: Thomas Nelson. Baur, Ferdinand C. 1864. Vorlesungen über neutestamentliche Theologie. Leipzig: Fues. Cohen, Shaye J. D. 1993. “Those Who Say They Are Jews and Are Not’: How Do You Know a Jew in Antiquity When You See One?” Pages 1–45 in Diasporas in Antiquity. Edited by Shaye J. D. Cohen, and Ernest S. Frerichs. Brown Judaic Studies 288. Atlanta: Scholars. Frankfurter, David. 2001. “Jews or Not? Reconstructing the “Other” in Rev 2:9 and 3:9,” Harvard Theological Review 94:403–425. Friesen, Steven J. 2001. Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the Ruins. New York: Oxford. Friesen, Steven J. 2006. “Sarcasm in Revelation 2–3: Churches, Christians, True Jews, and Satanic Synagogues.” Pages 127–145 in The Reality of the Apocalypse: Rhetoric and Politics in the Book of Revelation. Edited by David L. Barr. Symposium Series 39. Atlanta: SBL. Holloway, Paul A. 2017. Philippians: A Commentary. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress. Koester, Craig R. 2014. Revelation. A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Koester, Helmut. 1979. “I Thessalonians—Experiment in Christian Writing.” Pages 33–44 in Continuity and Discontinuity in Church History: Essays Presented to George Huntston Williams on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday. Edited by Frank Forrester Church and Timothy Francis George. Leiden: Brill. Marshall, John W. 2001. Parables of War: Reading John’s Jewish Apocalypse. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Pagels, Elaine. 2006. “The Social History of Satan, Part Three: John of Patmos and Ignatius of Antioch: Contrasting Visions of ‘God’s People’.” Harvard Theological Review 99:487–505. Pagels, Elaine. 2012. Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation. New York: Penguin. Smith, Geoffrey S. 2015. Guilt by Association: Heresy Catalogues in Early Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press. Smith, Geoffrey S. 2018. “Contesting the Gift of Gnosis in 1 Corinthians.” Pages 97–115 in Envisioning God in the Humanities: Essays on Christianity, Judaism, and Ancient Religion in Honor of Melissa Harl Sellew. Edited by Courtney Friesen. Westar Seminar on God and the Human Future. Eugene, OR: Cascade.

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Stewart Lester, Olivia. 2018. Prophetic Rivalry, Gender, and Economics: A Study in Revelation and Sibylline Oracles 4–5. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 466. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Stowers, Stanley. 1994. A Reading of Romans: Justice, Jews, & Gentiles. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Volkmar, Gustav. 1862. Commentar zur Offenbarung Johannes. Zürich: Drell, Füssli, und Comp. Weiss, Johannes. 1910. Der erste Korintherbrief. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

5

Subversive Consumption Revelation’s Food Discourse within Roman Narratives of Invasive Foreignness1 Nathan Leach

5.1

Introduction

In Revelation 17, John represents the Woman Babylon as holding a cup full of “abominations and impurities of fornication,” from which she herself has become “drunk with the blood of the holy and of witnesses to Jesus,” and from which she is said to have caused others to drink and become drunk as well (17:2, 4–6; cf. 16:6; 18:6, 24).2 This imagery has often been explained simply with reference to Jewish purity laws about blood and revulsion for blood-drinking, and with little connection to the other alimentary elements spread throughout the work (with a couple of notable exceptions I will return to below).3 Similarly, John’s criticism of those eating eidōlothyta (or, meat with sacrificial/idolatrous connections) has typically been interpreted as an isolated problem in the opening oracles, not as an issue pervasively engaged in the work (and not typically connected to the later blood-drinking imagery). This chapter connects these two elements within Revelation, reading both within a larger set of Roman discourses surrounding associational meal practices, foreignness, and anthropophagy. The accusation of blood-drinking (a sub-genre of human-eating) and humansacrificing (often escalated to the sacrifice/eating of a child) appear frequently in Roman descriptions of conspiracies and tyrants, “uncivilized” foreigners on the periphery of Roman “civilization” (or dangerously encroaching into a Roman center), and “magical” ritual practices. Through such charges, those accused were associated with geographic “foreignness” and were characterized as invasive and corrosive elements within Roman society. Such charges of subversive consumption and associated behaviors were attached especially to groups or individuals whose abstinence from particular foods, civic sacrifices, or sexual activity was seen as at odds with their surrounding society. In this chapter, I argue that Revelation’s repeated use of blood-drinking imagery is entangled with the work’s wider references to (attempted) childeating, murder, and sexual immorality, as well as the work’s opposition toward particular Christ-following assemblies and members in Roman Western Asia Minor (centered rhetorically on accusations of eating eidōlothyta and of sexual immorality). This whole web of images and accusations, I argue, DOI: 10.4324/9781003344247-8

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ambivalently draws on the wider Roman rhetorical discourse about anthropophagy and “foreign” existential threats to society—a discourse Revelation utilizes even while resisting similar rhetorical representations of Christfollowers and/or Judaeans with whom John identifies. 5.2

Mapping Anthropophagy

Ancient geographies and travelogues often incorporated ethnographic descriptions of ostensibly animalistic (e.g., “dog-faced”) and “uncivilized” people beyond the peripheries of Greek and Roman experience, some of whom are accused of practicing anthropophagy (human-eating). Herodotus, for example, talks about multiple ethnē in India (Issedones, 4.26; Callatiae, 3.38; Padaei, 3.99) and vaguely beyond Scythia (4.64, 106) as human-eaters or blood-drinkers. Strabo similarly accuses people of the Caucasus (15.1.56) of human-eating, Philostratus accuses Ethiopians (Vit. Apoll. 6.25), and Aristotle (Pol. 8.3.4), Pomponius Mela (Chron. 2.1.2), and Pliny the Elder (Nat. 7.9–10) all accuse the Scythians or others who live near them (McGowan 1994, 429–30; Rives 1995, 70–2). Such fantastical charges of human consumption did not remain in geographies and travelogues, however; they were also attached to people and groups right at the center of Roman political life. As has been repeatedly demonstrated, charges of human-eating (including blood-drinking), ritual murder, and sexual immorality were not uncommon in the intramural rhetoric of Roman political and religious competition. Such charges were regularly attached to political figures accused of tyranny, to people or practices characterized as “foreign” incursions, and to ritual groups cast as mysterious, secretive, or misanthropic (and these areas could all easily be combined). Accounts of the Cataline conspiracy, for instance, begin with Sallust’s salacious claim that the conspirators swore an oath over a draught of wine mixed with human blood (Bell. Cat. 22), which subsequently morphed into Plutarch’s claim that they sacrificed and ate a person (Cic. 10.4) and Cassius Dio’s claim (Hist. 37.30) that they sacrificed a young boy and ate parts of him. Similarly, Livy retrospectively cast the banning of Bacchic initiations in Rome as the suppression of a political “conspiracy” that shook Rome to its core, involving secretive ritual murders (including dismemberment), a range of salacious sexual acts, and occultic “magic,” all cast as a fundamentally “foreign” (in this case, Greek)4 contagion invading the Roman center (Livy, Ab urbe con. 39.8-39; Harrill 2008, 141; McGowan 1994, 431). In a more overtly metaphorical vein, both Cicero and Seneca describe a despotic Marc Antony as having a “tyrannical appetite for citizen blood,” on which he “gorged himself” and “drank deeply” (Cicero, Phil. 2.59, 72; Seneca, Ep. 83.25)5—and these Roman writers also characterize despotism itself as “Eastern” and are quick to emphasize Antony’s connections with Egypt, Cleopatra, and Asia Minor. The geographic, ethnic, and political elements of such charges were similarly intertwined in the accusations that Apion (according to Josephus, C. Ap. 2.89)

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published in Rome while he was there on an embassy opposing citizenship rights for Alexandrian Judaeans. Apion reported that, in accordance with Judaean Law, Judaeans annually captured, fattened up, sacrificed, and ate a Gentile in the Jerusalem temple, accompanied by oaths from participants binding them to “show no good will to anyone of another race, especially the Greeks.”6 According to Josephus, Apion was neither the first to spread such stories nor the first to use them as a justification for political action against ostensibly misanthropic Judaeans.7 While Josephus—in the midst of presenting Judaeans as generally loyal and upstanding citizens of the empire—obviously dismisses these stories as slander, he was also not above redeploying the same trope against particular Judaeans when it fit the politics of his project. Echoing rhetoric against Antony, in his Jewish War Josephus characterizes the rebels in Jerusalem as gnawing and tearing the body of their country and drinking the blood of their countrymen—a metaphor that escalates into actual humaneating within the besieged Jerusalem as an outcome of the rebels’ actions (e.g., 5.27–28; cf. 5.2–5, 440–441; 6.372–373). Similarly, Lollianus’s 2nd c. CE novel Phoinikika blends these elements to describe a fantastical group of (probably North African) lēstai who capture the novel’s protagonist. Lollianus represents the group both as predatory outlaws and as a secretive group of “initiates” (muoumenoi) who engage in heinous rituals, including sacrificing a boy, eating parts of him, and drinking (and forcing victims to drink) his blood from a large, richly decorated chalice as part of their initiation rituals (which also include conspiratorial and/or initiatory oaths to each other).8 Achilles Tatius’s Leucippe and Clitophon (also 2nd c. CE) similarly includes a group of Egyptian bandits (here called boukoloi) who are accused of sacrificing and partially eating human victims. Cassius Dio (Hist. 71.4.1) reports as history the existence of an Egyptian group of bandits called boukoloi that he says sacrificed and ate the entrails of a Roman official in 172 CE (which, while frequently taken as the reality behind the novelistic accounts, may simply be another example of the trope applied by Romans to Egyptians).9 If Lollianus is familiar with this wider narrative, then the bandit “initiates” of Phoinikika may be a punning play on the image of Dionysiac initiates (boukoloi). In any case, the concepts of foreignness and mysteric secrecy blend here with notions of conspiratorial or misanthropic elements in society. As Andrew McGowan (1994, 416) notes, discussing many of the cases mentioned above, social charges of anthropophagy were linked to geographic and ethnographic ways of mapping the center and periphery of the “civilized” world and the dangers outsiders posed to it: It was natural (perhaps inevitable) and of less consequence that those on the literal, geographic margins of the social body, Scythians or Indians, should act in such ways. It was problematic, however, for there to be a growing number of people in the midst, in Rome and the great cities of the Empire, who behaved in such a way as to invite characterization as devourers of Romans and of Romanitas itself.

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As McGowan and others have noted, Christian apologists in the second and third centuries CE (beginning no later than Justin) repeatedly defended Christians against this matrix of anthropophagic charges.10 However, like Josephus, Christian writers also redeployed these charges, both against their Roman accusers and against other Christians who they grafted into spreading heresiological family trees. Thus far, however, the rhetoric of Revelation has not been located within this larger spatializing rhetoric of “foreign” anthropophagic incursion. 5.3

Relationship of Communal Meals and Sacrificial Practices to the Charge

As is clear in the case of Apion’s charge against Judaeans and the particular oaths mentioned in it, these types of charges could be attached with particular social persuasiveness to groups that were already seen as standing apart, in some way, from socially normalized meal practices, sacrifices, or sexual practices. Across the range of voluntary, philosophical, and cultic associations there is evidence for a wide variety of associational meal regulations,11 and the contestation of particular meal practices—or the friction created simply by the proximity of divergence—was frequently antagonistic. Orphic Bacchoi and Pythagoreans were often associated with dietary restrictions including the avoidance of meat or wine,12 while for other types of Dionysiac ritual and initiation, wine was an essential element and the eating of raw flesh was sometimes involved (or, perhaps, its tearing and offering to Dionysus).13 The fact that these groups are not internally uniform or always sharply distinguishable from each other meant that external characterizations of such groups could easily (intentionally or not) elide such dietary differences. We might note, for example, Plato (Resp. 363c–d) and Plutarch (Cim. 1.2) ridiculing the followers of Orpheus—depicted elsewhere as ascetic—as banquet revelers looking forward to eternal drunkenness and feasting in the afterlife. Similarly, while there was no general Judaean prohibition on wine or meat, there are Judaean precedents for the rejection of meat and/or wine in particular conditions or within particular groups, either because of a particular ascetic diet or because of a contextual association with idolatrous sacrifice.14 The practice of not eating with Gentiles—even though it was not followed universally—could similarly be presented by antagonists as characteristic of all Judaeans and as evidence of misanthropic behavior. We see the earliest evidence of similar rejections of meat as eidōlothyta among Christ-followers in Paul’s first Corinthian letter (1 Cor 8:7–13; 10:23–28), though it is clear even there that Christ-followers are divided on the topic.15 In these various cases, alimentary abstentions like the rejection of meat were frequently part of a broader refusal to participate in the cultic sacrificing and eating of animals (whether for monotheistic reasons within Gentile cities or because of beliefs about the ensouled nature of

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animals—which made sacrifice/meat-eating comparable to murder/anthropophagy).16 Such abstinence constituted not simply a dietary restriction, then, but a larger ascetic withdrawal from normalized social and civic practices that often made such groups socially suspect.17 The rejection of meat among Christfollowers (where it was rejected) is similarly intertwined with a rejection of wider sacrificial correlations/practices (McGowan 2010, 184). With few exceptions (e.g., a kosher butcher), meat for sale in the Roman world would have generally been killed ritually, at an altar, whether this was done in a temple as a sacrifice (and the meat distributed) or done at one of the many altars (ranging from portable to monumental) in the agora—for anyone sensitive to the issue, virtually all meat would have to be considered eidōlothyta. This is evident in Paul’s discussion of the issue in 1 Cor, where he specifically mentions both dining in temples (8:10) and meat sold in the market and eaten in homes (10:25–28), but concludes that, in order to show sensitivity toward those conscientious about eidōlothyta, “I will never eat meat again” (ou mē phagō krea eis ton aiōna; 8:13). Charges of anthropophagy—in various configurations—leveled against real or fictive initiatory cultic groups could also be socially credible in part because the actual rites of such groups were not known in detail outside the groups themselves.18 Dionysiac groups drew quite a few such accusations, whether in a case like the Bacchanal affair in Rome, in charges related to Maenadic rituals/stories, or in relation to the rituals/stories of the child Dionysus being cooked and partially devoured by the Titans.19 Similarly, Orphics and Pythagoreans are sometimes accused of such practices (and of sexual immoralities), despite—or perhaps, as McGowan and others have suggested, because of—their abstinence from meat, wine, and at times sex.20 That all these groups were regularly characterized as, in some sense, “foreign” to the “civilized” Roman context allowed them to more easily be characterized through these tropes as dangerous. We might note here Seneca’s reference (Ep. 118.20–22) to his own Pythagorean abstinence from meat during the reign of Tiberius, which he says he had to abandon because the practice was seen as implicating one in the superstitio of “foreign rites” that were then being prosecuted in Rome (which coincides with the temporary suppression of Egyptian and Judaean rites to which Tacitus refers).21 Similarly, when these charges emerge in relation to Christians, it is a charge specifically pertaining to communal meal practices and perhaps particularly to practices of abstention.22 Pliny’s (Ep. 10.96; cf. Tacitus, Ann. 15.44) vague references to the crimes (flagitia) of the Christians represent the group as a problem primarily because they are leading people to abandon the temples and sacrifices. While he does not specify what “crimes” they are accused of, Pliny’s investigation includes specifically inquiring about their meal practices and oaths, ultimately concluding that their oaths were for moral purposes and their meals were not unusual. Tacitus mentions Christian flagitia when justifying Nero’s attack on Christians in Rome, which might have been along lines similar to the charges in the Bacchanal ban or to those spread in Rome by Apion (and possibly used to justify temporary expulsions of Judaeans).23

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5.4

Revelation’s Anthropophagy Charges

The rhetoric of anthropophagy, murder, and sexual immorality in Revelation can be related to these larger discourses at two levels. The first, and perhaps most obvious once this public discourse has been laid out, is the way such imagery appears within the mythic representations of the Dragon, Beasts, and Woman Babylon in Revelation 12–13 and 17. The second is the way this rhetoric interacts with that used against other Christ-followers in the cities of Roman Western Asia Minor in Rev 2–3 and how it potentially relates to Revelation’s contestation of meal practices within those communities. I will address these each in turn. I follow the general consensus that the Woman Babylon in Revelation 17 is a parodied representation of the goddess Roma—here inverted into a low-class, enslaved sex worker—personifying Rome itself and imperial rule (e.g., Duff 2001, 97–112; D. E. Smith 2014, 139–85; Friesen 2001, 85–91; Koester 2014, 692–5; Schüssler Fiorenza 2006, 243–269). Here the brutalization of the Woman Babylon in Revelation 17–18 inverts images like those displayed on the walls of the Sebasteion in Aphrodisias, in which heroically masculine emperors (Claudius and Nero) brutalize the feminine bodies of personified foreign nations (Britannia and Armenia). In Revelation, the Woman is closely associated with the Beasts that represent the Empire, its emperors, and its provincial government, and through them she is associated with the Dragon—the cosmic patron of Rome and its cultic system (Rev 13)24—who attempts to devour the child in Rev 12:4. The charge that Roma/Babylon is both sexually immoral and drunk on the blood of the righteous (as well as causing others to drink blood), fits—in terms of this wider anthropophagy discourse—with Revelation’s broader parody of Roma. Revelation’s repeated associations of the Roman Beasts and Woman with idolatrous sacrifices and worship, as well as with “magic” and “mysteries” (esp. Rev 13 and 17), similarly fit the trope. While the Woman of Revelation 17 represents Roma and the Beasts represent the various tiers of Roman imperial and provincial rule and cult, however, they are also associated with foreign locales in a variety of ways.25 The name “Babylon” for the woman (and the inverted imagery of emperors brutalizing foreign nations/women)26 is the most obvious element here, but the Beast she rides is also both the Roman Empire (17:8–11, in conjunction with the Beast of 13:1–10, 18) and associated with the vaguely Parthian/ Scythian threat that haunts the work’s imagery (e.g., 17:12–17, in conjunction with the horseback enemies from across the Euphrates: 9:13–19; 16:12; Koester 2014, 471–2, 656–7, 665, 679). This imagery evokes the wider ancient meme of Nero Redivivus, which frequently entailed the idea of Nero returning with a Parthian army to attack Rome (Cassius Dio, Hist. 66.19.3; Suetonius, Nero 40.2; 57; Sib. Or. 4:115–127, 137–9; Koester 2014, 570–1). It is this vaguely foreign Beast/Empire—which is Rome and is not—that ultimately devours the body of the woman Babylon/Roma herself (Rev 17:16). The anthropophagic threat here, then, is one that is both quintessentially Roman

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and simultaneously a “foreign” threat to Rome and Roman hegemony. It is the blood-drunk Roma herself—and the cultic/political systems that are her clients—that John presents here as a toxic and devouring element that existentially threatens society itself (both Roman society and the assemblies that collude with it).27 Helpful here is Paul Duff’s detailed structural analysis of the eating/ drinking imagery in Revelation (and how it connects the controversies of Rev 2–3 with imagery in Chapters 12, 13, 17, 18, and 21). Duff argues 1) that John uses eating/drinking imagery in connection with the Woman Babylon and the Dragon in ways that perversely mirror the “eucharistic” practices of the Christ-following assemblies,28 and 2) that John does this to deliberately link the internal debate about appropriate meal-practice into his grotesque portrayal of Roman worship practices.29 Duff notes that the Dragon’s attempt to devour the child (12:4)30—who is Christ—and the woman Babylon’s drinking and causing others to drink of blood (specifically, the blood of the prophets and faithful murdered by Rome) and wine from her cup (17:2, 4–6; cf. 16:6; 18:6, 24) altogether represent a death-and-judgment-inducing alimentary image. This image, he argues, mirrors the counter-image of the Mother’s lifegiving nourishment on heavenly food (in 12:6, 14), which connects also to the Edenic imagery of fruit trees and springs of life-giving water in chapter 21 and with the “manna” promised to the righteous in opening letters (Duff 2003, 68–79).31 So Duff a) draws a close connection between the mythic Babylon and the community prophetess Duff (2003, 74–6),32 b) connects the child, the Woman Babylon’s body, and the carrion eaten by the Dragon (attempted eating, in this case), Beast, and birds to the eidōlothyta consumed by the communities (as death-producing alimentary elements),33 and c) contrasts this range of anthropophagic elements with the life-bringing fruit of the tree and water that the righteous consume, both at the mythic/eschatological level and in the individual oracles (2003, 68–79). The various pieces of these structural correlations have been advanced by others besides Duff and since Duff—the Jezebel/Babylon connection in particular has received significant attention. I think Duff’s argument is correct, though I want to adjust it in some particular ways as I move from the mythic alimentary elements to the communal. 5.5

Ascetic Meal Practices and Discourses in Revelation

Among Judaean groups and Christ-followers we have ample evidence from early on that—as was common among voluntary and cultic associations—they participated in community meals, though like all such groups, particular communities had their own distinctive practices.34 While communal meals took place in a range of associations, for some communities the common meal was woven into their distinctive myths and rituals in more nuanced ways. There are frequent references, for example, to a connected eschatological banquet/feast for initiates.35 While a lot of scholarship has tended to sharply distinguish

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an early Christian “eucharistic” meal from a more general communal meal (sometimes called an agapē), I follow McGowan and Vojtěch Kaše (among others) in taking this sharp distinction as an over-reading of the first-century evidence (in light of later differentiations)—Christ-following meal practices during this period should be evaluated in relation to broader association meal practices without assuming any particular meal name, ritual order, officiating words, or myth behind such meals wherever we find them.36 In particular, the idea of drinking Christ’s blood as a positive ritual element in the communal meal practices of the Christ-followers to whom John writes in Revelation should not be assumed—representations of blood-drinking in Revelation are consistently associated with evil entities and drinking judgment, never positively correlated with the holy. It does seem to be the case, however, that in the context of Revelation’s performance, the communal meal is designated, at least in part, as the anticipation of an eschatological banquet (19:9). As with other Christ-following groups (i.e., those indicated in Paul’s letters), tensions over meal-practice—and meat-eating in particular—are clearly a significant issue within at least three of the assemblies of Revelation (or at least John thinks they should be a significant issue). In the oracle to Pergamon, John (in the voice of Christ) denounces all within the assembly who “hold to the teaching of Balaam, who put a stumbling block before the people of Israel, so that they would eat eidōlothyta and practice sexual-immorality” as well as those who “hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans,” promising “hidden manna” to those who reject these teachings (2:14–15, 17). Similarly, John berates the Thyatirans for accepting in their midst the prophetess “Jezebel,” who is likewise said to practice sexual immorality and allow the eating of eidōlothyta (2:20), in addition to teaching what John derisively calls “the deep things of Satan” (2:24)—probably a reference to esoteric or mysteric teachings/initiations.37 The only other mention of these groups is in his praise of the Ephesians for hating the Nicolaitans “as I do” (2:6). The particulars of this dispute are difficult to define given the symbolic references to “Balaam” and “Jezebel” and the (related) enduring Judaean prophetic tropes of sexual infidelity and idolatry as the characteristic sins of all who are (in a given prophet’s view) unfaithful to YHWH.38 The “Nicolaitans” hold no such scriptural referent, however, and since the eating of meat and the associated participation in idolatry are known points of conflict in early Christ-following communities, most commentators have seen John as (minimally) referring to a conflict over whether it is appropriate to eat such food.39 Perhaps because the rest of Revelation lacks specific references to the eating of eidōlothyta, few interpreters have seen the references to meal practices in these opening oracles as pervasively engaged in the rest of the work (except as part of a general contrast between, separation from, or overly comfortable assimilation with a wider idolatrous society). Similarly, while the references to eating the fruit of the tree of life (2:7) and eating the hidden manna (2:17) in the oracles to Ephesos and Pergamon are generally associated with their parallel cosmic/eschatological references later in the work,

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they are not typically taken as having any direct connection with the discussion of eidōlothyta in the same chapters (e.g., Koester 2014, 100, 271). Two recent articles by Roberto Mata and Meredith Warren are important exceptions here, both arguing that the food and drink imagery across Revelation should be understood in the context of the assemblies’ contested meal practices. Mata argues (2018) that these alimentary elements in Rev 2–3 tie into Revelation’s pervasive Exodus discourse, which provides the imagery for Revelation’s ideological, mythical, and practical contrast of those who (in alignment with Rome and the Dragon) eat eidōlothyta and those who (in rejecting Rome and immigrating to the New Jerusalem) will eat the hidden manna. While Mata’s argument helpfully reinforces the wider discursive connections between the eidōlothyta references in Rev 2–3 and the other alimentary elements throughout the work, he does not settle whether the references to eating eidōlothyta are metaphorical or literal, what role eating them might play in collective and/or ritual meal practices of the assemblies to whom John writes, or what particular foods John thinks the assemblies should be eating (none of which needs to be settled for Mata’s particular analysis). Alternatively, Warren (2018, 11) takes the references to eidōlothyta as metaphorical and generic—like the names Balaam and Jezebel and the generically associated charges of sexual immorality—referencing an actual but somewhat different conflict over meal-practice. Warren argues that the particular contested meal-practice among the communities in Asia Minor may have been over wine libation/drinking (the primary point of discussion in her article), with John contrasting wine libation/drinking (associated with the imperial cult) and water drinking (associated with the Christ-following faithful) (2018, 9–11).40 Warren notes that Revelation consistently portrays wine negatively, either in connection to Babylon’s/Roma’s reprehensible practices (14:8; 17:2; 18:3, 13) or as part of a description of judgment upon the wicked (14:10, 19–20; 16:19; 19:15). Warren connects this negative portrayal (particularly in the libation/drinking imagery of ch. 16 and 14:8; 17:2; 18:3) with the practice of meal-time libations to a variety of deities (poured, followed by drinking from the cup), including in most cases libations to/for the genius of the emperor. Against this negative portrayal of wine in Revelation, drinking water is consistently portrayed positively, as something the faithful will do (7:17; 21:6; 22:1, 17). Warren concludes that John may have enjoined water rather than wine in communal meals, following a consistent (if scattered) early Christian practice of ascetic water-only meals.41 While I agree with Warren’s arguments with respect to the rejection of wine-drinking and the promotion of water drinking, I think the specific alimentary conflict Revelation intervenes in relates not simply to a conflict over water or wine-drinking (with the meat-eating simply part of the generic charge), but also to the eating of idolatrous-associated meat within the communities. In particular, I think John’s repeated charge that the Woman Babylon has drunk (and caused others to drink) the blood of the holy (17:2,

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4–6; cf. 16:6; 18:6, 24) plays a critical role in binding together the various meal-related issues in Revelation. Combining the suggestions of Duff, Mata, and Warren with the larger landscape of ancient meal practices and mealpractice accusations discussed above, I suggest that it is not simply Rome and its political/cultic system that is implicated in cultic murder, blood-drinking, and sexual immorality, it is also all in the Christ-following assemblies who (according to John’s evaluation) participate in that system specifically by their meat-eating and wine-drinking practices (which John sees as inseparable from their wider cultic implications). Revelation’s association of the names “Balaam” and “Jezebel” with these practices, then, not only evokes (as has often been noted) stories in which non-Israelite figures led Israel into idolatry and sexual immorality, but also, figures whose foreignness specifically contributes to the intertwined (up and down the tiered chain of associations) charges of anthropophagy, perverse rites, and sexual immorality, all folded together into the picture of a specifically “foreign” and invasive threat to the social body.42 In contrast to the meat-eating and sexually immoral nature of these figures, John represents the faithful as ascetically refraining from such (idolatryentangled) foods and from sex (14:4).43 Since the food that is acceptable is never specified in Revelation in terms as direct as John’s rejection of meat (there are not, for example, references to any “bread of life” as the opposite of the deathproducing meat), it is difficult to be more specific about what John imagined as the appropriate food (with water) for the communal meals. Perhaps bread (corresponding to the manna references—and perhaps assumed, as one of the most common foods in any banquet) or fruit (if the “fruit of the tree of life” is not entirely metaphorical). Fish is also possible as it was not typically included in prohibitions on meat (it did not carry the same sacrificial connotations). All of these could be easily—though in different ways—woven into larger webs of diverse symbolism that might be employed in such communal meals, in general associational settings or in wider Christian practices (McGowan 1999). 5.6

Conclusion

The particular communal meal practices and types of differentiating boundaries employed by John and the Christ-following communities he writes to, then, fall within the usual range of practices, restrictions, and polemics common to the wider landscape of Greek and Roman associations and communal dining. Furthermore, the ascetic meal practices John advocates—rejecting meat and wine—make him and those who follow him look more like Orphic, Pythagorean, and Dionysiac ascetic initiates who similarly reject such foods (part of the reason they are often construed as “foreign” and accused of heinous acts). Whether John is here inverting a charge already made against Judaean and/or Christ-following meal practices in Roman Asia or simply drawing on the wider trope, the charges would have much the same effect: those who might be seen socially as the “usual suspects” for such charges are vindicated—they

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do not even eat meat or drink wine (or have sex)—while the Roman political/ cultic system itself (and those participating in it through their alimentary practices) are painted as the existential “foreign” threat from beyond the boundaries of both the empire and the communities. John’s use of this Roman anthropophagic discourse falls within the wider range of what is now frequently identified as John’s/Revelation’s ambivalence toward colonization and the various discourses and iconographies through which imperial hegemony was (re-)produced. On the macro level, John indicts the emperors/Rome/the Empire with the charge that he and others like him are potentially accused of. On the micro level, John reuses the same discourse of “foreign” social invasion and misanthropy that was spread concerning Judaeans in Rome (and may have contributed to their expulsion from the city), to characterize those within the assemblies (possibly including Judaeans) as entangled with that foreign, misanthropic social infection, thereby justifying his argument for the assemblies rejecting (and expelling?) them and for their exclusion from the New Jerusalem. As in many other respects, the empire of Christ with which John replaces the Roman empire maps people onto a center and periphery, with the latter populated by monstrous people that endanger and consume the collective body if allowed in. Notes 1 I dedicate this article to Steven Friesen, with much appreciation for his work, teaching, mentorship, and friendship. Ideas in this chapter were first presented in the SBL Annual Meeting units John’s Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern (2021) and Meals in the Greco-Roman World (2022). I want to thank the organizers, respondents, and attendees from those units for their questions, insights, and encouragement. 2 Unless otherwise noted, all translations are the author’s. 3 See, for example, Aune 1998, 936–8; Koester 2014, 674–6. If one is content to explain this grotesque imagery simply in terms of a taboo against blood-drinking (and body-eating) one need not appeal to the Torah to do so: Greeks/Romans in general were no less repulsed by the idea of drinking blood and eating people. 4 On “magic”—like “mysteries”—originating in “foreign” locales and migrating into the Greek/Roman world, see Henrichs 1970, 20. Rives (1995, 77–9) also notes the association of human sacrifice with magic in Roman law. “Mysteries” (e.g., of Dionysus, at Eleusis, and of Isis and Serapis) were routinely identified as “foreign” and imported (Herodotus, Hist. 2.42.2; 2.48.2–49.1; 2.114.2; Plut., Is. Os. 35; Diodorus Siculus, Bib. hist. 1.96.4–5; 4.25.1). See Gasparro 2011; Tinh 1982, 104–5. 5 Plutarch (Ant. 24.4) similarly criticizes Antony, sardonically noting that the crowds in Rome hailed him as Dionysus, with the conflicting implication that he is either the “Savior” or the “Eater-of-Raw-Flesh” (both Dionysian titles). Harrill 2008, 133–58; Rives 1995, 65–85. 6 Cassius Dio (Hist. 68.32.1–2) reports similar anthropophagic atrocities perpetrated by Judaeans against “both Romans and Greeks” during the 115 CE Cyrene revolt. 7 The charge spread by Apion may have contributed to the temporary expulsion of Judaeans from Rome in 41 or 49 CE (Cassius Dio, Hist. 60.6.6. Orosius, HAP 7.6.15; see Henrichs 1970, 23; Rives 1995, 70–2).

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8 Henrichs 1970, 29–32; McGowan 1994, 429–30; Stephens and Winkler 1995, 314–57. 9 Henrichs 1970; Stephens and Winkler 1995, 319–21. 10 Justin, 1 Apol. 26.7; 2 Apol. 12; Athenagoras, Leg. 3.35//Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.1; Theophilus of Antioch, Autol. 3.4–5, 15; Tatian, Or. Graec. 25.3; Tertullian, Apol. 7.1; Ad nat. 1.15.2; Minucius Felix, Oct. 9.2. 11 Ascough 2019, 204; Kloppenborg 2019, 228–229. 12 For example, Plutarch, De esu 1.996c; Iamblichus, Vit. Pyth. 82; see Detienne 1989; Burkert 1985, 301–2; McGowan 1999, 69–72. 13 Burkert 1985, 277, 302; Detienne 1989; Henrichs 1978. 14 For example, Daniel 1:8–16; Philo, Contempl. 37, 73–4, 81; m. ʿAbod. Zar. 2.3. See also the pērushim rejecting meat and wine in the wake of the 70 CE Temple destruction (m. B. Bat. 60b; t. Soṭah, 15.11–12; Midr. Teh. 137.6). McGowan 1999, 79–86; Rives 1995, 72. 15 Other early Christ-followers issued strict prohibitions against the consumption of eidōlothyta: Acts 15:20, 29; 21:25; Did. 6:3; Justin, Dial. 34–35; Irenaeus, Haer. 1.6.3; 1.24.5; 1.28.2; Clement, Paed. 2.1). Koester 2014, 100. 16 Burkert 1972, 124, 180; Detienne 1989; McGowan 1999, 67–88. 17 With respect to Judaeans, such withdrawal was sometimes ridiculed as part of a Judaean misanthropy toward non-Judaeans (e.g., Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 5.33.4) but was nevertheless generally seen as part of ancestral ethnic identification, which carried a general respectability. Orphics and Pythagoreans could also be seen as on the periphery of society at times (when it suited the interests of the person making such distinctions) but also had a long Greek pedigree of respectability. 18 The ritual meal of Christ-followers may well have been open only to the initiated/ baptized (cf. Did. 9:5; Kaše 2019, 421). This could explain why Pliny knew only rumors about their practice and learned about their conduct through torturing participants rather than simply sending someone to observe. 19 See detailed discussion in Bonnechere 1994, 181–225; Sanz 2013. Livy’s description of the expulsion of Bacchic mystery cults from Rome in 186 BCE (much more salacious than the senatorial decree from the time) describes the group as a “conspiracy” (conjuratio) engaged in wild rites involving out-of-control sexuality, ecstatic behavior, ritual murder (implying dismemberment), and anthropophagy (Ab urbe cond. 39.8–39). Harrill 2008, 141; McGowan 1994, 431. 20 Edwards (1992, 80) and McGowan (1994, 425) note the frequent suspicion that those who ascetically abstained (in terms of meal practices, public sacrifices, or sexual practice) were most likely turning to darker appetite fulfillment. We might note that, in Livy’s account of the Bacchanal affair in Rome, charges that the group was engaging in sexual outrages and murder did not begin circulating until a member informed his mistress that he had to abstain from sex for a period of time in preparation for initiation ( Edwards 1992, 77; McGowan 1994, 423–5). 21 Birgit van der Lans (2015) correlates this remark with Tacitus’s reference to the temporary suppression of Egyptian and Judaean rites (described as “infecting superstition”) in Italy (Ann. 2.85). 22 The most common apologetic refutation of the charge (beginning with Justin) is to argue that the accusation originates with the truly guilty (with mythic stories like Chronos eating his children frequently demonstrating the point). Heresiologist frequently level the same charges against various Christ-following groups, presumably for all the same reasons the charge was otherwise used and with as little credibility (Irenaeus, Haer. 1.20.2; Epiphanius, Pan. 26.5.5; Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.7.11). Albert Henrich is appropriately skeptical that Christians or Greeks/Romans actually carried out any such rights, but speculates that something like them may really have been practiced by Christian heretics or North African/Egyptian/Syrian people

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( Henrichs 1970, 35)—a conclusion that seems itself to be an unjustified application of the trope. Henrichs 1970, 18–28; McGowan 1994, 417–21; Rives 1995, 74–5. Friesen 2003; van Henten 2006. The foreignness of “Babylon” (and her particular sexualization) within this depiction cannot be separated from her gendering as a woman ( Huber 2019; Stewart Lester 2018; Smith 2014). As has often been noted, this type of iconography is not uniquely Roman: the same motif of a divine/royal figure brutalizing the feminine personification of a nation appears frequently in the Hebrew prophets, often directed against foreign women/nations (e.g., Tyre in Isa 23, Nineveh in Nahum 3). This type of contestation of who is truly upholding or subverting Rome itself was not uncommon. We might look, for example, at Philostratus’ account of the life of Apollonius of Tyana, in which the wandering (Pythagorean) prophet—following his prophecies against Domitian in Asia Minor—is charged by Domitian with being a practitioner of magic, of conspiring with Nerva and other rebels against the state, and of having sacrificed a boy as part of a divinatory right connected to the conspiracy. Philostratus frames the whole account of charges against Apollonius as one in which, in the end, Apollonius “left the court having convicted the tyrant rather than being himself convicted” (Vit. Apoll. 7.2, 20; 7.2–3, 17, 33–4; 8.5; see Henrichs 1970, 20; Rives 1995, 79). Duff assumes that “Christian eucharist” includes the concept of consuming Jesus’s body and blood ( Duff 2001, 104), an assumption heavily factored into his analysis of the eucharist/anti-eucharist imagery in Revelation. Fergus King (2004, 303–25) has also argued for reading Rev 17:2–6 as eucharistic inversion, similarly assuming that the eucharist itself included the concept of “drinking Jesus’s blood” (cf. Barr 1998, 171–2). Notably, drinking blood (generally or Christ’s in particular) is never a positive image in Revelation—that is characteristically an action of the evil figures/system that killed/sacrificed Christ and his followers, not of the faithful themselves. Assumptions about blood-drinking (and body-eating) as an early eucharistic concept need not be read into the alimentary material in Revelation. We can—as McGowan and Kaše suggest generally doing with early Christ-following meal practices (see below)—simply read the Christ-following debate over meal practices against the landscape of wider meal practices and accusations. Duff 2003, 68, 101–2. There are, perhaps, echoes here as well of the Titan’s attempt to eat Dionysus—reduplicated in Nonnus’s 5th c. CE Dionysiaca in Hera attempting to induce the daughters of Lamnos into chopping up and eating the second-born, infant Dionysus in a “flood of madness” (Dionys. 9.28). Leslie Baynes (2019) has compellingly argued for wider allusions to Dionysus’ story here in Revelation. Duff notes that the Mother in Rev 12 is usually taken—at least to some extent—as representing the earthly Christ-following faithful, and the amount of time she is fed “in the wilderness” with “heavenly food” corresponds directly to John’s calculation of how much time remains until the eschaton (12:6; cf. 11:2–3; 12:14; 13:5—the number itself is, of course, adopted from Daniel). From this Duff concludes that an association is implied between the “eucharist”—as the meal that nourishes the community in this “wilderness” awaiting the eschaton—and the “heavenly food” that nourishes the Mother. Excepting the specificity of tying this language to a narrowly defined “eucharist,” this correlation seems right, especially given the promise of “manna” to those who are faithful in Pergamon (2:17), the same context in which the un-faithful are characteristically those who eat (idolatrously connected) meat. Cf. D. E. Smith 2014, 163–4, n. 118.

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33 In addition to the positive references to drinking water in Revelation, there are multiple images of water being turned bitter or to blood (11:6; 16:4; cf. 7:17; 8:11), always as a sign of judgment that renders the water abominable and undrinkable. Particularly with respect to 16:4–6 (where the springs are turned to blood, followed by “you have given them blood to drink, it is what they deserve”) these passages seem also to reflect punishment on those who have substituted a food/drink John sees as revolting and death-bringing (meat and wine, associated with cannibalism and blood-drinking) for the appropriate, life-giving drink (water). 34 D. E. Smith 2003, 1–46; Kloppenborg 2019, 209–244; Kaše 2019; D. E. Smith and Taussig 2012. 35 For literary references, see Bernabé and Cristóbal 2008, 87–8. In a Smyrnan funerary inscription the grave occupant also describes himself as “next to the tripods and the immortal tables, while I enjoy the banquet, the gods look upon me as their friend” ( Bernabé and Cristóbal 2008, 87–8). 36 Kaše 2019, 410–15; McGowan 2010. 37 The “deep things of Satan” is most plausibly a sarcastic reference to what Christfollowers interested in esoteric knowledge refer to as “the deep things of God” (Paul refers to such revelations in 1 Cor 2:10 and the Corinthians who eat meat claim superior knowledge/gnosis over those who refrain—1 Cor 8:1–4). Since John is also a prophet making revelations which could also presumably be so characterized, it is likely that all we have here are different esoteric teachings (both about God) from competing prophets within these assemblies ( Fox 1994, 485–6; Koester 2014, 263–4). 38 For the most recent/detailed discussion of the Balaam and Jezebel figures in Revelation, see Stewart Lester 2018. For Balaam see primarily Num 22–25, where he is a prophet implicated in Israel’s idolatry and sexual immorality (cf. 4Q339 2; Josephus, A.J. 4.129–30). This image was developed further in subsequent Judaean literature to include magic as well (Philo, Migr. 113–14; Mos. 1.277, 294–99). Koester 2014, 288. For Jezebel see: 1 Kgs 16–21; 4Q382 I, 3; Josephus, A.J. 8.317–18. On participation in the worship of other gods as sexual infidelity to YHWH, see Exod 34:15–16; Deut 31:16; Hos 1:2; Isa 1:21; Jer 3:1–14; Ezek 16:15–22; 4Q169 3–4 III, 7–9. While some commentators have taken the charge of sexual immorality in these passages as literal—Shüssler Fiorenza 1998, 116—other have taken such a position as un-demonstratable given the clearly present literary trope— Collins 1986, 117; Koester 2014, 263, 306. 39 This conclusion usually takes the “followers of Balaam,” “of Jezebel,” and the “Nicolaitans” as referring to either a single faction spread over multiple cities—e.g., Aune 2006, 187; Schüssler Fiorenza 1998, 116—or (more minimally) as referring to the same contentious issue of meat-eating and its sacrificial correlations recurring in multiple contexts ( Fox 1994, 486; Koester 2014, 89, 99–100, 262, 264, 288–9; Collins 1986, 316–17). The authority a prophetic figure (John, “Balaam,” or “Jezebel”) might exert over meal practices within Christ-following communities may be indicated by the Didache’s provision of specific prayer for the meal only for cases when a prophet is not present to lead (Did. 10.7; cf. Justin, 1 Apol., 65–67) or by Paul’s own attempt at regulation ( Kaše 2019, 416–17). 40 Warren notes that the libationary language of “pouring out” is positively used elsewhere by Christ-followers with reference to Jesus’s death as a libation of blood (e.g., 1 Cor 8; 10:13–14; Phil 2:17), even specifically in the context of the communal meal and wine (Luke 22:20), so it is not clear that John’s aversion was generally held ( Warren 2018, 10). 41 Cf. McGowan 1999; Warren 2018, 10–11, 143–67. Both discuss a wide range of water-only and/or meat-rejecting Christian groups in the second century CE onward.

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42 A connection between the “foreign” names of these figures and “Babylon” (and the generic charge of idolatry and sexual immorality in both cases) is not a new suggestion here ( Stewart Lester 2018, 58–65, 92–3). The difference here is in the argument that the alimentary charges are all related and part of this rhetoric of anthropophagy as existential threat to the communal body. 43 There is insufficient space here to explore the complex scholarship on John’s representation of the righteous in 14:4 as celibate men, but see especially: D. E. Smith 2014; D. C. Smith Forthcoming; Huber 2008, 2019.

Bibliography Ascough, Richard. 2019. “Communal Meals.” Pages 204–219 in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Ritual. Edited by Risto Uro, Juliette Day, Richard DeMaris, and Rikard Riotto. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Aune, David E. 1998. Revelation 17–22. Word Biblical Commentary 52C. London: Thomas Nelson. Aune, David E. 2006. “The Social Matrix of the Apocalypse of John.” Pages 175–189 in Apocalypticism, Prophecy, and Magic in Early Christianity. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 199. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Barr, David L. 1998. Tales of the End: A Narrative Commentary on the Book of Revelation. Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge. Baynes, Leslie. 2019. “Jesus as Dionysus in Revelation 12:5 and 19:15.” Paper presented at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, San Diego. Bernabé, Alberto, and Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal. 2008. Instructions for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 162. Leiden: Brill. Bernabé, Alberto. 2011. “Are the ‘Orphic’ Gold Leaves Orphic?” Pages 68–101 in The “Orphic” Gold Tablets and Greek Religion: Further Along the Path. Edited by Radcliffe G. Edmonds III. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bonnechere, Pierre. 1994. Le sacrifice humain en Grèce ancienne. Liège: Presses Universitaires de Liège. Burkert, Walter. 1985. Greek Religions: Archaic and Classical. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Burkert, Walter. 1972. Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Collins, Adela Yarbro. 1986. “Vilification and Self-Definition in the Book of Revelation.” Harvard Theological Review 79:308–320. Detienne, Marcel. 1989. “Culinary Practices and the Spirit of Sacrifice.” Pages 1–20 in The Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks. Edited by Marcel Detienne, and JeanPierre Vernant. Translated by Paula Wissing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Duff, Paul. 2001. Who Rides the Beast? Prophetic Rivalry and the Rhetoric of Crisis in the Churches of the Apocalypse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Duff, Paul. 2003. “Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing.” Pages 65–80 in Reading the Book of Revelation: A Resource for Students. Edited by David L. Barr. Symposium Series 39. Atlanta: SBL. Edwards, M. J. 1992. “Some Early Christian Immoralities.” Ancient Society 23:71–82. Fox, Kenneth. 1994. “The Nicolaitans, Nicolaus and the Early Church.” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 23:485–496.

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Friesen, Steven J. 2003. “The Beast from the Land: Revelation 13:11–18 and Social Setting.” Pages 49–64 in Readings in the Book of Revelation: A Resource for Students. Edited by David L. Barr. Resources for Biblical Studies 44. Atlanta: SBL. Friesen, Steven J. 2001. Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the Ruins. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gasparro, Guilia Sfameni. 2011. “Mysteries and Oriental Cults: A Problem in the History of Religions.” Pages 276–324 in The Religious History of the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians. Edited by John A. North, and Simon R. F. Price. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harrill, Albert. 2008. “Cannibalistic Language in the Fourth Gospel and Greco-Roman Polemics of Factionalism (John 6.52–66).” Journal of Biblical Literature 127:133–158. Henrichs, Albert. 1970. “Pagan Ritual and the Alleged Crimes of the Early Christians.” Pages 18–35 in Kyriakon. Volume 1. Edited by Patrick Granfield and Josef Jungmann. Münster: Aschendorff. Henrichs, Albert. 1978. “Greek Maenadism from Olympias to Messalina,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 82:121–160. Huber, Lynn R. 2008. “Sexually Explicit? Rereading Revelation’s 144,000 Virgins as a Response to Roman Discourses.” Journal of Men, Masculinities, and Spirituality 2:3–28. Huber, Lynn R. 2019. “Revelation.” Pages 349–371 in The Oxford Handbook of New Testament, Gender, and Sexuality. Edited by Benjamin Dunning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kaše, Vojtěch. 2019. “Meal Practices.” Pages 409–425 in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Ritual. Edited by Risto Uro, Juliette Day, Richard DeMaris, and Rikard Riotto. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kloppenborg, John. 2019. Christ’s Associations: Connecting and Belonging in the Ancient City. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Koester, Craig R. 2014. Revelation: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Yale Bible Commentary 38A. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lans, Birgit van der. 2015. “The Politics of Exclusion: Expulsions of Jews and Others from Rome.” Pages 33–77 in People under Power: Early Jewish and Christian Responses to the Roman Empire. Edited by Michael Labahn and Outi Lehtipuu. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Mata, Roberto. 2018. “Border Crossing into the Promised Land: The Eschatological Migration of God’s People in Revelation 2:1–3:22.” Pages 171–190 in Latinxs, the Bible, and Migration. Edited by Efraín Agosto and Jacqueline M. Hidalgo. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. McGowan, Andrew. 2010. “Rethinking Eucharistic Origins.” Pacifica 23: 173–191. McGowan, Andrew. 1999. Ascetic Eucharists: Food and Drink in Early Christian Ritual Meals. Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Clarendon. McGowan, Andrew. 1994. “Eating People: Accusations of Cannibalism Against Christians in the Second Century.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 2:413–442. Rives, James. 1995. “Human Sacrifice Among Pagans and Christians.” The Journal of Roman Studies 85:65–85. Sanz, Domingo. 2013. “El fenómeno del canibalismo en las fuentes literarias grecorromanas: su mención en la mitología y la filosofía antigua.” Emerita, revista de lingüística y filología clásica 81:111–135.

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Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. 2006. “Babylon the Great: A Rhetorical-Political Reading of Revelation 17–18.” Pages 243–269 in The Reality of Apocalypse: Rhetoric and Politics in the Book of Revelation. Edited by David L. Barr. Symposium Series 39. Atlanta: SBL. Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. 1998. The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment. 2nd Edition. Minneapolis: Fortress. Smith, Daniel Charles. Forthcoming. “Purity and Initiation among the παρθένοι of Rev 14 and the Βάκχοι of Roman Asia.” Neotestamentica 56. Smith, Dennis E. 2003. From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World. Minneapolis: Fortress. Smith, Dennis E., and Hal E. Taussig, eds. 2012. Meals in the Early Christian World: Social Formation, Experimentation, and Conflict at the Table. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Smith, Shanell. 2014. The Woman Babylon and the Marks of Empire: Reading Revelation with a Postcolonial Womanist Hermeneutic of Ambiveilance. Minneapolis: Fortress. Stephens, Susan A., and John J. Winkler. 1995. Ancient Greek Novels: The Fragments. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Stewart Lester, Olivia. 2018. Prophetic Rivalry, Gender, and Economics: A Study in Revelation and Sibylline Oracles 4–5. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 466. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Tinh, Tran Tam. 1982. “Sarapis and Isis.” Pages 101–117 in Jewish and Christian SelfDefinition, Volume 3: Self-Definition in the Greco-Roman World. Edited by Ben Meyer, and E. P. Sanders. Philadelphia: Fortress. van Henten, Jan Willem. 2006. “Dragon Myth and Imperial Ideology in Revelation 12–13.” Pages 181–204 in The Reality of Apocalypse. Edited by David L. Barr. Symposium Series 39. Atlanta: SBL. Warren, Meredith J. C. 2018. “The Cup of God’s Wrath: Libation and Early Christian Meal Practice in Revelation.” Religions 9:1–13.

6

Blood Sacrifice in Revelation and Roman Asia Encoding and Decoding Embodied Experience1 Tony Keddie

6.1

Introduction

“When is a sheep not a sheep?” The short answer, according to the celebrated cultural theorist Stuart Hall (1997b, 21), is “When it’s a work of art.” The more complicated answer is that a sign or image of a sheep or cow, two of Hall’s favorite examples, “never actually is (rather than represents) the animal” (Hall 1999, 511). Hall theorized all practices, including discursive communications, as inscribed by ideology. And yet he eschewed the reductionism of Althusser and Gramsci by rejecting the principle that “all practices are nothing but ideology” (Hall 1985, 103). Hall asserted that people stand in different relationships to ideology. People who work in media, he noted, are more deliberately engaged in the production of ideological representations than others. Each “articulation” in discourse, he maintained, should be understood as a contingent and complex reconfiguration of social relations and cultural codes. In one of his most influential essays, Hall (1999) conceptualized the production and interpretation, or “encoding” and “decoding,” of communicative exchanges as imprinted by culture-specific technical infrastructure, relations of production, and frameworks of knowledge. Hall’s contextualist project thus seeks to understand how and why, for instance, the arbitrary representations of sheep in a work of art and an animal husbandry manual reproduce and transform already coded conditions of perception in different ways. When is a bloody lamb not a bloody lamb? In this essay, I draw on Hall’s theory to analyze Revelation as an encoding and decoding of its audiences’ experiences of bloody animal sacrifice at Greco-Roman temples. Following Daniel Charles Smith (2023), I understand John of Patmos as a Jewish author, perhaps from Judaea, who carefully tailored his apocalyptic discourse to make his foreign Judean cult appeal to the Jesus-followers of seven assemblies in cities of Roman Asia. Regardless of whether they came to selfidentify as Ioudaioi (2:9; 3:9), John recognized these individuals had long experienced, and in some cases continued to engage in (2:14, 20), GrecoRoman varieties of worship at local sanctuaries. I begin by examining the language of blood in Revelation and its interpretations in current scholarship. Next, I demonstrate that “blood” for most people DOI: 10.4324/9781003344247-9

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in the Greco-Roman world would engage memories of the multisensory experience of animal slaughter. John, I then propose, attempts to encode his audience’s perception of animal sacrifice as a form of Roman violence against the holy ones. Finally, I argue that John’s encoding was also a “negotiated decoding” of a more widespread visual discourse on blood sacrifice. I conclude by reflecting on how neoliberal affect has diverted scholars from understanding the material dimensions of blood in Revelation. 6.2

Blood in Revelation and Its Modern Interpretations

Revelation is a bloody book. The word “blood” (Greek haima) alone appears nineteen times, and other language and imagery extend the book’s bloodiness. Revelation uses the linguistic sign “blood” to represent the blood of Jesus (1:5; 5:9; 7:14; 12:11), blood of the holy ones (6:10; 16:6; 17:6 [2x]; 18:24; 19:2), and blood associated with divine vengeance and the coming day of wrath (6:12; 8:7, 8; 11:6; 14:20; 16:3, 4, 6; 19:13) (Decock 2004, 157–58). The traditional interpretive paradigm has decoded references to blood through the prism of substitutionary atonement theology. Richard Bauckham (1993, 67), for example, identifies Christ’s redemptive work as integral to the book’s “complexes of symbols.” While admitting that this is not an overt point of discussion, Bauckham (1993, 75) insists that John “takes largely for granted that Christ’s sacrificial death has liberated Christians from sin.” Studies devoted to the blood imagery in Revelation have similarly advanced an atonement model (Decock 2004; Hanson 1993; King 2004). In her important critique of atonement readings, Anna M. V. Bowden (2021) has noted that even scholarship that dismisses atonement as a central theme of the book still portrays the Lamb as a “sacrificial victim” whose purpose was the redemption of humanity from sins. Against atonement readings, Bowden (2021) makes several points, some more convincing than others. First, the usual terms for “sacrifice” (thysia, hilasmos) are either not used or are not used in sacrificial contexts (dōron). Second, the word cross (stauros) is absent and Jesus’s death by crucifixion (stauroō) is only mentioned once (11:8); elsewhere, Jesus is described as “pierced” (exekentēsan) by his enemies on whom he will soon take vengeance: “and every eye will see him, every one who pierced him; and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him” (1:7; cf. Zech 12:10). Third, the verb sphazō that John uses to describe the Lamb as “slaughtered” (5:6, 9, 12; 13:8) is only used elsewhere in the book to evoke Roman violence (6:4, 9; 13:3). Fifth, Revelation’s four references to the blood of Jesus (listed above) should be understood in light of the rest of the book’s blood imagery, all of which points to Rome’s violence and its coming judgment. Sixth, John does not clearly distinguish Jesus’s blood from the blood of the holy ones. Seventh, the only altar in the book, the heavenly altar, is a place for prayer, not sacrifice (6:9; 8:2–5; 9:13–19; 11:1–2; cf. 14:18; 16:7). Bowden (2021, 60) concludes that “John’s Jesus is not a self-sacrificing spiritual savior; John’s Jesus points to the violence of Rome.”

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Bowden has convincingly demonstrated that atonement is not a central theme of this book and that it is better understood as a critique of Roman imperial violence. Her article thereby supports other studies that have illuminated Revelation’s complex occupation with unveiling Rome’s violence—its conquests, violent spectacles, and other forms of exploitation (e.g., Frilingos 2004; Emanuel 2020). Bowden’s major contribution is showing that Revelation portrays Jesus’s death as the consequence of Roman violence, not as an act of self-sacrifice to redeem people from their sins.2 While Bowden offers a compelling refutation of atonement theories as the basis for Revelation’s blood imagery, she too quickly takes this refutation as removing Revelation from the material contexts of sacrifice. Greco-Roman animal sacrifice does indeed figure prominently in John’s critique of Rome and his behavioral admonitions for his audiences. In his messages to the assemblies at Pergamon and Thyatira, he specifically condemns eating “meat sacrificed to idols” (eidōlothuta, a compound of eidōlon, “image”/“idol,” and thuō, a verb commonly used for slaughtering an animal for sacrifice; 2:14, 20). He recognizes, like Paul (1 Cor 8–10), that meat for sale at markets may have been ritually slaughtered in dedication to gods and emperors and, as a result, “no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark, that is, the name of the beast” (Rev 13:17)—i.e., the Beast from the Sea, representing the Roman Empire and its emperors, whose worship is mobilized by the Beast from the Earth, a cipher for local elites (Friesen 2001, 203). Those guilty of eating meat sacrificed to gods and emperors would be counted among the idolaters, who are destined for the lake of fire (21:8; cf. 9:20; 13:14; 14:9; 20:4; 22:15). As Steven Friesen (2001; 2018) has demonstrated at length, Revelation critiques and offers a carefully structured alternative to imperial cult worship that nonetheless reproduces much of its logic: “Revelation, like the [Aphrodisias] Sebasteion, led its audience to sacrifice” (2001, 194). Like the ritual slaughter of an animal, he argues, Jesus’s suffering and death bind the community together. And just as a ritual meal follows animal sacrifice, the Lord’s Supper provides the ritual confirmation of Revelation’s mythology. Even more, Friesen (2001, 190–201) has called attention to Revelation’s depiction of Jesus as a Slaughtered Lamb with seven eyes and seven horns as a paradoxical juxtaposition of scriptural images of a sacrificial lamb, Divine Warrior, Davidic Ruler, Isaianic Suffering Servant, and a shepherd leading its flock. I agree that Revelation configures codes from Jewish discursive traditions associated with each of these images. And I would add another that may illuminate John’s interdependent representation of Jesus and the holy ones: the oppressed and sometimes slain sheep of the Animal Apocalypse (1 En. 85–90), who wield a sword against their enemies on the cusp of the new age (90:19). I leave the particulars of John’s engagement with these codes for another study. For the present purposes, I focus my investigation on how John worked to encode what he perceived to be the experiences of Jesus-followers who may

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have had limited familiarity with the Jewish scriptures and never experienced sacrifice at the Jerusalem temple. 6.3

Material Conditions: Sensing Blood Sacrifice in Revelation and Roman Asia

According to Hall (1999, 511–12), iconic signs or images resemble their material referents precisely because they reproduce conditions of perception that are already “highly coded.” Hall (1997a, 2) acknowledged that “feelings, attachments, and emotions” play a part alongside discourse, institutions, and social practices in producing meaning, but he did not dwell on affect. In the half-century since Hall (1999 [1973]) published his classic essay, scholarship on the senses, affect, synesthetics, and embodied cognition has flourished. Some sociologists have illuminated affect’s function in decoding messages within Hall’s model (e.g., Grossberg 1992). Others have developed congenial models of “carnal sociology” in which body, brain, and mind work together to create meaning (Wacquant 2015). Karen A. Cerulo (2015), for example, has argued on the basis of focus group data that individuals decode the olfactory messages of different perfumes based on associations with past experiences deposited and layered in neural memory banks. These olfactory memories are formed and engaged when odor molecules enter the nasal cavity and stimulate neurons that activate the brain’s limbic lobe. Smelling different perfumes recalled subjective long-term memories (e.g., “Aunt Jean used to wear this”) shaped by social and institutional contexts (e.g., this fragrance is “cheap” or “romantic”). Consumers decode, or interpret, olfactory messages by rearticulating manufacturers’ material encoding of fragrances, cultural codes about fragrances, and social practices of fragrance use in relation to corporeal knowledge of their own sensory experiences. These theoretical insights raise new questions about representations of blood in Revelation. What sentient memories would an auditor/reader of Revelation in one of John’s assemblies have activated to decode the image of Jesus as a bloody, slaughtered Lamb and other images of blood in the book? Recent studies have illuminated Revelation’s affective expressions and functions (Kotrosits 2014; Leach 2021; Warren 2019, 65–66), but none has yet explored how the text interacts with its audiences’ embodied knowledge of animal sacrifice. Of course, we cannot retrieve subjective experiences of animal sacrifice in all their complexity, not least because any abstract representation of sensory experience will obfuscate different abilities and positionalities. But we can recover some of the material conditions that shaped individuals’ discrepant experiences. Greco-Roman temple precincts were bloody spaces. The polished white temples and altars reconstructed at archeological sites and in museums promote a sanitized “classical” past tailored to modern Western tastes. “Just as Roman buildings were covered in striking colours and pigments,” Lennon

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(2014, 103) explains, “so too the altars would be vividly marked by the blood of numerous victims.” Prudentius’s disdain aside, the late-antique Christian poet was right that “marbles [were] bespattered and stained with putrid blood” (C. Symm. 1.501 [Thomson, LCL]). On the one hand, ancient Greek and Roman sources often speak of blood flowing onto or being poured or sprinkled onto altars (Ekroth 2005). On the other, the metallic odor of blood is known to persist for a while on certain surfaces, and because marble is porous, even if blood was quickly cleaned, its odor would have lingered (Weddle 2013, 154). Efforts were taken to control blood in sacrificial contexts. Although blood was an anticipated and integral component of animal sacrifices, it was also difficult to manage and could signify a bad omen if improperly managed. An adult bull could spill as much as six gallons of blood within minutes (Lennon 2014, 103). Though regular sacrifices were smaller in scale, on special occasions up to 100 bulls (a hecatomb) could be sacrificed, including in imperial cult worship (Price 1998, 207–33). The usual procedure involved enslaved or formerly enslaved people collectively called victimarii conducting, slaughtering, and butchering each animal. After a popa stunned it with a blow from an axe or hammer, a cultrarius would slit its throat (Aldrete 2014). Notably, slitting the throat of a living animal could result in blood spewing out for meters. Dio Cassius (Hist. 46.33) reports an incident in which the outpouring of sacrificial blood made such a mess that a man slipped and fell, negating the ritual. But the diffusion of blood does not end with the slaughter. Next, a haruspex would read its bloody entrails and the victimarii would flay, butcher, and cook the meat. A “first offering” (aparchē) from the meat would be burnt on the altar along with libations (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. rom. 7.72.15), but the rest of the meat would be consumed in a ritual feast and/or sold at meat markets. Archeological remains from sanctuaries provide some insights into the experience of blood sacrifice. Some sanctuaries featured special channels or gutters for draining and washing away blood together with feces, urine, and wine (Moser 2019, 97–98; cf. m. Mid. 3:2; Yoma 5:6), and animal bones were also deposited in various ways within sanctuaries (Ekroth 2017). Some sanctuaries even retained archaic “ash altars” in which the animal blood and bone remnants from sacrifices congealed into tall altars. Pausanias (second century CE) mentions two such famous altars in western Asia Minor (Descr. 5.13.8–11). The first was in Pergamon, the site of one of John’s assemblies, and was made from the burnt thighs of animals sacrificed to Zeus. Scholars debate whether the famous Pergamene Altar of Zeus—often considered the referent of Revelation’s “throne of Satan” (2:13)—would have enveloped this ash altar or if it was a separate entity (Sturgeon 2000, 73). The other ash altar Pausanias located in Asia was at Didyma and was made entirely from the blood of sacrifices. Joseph Fontenrose (1988, 41) and others have identified this altar as a large circular structure at the Didymaion whose remains include charred bones and votives dating to the sixth century BCE. Besides Pausanias, a second-century CE relief from the Miletos theater may suggest

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that there was still an ash altar at the site in the Roman imperial era; it represents a conical structure with a flame on top of it beside Kanachos’s archaic cult statue of Apollo Philesios (Fontenrose 1988, 41). Material remains thus point to the extensive presence of blood at sanctuaries and raise questions about how animal slaughter contributed to ancient religious experiences. Far beyond furnishing the gods with the pleasant aroma of fatty smoke (knisa), blood sacrifice was a multisensory experience that shaped the memories and perceptions of blood among those present. The smoke alone would be visually stunning, rising up to the heavens and pervading the temple precincts, tasted and smelled by worshippers while drying out their eyes and blurring their vision. Smoke was only one component of the experience of sacrifice, however. As Claudia Moser (2019, 119–20) put it in her study of sanctuaries in Republican Italy, “the sight of blood gushing from the animal’s neck, the noise of the animal squealing, the touch of the audience crowding around the altar, the smell of offal and the excrement of the slaughtered victim, and the taste of the cooked meat … [created] a memorable ‘sensory assemblage’ of Roman sacrifice inseparable from its material setting” (cf. Hamilakis 2017). In order to better understand the sensory experience of hecatomb-scale sacrifices of large animals in Roman imperial cult worship, Candace Weddle (2013) performed an autoethnographic exercise by observing Muslim Kurban Bayram sacrifices in Istanbul. She related that she was especially struck by the loud sound of blood spilling out of the animals and the sight of the blood, which was thicker and a more vibrant red than she expected. Whereas the smell of the blood itself was only notable in the area of the refuse pit, the strong smell of offal, urine, and especially manure created an intense olfactory experience for all in attendance. The music and incense that accompanied the Roman rituals would have contributed to the ancient multisensory experience but would not have concealed these other sounds and smells. Distinctive forms of touch (apart from crowding) would only have been experienced by those performing the ritual: cultic officials adorned the animal with garlands and consecrated it with wine and mola salsa, and victimarii performed all the arduous and dangerous labor (conducting, restraining, striking, slaying, and butchering the animal). The ritual feast with the god(s), however, would have entailed experiences of touch, taste, and smell for a wider spectrum of participants (Weddle 2017). Blood in Revelation evokes all these sounds, smells, tastes, sights, and feels of animal sacrifice—that is, embodied knowledge that does not register in the same way for most modern Western readers. John vividly narrates blood in motion: it falls from the sky mixed with hail and fire, and it cascades and flows in seas, rivers, springs, and even a wine press. People among the assemblies who once frequented (and perhaps still attended) rituals of animal sacrifice would have blood sacrifice as a referent for the sights and sounds of blood flowing, whereas most modern Western readers tend to associate flowing and pouring only with water and other liquids. When the angels pour

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out libations of unspecified contents in Chapter 16,3 twice the pouring turns moving water into blood (16:3–6), and in the first instance, the blood is “as of a corpse,” perhaps recalling the sight of viscous blood congealing and lingering smells at sacrifices. Revelation also engages experiences of smoke (kapnos) at sacrifices, referring to the smoke of incense ascending to God (8:4), smoke filling the heavenly temple (15:8), and the rising smoke of the burning, bloody flesh of the enemies of the Lamb (9:2–3; 14:11; 18:9, 18; 19:3). The Lamb itself, though anomalous and polysemous, would have powerfully engaged John’s audiences’ embodied knowledge of blood sacrifice since this was the primary context in which most of them would have closely and regularly observed sheep being slaughtered. The text describes the Lamb as slaughtered (5:6, 9, 12; 13:8) using a verb that often, but not always, signifies sacrifice (sphazō).4 Additionally, it places special emphasis on the Lamb’s efficacious blood, explaining that it “purchased” for God holy ones from every nation (5:9) and describing the holy ones physically washing their robes in it (7:14), paradoxically turning them white. Revelation thus represents blood in ways that are easy to miss if we do not account for ancient persons’ sentient perceptions and the material conditions that shaped them. Analyzing some of the material conditions of animal sacrifice helps us to contextualize and delimit, though not fully apprehend, perceptions of blood sacrifice among John’s audiences. It allows us to imagine different ways they would have decoded both their embodied experiences of animal sacrifice and Revelation. It also brings the ideological project of John’s encoding into relief. 6.4

Encoding: Revelation’s Articulation of Blood Sacrifice

A hallmark of Hall’s theory is its nonlinear and anti-reductive schema of ideological reproduction. In the circuit of communication, there is no guarantee of ideological consent—that is, that the recipient of a message will decode it in the way that its encoders intended. Still, Hall (1999, 515) accounts for the reproduction of hegemonic significations by positing “some degree of reciprocity between encoding and decoding moments.” Those who encode signs and images with a meaning attempt to convince their recipients that these codes are not arbitrary but natural and inevitable. For them to be successful, they must seek some degree of correspondence with the codes they expect their audiences to use to decode their messages. They will have mixed success, as decoders may reproduce some codes but will adapt, transform, or displace others. Hall’s model overlaps with other frameworks applied in ideological and discursive analyses of Revelation but enables some interventions. Notably, it primes us to conceptualize John’s ideological project as shaped by his expectations of the codes his audiences would use to interpret it. Some of the codes he anticipated, I propose, represented his audiences’ experiential knowledge of animal sacrifice at temples, including imperial cult temples. I

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focus on John’s encoding of his audiences’ embodied experiences at temples, in particular, because the book repeatedly visualizes these particular material contexts and their priestly functionaries (Ascough 2020; Friesen 2001; 2018). Ritual animal slaughter also occurred outside of the precincts of sanctuaries, however, as Adeline Harrington demonstrates in her chapter in this volume.5 Meat markets, for instance, were spaces where meat sacrificed at temples could be processed and sold, but they could also perform sacrifices in-house, so to speak, with the market’s own altars (Van Andringa 2007). John articulated temples and markets as connected spaces of ritual activity through his condemnations of eating “meat sacrificed to idols” and receiving the Beast’s mark by engaging in commerce, and thus he seems to have anticipated his audiences’ corporeal knowledge of sacrifice as extending through those different material contexts of religious action that both ancient and modern authors circumscribe as “temples” and “markets.” Still, he singled out the temple as a primary iconic sign for his ideological project and thus I pay special attention to how John encoded this sign to resonate with what he presumed to be his audiences’ embodied experiences of animal sacrifice within temple precincts. Performing my own decoding, I argue that John communicated two interlaced schemas of blood sacrifice (Table 6.1). Schema A focuses on the past and present and encodes the deaths of Jesus and the holy ones as sacrifices resulting from Roman violence.6 Schema B focuses on the future and encodes the eschatological destruction of Roman enemies as a sacrifice performed by the Lamb, angels, and holy ones. I offer five observations. First, John’s encoding of Jesus and the holy ones as bloodied sacrificial victims in Schema A articulates Roman violence as a sacrifice. Not only is Jesus a Slaughtered Lamb, pierced by enemies of his reign (1:7), but even the souls of slaughtered holy ones are positioned at the foot of the heavenly altar (6:9), using a form of sphazō.7 The holy ones are further encoded as sacrificial victims through the economic language of the Lamb “purchasing” them as a “first offering” (aparchē) for God and the Lamb (14:4).8 Instead of rejecting his audiences’ perceptions of sacrifice or reducing them to immaterial symbols, John makes use of their corporeal knowledge to persuade them that they, like the Lamb, are sacrificial victims of Roman imperial violence. They are not, however, unwittingly consumed in a ritual exchange between Roman leaders and their gods but are instead procured and offered by God and the Lamb. Second, Roman oppressors’ violent sacrifice of Jesus and the holy ones is cosmic in scale and part of the divine plan since the foundation of the world (13:8; 17:8). The holy ones’ Roman enemies slaughtered Jesus and continue to slaughter the holy ones, but God is in control. The Lamb is not only a sacrificial victim but also the one who purchased the holy ones as a “first offering” for both himself and God. He will soon perform the sacrifice of his enemies (14:10; 17:14; cf. 19:13) together with the “holy ones” who are exhorted to “conquer” (2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21; 15:2; 21:7), thus adding

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Who purchases the sacrificial victims?

Who are the sacrificial victims?

Who performs the sacrifice?

Who are the recipients of the sacrificial offering?

Who partakes in the ritual feast?

Where is the ritual feast?

What is consumed at the ritual feast?

What happens to surplus meat?

Context: Temples in Roman Asia, including imperial cult temples

Local elites, sometimes serving as cultic officials

Cattle, sheep, pigs, and other animals

Victimarii, ministri, cultic officials

Greco-Roman gods, divine emperors?

Greco-Roman god(s), priests and local elites, other human worshippers

Public space

Meat of slaughtered and cooked animals, wine

Distributed to participants and/or purchased at markets to be eaten

Schema A: Revelation’s present sacrificial schema

The Lamb and God (5:9; 16:6)

The Lamb (1:7; 5:6, 12; 12:11; 13:8), holy ones (6:9–11; 12:11; 14:3–5)

Roman oppressors (1:7; 13:7; 17:6)

God and the Lamb (14:4)

Roman oppressors (16:6; 17:6) and those among the nations whom they deluded (14:8; 17:2; 18:3)

Rome and throughout its dominion on earth and sea (18:24)

Blood of holy ones (16:6; 17:6)

N/A

Schema B: Revelation’s eschatological judgment

God (17:17; cf. 19:2)

Rome, Roman oppressors, and those they deluded (14:9–11; 17:16; 18:9, 18); the armies of Gog and Magog, Satan, Death, Hades (20:7–15)

The Lamb (14:10; 17:14), angels (8:3–5; 14:10, 19–20), holy ones (2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21; 15:2; 21:7)

God (19:1–4)

Rome and Roman oppressors (17:16; 18; 19:3, 17–21)

Rome and throughout its dominion on earth and sea (18:24)

Cooked meat of Rome, Roman oppressors, and those they deluded (17:16; 18:9, 18; 19:3, 17–21); the armies of Gog and Magog, Satan, Death, Hades were wholly burnt (20:7–15)

Eaten by carrion fowl (19:17–21)

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Table 6.1 Comparison of Animal Sacrifice in Temples of Roman Asia and Revelation

Blood Sacrifice in Revelation and Roman Asia 101 another layer of signification that transforms the holy ones’ ostensibly passive role as sacrificial victims offered to God into active roles as willful martyrs and participants in the ritual slaughter of their oppressors (Middleton 2018). Third, the two schemas are imbricated such that the schema of eschatological sacrifice (Schema B) is beginning to unfold amid the present sacrificial schema (Schema A) in accordance with the divine plan. Some holy ones have already been killed, and others soon will be (6:11). Roman oppressors have been given the blood of the holy ones to drink (16:6), and Woman Babylon, representing Rome, is already drunk on their blood (17:6). This intoxication of Roman oppressors and Woman Babylon in the present, the sacrificial banquet of Schema A, implicates the kings of the earth (17:2). God will cause some of these kings of the earth to burn and eat the flesh of Woman Babylon (esp. 17:12, 16–17), making her the sacrificial victim in Schema B. With this eschatological schema, then, John resignifies Roman oppressors such that their violent acts of consumption lead to their own consumption. They are both those who devour the sacrificial victims and the sacrificial victims themselves, but importantly it is God who makes this happen: God commissions the holy armies that will actually slaughter his enemies and he has prepared the sacrificial victims to devour themselves. Fourth, Schema B’s eschatological sacrifice is the ultimate sacrifice. Once Rome is sacrificed, there will be no more purchases of cattle and sheep, nor of other ritual resources or luxury goods (18:13).9 In the New Jerusalem, there will be no civic temple sacrifice because the temple will be God and the Lamb (21:22). This ultimate sacrifice of the enemies of God and the Lamb will lead to a limited eschatological feast at which carrion fowl will feast on the carcasses of the slaughtered enemies (19:17–21; cf. Jer 7:33; Ezek 39:17).10 There would be no such surplus of meat at the full messianic banquet in the New Jerusalem, a feast commemorating the marriage of the Lamb and the New Jerusalem. Here, in the presence of God and the Lamb, the triumphant holy ones will preside as priests in fellowship with the angels. Although there are priests and there is a ritual feast, John does not produce a third schema resignifying blood sacrifice in the New Jerusalem. Anticipating his audiences’ coded corporeal understandings of the logic of sacrifice, he represented the New Jerusalem as a space in which blood sacrifice would serve no purpose because there is no separation of heaven and earth, no communication gap to bridge between the mortal and divine realms. In the New Jerusalem, the holy ones will feast not on meat channeled through material flows of production in cities, but on water from the river and fountain of life (21:6; 22:1–2, 19), fruit from the tree of life (22:2, 19), and manna from God (2:17). Fifth, John produces an incongruous reversal of sacrificial schemas by having only Roman oppressors sacrifice the holy ones and Lamb while those oppressors and all among the nations whom they have deluded will be slaughtered by the Lamb and the holy ones in the future schema. Carrion fowl are invited to “the great supper of God” to feast on “the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of the mighty, the flesh of horses and their

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riders—flesh of all, both free and slave, both small and great” (19:18; cf. 6:15; 13:16). Whereas Roman imperial and local elites incur most of Revelation’s condemnation (Friesen 2021), the masses they have deluded are just as quickly slaughtered, cooked, and eaten in John’s future sacrificial schema. John strategically encoded what he perceived to be his audiences’ experiences of sacrifice to give meaning to their current situation and mobilize them against elites and all those involved in Greco-Roman temple sacrifice. His apocalyptic discourse delegitimizes the forms of blood sacrifice they know as idolatry while asserting that the Lamb and those who follow him properly are the real sacrificial victims. John’s encoding of his audiences’ embodied knowledge of blood sacrifice puts blood front and center, and in doing so, simultaneously decodes hegemonic visual discourses. 6.5

Decoding: Centering Blood and Elites, Marginalizing Victimarii

Hall differentiated encoding and decoding as separate operations for the purposes of analyzing a communication exchange. Theoretically, however, he conceptualized both as articulations in discourse imprinted by material relations of production, technical infrastructure, and situated frameworks of knowledge. The agent-driven circuit of encoding and decoding messages operates at even the level of singular linguistic signs and images and thus I take it to be the case that a narrative or constellation of images may simultaneously engage in various operations of encoding and decoding, even if we may conceive of their producers’ ideological project on the whole as one of encoding. According to Hall (1999, 515–17), the recipients of a communicative exchange may decode it by accepting its referent codes fully (“dominant-hegemonic position”), detotalizing “the message in the preferred code in order to retotalise the message within some alternative framework of reference” (“oppositional position”), or something in between (“negotiated position”). If we read Revelation’s encoding against the dominant visual discourse of animal sacrifice in Roman Asia, I suggest that it takes both oppositional and hegemonic positions and should thus be considered a negotiated decoding. Revelation decodes Greco-Roman visual discourse of animal sacrifice in an oppositional way by vividly representing sacrifice as bloody. With the exception of Mithraic tauroctony images, blood is almost never depicted in GrecoRoman sacrificial art. This dominant visual discourse is shaped by the relations of production: instead of depicting the bloody work of animal slaughter performed by enslaved or formerly enslaved victimarii, it centers the imperial, provincial, and municipal elites who presided over them, were honored by them, and/or funded them (Dignas 2005). Victimarii often appear, but they are portrayed as socially inferior in ways that elevate the status of elites. Katherine A. Shaner (2018) has demonstrated that the so-called Parthian Monument from second-century Ephesos encodes sacrifice in just this way, by concealing blood and centering elites in concert with wider artistic trends in Asia Minor (Schörner 2017) and the Roman Empire (Aldrete 2014; Lennon 2015).

Blood Sacrifice in Revelation and Roman Asia 103 The monument’s sacrificial cycle centers on the honorees of the monument, the imperial family. At the center of the scene are four togate males, three adults—likely Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius—and Pius’s adopted child, Lucius Verus. Hadrian and Pius are veiled and holding libation implements, indicating that they are presiding over the sacrifice. To their side and oriented toward the imperial men stand women characterized by their dress and hairstyles as imperial elites. Next to these women are four ministrae, female cultic workers who were likely enslaved, identifiable by the braiding of their hair and the jug one of them holds. And the only other remaining scene of the cycle, from the right periphery, shows low-status male attendants including victimarii, musicians, and other ministri. The two victimarii are at the front of the relief flanking a bull. They are not depicted fully bare-chested as victimarii often are, but parts of their chest and most of their legs are exposed by their garments. Their arms are broken off, but it appears that one was raising a hammer, axe, or knife and the other was restraining the bull. Jack J. Lennon (2015) has observed that the visual depictions of victimarii from across the empire tend to belittle them following a common set of patterns. As in the Parthian monument, their peripheral placement in sacrificial scenes ensures that viewers recognize elites as the top sacrificial performers. The cultrarii are often further depicted as crouching or kneeling while preparing to cut the animal’s throat, a physical posture of inferiority that situates them at the level of animals. They thus appear as lacking control like conquered peoples portrayed as barbarians (e.g., the Aphrodisias Sebasteion reliefs and Judaea capta coins), though the victimarii do not look away from the elites but toward them for instruction, thereby affirming their status (Lennon 2015, 80). The chest-bearing apparel and equipment of victimarii further portrayed them as low-status manual laborers. Whereas victimarii wore only loincloths around their waists to aid in clean-up, elites wore white robes for sacrifices (Lennon 2015, 77). Even when they ritually painted some blood on their faces, elites had special cloths on hand to wipe them off quickly (Lennon 2014, 106). Revelation decodes this visual discourse in four noteworthy ways. First, it maintains the centrality of elites (those who exercise authority) in worship. Second, it emphasizes the bloodiness of sacrifice against the visual discourse. Third, it articulates the holy ones as sacrificial victims, provoking concerns broached in visual and philosophical discourse about “the possibility that the human animal could be considered a legitimate sacrifice offered to the gods” (cf. Jim 2014, 281–88; Nasrallah 2011, 145). Fourth, Revelation advances the visual discourse’s marginalization of victimarii not only by centering elites but also by dressing the holy ones in linen robes made white, not red, by blood and representing nakedness as shameful (16:15; Maier 2021). Whereas Revelation centers elites in its portrayal of sacrificial worship, it nonetheless incriminates enslaved and low-status sacrificial laborers alongside them at judgment (“both free and slave, both small and great”). This final observation finds corroboration in John’s vituperative messages condemning his Christ-following rival

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prophets and all those in their assemblies, regardless of their circumstances (Stewart Lester 2018). If an enslaved Christ-follower participates in even peripheral ways in civic practices linked to the worship of other gods and spirits, their agency is deemed sufficient to merit destruction. The Greco-Roman visual discourse of sacrifice and Revelation were thus engaged in a discursive struggle shaped, in part, by similar sensory perceptions of blood sacrifice and the same unequal labor relations. Both encode sacrifice in ways that center elites and marginalize victimarii, but Revelation decodes the visual discourse contrarily by drenching it in blood. 6.6

Conclusion: Against Neoliberal Affect

Why have scholars been so reluctant to situate Revelation’s profuse images of blood in the context of Greco-Roman sacrifice? Debates over atonement have surely parochialized the discussion: either Revelation replaces Greco-Roman and Jewish sacrifice with Christ’s atonement, or it has nothing to do with atonement or sacrifice. Still, I wager that the capitalist context of modern mainstream scholarship has played a part by distorting our perceptions of animal blood and meat. In her incisive essay “From Sacrifice to the Slaughterhouse,” Annette Yoshiko Reed (2014) maintained that the “sociology of the slaughterhouse” has impacted how modern, post-industrial scholars have come to understand animal sacrifice. She notes that the emergence of the slaughterhouse as an economic institution in Europe and the Americas during the “long nineteenth century” made meat more widely accessible but also reflected a growing interest in distancing the “animal” (and human!) from “meat” and the messy work of “slaughter” from the more respectable profession of butchery. Slaughter became construed as “uncivilized,” “savage,” and “violent,” to be kept out of sight. The invention of refrigerated trains made it possible to “exile” slaughter while new mechanical technologies of meat production and packaging further transformed experiences of food. In concert with these social and economic changes, new consumer cultures of hygiene and cleanliness emerged. As Kathryn Lofton (2017, 82–104) has shown, these cultures channeled Protestant notions of rational faith into secular rituals of bodily cleansing geared toward the sale of commodities like soap, gloves, sanitary pads, tampons, and more. In the cities of Roman Asia Minor, meat’s foodway often ran directly through temples. Almost all meat may have been linked to sacrifice at some phase during its production and distribution (Ekroth 2014, 342–44; Scheid 2012), and this is challenging for most modern Western readers to comprehend. Whereas a Jesus-follower in the assembly at Pergamon would have retained layered memories of their multisensory experiences of animal slaughter at the Ash Altar and in other cultic, not to mention mercantile, contexts, most modern Western readers of Revelation buy commodified animal meat from a grocery store carefully packaged in non-biodegradable

Blood Sacrifice in Revelation and Roman Asia 105 styrofoam and cellophane, sometimes wrapped in an extra plastic bag lest a drop of blood spill out. Most meat-eating Western scholars never see or think about the labor of slaughter, but we pay the surplus value to keep blood concealed. We do not know what the slaying of a lamb looks, smells, and sounds like, and we do not associate it with social experiences of sharing a meal with gods. The post-industrial commodification of meat and concomitant discourse of sanitation, which encodes our insulation from the labor and experience of slaughter as a consumer advantage, prejudices our views of ancient animal sacrifices and distracts us from recognizing its pervasive codes across discursive media. Our experiences of meat are, in short, unwittingly shaped by neoliberal affect. Notes 1 I dedicate this essay to Steven Friesen, my Doktorvater, with much appreciation. 2 Bowden (2021, 56) relies on Schüssler Fiorenza’s ( 1985, 68) argument that in the one place Revelation does portray Jesus’s blood as redeeming people from sins (1:5–6), John is reciting a traditional baptismal formula. He proceeds to offer his redaction of this formula in 5:9–10. I am also persuaded by this argument, particularly because 1:5 is one of only three mentions of sin (hamartia) in the book; the others both appear in 18:4 to describe the sins of Babylon. Moreover, he already begins to decode the baptismal formula as soon as the following line, 1:7, where prophecies from Daniel and Zechariah are combined to call judgment upon those who pierced Jesus. Though John is clearly familiar with it, the idea of Jesus’s blood redeeming people from their sins is not of interest to him in this book. 3 Warren (2018) illuminates the libation imagery here. 4 LSJ, s.v.; Gen 22:10; Exod 12:6; 16:11, 15; Ezek 44:11; Josephus, A.J. 3:249; etc. 5 Other ritual practices like libations and incense offerings, which were less expensive and cumbersome than animal sacrifice, are similarly encoded by John largely in relation to temples but would also have invoked embodied experiences shaped in a wider range of material contexts, such as domestic settings. See Warren (2018) and Dominika Kurek-Chomycz’s chapter in this volume. 6 I use “holy ones” (hagioi) as shorthand for those faithful Jesus-followers John variously encoded as holy ones, slaves, witnesses/martyrs, and prophets. 7 Much of the action of many animal sacrifices would have taken place at the foot of an altar rather than on top of it, with some blood transferred to the altar ( Ekroth 2005). Therefore, I disagree with Bowden’s (2021, 60) point that the holy ones are not represented as a sacrifice because they are not situated on top of the altar. 8 As in 13:17 and 18:11, agorazō in 5:9 and 14:3–4 signifies the act of purchasing at an agora ( Stewart Lester 2018, 136–37). I translate aparchē as “first offering” instead of “first fruits offering” because aparchai often represented animal offerings or the payments for them ( Jim 2014; Naiden 2020). Elite benefactors often purchased the animals ( Rives 2019). 9 The terminological distinction between “sheep” (probata) here and Jesus as arnion underscores Jesus’s paradoxical appearance as a vulnerable little lamb but does not negate its role as a sacrificial animal (cf. Jer 11:19 LXX), contra Johns (2003). 10 Since John at least nominally distinguishes the “marriage supper of the Lamb” in 19:5–10 from “the great supper of God” in 19:17–21 and only describes birds as the guests at the latter, I have not decoded the holy ones as potential participants in the ritual feast from the remains of the slaughtered enemies. Still, it is plausible that John’s encoding here was shaped by images of an eschatological banquet

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where the righteous dine on the defeated beasts (1 En. 60:7–10 + 24a; 4 Ez. 6:49–52; 2 Bar. 29:4) and/or that some among his audiences would have decoded his limited eschatological banquet in Schema B in this way. I thank Nathan Leach for his helpful comments on this point and on many other aspects of this paper.

Bibliography Aldrete, Gregory S. 2014. “Hammers, Axes, Bulls, and Blood: Some Practical Aspects of Roman Animal Sacrifice.” The Journal of Roman Studies 104:28–50. Ascough, Richard S. 2020. “Greco-Roman Religions and the Context of the Book of Revelation.” Pages 169–184 in The Oxford Handbook of the Book of Revelation. Edited by Craig R. Koester. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bauckham, Richard. 1993. The Theology of the Book of Revelation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bowden, Anna M. V. 2021. “Getting Jesus off the Altar: Undoing Atonement Readings in Revelation.” Review and Expositor 118:54–61. Cerulo, Karen. 2015. “The Embodied Mind: Building on Wacquant’s Carnal Sociology.” Qualitative Sociology 38:33–38. Decock, Paul B. 2004. “The Symbol of Blood in the Apocalypse of John.” Neotestamentica 38:157–182. Dignas, Beate. 2005. “Sacred Revenues in Roman Hands: The Economic Dimensions of Sanctuaries in Western Asia Minor.” Pages 207–224 in Patterns in the Economy of Asia Minor. Edited by Stephen Mitchell, Constantina Katsar, and David C. Braund. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Ekroth, Gunnel. 2005. “Blood on the Altars? On the Treatment of Blood at Greek Sacrifices and the Iconographical Evidence.” Antike Kunst 48:9–29. Ekroth, Gunnel. 2014. “Animal Sacrifice in Antiquity.” Pages 324–354 in The Oxford Handbook of Animals in Classical Thought and Life. Edited by Gordon Lindsay Campbell. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ekroth, Gunnel. 2017. “‘Don’t Throw Any Bones in the Sanctuary!’ On the Handling of Sacred Waste in Ancient Greek Cult Places.” Pages 33–56 in Ritual Matters: Material Remains and Ancient Religion. Edited by Claudia Moser, and Jennifer Knust. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Emanuel, Sarah. 2020. Humor, Resistance, and Jewish Cultural Persistence in the Book of Revelation: Roasting Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fontenrose, Joseph. 1988. Didyma: Apollo’s Oracle, Cult, and Companions. Berkeley: University of California Press. Friesen, Steven J. 2001. Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the Ruins. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Friesen, Steven J. 2018. “Material Conditions for Seeing the Divine: The Temple of the Sebastoi at Ephesos and the Vision of the Heavenly Throne in Revelation 4–5.” Pages 3–26 in Seeing the God: Image, Space, Performance, and Vision in the Religion of the Roman Empire. Edited by Marlis Arnhold, Harry O. Maier, and Jörg Rüpke. Culture, Religion, and Politics in the Greco-Roman World 2. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Friesen, Steven J. 2021. “Class Analysis in the Book of Revelation: Intersections of Economy, Religion, and Gender.” Pages 347–364 in The Struggle over Class: Socioeconomic Analysis of Ancient Jewish and Christian Texts. Edited by G. Anthony Keddie, Michael A. Flexsenhar, and Steven J. Friesen. Writings from the GrecoRoman World Supplements 19. Atlanta: SBL.

Blood Sacrifice in Revelation and Roman Asia 107 Frilingos, Christopher A. 2004. Spectacles of Empire: Monsters, Martyrs, and the Book of Revelation. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Grossberg, Lawrence. 1992. We Gotta Get out of This Place: Popular Conservatism and Postmodern Culture. London: Routledge. Hall, Stuart. 1985. “Signification, Representation, Ideology.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 2:91–114. Hall, Stuart. 1997a. “Introduction.” Pages 1–11 in Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. Edited by Stuart Hall. Milton Keynes: Open University. Hall, Stuart. 1997b. “The Work of Representation.” Pages 13–74 in Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. Edited by Stuart Hall. Milton Keynes: Open University. Hall, Stuart. 1999. “Encoding, Decoding.” Pages 507–517 in The Cultural Studies Reader. Edited by Simon During. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Hamilakis, Yannis. 2017. “Sensorial Assemblages: Affect, Memory and Temporality in Assemblage Thinking.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 27:169–182. Hanson, K. C. 1993. “Blood and Purity in Leviticus and Revelation.” Listening: Journal of Religion and Culture 28:215–230. Jim, Theodora Suk Fong. 2014. Sharing with the Gods: Aparchai and Dekatai in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Johns, Loren L. 2003. The Lamb Christology of the Apocalypse of John: An Investigation into Its Origins and Rhetorical Force. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 167. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. King, Fergus. 2004. “Travesty or Taboo? ‘Drinking Blood’ and Revelation 17:2–6.” Neotestamentica 38:303–325. Kotrosits, Maia. 2014. “Seeing Is Feeling: Revelation’s Enthroned Lamb and Ancient Visual Affects.” Biblical Interpretation 22:473–502. Leach, Nathan. 2021. “Revelation and Divination: Performative Access to Divine Knowledge in Oracles, Mysteries, and the Apocalypse of John.” Ph.D. diss. Austin: University of Texas at Austin. Lennon, Jack J. 2014. Pollution and Religion in Ancient Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lennon, Jack J. 2015. “Victimarii in Roman Religion and Society.” Papers of the British School at Rome 83:65–89. Lofton, Kathryn. 2017. Consuming Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Maier, Harry O. 2021. “Exposed! Nakedness and Clothing in the Book of Revelation.” Pages 299–312 in Dress in Mediterranean Antiquity: Greeks, Romans, Jews, Christians. Edited by Alicia J. Batten, and Kelly Olson. London: Bloomsbury. Middleton, Paul. 2018. The Violence of the Lamb: Martyrs as Agents of Divine Judgement in the Book of Revelation. London: Bloomsbury. Moser, Claudia. 2019. The Altars of Republican Rome and Latium: Sacrifice and the Materiality of Roman Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Naiden, F. S. 2020. “The Monetisation of Sacrifice.” Pages 163–186 in Pilgrimage and Economy in the Ancient Mediterranean. Edited by Anna Collar, and Troels Myrup Kristensen. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 192. Leiden: Brill. Nasrallah, Laura. 2011. “The Embarrassment of Blood: Early Christians and Others on Sacrifice, War, and Rational Worship.” Pages 142–166 in Ancient Mediterranean Sacrifice. Edited by Jennifer Wright Knust, and Zsuzsanna Várhelyi. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Price, S. R. F. 1998. Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reed, Annette Yoshiko. 2014. “From Sacrifice to the Slaughterhouse: Ancient and Modern Approaches to Meat, Animals, and Civilization.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 26:111–158. Rives, J. B. 2019. “Animal Sacrifice and Euergetism in the Hellenistic and Roman Polis.” Religion in the Roman Empire 5:83–102. Scheid, John. 2012. “Roman Animal Sacrifice and the System of Being.” Pages 84–95 in Greek and Roman Animal Sacrifice: Ancient Victims, Modern Observers. Edited by Christopher Faraone, and F. S. Naiden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schörner, Günther. 2017. “Representing and Remembering Rituals in Public Space: Depictions of Sacrifice in Roman Asia Minor.” Pages 89–98 in Cityscapes and Monuments of Western Asia Minor: Memories and Identities. Edited by Eva Mortensen, and Birte Poulsen. Oxford: Oxbow. Schüssler Fiorenza. 1985. The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment. Philadelphia: Fortress. Shaner, Katherine A. 2018. Enslaved Leadership in Early Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press. Smith, Daniel Charles. 2023 “John of Patmos and the Appeal of an Exotic Apocalypse.” Journal of Biblical Literature 142:343–361. Stewart Lester, Olivia. 2018. Prophetic Rivalry, Gender, and Economics: A Study in Revelation and Sibylline Oracles 4–5. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 466. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Sturgeon, Mary C. 2000. “Pergamon to Hierapolis: From Theatrical ‘Altar’ to Religious Theater.” Pages 58–77 in From Pergamon to Sperlonga: Sculpture and Context. Edited by Nancy T. de Grummond, and Brunilde S. Ridgway. Berkeley: University of California Press. Van Andringa, William. 2007. “Du sanctuaire au macellum: sacrifices, commerce et consommation de la viande à Pompéi.” Pages 47–72 in Sacrifices, marché de la viande et pratiques alimentaires dans le cites du monde romain. Edited by William Van Andringa. Turnhout: Brepols. Wacquant, Loïc. 2015. “For a Sociology of Flesh and Blood.” Qualitative Sociology 38:1–11. Warren, Meredith J. C. 2018. “The Cup of God’s Wrath: Libation and Early Christian Meal Practice in Revelation.” Religions 9:1–13. Warren, Meredith J. C. 2019. Food and Transformation in Ancient Mediterranean Literature. Writings from the Greco-Roman World Supplement 14. Atlanta: SBL. Weddle, Candace. 2013. “The Sensory Experience of Blood Sacrifice in the Roman Imperial Cult.” Pages 137–159 in Making Senses of the Past: Toward a Sensory Archaeology. Edited by Jo Day. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Weddle, Candace. 2017. “Blood, Fire and Feasting: The Role of Touch and Taste in Graeco-Roman Animal Sacrifice.” Pages 104–119 in Senses of the Empire: Multisensory Approaches to Roman Culture. Edited by Eleanor Betts. London: Routledge.

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(Inc)sensing Revelation Incense, Senses, and the Agency of Incense Utensils in the Apocalypse of John Dominika Kurek-Chomycz

7.1

Sensing the Apocalypse

The series of visions, which unfold in the Apocalypse of John, present the readers’/hearers’ imagination with a panoply of sensory stimuli. Yet if one considers only explicit narrative comments, the focus is on the senses of sight, and to a more limited extent, hearing. The author includes remarks on the taste of the little scroll (Rev 10:9–10), but smell and touch are not explicitly commented on. Olfaction, however, albeit implicitly, is central to the manifestation of the divine glory. What is more, in spite of the significance of cultic imagery in Revelation, incense is apparently the only type of offering taking place in the heavenly Temple. The sacrificial understanding of Jesus’s death may possibly account for the absence of blood sacrifice in the celestial setting.1 Still, the conviction that incense is a sort of sacrifice par excellence suited for Paradise, or indeed for heaven, is well attested in ancient Jewish literature. It is already implied in the Book of Jubilees, where upon leaving the Garden of Eden, Adam is said to “burn incense as a pleasing fragrance” (Jub. 3:27).2 The significance of incense in the book of Revelation may not be obvious to those who only associate it with olfaction, given that the author does not explicitly comment on this aspect. That sight and hearing, but also kinaesthesia, are likewise central to God’s own sensorium is implied in the reference to idols in Rev 9:20. The last part of this verse alludes to the characterisation of idols in Deut 4:28, Ps 115:4–7 (LXX 113:12–15) and Ps 135 (LXX 134:15–17). Yet as opposed to Deuteronomy 4 and Psalm 115, the author of Revelation omits the reference to the ability to smell, of which idols are devoid. In the book of Revelation, however, I suggest, incense imaginaire plays an important role in how the author envisages the punishment inflicted on those who are condemned. The author of Revelation utilises a selection of meanings ascribed to incense and incense utensils in the sacred writings of his own religious tradition, while also presupposing the audience’s familiarity with the widespread use of incense in the cities of Asia, to construct an elaborate warning against practices he considers to be idolatrous and contrast them with appropriate cultic attitude and behaviour. What is more, using the same utensils to offer prayers to God and to inflict punishment—more specifically DOI: 10.4324/9781003344247-10

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the golden censer, libanōtos khrysous (8:3–4 and 8:5), and the golden bowls, phialai khrysai (5:8 and 15:7; 16:1–17; 21:9)—enhances the status of these material items which become actors in the drama enacted in the Johannine series of visions. Paying close attention to the materiality of the vessels (the golden bowls in particular), on the one hand, and the set of associations that they evoke, on the other, raises questions concerning the way in which commentators typically envision the scene of worship of the Lamb in Chapter 5. In what follows, I first examine the scenes in the book of Revelation involving incense and incense vessels, paying special attention to the golden bowls. Next, I briefly comment on the use of incense in the ancient world, focusing mainly on Ephesos, and then turning to the meanings associated with incense in the Hebrew Bible. Finally, I consider the significance of incense vessels in the Apocalypse of John in relation to animate features ascribed to the altar, and the promise for humans that they may become pillars in the Temple of God. Assigning animate features to material items, on the one hand, and promising believers a transformation into pillars, on the other, makes the absence of the Temple in 21:22 less surprising. However, the fuzzy boundaries between material items and other actors in the spectacle envisaged by John are also part of the “unstable epistemology” identified by Steven Friesen (2018) in the scene of worship in Revelation 4–5. What is more, unleashing their disruptive power, I suggest, can support us in the task of recognising “the wild potential of Revelation and the negotiations that occur in the course of domestication and destabilization” (Friesen 2017, 104). 7.2

Incense and Incense Utensils in the Book of Revelation

Incense is mentioned for the first time in Revelation 5, in the heavenly throne scene: when the Lamb takes the scroll from the “one seated on the Throne” (5:8), the four “living creatures” (zōa) and 24 elders are all reported to fall before the Lamb, each “holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense (phialas khrysās gemousas thymiamatōn), which are the prayers of the holy ones (hai eisin hai proseuchai tōn hagiōn).”3 The association between incense and prayers is well attested in ancient literary and epigraphic sources, although in the Hebrew Bible, which is often referred to in this context, it remains mostly implicit.4 The specific text from Israel’s scriptures which commentators almost universally invoke, Ps 141:2 (LXX Ps 140), is exceptional in making this connection so explicit: “Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice.” This, however, is rather misleading, for while in the Psalm prayers represent incense, in Rev 5:8 incense seems to represent prayers.5 The content of the prayers is not specified,6 focusing the reader’s attention on the affective dimension evoked by the bowls filled with aromatic substances rather than any specific propositional statements. But incense is not the only material element which enables communication with the divine. The bowls which are filled with it play an integral part in this process. Commentators are well

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aware that the relative pronoun hai (“which”) is feminine, not neuter, and thus grammatically, it is not the incense (thymiamata) but the bowls (phialai) that appear to be the antecedent of the pronoun. This grammatical point is usually dismissed, with the explanation provided that the feminine form is due to the attraction to the similarly feminine plural of proseuchai, “prayers.” Steven Friesen, in his examination of the scene of worship in Revelation 4–5, notes that while most of the objects included in the description of the vision of God come “from the realm of mortal experience,” they are recontextualised “in an unpredictable supernatural setting,” suggesting to the audience that “the objects are not what they seem to be, indeed, that visible appearances are not reliable” (Friesen 2018, 16). He then connects the “subversive visuality” with the nature of “the indescribable deity.” As a result of the latter, “an unstable epistemology ripples out into all objects and events” (Friesen 2018, 17). Friesen lists the “Golden bowls that are prayers of the saints” among the objects which “challenge a referential epistemology” in this context. In a footnote, he further comments, “This image in 5:8 probably likens the incense in the bowls to prayers, but the infelicitous grammar of the sentence technically equates the bowls to prayers” (Friesen 2018, 16, n. 36). While it might be true that identifying bowls with incense is not intended, Friesen is right to include the golden bowls in his list. Regardless of the intention, the effect, I contend, is consistent with the role that (imagined) material objects play in the text, and the fuzzy boundaries between the different types of actors in the narrative. While Aune (1997, 358) correctly notes that in Rev 5:8 the bowls are used to “contain incense,” some other interpreters envisage in this verse a cloud of incense which ascends and moves towards the Lamb and the throne when incense is being burnt. The following quote from Torleif Elgvin exemplifies this well: “Revelation 5:8 and 8:3f describe the prayers of the holy ones (viz. the believers on earth) as incense rising before God’s heavenly throne, conveyed through the censers of heavenly beings” (Elgvin 2009, 261). While Rev 8:3–4 indeed explicitly refers to the “smoke” and the “censer,” Rev 5:8 does not. Here incense is contained in golden bowls, and it is doubtful whether indeed incense could be burnt in these. A phialē in Greek epigraphic and literary sources typically denotes a shallow bowl without a foot or handle, but with a mound/a central concavity, for better handling. The mound is called an omphalos or mesomphalos. Phialai can be made of bronze, silver, or gold,7 but also of clay, glass, or even marble. Milette Gaifman notes, “neither current terminology nor ancient language is always consistent. In modern scholarship, the term ‘phiale’ is used on occasion for a handle-less bowl without the middle mound, and in some rare cases a bowl with handles is labelled a phiale” (Gaifman 2018, 452). There is even more confusion with regard to what is commonly considered to be the Latin equivalent of phialē, namely, patera. Yet in Greek, Gaifman stresses, “overwhelming evidence suggests a general correlation between the ancient term and this particular object” (Gaifman 2018, 453). Phialai are regularly listed among cultic utensils also in Greek worship, often as votive offerings brought

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to the sanctuary by worshippers. They are most commonly associated with libations, although use for ritual purifications is also attested. Since libations and incense offerings often preceded animal sacrifices, iconographic sources depicting sacrificial processions may include both phialai and censers (thymiatēria).8 Phialai can occasionally be used for drinking, which as a rule begins with a libation. There is only limited evidence that phialai could contain unguents.9 They are not typically used for incense, as opposed to what some commentators claim, although Flavius Josephus, in his description of the tabernacle built by Moses, does mention “two golden bowls filled with frankincense” (phialai duo khryseai libanou plēreis), apparently placed above the loaves on the table of presence (A.J. 3.143). The Septuagint does not refer to phialai in connection with frankincense, but golden, or at other times silver or bronze phialai are listed among the utensils associated with the tabernacle, and later the Jerusalem Temple, cult. Phialē as a rule is a Greek rendering of the Hebrew word mizraq, apart from the Song of Songs, where a different phrase (arugat ha-bosem), is twice (5:13 and 6:2) rendered as phialai tou arōmatos. While in this case, the arōma does not refer to incense, it is nonetheless the only place in the Old Greek version of the Jewish scriptures where a phialē is associated with an aromatic substance. A curious feature of the iconography of a phialē, attested throughout Greek and Roman antiquity, is the depiction of gods and goddesses performing a libation with a phialē—curious if we think of libations as part of worship. In the Hellenistic period when kings, and later in the Roman period, Roman emperors, are portrayed on the obverse of a coin, the reverse often includes a deity (or several), also frequently presented with a phialē.10 In the pottery from the classical period images of deities holding both a phialē and a thymiatērion are well attested.11 In cultic practice there is thus a clear distinction between vessels used for libations and censers to burn incense, although incense could also be directly sprinkled on an altar. For storage and transportation, incense boxes would typically be used. While all the above can account for the visual associations that the mention of phialai in Rev 5:8 would have evoked, including imperial cult and, certainly in Ephesos, the Artemisian mysteries, one must not underestimate the tactile dimension. In her insightful study on phialē as an embodied object, Gaifman observes: “When used, whether for libations or drinking, it [phialē] becomes part of its handler’s body: it is embodied in the sense of being integrated in the body” (Gaifman 2018, 456). This is because of the phialē’s distinctive feature, the omphalos, necessitating a firm and tight grip of the bowl. To quote Gaifman (2018, 446–447) again, Once I had picked up the vessel and held it securely in my palm, it felt surprisingly light and was easy to angle in various directions in a fluid motion … . Upon inserting my fingers inside the mound, I became aware of finger-shaped impressions in the clay, which the professional ceramicist

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proposed were the impressions of the potter’s fingers. I could use these as guides for placing my own fingers and thereby comfortably secure my grip. No foot, spout or handle directed my movement of the phiale; only my arm and wrist. Clasped by its internal hollow, the bowl became analogous to a glove or prosthesis. With this in mind, it is difficult to imagine how one could hold tightly a golden phialē with burning coal as Rev 5:8 is often envisaged. When not paying attention to the material qualities of the vessel, interpreters tend to overlook the fact that offering incense in a golden phialē may simply not be feasible. Furthermore, we note that in Rev 5:8 the elders fall before the Lamb, each holding a harp and a golden bowl filled with incense, requiring a high level of balance and skill in order not to spill incense. Here Gaifman’s remark on how easy it was to angle the phialē “in various directions in a fluid motion” may be of relevance, yet Gaifman’s phialē was empty. If incense was not being burnt, it presumably still exuded scent, albeit not as strong as it would have otherwise. There is also no smoke in Rev 5:8 which invariably accompanies the burning of incense, providing some visibility to the otherwise invisible aroma. Margaret Kenna in her study on “Why Does Incense Smell Religious?” has suggested that “incense, or any other fragrant smoke, is both a medium of inter-connectedness with the transcendent world and a symbol of it” (Kenna 2005, 15). This may well account for the instances where incense is burnt and associated with prayer. Yet in Rev 5:8, it is not smoke, but the worshipper’s tight grip on the phialē, thus a tactile experience, and via phialē, also fragrant incense which has not yet undergone transformation, that provides that connection. The Greek word omphalos means “navel,” but also, “umbilical cord,” a term, as Gaifman remarks, “consonant with the mound’s function in attaching the bowl to the body” (Gaifman 2018, 455). Paradoxically, thus, the readers/hearers, whose sense of security in everyday experience is likely to be challenged by the subversive visuality as identified by Friesen, are at the same time reminded of the role of other senses in worshipping the “indescribable deity”: kinaesthesia as they follow the acrobatic movements of the elders, as well as haptics and olfaction, as they imagine their tight grip of the phialē and the invisible aroma of incense, with for now only a hint at the connection to the deity, to be fully consummated only when incense is burnt. Incense is only reported to be burning in the scene of worship in Rev 8:1–4. The scene begins after the seventh seal has been opened. The offerings depicted here take place in complete silence (cf. v. 1), there are thus no songs accompanying this part of worship, probably reflecting the precarious nature of incense offering, to which I will return below. Only later do the seven angels blow their trumpets (cf. v. 6).12 In v. 3 an angel with a golden censer (ekhōn libanōton khrysoun) is reported to stand at the altar (epi tou thysiastēriou), where he is given a great quantity of incense (thymiamata polla) in order to offer it on behalf of, or simultaneously with,13 the “prayers of all the holy ones” (tais

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proseuchais tōn hagiōn pantōn). In the subsequent verse, the smoke of incense (ho kapnos tōn thymiamatōn), again tais proseuchais tōn hagiōn, is said to ascend before God from the angel’s hand. The smoke ascending before God is reminiscent of Is 6:4, where the smoke is said to fill the entire throne room. If by prayers we are to understand the cries of the souls from under the altar (cf. Rev 6:9–10), their content will have been specified by now. Presumably the reference to “all the holy ones” includes the multitude of those “robed in white,” standing before the throne and before the Lamb (Rev 7:9), so it is not limited to those “under the altar.” Thus, incense again conveys more than verbal communication. The angel’s offering takes place at the altar, but it is performed in a censer, implying additional movement. There is apparently only one altar in the heavenly Temple as envisaged in Revelation.14 It is golden and it is situated in the vicinity of God’s throne, imitating the location of the golden incense altar in the Jerusalem Temple. The censer in Rev 8:3 is not referred to as a thymiatērion or pyreion, the typical designations for vessels used for burning incense in the Septuagint. The term used in Revelation 8 is libanōtos, which in the LXX and in other Greek literature, as well as in inscriptions, usually refers to frankincense. In the inscriptions from Asia Minor, the typical term for a censer (or incense box) is libanōtis, and much less frequently, libanōtris. However, even in this regard, there does seem to be some confusion between the substance and the container in the sources. In v. 5 it becomes clear why the angel needed a separate incense utensil: the angel fills it with fire (or perhaps incense coals?) from the altar (ek tou pyros tou thysiasteriou) and throws it upon the earth, leading to a series of atmospheric phenomena symbolising the outset of the divine judgement. The use of the same censer to entreat God and then to condemn the earth, evoking a set of threatening sensory phenomena, is not accidental. In this way, the precarious nature of incense offerings comes to the fore. Before I turn to the meanings associated with incense, let me comment briefly on yet another reference to incense in the book of Revelation. The merchants’ cargo, which serves as an introduction to their lament over the fall of Babylon in Chapter 18, includes a significant number of aromatic items, such as scented wood, cinnamon, amomum, various spices/incense (thymiamata), perfume/ointment (myron),15 and frankincense (libanos). This “extensive polysyndetic list of luxury trade goods” (Aune 1998b, 998) is partly based on Ezekiel (27:7–25). Not all of the specific aromatic items appear in Ezekiel’s list. While the goods not listed in Ezekiel may indeed “reflect the actual products of trade at John’s time” (Beale 1999, 909), the reference to thymiamata and libanos in Rev 18:13 evokes the scene of incense offering earlier in Revelation 8. While incense is not listed among the trade goods in Ezekiel 27, thymiama (Greek rendering of the Hebrew qetoret) appears earlier in three different passages. In 8:11 the prophet recounts his vision of seventy elders, each with his own censer (miqteret/thymiatērion) from which the “smoke” or “fragrance”16 of incense (qetoret/thymiama) is ascending. The

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transgression involved in this act refers both to the object of worship, specified in 8:10, and apparently to the actors performing it. In the two other passages where Ezekiel mentions incense, 16:18 and 23:41, it is named alongside the holy oil and it relates to what is presented as the abuse of these two items in the worship of idols. The fact that the incense offering made to idols is denounced, but at the same time incense and oil are further characterised with the possessive pronoun “my” (“my oil,” shamni/to elaion mou, and “my incense,” qetareti/to thymiama mou) underscores the suitability of incense offering for the God of Israel. The author of the book of Revelation appears to have had a similar perspective on incense, but by including it in his economic critique of Rome in Chapter 18, he adds a reminder of the importance of incense and other aromatic goods as valuable commodities. How the cultic use of incense and profit that could be made from its sale are related is well illustrated by an inscription from Ephesos (IEph 4102), which could be as early as the third century BCE. It mentions how the neopoiai and kouretes “operate together … in some kind of a notary capacity related to the sale of incense” (Rogers 2013, 84), needed both for the everyday operation of the temple of Artemis, and in presumably even larger quantities for the celebration of Artemisian mysteries. 7.3

Incense in Asia, in the Jewish Scriptures, and the Golden Bowls in thebook of Revelation

There is no doubt that John’s audience, regardless of which part of the Roman Empire we envisage them to be, would be familiar with the manifold use of incense in their everyday lives. Incense is well attested in various ancient settings, although it is not always clear which substance (or combination of substances) is meant when a generic term thymiamata is used (Mehl 2022, 34). While in the past scholars assumed that the term libanos, usually translated as frankincense, pertained specifically to the oleo-gum-resin obtained by incising the trunk and branches of various species of the genus Boswellia, more recently analysis has shown that traces of Pistacia are far more often found (Dodinet 2017). In practice, thymiamata and libanos are sometimes used interchangeably (Mehl 2022, 37). The burning of aromatic substances is also attested in domestic settings, although in this context, too, burning incense may have been part of worship. In Ephesos in the so-called Terrace Houses, a number of thymiatēria, devoted largely to Dionysos or Sarapis, have been found, mainly at the entrances to the houses and in their main rooms. Commenting on their distribution, Norbert Zimmermann (2020, 221) notes, “One can imagine that when guests passed the entrance of these rooms, everyone brought an offering to the deity.” These thymiatēria belong to the last period of the Terrace Houses’ use (from the mid-third century onward), but epigraphic sources document incense in Ephesos in earlier periods. We have already mentioned the inscription referring to the sale of incense. From the Roman period, a group of so-called kourētes inscriptions

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from the Prytaneion, beginning in the reign of Tiberius and ending before the middle of the third century, offer valuable insights into the ritual functions of the kourētes, and thus also into the celebration of the Artemisian mysteries. Most of the inscriptions (almost fifty) mention a specialised censer attendant (epi thymiatrou), but about half of these only give the name of the person responsible for offering incense in a particular year, without providing additional information. In a number of second-century CE inscriptions, the censer official is characterised as hieros (“holy”), suggesting perhaps a heightened significance of the incense offerings. Only in four cases do we read about Tryphōn akrobatēs epi thymiatrou (IEph 1022, 1023, 1024, 1025). As much as I am attracted to the idea that “this attendant was concerned with incense offerings that were combined with a cultic dance during sacrifices for Artemis” (Rogers 2013, 148; similarly Kalinowski 2021, 108), I do not think we have sufficient evidence to corroborate this. This is not to say that no sacred dances or acrobatic elements were included in the cult of Artemis; there are a couple of other inscriptions listing “acrobats” associated with Artemis which could possibly point to that. However, whether there was a connection with incense is less likely, other than perhaps when Tryphon the acrobat was in charge of the censer. That incense as such constituted an integral part of the mysteries, however, is further confirmed in the so-called “Ancestral law” (IEph 10), possibly dated to the late second century CE (Rogers 2013, 208). Found in front of the Great Theatre of Ephesos, it at the outset states that the prytanis is to “light a fire on all the altars and burn incense/frankincense and sacred aromatic herbs (ton libanon kai ta hieratika arōmata).”17 Interestingly, the text appears to distinguish between libanos and other types of aromatic offerings. The examples from Ephesos are instructive, but we also have evidence of incense offerings from other cities listed in John’s Apocalypse. The inscribed altar from Pergamon, discussed by Steven Friesen (2001, 107–108), is of particular interest in view of its clear connection with imperial cult (IPerge 2.374). It is dedicated “To Emperor Caesar Trajan Hadrian Olympios, Saviour and Founder” by “the Hymnodes of god Augustus and goddess Rome.” On another side, the text among others specifies that the eukosmos (the one “responsible for general oversight” as Friesen [(2001), 110] suggests) is to provide for the mysteries “a round cake, incense/frankincense (libanon), and lamps for Augustus.”18 What is more, if one of the members of the group were to die, the eukosmos was also expected to provide 15 denarii for incense (eis libanon), and the slaves of the undertaker were to receive 12 denarii from the common funds for incense (eis libanon). While the use of incense in funerary rites may have been of Roman origin (cf. n. 31 in Friesen 2001), such usage (including the detail concerning undertakers!) sheds additional light on the contexts in which the members of John’s assemblies may have encountered incense, providing also further insight into its monetary value. Taking into account the prominence of incense in Greek and Roman cult, including emperor worship, that John should still consider it a type of

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sacrifice most fitting for the heavenly Temple is not self-evident. This is, however, consistent with how incense functions in the Hebrew Bible, where a distinction between a proper way to offer it, on the one hand, and those considered unacceptable, on the other, is rather sharply made. The Apocalypse first presents the readers/hearers with images of appropriate cultic behaviour and attitude, including proper use of cultic items, and only then warns them of the dangers awaiting those who refuse and practice idolatry instead. As Friesen (2001, 147) observes, in Revelation 13–19 “The worship of the emperors … is the defining activity that separates those who are condemned from those who belong to God.” In this context, not incense as such, but what it evokes, transferred to the golden bowls, I suggest, plays a role in how the author of Revelation envisages the punishment. We now turn to a brief consideration of incense in the Hebrew Bible. There are no explicit comments concerning its function either in the biblical prescription on how to prepare the holy incense (Exod 30:34–38), or in the passages where the “incense of aromatic spices” (qetoret sammim) is listed along with other offerings as a part of the regular sacrificial service.19 The Pentateuch offers us glimpses of other meanings associated with incense, which, however, are never systematised.20 As mentioned above, the explicit association of prayer with incense seems to have gained prominence only in a later period. Incense, at least as envisaged in Israel’s authoritative writings, served to praise and honour God, and it operated as a means of atonement. It plays a particularly prominent role in the rites associated with the Day of Atonement as prescribed in Leviticus 16. While in the Hebrew Bible, it played an ambiguous role of revealing and concealing in the context of theophany (as in Leviticus 16), in later Second Temple writings an even closer connection between incense and the divine revelation is attested. Josephus, in A.J. 13.282, shows that in the first-century incense celebration was considered, as Paul Heger (1997, 187) puts it, “the catalyst for divine revelation, the stage of prophecy.” The function of incense as such a “catalyst” is also well illustrated in the story of Zechariah in Luke 1:8–20. While extremely holy, incense offerings represented a precarious type of offering. This extreme holiness of incense is underscored in how it renders holy all the vessels with which it has contact, the acceptance or refutation of a given incense offering notwithstanding (cf. Numb 17:3). As for the hazards in dealing with incense, the story of Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu in Lev 10:1–2, is a particularly vivid illustration.21 Incense offerings were closely linked with priestly identity, and thus especially fit for cultic ordeals in cases when priestly status was disputed. This was related to the role that incense played in manifesting and executing the divine will and the divine judgement. The account of the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram in Numbers 16–17 exemplifies this well. Even as incense could signify or conceal the divine presence, it also had apotropaic power, and it could be both life-giving and death-dealing. In Numbers 17, the incense offered by Aaron literally divides those who are dying from those who are still alive. It is also the extreme holiness of incense, which resulted in its handling being considered

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inappropriate unless practised by specifically designated persons, that accounts for the way in which Ezekiel mentions it in connection with idolatry (see above). As the visions in the book of Revelation unfold, it is the death-dealing associations that prevail. Yet, in Rev 8:5 it is not incense as such, but the censer containing fire, or more likely, coals from the altar, that the angel uses to announce divine judgement. The golden bowls which we first encountered in Rev 5:8 return in Chapters 15 and 16 of Revelation, but now containing the divine wrath.22 Whether the seven golden bowls handed by one of the living creatures to the seven angels in 15:7 are literally the same bowls as those which the elders are said to be holding in Rev 5:8 is not entirely clear. But by emphasising that these are golden phialai, and that they are filled with the wrath of God (hepta phialas khrysas gemousas thymou tou theou), the text appears to allude to the characterisation of the bowls in Rev 5:8 as phialas khrysas gemousas thymiamatōn, including the alliteration in thymou tou theou and thymiamatōn. The use of the bowls is thus analogous to the use of the angelic censer in Chapter 8: a holy incense vessel becomes an agent of divine judgement. According to Rev 15:6, the angels are robed in pure bright linen, alluding to the vestment which the high priest wore on the day of atonement. In Rev 15:8, the verse that follows immediately the first mention of the golden bowls “filled with the wrath of God,” it is reported that “the Temple was filled with smoke (kapnos) from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the Temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were ended.” Constituting yet another allusion to Leviticus 16, the reference to “the smoke from the glory of God” further reinforces the association between the bowls and incense. Interpreters generally agreed that “Exodus plagues are both a literary and theological model for the bowls” (Beale 1999, 201). The Exodus plagues account, however, does not exhaust the multiplicity of associations that the bowls evoke. Resseguie (1998, 101) comments, “In the bowl plagues, John makes the connection explicit between heavenly worship, the prayers of the saints (5:8; 8:3–5), and the earthly plagues that are poured from the bowls. The one (prayers offered in bowls) influences the other (plagues poured out in bowls).” Having first applied to them the untypical function of incense containers in 5:8, and referring to them as being “the prayers of the holy ones,” beginning with Chapter 15, John ascribes to them the destructive power elsewhere associated with incense. The significance of the golden phialai is further drawn attention to when in Rev 17:1 and then again in 21:9, an angel is identified as “one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls.” 7.4

Inanimate Objects, Worship, and the Temple in the Book of Revelation

Using the same utensils for prayers offered to God and to inflict punishment on God’s behalf places them at centre stage as agents in human-divine communication, and presents us with an intriguing transfer of meaning, when

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some of the biblical functions of incense, connected with judgement and destruction, are transferred to the cultic utensils in which incense was earlier kept or offered. A similar transfer of meaning was not unique to the author of the book of Revelation. We encounter a somewhat analogous phenomenon in Philo of Alexandria, for whom the altar of incense and incense offerings in certain contexts become virtually synonymous, so that what applies to incense, may by the same token be said about the altar. In Who is the Heir of Divine Things (Her. 226), the altar of incense (to thymiatērion23) is presented as expressing gratitude (eukharistian anagetai) for the bestowal of the elements. As he continues to explain this, it becomes clear that for Philo the thanksgiving offered by the altar pertains to the event of incense being offered on it, encompassing thus incense itself as well. Philo thus appears to ascribe intentionality and consciousness to the altar, incense, the vapour rising above the altar, and fire. In the book of Revelation, the agency of the golden bowls can be understood in Bruno Latour’s (2005, 71) sense of modifying “a state of affairs by making a difference” but, at least not explicitly, by having intentionality and consciousness. However, the author of the book of Revelation attributes these qualities to the altar in the heavenly Temple, too, by giving it the ability to speak: “And I heard the altar say” (Rev 16:7; cf. 9:13–14). What is more, it is possible that a voice is ascribed to the throne as well (cf. Rev 6:6; 19:5; 21:3), although in this case, the text is more ambiguous. Assigning the ability to speak to material objects in a heavenly cultic setting is not unique to the Apocalypse of John. Dale Allison (1986, 411–412) draws attention to a parallel in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, where parts of the Temple building are also envisaged as involved in giving praise to God: “With these let all the f[oundations of the hol]y of holies praise, the uplifting pillars of the supremely exalted abode, and all the corners of its structure” (4Q403 1 I, 41).24 Not in a heavenly tabernacle, but in a post-resurrection setting, we may also note the talking—and walking!—cross in the Gospel of Peter 10:39–42. In a world where the altar (and possibly the throne) has a voice, it should not surprise us that cultic vessels are given an important role to play. There are other parallels which have been noticed between the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and the heavenly worship in Revelation, including the importance of number seven,25 as well as the fact that the Songs envisage angelic liturgy which includes olfactory effects, too.26 Yet in relation to cultic utensils and olfaction, even more intriguing is a reference to six bowls “to smell” (lmrh) in 11Q18 18.1, which is a part of yet another composition attested among the Dead Sea Scrolls, New Jerusalem. The bowls “to smell” in New Jerusalem appear to be intended for liquids, but as the book of Revelation shows, the function of bowls would not need to be limited to just one substance. The document’s interest in odours is further confirmed in 11Q18 22.5, which mentions an “altar for a smell.” While a few scholars think that the description of the Temple in New Jerusalem might refer to the heavenly Jerusalem or the celestial Temple, the

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majority regard it as a blueprint for the messianic era. In John’s Apocalypse, as we have seen, the heavenly Temple is similarly envisaged as filled with olfactory stimuli. As opposed to the DSS document, however, John’s new Jerusalem, as depicted by John in Revelation 21–22, seems to be devoid of scents, with an almost exclusive focus on visual phenomena. And yet, it is noteworthy that John is carried there by “one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues” (Rev 21:9), one of the few elements of continuity in what is presented as entirely new. This vision of “the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God” (Rev 21:10) is remarkable for the absence of the Temple (cf. 21:22). Recurring references to the heavenly Temple earlier in the text scarcely indicate that the writer was opposed to the idea of the Temple as such. The seer’s explicit denial of its presence and his wonder at this fact (“I saw no Temple in the city” in 21:22), attesting his acquaintance with other visions of new Jerusalem, in which the Temple constituted the central feature, is sometimes interpreted as an expression of anti-Temple polemic. Robert Gundry (1987, 264) has argued that not only, as stated explicitly in Rev 21:22, the idea of the Temple is applied to God and the Lamb, but indeed the entire city, the new Jerusalem, rather than merely a dwelling place for the holy ones, is the holy ones. The promise to make the one who conquers “a pillar in the Temple of my God” (Rev 3:12) supports this reading, also because it leaves some ambiguity as to whether this pertains to the present Temple (heavenly or earthly?), or the eschatological future in new Jerusalem, devoid of the traditional Temple. The latter is most likely, but if so, the use of Temple imagery in this promise blurs the boundary between animate and inanimate objects, preparing the reader/hearer for the role of cultic utensils later in the narrative, while at the same time constituting another point of continuity between the present and the future. If the faithful are to become pillars, it is less surprising that bowls filled with incense are their prayers. If the golden bowls, just like incense, can both be agents of worship and supplication and of utter destruction, just as incense and incense vessels can be life-giving or death-dealing, they must be handled with care—not unlike the book of Revelation. But perhaps they, too, can support the readers in challenging the book. 7.5

Conclusion

The motif of incense and incense imaginaire in the book of Revelation can be better appreciated if we consider the multiplicity of meanings ascribed to incense in ancient Jewish literature, but also if we take seriously the materiality of cultic items associated with it and sensory experiences accompanying their handling. Incense and material objects utilised to contain, handle, and burn incense potentially involve the entire sensorium, including haptics and kinaesthesia, and thus are not limited to olfaction. But in John’s Apocalypse their potential extends further than that, especially when considered alongside other Temple appurtenances.

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In her essay “Why Can’t the Heavenly Miss Jerusalem Just Shut Up?,” Jorunn Økland (2009, 104) points out how the bride/new Jerusalem through mimicry “can simultaneously deal with male discourse in order to uncover its mechanisms, and at the same time re-utilize the marks these mechanisms leave on her to create space for the other woman to come.” She earlier notes that in Revelation, “speech belongs to males alone”; the bride, “the only female left,” is only able to utter one word in the last chapter of the book (Økland 2009, 101–102). Økland’s Irigarayan reading of the bride in Revelation is inspiring and refreshing, but the voice ascribed to the (inanimate and grammatically neuter) altar earlier in the text is a reminder that speech throughout Revelation is not the exclusive domain of males (nor is it limited to human and heavenly figures). In the aforementioned exploration of “viewing the divine” in Revelation 4–5, Steven Friesen remarks how the subversive visuality which he has identified is enhanced by the multiple levels of ritual. What is more, the ritual (earthly) invocation of the heavenly ritual collapses the distinction between worship taking place in local assemblies in Asia and that envisaged in heaven, enhancing “the authority of the author, of his visions, and of those who sided with him” (Friesen 2018, 17). Both this and the promise of becoming an integral part of the Temple which is “Lord God Almighty and the Lamb” (Rev 21:22) would presumably both further enhance the authority of the Johannine perspective and bring the members of local Christ worshipper assemblies siding with John closer to one another in their search for security and reassurance. And yet, the “fantasy imagery, the paradoxical use of language, and the manipulation of ritual” which generated this “subversive visuality,” in undermining standard perception, continue to threaten the audience’s sense of security. Subsequent attempts to domesticate Revelation’s wildness may have at times succeeded in subduing it temporarily, but not in taming it; it still lurks, ready to unleash its disruptive potential. It is a joy and honour to be able to offer this essay as a token of appreciation for Steven Friesen’s wide-ranging and stimulating scholarship, including his tireless efforts to unleash the Apocalypse’s “creative power at work in the systemic critique” which can lead “to more human flourishing” (Friesen 2017, 103). Εὐχαριστίαν ἀνάγω, καὶ εἰς πολλὰ ἔτη, Στέφανε! Notes 1 There is a long tradition of interpreting the image of the slaughtered lamb as sacrificial. This is understandable in view of how John introduces the Lamb in 5:5–6, as Friesen (2001, 190) notes, “by juxtaposing messianic and sacrificial allusions; the conqueror is the one who was slain.” While I am not convinced that there are sufficient indications in the text to interpret the image as sacrificial, regardless of how it is understood, there clearly is no need for animal sacrifice in the heavenly Temple. 2 The English translation of Jub. 3:27 is taken from VanderKam 1989. 3 English translation of biblical passages is mostly taken from NRSVue, albeit with slight modifications. Here “holy ones” instead of “saints.”

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4 The connection between incense and prayer became more prominent only in later writings, such as Judith and the book of Wisdom. 5 It is not clear to me what Aune (1997, 358) means when he states that in Rev 5:8, “incense is clearly understood metaphorically.” 6 Interpreters often connect the reference to the prayers in 5:8 with the cries of the souls under the altar in 6:10. However, even if this is correct, from a narrative perspective in 5:8 there is no indication that the content of the prayers will be subsequently specified, drawing attention exclusively to the material items and their relationship to the environment. 7 For a particularly beautiful example, see the golden phialē currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/ 255122. 8 See Block VIII from the East frieze of the Parthenon, which depicts five young women, the first of whom is carrying a tall thymiaterion, the next two jugs, and the last two, phialai. For the image, see https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/ object/G_1816-0610-24. 9 LSJ refers to a sixth/early fifth-century poet Xenophanes of Colophon, who mentions a sweet-smelling ointment in a phialē: euōdes myron en phialēi. 10 See a silver coin (didrachm) with the laureate head of Titus on the obverse, and Zeus Salaminios holding phiale and resting on short sceptre, on the reverse, minted in Cyprus (76–77), now in the British Museum (no. 1877, 0406.1), available at https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_1877-0406-1. 11 See two images of Nike, both associated with the Berlin painter: on a neck amphora, now in Louvre ( https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010270086), and on an oinochoe, currently in the British Museum ( https://www. britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1859-0301-6). Note also a depiction of Aphrodite holding two phialai, and surrounded by two thymiatēria, on a lekythos held at the Ashmolean: https://images.ashmolean.org/asset/10929/. 12 The silence in 8:1 has troubled commentators, leading to a variety of explanations, but as Wick (1998) argues, it is best accounted for by the hypothesis of Israel Knohl to the effect that priestly sacrifice in the Jerusalem Temple was in fact accompanied by complete silence. Cf. Sir 50:16, where the trumpets are likewise sounded only once all the offerings have been accomplished. 13 The dative phrase (tais proseuchais tōn hagiōn pantōn) is somewhat ambiguous. It is not entirely clear what precisely the nature of the association between incense and the prayers is. Tais proseuchais could either be a temporal dative (“simultaneous with the prayers”), a dative of respect (“with reference to the prayers”?), of advantage (“on behalf of the prayers” or “as a complement to the prayers”), or of association (“with the prayers”). See Aune (1998a, 512) including relevant bibliographical references. 14 I do not see enough evidence to distinguish between two altars in the heavenly setting, contra Aune (1998a, 511). Besides 8:3, 5, a thysiastērion in heaven is mentioned in Rev 6:9; 9:13; 14:18; 16:7—the term only refers to the altar in the earthly Temple in 11:1. 15 I am puzzled as to why a number of English Bible translations, including NRSVue, as well as commentators, without any explanation render μύρον as “myrrh.” 16 ‫ ָעָתר‬is a hapax legomenon; “smell” according to HALOT 2:906, where various purported Semitic cognates, the meaning of which ranges from “(giving off) perfume/scent” to “smoke,” are mentioned. The LXX has ἀτμίς. 17 For the English translation of the Ancestral Law, see Rogers (2013, 208). Rogers renders λίβανος as “incense” but “frankincense” would be another possible rendering, especially if the subsequent mention of “sacred aromatic herbs” is intended to distinguish them from λίβανος.

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18 The English translation of the inscription (slightly modified) from Friesen 2001, 108. 19 Aside from Exodus, the daily incense offering as a standard practice is mentioned several times in 2 Chronicles (2 Chr 2:3; 13:11; 29:7). 20 None of the few monographs devoted to incense cult in ancient Judaism gives a full account of the variety of meanings associated with it, as they tend to focus on historical and/or archaeological issues related to the development of the cult. See Heger 1997; Löhr 1927; Nielsen 1986; Zwickel 1990. 21 See also 2 Chr 26:16–21. 22 Cf. 15:7; 16:1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 10, 12, 17; 17:1; 21:9. 23 The word thymiatērion in the LXX typically denotes a censer; the altar of incense is referred to as (to) thysiastērion (tou) thymiamatos (or tōn thymiamatōn). But Philo’s text leaves no doubt that it is the altar that he has in mind, and the way in which he employs the term is in line with first-century usage. Attridge (1989, 234) notes that Symmachus and Theodotion also have thymiatērion for the altar of incense in Exod 30:1. For a similar use of thymiatērion in reference to the altar, see Heb 9:4. 24 English translation quoted from Eshel et al. 1998, 272. 25 Cf. Newsom’s (1985, 49) comment: “The entire composition seems at times to be a rhapsody on the sacred number seven, so that one may simply have in the Shirot a fluctuation between a vision of heaven as one and seven holy sanctuaries.” 26 The angelic sacrificial cult is depicted only in column 9 of 11Q17, identified as belonging to the last song of the cycle. Due to the fragmentary nature of the passage, it is not possible to reconstruct the details of the angelic worship, but two references to fragrance are attested in vv. 4–5. The first one denotes the aroma of the offerings of the holy ones and the second, of their libations. Incidentally, libations are not included in the worship envisaged in the book of Revelation, in spite of the prominence of the golden bowls. Warren (2018) suggests that this is deliberate, and that libation imagery is employed in Revelation to point to wrong religious practice, and more specifically, to condemn the use of wine in eucharistic practice.

Bibliography Allison, Dale C. Jr. 1986. “4 Q 403 Fragm I, Col I, 38–46 and the Revelation to John.” Revue de Qumran 12:409–414. Attridge, Harold W. 1989. A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews. Hermeneia. Philadelphia: Fortress. Aune, David E. 1997. Revelation 1–5. WBC 52A. Nashville: Thomas Nelson. Aune, David E. 1998a. Revelation 6–16. WBC 52B. Nashville: Thomas Nelson. Aune, David E. 1998b. Revelation 17–22. WBC 52C. Nashville: Thomas Nelson. Beale, G. K. 1999. The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Dodinet, É lisabeth. 2017. “L’encens antique, un singulier à mettre au pluriel?” Arché Orient – Le Blog. https://archeorient.hypotheses.org/7786. Elgvin, Torleif. 2009. “Priests on Earth as in Heaven: Jewish Light on the Book of Revelation.” Pages 257–278 in Echoes from the Caves: Qumran and the New Testament. Edited by Florentino García Martínez. Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 85. Leiden: Brill. Eshel, Esther, et al. Qumran Cave 4, VI: Poetical and Liturgical Texts, Part 1. Discoveries in the Judaean Desert 11. Oxford: Clarendon.

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Friesen, Steven J. 2001. Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the Ruins. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Friesen, Steven J. 2017. “A Useful Apocalypse: Domestication and Destabilization in the Second Century.” Pages 79–104 in New Perspectives on the Book of Revelation. Edited by Adela Yarbro Collins. Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 291. Leuven: Peeters. Friesen, Steven J. 2018. “Material Conditions for Seeing the Divine: The Temple of the Sebastoi at Ephesos and the Vision of the Heavenly Throne in Revelation 4–5.” Pages 3–25 in Seeing the God: Image, Space, Performance, and Vision in the Religion of the Roman Empire. Edited by Marlis Arnhold, Harry O. Maier, and Jörg Rüpke. Culture, Religion, and Politics in the Greco-Roman World 2. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Gaifman, Milette. 2018. “The Greek Libation Bowl as Embodied Object.” Art History 41:444–465. Gundry, Robert H. 1987. “The New Jerusalem: People as Place, Not Place for People.” Novum Testamentum 29:254–264. Heger, Paul. 1997. The Development of Incense Cult in Israel. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 245. Berlin: De Gruyter. Kalinowski, Angela. 2021. Memory, Family, and Community in Roman Ephesos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kenna, Margaret E. 2005. “Why Does Incense Smell Religious? Greek Orthodoxy and the Anthropology of Smell.” Journal of Mediterranean Studies 15:50–69. Latour, Bruno. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Löhr, Max. 1927. Das Räucheropfer im Alten Testament: Eine archäologische Untersuchung. Halle: Niemeyer. Mehl, Véronique. 2022. “L’encens et le divin: le matériel et l’immatériel en Grèce ancienne.” Archimède: Archéologie et histoire ancienne 9:34–45. Newsom, Carol A. 1985. Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition. Harvard Semitic Studies 27. Atlanta: Scholars. Nielsen, Kjeld. 1986. Incense in Ancient Israel. Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 38. Leiden: Brill. Økland, Jorunn. 2009. “Why Can’t the Heavenly Miss Jerusalem Just Shut Up?” Pages 88–105 in A Feminist Companion to the Apocalypse of John. Edited by AmyJill Levine, and Maria Mayo Robbins. London: T&T Clark. Resseguie, James L. 1998. Revelation Unsealed: A Narrative Critical Approach to John’s Apocalypse. Biblical Interpretation Series 32. Leiden: Brill. Rogers, Guy MacLean. 2013. The Mysteries of Artemis of Ephesos. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. VanderKam, James C. 1989. The Book of Jubilees: Translation. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 511. Scriptores Aethiopici 88. Leuven: Peeters. Warren, Meredith J. C. 2018. “The Cup of God’s Wrath: Libation and Early Christian Meal Practice in Revelation.” Religions 9:1–13. Wick, Peter. 1998. “There Was Silence in Heaven (Revelation 8:1): An Annotation to Israel Knohl’s ‘Between Voice and Silence.’” Journal of Biblical Literature 117:512–514. Zimmermann, Norbert. 2020. “Archaeological Evidence for Private Worship and Domestic Religion in Terrace House 2 at Ephesos.” Pages 211–229 in Religion in

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Ephesos Reconsidered: Archaeology of Spaces, Structures, and Objects. Edited by Daniel Schowalter, Sabine Ladstätter, and Christine Thomas. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 177. Leiden: Brill. Zwickel, Wolfgang. 1990. Räucherkult und Räuchergeräte: Exegetische und archäologische Studien zum Räucheropfer im Alten Testament. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 97. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Part II

Spatializing Religion and Power

8

The Institutional Function of the Agora and its Relevance to New Testament Studies A New Institutional Economics Approach to the Athenian Agora and the New Testament Alex Hon Ho Ip

8.1

Introduction

The impact of Steven Friesen’s “Poverty in Pauline Studies: Beyond the Socalled New Consensus” (2004) on New Testament (NT) studies cannot be overstated. It not only introduces a clear scale to help readers picture poverty as a context for NT interpretation but also sheds new light on how an economic perspective is important, if not essential, to our interpretation process. Friesen’s work on material culture includes both his academic papers and the creation of the Colloquium of Material Culture and Religion (COMCAR), which takes scholars to visit archeological sites that are relevant to NT studies. This chapter is inspired by his works, both in terms of their methodological attention to economics and the ways in which they incorporate material culture into textual analysis. It extends beyond Friesen’s scholarship, however, by introducing New Institutional Economics (NIE) as a tool for interpreting material culture, namely, the agora. The Greek word agora appears 11 times in the NT. English versions usually translate this term as either “marketplace” or “market,” which does not exactly convey all its layers. The agora was not merely a physical location, but rather a place where people lived and interacted in many ways; the meaning of the word in a text, therefore, requires further investigation and the aid of an appropriate model. A model is needed because the physical remains, and their related literary sources, neither provide a clear definition nor do they elaborate upon the implicit functions of an agora. Without an appropriate model, it is difficult to understand the various layers of meaning that NT writers ascribe to the use of the word in context. This chapter has four sections. The first is a short introduction of the texts related to outlining the unanswered question regarding the use of agora as a context. The second section introduces the relevant NIE concepts and methods used in research. The third section uses economic concepts to analyze the institutional functions of the agora from the Hellenistic period to the early Roman period using the Athenian agora as an example. The Athenian DOI: 10.4324/9781003344247-12

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agora was chosen because it is the most representative, well-documented model of an agora in history. The particular topic of interest here is people’s perceptions of an agora in the first century CE in general. Although we are not interested in a particular agora, using the most typical one offers the most comprehensive information possible. The fourth section focuses on how the investigation of the agora through the lens of NIE can better illustrate NT texts. This section will not give a detailed interpretation of each text but will instead show how various perspectives can offer a deeper understanding of the concept of the agora. 8.2

Agoras in the New Testament

NT writers do not refer to a market as a place merely for making transactions but rather as a broader concept that involves a wide variety of activities. We can divide the 11 appearances of the term into 5 groups according to their apparent meaning in the text. The first group, including Matt 23:7, Mark 12:38, and Luke 11:43 and 20:46, describes the agora as the place where the Pharisees and scribes love to gain honor. The second group, Matt 11:16 and Luke 7:32, uses agora as a metaphor to represent “this world” in which people do not respond to either the flute played at a wedding or the people wailing at a funeral. The third type is found in Matt 20:3, which refers to the agora as the place where people look for work and workers. The fourth group, found in Mark 7:4, describes the Pharisees and the Jews as not eating anything from the agora before washing it; this is a negative opinion of the agora, or activities associated with it, from a religious standpoint.1 It is important to note, however, that this teaching of the Pharisees has been criticized as being exaggerated and described as an “innovation of the sages (Pharisees) that was part of their tendency to extend the biblical regulations …” (Yarbro Collins 2007, 345). The fifth group, exemplified by Mark 6:56, implies that the agora is the center for people from surrounding farms, villages, and cities to gather. In Acts 17:17–18, the Athenian agora was one of the places where Paul argued with various people, including Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. A complete review of NT scholars’ views on the agora is unrealistic in this short paper. Instead, I offer a short review of some selected commentaries to show that scholars are not paying enough attention to the concept of the agora in these texts. This could be due to the fact that scholars used to focus more on religious context, and they lack an appropriate model to help to interpret this specific material culture. A quick review shows that the agora has not been taken seriously enough by interpreters. Green (1997, 302–3, 472–73) takes agora for granted without explanation and discussion. He merely assumed it as a setting where people will gather. Johnson (1991, 123, 188–90) translates agora as “marketplace” but offers no explanation of its importance. The mention of agora seems to be unimportant or provides no information to interpret the text. The interpreter seems to just accept that market-based activities were very common in the

The Institutional Function of the Agora 131 agora and does not try to inquire as to why. Wolter (2016, 313) focuses on the reaction of “this generation” to John and Jesus but offers no discussion on the concept of the agora in context. Gadenz (2018, 128, 206, 310) also pays no attention to the use of agora in context, while Nolland (1993, 666) offers a simple note that puts the agora in the same category as the synagogue and supposes that it was, “the main setting for public social interaction.” Edwards (2015) also makes no reference to the agora as an important reference for interpreting the text. Hagner (1995, 358) acknowledges that the marketplace was “where workers sought work” but does not provide any reason for why people came to the agora to find jobs and the implications of this. He also makes no further elaboration regarding the agora as a place to receive honor. In terms of Matthew 11:16, Hagner (1995, 310) simply acknowledges that the agora was a common location for weddings, funeral announcements, and other related activities. This quick review, which is by no means complete, indicates that the agora has generally been described as merely a place for gathering and conducting exchange. One reason for this could be a lack of appropriate tools for generating information from this particular material culture. Another reason could be that the inclusion of many different things in the agora makes it appear to lack a single core function. The following section will examine how NIE can help determine the institutional functions of the agora and how these institutional functions can enrich our interpretation of the NT. 8.3

New Institutional Economics and the Ancient Economy

The debate regarding whether we can use modern economic theory to examine ancient economies is too long to fully discuss here. As I have given a full review on this scholarly debate elsewhere, I will only give a brief analysis of the use of NIE here and why I think it is applicable, specifically to the interpretation of material culture.2 The following section will first use transaction cost theory, a branch of NIE, to identify the key economic function performed by the agora. Doing so will offer a clearer perspective on people’s lives, relationships, and interactions in the agora. Then, I will use Douglass North’s concept of scaffolding to explain how this economic function may have impacted people’s thinking patterns. The concept of “transaction cost” entered formal economic theory in the 1950s to replace the informal term “frictions” (Klaes 2000, 194–5). As an intervention in monetary theory, John Hicks (1935) posited that the use of frictions to describe factors that interrupt the function of the market was too vague and informal to be part of vigorous economic theory. The term’s significance in microeconomics and NIE, in particular, can be traced back to Ronald Coase’s famous article “The Nature of the Firm” (1937). In that article, Coase explained how different forms of institutions are created and how these forms can help reduce transaction costs in the decision-making process, where a transaction cost is defined as any cost that is not found in the

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Robinson Crusoe economy (North 1984, 7). These are extra costs involved in making transactions or contracts that are caused by imperfect information and opportunistic human behavior. Douglas North (1984, 5) specifically related transaction costs to information costs or, more generally, limited information or ignorance. Although the concept’s name includes the term “transaction,” it is not limited to monetary exchange. In short, transaction cost theory studies how people face and react to imperfection, making it applicable to ancient economies (Ip 2017, 118–19). Although the definition of transaction cost may seem strange to scholars not trained in the field of economics, it is a universal concept that can help us better understand various human interactions and institutions. Using the concept of transaction cost, NIE has developed theories to explain how different institutions are formed by minimizing costs involved in transactions or making different kinds of contracts. NIE’s key contribution is the identification of formal and informal institutions as endogenous variables in society that minimize transaction costs. North took it a step further, introducing the concept of “scaffolding” in the explanation of how different institutions may have an impact on people’s perception. Scaffolding has two different perspectives. Concerning how it is formed, the concept of scaffolding refers to the mental model formed in people’s daily experiences through interacting with the physical and sociocultural environment. On the other hand, this mental model will also affect people’s interpretation of the world. As North notes the function of the scaffolding is to help people to categorize different information based on what they learned from their daily experiences (North, 2005, 24–25). In the following section, I will analyze the economic functions of the agora in terms of minimizing transaction costs as well as how the living pattern it created affected people’s thinking patterns. 8.4

From Transaction Costs to the Institutional Functions of the Hellenistic Agora

Beginning with Martin’s (1951) seminal work Recherches sur l’ agora grecque, the agora has held scholars’ attention. His study examined the architectural development of the agora, the town planning involved in building one, and the concept of the agora according to ancient writers.3 Kolb’s (1981) work offers a deeper understanding of the earliest function of the agora, including the specialization of space and the transformation of festivals and political meeting places into theater. Researchers such as Hoepfner and Schwandner (1994) applied the German discipline of Bauforschung (building research) to examine the relationship between the agora’s environment and its social ideals (Nevett 2017, 4). Robinson (2016, 242) also suggested that the “form of settlement can be seen as a reflection of social values, political structures, and economic corollaries.” Scholars then began to move away from investigating the physical setting and began to examine the social meaning and material culture of the agora.

The Institutional Function of the Agora 133 Anthropologists, with Lévi-Strauss (1967, 1:285) as the representative figure, tried to define the relationship between the agora’s social structure and its spatial configuration. They are right to assume that there is some kind of relationship between spatial setting and social structure. However, this point is not relevant to our analysis here because it depends too much on anthropological assumptions regarding social structure. Hillier and Hanson (2009) were even more progressive in proposing that there are not only certain kinds of relationships between people and physical space but that these are equal to each other, that is to say, a physical space is defined by who were present and their corresponding activities there. They suggested that we should not investigate the surface functions of a physical space as if its existence has no relationship with society at large; simply put, they posited that architectural characteristics are a product of society, meaning that we can learn something about a given society by investigating its physical remains. Hillier and Hanson (2009, 2) stated that “Relations are what we think with, rather than what we think of.” Their model offers some insights into our study, in which the physical setting itself can illuminate certain aspects of its society. The value of investigating the physical setting does not exist merely in its surface function, but also in what can be learned from its existence. This view supports the key objective of this chapter. However, our aim is not to define a universal principle but rather to determine the extent to which physical remains may reflect their institutional function and how people’s thinking patterns are affected in interacting with the physical remains that performed these institutional functions. Why is the institutional perspective relevant at all? The fundamental hypothesis of both NIE and this chapter is that it was highly costly to coordinate politics and commerce in ancient society; information was both essential and costly (Kasper et al. 2012, 58). How, then, could ancient society cope with such coordination problems with so few communication channels? Why is coordination required for human interaction? The key reason is that people face “strategic uncertainty” due to the dishonest nature of human beings and imperfect information (Kasper et al. 2012, 50). An institutional function, therefore, is neither the same as a practical function, like a civil, political, or commercial function, nor is it merely the totality of these functions. Instead, an institutional function is a unique economic function that goes beyond those practical functions. More specifically, the institutional function is like the glue that binds different functions together and maintains the balance between them. From an economic perspective, conglomeration itself is an institutional function (Kasper et al. 2012, 258–9). The following section will elaborate as to how these institutional functions could help reduce transaction costs and impact people’s thinking patterns. North argued that people’s thinking patterns are trained, or “patterned,” through their daily interactions with different institutions. North uses the concept of “learning” to describe how people’s mindsets are patterned; the idea is that it is not possible for any individual to process all known

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information every time they make a decision. North (2005, 27) therefore borrowed from cognitive theory to help explain people’s decision-making processes. Cognitive sciences suggest that we make decisions based on our patterned mindset; we automatically use our past experiences to screen out relevant information and help us decide faster. In this way, people’s daily experiences help them form patterns. This chapter suggests that the concept of “patterned thinking” can also be used to understand the impact of material culture because some material cultures, like the agora, perform institutional functions. The agora, with its specific settings, had essential institutional characteristics; it encouraged and limited people’s activities, thereby functioning similarly to an institution. NIE scholars define “institution” as the rules of the game to articulate that its main function is to guide people’s behaviors under imperfections (e.g., Williamson 2000, 597–8). An individual will interact with both the space itself and people within the space of the agora. This repeated interaction will form people’s thinking patterns regarding their expectations of and reasons for going to the agora. This thinking pattern makes the agora an important context for NT interpretation. When we interpret NT texts with the agora as a context, we must include people’s thinking patterns in the interpretation. 8.4.1

The Conglomerated Nature of the Agora

Here, conglomeration refers to two institutional natures that attract different functions clustered together. Is it by chance that different functions are clustered together in the agora? Or does the cluster itself reflect a specific function of the agora? The term “conglomerated function” refers to the specific institutional function performed by the agora; it does not mean that the designer, if there was one, intentionally created this function. Instead, it evolved and developed over time. Different functions were brought into the space for the purpose of reducing transaction costs as those costs increase as a society becomes more complicated and extensive. The Athenian agora offers a typical example of how an agora developed over time and subsequently performed the institutional function. In its earliest form, the existence of easily accessible water sources attracted people to gather in areas with wells around the Acropolis (Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 2). Scholars have suggested that the first public buildings or monuments were erected in the Athenian agora around 520 BCE and included the Southern Fountain House and the Altar of the Twelve Gods. The old bouleuterion was then built near it around 508 BCE (Camp 2003, 5). After it was destroyed by the Persians around 480 BCE, the agora was rebuilt and new buildings with new functions were erected; these included stoas, which are typical of Greek architecture and are long, covered walkways, a new bouleuterion, and other civic buildings. The rise of Alexander the Great surely also added some new buildings to the existing agora. Temples for imperial cult worship were also added to the agora during the early Roman period (Camp 2003, 6–7).

The Institutional Function of the Agora 135 In the Hellenistic period, buildings with different functions started to cluster together in the different areas of the agora. The west side of the agora mainly included civic buildings from the classical period; these included buildings in the Doric-styled Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios, which was built after the Persians were driven out of Greece in 479 BCE. The building was dedicated to Zeus and primarily used for civic purposes (Camp 2003, 10). Beside it stood two temples, including the temple of Apollo Patroos and the Hephaisteion, both of which are dated from the second half of the fifth century BCE. Next to that temple cluster were three main civic buildings, including the Tholos, which was the headquarters of the 500-executive committee of the boule. The Tholos performed core administrative functions alongside senators (Camp 2003, 14). The old bouleuterion was next to the Tholos for the 500 senators who were chosen by lot to serve for one year (Camp 2003, 15). Another major building in this cluster was the Metroon, which served as both the archival building and the sanctuary of the Mother of the Gods (Camp 2003, 16). By the early sixth century BCE, temporary booths and tents had been erected in an open area at north of the Areopagus (D. B. Thompson 1993, 2). Booths, light wooden structures, and more permanent shops and factories made of stone and brick were scattered around the northeast corner (H. A. Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 170). Specialized products, such as fish, clothing, and perfume, were gathered and sold in “circles” (D. B. Thompson 1993, 2). In the second century BCE, the Stoa of Attalos II was built as a gift to Athens from the king of Pergamon (159−138 BCE) (H. A. Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 104). It was a two-story building about 116 m. long and 20 m. wide with a broad colonnaded hall built in the front part of the Stoa. There were 21 rooms at the back of the hall; these rooms were mainly shops that were rented by the city to some of the more prominent merchants (H. A. Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 104, 107). This view is supported by the evidence, proposed by Thompson, Wycherley, and Camp, that all of the doors were lockable, which implies that the products sold in these shops might have been valuable (Dickenson 2017, 188). The long, splendid hall was believed to have been used as a promenade, especially given the views from the terrace. Commercial activity was one of the most representative functions of the agora. When Athenians went to buy goods, they would say “he goes to the agora” (H. A. Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 170). This does not imply, however, that the commercial activities taking place in the agora were more important than the political or religious activities from an institutional perspective; instead, they are mutually dependent and mutually enhancing in terms of reducing transaction costs through gathering people together and spreading information. Stores were not only clustered, they were also departmentalized. As Xenophon said, “… but still you can order any of the slaves to buy anything you want from the market (agora) and bring it to you, and not one will be uncertain what to do. All of them know where to get each item” Oec. 8.22, (trans. Pomeroy 1994, 155). The area where shops sold utensils was

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called the “rings.” The area that sold furniture was called the apartia. People used to say, “to the opson, to the perfume, to the fresh cheese, to the slaves,” implying that all of these were sold in different locations (Wycherley 1957, 187). This departmentalized setting of the commercial area of the agora obviously played an institutional role by saving time costs in terms of searching for quality products. When sellers gather to sell similar products, it can help reduce both searching time for consumers and competition among sellers. This commercial function of the agora also extended into the early Roman period. In short, the departmentalized setting of commercial areas reflects the institutional function performed by the agora. Although this was not a function of the whole agora, it does show that the institutional concern suggested by NIE is indeed one of the factors influencing the development of the agora. 8.4.2

The Publicity Function of the Agora

Publicity is one of the most obvious institutional functions of the agora but is often forgotten due to the lack of physical evidence. There were two main publicity-based functions of the agora; one was the public announcement and the other was the benefaction function, during which one’s honor was seen and confirmed by the public. As previously stated, there was no convenient way to deliver information to the public; it was very costly to make oneself or one’s achievements known. The agora, with its high volume of regular visitors, provided a low-cost space for information to be delivered, spread, and verified. Additionally, the multiple functions performed by the agora meant that people of various social classes were often present, significantly reducing the transaction costs involved in transmitting information. The publicity function performed by the Monument of Eponymous Heroes was, therefore, the most explicit initial institutional function performed by the agora. The monument originally served to memorialize the newly formed ten tribes after the creation of democracy in 508/7 BCE by Cleisthenes. The monument was erected adjacent to the Metroon, a public administrative building and also served as a public notice board (Camp 2003, 17). Ephemeral notices were posted in front of each bronze statue to represent each of the tribes (H. A. Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 38). This way of posting notices saved significant transaction costs in conveying important information to the public. Fake news or misinformation, both intentional and unintentional, also appeared in ancient times, when it was much harder to verify a news story. The agora provided the best place to both convey and verify information. First, it was easy to confirm whether the information was true because it was posted on an official notice board. Second, notices were posted in front of each tribe’s bronze statue, which also improved the efficiency of the information spread. Third, government officials did not need to spend considerable time and resources to spread the news as the public would come there to read the notices.

The Institutional Function of the Agora 137 The second publicity function includes providing a low-cost way to publicize individuals’ honor and a monumental function for establishing Romanitas in the imperial period. Bronze statues have long been erected to honor important people; Aristotle mentioned that Harmodios and Aristeogeiton were the first to have statues in the agora. Statues set up for foreign princes and benefactors were also common from the fourth century BCE. The practice of setting up statues was continued during Roman times; Pausanias mentions that Philip and his son Alexander stood “after the Egyptians” in front of the Odeion (Wycherley 1957, 207). Why did both Athenians and Romans set up statues in the agora? Perhaps this was the least costly place to show honor to any respected person. Elites could also gain personal honor by benefacting public projects through the agora. Zuiderhoek (2009, 55) has convincingly argued that elites benefacted public projects because it was the fastest, safest way to gain honor. He called these projects “architecture of display, monumental public buildings associated with politics, entertainment and religion, games, festivals, and hierarchically structured distribution of oil, wine or money.” Honor must be seen, and the agora provided the best opportunity to make one’s honor visible. As the agora gathered political, religious, and general citizens for various purposes, it reduced the cost of publicizing one’s honor to people in various social groups. Besides individual honor, the empire also made use of the agora to help establish Romanitas in different provincial colonies. Imperial cult temples, colonnaded streets, and all the amenities representing Roman urban life, including baths, latrines, and fountains were incorporated (Evangelidis 2014, 345–6). 8.4.3

The Continuity of the Ancient Greek Agora and the Roman Forum

The institutional function of the agora continued into the early Roman Empire. The following section argues that, though there were functional and architectural changes, the institutional functions of the agora prevailed. The use of the Latin term forum instead of the Greek agora may not be due to a difference in nature or function but rather due to linguistics. Despite much debate over whether the Hellenistic agora declined in the early Roman period, the continuity of its major buildings and functions is clear (Dickenson 2017, 125–8). The changes in the Athenian agora were, arguably, political; Rome became the political center and Athens took on a more memorial function (Alcock 2002, 53–4). In the time of the early Roman Empire, several cultural buildings were built in Athens, including the Odeion of Agrippa sponsored by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, son-in-law of Emperor Augustus, to commemorate Augustus’s visit in the year 15 BCE (H. A. Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 111). This represents one of the most significant changes in archetypical spatial features and was not limited to the Athenian agora (Evangelidis 2014, 338). The Library of Pantainos was situated in the southeast corner of the main square of the agora, next to the Stoa of

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Attalos (H. A. Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 114). The commercial functions which were originally an inseparable part of civic functions had relocated to the Roman agora built at the end of the first century. A colonnaded street, representing more Roman values, was then built in the early imperial period (Evangelidis 2014, 341, 344). All of these changes point to the fact that Athenian agora began to play a more monumental function than it previously had. This change manifested in its practical functions but not its institutional function. From an institutional economics perspective, its monumental function indicates that its information cost-reducing function still prevailed. This cost-reducing nature attracted donors to keep sponsoring building projects and provincial administration to build more projects reflecting Romanitas. One of the most representative examples was building more temples for the imperial cult. The basilica was a major distinguishing characteristic of the Roman forum as compared to the Greek agora. Architecturally, it included a colonnade with a roofed building and could serve legal, civic, administrative, or commercial needs (Yegül and Favro 2019, 12). In addition to the basilica, theaters could also be found near Roman forums. There were very few theaters in the Roman east before Herod the Great. He was the one who introduced Roman-style games and spectacles to cities in these areas, including Jerusalem, Caesarea, and Jericho. Theaters were usually built in the city center and sponsored by wealthy elites for the purpose of gaining honor and respect from fellow citizens (Yegül and Favro 2019, 78–9). The existence of theaters and amphitheaters surely attracted many people to the forum, including elites and the general populace. This can be seen by the design of the theaters. The grand design of the theater was a continuity of Greek culture as the dramatic stage was one of the key aspects of Greek cities (Zanker 1998, 149). Making use of this Greek heritage, the Roman theater was built to help strengthen social stratification policy, making it more visible to the citizens. Audiences would sit according to their social status; the most distinguished would sit in the orchestra, others would sit on the cavea, a semicircle-shaped seating area that was divided into three tiers, from the highest social status to the lowest as follows: ima cavea, media cavea, and summa cavea, where the non-citizens of lowest status and slaves would sit. To make a clear distinction, vomitoria separated them (Sperber 1998, 83). This was part of a social stratification policy in the time of Augustus. Zanker (1998, 149) articulated this in his book The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus: “The new theatres also contributed significantly to the consolidation of the new social order. Here, the Roman was made aware of the organization by rank of his entire society, and on each visit he saw clearly his own place in it.” In short, Roman forums were not merely “marketplaces,” they were a continuation of Greek agoras. They held buildings with different important functions and attracted people from different ranks and with different purposes. Far more activities happened in the forum than simply market exchanges. Like the Greek agora, the concentration of civic, political, and

The Institutional Function of the Agora 139 commercial functions further reduced the transaction costs of information searching, publicizing one’s honor, and conglomerated functions, as explained in Section 5. 8.5

The Relevance of the Agora as a Context for Interpretation

This section will elaborate on how this new perspective enriches our interpretation of texts using the agora as a context. The following section will not provide a full interpretation of the selected texts but will rather point out the ways in which institutional functions can provide more information concerning the agora as a context. 8.5.1

Conglomerated Function

In Matt 11:16 and Luke 7:32, the agora was the context in which people failed to respond to the call. Scholars do not pay too much attention to the importance of using agora in this context. The conglomerated nature suggests that people may come to the agora with a specific purpose. People did not simply exist in the agora; all had their own purposes for being there, whether they were civil, commercial, or for entertainment. The departmentalized setting indicates that people might have been patterned to go directly where their needs would be satisfied when they visited the agora, though this does not rule out the possibility of aimless visits. This purpose-driven pattern helps us understand that when the NT mentions the agora, it refers to a place in which people gathered for different purposes with their own agendas. If this “purpose-driven” pattern is taken into consideration, it may help clarify what exactly the writer was addressing. What kept people from responding to the call? If we consider this purpose-driven mindset, we may then receive more contextual information to help interpret the text. Simply put, people were not listening because they were there for their own purposes. The agora was not any public place; it was a place that was visited with a purpose, creating less space for people to hear the call. Mark 7:4 describes the Pharisees and all the Jews as not eating anything from the agora. Is this about the agora itself or its characteristics? Is the agora an unclean place for Jews or are there unclean things happening there? Its conglomerated function offers a clue; unclean activities, including prostitution and dishonest business activities, were nearly unavoidable in the agora because of its cost-reducing institutional nature. This kind of negative view can be traced to the pre-Roman period. The Wisdom of Ben Sira (aka Sirach), composed around 180 BCE, criticizes merchants in 26:29: “A merchant can hardly remain without fault, or a shopkeeper free from sin” (trans. Skehan and Di Lella 1987, 353). Also, in 11:29–30, Ben Sira criticizes peddlers’ immoral acts with women in the agora: “Bring not everyone into your house, for many are the wounds inflicted by the slanderer. Like a caged hunting falcon is the heart of the scoundrel; and like a spy he will pick out defects” (trans. Skehan and Di

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Lella 1987, 242). There are several possible reasons for this negative connotation; there could have been prostitutes there, or shops “fronting” as taverns, food shops, or pubs with brothels in the back. Idolatry was also commonly associated with prostitution. Jewish literature, including Midrash, criticize this kind of commerce (Sperber 1998, 15–17). Although these Jewish sources may appear to only criticize individual activities, the conglomeration-based nature of the agora provided for the existence of these activities. That is to say, these negatively connotated activities were nearly gathered together due to the conglomerated nature of agora. The daily encountering of these activities in the agora, in turn, formed a patterned negative connotation toward the agora. 8.5.2

Information

Matt 23:7, Mark 12:38, Luke 11:43, and 20:46 describe the agora as the place where the Pharisees and scribes love to gain honor. Scholars now know more about how honor and shame worked in the Roman Empire. Honor has to be witnessed by others. As such, it seems natural for Pharisees to have loved being greeted in the agora because it was such a public place. However, it was also a place where there was a high-velocity flow of information; it was a competition to get people’s attention. This institutional perspective does not change the nature of the agora as a place to receive honor. However, the competitive situation there provides more information for us to understand how the gospels portrayed the Pharisees’ intention. They were inevitably participating in a competition; they had to compete with others who wanted their information or values to be noticed in the agora. What is behind Mark 12:38? How can one be noticed among all the other attention seekers? It is not only the love of honor, but also the process of being honored, that should be examined. One might have had to dress more attractively or do things that were more noticeable. This patterned competitive mindset provides more perspective on why the love of honor was criticized. Matt 20:3 refers to the agora as the place where people look for work. Why would people go to the agora to look for work? Who looked for work there? In ancient times, laborers were classified into four tiers: long-term free workers, short-term free workers, slaves, and free day laborers. It is very likely that Matt 20 refers to day laborers, who were particularly vulnerable because they did not have a stable employer. If we consider the notion of the institutional function of the agora as a place where people gather and spread information, people going there to find jobs would be desperate. Even among day laborers, their social connections might lead to significant differences in success. Some might have better relationships or patrons who can provide them with more job opportunities. However, some might be inferior in their social connection and will therefore be even more vulnerable. They have no choice but to wait in the agora for jobs that required more labor than they usually did or were too harsh for regular laborers to do. The agora was the place where the most desperate workers found the least attractive jobs.

The Institutional Function of the Agora 141 8.6

Conclusion

This chapter has sought to demonstrate the institutional functions of the agora in light of NIE and how people’s thinking patterns may be affected by their daily interactions with this space in order to demonstrate the relevance of material culture to NT studies. I hope it shows that there is a lot more information we can generate from material culture when appropriate models and perspectives are chosen to help the analysis. This surely is one of the treasures Friesen has contributed to the field of biblical studies. Notes 1 There is controversy about this verse, as the original text does not specify whether it refers to the goods or the person in the market. However, the request for handwashing makes it more likely that the reference is to a person. Marcus (2000, 442) suggests that persons coming from a market may inadvertently come into contact with unclean persons or foods. 2 For an introduction to NIE approaches to the ancient economy, readers may wish to consult the introduction to The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World ( Morris et al. 2007) as well as the other chapters in this influential volume. 3 See Dickenson 2017, 16−25 for a helpful overview of scholarship.

Bibliography Alcock, Susan E. 1993. Graecia Capta: The Landscapes of Roman Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Alcock, Susan E. 2002. Archaeologies of the Greek Past: Landscapes, Monuments and Memories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Camp, John McK. 2003. The Athenian Agora: A Short Guide. Athens: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Coase, Ronald. 1937. “The Nature of the Firm.” Economica 16: 386–405. Coase, Ronald. 1988. “The Nature of the Firm: Influence.” Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization 4: 33–47. Dickenson, Christopher P. 2017. On the Agora: The Evolution of a Public Space in Hellenistic and Roman Greece. Mnemosyne Supplements 398. Leiden: Brill. Donati, Jamieson C. 2015. “The Greek Agora in its Peloponnesian Context(s).” Pages 177–218 in Classical Archaeology in Context. Edited by Donald C. Haggis and Carla M. Antonaccio. Berlin: De Gruyter. Evangelidis, Valsilis. 2014. “Agoras and Fora: Developments in the Central Public Space of the Cities of Greece during the Roman Period.” Annual of the British School at Athens 109: 335–356. Edwards, James R. 2015. The Gospel according to Luke. The Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Frayn, Joan. 1993. Markets and Fairs in Roman Italy: Their Importance from the Second Century BC to the Third Century. Oxford: Clarendon. Friesen Steven. 2004. “Poverty in Pauline Studies: Beyond the So-called New Consensus.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 26: 323–361.

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Furubotn, Eirik G., and Rudolf Richter. 2008. Institutions and Economic Theory: The Contribution of the New Institutional Economics. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Gadenz, Pablo T. 2018. The Gospel of Luke. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. Green Joel B. 1997. The Gospel of Luke. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Hagner, Daniel A. 1995. Matthew 14–28. Word Biblical Commentary 33B. Dallas: Word. Hansen, Mogens Herman, and Thomas Heine Nielsen. 2004. “The Emergence of Poleis by Synoikismos.” Pages 115–120 in An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis. Edited by Mogens Herman Hansen and Thomas Heine Nielsen. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hicks, John. 1935. “A Suggestion for Simplifying the Theory of Money.” Economica 2:1–19. Hillier, Bill, and Julienne Hanson. 2009. The Social Logic of Space. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hoepfner, Wolfram, and Ernst-Ludwig Schwandner. 1994. Haus und Stadt im klassischen Griechenland. Wohnen in der klassischen Polis 1. Second edition. Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag. Ip, Alex Hon Ho. 2017. A Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation of the Letter to Philemon in Light of the New Institutional Economics. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 444. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Ip, Alex Hon Ho. Forthcoming. New Institutional Economics and New Testament. London: Lexington/Fortress Academic. Johnson, Luke Timothy. 1991. The Gospel of Luke. Sacra Pagina Series 3. Minnesota: Liturgical. Karayiannis, Anastassios D., and Aristides N. Hatzis. 2012. “Morality, Social Norms and the Rule of Law as Transaction Cost-Saving Devices: The Case of Ancient Athens.” European Journal of Law and Economics 33: 621−643. Kasper, Wolfgang, Manfred E. Streit, and Peter Boettke. 2012. Institutional Economics: Property, Competition, Policies. Second edition. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Kehoe, Dennis, and David Ratzan. 2015. Law and Transaction Costs in the Ancient Economy. Law and Society in the Ancient World. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Klaes, Matthias. 2000. “The History of the Concept of Transaction Costs: Neglected Aspects.” Journal of the History of Economic Thought 22: 191–216. Kolb, Frank. 1981. Agora und Theater, Volks- und Fesversammlung. Berlin: Mann. Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1967. Structural Anthropology. Translated by Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf. 2 volumes. Garden City, NY: Anchor. Marcus, Joel. 2000. Mark 1–8. Anchor Bible 27. New York: Doubleday. Martin, Roland. 1951. Recherches sur l’agora grecque—études d’histoire et d’architecture urbaines. Paris: De Boccard. Morris, Ian, Richard P. Saller, and Walter Scheidel. 2007. “Introduction.” Pages 1–12 in The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World. Edited by Walter Scheidel, Ian Morris, and Richard P. Saller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nevett, Lisa C. 2017. “Introduction.” Pages 1–12 in Theoretical Approaches to the Archaeology of Ancient Greece. Edited by Lisa C. Nevett. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

The Institutional Function of the Agora 143 Nolland, John. 1993. Luke 9:21–18:34. Word Biblical Commentary 35B. Dallas: Word. North, Douglass C. 2005. Understanding the Process of Economic Change. Princeton: Princeton University Press. North, Douglass C. 1984. “Transaction Costs, Institutions, and Economic History.” Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 140: 7–17. Pomeroy, Sarah B. 1994. Xenophon, Oeconomicus: A Social and Historical Commentary. Oxford: Clarendon. Robinson, Betsey A. 2016. “Urban Planning and Infrastructure.” Pages 409–426 in A Companion to Greek Architecture. Edited by Margaret M. Miles. West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell. Rosenfeld, Ben-Zion, and Joseph Menirav. 2005. Markets and Marketing in Roman Palestine. Translated by Chava Cassell. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 99. Leiden: Brill. Skehan, Patrick W. and Alexander A. Di Lella. 1987. The Wisdom of Ben Sira. Anchor Bible 39. New York: Doubleday. Sperber, Daniel. 1998. The City in Roman Palestine. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thompson, Dorothy Burr. 1993. The Ancient Shopping Center: The Athenian Agora. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Thompson, Homer A., and R. E. Wycherley. 1972. The Agora of Athens: The History, Shape and Uses of an Ancient City Center. Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Williamson, Oliver E. 2000. “The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead.” Journal of Economic Literature 38: 595–613. Wolter, Michael. 2016. The Gospel according to Luke (Luke 1–9:50). Translated by Wayne Coppins, and Christoph Heilig. Vol. 1. Baylor-Mohr Siebeck Studies in Early Christianity. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press. Wycherley, R. E. 1957. The Athenian Agora: Literary and Epigraphical Testimonia. Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Yarbro Collins, Adela. 2007. Mark. Hermeneia. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress. Yegül, Fikret, and Diane Favro. 2019. Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zanker, Paul. 1998. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. Translated by Alan Shapiro. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Zuiderhoek, Arjan 2009. The Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire: Citizens, Elites and Benefactors in Asia Minor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

9

Disposable or Transforming Body? 1 Cor 15:35–57 in the Context of Gladitorial Games in Ancient Corinth Jin Young Kim

9.1

Introduction

Many scholars have recognized Paul’s use of gladiatorial motifs in the letters to the Corinthians.1 For instance, Concannon (2014) argues that Paul appro­ priates images of Greek athletes and Roman gladiators in 1 Cor 9:19–27 and 2 Cor 4:7–13 for the construction and presentation of his apostolic identity. Nguyen (2007), moreover, posits that Paul compared apostles to condemned criminals (noxii) in 1 Cor 4:9, based on the use of expressions such as “spec­ tacle” (theatron) and “condemned to death” (hōs epithanatious). Similarly, Hafemann (2011, 63) notes that 1 Cor 4:9 likens “the apostles [to] men sen­ tenced to death in the arena.” These studies suggest that the Roman arena and the bodies presented there loom large throughout the Corinthian letters as Paul uses them to make effective arguments for his audiences. While existing studies offer great insight into various aspects of the Corinthian letters, an in-depth analysis of the gladiatorial terminology in 1 Cor 15 as a whole has not yet been undertaken. For instance, while Nguyen (2007, 496) correctly observes that the phrase in 1 Cor 15:32, “to fight with beasts” (thēriomacheō), indicates fighting against animals for survival in gladiatorial shows, he does not conduct a thorough analysis of this verse. Similarly, in his study of gladiators and athletes in the disputed Pauline let­ ters, Seesengood (2006) only notes the metaphoric use of the gladiator in 1 Cor 15:32 in passing (cf. Cadwallader 2016, 384). And while Malherbe (1968) conducts an in-depth study of this term in light of the Cynic-Stoic philosophical use of gladiators, he does not analyze other related terms and motifs in 1 Cor 15, nor does he relate the gladiatorial motifs specifically to the theme of resurrection. This chapter focuses on the terms and images of gladiatorial games alluded to in 1 Cor 15:1–57 to show that Paul vividly employs gladiatorial motifs to explain the actuality of bodily resurrection to his Corinthian audience, who were immersed in Roman gladiatorial spectacles. Images of gladiators’ bodies having their flesh ripped off and blood shed, dying, and then being inhumanely disposed of, offer a vivid contrast that paradoxically highlights the reality of the imperishable and immortal resurrected body. By calling DOI: 10.4324/9781003344247-13

Disposable or Transforming Body? 145 forth these images, Paul subverts the Roman ideology of the body in which human bodies are consumed and disposed of to procure the perpetual glory of the empire. For this argument, I first discuss the Roman ideology of the “body” presented in the arena. I then proceed to show the prevalence of gladiatorial games in Roman Corinth, which provided the visual context for Paul’s discussion. Finally, I analyze the individual gladiatorial motifs evoked in 1 Cor 15 by focusing on Paul’s terms and images, engagement with con­ trasting views of death, and ultimate description of victory over death. 9.2

Perishing for Empire: The Roman Ideology of Bodies in the Arena

Throughout the Roman Republic, Roman magistrates and private elite citi­ zens hosted spectacles for the general public, which included theatrical pre­ sentations, chariot racing, and gladiatorial combats (e.g., Cicero, Fam. 7.1; see further, Dunkle 2013, 6; Futrell 1997, 19–44; Gunderson 1996, 115). In these spectacles, Roman military might, virtues, and power, through a variety of armor, battles, deaths, and victories, were visibly asserted to the public (Canavan 2017, 256; Dunkle 2008, 311 n. 10; Fagan 2011, 27; Futrell 1997, 10–11, 44–51; Gunderson 1996; Wiedemann 1992, 14–15). By the time of the early empire, the gladiatorial combats, in particular, garnered immense popularity among people and became a major tool to promote Roman imperial ideology. They were not limited to the city of Rome and the Latin West but continued to the Greek East, beginning with Antiochus IV, who introduced these spectacles at Antioch in 166 BCE (Polybius, Hist. 30.25–26; Livy, Ab urbe con. 41.20; Cicero, Att. 6.3.9; Plutarch, Luc. 23). The games began to occur more frequently from early imperial times with the growth of imperial cults in the East (Carter 1999, 5–6; Futrell 1997, 44–8; Mellor 1975, 174; Nguyen 2007, 491; Robert 1940, 8; Welch 1999, 125–6). The popular gladiatorial games contributed to the creation and promotion of a particular ideology that some people’s bodies must be consumed for the benefit of Rome and the public. In the arena, conflicting ideas emerged. The viewers saw bodies that bravely sought glory and fame, embodying the virtues of the empire. At the same time, the arena made the perishability, destructibility, and impermanence of the human body more visible. For those who lost, even if they fought fearlessly numerous times, their pursuit for glory ended, leaving their bodies to perish.2 Ironically, these bodies that fell, were devoured, and died accentuated the vitality of those who remained alive and the continuing glory of the empire (Futrell 1997, 8, 170). In analyzing the ideological function of the Roman arena, Gunderson (1996, 139) argues that the contrasting destinies displayed in gladiatorial games reiterated the fates of Remus and Romulus and reaffirmed the continuity of the empire and its hierarchy. He states: “The murder of Remus permanently establishes the validity of this boundary and secures the name of Rome for the city: so also does the gladiator’s death help to found the nobility of the nobilis.”

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The use—or disposal—of the gladiators’ dead bodies as a service for the empire traced back to the origin of the gladiatorial games. Scholars conjec­ ture that the Roman gladiatorial combats originated as funeral games for deceased family members.3 The Latin word that refers to the gladiatorial game, munus, itself conveys this origin, denoting “duty” or “gift” for the dead, and by extension, “funeral honors” (Dunkle 2008, 6; Wiedemann 1992, 102). According to Dunkle (2008, 6), until the late first century BCE, gladi­ atorial games were given in honor of the dead only. In acknowledgment of this origin, some of the imperial regulations included the dress code of wearing a dark cloak (pullum) associated with mourning, not the toga, when attending the games (Wiedemann 1992, 176; 1996, 102). It was, however, not only their funerary origins but also the Roman mil­ itarism represented in the gladiatorial combats that contributed to the con­ struction of the Roman body ideology. Wiedemann (1996) identifies Roman militarism, killing and dying in battle, as a crucial component of Roman identity. A soldier was expected to die bravely in hand-to-hand battles for the empire. This death, reenacted in the arena, manifested the Roman virtue of manliness and the price needed for the perpetuation of the empire. Wiedemann (1996, 102) notes: “For all Romans, not just for soldiers, there was a link between gladiatorial combat and death” (cf. Futrell 1997, 49–50; Canavan 2017, 258). The arena was prepared with slogans, symbols, and other imagery that accentuated the power of death and the bravery of hu­ mans that dared to fight against it (Cicero, Tusc. 2.17). Those who became gladiators took the oath saying that they accepted “to be burnt, to be chained up, to be beaten, and to be killed by an iron weapon” (Petronius, Sat. 117), thus acknowledging their fate of physical sufferings and, ultimately, death (cf. Seneca, Ep. 37.2; 71.23). The central idea that made the gladiatorial games effective, therefore, was the finality of death. Those bodies that survived death in the arena were given fame and glory. For these bodies to exist, however, another set of bodies—dead and conquered—proved essential. It was when these bodies—their flesh and blood—were consumed in the arena that the game became efficacious in pro­ pitiating the dead, satisfying the spectators, and confirming the virtues and ideology of the Roman empire. 9.3

Gladiatorial Games in Roman Corinth

Visual presentations of gladiatorial combats proliferated throughout the Roman Empire, including the cities in the East. Wiedemann (1996, 99) notes that as much as the Roman emperors and elites invested enormous resources in gladiatorial displays, the public also participated in consuming, displaying, and reinstating the Roman ideology as expressed in gladiatorial games. Representations of the contests of gladiators and beast-fighters were found in graffiti, mosaics, pottery dining plates, oil lamps, and glassware (Broneer 1930, 460–1, 634–53, 1192–7; Brown 1992, 181; Cadwallader 2016, 367;

Disposable or Transforming Body? 147 Robert 1940). Roman writers thus could assume their readers had familiarity with gladiatorial shows and so they utilized related vocabulary and images in their texts (Wiedemann 1996, 99). As a Greek city rebuilt under Roman rule as a colony, Corinth served as one of the foremost cities in the East that fully participated in gladiatorial games (Friesen 2010, 2; Nguyen 2007, 490–2; Welch 1999; Wiedemann 1996, 100–1). Several authors attest Corinth’s fame as the center of gladiatorial spectacles in Roman Greece. For instance, Apollonius of Tyana, a neo-Pythagorean sage in the mid-to-late first century CE, criticized the architectural changes made to the Theater of Dionysus of Athens, saying, “The Athenians ran in crowds to the theater beneath the Acropolis to witness human slaughter, and the passion for such sport was stronger there than it is in Corinth today” (Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 4.22 [Conybeare, LCL]). Dio Chrysostom, around the end of the first to the second century, also commented: But as matters now stand, there is no practice current in Athens which would not cause any man to feel ashamed. For instance, in regard to the gladiatorial shows the Athenians have so zealously emulated the Corinthians, or rather, have so surpassed both them and all others in their mad infatuation, that whereas the Corinthians watch these combats outside the city in a glen (charadrē), a place that is able to hold a crowd but otherwise is dirty and such that no one would even bury there any freeborn citizen, the Athenians look on at this fine spectacle in their theatre under the very walls of the Acropolis …. (Or. 31.121 [Cohoon and Crosby, LCL]; cf. Lucian, Demon. 57) In these criticisms of Athenian fervor for gladiatorial games, we find Corinth’s fame in hosting the spectacles by the first century CE.4 Another case is found in a letter of the emperor Julian (Ep. 198) that recounts a tra­ dition about tensions arising between Argos and Corinth in the later first century CE over the issue of paying for the staging of venationes (staged hunts in the arena) at Corinth. Architecturally, two buildings seem to have staged gladiatorial games in Corinth. The old Greek theater in Corinth had been destroyed by L. Mummius in 146 BCE, but early in the first century CE, as Corinth rose as a new colony of Rome, it was repaired and transformed into a structure to host gladiatorial combats and venationes (Figure 9.1; Capps 1949, 64). Shear (1925, 388) hypothesizes the date of renovation to be between 25 BCE and 25 CE. The orchestra was enlarged by the removal of the ten lowest rows of seats so that it could serve as an arena, as was done in the theater at Assos (Shear 1925, 387; Welch 1999, 133).5 It had three chambers with paintings on the wall, approximately 1 by 3 meters, which might have served as refuges for the gladiators (Capps 1949, 66). In this theater we also find painted walls that surrounded the orchestra, bearing the scenes of beast fighting (Figures 9.3 and 9.4; Capps 1949, 67; Shear 1925, 384–85).

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Figure 9.1 Theatre at Corinth, Looking South. Courtesy of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Corinth and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Corinth Excavations.

Corinth also staged gladiatorial games in a Roman-style oval amphitheater (Figure 9.2), which was rare for a Greek city during the Roman period. As a Roman colony, Corinth was well planned according to the typical Roman urban and rural design, and the construction of an amphitheater was part of this plan (Romano 2005, 16–18; Stillwell 1952, 84–98; Welch 1999, 133–40). This amphitheater followed the typical Roman style, yet differently from other cities’ amphitheaters which made some alterations to maintain their Greek identity. It was built in an area about one kilometer east of the classical civic center but still inside the city walls. While the structure is not wellpreserved and thus has never been excavated, scholars conjecture that it was about 78 by 52 meters, an oval and rock-cut style building with its cavea (seating sections) quarried out of the surrounding bedrock. Its superstructure was made out of wood (Welch 1999, 134). Still visible is the rock-cut passage leading out from the arena to the north, which presumably was the porta libitinensis (“the Gateway of Death”) used as the exit for severely injured or dead gladiators. The southern sector of the building is buried, but it is assumed to have a corresponding passage for entrance into the arena. Earlier scholars often dated this amphitheater to the second or third century CE (Capps 1949, 66; de Waele 1928, 25–31). This dating was based on Greek authors’ lack of comments about an amphitheater within the city walls. Dio Chrysostom, as cited earlier, mentions an amphitheater, which he

Disposable or Transforming Body? 149

Figure 9.2 Aerial Photograph of Amphitheater, Corinth. Courtesy of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Corinth and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Corinth Excavations.

calls a glen or ravine (charadrē), but he locates it outside of the city walls, unlike the one we know. Pausanias, who wrote in the mid-second century CE, mentions the theater and odeon in his description of Corinth but not an amphitheater. Yet, Welch (1999) convincingly notes that the lack of mention in these texts cannot support the later date of the structure. First, the lack of mention in Pausanias fits into the common tendency of Greek intellectuals’ dismissive attitude toward Roman spectacles. Therefore, in itself, the lack of mention in Pausanias cannot prove the absence of an amphitheater in Corinth. Second, since the Corinthian amphitheater was cut out of the living rock, it is possible that what Dio called a “ravine” actually refers to the amphitheater we have. Also, since the structure was far enough away from the civic center, Dio could have made a scornful remark about it being outside the city. Welch (1999, 137) points out that, given its construction technique, it seems like the amphitheater was built considerably earlier than the time of Dio. This earlier date corresponds to Corinth’s reputation for gladiatorial games as attested by the authors mentioned above. In addition, the Roman colonies established by Julius Caesar were mandated to host gladiatorial combats for the Roman gods, and this required an amphitheater to hold the combats (CIL 2.5439, 70–71; Nguyen 2007, 492 n. 12).

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9.4

The Use of Gladiatorial Motifs in 1 Corinthians 15

Having shown the material and cultural context of gladiatorial contests for the audiences of Paul’s Corinthian letters, I will now demonstrate how Paul appropriates the common terms, concepts, and images associated with the arena to assert the actuality of resurrection and to present a different way of seeing death. 9.4.1

Construction of the Setting: The Arena as a Space for the Discussion of Resurrection

Beginning his discussion in 1 Cor 15, Paul constructs the arena as an imag­ inative visual space for explaining resurrection.6 In vv. 1–2, he first brings up the image of a person standing firm, upholding the hope for salvation. Now I make known to you, brother, the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you also received, in which also you have stood (estēkate), through which also you are being saved (sōzesthe), in what words that I proclaimed to you, if you hold firmly (katechete)—unless you believed in vain.7 Here Paul uses terms such as “to stand” (histēmi) and “to hold firmly” (katechō). He often uses these terms with regard to the gospel and faith­ fulness of believers, so they alone do not suggest that Paul is consciously utilizing gladiatorial motifs in this chapter.8 In connection with other vocabulary and images evoked in the following discussion, however, they construct the imaginative space of the arena as the locus of Paul’s assertion for resurrection. One of the qualities commonly associated with gladiators was the pose of standing and holding firm in the face of threats and dangers. In her analysis of Eph 6:10–17, Canavan (2017, 249–50, 254) notes that the actions of standing, standing firm, making ready, struggling, and resisting evoke battles reenacted in gladiatorial combats.9 Ancient writers attributed the posture of standing firm and holding fast to the quality of a brave athlete, soldier, and gladiator. For instance, Cicero describes an admirable soldier who “has stood his ground” (steterit) before pain and danger, contrasting it to a cowardly soldier who throws away his shield and runs away as soon as he spots an enemy (Tusc. 2.54 [King, LCL]). Cicero also compares a wise man to a sol­ dier, a boxer, and a runner who “makes an intense effort to stand firm” (forte ut se intendat ad firmitatem, Tusc. 2.54). While here Cicero does not explicitly mention gladiators, in other places he applies similar qualities to gladiators and compares them to wise men. This indicates the steadfastness attributed to gladiators (Tusc. 2.41).10 As another example, Seneca wrote of a beast-fighter who stood firmly: We men at times are stirred with pleasure if a youth of steady courage meets with his spear an onrushing wild beast, if unterrified he sustains

Disposable or Transforming Body? 151 (pertulit) the charge of a lion. And the more honourable the youth who does this, the more pleasing this spectacle becomes. (Prov. 2.8 [Basore, LCL]; cf. Ep. 24.5) The Roman visual depictions of gladiators also highlight the posture of standing firm. A commemorative relief from Smyrna, for example, depicts four heavily armed gladiators standing and facing the viewer (BE 1974.54; Carter 1999, 243, 391 fig. 1). Their stance is marked with a firm upright position often found in other commemorative reliefs in different regions.11 The painted walls of the Corinthian theater included gladiatorial scenes with groups of two men engaged in combat with a lion. These figures are life-sized and standing in the sand of the arena colored in a band of yellow, horizon­ tally differentiated shade, giving a real sense of depth and vividness to their standing posture (Shear 1925, 385). In one scene, a man is standing with his back to the spectator, with his legs far apart and his left knee bent, reflecting a strong hold of his standing posture to engage in imminent combat with a lion (Figure 9.3). Stillwell (1952, 88) notes that “both feet are drawn so as to indicate that the figure is balancing on the toes.” Toward this figure a dark brown lion is violently rushing, followed by an attacking gladiator (specifi­ cally, a venator). His feet are wide apart with his right foot firmly planted on the ground, showing his strong standing position. The fighter’s thighs and legs are bare and colored copper, graphically reflecting the power of muscles holding the posture (Figure 9.4). Together with the image of Corinthian Christ-followers standing firm on the ground, vv. 30–32 more explicitly construct the visual context of the gladiatorial arena. After arguing for the certainty of the resurrection of the dead through the case of Jesus’s resurrection (vv. 3–28) and the practice of baptism for the dead (v. 29), in v. 30, Paul describes his constant perils: “Why also do we stand in peril every hour?” (ti kai hēmeis kindyneuomen pasan hōran).12 Here the term “to take up peril” (kindyneuō) often indicates the

Figure 9.3 “Arena Frieze” from the Corinth Theater, the First Group to the East of the Southern Refuge. Courtesy of Nora Jenkins Shear and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Corinth Excavations.

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Figure 9.4 “Arena Frieze” from the Corinth Theatre, Portraying a Charging Lion and Venator. Courtesy of Nora Jenkins Shear and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Corinth Excavations.

challenges gladiators faced in the arena. One of the esteemed qualities of gladiators was daring to face the dangers of death without fear (Seneca, Tranq. 11.4–5). Rather than the victory itself, therefore, fighting with peril was considered glorious (Barton 1989, 13). Seneca (Prov. 3.4) remarks that “a gladiator counts it a disgrace to be matched with an inferior and knows that to win without danger (sine periculo) is to win without glory” (cf. Seneca, Prov. 4.4; Polybius, Hist. 3.62; Livy, Ab urbe con. 21.42–44). The victory must be one earned with difficulty, and it was the perils of death that a gladiator was proud of, as Paul claims here. Paul’s impersonation of a gladiator continues in v. 31a, where he says: “I die every day!” (kath hēmeran apothnēskō). Scholars have noted the similarity of this phrase to Seneca’s comment on death, “We die every day. For every day a little of our life is taken from us” (Ep. 24.20 [Gummere, LCL]). Here Seneca notes the mortal’s inescapable destiny of death and fear of it, but at the same time, presents the Stoic contemplation of the natural process through which one can overcome that fear (Noyes 1973, 230–31; Malherbe 1968, 72).13 Connected to vv. 30 and 32, the expression in v. 31a evokes the reality of gladiators whose lives were under the constant threat of death and thus were challenged to develop an attitude of daring toward it. As we will see shortly, Paul also wants his Corinthian audience to have a correct under­ standing of death and, in particular, what comes after. V. 32 further evokes gladiatorial combat, especially one against wild ani­ mals. Paul says that he fought with wild beasts in Ephesos not “according to the human manner” (kata anthrōpon). Scholars debate whether this expres­ sion should be interpreted literally or figuratively. If literal, it would either denote the actual suffering Paul experienced or a danger he was potentially exposed to in Ephesos.14 If taken figuratively, this could be a metaphorical description of the opposition Paul faced during his ministry in Asia Minor

Disposable or Transforming Body? 153 (Bowen 1923; cf. Diodorus Siculus, Bib. hist. 3.43.7; Josephus, B.J. 7.38). It could also signify, as Malherbe (1968, 74) argues, the challenges that Christfollowers go through in their pursuit of moral progress, following the CynicStoic philosophical traditions. Here the beasts represent “human passions and the pleasures of the flesh.” Regardless of whether v. 32 is taken as figurative or real, the image that Paul invokes to discuss resurrection is apparent. It is the struggle of a gladiator—in particular, a beast-fighter facing death as a reality (Cadwallader 2016, 384). The general categories of Roman gladiators, called damnati, consisted of those gladiators who were trained to fight against other men, beast-fighters (venatores and bestiarii), and condemned criminals (noxii) (Nguyen 2007, 495–6; Wiedemann 1992, 55–56). While beast-fighters could be spared by release, venationes, like the gladiatorial combats between men, also involved violent fights that could end in death. Despite this danger, beast-fighters fought for fame and glory. Dunkle (2008, 9) notes that the venatio was originally a separate event from other spectacles, but by the first century CE, it became so popular that it was incorporated as a regular part of the munus.15 Given this context, as well as the above-discussed paintings of venationes in the walls of the Corinthian theater, it seems reasonable to conjecture that Paul’s Corinthian audiences would have visualized a gladiator or beast-fighter facing death in the arena when reading or hearing Paul’s discussion in 1 Cor 15.16 9.4.2

Contrasting Understandings of Death and Associated Lifestyles

Having set up the gladiatorial contests as the imaginary context of his dis­ cussion of resurrection, Paul next illustrates one commonly held GrecoRoman attitude toward death manifest in the arena and contrasts this to the view that should be taken by the Corinthian Christ-followers. In the Roman arena, as discussed above, while gladiators fought against men and beasts exhibiting their fearlessness of death, death remained the ultimate undefeated enemy. The unavoidable destiny of death and the finality of mortals were visibly present in many ways. The divine overseer of gladiatorial games was Nemesis, the goddess of the unremitting wheel of life and death. Scholars observe the strong connection between Nemesis and Roman spectacle monu­ ments, gladiatorial combats, and beast-hunts as attested in theaters, am­ phitheaters, stadia, votive materials, and inscriptions (Cadwallader 2016, 376; Futrell 1997, 111–15; Hornum 2015). After all, Romans understood that for those in the arena, despite their virility and courage, their fate was ultimately in the hands of gods. Death, if it fell, was unavoidable. The porta libitinensis, one of the standard features of Roman amphitheaters also found in the Corinthian amphitheater, aptly represented this idea (Dunkle 2008, 347 n. 214).17 The gate was named after Libitina, the goddess of burials. The couches of Libitina—prepared for removing the severely injured or dead gladiators—also represented death as the imminent and real end for many fighters in the arena (Quintilian, Decl. 9.6.1–14; Dunkle 2008, 96, 333 n. 289).

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Paul connects this view of death as the ultimate end with the lifestyle that indulges in pleasures and satisfactions of the present moment. In v. 32b, Paul epitomizes this stance as such: “let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!” (phagōmen kai piōmen, aurion gar apothnēskomen). Here the immediate in­ tertext of this expression is found in Isaiah 22:13 LXX. In Isaiah, it represents the Israelites’ lack of repentance in face of the judgment of God. In Isa 56:12, similarly, the phrase indicates people’s lack of awareness of the immediate divine judgment and punishment. The context of 1 Cor 15 seems slightly different.18 Paul quotes this phrase to describe the cultural topos linking the behaviors of indulgence with the acknowledgment of the finality of death. For instance, a funerary epitaph (Epigr. Gr. 344.3) reads, “Know the end of life. Wherefore sport and revel on earth!” Herodotus (Hist. 2.78) also describes the Egyptian practice of carrying coffins into drinking bouts while saying, “drink and enjoy, look on this; for to this state you must come when you die” (cf. Euripides, Alc. 780–89; Tob 7:10). In the immediate setting of gladiatorial games that Paul has built up to v. 32b, this phrase, in particular, recalls the cena libera, an elegant and lavish public dinner held the day before the contest (Cicero, Mur. 77.16–21; Tertullian, Apol. 42.5; Pass. Perp. Fel. 17.1).19 Gladiators, beast-fighters, and prisoners were all invited, and it was also open for public voyeurism, as a continuation of the next day’s show (Brettler and Poliakoff 1990; Ville 1981, 365–6).20 Viewers observed how those who were facing death the next day indulged themselves in the vulgar and voracious banquet of food and drink. Plutarch notes the lavishness of the dinner by saying that the food was “pleasing to stomach,” commenting that Greek gladiators, unlike other “savage” (thēriōdeis) gladiators, did not wantonly indulge themselves in the meal (Mor. 1099b). After all, it was a banquet that reiterated the finality of life quickly approaching for those who were fighting. Given its wantonness and the expectation of death as the final end, it would be easy for Paul’s Corinthian audience to associate v. 32b with the cena libera. In this case, this phrase aptly represents the perspective of seeing death as the termination of a person’s life, without anything expected to occur afterward. Paul, on the other hand, displays himself as a gladiator who fights with a different view of death. He presents the hope that death, the ultimate enemy that dominates the arena, will be defeated. In vv. 20–28, Paul states that Jesus became the first fruit of the resurrection, forecasting the end (v. 24), when he will destroy all his enemies (v. 25), and also the last enemy of death (v. 26). In this way, Paul makes a Christ-follower’s final stage not death but resurrection. This is what Paul expects to “gain” (ophelos, v. 32), not the fame and glory sought by the fighters in the arena.21 9.4.3

Transformed Bodies and the Victory over Death

Continuing his discussion, in vv. 35–49, Paul says that death is not the end, but, rather, it enables the possession of a resurrected body (v. 36).

Disposable or Transforming Body? 155 In particular, in v. 42, Paul utilizes concepts associated with gladiatorial contests to highlight the actuality of the resurrected body and to criticize the incorrect view held by some Corinthian members. One contrasting pair Paul presents is perishability and imperishability. The arena served as the place where the perishability of the present body, with its flesh and blood, was most vividly displayed to Roman viewers. In expressing his enthusiasm for an upcoming munus, Petronius (27–66 CE) describes the brutality of the arena that reveals the weakness of mortal bodies: “[the editor] will present, with no chance of reprieve, a regular butcher’s shop right in the middle of the arena so that every spectator can see all the bloody action” (Sat. 45.6 [trans. Dunkle 2008, 27]; cf. Seneca, Tranq. 2.13; Pliny the Younger, Pan. 34.4). Although dated later to the fifth century CE, a letter from Theodoric (493–526 CE) to the consul Maximus presents a detailed account of a typical venatio: And if [the hunter] is not good enough to escape from a wild animal, he will not be able to have a proper burial: with the man still alive, his body perishes and before the body can be properly disposed of, it is savagely eaten. Captive, he becomes food for his own enemy and he satiates the one whom he desires to be able to kill. (Cassiodorus, Var. 5.42.2 [trans. Dunkle 2008, 87]) Here the text describes the lost gladiator’s flesh and blood being consumed by the wild beasts. They are, however, also being consumed for the satis­ faction of spectators and the exhibition of Roman virtues and power. Roman portrayals of gladiators also did not shy away from depicting the flesh and blood of gladiators. Brown (1992, 183) comments that in the mosaic arts depicting the arena, often the object of a spectator’s gaze is drawn to an animal or human being killed or a situation in which either may soon be killed. Dunbabin (1978, 85) also observes that the depictions of gladiatorial combats on the floors show the love for the “scenes of violent, often bloody action for their own sake.” By highlighting the perishability of the present body, Paul reveals the Corinthian members’ disbelief in resurrection due to the corruption of the mortal body. In his study of Corinthian disbelief in the resurrection, Endsjø (2008) notes that in Greco-Roman thought resurrection or resuscitation required continuity between the present body and the resurrected one. Endsjø argues that while the Corinthians could accept Jesus’s resurrection due to the bodily continuity between his living and resurrected body, they could not easily accept the general resurrection of the dead where disassembled and annihilated bodies come back to life. In Paul’s evocation of gladiatorial combats, the finality of the present mortal body, in which the Corinthian disbelief of resurrection is rooted, is affirmed. Paul does this, however, to present the idea that the resurrected body will have a completely different nature from the ones they see in the arena, and that this is possible due to God’s creative power demonstrated in vv. 38–41 (Asher 2001, 103–10).22

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Paul further accentuates the different nature of the resurrected body by using the honor-shame binary scheme highlighted in the arena (Gunderson 1996, 123 n. 34). Here the word doxa (glory, brightness, splendor, and radiance) is contrasted to atimia (shame, disgrace, dishonor) (cf. 2 Cor 6:8; for the shame of gladiators, see Appian, Bell. civ, 1.14.116). Roman gladia­ tors and venatores were placed in the liminal space of the honor-shame scheme of Roman society. Junkelmann (2000, 11) notes that Romans saw a gladiator at the same time as a “hero and a criminal” and “a darling of the public and parish.” All gladiators, by virtue of their profession, were con­ sidered slaves of their owners (Dunkle 2008, 16–17). Cicero identifies gladi­ ators as “either men of no moral worth or barbarians,” classifying them in the same category as slaves (Tusc. 2.41; cf. Cicero, Phil. 6.5.13). Yet, at the same time, the arena was the place where their shameful bodies could exhibit Roman virtues and attain honor through their fighting skills, courage before death, and victories (Pliny the Elder, Nat. 35.52; Tertullian, De spect. 22; Suetonius, Claud. 21.5; Pliny the Younger, Pan. 33.1; see further, Brown 1992, 186; Dunkle 2008, 18–19; Futrell 1997, 138; Nguyen 2007, 496). The pursuit of honor, however, for those who were defeated, abruptly ended in shame. Although in their daring fights against death they exhibited manliness and honor for a short time, their dead bodies were no longer viewed as glorious.23 Since many fighters were recruited from slaves and criminals, most lacked legal privileges for proper burial. While some pro­ fessional gladiators received better treatment, most often the disposal of their mutilated corpses was rapid and unceremonious. In the Flavian amphitheater in Rome, for example, dead bodies were taken to the area called the spo­ liarium, stripped of their armor and other valuable things, and disposed like common trash (Seneca, Ep. 93.12; Kyle 2012, 158–9). Hope (2000, 96) notes, “when alive, the body of the gladiator was the focus of attention, once dead, the corpse lost its appeal and was quickly removed from the eyes of the spectators.” By vividly evoking the image of the shameful, debased bodies of defeated gladiators, Paul prepares the basis to present the resurrected body, which will be completely different from this shameful, perishable, and limited body of “flesh and blood” (v. 50).24 Finally, in vv. 50–57, Paul portrays the moment of transformation of the mortal body into a spiritual one, the moment of true victory over the final enemy of death, with the motifs of the “last trumpet” (v. 52) and clothing (vv. 53–54): Lo! I am telling you the mystery! We all will not be put to sleep, but we all will be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, in the last trumpet (en tē eschatē salpingi). For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on (endysasthai) imperishability, and this mortal must put on (endysasthai) immortality. When this perishable puts on (endysētai) imperishability, and this mortal puts on (endysētai) immortality, then the saying that is written

Disposable or Transforming Body? 157 will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O Death, is your victory? Where, O Death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Cor 15:50–57) The motif of a trumpet is commonly used in Second Temple period liter­ ature and the NT to signal the divine presence or the arrival of final vindi­ cation (Matt 24:31; 4 Bar. 3:2–3; 4 Ezra 6:23–26; Apoc. Ab. 31:1–2). Paul also uses this motif in 1 Thess 4:16 to describe the second coming of Christ and the resurrection of the dead. In 1 Cor 15, however, the sound of the trumpet recalls the experience of the arena—in particular, the proceeding of combats and the final victory.25 In the arena, the tuba, a trumpet-like instrument with a straight body was played to inaugurate the game of the day and introduce each new phase (Quintilian, Decl. 9.6.1–14; Petronius, Sat. 36.6; Suetonius, Claud. 21.6; CIL 10.4915). Since the first century BCE, even before amphitheaters became common spaces for spectacles in cities, cornicines (cornu players) and tubicines (trumpet players) appeared on the funerary monuments of municipal officials who organized gladiatorial games. Moreover, since at least the middle of the first century CE, cornicines were depicted as accompanying the gladiatorial games and performing in the arena, either alone or together with tubicines (Fagan 2016, 349–55; Simpson 2000). In the famous Zliten mosaic, for instance, we find two fight scenes in which a band is playing a tuba, horns, and a water organ (Aurigemma 1926, 149, Figs. 87–89). And in a secondcentury funerary epitaph of a gladiator named Melanippus found in Alexandria Troas, the sound of the trumpet marks the gladiator’s battle: You see me who was bold in the stadia, dead, traveler, from Tarsis a retiarius of the second rank, (by the name of) Melanippus. No longer do I hear the voice of the bronze trumpet, nor when competing do I raise the din of the unequal pipes. They say that Herakles completed twelve labors, but I completed the same and finished with thirteen. Thallus and Zoe made this for Melanippus from their own funds in remembrance. (IGR 3.43; trans. Carter 2009, 308) Also in Pseudo-Quintilian’s “The Case of the Ransomed Gladiator,” a novice gladiator describes the sound of the trumpet as “the fatal sound portending my death” (Decl. 9.6.1–14 [trans. Toner 2014, 12]). In the arena, the trumpet signaled the irrevocable approach toward either death or victory. Paul says that when the “last trumpet” is blown, our bodies will be changed into imperishable and immortal ones. Here, he uses the term “to put on, clothe” (endyō) to describe this sudden change (v. 53).26 One element that identified gladiators was their clothing and armor (Cadwallader 2016, 369–70). For instance, a Pompeian bas-relief found outside the Stabian gate

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reveals the importance of armor in gladiatorial games. It portrays the pro­ cession (pompa) that preceded a munus and depicts two armorers working on gladiatorial armament being carried on a platform (Carter 1999, 243; Dunkle 2008, 76–77). This represents the editor’s examination of arms before the combat (probatio armorum). The procession also included ministri who car­ ried the shields and helmets of the gladiators (Dunkle 2008, 77; Wiedemann 1992, Fig. 14). Gladiators’ epitaphs also reflect clothing and armor as an important expression of their identity. In one of the stelae found in situ near the graveyard in Ephesos, the gladiator is portrayed as wearing a loincloth, a banded belt, and a greave on his left leg. His left hand rests on his helmet, which is placed on his rectangular shield (Canavan 2017, 258–59; Knibbe and Thür 1995, fig. 25).27 Bestiarii, in general, were also heavily armed with shields and swords like gladiators (Capps 1949, 67–68; Dunkle 2008, 78–81; Shear 1925, 384–5). While venators lacked protective armor like gladiators and bestiarii, they were still represented by tunic-like short varicolored gar­ ments, long boots, spears, mantles or drapes, and sometimes animal skins. Paul, however, while using the image of gladiatorial armors, says that believers will not be adorned with these earthly armors but with imperishable resurrected bodies. He also asserts that this transformation signals the moment of victory in the final battle against death (vv. 54–55). This victory differs from and undercuts the Roman one earned through perishable and disposable bodies. It is a victory that “swallows up” death, the final enemy in the arena, invalidating its power upon bodies and ending the pursuit of impermanent glory. According to Paul, the arena where Paul and Christfollowers stand and fight is not dominated by Nemesis or Rome, but by God. 9.4.4

Lifestyle in Accordance with the Belief in Resurrection

Paul’s evocation of the gladiatorial arena in Chapter 15 as a whole aims to establish a firm belief in resurrection and exhort the Corinthians to live a virtuous life by controlling their passions (Malherbe 1968). Wrapping up his discussion of resurrection, in v. 58, Paul urges his audience to “be steadfast, immovable, and always excelling in the work of the Lord” (edraioi ginesthe, ametakinētoi, perisseuontes en tō ergō tou kyriou pantote; cf. 1 Cor 7:37). The qualities of steadfastness and immovability, together with endurance and tenacity to excel in one’s roles, were often linked to the gladiators in the arena (Gunderson 1996, 137). Brave Roman gladiators were applauded for their demonstration of discipline (Nguyen 2007, 495). Cicero (Tusc. 2.17.41), while contemplating steadfastness in battle and philosophy, lauds gladiators: Look at gladiators, who are either ruined men or barbarians, what blows they endure! See, how men, who have been well trained, prefer to receive a blow rather than basely avoid it! How frequently it is made evident that there is nothing they put higher than giving satisfaction to their owner or to the people! Even when weakened with wounds they send word to their

Disposable or Transforming Body? 159 owners to ascertain their pleasure: if they have given satisfaction to them they are content to fall. What gladiator of ordinary merit has ever uttered a groan or changed countenance? Who of them has disgraced himself, I will not say upon his feet, but who has disgraced himself in his fall? Who after falling has drawn in his neck when ordered to suffer the fatal stroke? Such is the force of training, practice and habit. Here and in similar sources (e.g., Cicero, Mil. 34.92; Cassius Dio, Hist. 51.7.2–6), the gladiators’ steadfastness; loyalty (fides/pistis) to their masters, producers (editores), and spectators; and dedication to their task are com­ parable to what Paul exhorts his Corinthian audience to uphold, i.e., to be steadfast, immovable, and excel in the work of the Lord. Paul concludes his visualization of the gladiatorial arena in 1 Cor 15 by presenting the qualities of good gladiators and applying them to his Corinthian correspondents. Paul’s goal is clear: he wants the Corinthians to be gladiators par excellence in their belief in resurrection and to live in accordance with this belief. 9.5

Conclusion: Overcoming Death, but How?

In this chapter, I have argued that 1 Cor 15 can be read in the context of Roman gladiatorial spectacles. Given the material context of the city of Corinth where gladiatorial games were widely held with renowned fervor, it is reasonable to conjecture that Paul’s discussion of death and resurrection in 1 Cor 15 evoked the arena of gladiatorial contests for ancient audiences. By creating the imaginative space of the arena, Paul accentuates the perishability of the mortal body and the idea that death is the end, both for one’s body and their pursuit of glory. These ideas represented and upheld the Roman ide­ ology of the body—that some bodies must be consumed and disposed of for the sake of the glories of victors, the public, and the empire. Paul proceeds, however, to endorse a different understanding of death, where it is not final because mortal bodies will be transformed into imperishable resurrected bodies. These bodies will be completely different from those bodies in the Roman arena, those of “flesh and blood” that sought human glory. Paul also ties this belief in the resurrection with the lifestyle that controls passions, in contrast to the lifestyle epitomized in the cena libera. What we find in 1 Cor 15, then, is Paul activating the Corinthian Christ-followers’ first-hand knowledge of gladiatorial games in Corinth to subvert the underlying Roman ideology of glorious yet disposable bodies. Notes 1 For studies of gladiatorial motifs in other New Testament and early Christian texts ( Cobb 2008, 33–59; Canavan 2017; Haxby 2018; Seesengood 2006). 2 Admittedly, death was not always the end for the defeated, since a gladiator could achieve victory just by making his opponent unable to continue the fight. A loser, if manifested courage and virtues in his fight, could also be granted discharge

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(missio) which would spare his life and allow him to come back to fight again (Dunkle 2008, 12–13, 31). Yet, death remained the brutal reality for many who fought, as the high death rates indicate ( Cadwallader 2016, 375; Fagan 2011, 196; Hopkins and Beard 2006, 92–94). Barton 1989, 2; Dunkle 2008, 14; Futrell 1997, 3. There is, however, an ongoing debate over whether gladiators should be seen as human ‘sacrifices’ for the dead ( Auguet 1994, 19–22; Dunkle 2008, 10–14; Gunderson 1996, 115 n. 3; Wiedemann 1992, 34). Walbank (2010, 280 n. 83) also notes a physician named Trophimos who served the guild of beast-fighters in the early imperial era (IG 4.365). For discussions of the theater and its modifications, see Capps 1949, 66; Shear, 1925, 449–63; Stillwell 1929, 77–97. For a methodological discussion of visual exegesis based on the visual literacy of readers and image networks, see Canavan 2017, 247–8. Unless otherwise specified, all New Testament translations are my own. Histēmi: 1 Cor 10:12; 2 Cor 1:24; Rom 5:2; 11:20; katechō: 1 Thess 5:21; 1 Cor 11:2. The term “to save” (sōzō, servare), was also frequently used in the combative setting to refer to the preservation of life. Some gladiators claimed how many combatants they had “saved” in the arena ( Cadwallader 2016, 372; Carter 1999, 128). Pfitzner (1967, 158) delineates steadfastness as a military, not athletic, metaphor, but acknowledges the mingled use of metaphors related to slaves, prisoners, ath­ letes, soldiers, and gladiators in ancient texts ( Cadwallader 2016, 372; cf. Seesengood, 2006, 52). On the conscious switching between athletic and gladia­ torial motifs by Paul and other ancient authors, see Concannon 2014. Gunderson (1996, 141 n. 102) notes that the whole institution of missio was tied to steadfastness and the skill of the fighters. They could live, i.e., be saved, only if they had manifested these qualities. For the conflation of the soldier and gladiator, see Seneca, Prov. 4.4. E.g., BE 1965.264 (Tomis); 1974.340 (Thessalonikē); 1974.380 (Khersonesos); 1988.834 (Beroia); IGR 4.1074 (Cos); 4.1456 (Smyrna); SEG 1978.1041 (Nikomedeia); 1979.1258 (Cyzicus). On baptism for the dead, see DeMaris 1995; Hull 2005. For “facing death” as one of the hardships of sages, cf. Athenaeus, Deipn. 7.552B; Philo, Flacc. 175. For a summary of the issues involved in 1 Cor 15:32, see Osborne 1966. See also Futrell 1997, 24–8. Beast-fighters, like gladiators, had the hope of sur­ vival, differently from noxii who faced the fixed end of death. Since Paul is saying that he fought against the beasts for a non-human hope, he is presenting himself as a gladiator or beast-fighter rather than as a noxius like he does in 1 Cor 4:9. In this chapter, I use the term “gladiator” to denote both a trained gladiator fighting against other gladiators and a beast-fighter. Gladiators and beast-fighters were perceived to share significant similarities and are often categorized together in ancient texts (Dunkle 2008, 80–1). While the specific image Paul evokes in v. 32 is a beast-fighter, I think he is utilizing motifs related both to gladiators and beastfighters in 1 Cor 15 without limiting himself strictly to a beast-fighter. For an example of a man honored as a famous gladiator and bestiarius, see IEph 3070 (third cent. CE). The corresponding structure, the porta sanivivaria (“Gateway of Life”), was for victorious gladiators (Dunkle 2008, 225–26; Kyle 2012, 156). Cf. Pass. Perp. Fel. 10.13; 20.7. Malherbe (1968, 77) also noted the use of Isaiah in v. 32b, but he viewed it more as a reminiscent of the slogan attributed to Epicureans.

Disposable or Transforming Body? 161 19 For lavishness associated with gladiatorial games, see Livy, Ab urbe con. 9.40.17; Strabo, Geogr. 5.4.13; Cicero, Agr. 2.95; Silius Italicus, Pun. 11.51–54. 20 A mosaic from an amphitheater in El Djem, North Africa depicts a boisterous drinking party of venatores who will fight bulls the next day. Above the head of each reveler is a short inscription saying: “We will take our clothes off! We have come to drink! You all are talking too much! Let’s have fun!” (Dunkle 2008, 75; Dunbabin 1978, 78–83, pl. xxvii.69). 21 This view of death, in turn, according to Paul, is connected to the moral lifestyle with “a sober and right mind” and efforts to avoid sins (v. 34) ( Malherbe 1968). 22 The venatio also exerted Roman power over bodies in nature, as many of the animals came from distant parts of the empire (Dunkle 2008, 11–12). Paul’s assertion of God’s creative power that gives an appropriate body for each kind in 1 Cor 15:38–41 challenges this Roman claim. 23 Gunderson (1996, 134) notes the instant alienation of the bodies of defeated gladiators: “Those dying on the sand have been exiled into the non-Roman space; their sufferings are those of the uncivilized world.” 24 For the expression “flesh and blood” highlighting mortality, creatureliness, and susceptibility to sins, see Sir 14:18–19; 17:31; Wis 12:5; Philo, Her. 57; Matt 16:17; Gal 1:16; Eph 6:12. 25 Alexandrescu (2019, 191–92) notes that since Hellenistic times this instrument served as a symbol of warfare, battle, athletic contests, and victory. See also Dunbabin 2015, 196; Newby 2002, 177–203. 26 On clothing imagery in the Pauline letters, see Kim 2004; Pitts 2016. Cf. 2 Cor 5:3; Rom 13:12–14; Eph 6:10; 2 En. 22:8–10; Odes Sol. 15:8; Ascen. Isa. 4:17. 27 In another gladiatorial epitaph from Corinth, a retiarius stands facing the viewer, wearing a galerus on his left arm and shoulder and holding a dagger and trident in his left hand ( Carter 1999, 321 no. 111). See further Canavan 2017, 260; Carter 1999, 70–1.

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Brown, Shelby. 1992. “Death as Decoration: Scenes from the Arena on Roman Domestic Mosaics.” Pages 180–211 in Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome. Edited by Amy Richlin. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cadwallader, Alan H. 2016. “Paul and the Games.” Pages 363–390 in Paul in the Greco-Roman World: A Handbook. Second edition. Vol. 1. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. Canavan, Rosemary. 2017. “Armor, Peace and Gladiators: A Visual Exegesis of Ephesians 6:10–17.” Pages 241–267 in The Art of Visual Exegesis: Rhetoric, Texts, Images. Edited by Vernon K. Robbins, Walter S. Melion, and Roy R. Jeal. Emory Studies in Early Christianity. Atlanta: SBL. Capps, Edward. 1949. “Observations on the Painted Venatio of the Theatre at Corinth and on the Arrangements of the Arena.” Hesperia Supplements 8: 64–445. Carter, Michael. J. 1999. “A Doctor Secutorum and the Retiarius Draukos from Corinth.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 126: 262–268. Carter, Michael. J. 2009. “Gladiators and Monomachoi: Greek Attitudes to a Roman ‘Cultural Performance.’” The International Journal of the History of Sport 26: 298–322. Cobb, L. Stephanie. 2008. Dying to Be Men: Gender and Language in Early Christian Martyr Texts. New York: Columbia University Press. Cohoon, J. W., and H. Lamar Crosby, trans. 1940. Dio Chrysostom, Vol. III. LCL 358. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Coleman, Kathleen M. 2010. “Valuing Others in the Gladiatorial Barracks.” Pages 419–445 in Valuing Others in Classical Antiquity. Edited by Ralph Rosen and Ineke Sluiter. Leiden: Brill. Concannon, Cavan W. 2014. “‘Not for an Olive Wreath, but Our Lives’: Gladiators, Athletes, and Early Christian Bodies.” Journal of Biblical Literature 133:193–214. Conybeare, F. C., trans. 1912. Philostratus: The Life of Apollonius of Tyana. LCL 16. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. DeMaris, Richard E. 1995. “Corinthian Religion and Baptism for the Dead (1 Corinthians 15:29): Insights from Archaeology and Anthropology.” Journal of Biblical Literature 114:661–682. Dunbabin, Katherine M. D. 1978. The Mosaics of Roman North Africa. Oxford: Clarendon. Dunkle, Roger. 2013. Gladiators: Violence and Spectacle in Ancient Rome. London: Routledge. Endsjø, Dag Øistein. 2008. “Immortal Bodies, before Christ: Bodily Continuity in Ancient Greece and 1 Corinthians.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 30:417–436. Fagan, Garrett G. 2011. The Lure of the Arena: Social Psychology and the Crowd at the Roman Games. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fagan, Garrett G. 2016. “Manipulating Space at the Roman Arena.” Pages 349–379 in The Topography of Violence in the Greco-Roman World. Edited by Werner Riess and Garrett G. Fagan. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Friesen, Steven J. 2010. “Introduction: Context, Comparison.” Pages 1–12 in Corinth in Context: Comparative Studies on Religion and Society. Edited by Steven J. Friesen, Daniel N. Schowalter, and James C. Walters. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 134. Leiden: Brill. Futrell, Alison. 1997. Blood in the Arena: The Spectacle of Roman Power. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Disposable or Transforming Body? 163 Gummere, Richard M., trans. 1917. Seneca. Epistles 1–65. LCL 75. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gunderson, Erik. 1996. “The Ideology of the Arena.” Classical Antiquity 15:113–151. Hafemann, Scott J. 2011. Suffering and the Spirit: An Exegetical Study of 2 Corinthians 2:4–3:3 within the Context of the Corinthian Correspondence. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock. Haxby, Mikael. 2018. “The Gladiator Graveyard of Ephesus as Evidence for the Study of Martyrdom.” Pages 171–192 in The First Urban Churches 3: Ephesus. Edited by James R. Harrison and L. L. Welborn. SBL Writings from the GrecoRoman World Supplements 9. Atlanta: SBL. Hope, Valerie. 2000. “Fighting for Identity: The Funerary Commemoration of Italian Gladiators.” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. Supplement 73: 93–113. Hopkins, Keith, and Mary Beard. 2006. The Colosseum. London: Profile. Hornum, Michael B. 2015. Nemesis, the Roman State and the Games. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 117. Leiden: Brill. Hull, Michael F. 2005. Baptism on Account of the Dead (1 Cor 15:29): An Act of Faith in the Resurrection. SBL Academia Biblica 22. Leiden: Brill. Junkelmann, Marcus. 2000. Das Spiel mit dem Tod: So kämpften Roms Gladiatoren. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern. Kim, Jung Hoon. 2004. The Significance of Clothing Imagery in the Pauline Corpus. London: T&T Clark. King, J. E., trans. 1927. Cicero. Tusculan Disputations. LCL 141. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Knibbe, Dieter, and Hilke Thür, eds. 1995. Via Sacra Ephesiaca II: Grabungen und Forschungen 1992 und 1993. Berichte und Materialen herausgegeben vom Österreichischen Archäologischen Institut 6. Vienna: Schindler. Kyle, Donald G. 2012. Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome. London: Routledge. Malherbe, Abraham J. 1968. “The Beasts at Ephesus.” Journal of Biblical Literature 87:71–80. Mellor, Ronald. 1975. ϴEA PΩMH. The Worship of the Goddess Roma in the Greek World. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Newby, Zahra. 2002. “Greek Athletics as Roman Spectacle: The Mosaics from Ostia and Rome.” Papers of the British School at Rome 70:177–203. Nguyen, V. Henry T. 2007. “The Identification of Paul’s Spectacle of Death Metaphor in 1 Corinthians 4.9.” New Testament Studies 53:489–501. Noyes, Russell. 1973. “Seneca on Death.” Journal of Religion and Health 12: 223–240. Osborne, Robert. E. 1966. “Paul and the Wild Beasts.” Journal of Biblical Literature 85:225–230. Pfitzner, Victor C. 1967. Paul and the Agon Motif: Traditional Athletic Imagery and the Pauline Literature. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 16. Leiden: Brill. Pitts, Andrew W. 2016. “Paul’s Concept of the Resurrection Body in 1 Corinthians 15:35–58.” Pages 44–58 in Paul and Gnosis. Edited by David Yoon and Stanley E. Porter. Pauline Studies 9. Leiden: Brill. Robert, Louis. 1940. Les gladiateurs dans l’Orient grec. Paris: Champion. Romano, David Gilman. 2005. “Urban and Rural Planning in Roman Corinth.” Pages 1–36 in Urban Religion in Roman Corinth: Interdisciplinary Approaches. Edited by Daniel N. Schowalter and Steven J. Friesen. Harvard Theological Studies 53. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Divinity School.

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Seesengood, Robert P. 2006. Competing Identities: The Athlete and the Gladiator in Early Christianity. Library of New Testament Studies 346. New York: T&T Clark. Shear, Theodore Leslie. 1925. “Excavations at Corinth in 1925.” American Journal of Archaeology 29:381–397. Simpson, C. J. 2000. “Musicians and the Arena: Dancers and the Hippodrome.” Latomus 59:633–639. Spawforth, Anthony J. S. 1996. “Roman Corinth: The Formation of a Colonial Elite.” Pages 167–182 in Roman Onomastics in the Greek East: Social and Political Aspects. Edited by A.D. Rizakis. Athens: Research Center for Greek and Roman Antiquity. Stillwell, Richard. 1952. Corinth II: The Theatre. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Stillwell, Richard. 1929. “The Theatre at Corinth.” American Journal of Archaeology 33:77–97. Toner, Jerry. 2014. The Day Commodus Killed a Rhino: Understanding the Roman Games. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Ville, Georges. 1981. La gladiature en occident des origines à la mort de Domitien. Rome: École française de Rome. Walbank, Michael B. 2010. “Where Have All the Names Gone? The Christian Community in Corinth in the Late Roman and Early Byzantine Eras.” Pages 257–323 in Corinth in Context: Comparative Studies on Religion and Society. Edited by Steven J. Friesen, Daniel N. Schowalter, and James C. Walters. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 134. Leiden: Brill. Waele, Ferdinand J. de. 1928. Theater en Amphitheater te oud Korinthe. Utrecht: Dekker. Welch, Katherine. 1999. “Negotiating Roman Spectacle Architecture in the Greek World: Athens and Corinth.” Studies in the History of Art 56:124–145. Wiedemann, Thomas. 1992. Emperors and Gladiators. London: Routledge. Wiedemann, Thomas. 1996. “Single Combat and Being Roman.” Ancient Society 27:91–103.

10

The Terrace Houses at Ephesos, Domestic Religion, and Pauline Discourses of Space Christine M. Thomas

10.1

Introduction

Recent work on the first-century CE Terrace Houses in the center of Ephesos has uncovered a trove of sacred objects in their domestic contexts. These are particularly significant first of all because they offer detailed evidence for domestic religious practices in the eastern provinces, the location of the Pauline communities known to us from Paul’s letters preserved in the New Testament. Moreover, these houses are right on the mark chronologically because their history of use began during the reign of Tiberius.1 Thus the initial construction of the habitations fits the period of Paul’s missionary activity very well, since he would most likely have been in Ephesos in the early 50s CE, shortly after these houses were built. Much work on domestic religion in the context of the early Pauline communities has been based on Rome, Ostia, or Pompeii, regions in which Paul never established religious communities (e.g., Cianca 2018; Osiek 2006; Oakes 2009).2 The evidence for this study comes from the excavations of Terrace House 2 in Ephesos, located in the city center on one of the principal thoroughfares of Ephesos, the Embolos,3 just up the hill from the magnificent Celsus Library, and between the upper and lower marketplaces of the city. These residences have recently been extensively published, both in the full archeological reports in German,4 and in some smaller treatments in English in edited volumes on Ephesos (Black et al. 2022; Schowalter et al. 2020). Terrace House 2 is an insula laid out on three separate terraces that contains seven individual peristyle houses, sharing some walls in common, which I will individually designate as “units.” This chapter has two major points. The first is that the small finds, the artifacts that were discovered during the excavations, allow us to map fixed zones of religious activity in these private houses, specific locations that were sacred spaces or shrines. Second, the small finds allow us to identify particular complexes of religious activity, such as ancestor worship and the worship of the Roman emperors. These two observations have important ramifications for understanding the use of domestic space as worship space in the Pauline communities. By locating their religious assemblies in local houses, DOI: 10.4324/9781003344247-14

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the Pauline communities were not employing neutral or profane space but were entering a domestic built environment with zones that were already sacred, serving as fixed locations for existing religious objects and practices. 10.2

Sacred Space in the Terrace Houses in Ephesos

For Roman houses in the western part of the empire, there is generally a clear indication of the locations in which religious activities took place. Most had a permanent shrine, a lararium, which was usually located in one of the central atria of the house (Boyce 1937; Giacobello 2008). Greek houses in the eastern empire generally do not have lararia, so identifying locations of religious activity in these houses is more challenging (Zimmermann 2020, 227; Öhler and Futter 2016, 329). Many excavations produce abundant small finds indicating religious behavior: objects such as statuettes or their bases, small altars, incense burners (thymiatēria), and reliefs and wall paintings with religious content. The problem is that usually an exact findspot for these items is not recorded: they are often merely assigned to a level in a five-meter-square sector of the excavation grid, and then scooped up and taken to the museum depot for security. In the case of the Terrace Houses at Ephesos, however, beginning with Hermann Vetters, the initial director, the excavation teams recorded the location of the finds quite carefully within their context. This additional evidence allows the possibility of constructing networks of sacred objects within these houses and mapping the zones of religious activity. In the units of Terrace House 2, the small finds—especially from Units 2, 4, 6, and 7—suggest that the zones in which concentrations of sacred objects appear are four: near entrances and doorways, by staircases, near the presence of open fire, and in the interior courtyards. Doorways are quite literally liminal spaces that would generally attract religious activity because they are charged and dangerous. Threatening things could enter through them. In the entrance room (Vestibulum I) of Unit 6, which provides an entrance to the ground floor from the street and leads into a room with a staircase accessing the upper level of the house, a graffito denoting a phallus (GR 254B) is scratched into a brick in the wall to the left of the doorway. The function of the graffito was to protect the house from evil and to ensure good fortune. There are several examples from Pompeii of phalluses in similar locations, such as the well-known ithyphallic Priapus at the entrance of the House of the Vettii (Clarke 1998, 174–7). Many of the incense burners (thymiatēria) from the Terrace Houses were similarly found in proximity to the entrances of the houses, which suggests that the inhabitants and guests would burn incense and make other offerings to the gods while entering the space of the house, since the thymiatēria typically bear the images of gods or goddesses (Zimmermann 2020, 221). A marble relief of a hero on horseback (heros equitans) in Unit 2 is located in a niche in the wall of an interior peristyle (SR 22–23) at the foot of a

The Terrace Houses at Ephesos 167 stairway. From his central location, the hero not only protected the stairway leading to another level of the house, but could also see with his divine gaze each of the doorways of the smaller rooms that opened off of this interior courtyard, thus protecting the entire space with his watchful eyes (Zimmermann 2020, 213; for a similar relief in the peristyle of Terrace House 1, see Rathmayr 2022, 243–44). The relief is set back within its niche, leaving a ledge that would make it possible to leave offerings in front of the hero. In addition to doorways and stairways, the presence of open fire within the house also attracted religious activity. In Unit 6, a small room (36e) that contained the heating system for this part of the apartment has a niche in its wall. The excavators found a thymiatērion (incense burner) with the head of Serapis in close association with the niche, along with a lamp portraying a satyr, so these probably stood within it (Zimmermann 2020, 221). Like the installations near doorways, this niche is located near another source of danger, the necessary but perilous presence of fire within the house. Other similar niches are located near the kitchens in these units, some of them decorated with flowers that would have been common offerings in an indoor domestic context (Unit 7, room 45b; Unit 4, SR 9d; Zimmermann 2020, 219–21). Last, the interior peristyle courtyards in these residences also show evidence of religious activity. A large interior courtyard in Unit 7 (38b) does not show any specific architectural characteristics that would indicate its function as a sacred space. It is a simple peristyle courtyard with small rooms opening off of it, the form that domestic architecture generally took during this period. What makes clear its purpose as a space for worship is the portable furniture found there. In the center of the open courtyard, the excavators uncovered a cylindrical stone altar and a large marble table. The combination of an altar and an offering table, although unique in Terrace House 2, is found elsewhere in Hellenistic-period houses and is commonly depicted on Hellenistic reliefs showing domestic contexts (Rathmayr 2022, 12). On the table would be placed bloodless offerings suitable for a domestic context such as incense, flowers, food, and wine. Most of these zones of religious activity within the houses are indicated by the constellation of small finds found in or near them. These are portable, and easily lost, moved, or stolen. The one major exception is the wall niches, which are nonportable installations that generally survive well if the wall is preserved to a sufficient height, as is the case in most of the Terrace Houses. Because of their careful preservation by the excavators, and the archeological record of paintings and nearby objects, it is now clear that the majority of the niches built into the walls of these units are not merely decorative, but have some religious content, either in their decoration or in the objects found within or near them. Because of the consistency of the evidence in this well-preserved context, wall niches elsewhere should also be characterized as religious architecture, as small shrines, even in the absence of diagnostic small finds. As suggested above, they are the primary installations providing space for incense burners, tiny altars, statuettes, and religious paintings in the zones of religious activity around doors, stairways, open flames, and interior courtyards.

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Paintings and representations in niches or on nearby walls often indicate the religious behavior expected of the inhabitants of the house in the rooms or locations in which they are found, sometimes performed by the god or hero himself. The relief in Unit 2 of the heros equitans, the hero on horseback, shows him holding a phialē, a shallow offering bowl, to pour a libation, a liquid offering, near an altar outside under a tree, before which altar stands a smaller human worshiper. The recipient in this case is a snake wound around the tree, which represents the agathos daimōn, the “beneficent spirit” who watches over domestic contexts in particular (Zimmermann 2020, 214, Fig 12.2; Dunand 1981; Fabricius 1999, 63–66). So, the hero is making an offering to protect the very house in which he himself is located. Similarly, in a wall painting in a small room (38d) off the peristyle of Unit 7, where the altar and offering table stand in the central courtyard, a figure is depicted pouring an offering at a small altar similar to the one in the courtyard. Significantly this libation scene is in Roman style (Romano ritu; Rathmayr 2022, 19–20): Romans poured libations onto the altar, rather than into the ground as the Greeks did. This particular house belonged to a prominent Greek family that had received Roman citizenship, and, over a few generations, achieved both equestrian and senatorial status (Rathmayr 2022, 24–6, 28), so they would have been familiar with and amenable to Roman religious practices. 10.3

Ancestor Worship and Imperial Worship

The marble relief of the heros equitans in Unit 2 dates to the Hellenistic period, which makes it at least a generation older than the initial construction of the house in which it stood. The relief was never moved during the long history of this house—which spans two centuries—and the niche was never closed over, so it never went out of use (Zimmermann 2020, 214). This tiny shrine, consisting of a wall niche and a relief, lasted at least 200 years. The excavators of the Terrace Houses also found three similar reliefs in Unit 4, all of them showing a man reclining at a banquet. Like the heros equitans relief, two of them were still in situ in niches in the wall, and a third was on the floor beneath another niche (Zimmermann 2020, 216; Quatember 2003, 172–73; Öhler and Fugger 2016, 330–33), in two small rooms near the house entrance (4 and 5). Small reliefs such as these are very common in this part of Asia Minor. Like the examples at Ephesos, they often depict a man on a horse near an altar,5 or a man reclining on a dining couch (klinē) in front of a table laden with food, surrounded by family members (the so-called Totenmahl, or “funerary banquet,” reliefs).6 They are usually surface finds, so assigning them a functional context is challenging. They are often identified as “grave reliefs” or “funerary reliefs,” and this is not always wrong, since both the heros equitans motif and the banquet motif also appear on grave steles in Asia Minor.7 Yet the exemplars vary a great deal in size, and many are smaller portable reliefs like the ones in the Terrace Houses, oblong and not vertical, and too diminutive to be grave markers.8 Since they could neither stand independently nor

The Terrace Houses at Ephesos 169 did they possess a tenon that would make it possible to drive them into the ground, they were intended for placement in a niche or on a ledge (so Dentzer 1982, 357–58). The discovery of these four reliefs in a primary context, on display in a niche in a house wall, suggests that this was an important primary location for them. The figures in these reliefs, though prominently displayed, do not show any of the attributes or iconography of an identifiable god, only attributes associated with heroes: horses, banquets, snakes, trees (Fabricius 1999, 57–70). They are most likely representations of heroized ancestors.9 The fact that the relief in Unit 2 was older than the house and was never moved from its place may indicate that it depicted an ancestor of the family who lived there and that the house remained in the hands of the same extended family over generations. The relief itself was close to 300 years old when the house finally fell into ruin. The niche in Unit 2 is thus most likely a domestic ancestor shrine. The three banquet reliefs in Unit 4 make this even clearer because they were found in two small rooms near the entrance of the house, usually a place requiring special divine protection. Like the heros equitans relief, these reliefs were in niches that would allow the placement of offerings. The ubiquity of these small reliefs showing riders or banquet scenes in museums across Ionia, as well as the many examples found in just these few domestic units in Ephesos, suggest that ancestor shrines were common in ancient houses in this region.10 It is not surprising that one of the major complexes of religious activity within domestic space would be ancestor worship. More surprising may be the worship of the Roman emperors in these houses. The small altar and offering table in the interior peristyle courtyard of Unit 7 were placed on an axis and oriented toward a room (38) that contained large busts of the divinities who would have received the offerings on the table: the emperor Tiberius (Efes Müzesi inv. no. 81.59.80) and his mother Livia (Efes Müzesi inv. no. 80.59.80). The statues were found in situ in a niche in this room, with a large bronze snake (Efes Müzesi inv. no. 83.59.80) found on the floor in front of them. Unfortunately, the initial excavators assumed that the snake had originally stood in the niche and had fallen out, and they placed the snake into the niche soon after its discovery (Rathmayr 2022, 14). Because of this misinterpretation of the archeological context, the snake was displayed together with the two busts in the Efes Müzesi in Selçuk for decades. But in the original excavation photos, the snake is clearly placed on debris and rubble at a higher stratigraphic level than the floor of the room, and it was upright, so it did not fall from the niche (Rathmayr 2022, 17). The debris resulted from an earthquake in the third century, after which the structure was never rebuilt.11 The snake was installed in its place in front of the niche after the unit had fallen into ruin. The niche with the imperial busts faced the courtyard (38b) and was located in a largish room (38), the door of which was unusually wide, which would allow the worshipers easily to see the busts from their positions near the altar and the offering table. Perhaps more importantly, the offerings on

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the table, and the altar behind it, were well within the divine gaze of Tiberius and Livia. Cuttings in the marble doorposts indicate that the room was closed off by a barrier, which was probably wooden and did not survive. The barrier was not a door, since there are no cuttings for doorposts, but more likely a lattice-work similar to what one finds in temples (Rathmayr 2022, 15). It would have barred any access to the room, while still allowing the images always to be visible. There are some similarities in this example to features seen elsewhere in the various units of these Terrace Houses. First, the sacred character of this space is largely dependent on the network of objects that was found there, objects that are portable and often removed, either by their owners, or by thieves, or by the excavators. The purpose of these rooms is evident primarily from the busts found there and from the altar and offering table. In a looted or less carefully excavated context, the religious character of the room and of the activities carried out there would not be evident, save for the prominent niche at the end of the courtyard, aligned with its central axis. Second, as with the case of the ancestor relief, the sacred nature of this installation dated to the earliest period of construction and even outlasted the structure of the house itself. The altar and offering table are similar to examples found from the late Hellenistic and early Roman period, so they date to the initial construction of the house (Rathmayr 2022, 16). At the other end of the chronological spectrum, the bronze snake in front of the niche with the imperial statues was set up on a pile of debris in a layer of destruction about a foot above floor level, leaning into the niche, in the late third century, when the house had fallen victim to an earthquake. At this point, Tiberius and Livia would still have been visible among the ruins, since the rubble from the earthquake did not reach the height of the bottom of the niche. Roman laws protected imperial portraits in the houses in which they were installed (Pekáry 1985, 114–15, 139–40; Rathmayr 2022, 16-17). They were treated as fixed parts of the houses in which they were located and, upon sale of the property, the portraits were sold to the new owners together with the buildings (Tacitus, Ann. 1.73.3). So, for this reason, the busts remained in their place after the earthquake, perhaps because there was still a possibility that the house would be rebuilt.12 In the meantime, the bronze snake, an agathos daimōn, a beneficial protective divinity, was placed there to guard Tiberius and Livia.13 Third, there is a connection with ancestor worship. The worship of the Roman emperors can be understood as a form of it. According to literary sources, Romans in the imperial families included busts of the emperors in their household lararia as their ancestors (Rathmayr 2022, 21). Correspondingly, the extension of Roman citizenship to a free person in the Greek east would create a relationship of fictive kinship between the new citizen and his patron, because the new citizen would be adopted into a Roman family and take its nomen, which implied the duty to worship its ancestors as well. Epigraphic evidence demonstrates that the family that owned the house in which these busts were installed had achieved Roman citizenship under the Flavian emperors

The Terrace Houses at Ephesos 171 (Rathmayr 2022, 25). Unlike freedmen, who would be granted Roman citizenship on the death of their owner and would thus be adopted into the owner’s family, free Greek citizens were often granted citizenship by the emperor himself and thus would become part of his family, taking his nomen and worshiping his ancestors, the former Roman emperors, along with their own.14 10.4

Domestic Sacred Space and the Pauline Communities

As demonstrated above, parts of the domestic built environment of the Terrace Houses at Ephesos were already sacred as fixed locations for religious objects and practices. Sacred objects clustered around doorways and entrances, stairways, and any place with an open fire such as a kitchen. They often stood in niches that one finds in these locations, the one feature that is architecturally visible. Moreover, interior peristyle courtyards and the rooms off them could also be locations of religious activity and offerings because the interior courtyards provided enough space for all the individuals associated with the household to assemble. Domestic space was thus deeply sacred in ancient Greek religious life. There is much less evidence for domestic contexts in antiquity than for public religion, largely because most domestic contexts were considerably poorer, and had fewer artifacts produced in durable materials such as stone and metal. So, it is easy to forget that houses were the primary site for religious devotion in the ancient world. Religious activity in the home formed the largest part of the lived experience of religion, since it happened every day and included everyone, men and women, parents and children, and slaves and free (Parker 2005, 9–22). Although the Terrace Houses pertained to the extreme upper class of Ephesian society, there is no reason to believe that domestic religious practices functioned in a markedly different way for the poorer inhabitants of the city. Poor people also had ancestors, and their concern for evil or dangerous things entering through doors and stairways, or for the destructive power of domestic fire, was not less intense than that of their wealthier neighbors. The parallels with worship in the Pauline communities are instructive. In traditional academic discussions, scholars have persistently used the term “house churches” to describe the Pauline assemblies’ worship in houses (e.g., Phlm 2; 1 Cor 16:19; Rom 16:5).15 The anachronistic use of the word “church” is problematic, but the deeper problem may be the assumption that the house had to have a term added to it in order to make it into a sacred space—“house church” rather than just “house.” Houses were already filled through and through with sacred objects and structures, and with multiple zones of daily religious activity. Thus “sacred space” was not simply created in a “profane” domestic context by specific ritual practices, whether Pauline or Greek, as suggested by scholars of early Christianity who follow J. Z. Smith’s theories (1987) about the manner in which ritual activity creates sacred space (e.g., Cianca 2018; Økland 2004). Smith’s theory posits that ritual creates sacred space, and that space is otherwise unmarked prior to ritual. Yet in the lived experience of

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individuals, such spaces are never unmarked. They are experienced as sacred from the outset, often from childhood, because of tradition, memory, and instruction. There is no lived time anterior to this (Thomas 2008). The problem addressed by Smith’s theory evaporates if one posits, as I do here, that areas of the house were already marked for sacred activities by the objects and structures in them, and that the space for these activities was not experienced as particularly profane by any concrete individual, only by the theoretical constructs of ancient individuals created by modern scholars. By worshiping in domestic contexts, the Pauline communities were doing exactly what everyone else did, and as they themselves had done in their past religious lives before joining this new religious community. The members of Paul’s communities had a religious past. Other problems arise, however. If the Pauline communities met in houses that already bore the imprint of sacred practices involving the worship of the Greek gods, how did these habits and memories interact with new worship practices in the same spaces? This is not only an issue of the space of the house, but also of the cognitive and kinetic memory of Paul’s converts, who would associate these spaces with repeated practices of worship toward the gods from whom they were now commanded to turn away, who were not imaginary beings but rather powerful daimōnes who opposed the worship of the true god (1 Cor 10:14–22).16 The problem is not making domestic space sacred, following J. Z. Smith, but rather desacralizing domestic space, erasing the pre-existing memories and patterns of sacred space and its use, and eliminating the structures and objects that recalled them.17 The case of the worship of the Roman emperors within a domestic context would also seem to confound the concept of private religion, because most of the evidence for this is of a more public nature: monuments, inscriptions, and statues in civic spaces, and festivals and games (Friesen 1993; Price 1986). It is easy to forget that some of the imperial worship continued “behind closed doors,” in the spaces of individual households, where the inhabitants prayed and offered incense regularly to the emperors in their household shrines. So, alongside the large imperial temples, one must also visualize multiple points of imperial worship spread out among the households of Ephesos. But in this, imperial worship is no different from the worship of any of the other gods. The worship of Artemis or any other god would always have two components: the worship at her temples and shrines and in the city streets during her festivals, and the worship offered to her in the houses of the city. So, for the majority of people in the ancient Mediterranean, domestic religious practices functioned as part of a network of spaces and objects connected to the worship of the same gods in the broader urban environment, in temples they could visit, and in festivals they could attend. It would seem that the Pauline communities lacked a similar civic network of the sacred: the temple in Jerusalem still stood, and the communities directed their offerings toward it, but visiting it on a regular basis was impossible. For diasporic Jews, this was old hat, but among Paul’s converts

The Terrace Houses at Ephesos 173 from among the Greeks,18 this would amount to being cut off from the religious life of the city around them, the only one they had known since their earliest childhood memories, with nothing comparable to replace it. The lack of such a network among the earliest followers of Jesus may have influenced their distinctive discourses about sacred spaces, in which their sacred spaces are expressed as utopias, or as inversions of dominant spatial discourses. A generation later, but not far from Ephesos, the seer of Patmos describes the city of the heavenly Jerusalem come down to earth, completely devoid of any dedicated sacred space and lacking a temple altogether, because “its temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb” (Rev 21:22, NRSV). And Paul himself famously instructed his communities that their bodies were the true “temples of God” (1 Cor 6:19), rather than any concrete structures in civic space (Thomas 2010)—even though the temple in Jerusalem still stood in Paul’s lifetime as a potential reference for civic religion in a real and not notional urban space. In these utopic tropes, one finds the beginnings of a new imaginary of sacred space, one that functioned without recourse to the possession and disposition of urban space. Notes 1 The units were constructed in the second quarter of the first century CE and continued in use for about two hundred years, into the third quarter of the third century CE. This dating represents a reevaluation of the stratigraphic evidence, which sets the date of construction later than that published in the previous volumes on the Terrace Houses ( Rathmayr 2022, 10 n. 3). The units were affected by multiple earthquakes, especially in the third century, and have a complicated construction history. After each successive catastrophe, some parts of some units were repaired and put back into use, and others were abandoned ( Zimmermann 2020, 211–12). 2 An important reason for this is the chance nature of archeological preservation. In Pompeii, the walls of the houses were preserved to an unusual height, and small finds were locked in their places because of their inundation by volcanic ash in a single event. The Terrace Houses at Ephesos also share the quixotic good fortune of sudden catastrophe. A succession of earthquakes, and the position of the houses on a steep hillside with considerable erosion, preserved them and their contents much better than most other domestic contexts in the region. And because they were possessions of the wealthy, their objects and surfaces were made of more durable materials—metal, stone, and wall frescoes—that were able to survive in good condition. Recent scholars have integrated their evidence into studies of early Christianity ( Shaner 2018). 3 This is the most likely ancient name of the street. It is sometimes described as “Kouretes” or “Curetes” Street in older scholarly literature, a modern name given by the excavators without any ancient evidence. 4 Krinzinger 2010 (Unit 2); Thür 2005 (Unit 4); Thür and Rathmayr 2014 (Unit 6); Rathmayr 2016 (Unit 7). Throughout this article, the numbers assigned to architectural features such as rooms and courtyards, and to individual artifacts, correspond to the identification system in these publications and to the inventory numbers of the Efes Müzesi (Selçuk, Turkey). 5 For multiple local examples, see Auinger in Krinzinger 2010, 657–58, who also discusses issues of interpretation. 6 The banquet motif is very common on a number of media and objects in ancient Greek material culture, ranging from classical Athens into the Roman period. Both

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Dentzer (1982), in his comprehensive catalog, and Fabricius (1999) address the concept of the Totenmahl, demonstrating that the banquets are not a funerary rite Lawton (2016) similarly argues that the meal represents not a funerary meal, but a ritual practice for worshiping the heroes depicted on the reliefs (399–400). Hence in later work, scholars generally avoid the term Totenmahl and “funerary banquet.” Only later in the fourth century BCE does the banquet motif begin to appear on grave steles both in Attica and elsewhere, including the Ionian coast ( Fabricius 2016, 38). Depends on findspot, inscription, size, and format ( Johanna Dentzer 1982, 353–54). The heros equitans relief is 48.5 × 62 × 62 cm (Auinger in Krinzinger 2010, 665). The earliest reliefs with similar banquet scenes are dedications to heroes in classical Attica, who are understood to be the semi-divine ancestors of cities, tribes, or clans. The attic reliefs were epigraphically dedicated “to the hero,” almost always without further epithet, or else were devoid of any inscription, since the display of the votives in a hero sanctuary would make the identity of the dedicatee clear ( Fabricius 2016, 38; Lawton 2016, 386–88). The smaller reliefs are almost entirely surface finds that made their way to museums or private collections (Dentzer 1982, 344). This suggests that their original contexts were cemeteries, private houses, or rural shrines, locations without the monumental architecture that attracts formal excavation. Ancestor worship—and heroes were usually ancestors of cities or tribes—would be one possible complex of religious activity that would bridge these different contexts of sanctuary, grave, and domestic shrine. The latest ceramics in the debris upon which the snake rests date to the late third century CE (Rathmyr 2022, 17), which corresponds to an earthquake at the time of the emperor Gallienus, known from literary sources (third quarter of the third century CE, ca. 253–268 CE Thür and Rathmayr 2014, 137). It was only backfilled fifty to seventy years later, in the fourth century CE, dated by the glass and ceramic small finds (Rathmayr 2022, 18). The bronze snake stands in alignment with the middle of the niche, which suggests that it was put there in conscious relationship to the busts (Rathmayr 2022, 17). On the worship of the Roman emperors as a form of ancestor worship resulting from the extension of Roman citizenship, see (Gradel 2002, 128–39; Taylor 1931, 181–84, 190–94). A recent example is Cianca (2018), but a search of the American Theological Library Association database shows 94 specific entries on Paul and house churches since 1990. Öhler and Fugger (2016) note the ubiquity of scholarly focus on “house churches,” while questioning whether the evidence supports the assumption that houses were locations of early Christian gatherings in any widespread fashion (314–20). This makes me skeptical of Cianca’s assertion that the “temporary … rather than permanent” creation of sacred space through ritual made it possible for both Roman and early Christian religious practices to co-exist in the same domestic space (2018, 169–70). Cianca (2018) and Økland (2004) address this problem by positing that the rituals of the Pauline communities created a sacred space that was temporary, lasting for the time of the ritual. Rituals occur in sacred spaces, but they also structure time. Positing “temporary” sacred space conflates these ontological categories. It might be clearer to employ the temporal axis and characterize the activities themselves, rather than domestic spaces, as either “sacred” or everyday, elapsing in alternation in the lifetime of the worshiper, and structuring their experience of time over days, weeks, or months. I am studiously avoiding the word “Gentile,” which is a pejorative out-group designation of the majority population of the Roman East that defines them by what they are not, rather than being an indigenous term representing their own self-understanding.

The Terrace Houses at Ephesos 175 Bibliography Black, Allen, Christine M. Thomas, and Trevor Thompson, eds. 2022. Ephesos as a Religious Center under the Principate. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 488. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Boyce, George K. 1937. Corpus of the Lararia of Pompeii. Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 14. Rome: American Academy in Rome. Cianca, Jenn. 2018. Sacred Ritual, Profane Space: The Roman House as Early Christian Meeting Place. Studies in Christianity and Judaism Series. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Clarke, John R. 1998. Looking at Lovemaking: Constructions of Sexuality in Roman Art, 100 B.C.–A.D. 250. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Dentzer, J.-M. 1982. Le motif du banquet couché dans le Proche-Orient et le monde grec du VIIe au IVe siècle avant J.-C. Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 246e. Rome: Ecole française de Rome. Dunand, Françoise. 1981. “Agathodaimon.” Pages 1.277-282, 2.203-207 (pll. 1-39) in Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae (LIMC). Zurich: Artemis. Fabricius, Johanna. 1999. Die hellenistischen Totenmahlreliefs: Grabrepräsentation und Wertvorstellungen in ostgriechischen Städten. Studien zur antiken Stadt 3. München: Pfeil. Friesen, Steven J. 1993. Twice Neokoros: Ephesus, Asia, and the Cult of the Flavian Imperial Family. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 116. Leiden: Brill. Giacobello, Federica. 2008. Larari pompeiani: iconografia e culto dei lari in ambito domestico. Il filarete 251. Milan: LED. Gradel, Ittai. 2002. Emperor Worship and Roman Religion. Oxford: Clarendon. Krinzinger, Friedrich, ed. 2010. Das Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos: Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2: Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde. Forschungen in Ephesos 8.8. Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Lawton, Carol. 2016. “The Totenmahl Motif in Votive Reliefs of Classical Athens.” Pages 385–404 in Dining and Death: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the “Funerary Banquet” in Ancient Art, Burial and Belief. Edited by Catherine M. Draycott and Maria Stamatopoulou. Colloquia Antiqua. Leuven: Peeters. Oakes, Peter. 2009. Reading Romans in Pompeii: Paul’s Letter at Ground Level. Minneapolis: Fortress. Öhler, Markus, and Verena Fugger. 2016. “Häusliche Religion in Ephesos: Christliche und nicht-christliche Befunde vom 1. bis zum 6. Jahrhundert n. Chr.” Early Christianity 7:313–345. Økland, Jorunn. 2004. Women in Their Place: Paul and the Corinthian Discourse of Gender and Sanctuary Space. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. Osiek, Carolyn, Margaret Y. MacDonald, and Janet H. Tulloch. 2006. A Woman’s Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity. Minneapolis: Fortress. Parker, Robert. 2005. Polytheism and Society at Athens. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pekáry, Thomas. 1985. Das römische Kaiserbildnis in Staat, Kult und Gesellschaft: Dargestellt anhand der Schriftquellen. Das römische Herrscherbild 3.5. Berlin: Mann. Price, Simon R.F. 1986. Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Quatember, Ursula. 2003. “Private Kulteinrichtungen im Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos.”

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Pages 169–172 in Akten des 9. Österreichischen Archäologentages. Edited by Beatrix Asamer and Wolfgang Wohlmayr. Vienna: Phoibos. Rathmayr, Elisabeth, ed. 2016. Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos: Die Wohneinheit 7: Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde. Forschungen in Ephesos 8.10. Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Rathmayr, Elisabeth. 2022. “New Evidence for Imperial Cult in Dwelling Unit 7 in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos.” Pages 9–36 in Ephesos as a Religious Center under the Principate. Edited by Allen Black, Christine M. Thomas, and Trevor W. Thompson. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 488. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Schowalter, Daniel, Sabine Ladstätter, Steven J. Friesen, and Christine Thomas, eds. 2020. Religion in Ephesos Reconsidered: Archaeology of Spaces, Structures, and Objects. Leiden: Brill. Shaner, Katherine. 2018. Enslaved Leadership in Early Christianity. New York: Oxford University. Smith, J. Z. 1987. To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Taylor, Lily Ross. 1931. The Divinity of the Roman Emperor. Philological Monographs 1. Middletown, CT: American Philological Association. Thomas, Christine M. 2008. “Place and Memory: Response to Jonathan Z. Smith on To Take Place, on the Occasion of Its Twentieth Anniversary.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 76:773–781. Thomas, Christine M. 2010. “Locating Purity: Temples, Sexual Prohibitions, and ‘Making a Difference’ in Thessalonikē.” Pages 109–132 in From Roman to Early Christian Thessalonikē: Studies in Religion and Archaeology. Edited by Laura Nasrallah, Charalambos Bakirtzis, and Steven J. Friesen. Harvard Theological Studies 64. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Thür, Hilke, ed. 2005. Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4: Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde. Forschungen in Ephesos 8.6. Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Thür, Hilke, and Elisabeth Rathmayr, eds. 2014. Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos: Die Wohneinheit 6: Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde. Forschungen in Ephesos 8.9. Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Zimmermann, Norbert. 2020. “Archaeological Evidence for Private Worship and Domestic Religion in Terrace House 2 at Ephesos.” Pages 210–227 in Religion in Ephesos Reconsidered: Archaeology of Spaces, Structures, and Objects. Edited by Daniel Schowalter, Sabine Ladstätter, Steven J. Friesen, and Christine M. Thomas. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 177. Leiden: Brill.

11

“We’re Going to Need a Bigger Altar!” Evidence for a Massive Sacrifice of Young Sheep/Goats at Omrit in Northern Israel Daniel Schowalter

11.1

Introduction

In his introduction to the 2004 World Archaeology collected volume, The Object of Dedication, Robin Osborne laments that “General works on archaeology repeatedly neglect objects whose deposit was an act of giving directed at an other-worldly power.” Osborne (2004, 1–3) identifies three reasons for the tendency to ignore dedications to supernatural powers: The first is the privileging of the object over the assemblage. The second is the sheer difficulty that there can be in recognizing that an object has been dedicated, rather than simply discarded. The third factor is that to study dedications not as individual objects but as assemblages is to study how people thought. Osborne’s points provide helpful perspectives on the subject of this chapter, an apparent votive assemblage found at the site of Omrit in northern Israel. The contents of the deposit and some related items are all interesting as individual objects, but although it requires some effort to view them as an assemblage (compiling information from six different experts), thinking about them together is certainly a productive, if necessarily imaginative, pursuit. Given both the context and content of this material, there can be little doubt that it was an intentional deposition rather than a casual disposal, although some items in the mix could constitute refuse rather than dedicated objects. Furthermore, given both the location and composition of the deposition, it does not take much imagination to conclude that it was dedicated to a deity or deities. Beyond that point, however, one must acknowledge that the pursuit of under­ standing does involve an attempt to study or speculate on “how people thought.” The layer in question consists primarily of the well burned remains of at least 42 neonatal sheep/goats.1 It is located in close association with the remains of the first known building at Omrit, the Early Shrine (ES).2 The ES is dated to the mid-first century BCE and is consecutively built over by Temple 1 (late-first century BCE) and Temple 2 (late-first century CE; DOI: 10.4324/9781003344247-15

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Figure 11.1 Aerial View of Omrit Temples. Courtesy of Omrit Temple Excavations.

Figure 11.1). Further discussion will argue that the sacrificial deposit was made long after the ES went out of business, but to begin this study, it will be useful to have a basic understanding of the history, structure, and possible function of this building. After details about the ES are assembled, it will be possible to examine this sacrificial deposition as a major ritual gesture that seems to have addressed an infraction of sacred protocol. 11.2

History of Construction

The original ES was built as a free-standing structure (8.39 × 5 × 5.01 m) in the mid-first century BCE (Figure 11.2).3 Eventually, the ES temenos was enclosed by a colorfully frescoed wall (Figure 11.3). While it is possible that the wall was built at the same time as the ES, it seems more likely that the wall was a later addition (Nelson 2015, 38–41).4 Then at a third ES stage, a doorway was cut into the east temenos wall, and a platform featuring two elaborately frescoed pedestals was built to connect that doorway to the ES. A stairway was added on the west end of the platform to facilitate entrance to the ES (Figure 11.4; see Nelson 2015, 70).5 Hinge socket mortises and lock holes indicate that the door through the temenos could be locked. The pedestals could have supported small statues, or perhaps basins. Although it is not known when this final phase of the ES was completed, it did not stand for long before the entire complex was torn down, and a larger (ca. 13 × 25 × 25.19 m) podium temple, Temple 1, was built over it (T1). The podium of the ES was cut in half to accommodate the foundation trench for the T1 cella wall, and the T1 podium buried or in some cases destroyed the ES complex (Figure 11.5; Nelson 2015, 29–30). Then, in the last quarter of the first century, perhaps in response to a major structural failure, T1 was reconstructed as Temple 2, a much larger (19.52 × 28 × 28.49 m) peristyle temple (T2). It appears that T1 became in effect the cella of

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Figure 11.2 Drawing of the Omrit Early Shrine by Michael C. Nelson.

T2, and a peristyle was built around it (Figure 11.6; Nelson 2015, 156). It is most likely that this transition from T1 to T2 was the event that prompted the massive deposition of sheep/goat bones. 11.3

Function of Early Shrine 1

In its final form, the ES was a prostyle, tetrastyle Roman podium temple with a number of interesting architectural features (Nelson 2015, 28–44), but the fact that the ES was originally constructed as a free-standing building without a formal entrance raises questions about its function. Apart from four in situ blocks from the north wall of the cella, none of the superstructures of the ES can be identified with certainty.6 The podium of the building, however, reveals several intriguing features. First of all, the poured cement floor of the cella is pierced in the SE corner by an opening that would have allowed access to the area below the floor (Figure 11.7). A wellhead fixture (ca. 80 × 85 × 85 cm) was found in the area just east of the T1 cella wall (Figure 11.8). Nelson reports that cuttings within the

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Figure 11.3 Drawing of the Northeast Courtyard of the Omrit Early Shrine by Michael C. Nelson. Courtesy of Omrit Temple Excavations.

shaft of the fixture “were used to secure and lock a removable circular cover. This block may have been set in the squared opening of the floor and secured access to the chambers below” (Nelson 2015, 30). Given its elaborate set up and prominent place inside the cella, it seems unlikely that this entrance would have been used for simple maintenance.7 The nature of the space below the floor reveals that this access may have had some kind of ritual purpose. Nelson (2015, 29) describes the area below the concrete floor as: … rubble and earth filled on the eastern half entirely. The western half, the portion of the podium standing within SP4, encloses two inner chambers designated A and B. A cross wall, built of single wythe ashlar masonry, divides the interior of the space longitudinally into two chambers of slightly different sizes. The dividing wall is not centered along the long axis of the podium and therefore the width of Chamber A (1.30 m) is slightly more than that of Chamber B (99 cm) … A simple passageway pierced the dividing wall at its east end and connected the two chambers. Its broken lintel block still slightly overhangs the opening. Further analysis of this opening between the chambers reveals that it is not in fact a “simple passageway,” but rather a doorway between Chamber A and Chamber B equipped with tracks above and below (Figure 11.9). This track system was built to accommodate a limestone cylinder (ca. 55 cm in diameter, found at the back of chamber A) that acted as a rolling, moveable door

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Figure 11.4 Entrance to the Omrit Early Shrine, with Lock Holes, Platform, Pedestals, and Stairs. Courtesy of Omrit Temple Excavations.

(Figure 11.10).8 This means that it was possible to open and close access between the two chambers to enable and block viewing or movement from one chamber to the other. The layout of these chambers below the floor, coupled with the overall design of the ES, raises an interesting parallel with temple-tombs found on the south coast of Asia Minor and elsewhere in the Roman period.9

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Figure 11.5 Podium of the Omrit Early Shrine, Bisected by Temple 1 Cella Wall. Courtesy of Omrit Temple Excavations.

Cormack (2004, 27) argues that this temple-tomb style was a development from late Hellenistic monumental tombs for rulers, and took advantage of Roman architectural innovations. Furthermore, tomb builders of the imperial period were now able to make use of the new architectural possibilities presented by the Roman podium temple, manifested in the large number of tombs constructed with strong frontal axis, tall podium and steps at the façade flanked by the projecting arms of the podium. As mentioned above, we can not be certain about the design of the earliest stage of the ES at Omrit, but the stairs were clearly added as a later feature, so it may represent an intermediate stage of this development. Cormack (2004, 161–328, esp. 217–19) catalogs 54 examples of temple-tombs in western Asia Minor, of which Tomb 11 at Elaiussa Sebaste seems most similar in size and design to the ES at Omrit (cf. Machatschek 1967, 96–100). It is certainly possible that the ES was originally designed as a temple-tomb for a local dignitary.10 In terms of function, the temple-tomb design, the access through the floor, and the rolling door between the chambers would seem to argue for a burial monument. Excavation of the chambers, however, has revealed no evidence of human remains. If either chamber was used for burial, all residue was removed at some point. It is also possible that the original ES

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Figure 11.6 Drawing of Omrit Temple 2 and Temenos. by Michael C. Nelson.

was designed as a tomb, but then was never used as such. Alternatively, whoever was responsible for the demolition of the ES and the construction of T1 over the podium could have removed any bodies and grave goods interred inside. If this is true, they did a very thorough job of removing any trace of burial. Although the parties responsible for T1 clearly had little-to-no regard for either the ES as a monument or the person(s)/deity(s) to whom it was dedicated, it makes sense that they would still have wanted to remove any remnant of human remains from the structure before building over it. After the T1 builders had cut the ES in half, and before they inserted the T1 cella wall, they placed the cylindrical door at the west end of Chamber A and rolled large stones, perhaps from the cutting of the cella wall foundation trench, into both chambers. The purpose of these actions is not clear, but it serves as a terminus ante quem for any removal of human remains from the chambers. 11.4

The Sacrificial Deposition

Excavations at Omrit in 2006 first revealed a fill layer that was a mixture of ash, charcoal, and small fragments of burnt bone. This deposit lies between

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Figure 11.7 Extant Opening in the Floor (?) of the Omrit Early Shrine. Courtesy of Omrit Temple Excavations.

the west podium of the ruined ES and the east face of the ruined west en­ closure wall and covers an area of 1.2 m × 4 m with a depth of approximately 30 cm (the area highlighted in Figure 11.11). Work in 2010 and 2011 com­ pleted the excavation of this layer and the surrounding context, with the exception of a 1.26 m × 0.4 m balk left against the western enclosure wall.11

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Figure 11.8 Fixture from Opening in the Floor (?) of the Omrit Early Shrine. Courtesy of Omrit Temple Excavations.

In 2012, a small niche located at the base of the west enclosure wall was cleared after conserving the fresco around it (Figure 11.12). This niche was buried by the deposit in question, and its contents were consistent with what was found in the deposit. In addition, the niche contained several other ar­ tifacts that will be discussed below. 11.4.1 Contents

There are several good views of the composition of the deposit. The first comes from 2006, shortly after the area was partially excavated. Figure 11.13 shows a very homogeneous layer of gray material with spots of burned wood or bone scattered throughout and an occasional stone. Figure 11.14 comes from 2011 and shows the area of the deposit (marked as locus 005)12 as it appears in the preserved balk left against the west enclosure wall after that season. This photo also serves to locate the bottom of the ash layer at the bottom of the painted plaster on that wall. It is clear from this view that the ash layer was deposited on or near the walking surface at the back of the ES. Once again the locus (005) appears to be quite uniform in consistency, but a different angle on this area shows that in some places there are pockets of construction debris, especially plaster fragments mixed in with the ash and bone deposit (Figure 11.15). 11.4.2 Faunal Remains

Once the layer was identified, great care was taken to sift the fill and collect the material found in the layer. In the fall of 2011, the faunal remains from

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Figure 11.9 Track for Rolling Stone Door (in Background) Below Floor of the Omrit Early Shrine. Courtesy of Omrit Temple Excavations.

this area were examined by Rachel Hesse, then a doctoral student at Oxford. Her analysis took place in the laboratory of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, and the results were published in Overman et al. (2021, 226–65). The most prominent aspect of the deposit is the presence of fragmentary neonatal sheep/goat bones. Hesse (2021, 226) notes that the deposit “con­ tained almost 1500 sheep/goat bones from a minimum of 42 animals which had been burnt to very high temperatures, providing an invaluable glimpse into Roman ritual outside of the western Roman world, and an offering of truly remarkable scale.”13 Hesse makes three additional observations.

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Figure 11.10 Cylindrical Door Which Separated Chambers Below Floor of the Omrit Early Shrine. Courtesy of Omrit Temple Excavations.

Figure 11.11 State Plan Showing Location of Sacrificial Deposit, by Michael C. Nelson. Courtesy of Omrit Temple Excavations.

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Figure 11.12 Niche in the West Enclosure Wall of the Omrit Early Shrine. Courtesy of Omrit Temple Excavations.

First, that the deposit seems to have been laid down in a single event, second, that the remains are almost entirely post-cranial, and third, that the surviving bones show almost no signs of butchering. According to Hesse (2021, 227), “Based on the fragility of the young, calcined bones included in this deposit, as well as the almost complete absence of weathering, we can deduce that these bones were either burned on the spot and immediately covered by fill … or burned on a separate altar and then moved to the deposit and covered relatively swiftly after slaughter and burning.” She rightly points out that “The slaughter of a minimum of 42 animals in a single event (or perhaps multiple events in close succession),

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Figure 11.13 Locus 005 East of the West Enclosure Wall of the Omrit Early Shrine. Courtesy of Omrit Temple Excavations.

would have been an impressive spectacle” (Hesse 2021, 226).14 This sugges­ tion coincides with the uniform appearance of the layer. There are no signs of strata caused by gradual accumulation. Hesse (2021, 230–4) points out that the material from the burnt deposit shows a remarkable lack of evidence for skulls: “There is an overwhelming predominance of post-cranial skeleton bones in this assemblage, with an almost complete absence of cranial bones and teeth (aside from the petrous bone, a small bone within the skull … ).” She suggests that the post-cranial nature of the skeletal remains could indicate some kind of separate ritual involving the heads of the victims, and perhaps the display of the skulls, and she also offers some scenarios for how the skull might have been destroyed in the high heat of the sacrifice, but in the end, she is not able to draw a definitive conclusion on the reason for the lack of cranial remains. The lack of butchering marks on the surviving bones indicates for Hesse (2021, 237) that meat was not removed from the skeleton before it was placed on the fire: “There was an almost complete absence of filleting marks on the bones in this assemblage, a form of butchery which would indicate that the meat was removed for human consumption before these bones were burned on the sacrificial flame.” Apparently, with few exceptions the post-cranial skeletons were placed on the fire intact. Hesse (2021, 243) concludes that this “Large Burnt Offering found beneath the floor of T2 appears to be a foundation deposit, a well-known sacred deposit in the Roman world.” She reviews literary and archeological evidence

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Figure 11.14 Profile of Locus 005. Courtesy of Omrit Temple Excavations.

for foundation deposits elsewhere in the empire and states that if this deposit is indeed part of a “normal” Roman foundation deposit, it “represents the largest archaeological find of burnt foundation offering discovered in the ancient world.” 11.4.3 Other Artifacts

Table 11.1 summarizes the artifacts that were found in the ash layer. While the number of coins found in this small area is high for Omrit, only one of the coins was readable after cleaning. It does, however, provide a terminus post quem of 54 CE for the Large Burnt Offering (Bijovsky 2021, 90–2, 95).15

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Figure 11.15 Contents of Locus 005, Close-up. Courtesy of Omrit Temple Excavations.

This coin and two others were found in the niche in the western enclosure wall along with nine bent nails. The niche was behind the ash layer and was filled with the ash/bone mixture, and the coins and nails were at the bottom of the niche. Apparently, someone placed them in the niche before the ash/bone layer was deposited, most likely as part of that deposition or as a separate (ritual) act. Nails are a common feature of foundation deposits.16 Renate Rosenthal-Heginbottom (2021, 109) has published the lamps from the Omrit temple excavations and comments specifically on the lamps found in connection to the sacrificial deposit: Animal bones and charcoal were present in other SP4–4 loci as well as in those from SP4–2. In all of them the predominant lamp types were Broneer XXI-XXII Even though these lamps are found throughout the 1st century CE, and consequently could also date from Flavian times, the absence of the Phoenician-Palestinian round discus lamps suggests that this material predates the activities of the T2 builders. Rosenthal-Heginbottom wants to push the deposit earlier based on these Broneer xxi–xxii lamps, but given that the identifiable coin in the niche dates from 53/54 CE, it is not possible to see the deposit happening before that time.

192

Locus

Coins

Figurines

Lamps

Glass

Nails

Other Metal

Special

RM4.010 2006

4 (non-readable)

1 (fingers) 1 (hand) 1 (left hand) 1

13

14 fragments (incl. 3 piriform unguenteria)

Check 010.191

1 Decorative Bronze frag 3 thin strips of bronze (green residue under amphora)

Complete Lamp Complete ceramic unguentarium Broken amphora Carved stone base

SP4–2.001 2010

1

1

2

2

SP4–4.005 2011

13

6

SP4–4.012 2011

2 (discus ERII-MR)

SP4–4.013 2011

1

4 (discus ERII-MR

SP4–4.015 2011

1 (95)

2

SP4–4.026 2012 (niche)

3 (2 unreadable)

1

2 9

Worked gypsum

Daniel Schowalter

Table 11.1 Artifacts from the Ash Layer at Omrit

“We’re Going to Need a Bigger Altar!” 193 Evidence for glass unguentaria found in the deposit is limited to three examples from the 2006 excavation. At the same time, Kate Larson and Yael Gorin-Rsen (Forthcoming) point out that: Almost 80 discrete unguentaria, as determined by a minimum vessel estimate (MVE) of the surviving bases, were deposited within the Temple 1 and 2 podium fills, especially in the area proximate to the Early Shrine podium … The entire unguentaria assemblage is extremely homogeneous in shape and technology. The majority are of the double bulb form, with deep constrictions at the junction of the neck and body and partway down the body, subdividing it into two sections. (see Figure 11.16) Regarding the double bulb type, Larson and Gorin-Rosen (Forthcoming) argue that “The strict limitation of this type to burial contexts, whereas other forms of first century unguentaria have been found in domestic contexts and general fill, supports the hypothesis that the Omrit deposit is of a funerary or ritual nature, even though no human remains were found in excavation.” When the builders of T2 discovered the ES with its chambers, it would have been reasonable to believe that they had uncovered a tomb and to take ritual action including breaking unguentaria to prevent any repercussions.17 Seven figurine fragments are not an excessive number relative to other locations at the site. It is interesting, however, that there seems to be an em­ phasis on figurines depicting human hands in different forms. Adi Erlich has published the figurines and found that there is a predominance of large figu­ rines (30–50 cm) depicting children with raised hands (Erlich 2021, 153–4). She argues that these are not generic images, but rather modeled after specific children in commemoration of accomplishing some rite of passage. “The var­ iations between the figurines reflect their individuality and are representations of specific children, and not mere impersonal portraits” (Erlich 2021, 161–2). She dates these large-scale figurines to the late-first century BCE, and so the one example found in the sacrificial deposit must have been part of residue picked up in transferring the burned remains to the place of deposition. Finally, the assemblage of complete and nearly complete first-century vessels discovered in the 2006 excavation deserves special consideration. This assemblage consists of two pieces of a broken Rhodian amphora, a complete ceramic Judean piriform unguentarium, a complete lamp with a spatulate nozzle, and a marble plinth 18 cm × 19 cm × 4 cm with a 5 × 5 × 5 × 2 cm notch cut in the middle of it (Figures 11.17 and 11.18; Sandhaus 2011, 50–2).18 Sandhaus dates the pottery in this assemblage from the end of the first century BCE to the middle of the first century CE.19 The main body of the amphora was found lying on top of the stone square, the lamp was immediately south of the amphora, and the unguentarium was lying 90 cm south of the amphora, but at the same elevation. These objects and their extremely good state of preservation are very unusual for ceramic materials from Omrit. All of the objects were found just below what appears

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Figure 11.16 Intact Unguentarium from near the Omrit Early Shrine. Courtesy of Omrit Temple Excavations.

to be the walking surface between the west end of the ES and the west en­ closure wall. Because these pieces are below the level of the ES walking surface, it is possible that they were part of an earlier ritual event, perhaps one of the stages of construction for the ES or the foundation of T1.20 Given the excellent state of repair, and the fact that these objects were found just

“We’re Going to Need a Bigger Altar!” 195

Figure 11.17 Ceramic Assemblage Found Beneath the Ash-bone Deposit at Omrit. Courtesy of Omrit Temple Excavations.

below the ash and bone layer, it is reasonable to suggest that these items were used in the preliminary stages of a ritual process and then buried in the debris from the major sacrifice. 11.5

Interpretation

In his discussion of “Advancing the Systematic Study of Ritual Deposition in Greco-Roman World,” Ian Haynes (2013, 11) has advocated a focus on “contextual relationships rather than particular artifact types.” Haynes (2013, 11) talks about three aspects of this contextualization: the association “between pit type and contents,” fragmentation, and miniaturization. He acknowledges that these considerations are meant to be illustrative rather than exhaustive, and that they are only part of a “web of associations” related to deposition.21 Apart from the obvious breakage of the amphora and the bowl found inside the ES podium,22 there is no other obvious evidence for fragmentation or miniaturization. At the same time, however, it is possible to consider how the area of deposition is related to its contents and how it fits into the development of the sanctuary. The Omrit deposit was not found in a purpose-dug pit, but rather in a space that existed amidst the architectural remains of the sanctuary. Given the complicated history of construction, tearing down, and re-building that took place over a relatively short time at the site, it is first necessary to acknowledge that the deposit could have been made at several different points

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Figure 11.18 Marble Plinth from Omrit Assemblage Cut to Receive Tenon of a Stele or Small Statue. Courtesy of Omrit Temple Excavations.

in the development of the temple complex. This uncertainty makes it more difficult to talk about the context of the deposit. Since the deposit lies between the west side of the ES and the west enclosure wall, it could be associated with the active functioning of the ES, or perhaps with the dedi­ cation of the enclosure wall when it was built around the ES. The fact that the deposit appears to lie above the level of the walking surface around the ES makes this less likely, and the fact that it obscures the special niche built into the enclosure wall would argue strongly against this association. It is also possible that the deposit was laid down when the ES was destroyed and T1 was constructed over it. Given that the construction of T1 was accomplished not only by dismantling most of the ornately decorated ES, but also by cutting the ES in half to accommodate the cella wall of the new building, it is hard to see how the T1 builders would have been motivated to show any ritual concern for the honoree(s) of the monument, let alone offer a sacrifice of more than 42 animals. We also have good dating for the con­ struction and probable completion of T2 by the early 80s CE (Overman et al.

“We’re Going to Need a Bigger Altar!” 197 2021, 10, 23–4). Given this date, and a date for the deposit in the late-first or early second century, it is not possible that the deposit could have been associated with either the ES or T1. Thanks to the work of Steven Rutledge, we know that there were people who had qualms about destroying a sacred building. Rutledge (2007, 193) reviews literary evidence associated mostly with Rome and suggests that “among some segments of society there was the sense that the destruction of a temple was only to be undertaken with great reluctance, though not everyone had such reservations.” Such reluctance could explain why the builders of T2 might have made a great sacrifice meant to appease the deity/spirits connected to the building when they discovered the ES as part of their clean up and reconstruction work. One other possibility is that the sacrifice and deposit were conducted during major repairs necessitated by a structural failure of the building. Evidence for this failure can be seen in the cella wall of the temple, where the northern half of the wall shows a very different masonry pattern than the south (Figure 11.19). The re-building of the cella wall could only be undertaken as part of a total repair of the temple. Since we find evidence of patching and repair all around the interior of the podium walls (Figure 11.20), it appears that the entire podium was emptied, examined, and repaired in order to protect against future collapse. Such an extensive process would have led to the discovery of the ES, a building that had probably been buried for 75–100 years and was possibly no longer known to the local population.

Figure 11.19 Omrit Temple 1 Cella Wall Foundation from the East. Courtesy of Omrit Temple Excavations.

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Figure 11.20 Repair on Interior of Omrit Temple 1 Podium. Courtesy of Omrit Temple Excavations.

According to this scenario, the officials behind the repairs and/or the workers doing the actual labor took ritual action to ensure that their uncovering of the ES did not constitute a violation of the sanctity of the place. They may have been concerned for their own well-being, worried about the future stability of the temple, or fearing some other consequence.23 No doubt the motives were dif­ ferent for different groups and individuals around the temple, but they (used generically and collectively here) took the following actions: 1 They offered over 80 vials of perfume, making a gesture that would have been appropriate if the ES were a tomb (Larson and Gorin-Rosen, forthcoming). 2 They also poured a libation inside the podium of the ES and broke the bowl on large rocks that filled the chamber. 3 They offered a further/perhaps related libation with the amphora on the west end of the ES and broke the amphora after doing so. 4 Presumably, the ceramic unguentarium and the lamp were also used as part of this gesture, although they were not broken. 5 The marble plinth might have had ritual meaning, perhaps for the participants’ current religious practice, or maybe it was found in associa­ tion with the ES, and so it too was dedicated.

“We’re Going to Need a Bigger Altar!” 199 6 They deposited some bent nails and three coins in the niche (an apparently sacred area) in the west enclosure wall. 7 Then a great sacrifice took place. New-born and young victims were presumably brought by or taken from local herders and burned in a great holocaust. The heads of the victims may have been displayed separately, and the burned remains of the sacrifice were deposited in a layer behind the ES. 8 Then without much delay, the foundation offering was buried along with the ES, and construction work on T2 continued. It is certainly possible that any or all of these actions could have taken place individually. Apart from knowing that the sacrificial waste covered the niche and amphora assemblage, we cannot be certain about the order of events, or if there even was an order. Looking at the deposit in context, however, it does not seem like it would have dragged on for a long time. The repair and reconstruction of the temple would have necessitated fairly quick attention to these ritual actions so that the builders could get back to work. Considering all the evidence, it seems most likely that the context for the deposition of the sacrificial layer at Omrit was the surprise discovery of the ES building followed by multiple attempts to atone for any perceived wrong that had been done to the sacred nature of the ES. It may be that this reconstruction of events goes too far in the direction of focusing on the assemblage rather than individual objects, but it provides a plausible ex­ planation for the data that can be discussed and developed. I was fortunate enough to deliver an earlier version of this chapter to a graduate seminar at the University of Texas at Austin in 2016. I was the guest of Steve Friesen and I received many helpful comments from those in attendance. Not surprisingly, someone at the session raised the issue of the financial impact that this massive sacrifice would have had on the community around the temple. This question was also raised by Hesse. “If a herd had not been raised intentionally for this offering, a burnt sacrifice on this scale would not only have been a profound religious spectacle, it would have affected economic production and consumption in the area” (Hesse 2021, 244). There may be ways in which the impact could have been mitigated—perhaps if temple officials purchased victims from markets further afield—but if a family living at subsistence level were suddenly asked to give up one or more of their new-born lambs or goats, it would have made a big difference in their financial and nutritional circumstances. At the seminar, Adam Rabinowitz offered an important reminder that it made sense to offer the animals at a very young age, and not to spend time or money feeding them,24 but the economic impact would still have been significant, not only immediately, but for the foreseeable future. There will come a point for the family at subsist­ ence level when the goat they gave to the temple was supposed to be their main source of milk, or the lamb they contributed should have been pro­ viding wool.

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I am grateful to Steve Friesen for his consistent attention to asking questions about people ancient and modern, and analyzing how their actions, ritual and otherwise, would have impacted the lives of non-elites. We have all learned from his thoughtful scholarship and benefitted from his collegial disposition. Thank you, Steve. Notes 1 Hesse (2021, 229) discusses the difficulty in identifying goat vs. sheep remains in the early stages of life. 2 Omrit is located on the west side of the Hula Valley, north of Kibbutz K’far Szold. The site stands in the foothills of the Golan, roughly halfway between Tel Anafa and Banias. 3 Nelson 2015, 2–3, 28, 70. Due to repeated clearing and refilling of the area within the temple buildings, evidence for firm dating has been elusive. Chapter 1 in Overman et al. (2021) discusses stratigraphy and lays out a range of possible dating scenarios. 4 Although partially preserved on only the east and west sides, this structure must have enclosed the entire shrine. The E–W dimension of the temenos is ca. 14.5 m. 5 Nelson uses only two phases for the ES development, but I think the cella wall should be considered as a potentially separate phase. The date of the final stage is uncertain, but Nelson (2015, 75) points out that the architecture of the ES2 should be seen as one of the earliest eastern examples of Roman temple design popular in the third quarter of the first century BCE. 6 Nelson (2015, 2) argues that it is not safe to assign any of the fallen architecture associated with the ES to the first phase of the building. It is possible that the in situ wall blocks on the north side of the ES cella were part of the original construction. 7 If the ES building were originally hypaethral, it is possible that the wellhead apparatus could have been used to collect water in the chambers below, but this seems like a rather elaborate system for a simple drain. We have no information on a possible roof on the ES. 8 This area was investigated during cleaning activities in January of 2016. The lower track has been removed, but most of the upper track is still in position ( Figure 11.9). The cylinder door was found at the west end of Chamber A after it was cleaned out in 2016 ( Figure 11.10). 9 Nelson 2015, 3, citing Cormack 2004 and Gros 1996. Hall et al. (1996) provide a list of 35 examples. See also Toynbee (1971, 130–2). 10 Our only clue to the identity of that person may come from two inscriptions, found in association with the final phase of the ES. The first is found on a small limestone horned altar which was found on the platform to the east of the ES. This altar bears the inscription KRĒSKĒS, the Greek form of the Latin name Crescens in the nominative. The statue base (Structure N) to the north of the ES platform is in­ scribed KRĒSKĒS KRĒSIMOU EP (“Kreskes, son of Kresimos, made it”). Of course, these installations were found in association with the final phase of the ES, and so KRĒSKĒS may not be the intended occupant of the tomb, but perhaps an ancestor (Kresimos?) might have been. These inscriptions will be published in Schowalter Forthcoming. 11 The balk is visible in Figure 11.13. The delay in excavation was caused by a number of factors, but especially by the fragile nature of the west enclosure wall. In some places, the stone blocks of the wall were entirely deteriorated, and the painted plaster remained without any backing. Only after conservation could the fill to the east of the wall be cleared away.

“We’re Going to Need a Bigger Altar!” 201 12 For locus numbers see Overman et al. 2021, 23–5. 13 Since some fill was discarded before the extent of the faunal deposit was under­ stood, and since a portion of the fill was left unexcavated in the balk against Str. F ( Figure 11.14), the actual count of victims in the deposit could be much higher. Unfortunately, the preserved balk was subsequently destroyed by vandals and that evidence is permanently lost. 14 According to Hesse (2021, 226), “Although parallels have been identified in smaller offerings found elsewhere in the Roman world, offerings on this scale are archaeologically unprecedented.” 15 This coin from the mint of Tyre is dated to 53/54 CE, but because it bears the countermark with a murex shell it pushes the terminus post quem for the deposit to a later, uncertain, date. Bijovsky states that this countermark continues to be popular through the first and second centuries (2021, 90). 16 Ellis (1968, 46–93) discusses both clay and metal nails and other “peg deposits” as part of ancient Mesopotamian building deposits. 17 It would also have been reasonable for them to attribute the structural failure of T1 to the fact that it was built over a tomb. 18 Kate Larson, who was supervisor of this trench, notes that “directly under the amphora was a large amount of charcoal and a green deposit which appeared to be corroded metal but completely disintegrated when touched” (2006 SP4 Notebook). According to Nelson (Forthcoming), “the stone plinth was cut to receive the tenon of a stele or small statue; the plinth itself was cut to socket into a larger plinth or pedestal, perhaps for a group composition.” 19 Sandhaus 2011, 50–2; 2021, 40, 42, 58–9, 64–5. The lamp actually extends to the middle of the second century CE. 20 The proximity to the ES foundations makes the former possibility more likely. 21 When introducing the “web of associations” idea, Haynes (2013, 9) draws on J. D. Hill’s study of ritual activity in Iron Age Wessex. 22 During cleaning in 2016, a complete broken bowl was found inside the podium of the ES. It is best interpreted as another ritual gesture most likely connected to the sacrificial layer. 23 Michael Nelson (personal communication) notes that the deposit was laid down below and slightly to the east of where the cult statues for T2 would eventually stand. 24 Rabinowitz (personal communication, citing Payne 1973) points out that “herds managed for dairy will see a lot of very young animals killed off, because the point is mainly to take the milk from the nursing females. This is especially true of young male animals—you need more females to produce milk, but only a few males to breed, so it makes sense to kill them before they consume the milk you’re trying to take.” Unfortunately, in this case, we cannot be sure that the victims come from a dairy herd, nor can we be certain of the sex of the victims.

Bibliography Bijovsky, Gabriela. 2021. “The Coins from the Temple Excavations at Omrit.” Pages 189–210 in The Temple Complex at Horvat Omrit, Volume 2: The Stratigraphy, Ceramics, and Other Finds. The Brill Reference Library of Judaism 67. Edited by Andrew J. Overman, Michael C. Nelson, and Daniel N. Schowalter. Leiden: Brill. Cormack, Sarah. 2004. The Space of Death in Roman Asia Minor. Wiener Forschungen zur Archäologie 6. Phoibos: Wien. Erlich, Adi. 2021. “The Terracotta Figurines.” Pages 144–163 in The Temple Complex at Horvat Omrit, Volume 2: The Stratigraphy, Ceramics, and Other Finds. The Brill

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Reference Library of Judaism 67. Edited by Andrew J. Overman, Michael C. Nelson, and Daniel N. Schowalter. Leiden: Brill. Gros, P. 1996. L’architecture romaine: du début du IIIe siècle av. J.‐C. à lafin du Haut‐Empire. Les manuels d’artet d’archéologie antiques. Paris: Picard. Haynes, Ian. 2013. “Advancing the Systematic Study of Ritual Deposition in Greco-Roman World.” Pages 7–20 in Rituelle Deponierungen in Heligtümern der hellenistisch-römischen Welt: Internationale Tagung Mainz, 28.–30. April 2008. Edited by G. Lindström, A. Schäfer, M. Witteyer. Mainz: Generaldirektion Kulturelles Erbe Rheinland-Pfalz. Hall, Alan S., N. P. Milner, and John J. Coulton. 1996. “The Mausoleum of Licinnia Flavilla and Flavianus Diogenes of Oinoanda: Epigraphy and Architecture.” Anatolian Studies 46: 111–144. Hill, Jeremy D. 1995. Ritual and Rubbish in the Iron Age of Wessex: A Study on the Formations of a Specific Archaeological Record. BAR British Series 242. Oxford: Tempus Reparatum. Hesse, Rachel. 2021. “Sacrificial Holocaust: The Faunal Remains from the Roman Temple Excavations at Omrit.” Pages 226–265 in The Temple Complex at Horvat Omrit, Volume 2: The Stratigraphy, Ceramics, and Other Finds. The Brill Reference Library of Judaism 67. Edited by Andrew J. Overman, Michael C. Nelson, and Daniel N. Schowalter. Leiden: Brill. Larson, Kathryn, and Yael Gorin-Rosen. Forthcoming. “Glass from the Omrit Temple Complex.” in The Omrit Settlement Excavation Project: Final Report. Edited by Daniel Schowalter, Michael Nelson, and Jennifer Gates-Foster. Leiden: Brill. Machatschek, Alois. 1967. Die Nekropolen und Grabmäler im Gebiet von Elaiussa Sebaste und Korykos im Rauhen Kilikien. Denkschriften/Österreichische Akademie Der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-Historische Klasse; Ergänzungsbände zu den Tituli Asiae Minoris 96.2. Vienna: Hermann Böhlau. Nelson, Michael C. 2015. The Temple Complex at Horvat Omrit, Volume 1: The Architecture. Edited by J. Andrew Overman, Michael C. Nelson, and Daniel N. Schowalter. The Brill Reference Library of Judaism 45. Leiden: Brill. Nelson, Michael C. Forthcoming. “The Stone Artifacts.” In The Omrit Settlement Excavation Project: Final Report. Edited by Daniel Schowalter, Michael Nelson, and Jennifer Gates-Foster. Leiden: Brill. Osborne, Robin. 2004. “Hoards, Votives, Offerings: The Archaeology of the Dedicated Object.” Pages 1–10 in The Object of Dedication. World Archaeology 36.1. Edited by Robin Osborne. Oxford: Taylor and Francis. Overman, J. Andrew, Michael C. Nelson, and Daniel N. Schowalter, eds. 2021. The Temple Complex at Horvat Omrit, Volume 2: The Stratigraphy, Ceramics, and Other Finds. The Brill Reference Library of Judaism Volume 67. Leiden: Brill. Payne, S. 1973. “Kill-off Patterns in Sheep and Goats: The Mandibles from Aşvan Kale.” Anatolian Studies 23:281–303. Rosenthal-Heginbottom, Renate. 2021. “Lamps: Catalog and Discussion.” Pages 66–143 in The Temple Complex at Horvat Omrit, Volume 2: The Stratigraphy, Ceramics, and Other Finds. The Brill Reference Library of Judaism vol. 67. Edited by Andrew J. Overman, Michael C. Nelson, and Daniel N. Schowalter. Leiden: Brill. Rutledge, Steven H. 2007. “The Roman Destruction of Sacred Sites.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 56.2: 179–195.

“We’re Going to Need a Bigger Altar!” 203 Sandhaus, Débora. 2011. “Pottery from Selected Loci at Omrit.” Pages 45–53 in The Roman Temple Complex at Horvat Omrit: An Interim Report. BAR International Series 2205. Edited by J. Andrew Overman, and Daniel N. Schowalter. Oxford: Archaeopress. Sandhaus, Débora. 2021. “The Hellenistic and Roman Pottery.” Pages 31–45 in The Temple Complex at Horvat Omrit, Volume 2: The Stratigraphy, Ceramics, and Other Finds. The Brill Reference Library of Judaism vol. 67. Edited by Andrew J. Overman, Michael C. Nelson, and Daniel N. Schowalter. Leiden: Brill. Schowalter, Daniel N. Forthcoming. “Inscriptions and other small finds from Omrit.” in The Omrit Settlement Excavation Project: Final Report. Edited by Daniel Schowalter, Michael Nelson, and Jennifer Gates-Foster. Leiden: Brill. Toynbee, J. M. C. 1971. Death and Burial in the Roman World. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

12

Untempled Altars Ritualized Space Beyond the Temenos in Ancient Priene Adeline Harrington

12.1

Introduction

With this chapter, I would like to honor Steve Friesen’s pedagogical legacy, which has emphasized the importance of material culture as a foundation for understanding ancient Mediterranean and early Christian thought. This chapter stems from one of Steve’s renowned archeology seminars, during which, focusing on the archeology of Greece and Turkey, he consistently highlighted for his students the ways in which archeological evidence—or its absence—can challenge scholarly paradigms and long-held assumptions about the ancient world. Throughout our on-site discussions, Steve, guest lecturers, and our group of doctoral students would pose probing questions: Where is “religion”? Where is ritual? From my perspective, the answer often pointed to an underappreciated artifact: altars. This chapter investigates the significance of altars as central, material, and liturgical axes for the study of ancient rituals, revealing a wealth of information about the types of sacrifices offered, their intended recipients, and their pur­ poses within various spaces. Recent scholarship on ancient Mediterranean religions underscores the crucial role of altars in Greek rituals. The altar served as the heart and focus of most ancient Greek ritual activity, to the extent that the temples accompanying altars are sometimes considered functionally superfluous by researchers (Burkert 1988, 37; de Polignac 1995, 25; Mikalson 2005, 57; Parker 2011, 80). Despite the theoretical significance attributed to altars in discussions of Greek tradition, researchers have often neglected them when analyzing extant archeological remains. Consequently, archeologists have prioritized the study of individual monumental temples, and the phe­ nomenon of temples in general, over the study of individual altars.1 Employing the city of Priene as a case study, this chapter aims to showcase the potential of examining altars in Hellenistic cities to better understand the parameters of sacred spaces. This approach calls for a reevaluation of scholarly notions of sacred space in antiquity and a decentered, or what I term “un­ templed,” approach to ancient ritual. As I argue, the lack of attention to altars or the concentration on temple iconography may reveal a scholarly bias toward the builders of temples, rather than the activities that took place within and DOI: 10.4324/9781003344247-16

Untempled Altars 205 around these monumental structures. By examining the abundance of altars, we can gain a deeper understanding of the behaviors involved in entering spaces reserved for specific purposes, as well as the ways in which altars shape the movement of people through these spaces. 12.2

A Case Study of Altars in Priene

Priene is an archeological site with a level of preservation surpassed only by renowned cities like Pompeii and Ostia. The state of the site’s preservation is due to the rapid silting of the land during the Byzantine period, followed by a gradual population decline and the city’s eventual abandonment in the fourteenth century. In part, Priene’s significance for archeological study lies in its good preservation of a standard Hellenistic city layout. Archeologists have uncovered all the public buildings within the city’s center, as well as more than 50 domestic units. Despite evidence of construction and renova­ tion during the Roman period, the city plan and most buildings retain their distinctly Hellenistic layout, rendering the site invaluable for studying urban planning in antiquity (Bayhan 1994, 53–56; Wiegand and Schrader 1904, 285–328). Although Priene’s ancient history is relatively inconsequential compared to nearby metropoli such as Ephesos and Miletos, the city contains a rare collection of in-situ altars, many of which intriguingly functioned independently of any temple.2 Within this Ionian city, two Hellenistic in-situ altars have been discovered: one in the bouleuterion and another in the theater (Ferla et al. 2005, 74, 220; Hiller von Gaertringen 1968 [1906], 134). While no extant altars have been found in situ within these ancient building types in other cities of Asia Minor or the Mediterranean, ancient sources confirm their essential architectural roles within these structures. Rituals performed at these altars constituted vital functional components of such civic buildings (Chaniotis 2005, 240). However, scholarship has not adequately addressed the fact that altars served as central ritual foci in these non-temple buildings. Since altars have long been considered inextricably linked to the note­ worthy temples with which they are often associated, the first aim of this chapter is to alter this perception. It is important to note that the majority of altars in the ancient record were untempled, meaning they existed and were originally established without any connection to a particular temple.3 What difference would it make to theoretically uproot these ritual objects from the explicitly “religious” temple environments in which we are accustomed to seeing them? What happens when these ritual objects are placed in buildings that are not considered inherently religious, or not connected to buildings at all? The category of untempled altars presents an overlooked body of data that may help revise traditional notions of sacred space in antiquity. After providing definitions and historical context for the role of the Hellenistic altar in Greek ritual, this chapter will offer an overview of the dif­ ferent types of untempled altars found in Priene, as well as a close historical

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analysis of the areas and specific building types in which these altars were traditionally situated. By grounding this study in a particular set of established ritual objects and understanding the types of rituals performed in each of these distinct areas of the Hellenistic polis where these altars resided, the analysis will draw attention to the discursive interplay between architectural form and ritual action. Through this analysis, the chapter exposes the inadequacy of the cur­ rent model of sacred space proposed by scholarship for understanding how spatial categories operated within Hellenistic cities. 12.3

Altars, Ritualization, and “Sacred Space”

This study focuses on clearly identifiable, constructed altars within Priene’s city center—specifically, institutionally established and controlled stone altars with recognizable typologies.4 It is important to note that ancient altars did not always require a fixed structure. Early Greek altars often consisted of stone heaps or ash mounds gathered from previous sacrifices. Generally, constructed marble, stone, or bronze altars with a rectangular or cylindrical shape became the norm. Yet, as late as the second century CE, as Pausanias (Descr. 5.13.811) relates, sacrifices on ash mounds were still practiced within some cities. In whatever form, these altars acted as the means by which sacrifices were offered up to deities. The type of altar depended on the type of sacrifice being performed. In Greek, an altar is called either a bōmos or an eschara. These terms could sometimes be employed interchangeably, but an eschara specifically refers to a fire, hearth, or anywhere one can offer a burnt sacrifice, which could occur on an elevated structure (bōmos) or also a cavity dug in the ground (bothros) (Insoll 2011, 152).5 The more common term, bōmos, signifies a particular structure with some sort of elevation, where any type of sacrifice can be performed (e.g., Homer, Il. 2.305; Herodotus, Hist. 3.142). These altars are usually fixed into the ground or the foundation of a building. In GrecoRoman traditions, larger bōmoi are often found just outside of temples, within the boundaries of a clearly marked-off space (temenos). This study traces a number of different kinds of altars in Priene, but highlights bōmoi established in areas outside of typical temenos boundaries. The most obvious function of altars is a sacrifice to deities, where, hoping that their appeals are heard, humans offer up sacrifices that they believe will be pleasing to the particular deity they are invoking (Insoll 2011, 44). In this way, altars enable humans to relate to the divine. Communication with these deities is not one-sided. Through additional practices, like hepatoscopy (en­ trail reading), altars serve as the surface on/in which humans can interpret the will of the gods. Altars also serve other functions, as locations for taking solemn oaths and providing sanctuary. Often slaves, debtors, and criminals would flee to altars for refuge, taking hold of them, ensuring that no person was able to arrest them or cause them bodily harm (e.g., Cicero, Balb. 5.12; Plutarch, Thes. 36). In all examples, altars are used as loci of communication,

Untempled Altars 207 with various configurations of space and of divine/human interaction affecting the interaction differently. Due to scholarship’s focus on temples and large sanctuary units, many re­ searchers have relied on traditional notions of sacred space when acknowl­ edging temenos demarcations. Temenoi (literally translated as “cut off” areas) are frequently described as boundary markers that signal strict divisions between sacred and profane spaces.6 However, significant institutionalized ritual activity occurs at untempled altars in many different areas of Priene without traditional temenos boundaries. This raises the question: how should we understand these untempled spaces beyond temenos boundaries, which might conventionally be considered part of the profane or mundane sphere? Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood (1993, 1–14) offers an alternative framework in her chapter on early Greek sanctuaries, wherein she challenges the deline­ ations of space that often rely solely on temenoi markers. She complicates the traditional notion of “sacred space” by arguing that, from the second half of the eighth century BCE onward, Greek culture did not define space as strictly as researchers have previously assumed. Instead, ancient people were con­ stantly weaving between realms of the sacred and the non-sacred.7 According to Sourvinou-Inwood (1993, 7–8), the essential “religious” part of a Greek sanctuary was not a temple but the altars and the surrounding “sacred space.” Biblical scholar Jorunn Økland (2004, esp. 36, 67) and functional theorists David Chidester and Edward Linenthal (1995) also challenge traditional notions of sacred space, emphasizing the importance of ritual action in con­ structing sacred spaces. While their studies, along with Sourvinou-Inwood’s work, are useful for complicating and dismantling the standard dichotomous model, these researchers ultimately redefine “sacred space” for their own purposes, maintaining the term under specific conditions. I argue that the insistence on defining and redefining the conditions of sacred space is unproductive for understanding the physical and conceptual zones in question within ancient cities. No matter how one reframes the term “sacred space,” the terminological distinction of the “sacred” relies on a binary model, which implies that spaces not defined as sacred are profane. Therefore, I will refrain from using the terminology of the “sacred.” Instead, building upon Chidester and Linenthal’s (1995, 9) definition of sacred space as “a location for formalized repeatable symbolic performance,” I will focus my attention on analyzing ritualized space in Priene. Never going so far as to equate “ritual space” to “sacred space,” as Chidester and Linenthal do, I will analyze ritualized spaces, individually, as spaces whose systems of meaning are constructed through “formalized repeatable symbolic performance” (Chidester and Linenthal 1995, 9). While I acknowledge that ancient temenos markers indeed existed to demarcate the topographical boundaries of ancient sanctuary grounds, I argue that the concept of “sacred space” is a modern theoretical construct that did not serve as a legitimate spatial organization in antiquity. My survey of Prienean altars reveals that relying solely on the identification of temple

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complexes and temenos boundaries is inadequate for comprehending the full range of spaces where significant ritual practices took place in a Hellenistic city. Although temples might embody sacred space in its most recognizable form under the prevailing model, numerous other established sites within an ancient city facilitated regular ritual activities with strong connections to cul­ tural beliefs and practices. In fact, when examining altars within a specific ancient site, the primary question that arises is not, “where do we locate ‘religion’?” Observing the abundance of centralized, institutionally established locations in a city designated for sacrificial rituals, a more relevant inquiry might be: “is it possible to find a space devoid of religious connotations?”8 Moving beyond the abstract concept of sacred space, I adopt Økland’s (2004, 146) proposition that sanctuary space embodies “ritual discourse ma­ terialized or monumentalized.” While often-studied temple complexes typically represent ritual discourse in its “monumentalized” form, my objective is to examine altars and their surrounding spaces as instances of ritual discourse materialization. This approach seeks to understand untempled altars in their unique contexts, evaluating their locations, functions, and the negotiation of meaning through the interplay between individual altars and their particular spaces. Ultimately, this perspective offers a more nuanced understanding of ancient Greek beliefs, rituals, and traditions within Hellenistic cities. 12.4

The Altars of Priene

In the subsequent section, I will present an overview of the major altars dis­ covered in Priene. After highlighting a few prominent templed altars, I will discuss untempled altars situated within traditionally demarcated temenos boundaries. Finally, I will underscore those altars located in the heart of the city that intriguingly existed without connection to temples or traditional te­ menos boundaries, challenging prevailing models of “sacred space.” Following a detailed examination of the historical significance of each architectural typology, I will draw parallels, where relevant, to rituals performed on altars in similar ancient building types throughout the Greco-Roman world. Numerous altars catered to the ritual needs of ancient Prienians, with the most distinguished and opulent situated within the temenos walls of the Temple of Athena Polias complex, dedicated to the city’s patron goddess. Allegedly founded by Alexander the Great around 330 BCE, this monu­ mental temple ranks among the first structures built in the newly relocated city and serves as a significant site of city identity (Demand 1986, 35–44).9 Completed in 158–57 BCE, the large rectangular altar and cult statue are attributed to this period (Ferla et al. 2005, 98). The altar, situated east of the temple, is considered a model of the monumental Altar of Zeus from Pergamon, surrounded by a portico with columns. Featuring the gigan­ tomachy in relief, the entire temple complex stands atop a seven-meter-high terrace wall, with Doric columns demarcating its temenos boundaries (Ferla et al. 2005, 86). Two other “templed” altars are present in the city: the altar to

Untempled Altars 209 Zeus/Asklepios, located on the periphery of the agora, and the altar to Demeter and Kore, positioned to the north of the city, further from the urban center (Ferla et al. 2005, 112–13). Both spaces date back to the city’s re­ founding in the fourth century BCE and exhibit clear temenoi markers and associated temple structures of varying dimensions, conforming to standard conventions of sacred space and sanctuaries.10 As noted above, temples are not essential components of a Greek sanc­ tuary. In addition to the templed altars, two other altars are found within less structured sanctuaries within the city. The so-called sanctuary to the Egyptian Gods, situated east of the agora, consists of a central altar with an inscription to Isis and Serapis/Anubis, while the sanctuary to Kybele, located by the city’s western gate, consists of a sacrificial pit and a cult statue.11 Although neither sanctuary is associated with a temple, both are built upon clearly delineated temenos walls.12 As a result, these altars, located slightly beyond the city center and en­ circled by boundary walls, permit scholars to classify these areas as explicitly “sacred” zones. Consequently, they are designated as “sanctuaries,” based on the assumption that the precincts containing these altars are set apart as sacred spaces. In other words, while there are no ancient sources that refer to these sanctuaries by name, they are never ambiguously labeled as merely “the altar to the Egyptian Gods” or the “pit of Kybele.” Instead, archeologists assign more definitive designations, such as “the sanctuary to the Egyptian Gods,” operating under the assumption that the precincts housing these al­ tars are distinct, sacred spaces. 12.4.1 The Altar of the Bouleuterion

The most fascinating examples of altars in Priene are those situated outside traditional temenos boundaries. One such altar, found in situ within the city’s bouleuterion, presents a particularly challenging space to categorize. The bou­ leuterion, situated on the northeast corner of the agora and dating to around 200 BCE, is considered the best-preserved example of its kind in the ancient world (Ferla et al. 2005, 74). Resembling a rectangular theater facing south, it features rows of seats on its west, north, and east sides, accommodating up to 650 people (Ferla et al. 2005, 74). At the very center of the room, or the “orchestra,” stands a marble altar, adorned with bulls’ heads, wreaths, and indistinguishable busts of gods (likely Zeus Boulaios, Athena Boulaia, and/or Hestia Boulaia). Extant primary sources seldom describe ritual performances at specific altars. Nonetheless, from the scattered textual sources that do survive, it is evident that a rich variety of processions, festivals, and celebrations fre­ quently took place in various areas of the city and were integral to civic life. The bouleuterion served as the meeting place for the city council (boulē) to convene as a political assembly, passing decrees and making decisions for the city’s administration. Official documents were often stored in this location (McDonald 1943, 155–65). Scholarly descriptions of bouleuteria typically

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emphasize their administrative and civic functions, contrasting them with “religious” spaces such as temple complexes. While the bouleuterion was indeed the city’s primary administrative center, its extant architectural form also displays a strong connection to ritual. The altar serves as the central focal point upon entering the building and is directly visible from every seat in its tiered amphitheater. The presence of an in-situ altar in the bouleuterion is rare but not unexpected, as ancient sources indicate that altars existed in every bouleuterion (Evans 2010, 51–65). Although rarely mentioned in scholarship, ritual, and sacrifice were central to bouleuterion meetings.13 This is evident not only from the existence of altars within these spaces but also from the fact that the highestranking officials occupying these spaces were considered priests. For example, the duties listed for city official of the stephanēphoros at Priene illustrate the extent to which political and religious service in Priene were intertwined, involving a number of ritual and ceremonial functions, including performing regular sacrifices at the Temple of Zeus (Dmitriev 2005, 24–5). Such individuals were tasked with appeasing the gods as an essential administrative duty. Sourvinou-Inwood (2000, 22) notes that this intertwined religio-political network was the norm rather than the exception in ancient cities: The Greek polis religion articulated and was itself articulated by it: religion became the polis’ central ideology, structuring and giving meaning to all the elements that made up the identity of the polis, its past, its physical landscape, and the interrelationship of its constituent parts. Thus, participation in cultic ritual was less about personal belief and more a demonstration of a citizen’s civic loyalty to the city. Ritual played a central role in how ancient people moved throughout the city, perceived themselves, and related to others both within the city and in foreign lands. Consequently, the city’s administrative bodies were rooted in religious rites overseen by/ dedicated to specific gods, such as Zeus Boulaios or Athena Boulaios (Sourvinou-Inwood 1993, 9). Pausanias (Descr. 5.14.4–5.15.11) provides the most detailed account of multiple altars throughout a single city. During his visit to Olympia, he sacri­ ficed at 69 altars distributed across the city’s layout. The bouleuterion’s altar was the starting point for his arduous sacrificial endeavor. Although there are insufficient sources detailing exactly how specific rituals were conducted during meetings of the boulē of Priene, the Altar of Victory in Rome offers a viable parallel for the integration of sacrifice into boulē meetings. Suetonius informs us that this altar, established in the Roman curia in 29 BCE, was a site where senate members were expected to offer incense and wine before each meeting and prior to taking their seats (Suetonius, Aug. 35.3). This type of ritual per­ formance was an essential component for Roman city officials in the execution of civic administration. It is plausible that a similar ritual obligation occurred in Greek bouleuteria, such as the one in Priene.

Untempled Altars 211 Moreover, Suetonius also conveys that the altar was not only placed in the curia to commemorate Octavian’s victory over Antony and Cleopatra at Actium, but also to encourage untrustworthy senators to perform their duties more conscientiously. This demonstrates that the ritualization of this space influenced the nature of the meeting place and the activities that occurred therein. By positioning an altar for regular ritual offerings, the behavior of the senators was likely adjusted. At the very least, it is noteworthy that Octavian believed establishing an altar would serve this purpose. The symbolic association of altars with justice and honesty in antiquity might explain why Octavian assumed that an altar would have this effect on the Roman senate. As previously mentioned, one general function of altars is to provide asylum for individuals, particularly slaves and criminals. Gregory Stevenson asserts that this asylum ritual, in which suppliants grasped or stood on top of altars and appealed to the god, served two purposes: 1) legal protection of the suppliant, and 2) the promise of justice if the exercise of asylum was not respected. “To grasp the altar,” he states, “was to make a claim for the rectification of one’s situation under the guidance and divine authority of the sanctuary” (Stevenson 2001, 288). Although Stevenson specifically discusses asylum at temples and sanctuaries, evidence suggests that a similar type of asylum was exercised at bouleuterion altars as well (Xenophon, Hell. 2.3.52–56; Andoc. 1.44; 2.15). Another significant function of bouleuterion altars, and altars in general, is their role as a location for oath-taking, and their associations with honesty and divine retribution (in cases of dishonesty). It is probable that oaths were taken within the bouleuterion to establish the same level of integrity and honesty that Octavian expected from his senate members when performing their official duties. In some cases, oaths taken at some altars negated the asylum function of other altars. Seeking asylum at altars had become so common that, by the Roman period, it became customary to swear oaths that one would not misuse the asylum power of altars in an attempt to evade other civil obligations like paying taxes: [omnuō Tiberi]on Klaudion Kaisara [Sebaston] German[i]kon Auto[k]ratora [esestha]i me emphanēi tōi stratēgōi [Apollō]niōi epi tēs engista arithmēseōs [tōn d]ēmosiōn onta ekt[o]s hierou bō[mou te]menous pantos asoilou topou [skepēs] pasēs. Euorkounti mem moi [eu eiē], epiorkounti de ta enantia. … I swear by Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus Imperator that I will appear before the strategus Apollonius at the next reckoning of taxes, outside of the protection of any temple, altar, temenos, or any place of sanctuary or shelter in any form. If I swear truly, may I fare well, but if I swear falsely, may the reverse happen to me … (P.Oxy. 10.1258; Nov. 5th 44/45 CE; translation is the author’s, italics removed)

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Swearing oaths at altars was also crucial in sealing political alliances. Negotiations and treaties with foreign states were ratified with ritual sacrifice at bouleuterion altars, making all signatories beholden to the powers of the gods recognized by the ritual participants (Evans 2010, 53). Pausanias (Descr. 5.24.9–10) reports that Zeus Horkios (god of oaths) presided over the altar in the Olympian bouleuterion, where athletes swore a special oath, in the presence of their family members and festival judges, to compete fairly and avoid cheating in the games. Consequently, bouleuterion buildings them­ selves became intimately connected with the rituals performed at their altars. Bouleuteria, by extension, became places where people would go to ensure both honesty and divine justice. A central altar would have reminded in­ dividuals in the council that, having sealed themselves under oath, they were accountable for their actions and could be subject to divinely mediated consequences. Thus, in these ritualized bouleuterion spaces, we find ritual performing regulation of this space through a centralized authority under the god to which the altar is dedicated. In this way, the existence of the altar in the bouleuterion continually reinforces the authority and surveillance of particular gods over the spaces in which their altars are present. 12.4.2 The Altar of the Agora

In close proximity to the bouleuterion altar, situated in the open-air agora of Priene, is a large altar possibly dedicated to Hermes (Ferla et al. 2005, 60).14 The agora, positioned at the heart of the city’s tight grid layout and inter­ sected by its busiest street, served as the bustling epicenter of public life. The altar’s foundation, measuring 6.20 m × 5.15 m, is located directly in the center of the agora, surrounded by numerous statues and honorific inscrip­ tions. Although the agora is enclosed by various buildings, the space sur­ rounding the altar lacks clearly demarcated temenos boundaries, nor is it situated within the walls of a specific building type, like the one in the bou­ leuterion. Instead, it stands independently in an open space at the nexus of the city’s economic and political life. Although the altar is located near the Athena temple and just a short distance from the Temple of Zeus/Asklepios to the west, the agora is not typically defined as an explicitly “religious” or “sacred” architectural form within Priene or in Hellenistic urban typologies in general. This area is nearly always defined as a city’s political and commercial center. In addition to the temples listed, the altar also borders the bouleuterion, the prytaneion, a series of shops, and a meat market on its west side (Ferla et al. 2005, 60). With so much non-ritual activity occurring within this active city square, this area does not at all fit the archetypal model of sacred space with a pristinely marked temenos. Labeling this area as “sacred space” would be to dismiss the rationale of the sacred altogether. This category, of the sacred, cannot exist without its diametrically opposed category of the profane/mundane. And after all, what could be more mundane and “everyday” than a city

Untempled Altars 213 square with a bustling meat market? Nevertheless, despite the diversity of activity going on around the agora area, the sizeable altar in the middle of the square likely suggests that large-scale ritual activity took place here. Although the specific rituals practiced at this particular altar in Priene remain uncertain, as does the deity to whom it was dedicated, the large altar of this agora likely facilitated rituals similar to those performed in other Hellenistic agoras. It is noteworthy that ancient writers do not distinguish the agora in Priene as unique. Though Priene is rarely mentioned in Greek sources, Pausanias asserts that the agora of Priene epitomizes the Ionic agora. No atypical characteristics about the site are mentioned. Hermes Agoraios (Hermes of the Marketplace) was a prevalent epithet for the god who was regularly worshiped at altars in agoras. Pausanias informs us that altars dedicated to Hermes were frequently erected within agoras (Descr. 7.22.2). This altar occupied the most prominent and central area of the city. As the foremost public space in the city, and also a venue for spectacle, it provided the ideal location for individuals desiring to be observed honoring the gods. Numerous inscriptions from the Roman period describe how public imperial worship, particularly in Roman provinces, was prescribed to be conducted publicly in the agora. One such inscription from Gytheum (near Sparta) outlines regulations for local magistrates. In Roman provinces, the agor­ anomos (literally, the regulator/lawkeeper of the agora) was mandated to perform imperial sacrifices in the agora during specific festival occasions, “on behalf of the safety of [their] rulers and gods and the eternal continuance of their rule,” while also ensuring that other magistrates fulfilled the same duty (SEG 11.923.7-40). Citizens were encouraged to report officials neglecting these responsibilities, and those found not sacrificing on these occasions were required to pay a significant fine. Agora altars also served as sites for oath-swearing rituals. Thucydides recounts how, during the Peloponnesian War, the Plataeans attempted to dissuade Archidamus from invading their city by reminding him of the sig­ nificance of an agora sacrifice made by his ancestor: … [He] offered up sacrifice in the Agora of Plataea to Zeus the God of Freedom, and in the presence of all the confederates then and there restored to the Plataeans their country and city to be henceforth independent; no man was to make unjust war upon them at any time or to seek to enslave them; and if they were attacked, the allies who were present promised that they would defend them to the utmost of their power … ..Wherefore, calling to witness the Gods to whom we all then swore, and also the Gods of your race and the Gods who dwell in our country, we bid you do no harm to the land of Plataea. Do not violate your oaths. (Thucydides, Hist. 2.71; trans. Jowett) This passage underscores the gravity of oath-swearing in the agora. The altar in the agora functioned similarly to the altar in the bouleuterion, but on

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a more public scale. The independence of the Plataeans was restored not only before all the gods, but also in the presence of all the confederates, bearing witness to the treaty as a public declaration. With both this altar and the altar in the bouleuterion, we observe that the altar holds individuals in these spaces accountable for their actions by joining them through ritual, with the gods as witnesses and central authorities over the space. Just as gods served as central figures of authority through ritual­ ization inside buildings like the bouleuterion, the same concept is exercised in the agora. Here, the gods not only mediate the actions of individuals, but the agora also provides the appropriate setting for additional witnesses to ensure accountability, and that promises made, both to the gods and to fellow humans, are upheld. 12.4.3 The Altar in the Theater

Lastly, moving from the centrally located civic buildings, the altar within the theater of Dionysus provides another example that complicates notions of sacred space in ancient cities. The theater, capable of accommodating 6,500 audience members, was built into the hillside north of the agora in the fourth century BCE (Ferla et al. 2005, 140–42). Like the bouleuterion, it remains remarkably intact, especially with respect to its stage building, lion-pawed armchairs, and central altar, often serving as an exemplar of Hellenistic theaters (Wiegand and Schrader 1904, 235–57; Bayhan 1994, 42–45). The seats are arranged in concentric tiers, accessible through one principal en­ trance and two side entrances. The front of the orchestra contained the seats of honor (proedria), reserved for the most distinguished audience members. This description aligns with the typology of other traditional Greek theaters (Wiegand and Schrader 1904, 237). The major difference lies in the position of the altar. Within Greek theaters, the altar was called the thumelē, and it was usually positioned in the center of the orchestra, allowing the chorus to dance around it (Rehm 1988, 264). The altar at Priene, however, is situated outside of the orchestra, at the very center of the proedria. Although scholars are uncertain about the exact reason for this placement, it is noteworthy that Priene preserves the only in-situ altar found in any ancient theater.15 For the purposes of this study, an analysis of its central location alone will suffice for a comparative analysis of the altar’s discursive context within Greek theaters. The well-preserved altar of the theater, dating from around 181 BCE, measures 1.65 m long, 0.93 m wide, and 1.38 m high (Schede et al. 1964, 71; Wiegand and Schrader 1904, 241–2). It is situated on an elevated platform with a step leading up to it, and its sides raise into U-shaped walls adorned with gabled reliefs (Schede et al. 1934, 71). In contrast to today’s perception of theaters as merely venues for culture and entertainment, these spaces in the ancient world were deeply intertwined with municipal and temple institutions. Serving as the central location for Dionysiac festivals and associated rites, the theater played a significant role in the civic, cultural, mythic, and ritual life of

Untempled Altars 215 the city. The stephanēphoros of Priene was responsible for performing a certain number of sacrifices at this site annually as part of his administrative duties (Dmitriev 2005, 2425). The theater not only maintained a superficial connection to the divine but was also designed to serve the divine, honoring Dionysus, the god of wine, harvest, and theater, through seasonal productions. The central altar played a crucial role in this context. Fifth-century philosopher Proclus observed that specific hymns were intended to be sung as the theater’s chorus moved in particular ways around the altar, either stepping toward it or dancing around it (Proclus apud Photius, Bibl. 320a 18–20). This example underscores the central locus of ritual embodied by the theater altar, with all participants—sacrificing priests, orchestra players, and audience members—engaging in a communal rite for the city’s benefit. In this regard, the theater precinct, a space where sacrifices were offered on altars and plays dedicated to the god, shares similarities with other temple complexes. One could argue that, since Athens’ theater of Dionysus was considered part of the temenos of the Acropolis, other theaters, like Priene’s, might have been afforded the same extension of the city’s main sacred pre­ cinct, conforming to traditional delineations of sacred space within a spe­ cifically demarcated temenos (Connor 1988, 173). However, given the fluidity of ritual association observed throughout Priene, it is more useful to recog­ nize the theater as an additional type of ritualized space, subject to distinct performative rituals and communal participation unique to Priene’s urban landscape. Another intriguing example highlighting the limitations of distinguishing between the sacred and profane in understanding religion, rituals, and ritu­ alized space in the ancient city is the flexible use of the altar in theatrical festivals. Altars are typically employed for sacrificial rites at the beginning of a theatrical production; however, as Rehm notes, these same “sacred” objects are often subsequently used as props within the plays (Rehm 1988, 265–7, 271–5). This phenomenon is frequently depicted in dramatic scenes on Greek pottery. In his study of vase paintings, Taplin (2007, 41) reveals that altars feature in the tableaus of nearly half of the extant tragic vases.16 Although it remains unclear whether asylum was ever practiced at theater altars, seeking asylum and prostrating before altars were central themes in numerous theatrical productions. For example, in Euripides’ Suppliants, the opening scene involves a large gathering around the theater’s altar, repre­ senting the altar of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis. In this singular space, the altar of Dionysus, the god from whom the city seeks favor, is utilized for fictional rites to various other deities in both tragic and comedic productions. Ancient sources reveal no objections to this flexible reuse of altars, and when these altars function as props, there is no indication that their nature is somehow defiled.17 Consequently, altars do not appear to possess any inherent “sacred” quality; if they did, this quality, at least in the theater, would be transferable, capable of transitioning between gods and from

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genuine to fictional ritual. This challenges the scholarly neglect of altars’ significance in understanding the interplay between “religious” practices and urban design, as altars were not limited to “religious” structures such as temples but were also found in civic and secular buildings, suggesting a flu­ idity between so-called religious and civic spaces in Hellenistic cities. 12.5

Cities as Temenoi

Rather than continuously defining and redefining temenos boundaries, it is vital to acknowledge that ancient Greek cities themselves were often regarded as sacred temenoi by ancient authors. As spatial entities, temenoi were not merely spatial entities within cities but were also connected to their mythic founding stories, encompassing vast territorial areas attributed to, and governed by, specific deities.18 Although the term “temenos” does not typically encompass bouleuteria, agorae, and theaters, available sources suggest that the ancient Greeks attributed distinct ritual significance to these structures. Altars held a crucial role in delineating the sacred spaces within these buildings, constituting a central element of their architectural design, and consequently shaped the manner in which ancient people perceived and navigated these spaces. All cities may be understood as ritualized precincts, marked by the walls of buildings or foundation boundaries, which are mediated by altars. These structures served dual functions, acting as both instruments for divine intercession and social reminders, reinforcing the boundaries of the spaces they occupied. This dual function underscores the importance of open-air spaces in ancient Greek urban landscapes. Within the diverse spaces of ancient Greek cities, altars influenced the movement of individuals, reflecting their pietas, or devotion, toward specific deities. By examining altars, scholars can gain insights into the types of sacrifices performed, the deities they were dedicated to, the purposes behind these offerings, and the nature of the spaces where they took place. While many rituals in antiquity did not require an altar, the presence and location of these structures can reveal valuable information about the prevailing ritual practices, emphasizing the intercon­ nectedness of altars, temenoi, and ancient Greek urban spaces. 12.6

Call to Archeologists

Despite their fundamental role in Greek ritual practices, untempled altars have frequently been overlooked in both archeological sites and museums. Researchers have predominantly concentrated on the iconography or in­ scriptions of altars, reflecting a broader interest in textual content rather than the materiality of the artifacts themselves. This chapter contends that artifacts like altars warrant their own material philological examination, prompting inquiries into their use, users, and the additional insights they may provide. Such an approach offers new perspectives for future research on ancient Mediterranean religions.

Untempled Altars 217 During visits to museum depots in Greece and Turkey, I have long observed that altars are often relegated to the background and are displayed without any context. Conversely, they are absent on archeological sites; yet their abundance in museum depots indicates their significant role in ancient Greek rituals. The Antalya Museum exemplifies this situation, where I observed no fewer than 38 altars, many of which are portable altars or small votive altars, within the museum.19 At least 50 more are located outside, including a mix of medium and small altars, and numerous votive altars (see Figure 12.1). In museums throughout Europe, untempled altars sit in depots without context or visible inventory numbers for researchers to cite. Often placed alongside statue bases and column drums and capitals without any plaques, these altars and similar objects are functional furnishings and an essential part of re-descriptive historical work. This neglect represents a missed opportunity to enrich our understanding of the ancient world with valuable context. Archeologists and curators should explore alternative methods to highlight and recontextualize these artifacts. If placed by archeologists close to the locations where they were discovered, such objects could provide a wealth of context for archeological sites. Rather than being displayed without context within or outside of museums, imagine fur­ nishing archeological sites with these objects, such as the placement of dozens

Figure 12.1 One of Many Rows of Altars Displayed, without Plaques or Context, Outside of the Antalya Museum. Photo by Adeline Harrington.

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of votive altars around the periphery of monumental temples or small incense burners around the edges of public bathing pools and latrines. Such displays would offer a more comprehensive context for visitors, rather than the barren archeological sites which have long prioritized architecture over the furnishings that provide context. The growing popularity of roofed coverings for specific sectors of archeological sites (e.g., Sardis, Sagalassos, etc.) makes such displays possible. These small and medium finds are just as crucial for enriching our understanding of the ancient world as monumental altars and temples. 12.7

Conclusion

This chapter has elucidated the pivotal role altars played in shaping the architectural spaces of Hellenistic public buildings and underscored the flu­ idity between religious and civic spaces in ancient Greece. Investigating un­ templed altars encourages a more comprehensive examination of various locations and practices, offering a nuanced perspective on the diverse ways in which ancient Greeks engaged with their beliefs, rituals, and traditions. By recontextualizing untempled altars in relation to templed altars within indi­ vidual city layouts and across other cities in the Mediterranean, we can achieve a more profound understanding of ritualized space and communal ritual in the ancient world. This chapter urges archeologists and curators to explore alternative methods for highlighting and recontextualizing untempled altars, empha­ sizing their materiality and the insights they can provide. Employing a material philological approach to the study of altars can reveal new infor­ mation about the rituals and practices associated with them, the social and cultural meanings ascribed to them, and the ways they were experienced and interacted with by ancient individuals. In doing so, the focus can shift from monumental temple complexes to domestic and rural religion, calling upon archeologists and curators to consider alternative ways of emphasizing and recontextualizing these artifacts and highlighting their importance in the daily lives of ancient Greeks. Ultimately, this paper presents an avenue for future research in cities beyond the scope of Priene. By establishing unremarkable untempled altars as primary locations of ritual activity and religious life, both within the urban landscape and beyond, we can start to develop a more comprehensive un­ derstanding of how ritualized space and communal ritual operated more broadly in the ancient world. Notes 1 Today many scholars acknowledge that there are several altars that function without temples, but no temples that function without altars (e.g., Scott 2014, 210). 2 Though Priene remains an important site for research on the Ionian league, after the city loses its status as a harbor city, its history becomes less and less relevant. For an overview of Priene’s history, see Rumscheid and Koenigs 1998.

Untempled Altars 219 3 I use the term “untempled” throughout this chapter as a less wordy alternative to “altars established without any connection to temples.” 4 By focusing only on constructed altars with fixed locations (whose foundations in ancient cities outside of Priene can sometimes be discerned), I am removing smaller, portable altars from the present study, of which there are thousands. Although only a few smaller, portable altars and votive altars have been found in Priene, the ubiquity of such artifacts for further studies of ritual and sacred space is discussed briefly below. To date, very few researchers have discussed portable and miniature altars. See van Buren 1918, 15–53. 5 The distinction between an eschara and a bōmos was not the level of elevation or the directionality of the sacrifices (skyward or chthonic). Rather, the main dif­ ference in the terms employed for these altars is the emphasis on a sacrificial fire itself (eschara) versus a consecrated surface for offerings (bōmos). Upon bōmoi, practitioners could put forward burnt offerings, poured libation offerings (spondai), or both. Other types of offerings did not always necessitate altars (e.g., incense-burners and deposition pits). As discussed in more detail below, the term bōmos was also used frequently for elevated surfaces that did not always have explicit sacrificial contexts. 6 For descriptions of temenos boundaries delineating sacred space, see Morris 1987, 89–92; Pedley 2005, 57–8; Winter 2006, 42–5. 7 Sourvinou-Inwood (1993) pushes back against those who argue that, from the second half of the eighth century BCE onwards, Greeks began more sharply separating “the spaces of the gods and of men.” 8 For the most recent discussion of these issues and the fluidity of these concepts, see Scott (2017). 9 Demand estimates that the dedicatory inscription of Alexander the Great was carved on the northeast anta of the pronaos probably in ca. 334 BCE. 10 On the date of these altars see Schede et al. 934, 90–95; Wiegand and Schrader 1904, 147–55. 11 Ferla et al. 2005, 136, 134. As mentioned above, these sacrificial pits found at the kybele sanctuary represent another type of altar (an eschara). Such pits were common for sacrifices dedicated to deities with chthonic aspects. 12 It is worth noting that both of these sanctuaries were dedicated to foreign deities or, at the very least, those on the periphery of the traditional Greco-Roman pantheon. The absence of established temple buildings might suggest that wealthy patrons did not invest as heavily in these cults compared to those of Athena or Zeus/Asklepios. The open-air nature of their sanctuaries could also be related to the natural or chthonic elements associated with their cults. 13 As mentioned below, Pausanias (Descr. 5.14.4–5.15.11) also lists the altars in the bouleuterion and prytaneion in his list of 69 altars which he visits at Olympia. 14 The frequent assertion of this altar’s dedication to Hermes is dubious and seems to be based only on the fact that the altar was located in the commercial agora—a plausible, but by no means definitive, connection. 15 For considerations of the alternative altar placement, see Rehm 1988, 263–307. 16 Taplin (2007) further observes that suppliant scenes at altars were so prevalent in Greek iconography that they evolved into standard scenes of the craft, necessi­ tating any vase painter’s ability to depict them. 17 It seems that, on some occasions, other deities could also be honored at this central altar to Dionysus. Price notes that magistrates were accustomed to burn incense in thymiatēria on top of Dionysian theater altars, especially for deified emperors ( Price 1984, 211).

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18 For instance, the city of Syracuse was referred to by lyric poet Pindar as the te­ menos belonging to Ares. Similarly, he refers to the entire Nile valley as the pre­ cinct of Zeus Ammon (Pindar, Pyth. 2.2; 4.56.) 19 Xenophon provides some context for such portable altars (Cyr. 8.3.12). In sacrifices to Helios and Zeus, people are described as carrying fire upon a great altar following in a procession behind bulls, horses, and chariots. A handful of small and medium-sized altars with inscriptions were found by archeologists in Priene in temple and domestic contexts as well as along the city streets ( Hiller von Gaertringen 1968, 132; altar dedicated to Aphrodite), 139 (altar dedicated to Pan), and 136 (two altars dedicated to Zeus). Apart from the few altars discussed within this study, all have been removed from the site.

Bibliography Bayhan, Suzan. 1994. Priene Miletus Didyma. Matbaasi: Keskїn Color Kartpostalcilik. Burkert, Walter. 1988. “The Meaning and Function of the Temple in Classical Greece.” Pages 27–47 in Temple in Society. Edited by Michael V. Fox. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Chaniotis, Angelos. 2005. “Ritual Dynamics in the Eastern Mediterranean: Case Studies in Ancient Greece and Asia Minor.” Pages 233–256 in The Origins of Theater in Ancient Greece and Beyond: From Ritual to Drama. Edited by E. Csapo and M.C. Miller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chidester, David, and Edward Tabor Linenthal. 1995. American Sacred Space. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Connor, W. R. 1988. “Sacred and Secular: Hiera kai hosia and the Classical Athenian Concept of the State.” Ancient Society 19:161–202. Demand, Nancy. 1986. “The Relocation of Priene Reconsidered.” Phoenix 40:35–44. de Polignac, François. 1995. Cults, Territory, and the Origins of the Greek City-State. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dmitriev, Sviatoslav. 2005. City Government in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Evans, Nancy. 2010. Civic Rites: Democracy and Religion in Ancient Athens. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ferla, Kleopatra, Fritz Graf, and Athanasios Sideris. 2005. Priene. Athens: Foundation of the Hellenic World. Hiller von Gaertringen, Friedrich, ed. 1968. Die Inschriften von Priene. Reprint (original: 1906). Berlin: De Gruyter. Insoll, Timothy. 2011. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jowett, Benjamin, trans. 1881. Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. Oxford: Clarendon. McDonald, W. A. 1943. The Political Meeting Places of Greeks. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Mikalson, Jon D. 2005. Ancient Greek Religion. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Morris, Ian. 1987. Burial and Ancient Society: The Rise of the Greek City-State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Økland, Jorunn. 2004. Women in Their Place: Paul and the Corinthian Discourse of Gender and Sanctuary Space. London: T&T Clark International. Parker, Robert. 2011. On Greek Religion. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Untempled Altars 221 Pedley, John Griffiths. 2005. Sanctuaries and the Sacred in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Price, S. R. F. 1984. Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rehm, Rush. 1988. “The Staging of Suppliant Plays.” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 29:264–307. Rumscheid, Frank, and Wolf Koenigs. 1998. Priene: A Guide to the “Pompeii of Asia Minor.” Istabnul: Ege Yayınları. Schede, Martin, Gerhard Kleiner, and Wolfram Kleiss. 1964. Die Ruinen von Priene. Kurze Beschreibung. Berlin: De Gruyter. Scott, Michael. 2014. Delphi and Olympia: The Spatial Politics of Panhellenism in the Archaic and Classical Periods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scott, Michael. 2017. “Sacred Space in Greece and Rome.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Classics. doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.257. Sourvinou-Inwood, Christiane. 1993. “Early Sanctuaries, the Eighth Century and Ritual Space: Fragments of a Discourse.” Pages 1–14 in Greek Sanctuaries: New Approaches. Edited by Nanno Marinatos, and Robin Hägg. London: Routledge. Sourvinou-Inwood, Christiane. 2000. “What is Polis Religion?” Pages 13–37 in Oxford Readings in Greek Religion. Edited by Richard Buxton. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stevenson, Gregory. 2001. Power and Place: Temple and Identity in the Book of Revelation. Berlin: De Gruyter. Taplin, Oliver. 2007. Pots and Plays: Interactions between Tragedy and Greek Vasepainting of the Fourth Century B.C. Los Angeles: Getty Trust. van Buren, E. Douglas. 1918. “Terracotta Arulae.” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 2:15–53. Wiegand, Theodor, and Hans Schrader. 1904. Priene: Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen und Untersuchungen in den Jahren 1895–1898. Berlin: Reimer. Winter, Frederick E. 2006. Studies in Hellenistic Architecture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Part III

Politicizing Memory

13

Hera in the North-Eastern Peloponnese Cult Epithets as Containers of Cultural Memory Jorunn Økland

13.1

Memories and Perspectives

13.1.1 Traveling Fast and Slow

The first draft of (what is now the final version of) the current chapter was presented a long time ago, at one of the COMCAR (Colloquium on Material Culture and Ancient Religion) excursions to Greece that Steven Friesen coorganized with his peers. It is therefore with gratitude that I contribute it as part of this Festschrift in honor of Steve and in extension of the whole, friendly, and vibrant research community that he helped create and sustain over several decades. One of the dis-advantages of the COMCAR excursions was that they were so time-effective in terms of sights per day that we had little time to walk on our own feet. But no one who wants to understand spatial aspects of ancient material religion can drive from sanctuary to sanctuary. So, although we may have put our feet on many of the same coordinates on the map (modern maps, that is) as did ancient travelers like Pausanias, Paul of Tarsos—or all those other, unnamed pilgrims, we never really arrive at the same place by bus. Ancient maps or road directions are created on the basis of very different perceptions of space, and they give very different kinds of information from, e.g., Google to help the traveler along. Pausanias is a good example, referring to a “tomb of Messenian Lycus” on the way from Corinth toward Sikyon, “whoever this Lycus was,” and the tomb is apparently only recognizable as a mound of earth, since the “Sicyonians mostly bury in the following manner” (Descr. 2.1.7).1 Ancient maps often make sense of direction. Journey and arrival are experienced differently by foot. Two worldviews and ways of making sense of space have clashed whenever modern excavators have used Pausanias’s Description of Greece (Graeciae descriptio) to fast-track the location of ancient excavation-worthy structures so it might be worth their efforts to start digging for ancient remains. It has not always worked, leading disappointed scholars to conclude that Pausanias never left his study, building on the accounts of others but misunderstanding them, etc.2 Still, Pausanias has often turned out to be a reliable guide in the end. The question is just how to interpret his directions. DOI: 10.4324/9781003344247-18

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This chapter is neither about proving that Pausanias was right about locations nor that he visited in person all the places he describes. But it takes as a point of departure his presentation of a plethora of myths, sto­ ries, monument descriptions, etc. attached to Hera within a travelogue of Greece. In this, he exemplifies the importance of space, place, and mate­ riality in our structuring of memory—not least shared, cultural memory.3 Given COMCAR’s previous interests, the obvious case area is the NorthEastern (henceforth NE) Peloponnese (Figure 13.1). Pausanias reminds the

Figure 13.1 Map of North-Eastern Peloponnese. Courtesy of the Danish Institute at Athens.

Hera in the North-Eastern Peloponnese 227 reader of ancient deities inhabiting the landscapes since long before the Romans, and “revisits” them in their places. He discusses monuments and people’s motifs for action, and he weighs evidence and conflicting views—as we shall see also in quite critical ways, still leaving to the readers to judge for themselves. In the remainder of this chapter, Pausanias will lead the way, while we explore also other evidence for ourselves, looking for other material traces of the very ancient memories he recounts. The goddess Hera was the main goddess of this area from the old days (O’Brien 1993, 2–3), she will be our natural case study. 13.1.2 Travel, Nostalgia, and Cultural Memory

The heading “cultural memory” has become frequent in cultural and historical studies. Jan Assmann is often identified as (one of) the founder (s) of this trend. An Egyptologist and archeologist, he has brought his own material background to the forefront of this vein of critical investigation. But his trailblazer Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen (Assmann 1992)4 included a chapter on Greece and the disciplining of thought through systems of writing. The approach is particularly useful for the analysis of space and in travel writing, for movement through a space and its past with the purpose of narrating and remembering. Local inhabitants share stories and theories, thus charging their space with cultural meaning. Cultural memory studies have naturally made their way into Classics, Numismatics, and even studies of the history of the Peloponnese.5 In a volume entitled Memory and Urban Religion in the Ancient World (Bommas 2011), Pausanias is an obvious topic.6 The volume argues that it was through constructions and reconstructions of memory that ancient societies formed and forged their cultural identity. It explores the balance between memory as survival and memory as reconstruction, between memory and historically recorded fact. The latter distinctions leave open the possibility for memory also to be invented. Reading Pausanias, this is a possibility that must be kept in mind, although the interest here is not to clarify what material structures were there in Pausanias’s day. Jaś Elsner’s (1992; 1995) seminal studies of Pausanias could meaningfully be read as cultural memory studies before the name:7 Habicht (1985) and others who had previously viewed Pausanias as an antiquarian and slightly careless writer of travel literature in an age of antiquarianism (the Second Sophistic)8 were only partly doing justice to him: seeking the sanctity em­ bodied in a place in order to make the sacred Greek soil function as a basis for Greek identity, Pausanias belongs more among the pilgrims of the ancient world than “among the antiquarian intellectuals with whom he is so often associated” (Elsner 1995, 5, 8). The text links the external signs of the holy (statues, temples, and sacred places) with an experience of the holy (Elsner 1995, 5).

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13.2

Case: Hera’s Homes and Names in North-Eastern (= NE) Peloponnese

13.2.1 Approach 1: Recent, Gender-Aware History of Descent

Hera, known as matron of the “House of Olympus,” the daughter of Cronus, the wife of Zeus, and also as his sister, is attested on Peloponnese already on a Mycenean tablet from Pylos (PY Tn 316). Already in the Iliad, Hera’s special status in “Argos” was noted—although Argos was here a flexible term des­ ignating Argos, Argolid, all of NE Peloponnese, all of Peloponnese—and even into the mainland. Pausanias opens Book 2 on Corinth by simply stating “The Corinthian land is a portion of the Argive.” To Hera’s presentations in literary texts from later periods are often attached character traits such as jealousy, conspiracy, zeal for revenge, etc. After the traditionally androcentric and patriarchal scholarly literature on her role in the ancient Greek Olympic pantheon reinforced an image of her as the wife from hell, more recently, more gender-conscious scholars have dis­ cussed her characterizations and tried different ways of making sense of them. I will “frame” my chart of Pausanias between two recent studies, by Joan O’Brian and Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge and Gabriella Pironti, respectively. O’Brien’s The Transformation of Hera (1993) takes a diachronic approach: she traces the survival of an ancient goddess through major reductive transformations, through which there are also continuities. Her interpretive scheme is chronological, and her story is one of descent. The most important form of continuity is material—cult places, sanctuaries, epithets, etc.: The title Hera Argeia suggests that Hera was a protector of Argive citadels and heroes. The Iliad’s Hera is no mere protector, however, … Her repartee with Zeus reveals … a prototypical bitch whose destabilizing schemes threaten her lordly spouse as well as the welfare of her Argive citadels (4.37–61). (O’Brien 1993, 3) O’Brien (1993) finds the characterization of Zeus as posis Heres (spouse of Hera) in the Iliad and Odyssey reflective of older periods when Hera (and not Zeus) was the dominant deity in the region. Zeus himself had few and rather spurious ties to Argolid and took hold via his spouse.9 Commenting on Iliad’s representation of Hera as “white-armed,” O’Brien (1993, 5, ch. 5) argues that the Iliad’s Hera is a reduction and domestication of the previously powerful potnia of the non-Doric Argolid (of annual earth cycles, animals, etc.), who was even called Hera. The stature of the potnia was lost already in the Iliad. By Pausanias’s time, myths and remains of the powerful goddess of Argolid—with a reputation as homophag10—had become unreadable. Hera sanctuaries are often mentioned as more or less random sanctuaries in random locations. One could object that this is Pausanias’ writing style. Anyway, important for O’Brien is that the Argolid is Hera-land. Both the Mycenean potnia and the later, Archaic

Hera in the North-Eastern Peloponnese 229 Argeian Hera had as their main areas of responsibility the protection of the citadel, war, and fertility. The white arms fit a domesticated image of Hera as the tamed wife of a dominant male deity, Zeus. O’Brien sheds some light on obscure epithets Pausanias simply lists without explanation. Her analysis demonstrates how cult epithets functioned as containers of cultural memories almost forgotten. Next, let us look at Pausanias and how he describes and explains local, cultural memories relating to Hera. 13.2.2 Pausanias’s Heras in the NE Peloponnese: Locations and Their Epithets

The sheer number of memories Pausanias associates with Hera in his books on Corinthia and Elis in particular creates/confirms the impression that Peloponnese was an epicenter of worship of this ancient goddess—under a plethora of epithets (cf. O’Brien 1993, 3). Of course, the continuity of material structures and memories does not presuppose continuity in cultic practice—nor continuity in how ancient cult places and epithets are explained. In his two books dedicated to Elis, Pausanias has much to say also about Hera. Intriguing stories are also attached to Hera in Olympia and in Sparta, where there is one sanctuary of Hera Argeia (Descr. 3.13.8, another one of Hera Hyperkheiria (“the One with the Upper Hand,” 3.13.8), and one of Aigophagos (“Goat-Eater,” 3.15.9). Since these cities go beyond the main geographical focus of this chapter, they will not receive much further attention. Already Homer’s Iliad (4.50–54), with its mention of Argos, Mycenae (and Sparta), confirms Hera’s special relationship with East Peloponnese. But my impression, which I pursue in this chapter, is that memories still alive in Pausanias’s day may also be a sign of something else: that without material anchor points, memories are more likely to disappear. So, on one level what Pausanias does, then, is to make sure the connections between memories and material remains are written down. I am aware this argument cannot be proven. But against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Ukraine, the pattern is at least recognizable: we observe every day the effects of the central Russian war strategy to destroy Ukrainian cultural heritage—in order that coming generations will be oblivious that there ever was such a thing as a uniquely Ukrainian history and culture. More on this in the conclusion. I continue by charting Pausanias’s account of locations sacred to Hera in the NE Peloponnese, using her epithets as coordinates. The epithets/sites in which Pausanias shows most interest will also receive most attention.11 13.2.2.1

Argeia

Pausanias mentions the cult of Hera Argeia (Hera of Argos) which had its imposing sanctuary on the Argive plain, located strategically in a hillside at Prosymna. This was the most important as well as a very ancient sanctuary of Hera in NE Peloponnese, mentioned already in the Iliad (Hērē t’ Argeiē,

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Homer, Il. 4.5–38). The site is overlooking the Argive plain. From the sanctuary, one could have a good overview of the traffic on the plain, including possible threats. The site exemplifies well the old function of Hera as guardian of citadels (where powerful families reside) and as a goddess taking clear sides in battles. Pausanias comments on how the sanctuary sits in the landscape: “Fifteen stades distant from Mycenae is on the left the Heraeum. Beside the road flows the brook called Water of Freedom (Eleutherion). The priestesses use it in purifications and for such sacrifices as are secret” (Pausanias, Descr. 2.17.1). The river, Asterion, had three daughters, Euboia, Prosymna, and Akraia, who became the nurses of Hera. The various parts of the hill where the sanctuary is located are named after them: the environs of the sanctuary they name after Euboia … The sanctuary itself is on a lower part of Euboia. … The hill opposite the Heraion they name after Akraia, and the land beneath the Heraion after Prosymna. This Asterion flows above the Heraion, and falling into a cleft disappears. On its banks grows a plant, which also is called Asterion. They offer the plant itself to Hera, and from its leaves weave her garlands. (Pausanias, Descr. 2.17.1–3) Pausanias goes on at length, describing the temple proper, built by Eupolemos. This would be the later temple on the middle (of three) terraces. On the highest terrace was the old temple, supported by a Cyclopean wall. Approaching the temple, one encounters a row of statues of women who had been priestesses to Hera—and of male heroes she admired. Further statues are described as “ancient”: the Graces, and the cult statue of Hera: she is seated on a throne; it is huge, made of gold and ivory, and is a work of Polykleitos. She is wearing a crown with Kharites (Graces) and Horai (Seasons) worked upon it, and in one hand she carries a pomegranate and in the other a scepter. About the pomegranate I must say nothing, for its story is somewhat of a holy mystery. (Descr. 2.17.4–5). Pausanias tells the story behind some of the objects inside the temple, according to his own principles: first, he points out that one must respect the secrecy and privacy of holy mysteries (alternatively the content of the secrets were not conveyed to him). Second, when describing the cuckoo seated on the scepter that the cult statue of Hera holds in her hand, Pausanias (Descr. 2.17.4) shares another principle which is noteworthy for our purposes: “This tale and similar legends about the gods I relate without believing them, but I relate them nevertheless” (cf. Descr. 2.36.1 for possible cuckoo parallel). This quote, and the passage as a whole, gives us important information about what we can use this pilgrim text (cf. Elsner above) for.

Hera in the North-Eastern Peloponnese 231 First, Pausanias goes into much detail when describing the remains inside the temple, while ignoring other buildings, including more recent ones that must have been there in his day. He shows greater interest in items and structures associated with religion, or those that generally look “ancient,” while ignoring buildings from his own day, built from the colonizers’ wealth. In the case of the Heraion, he does mention offerings by Roman emperors Hadrian and Nero. Second, it is complicated to use his texts to locate promising excavation sites since he often follows a random route or order of sequence. Third, he is not making clear when he describes rituals that are current or rituals that are long past. He writes everything down and links information with coordinates in the landscape in order that memories are not forgotten. The quote above demonstrates that he really collects and passes on shared cultural memories without censuring them. Stories are valuable in their own right, they do not require belief. Not even from the writer who writes them down. 13.2.2.2

Akraia

The epithet Akraia has already been associated with Hera at the Argive Heraion (above). It is also attached to Hera in further places in the NE Peloponnese. A common hypothesis is that “Akraia” refers to “akros,” tip, and rock. Hera Akraia would then mean “Hera of the Rock.” Pausanias mentions a sanctuary of Hera Akraia in the city of Argos: As you go up the citadel [of Larissa in the city of Argos] you come to the sanctuary of Hera Akraia … Adjoining it is the race-course, in which they hold the games in honor of Nemean Zeus and the festival of Hera. (Pausanias, Descr. 2.24.1) So again “the Akraia” is above the city proper, i.e., on the ridge joining the Larissa to the Aspis mountain tops, protecting the city of Argos (Figure 13.2). Several ancient authors associate Hera Akraia with Corinth,12 although Pausanias is not explicitly stating that Hera was worshiped under this epithet there (Descr. 2.13.11, see “Hera Medea and Temple C” below). However, “parts of Corinthia and Sicyonia [which] lie across the gulf,” Strabo explains (Geogr. 8.6.21). The area in question was Perachora, meaning “the land on the other side” of the Corinthian Gulf. Strabo says it housed “an oracle of the Akraian Hera” (Strabo, Geogr. 8.6.22). The names and findings in the sanctuaries13 indicate that Corinthians and Argives maintained Perachora as a rich cult site from the ninth century BCE onwards. The fact that Strabo mentions it and Pausanias, two centuries later, does not could mean that it disappeared out of living memory in the meantime. The activity almost died out after the Roman sack in 146 BCE, and the latest temple was demolished by an earthquake in the second century CE. Anyway, Perachora was not along Pausanias’ route.

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Figure 13.2 Map of Hera Akraia, possibly Argos plan. Courtesy of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. 13.2.2.3

Bounaia

In his account of Corinth, Pausanias introduces the epithet Bounaia, whose temple he found on the way up to Acrocorinth, close to the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore—for which we know the location (Bookidis and Stroud 1997): “Here too, is the temple of Hera Bounaia set up by Bounos the son of Hermes. It is for this reason that the goddess is called Bounaia” (Descr. 2.4.7). Pausanias explains the epithet Bounaia by referring to Bounus, the son of Hermes. However, “Hera of the Bounos” would mean “Hera of the mountain or hill.” Thus, already Odelberg (1896, 9) suggested that this epithet is more or less synonymous with “Akraia”; that Pausanias might have forgotten the exact terminology for hill/rocks/mountains in the area, so that this might be just another reference to the more widely known cult of Hera Akraia in Corinth (above), although in a different location from where Akraia’s temple is placed by the other authors (in the center, close to the Fountain of Glauke). 13.2.2.4

Antheia

In Argos (toward Sikyon), there is also the Hera Antheia (“flowery”): The temple of Hera Anthea is on the right of the sanctuary of Leto, and before it is a grave of women. They were killed in a battle against the Argives under Perseus, having come from the Aegean islands to help Dionysus in war … Facing the tomb of the women is a sanctuary of Demeter … . (Pausanias, Descr. 2.22.1; cf. 2.30.8–9 as a city name in the NE Peloponnese)

Hera in the North-Eastern Peloponnese 233 13.2.2.5

Hera-Medea

Pausanias pays broad attention (i.e., more than twenty percent of his account of the city of Corinth) to the intertwined, Corinthian myths of Hera and Medea. In fact, he considers Hera in Corinth almost exclusively through the story of Medea. But he may have his reasons. First, any cult of Hera in the city center would almost certainly have been under her Latin name Juno. It was not in Pausanias’s interest to relate it. Second, several ancient authors mention Medea as the founder of the cult of Hera in Corinth (and as the dedicator of the temple of Aphrodite on Acrocorinth; Lisle 1955, 146, n. 128–30). Already Euripides’s Medea says she will bury her children within the temenos of Hera Akraia, as also Diodorus’ Pythian priestess commands (Eur. Medea 1378ff; Diodorus Siculus, Bib. hist. 4.55.1). Pausanias (Descr. 2.3.10–11) cites Eumelos’ version: that Medea con­ cealed her children in the sanctuary of Hera in order to make them immortal: The Corinthians sent for Medea from Iolcus and bestowed upon her the kingdom. Through her Jason was king in Corinth, and Medea, as her children were born, carried each to the sanctuary of Hera and concealed them, doing so in the belief that so they would be immortal. (cf. Pirenne-Delforge and Pironti 2022, 206) Third, archeologists in Corinth found food among ancient authors for their interpretations of strange interconnections between buildings where the road to Sikyon leaves the city center, namely, between the Fountain of Glauke14 and the so-called Temple C: since this area northwest of the Archaic temple is assumed to have been the main center of religious activity in pre-Roman times, the early excavators assumed to find the temple of Hera here—and then they found “Temple C” and assumed this to be dedicated to Hera Akraia,15 A connection between the sanctuary and the Fountain was thought to have been intended. If this is indeed the Temple of Hera (or even “Juno”), it is strange that Pausanias does not refer directly to it, since he deals at length with this story. In the vicinity of the Fountain, he mentions a mneme, a memorial of Medea’s children, and a figure of Deima, a female personification of terror (Pausanias, Descr. 2.3.7). They were stoned to death by the Corinthians since they brought the gift of the wedding dress to Glauke on behalf of their mother. They continued after death to take revenge because of the illegal death they had suffered by the Corinthians, “until, at the command of the oracle, yearly sacrifices were established in their honor” (Pausanias, Descr. 2.3.7). The oracle in question would have been Hera’s oracle, the one at Perachora, as Pirenne-Delforge and Pironti (2022, 207–8) convincingly argue. The latter scholars are not the only ones to suggest that Pausanias’ reference to the Corinthian Hera sanctuary is in fact the one across the Gulf at Perachora (Menadier 2002).

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Thus, most of what Pausanias relates regarding Hera in Corinth seems to be memories rather than extant buildings, ongoing rituals, and oracular activity. The Bounaia sanctuary seems to be standing, but he has little to say about it. He is clear that the Romans have canceled the cult of Medea’s children.16 Yet, in sum the mentioned references testify to strong cultural memories of Hera in Corinth still in Roman times, although it is Medea’s fascinating story that takes center stage. 13.2.2.6

Other Locations and Epithets

Strictly speaking, Medea was not an epithet to Hera in Corinth. And Pausanias mentions cults of Hera also elsewhere without specifying epithets. To contextualize within the larger picture of NE Peloponnese, I will finish by listing a few further Hera coordinates, with or without epithets. Pausanias was told by the Stymphaleans (also Argives) that Hera was reared in their city by Temenos (son of Pelasgos), who later established three sanctuaries for her: the epithets were related to Hera’s life phases as a pro­ totypical female: Paidi, Teleia, and Khera (Descr. 8.22.1–3). Interestingly, he also reports the cult epithet Teleia being applied to a now derelict temple at nearby Megalopolis (Descr. 8.31.9).17 Pausanias continues from Corinth to Sikyon. Close to the city gate, he finds an old sanctuary of Hera, with no cult statue left inside the temple, hence impossible to determine the epithet, but with altars to Pan and to Helios outside. This sanctuary was built by Adrastus (Pausanias, Descr. 2.11.1–2). He reports ruins of another Hera temple (naos) on the Titane side of Sikyon (without a roof or cult statue, Descr. 2.12.2). He mentions a final sanctuary of Hera in Sikyon, that of Prodromia, this one also in ruins. It was founded by Phalces, the son of Temenos (see above), who demanded Hera be his guide to Sikyon (Descr. 2.11.2). Things are better in the neighboring village of Phlious, where a Hera temple has a cult statue in precious, Parian marble (Descr. 2.13.2–4). The villagers keep alive a hymn to Hera according to which she was reared by the Seasons (Oron), and Ares and Hebe are presented as her children.18 Toward the end of book 2 (Descr. 2.38.2–3), Pausanias mentions the secret rites of Hera at a spring called Canathos. The Argives tell him that “Hera bathes there every year and recovers her maidenhood. This is one of the sayings told as a holy secret at the Mysteries which they celebrate in honor of Hera.” As mentioned above, Pausanias generally respects the secrecy of mysteries and rites, but his discretion and patience clearly have some limits, and the story of the recovered maidenhood clearly passed it. There are a few further interesting Hera locations that Pausanias mentions literally in passing, e.g., at Epidauros’ harbor area (Descr. 2.29.1) and on a nearby mountain (Arakhnaios, Descr. 2.25.10); further ruins, and some sites I have mentioned in connection with the epithets above. But they do not bring much further to the general overview.

Hera in the North-Eastern Peloponnese 235 13.2.3 Structuralism and the Semiotics of Hera

From the overview in Section 13.2.2 above emerges an image of Hera as still remembered, but mostly in old stories and old monuments, of which many are in ruins. It is striking that Hera’s cult epithets mostly refer to the location of her worship: Akraia, or Bounaia, on the rock/cliff; Argeia in the Argolid; Limenia, at the harbor. The epithets are tautological, connect Hera to the Argive ground in a special way, and in sum give her chthonic connotations. This is a superb way of containing cultural memory from an era when Hera was the goddess of Argolid. Additionally, she was also the goddess of the female life cycle, as we learned from the Stymphaleans: Paidi, Teleia, and Khera. The 2022 arrival in English of The Hera of Zeus: Intimate Enemy, Ultimate Spouse (Pirenne-Delforge and Pironti 2022, French original 2016) brought fresh air into old discussions of Hera. Unlike O’Brien, their story is not one of descent: Hera retains her ancient traits and remains powerful. Very critical of previous research, the authors argue that the ambiguities that persisted around Hera mean that she was seen as an autonomous, powerful deity to be feared and worshiped also in later periods. She was the “intimate enemy of Zeus but also the fierce guardian of the legitimacy and integrity of the Olympian family,” as they sum it up on the inner front page. In other words: Hera’s notorious jealousy was justified. Opening with a fourth-century BCE monument from Thasos (Bernard 1965), read in light of the Homeric Hymn to Hera in which the same/equal honor (hazomenoi tiousin homōs) is bestowed on both Hera and Zeus, they note: both a sovereign and a spouse. … The symmetry in the iconography is remarkable: the posture and the divine attributes of each of the two deities, Zeus and Hera, perfectly mirrors that of the other and thus puts both of them on an equal footing. (Pirenne-Delforge and Pironti 2022, 3)19 In his preface to their volume, Fritz Graf (2022, xiv) places it in the dis­ cussions of grand theories of Greek religion, mythology, and ritual of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Mainstream researchers were not inter­ ested in individual deities, female or male. He hails the volume for building on previous research but considering an individual goddess—not in her splendid isolation but in her relation to Zeus. This is a pattern we find also in Pausanias’ coverage of Hera, although in her heartland NE Peloponnese she is most frequently worshiped on her own. The book title further reveals that Hera is seen in a structural(ist) rela­ tionship to her partner—and, by extension, to her surroundings. In contrast to the research history Graf recounts, this may be the new way to study individual Greek deities: as part of binaries or local semiotic systems that form a particular, limited context where each deity needs to be studied in relation to the whole.20 One deity’s relation to another specific deity, like

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Zeus, or to a local pantheon, defines that deity’s puissance, to borrow a term from Pirenne-Delforge and Pironti’s book—what acts the deity can perform in a particular place. To take an example from the Pausanias material just presented: if Hera, as many “Hera scholars” agree, was the guardian of the marriage bed and Medea was a victim on all scores in her marriage, the intertwining of the two females in Corinth is logical enough if we use Pirenne-Delforge and Pironti’s approach. It is only after Medea is cheated by her husband that she becomes the “evil sor­ ceress.” But since she is not a goddess quite like Hera, her punishment is terrible. In this approach, cult epithets in a given place also become more like directions for particular ritual actions (like flower-picking), rather than just abstract attempts at defining the personality of the deity. Of course, the two are closely knit, but a dynamic, structural approach is not dependent on a consistent or abstract definition of Hera. Part of the epithet’s function is to shape the cult in a particular place. The focus is more on Hera as part of a local landscape, a landscape that in turn defines her relationship to other deities there, e.g., to Medea in Corinth. This approach also opens to a more optimistic view of how old stories (as the ones re-told by Pausanias) can make new sense in new settings, even if the old context is lost. 13.3

Reflections and Conclusions

13.3.1 Limitations

Without further space for an accompanying analysis of how Hera sanctu­ aries/cult places changed over time, the current analysis of Pausanias’ secondcentury presentation of the cultural memory of Hera in second-century NE Peloponnese must be followed up another time. It is a likely hypothesis that changes in the cultic infrastructure reflected changes in the epithets or per­ ceptions of the goddess. In Roman-period Corinth, the significance of Hera was re-interpreted in two contrasting ways: one through interweaving her story with that of Medea, highlighting the understanding of Hera as a goddess of marriage; and one through adapting and adopting to a Latin name, Juno, which carried imperial connotations and made the goddess aligned with the colonizers. Through this dual approach, Hera was both remembered as an old, tradi­ tional goddess of the area and also given room for fundamental renewal through a new name. The limits and focus of this chapter did not allow for discussion of Juno in Latin-speaking Corinth. But according to the approach I have pursued, Juno would be a goddess with only tenuous connections to the old potnia of Peloponnese. 13.3.2 Concluding Points

This chapter has placed Pausanias’ memories in-between three modern, gender-sensitive scholars who are more interested in what Hera used to be

Hera in the North-Eastern Peloponnese 237 than in what she was in the Roman period. O’Brien, Pirenne-Delforge, and Pironti have studied ancient Greek materials. I have juxtaposed them to contextualize the memory aspect of Pausanias. How does his story relate to their modern reconstructions? Does it relate? I am not sure. But part of the discrepancies are genre related: Pausanias is not a pilgrim looking for Hera specifically, he is looking for ancient Greek religious identity. Pirenne-Delforge and Pironti (2022) work from the premise that a pan­ theon is a dynamic system. For our purposes, this means that when the names of the deities were translated into Latin and took on heavy, additional her­ itage from the Italian peninsula, the whole system changed fundamentally. Still, apart from the city elites, Greece’s countryside was speaking, and probably worshiping, in the old regional language and ritus. Pausanias’ Roman-period account confirms that there was a vague memory of earlier female strength in the pantheon of NE Peloponnese. These memories could be ancient, or more recently invented. But he neither has the space nor the understanding to expand on the historical meanings of the various epithets the locals share. Anyway, the memories found anchor points in worship sites of female deities in the area, notably those dedicated to or associated with the ancient goddess Hera. Pausanias associates some of the sites with secret rites. If the rites were indeed secret, it is difficult for moderners to accept that they had survived for over 1000 years, through shifting political regimes and social forms. But for traditional societies, good cases can be made (e.g., Håland 2021). So, we should keep the possibility open that some of Pausanias’ information might be adequate also on this point, although it has been most common to assume that such practices finished before or with the Roman era. 13.3.3 Postscript

In the subchapter “Structuring Greece: Place as Myth and as Experience,” Elsner (1992) discusses how “Greece” was now the new past, since the space had become part of the Roman empire. Yet “Greece” was still stored in landscape, monuments, stories, and material remains: Greece was “living and present still in the myth-historical and sacred presence of its sacred images” (Elsner 1992,11). For the student of religious cultural memory, then, Pausanias is a treasure chest. I have throughout referred to Elsner who described Pausanias as a Greek pilgrim in the Roman world. His pilgrimage was religious and nostalgic: “Pausanias’ historical context is to be sought as much among the many pil­ grims of antiquity … ” (Elsner 1995, 8). I argue that he was perhaps also a cultural warrior. When he traveled and wrote, Greece was “Graecia Capta” (cf. Alcock 1993), under Roman rule. Both place names and names and epithets of deities had been changed into Latin ones—or Latinized. Rome admired Greece, but also saw how Greece formed part of their origin (cf. the old Greek colonies on

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their peninsula, and Aeneas). By traveling, collecting, and writing, Pausanias makes sure that the old, Greek names, stories, and memories will survive through their connections to concrete, material coordinates. A stone, a ruin, a mound, a spring. In this respect, he was a predecessor to how volunteers on the ground in Ukraine, well coordinated by UNESCO, are working hard to avoid that the Ukrainians should in the future forget who they are, while Russia targets Ukraine’s cultural heritage and memories specifically.21 This conscious war strategy seems to be based on historical evidence that a people cannot hold on to their shared, consolidating memories for very long without anchor points in material culture. Notes 1 Quotations of Pausanias are mine, in consultation with the Loeb Classical Library edition (Jones and Ormerod 1918–1935). 2 E.g., it has been discussed whether Pausanias had visited the places he described, or whether he builds on the reports of others. Cf. Elsner (1992, 4) on this discussion. 3 I am far from the first to read Pausanias in this way; cf. Elsner 1992; 1995. 4 On a more concrete level, Assmann also analyzes Homeric literature as a written cultural memory of a “Heroic age.” Although Assmann is the sole author of this book, the development of cultural memory theory is very much a collaboration between Jan and his wife Aleida Assmann, who also has a substantial publication record on this topic, e.g., Assmann 2011. 5 See not least Karapanagiotou and Stoyas (2022). 6 The volume is shaped by Bommas’ own special interest in Egypt; cf. his chapter “Pausanias’ Egypt.” It represents a good example of an explicit, conscious application of cultural memory theory on the Ancient Mediterranean world. 7 Or rather “before the fame,” as Assmann’s book and Elsner’s first article came out the same year, in 1992. 8 Habicht 1985, 28: “In writing his book, Pausanias had two goals: to provide a reliable guide for tourists and to produce a work of literature. On both counts, he missed the audience he aimed at.” 9 Zeus’ closest major stronghold was in Nemea, still “NE Peloponnese.” 10 E.g., Suidas s.v. Kroisos: “Kleobis and Biton… after their mother had prayed to Hera that the most beautiful thing for men might come to them, in the following night they were found dead.” 11 Many are confirmed by other authors such as Herodotus, Callimachos, Strabo, and Ovid. 12 E.g., the scholiast on Euripides states that Hera Akraia was honored on Akrocorinth ( Schwartz 1891, 1379). He might have taken for granted that an “Akraia” temple had to be situated on the city’s “akros.” 13 Early excavations (under Humfry Payne in the 1930s) revealed that there was also a sanctuary dedicated to “Hera Limenia” (“of the Harbor”; Payne 1940). 14 Pausanias (Descr. 2.3.6) says that the Fountain was named after Medea’s husband Jason’s new bride who threw herself in it, believing that the water would be a cure for the poisoned wedding dress from Medea. 15 Summed up by Wiseman (1979, 420): “The identification was based on the loca­ tion of the temple and its physical connection with the fountain of Glauke. Scranton believed that this Roman temple replaced an older sanctuary of Hera, which he hypothesized once stood above the Fountain of Glauce” (late Augustan or Tiberian). Williams (1987, 34–5) reinterprets the evidence.

Hera in the North-Eastern Peloponnese 239 16 Whereas Aelian, who lived in Corinth from 170–235 CE, explicitly mentions that the cult of Medea’s children has survived (Var. hist. 5.21). 17 For Teleia, see Fernández Guerrero, 2022; Pirenne-Delforge and Pironti 2022, Chapter 2. 18 Hebe is also part of the cult statuary by Praxiteles in a Hera temple at Mantineia, where a sitting Hera is accompanied by Hebe and Athena standing (Pausanias, Descr. 8.9.2). 19 Pirenne-Delforge and Pironti (2022, 4) continue: “The isotimia at the core of this hymn is not an unquestioned fact which is simply to be taken for granted, but rather it is something Hera is having constantly to demand; … At the heart of the various disputes that divide the divine couple, then, there is not merely simple sexual jealousy but a number of further tensions that are inherent in the Greek conception of sovereignty.” 20 The current chapter’s focus on NE Peloponnese is one example of such a limited context. 21 “As of 5 April 2023, UNESCO has verified damage to 250 sites since 24 February 2022—108 religious sites, 21 museums, 90 buildings of historical and/or artistic interest, 19 monuments, 12 libraries” ( https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/ damaged-cultural-sites-ukraine-verified-unesco).

Bibliography Aelian. 1997. Historical Miscellany. Translated by N. G. Wilson. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Alcock, Susan E. 1993. Graecia Capta: The Landscapes of Roman Greece. Cambridge University Press. Assmann, Aleida. 2011. Cultural Memory and Western Civilization: Functions, Media, Archives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Assmann, Jan. 1992. Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen. Munich: Beck. Bernard, Paul. 1965. “Les deux piliers sculptés de la Porte de Zeus et d’Héra à Thasos.” Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 89:64–89. Bommas, Martin, ed 2011. Cultural Memory and Identity in Ancient Societies. London: Bloomsbury. Bookidis, Nancy, and Ronald S. Stroud. 1997. Corinth XVIII, Part 3: The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore. Topography and Architecture. Princeton: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Diodorus of Sicily. 1933–1967. Library of History. Translated by C. H. Oldfather, Charles L. Sherman, C. Bradford Welles, Russel M. Geer, and Francis R. Walton. Loeb Classical Library. 12 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Elsner, Jaś. 1992. “Pausanias: A Greek Pilgrim in the Roman World.” Past and Present 135:3–29. Elsner, Jaś. 1995. Art and the Roman Viewer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Euripides. 1994. Cyclops. Alcestis. Medea. Translated by David Kovacs. Loeb Classical Library 12. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Fernández Guerrero, Olaya. 2022. “Hera, the Perfect Wife? Features and Paradoxes of the Greek Goddess of Marriage.” Journal of Family History 47:115–131. Graf, Fritz. 2022. “Preface.” Pages xiii–xviii in The Hera of Zeus. Authored by Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge, and Gabrialla Pironti. Translated by Raymond Geuss. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Håland, Evy J. 2021. “Fieldwork and Ancient Sources: A Comparative Method for Healing Rituals.” Fieldwork in Religion 16:231–257. Habicht, Christian. 1985. Pausanias’ Guide to Ancient Greece. Berkeley: University of California Press. Homer. 1924–25. Iliad. Translated by A. T. Murray. Loeb Classical Library. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Homeric Hymn XII: To Hera. 1914. Translated by H. Evelyn-White. Accessed 29 April 2023. Available from Bibliotheca Polyglotta: https://www2.hf.uio.no/polyglotta/index. php?page=fulltext&view=fulltext&vid=492&cid=459784&mid=819710 Karapanagiotou, Anna Vasiliki, and Yannis Stoyas, eds. 2022. Memory and Impression: An Itinerary Through the Peloponnese in the Company of Ancient Coins. Athens: Phoibos. Lisle, Robert. 1955. The Cults of Corinth. Ph.D. diss. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University. Menadier, Blanche. 2002. “The Sanctuary of Hera Akraia and its Religious Connections with Corinth.” Pages 85–91 in Peloponnesian Sanctuaries and Cults: Proceedings of the Ninth International Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens. Edited by Robin Hägg. Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Athen. O’Brien, Joan V. 1993. The Transformation of Hera: A Study of Ritual, Hero, and the Goddess in the Iliad. Greek Studies, Interdisciplinary Approaches. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Odelberg, Per. 1896. Sacra Corinthia, Sicyonia, Phliasia. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell. Pausanias. 1918–1935. Description of Greece. 5 vols. Translated by W.H.S. Jones, and H.A. Ormerod. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Payne, Humphry. ed. 1940. Perachora, The Sanctuaries of Hera Akraia and Limenia. Excavations of the British School of Archaeology at Athens 1930–1933. Vol. I: Architecture, Bronzes, Terracottas. Oxford: Clarendon. Pirenne-Delforge, Vinciane, and Gabriella Pironti. 2022. The Hera of Zeus: Intimate Enemy, Ultimate Spouse. Translated by Raymond Geuss. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schwartz, Eduard. 1891. Scholia in Euripidem. Volumen II: Scholia in Hippolytum, Medeam, Alcestin, Andromacham, Rhesum, Troades. Berlin: Reimer. Strabo. 1923. The Geography of Strabo. Loeb Classical Library. 8 Volumes. Translated by Horace Leonard Jones. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Suidas. 1854. Suidae Lexicon. Edited by Immanuel Bekker. Berlin: Reimer. Williams II, Charles K. 1987. “The Refounding of Corinth: Some Roman Religious Attitudes.” Pages 26–37 in Roman Architecture in the Greek World. Edited by Sarah Macready, and Frederick H. Thompson. London: Thames and Hudson. Wiseman, James. 1979. “Corinth and Rome.” Pages 438–548 in Volume 7.1 of Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, Part 2, Principat. Edited by Hildegard Temporini, and Wolfgang Haase. Berlin: De Gruyter.

14

The Lust for Recognition and Influence Laodikeia and the Quest for Neokorate Status Alan H. Cadwallader

14.1

Introduction

Steven Friesen secured eminent notice in 1993 with the publication of his Twice Neokoros (Friesen 1993, 17–18, 114–15). Laodikeia had not much disturbed Steve’s initial research into the imperial cult, though this has changed with his work on the Apocalypse (e.g., Friesen 2001). The question of when Laodikeia, after its failed attempt in 26 CE, actually gained the neokoria, “the pinnacle of achievement” (Price 1984, 122), has remained contentious. A decade after the Friesen study, Barbara Burrell (2004, 119–25) contributed a substantial examination of Laodikeia’s neokorate award, though this only compounded the problems presented by the city’s pursuit of the title. That problem was flagged at the beginning of her study. Normally, the iconography of neokorate coins indicated, inter alia,1 that “the number of temples matches the number of neokoriai.” But Laodikeia never claimed a multiple neokorate. Uniquely, she was once neokoros but of two emperors, Commodus and Caracalla (Burrell 2004, 9). Extant Laodikeian coins from the time of Commodus (apart from those featuring his wife Crispina)2 are rare.3 His damnatio memoriae had erased neokoria celebrations just as surely as νεωκόρος was replaced by φιλοσέβαστος on a Laodikeian inscription dated to the time of Commodus (ILaodLyk 45, ll. 4–5).4 Laodikeia’s problems in selecting the appropriate emperor to realize its aspirations did not end there, for Caracalla suffered the same ignominious fate. The complexity of pinpointing Laodikeia’s neokorate award has recently been exacerbated by the publication of an inscribed statue base for Hadrian that names Laodikeia as “neokoros city.” This paper offers two related contributions: to re-examine the torturous climb for the award of neokorate status to Laodikeia in the light of this inscription and to offer some suggestions as to how Laodikeia pursued the prize in the light of Tacitus’s commentary on the award to Smyrna in 26 CE. 14.2

Laodikeia as neokoros of the Imperial Cult: The Problems of Chronology and Award(s)

Burrell argued that only under Elagabalus (218–222 CE) was Laodikeia’s neokorate settled.5 The coins minted to declaim the award are unusual: DOI: 10.4324/9781003344247-19

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i The neokorate was portrayed as a combined imperial honor: ΚΟΜΟΔΟΥ ΚΕ ΑΝΤΩΝΕΙΝΟΥ ΛΑΟΔΙΚΕΩΝ ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ.6 The reverse iconography has a single emperor being crowned by an eagle and holding a statue of Zeus. ii This unique joint neokorate supposedly explains the iconography of two facing, identical temples, even into the time of Philip II.7 But sometimes festival crowns on the agonistic table number from two to four.8 Moreover, one coin contains three temples, along with the dating formula ΤΟ Π Η (Bennett 209, see below). Burrell takes the third temple, placed above and between the twinned temples, as (probably) that of Zeus, the patron god of the city.9 iii Many of Laodikeia’s coins compassing the reigns of Elagabalus and Severus Alexander (222–35 CE) read ΔΟΓΜΑΤΙ CΥΝΚΛΗΤΟΥ, “by decree of the Senate.” The coin with four crowns was especially lavish: ΝΑΟΙ ΑΓΩΝΕC ΔΟΓΜΑΤΙ CΥΝΚΛΗTΟΥ ΟΙΚΟΥΜΕΝΙΚΟΙ ΛΑΟΔΙΚΕΩΝ ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ “By decree of the Senate, temples (and) competitions of the neokorate Laodikeians (are) of worldwide repute.”10 Ephesos was also expansive, if more direct ΔΟΓΜΑΤΙ CΥΝΚΛΗΤΟΥ ΕΦΕCΙΩΝ ΟΥΤΟΙ ΝΑΟΙ—with four temples squeezed into the iconography.11 Burrell speculated that there may have been an investigation into city honorifics after the upheaval of Macrinus’ reign, even a challenge to Laodikeia’s legitimacy as neokoros (Burrell 2004, 123). Asia was a senatorial province, still subject to senatorial formalities. iv Interwoven with these legends is the occasional appearance of a date: ΤΟ ΠΗ “the 88th year” sometimes without any mention of the neokorate.12 The date has been deciphered as 211–212 CE or 215–216 CE.13 Burrell took it as anchored in the visit of Hadrian to the city in 129 CE,14 but noted that the “eighty-eight” was aligned “more to the city’s temples and festivals.”15 The dating model gained popular adherence, though apparently only after Caracalla’s backing of Laodikeia’s neokorate (ILaodLyk 72). Laodikeia’s quest for neokorate status thus spanned almost two centuries. Pitfalls and thwarted turns dogged the journey. Recent discoveries at Laodikeia have only exacerbated this assessment. In 2019, Francesco Guizzi published an honorific inscription for the emperor Hadrian. It reads:

5

Αὐτοκράτορα Καίσαρα Τραιανὸν Ἁδριανὸν Σεβαστὸν Ὀλύνπιον ἡ νεωκόρος Λαοδικέων πόλις τὸν εὐεργέτην καί σωτῆρα τοῦ κόσμου.

The Lust for Recognition and Influence 243 The Director of the excavations at Laodikeia, Celal Şimşek (2016, 4–5), had already asserted that Laodikeia had been awarded neokorate status under/by Hadrian, even squeezing four neokorates for Laodikeia concluding in the reign of Severus Alexander. An imperial neokoros was indicated in Guizzi’s (2019, 175–6) translation: “The city of the Laodicaeans, guardian of the temple (of the imperial cult, honors) the Emperor Caesar Trajan Hadrian Augustus Olympian, benefactor and savior of the universe.” Normally, coins provide corroborative evidence. After all, a city’s bronze coinage was one of the prime instruments of self-promotion. When it came to neokoroi, Asian cities grasped the chance “to celebrate what would have been an important addition of honors” (Burrell 2004, 144). Ephesos eagerly proclaimed her ΔΙC ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ award (IEph 478, 3030; Theophilos 2020, 133–40), probably conferred sometime during Hadrian’s Olympian tour between 129 and 131 CE (RPC 3.2076, 2077, 2082; Burrell 2004, 67). Smyrna, another recipient of a Hadrianic neokoros, lacks immediate numismatic witness to her ΔΙC ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ but epigraphic evidence is strong (e.g., ISmyrna 697). When Smyrna’s third neokorate was granted under Caracalla, the Γ ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ was well-advertised. Accordingly, Laodikeia’s lack of neokorate coinage from Hadrian to Caracalla, and an absence of proclaiming a second (or third or fourth) neokorate, runs counter to the hallmark Asian selfaggrandizement. Laodikeia’s readiness to emulate the Capitoline triad of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva and to celebrate Hadrian as Olympios (RPC 2.1282, 1283; 3.2329–2331, 2335) makes the absence of a minted neokoros even starker. At this time, a contest over fishing rights in Lake Lycus between Tripolis, Hierapolis, and Laodikeia was decided substantially in favor of Laodikeia. Yet even though a formal demonstration of homonoia between Laodikeia and Hierapolis appears to have been required (Ritti 2017, 388–95), there is no mention of Laodikeia’s neokoros in the Hadrianic decision or in the compliant homonoia coins (RPC 3.2340 minted by Laodikeia, 2330, 2331 by Hierapolis). Indeed, when Hierapolis was later granted neokorate status by Elagabalus in perhaps 221 CE (RPC online 6.5432, among others ), the incentive for Laodikeia as the conventus metropolis to record multiple awards would have been even greater. Iconography offers little compensation. One reverse of a bronze coin does carry a tetrastyle temple framing two figures, taken as Hadrian and an attendant (RPC 3.2324, 2356, 2357). But a similar design is found under Domitian and Trajan (RPC 2.1284).16 If the identification of the figure sometimes appearing on the podium is accurate, that is, the emperor, this may indicate a local imperial cult center (a ubiquitous feature of Asian cities) or it may be a synnaos gesture made by the city, that is, drawing the emperor into the worship environment of the main civic deity. This was a longestablished Asian practice that had already infiltrated Roman realities in the religious life of the province (Chaniotis 2003, 431–45). Indeed, this appears to have occurred at Pergamon when Hadrian allowed his admission to the temple of Zeus Philios (Burrell 2004, 364).

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In the case of Laodikeia, the witness of the (re-)struck cistophoric coins at Laodikeia under/for Hadrian in 129–130 is unequivocal: the preeminent deity of Laodikeia at that time was Zeus (Metcalfe 1980, 70). Crucial to the time of Hadrian is the accent on this Zeus as Olympian. The sharing of Olympios with the emperor, as part of his new titulature, yielded a multitude of coins combining emperor and god on the two faces. It also guided the itinerary of Hadrian through Asia, with stations at those cities renowned for Zeus devotion. Metcalfe (1980, 123) uses the IOVIS OLYMPIVS in the legend of some of the Ephesian cistophoric re-strikings to assist the dating of all the Asian cistophori of the time, that is, 129–130 CE, the very date assigned to the Laodikeian inscription. The combination of “benefactor and savior” is ubiquitous (e.g., SEG 14.703; IIasos 602; CIG 2877), so there is nothing in these epithets that necessarily reinforces an official conferring of neokoros. But lacking is the critical (if not exclusive) refinement on the type of neokoros, that is, τῶν Σεβαστῶν “of the Augusti” found on statue bases, milestones, and longer inscriptions (ITrall 74; ISmyrna 814). The inscription may therefore be simply asserting that the city held a long-standing guardianship of the worship of Zeus, not unlike that of Ephesos as regards Artemis (Theophilos 2020, 141, on Acts 19:35). In this sense, the Laodikeians, in the metropolis of the Kibyran conventus,17 are accenting their primacy in Zeus devotion, and therefore their regional preeminence for honoring Hadrian Olympios. This explains Pliny the Elder’s (Nat. 5.29.105) epithet for Laodikeia—Diospolis, the city of Zeus. Giuzzi understood the dimensions—61 centimeters wide by 54 centimeters deep by 1.48 meters high—to indicate a statue base, to be paired with another, a dedication to Sabina, wife of Hadrian.18 No dowel holes are noted. The presumed statues must have been relatively modest, certainly not Olympian in dimensions! Guizzi (2019, 175) postulates that the statue bases were given a prominent architectural location—on Syria Street or in the adjoining agora, alongside other benefactors.19 This, I suggest, conflicts with an imperial neokorate that gains no mention among immediate neighbors, cities of the koinon, and on the city’s own bronzes. “These two honorific bases show that Hadrian had given Laodikeia the privilege of building a temple to the imperial cult, which was officially authorized by the emperor himself” (Guizzi 2019, 176), struggles to be sustained. There is one telling omission—no mention of the Senate, either as included within the devotion of the imperial cult,20 or as the responsible body issuing the decree. Hadrian’s relationships with the Senate were often fraught (Dio Cassius, Hist., epitome of Books 69.2.5, 70.1.1–3), and increasingly an emperor’s decisions were passed to the Senate for ratification (Eck 2017, 55). But this is the point—Hadrian followed the legal nicety (AE 1999.1576 [136 CE]). Laodikeian bronzes under Elagabalus and Severus Alexander accented ΔΟΓΜΑΤΙ CΥΝΚΛΗΤΟΥ, “by decree of the Senate.”21 The minting of ΤΟ ΠΗ, year 88, to recall the Hadrianic visit of 129/30 might have been Caracalla’s efforts to tie his award to the more esteemed

The Lust for Recognition and Influence 245 emperor, but not necessarily to the supposed neokorate. Hadrian appears to have observed the propriety of Senate approval for the award of a second neokorate to Smyrna—it is specifically called a second decree (δεύτερον δόγμα συνκλήτου), implying that this had been the procedure governing the first award as well (ISmyrna 697, l. 36). So something lies behind Laodikeia’s coinage. Burrell’s speculation is that the chaotic period of Macrinus brought the need for stabilization or that allegations of improper appropriation (as had occurred with Caracalla [GCRE 263, 266]) of the now heavily freighted mark of status, demanded examination. If the latter, then perhaps there was something amiss in the process by which Hadrian awarded the neokorate to Laodikeia—if he did. On this reading, Laodikeia, chastened by the need to acknowledge the correct, senatorial approval process, admitted there may have been an unwonted embarrassment from its efforts to secure the prize under Hadrian. My judgment is that all that Laodikeia was officially asserting was that she was neokoros of a renowned cult of Zeus and may have been offering a synnaos honor to Hadrian as Olympios (with Zeus)—somewhere in the precincts of the Zeus temple. 14.3

Laodikeia’s Lust for Status

This brings us to the examination of the efforts expended by Laodikeia to win neokorate honors. Two sources of evidence help us to discern strategies that Laodikeia likely developed in her quest for the neokorate award: i literary testimony, especially Tacitus’s recounting of the application of 11 cities for the honor of housing the temple of the provincial cult around 26 CE (Ann. 4.14, 55–56).22 Other literary sources are helpful—the epitome to book 69 of Dio Cassius’s History of Rome, and, notably, the treatise of the thirdcentury rhetor, Menander of Laodikeia, detailing the hierarchization of cities and the means by which recognition was established and preserved.23 ii Material evidence, especially inscriptions and coins. Tacitus’s account of the contest between eleven cities of the koinon of Asia for neokorate honors in 26 CE contains several important elements that I have distilled here for heuristic purposes. Critical was antiquity (antiquitas), closely followed by support for and emulation of Rome (fides/amicitia, Romanitas). The ability to resource the appropriate functioning of the cult (prosperitas) removed some candidates (including Laodikeia). The famed worship (pietas) of an esteemed deity was also decisive in removing Ephesos (Artemis) and Miletos (Apollo),24 though an eminent god trumped a heroic founder (as for Sardis). Smyrna’s victory was built on support for Rome’s (military) interests and was complemented by its religious devotion (a temple) to Roma, established before the designation of the province. Other undeveloped elements can be isolated. The initiative to seek approval for the institution of a provincial cult came from the koinon of Asia (Tacitus, Ann. 4.15). Regardless of the reasons,25 the provincial context remained

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important even when one city became the venue (Merkelbach 1978, 288–9). Nonetheless, the various delegates’ disquisitions are described as a “contest” (Undecim urbes certabant, pari ambitione …). Finally, in fear of stating the obvious, the delegates from the various agonistic cities were present in Rome (praesentia). Contact with Rome—its Senate and people, not simply the emperor—was crucial, and, if the distillation of Smyrna’s case is an exemplar, needed to be processed assiduously over a long period. These elements—antiquitas, Romanitas, fides/amicitia, prosperitas, praesentia, iustitia, pietas, and certamen (with its converse or amelioration, concordia)—are not a Tacitan checklist. They interact and were weighted differently according to then-contemporary influences. The elements should not surprise—many are precisely the Roman virtues espoused on coinage and in philosophical foundations justifying Rome’s place in the world. But they resonated with a Greek inheritance that all these leading Asian cities brought to their application. Our task here is to discern them, albeit briefly, in Laodikeia’s long commitment to the pursuit of neokoros. 14.3.1 Antiquitas

Ulrich Huttner’s (1997, 93–109) study of the wolf and wild-boar coins of Laodikeia is important not only for its insights into the city’s territorial (as distinct from mural) boundaries, but also for recognizing an elaborate foundation story from two coins issued in the time of Caracalla. This foundation narrative ascribes to the Lykos and Kapros rivers the nursery setting for the birth and nurture of Zeus.26 Such infancy claims were mounted by numerous other cities;27 but it was enough that Laodikeia was positioning itself as possessing an ancient lineage. A divinely ordained city, according to Menander the Rhetor (Treatise 1.15.2), secured the grandest encomium (μέγιστον τὸ ἐγκώμιον). The ornate Caracallan mintings were the end-point of a development that had been occurring for about 150 years. From the time of Augustus, Laodikeia’s coin reverses were dominated by Zeus Aetophoros.28 The Caracallan coins simply extended the chronological span of Zeus’s patronage of Laodikeia into primordial mists. But Laodikeia’s coinage does not witness an unbroken chain of representations of Zeus. Into the late Republican period, the “constant symbol” was the caduceus/kerykeion of Hermes (BMC Phrygia, lxxiv). One association known from Kos (ca. first century BCE) is dedicated to the worship of Hermes and was probably headed by a Laodikeian (Nikephoros son of Hermaios; IKosPH 156). Attalid bronzes are ubiquitous in their presentation of an Aphrodite-Laodike head on the obverse29 and a cornucopia (sometimes two) with caduceus on the reverse. Zeus rarely appears,30 no more than an occasional rendition of other gods, such as Dionysos and Apollo. Once the Roman province of Asia was decreed, the republican period bronzes and cistophori continue with the caduceus. Of particular interest are the proconsular cistophori. The Romans had decided to retain the Attalid cistophori, but now stamped with Roman authority, that is, with the name of the proconsul of Asia conjoining

The Lust for Recognition and Influence 247 the abbreviation of the minting city’s name. The Roman governor retained Laodikeia among a small coterie of outlets, signaled on the coins by the letters ΛΑΟ and “distinguished by a winged caduceus” (Metcalfe 2017, 55). Symbols of Zeus are absent. The hold of a Zeus foundation story for Laodikeia’s Attalid and Roman Republican periods cannot be demonstrated. A fragment of another Laodikeian foundation story is critical for our interpretation of the data. Laodikeia’s earlier foundation story appears in the vast collection (and epitome) of the sixth-century lexicographer, Stephanus. The relevant section, replete with the oracle authorizing the city’s foundation, reads: ἔστι καὶ ἑτέρα [Λαοδίκεια] … Ἀντιόχου κτίσμα τοῦ παιδὸς τῆς Στρατονίκης· τῇ γὰρ γυναικὶ αὐτοῦ ὄνομα Λαοδίκη. Διὸς μήνυμα δι’ Ἑρμοῦ, ὄναρ διὰ χρησμοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος Ἀντιόχῳ βασιλῆι τάδε χρᾷ Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων, κτιζέμεναι πτολίεθρον ἀγακλεές, ὡς ἐκέλευσε Ζεὺς ὑψιωρεμέτης, πέμψας ἐριούνιον Ἑρμῆν. There is another [Laodikeia] … a foundation by Antiochos the son of Stratonike. Laodike was the name of his wife. Zeus laid out an instruction through Hermes in a dream conveyed through an oracle of Apollo: To King Antiochos, Phoibos Apollo delivers this instruction to found a magnificent city, just as high-thundering Zeus commanded, sending Hermes Eriounios (for this purpose). (Stephanus Byz., Ethn. 11.37; cf. Anth. Pal. App. 6.95) Naoíse Mac Sweeney (2013) has demonstrated that foundation narratives were both malleable and replaceable, especially when a civic or religious institution faced new realities. City ideologues—miniature Virgils like Ti. Claudius Andronikos, the historian from Laodikeia (ISestos 17 [first century CE])—could readily refashion narratives to articulate new policy directions, which became privileged in annual civic celebrations. In the imperial period, the caduceus all but disappears, a telling indication that a change had occurred.31 The multivalent resonances of Jupiter and eagle had soared forth from the Capitoline Hill, Rome, into Syria Street, Laodikeia, and onto its predominant mint designs. There was considerable caché in an appeal to “the bond of a common patron divinity” (GCRE 444). Antiquitas now served Romanitas and fides, key components in the pursuit and display of neokorate ambitions. 14.3.2 Romanitas and Fides / Amicitia

Laodikeia is sometimes noted for its epigraphical presence on the Capitoline Hill. A bilingual inscription, now found in the wall of inscriptions of the

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Palazzo dei Conservatori, originally supported a statue probably representing the people of Rome.32 The inscription (CIL 1.2.728 = ILLRP 177) reads:

populus ∙ Laodicensis ∙ af ∙ Lyco populum ∙ Romanum ∙ quei ∙ sibei vacat salutei ∙ fuit ∙ benifici ∙ ergo ∙ quae ∙ sibeị benigne ∙ fecit. 5 ὁ δῆμος ὁ Λαοδικέων τῶν πρὸς τῶι Λύκωι τὸν δῆμον τὸν Ῥωμαίων γεγονότα ἑ[αυτῶι σωτῆρα καί εὐεργέτην ἀρετῆς ἕνεκεν καί εὐνοί[ας 10 τῆς είς ἑαυτόν. The Laodikeian People, from the region of the river Lycus, offer this to the Roman People, because they brought to them deliverance and beneficence which they favorably bestowed on them. The Demos of Laodikeia near the Lycus river offer this to the Demos of the Romans who delivered to the people salvation and benefaction on account of their virtue and good-will towards them. Laodikeia had a vested interest in displaying and renewing its fidelity, especially after the Mithridatic War concluded in 83 BCE (Lintott 1978, 143). At every turn, Laodikeia was concerned to display its loyalty and its emulation of Rome, whether in architecture, in securing proconsular backing for its bronze coins, or even its adoption of that pronounced mark of Roman cultural formation, the spectacles.33 Most especially, city leaders sought Roman citizenship and cultivated the presence of Roman citizens in its population (Robert 1969, 360), among its land-holders, and as a means of cementing its influence and displaying its credentials among senators and before the emperor and his family. Arnaud Besson (2017, 216) notes, “Roman citizenship conveyed the prestige of belonging to the same body of people as the ruling elite.” It drove the legation of Andron from Laodikeia to Julius Caesar (Macrobius, Sat. 2.3.12), of Terentius Longinus to Lucius Verus and Antoninus Pius (ILaodLyk 65), and, at home, the self-proclamation to be φιλόκαισαρ or φιλοσέβαστος (ILaodLyk 9, l. 9; 135, l. 4; see Bennett 2014, 16). 14.3.3 Prosperitas

Tacitus’s well-known note that Laodikeia had, following an earthquake, restored the city fabric from its own resources without Roman aid (nullo a nobis remedio, propriis opibus revaluit) concentrates on the illustrious cities of Asia (ex inlustribus Asiae urbibus). Laodikeia was one (Ann. 14.27). He is probably guided by the hierarchical grading evident in Roman law, that is,

The Lust for Recognition and Influence 249 between provincial capitals (Ephesos), conventus metropoleis (Laodikeia) and smaller cities (those covered by the administrative boundaries of a conventus).34 Accordingly, part of the reinforcement of Laodikeia’s position was that it was capable of financing its own civic reconstructions. Moreover, it was recognized as doing so (by a reputable historian from the west).35 This raises a critical aspect of epigraphical commentary. LuAnn Wandsnider (2013, 176–88) has sought to apply signaling theory to the interpretation of public monuments and inscriptions. Here the individual and group benefits of a display are explored on multiple levels—the communication of values to others of their own station, to those below them and above. Within the Roman Empire, there was a particular value attached to monumental displays communicating an individual’s/city’s status to other cities, imperial agents, and other elite visitors. Significantly, “costly signalling” correlates conspicuous outlay with the prestige to be attached to an individual and/or group at a succession of levels (Wandsnider 2013, 176, 180). The recovery and reconstruction of a series of columns around a sacred agora/temenos probably of the temple of Zeus at Laodikeia has signaled the wealth and prestige of the city and its leading individuals/families. Unusual in these columns is that donors’ names are recorded with the lavish amounts contributed for the columns (Guizzi 2019, 170–4). Publius Alfenus Varus Ducenianus, for example, donated ten thousand denarii for ten columns set up in sequence.36 Another, Diogenianos, son of the priest Hermogenes, outlayed four thousand denarii for just one column, amount inscribed in full.37 The multiple benefactors suggest the willing munificence of citizens—the “best feature” of a city according to Menander the Rhetor (Treat. 1.16.5; compare GCRE 281). Wealth was to be noticed.38 Here an audience beyond the immediate civic populace witnessed an “ability to mount significant collective actions, thereby remaining viable if not outcompeting other cities for access to contested resources” (Wandsnider 2013, 176). 14.3.4 Praesentia

David Noy (2000, 231) has observed that “Laodikeia is indicated by the inscriptions to have been the most important city in sending Asians to Rome.” High status and position are attested—a strategos and asiarch, L. Antonius Hyacinthus (IGUR 352); another was a highpriest (IGUR 1063). By their presence in life and their record in death, Laodikeia was named (sometimes as “in Asia,” e.g., IGUR 326, 352), known, and connected to the hub of empire. Of particular importance in promoting a city before high-ranking officers, senators, and the emperor was participation in imperial gatherings and in delegations to the emperor or senate. To serve in the Asian high-priesthood was a prized honor that ensured that Laodikeia’s credentials were securely positioned in provincial, imperial cult celebrations, even before the award of the city’s own neokorate. Little wonder that Lucius Antonius Zenon of the famous Zenon family of Laodikeia was acclaimed on the honorific dedication

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for his prematurely deceased daughter Antonia, as “great high priest” (μεγ[άλου ἀρχιερ]έως … τῆς [Ἀσίας]). Antonia also held the office, combined with a local civic priesthood.39 A number of inscriptions honor individuals for their ambassadorial roles (IGUR 1288). Another recently re-discovered stone illustrates the intersecting lines of offices and benefactions essential to the influence that a delegation might secure. The Romans and Greeks in Asia and the Demos of the Laodikeians honored Quintus Pomponius Flaccus son of Quintus of the Galeria tribe, deceased, who has served as administrator of the city for the benefit of the People, as well as being in charge of civic revenues. He served as marketoverseer in an extravagant manner, having been the first and only to heat both thermal concourses. He supplied oil during the specified days during the month and has served as guardian of the laws, as well as covering the administrative costs at his own expense. He has served as night– superintendent in a lawful manner and as ambassador to Rome on behalf of the homeland at his own expense. He has generously provided for the festivals of good news, as well as paving the area in front of Zeus’s (statue or temple) with white marble. He has supplied the city with oil, again at his own expense, with a measure for each man in a cup. His brothers, Quintus Pomponios … and … prepared this memorial, having it made … and having covered the costs together … When Quintus Oppius, proconsul and general, agreed to become Aphrodisias’s patron, he accented that when in Rome he would relay Aphrodisian achievements (τὰ ἀφ’ ὑμῶν πεπραημένα) to the Senate and People (IAphRome 3, ll. 45–6). This was part of the necessary context for whatever petition that might be presented Similarly, the numerous offices and benefactions in this text are not to be understood in isolation but form an overall picture of both Quintus Flaccus and the city of Laodikeia. A delegate’s reputation was critical both for his own personal reception and also as reflecting the city that commissioned him (cf. Dig. 50.7.5.prol., 1 [Marcian]). His ambassadorial role in Rome (ll. 11–12) is made more laudatory because he met the considerable costs of the delegation (τὸ ἐφόδιον).40 Flaccus’s delegation to Rome was just as noteworthy as Tacitus’s recognition of Laodikeia’s post-seismic recovery. The city treasury was not burdened and it signaled the desire and ability to embrace an active role within the empire. Critically, his cursus honorum and benefactions demonstrated an effective address of the quest for neokorate status, even though this was not the explicit focus of the delegation.41 Close contact seems to have secured at least one neokoros award (to Philadelphia; GCRE 263). Conversely, one imperial edict castigates a city for their tardy absence from Rome (GCRE 154). Presence ensured recognition, “routine but necessary, if one wanted to get what was needed for a community” (Eck 2009, 206).

The Lust for Recognition and Influence 251 14.3.5 Iustitia

Menander the Rhetor (Treat. 1.16.5) made the scrupulous observation and enforcement of its laws central to extolling a city. He admitted that the execution of empire-wide legal jurisdiction (the Constitutio Antoniniana, 212 CE) had obviated the necessity of mentioning it. But his memory retained the prominence of this concern about local jurisprudence. Examples from Flaccus continue to serve our objective. Not only had he exercised the office of agoranomos to the benefit of those dealing in the agora but he had added a special engineering development to its promenades, a heated defense against winter blasts! Flaccus’s other legal offices are also qualified with positive epithets. It is almost as if his provision of oil (not for the gymnasium but probably for festivals) which precedes his position as nomophylax is intended as an illustration of how observant of regulations he was, including those that might be designated “religious.” His just enforcement (νομίμως, ll. 10–11) of the city’s night peace conveyed not only his personal integrity but the manner in which enforcement occurred.42 14.3.6 Pietas

Whether Menander assumed that uniform Roman law across the empire (post-212 CE) had removed the need for oratorical erudition on this aspect, the weight of his analysis fell on piety. He regarded piety (εὐσέβεια) as a subdivision of justice (δικαιοσύνη), that is, the governance of relations between the gods and humans (Menander Rhetor, Treat. 1.16.11; cf. 1.15.25). The elements demonstrating Flaccus’s piety implicate the city’s pious actions. His provision of carefully laid paving ἔνπροσθεν τοῦ Διός (l. 13) is specifically noted as in white stone. White is the special color of sanctity and importance,43 underscoring Flaccus’s attention to religious requirements, regardless of whether the paving is for a statue and altar in the agora or the temenos of the great temple of Zeus.44 The distinction in Flaccus’s piety related to the imperial cult is the explicit mention of his contributions to the festivals in honor of the emperor, the “good news” celebrations (ἐν εὐανγελοῖς, l. 12), mentioned immediately following his embassy to Rome (Porter 2011, 164–96). Here unspecified (but generous nonetheless—εὐψύχως) provision is made. The lack of specificity actually underscores that the city maintained imperial good news observance into the second century.45 The piety critical to neokorate suitability is here amply demonstrated. If Flaccus’s provision of paving is for the temple temenos then, tacitly, the devotion extends to those given syntheotic place with Zeus, that is, the Emperor-god(s) (ILaodLyk 62 A; Guizzi 2019, 176–8). 14.3.7 Certamen

Almost all the qualities illustrated thus far were pursued by any city in their efforts to display their virtue, prosperity, or worth in competition for imperial

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resources, without necessarily having a long-range ambition to secure the neokorate. Nonetheless, without them, as Tacitus showed, aspirations to neokorate status were futile. One element, as characteristic of the relations of Greek poleis as it may have been, was cultivated by Rome as a means of ensuring that it was the anchor of attention and devotion—competition. But precisely here was a city’s potential Achilles’ heel. If a city over-reached in efforts to outdo other cities, especially if it sought to abrogate another city’s status, wealth, or even titles, or if a city sought to introduce an innovation in its festival calendar without proper authority, regardless of its imperial deference, it was liable to incur imperial displeasure—hardly conducive to the award of the neokoros. Accordingly, when the Ptolemais-Barcans sought to abrogate the longstanding position of Cyrene in the Capitoline Games (inaugurated by Domitian in 86 CE) and in the associated sacrifices, Antoninus Pius rebutted their delegation (in 154 CE). They were none-too-subtly reminded that such an innovation (τὸ … καινοτομείν) warranted the charge of contentiousness (αἰτίαν … φιλονεικίας; GCRE 124). The term φιλονεικία is significant because it occurs in a fragmentary inscription that appears to restrain Laodikeia from too vigorous a pursuit of honors: ἡ ματαία φιλονεικία is the language used (ILaodLyk 10, l. 5). Charlotte Roueché considers that this is an imperial or proconsular rebuke of Laodikeia for its (third century) self-assertion of metropolitical primacy over Phrygia and Caria (1989, 2). However, the charge appears a linguistic preference of the time of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius (GCRE 113; SEG 34.1089); it could readily be applied to Laodikeia’s earlier contests for recognition (Hellers 2006, 125–7,143–6).46 Indeed, in the dispute over fishing rights mentioned previously, there is a specific instruction from Hadrian that quarrels should cease. Concord, the prescribed medicine administered to moderate competition, was to be implemented (πρυτανεύοντος ὑμῖν ὁμόνοια[ν, l. 19]). 14.4

Conclusion

This essay has explored efforts made by Laodikeia to secure the award of neokoros. It has been prompted by a newly published Hadrianic inscription where the term is inscribed on a statue base. How it fits into the city’s two hundred year quest for imperial neokorate status has been problematized. More likely, it indicates Laodikeia’s promotion of or, recognition as, a preeminent Zeus temple. Using the text of Tacitus as a template of the matters to be addressed should one aspire to the imperial neokoros title, the case has been made that Laodikeia poured considerable effort into satisfying those requirements: of antiquitas, Romanitas, fides/amicitia, prosperitas, praesentia, iustitia, pietas, and certamen. The path to neokoros was not always even or easy for the city, but it did eventually receive what it sought, albeit nearly a century after Hadrian.

The Lust for Recognition and Influence 253 14.4.1 Postscript

After this essay had been prepared for publication, Francesco Guizzi and Michela Nocita (2023) published a large compendium of inscriptions from the recent excavations at Laodikeia. It includes a number of inscriptions that demonstrate Laodikeia’s fixation on promoting its neokorate status (nos. 85, 98, 121, 162), not least on a milestone (249/50 CE) recording one (Roman) mile west of the city gates (no. 176) and in the description of the civic institutions of the Boule and Demos as, themselves, neokoros (no. 160). Guizzi maintains a Hadrianic foundation for Laodikeia’s imperial neokorate but my first perusal of these new inscriptions does not counter the arguments mounted herein. Indeed, the conjunction of Zeus and “the emperor gods” bolsters the suggestion of a syntheotic maneuver in the progression to that elevated status (nos. 7, 138–141, 152; cf. no. 137). Further examination must await another time. Notes 1 Laodikeia has (to date) no coins attesting “highpriest of the temple/Asia” (a Friesen bench-mark). Publius Claudius Attalos (time of Antoninus Pius) seems to be a local highpriest given the range of iconography on his coins (RPC online 4.2.2121, 2123, 2134, 2138, 3322, 9793, 11601, all temp.). More credentialed is a certain Tuscianus, who, on two coins (one type for emperor, one for empress) struck during the time of Philip I (244–249 CE), received the reverse legend ΑΡΧΙΕΡΕΩC ΤΟΥCΚΙΑΝΟΥ ΛΑΟΔΙΚΕΩΝ ΝΕΩΚΟ[ΡΩΝ]. See Bennett, 2014, no. 255 (Philip I) [hereafter Bennett plus number]; BMC Phryg 254 = RPC online 8.ID 20762 temp. = Bennett 267 (Otacilla Severa). Friesen provides two examples of Laodikeian men who held the office of “asiarch” but his arguments distinguishing “asiarch” from “highpriest/ess” prevent an easy evidentiary merging; see also Friesen, 1999, 275–90. Compare ILaodLyk 53 (fragmentary; 1st–2nd-century CE), as corrected by Thonemann (2004, 145–6). 2 RPC online 4.2.2111 (homonoia with Nikomedia), 1819, 1820, 2102, 2103, 2104, 9795 temp. All in Bennett 152–157 except the last (identical design to 4.2.2102 but four times the weight). 3 Time of co-regency with Marcus Aurelius: Bennett 150 = RPC online 4.2.2065 temp. (tooled?); Bennett 151 = RPC online 4.2.2949 temp.; Bennett 158 = RPC online 4.2.1718. 4 The identification was made by Robert (1969, 281–9). Burrell argued that the Kommodeia, games associated with the neokorate award, were withdrawn ( Burrell, 2004, 120), but restoration appears in a coin from early in Severus’s coregency with his sons (Bennett 167, repeated later: Bennett 200, and again by Philip II: Bennett 276). 5 The list of relevant inscriptions (ILaodLyk 45, 50, [53], 135, 136; IGUR 37) provided by Burrell (2004, 124) omitted FD 3.4.478, a record of an auletes choir nicknamed Antigenides, from the neokorate city of Laodikeia-on-Lykos: see Strasser (2002, 110). 6 RPC online 6.5503 temp. 7 RPC online 6.5502, 5503, 30308 temp. 8 Bennett 191 (Caracalla, three); Bennett 239 (Elagabalus, four). 9 Burrell 2004, 121; but Zeus Aetophoros not Laodicensis: see Metcalfe, 1980, 70; Parker 2017, 225.

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10 Bennett 239 = RPC online 6.5519 temp. 11 RPC online 6.4867 temp. Cf. IEph 625. Only Ephesos and Laodikeia include the neokorate by “decree of the Senate” in coin legends. However, other cities—Tralles, Sardis, Smyrna—attest the phraseology in inscriptions from the time of Hadrian (ITrall 74; ISmyrna 697; ISardis 7,1.63). 12 BMC Phryg 109, 114, 115, 118 = Bennett 217–20. It sometimes appears on homonoia issues: Bennett 196 (with Smyrna), 202 (with Ephesos). To these should be added Imhoof-Blumer 1883, 407 nr 131. 13 For 211/12, see Johnston, 1982, 115; Bennett, 155–7 retains this date for his coin catalog, yet argues for 215/16 in his text (p. 58). 14 Similarly, Thonemann (2011, 213–14) with n35. 15 Burrell 2004, 121 (with argumentation dependent on Louis Robert). 16 Cf. RPC 2.1286, 1287, 1291 (Domitian); 3.2318, 2321, 2323 (Trajan). 17 Laodikeia later expanded itself to metropolis of Asia: ILaodLyk 135, ll. 7–8 (after Caracalla). 18 Αὐτοκράτορος Καίσα- | ρος Σεβαστοῦ Ἁδριανοῦ | γυναῖκα Σαβῖναν Σεβασ- | τήν. The dimensions of the shaft are different, being 90 centimeters wide by 55 centimeters deep. The lithography appears identical for both inscriptions. 19 I know of no other example where a city cites itself as neokoros in an honorific for an emperor for his euergetism in the conferring of that honor, as Guizzi implies here. 20 Compare RPC 1.2469; Metcalfe 1980, 134 (B12, 13). 21 No senatus consulta for neokorates survive in full; the formula is the norm: Eck 2017, 37–8, 42. 22 See Burrell 2004, 38–42; Friesen 1993, 15–17. 23 Menander’s authorship of the treatise on praise of a city is disputed, but matters little to the evidence drawn upon here. Nonetheless, I am struck by a subtle change in Menander’s wording about the notice of abundant water as an element noteworthy for praise. Having already mentioned the value of abundant water (1.10.3), he then embellishes it with “or being surrounded by rivers” (ἢ ποταμοῖς περιειλῆφθαι, 1.11.2), a quite distinctive geographical remark that could be applied to only a few cities—such as Laodikeia and Apameia. See, however, Heath 2004, 127–31. 24 Compare Dio Cassius, Hist. 59.28.1; Epit. Ulp. 22.6 25 Perhaps breaking a deadlock that had occurred in the koinon of Asia’s deliberations: Burrell 2004, 39; cf. Price 1984, 64. 26 For a brief retelling, see Huttner 1997, 102. See also Robert 1969, 359. 27 See Cook 1914, 149–54. He acknowledged Laodikeia as one of the claimants (151–2 with pl. 129 of one coin). 28 RPC 1.2893, 2901, 2913, 2917; 2.1268, 1288; 3.2319 among a stream. 29 It appears to be a deliberate assimilation of the Seleucid Queen Laodike with Aphrodite, part of the divinization promotion of Antiochus III. See Robert 1969, 322–3. 30 BMC Phryg (Laodikeia) 48, 49. 31 Only three imperial period coin-types have the caduceus: RPC online 4.2.10879 temp., 8.ID20790 temp., 6.11006. 32 The transcription here has endeavored to convey the lithographic presentation on the stone (letter size from 2.5 in ll. 3–4 to 3.2 in ll. 1–2; line gap between l. 2 and l. 3). The Greek uncial lettering is in continuous form on the stone. 33 For Roman architectural influences, see Büyükkolancı 2014, 207–25; Welch 1998, 547–69; for bronze coins sponsored by the provincial governor, see RPC 2.1271 (Marcellus); for gladiator spectacles see Cicero, Att. 6.3.9; Mann 2013, 179–82,

The Lust for Recognition and Influence 255

34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

44 45 46

184; gladiator, athletic and musical contests are given by Menander the Rhetor (Treat. 1.12.28) as fitting occasions for extolling a city. Dig. 27.1.6.1–10 (Modestinus quoting and explaining an edict of Antoninus Pius). In the third century, Laodikeia was apparently unable to meet the costs of reparation after another earthquake; see GCRE 281 (time of Gordian III). | Τοὺς ἐξεῖς κειόνας ι′ | ὑπέσχε Πό(πλιος) Ἀλφῆνος Οὔαρος Δου- | κηνιανὸς ἀνέθηκε Χ μύ(ρια). … Ἑ]ρμογένους ἱερέως υἱος Πουπιν[ί]α | Διογενιανὸς [κίο]νος ἔδωκεν εἰς ἀνάσ[τα - | σιν] Χ τετρακισχίλια. If Rev 3:17 has any specificity to the city, it seems to have worked! Siekirka-Stebnicka-Wolicki 2021, 2.996–7 no. 935, following Peter Thonemann’s reconstruction of the Greek text (amending ILaodLyk 53). Compare GCRE 42, 45, 71, 79B, among many. Success in an award of neokoros would likely have been mentioned (as in IEph 781). This appears to be the sense of νομίμως in GCRE 84, ll. 44–47. The fourth-century BCE specialist on religious ritual, Autokleides, deemed white wool was to be used to cover the handles of sacred vessels for the worship of Zeus (apud Athenaeus, Deip. 11.473b–c); the bull sacrificed to Zeus Ktesis was also required to be white (Demosthenes, Or. 21.53). Corsten (ILaodLyk 82 commentary), following Robert (1960), opted for the former; Ramsay (1895, 1:50), for the latter; Guizzi (2019, 168–9) equivocates, as here. This makes the reference to “gospel” in Col 1:5, 23 especially relevant to the locale of the Lycus Valley, rather than simply an inheritance of Pauline Christianity or the proclamation of first-century kerygmatists. The assertion of “first” (περὶ πρωτείων) can actually cover a variety of assertions.

Bibliography Bennett, Robert. 2014. Local Elites and Local Coinage. Elite Self-Representation on the Provincial Coinage of Asia, 31 BC to AD 275. London: Royal Numismatic Society. Besson, Arnaud. 2017. “Fifty Years before the Antonine Constitution: Access to Roman Citizenship and Exclusive Rights.” Pages 199–220 in Citizens in the GraecoRoman World: Aspects of Citizenship from the Archaic Period to AD 212. Edited by Luccia Cecchet, and Anna Busetto. Mnemosyne Supplements 407. Leiden: Brill. Birley, Anthony R. 1997. “Hadrian and Greek Senators.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 116:209–245. Burrell, Barbara. 2004. Neokoroi: Greek Cities and Roman Emperors. Cincinnati Classical Studies New Series 9. Leiden: Brill. Büyükkolancı, Mustafa. 2014. “Laodikeia Merkezi Hamam 2003–2007 Kazıları ve Sonuçları.” Pages 207–225 in 10. Yılında Laodikeia (2003–2007 Yılları). Edited by Celal Şimşek. Istanbul: Ege. Chaniotis, Angelos. 2003. “The Divinity of Hellenistic Rulers.” Pages 431–435 in A Companion to the Hellenistic World. Edited by Andrew Erskine. Oxford: Blackwell. Cook, Arthur B. 1914. Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion. Volume 1: Zeus of the Bright Sky. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eck, Werner. 2009. “Diplomacy as Part of the Administrative Process of the Empire.” Pages 193–207 in Diplomats and Diplomacy in the Roman World. Edited by Claude Eiliers. Mnemosyne Supplements 304. Leiden: Brill.

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Eck, Werner. 2017. “Senatus consulta in lateinischen Inschriften aus den Provinzen.” Quaderno Lupiensi di Storia e Diritto 7:31–55. Friesen, Steven J. 1993. Twice Neokoros: Ephesus, Asia, and the Cult of the Flavian Imperial Family. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 116. Leiden: Brill. Friesen, Steven J. 1999. “Asiarchs.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 126:275–290. Friesen, Steven J. 2001. Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the Ruins. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Guizzi, F. 2019. “Greek and Latin Inscriptions of Laodikeia on the Lykos 2003–2018.” Pages 165–180 in 15. Yılında Laodikeia (2003–2018). Edited by Celal Şimşek. Istanbul: Ege. Guizzi, Francesco, and Michela Nocita. 2023. Laodikeia (Laodicea on the Lycus) Greek and Latin Inscriptions Found in the Excavation 2003–2021. Istanbul: Ege. Heath, Malcolm. 2004. Menander, A Rhetor in Context. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hellers, Anna. 2006. “Les Bêtises des Grecs” Conflits et rivalités entre cites d’Asie et de Bithynie à l’époque romaine (129 a.C-235 p.C.). Bordeaux: de Boccard. Huttner, Ulrich. 1997. “Wolf und Eber: Die Flüsse von Laodikeia in Phrygien.” Pages 93–109 in Internationales Kolloquium zur kaiserseitlichen Münzprägung Kleinasiens. Nomismata 1. Edited by Johannes Nollé, Bernhard Overbeck, and Peter Weiss. Milan: Ennerre. Imhoof-Blumer, Friedrich. 1883. Monnaies grecques. Amsterdam: Johannes Müller. Johnston, Ann. 1982. “Caracalla or Elagabalus? A Case of Unnecessarily Mistaken Identity.” The American Numismatic Society 27:97–147. Lintott, Andrew W. 1978. “The Capitoline Dedications to Jupiter and the Roman People.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 30:137–144. Mann, Christian. 2013. Die Gladiatoren. Munich: Beck. Merkelbach, Reinhold. 1978. “Der Rangstreit der Städte Asiens und die Rede des Aelius Aristides über die Eintracht.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 32:287–296. Metcalfe, William E. 1980. The Cistophori of Hadrian. New York: American Numismatic Society. Metcalfe, William E. 2017. The Later Republican Cistophori. Numismatic Notes and Monographs 170; New York: American Numismatic Society. Noy, David. 2000. Foreigners at Rome: Citizens and Strangers. London: Duckworth. Parker, Robert. 2017. Greek Gods Abroad: Names, Natures, and Transformations. Berkeley: University of California Press. Porter, Stanley E. 2011. “Paul Confronts Caesar with the Good News.” Pages 164–196 in Empire in the New Testament. Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Cynthia Long Westfall. Eugene: Pickwick. Price, Simon R. F. 1984. Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ramsay, Willam M. 1895. The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia. Vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon. Ritti, Tullia. 2017. Hierapolis di Frigia IX: Storia e istituzioni di Hierapolis. Istanbul: Ege. Robert, Louis. 1969. “Les inscriptions.” Pages 247–389 in Laodicée du Lycos: Le Nymphée. Edited by Jean des Gagniers, Pierre Devambez, Lilly Kahil, and René Ginouvès. Paris: de Boccard.

The Lust for Recognition and Influence 257 Roueché, Charlotte. 1989. Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity. London: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. Siekierka, Przemysław, Krystyna Stebnicka, and Aleksander Wolicki. 2021. Women and the Polis: Public Honorific Inscriptions for Women in the Greek Cities from the Late Classical to the Roman Period. 2 Volumes. Berlin: De Gruyter. Şimşek, Celal. 2016. “Urban Planning of Laodikeia on the Lykos in the Light of New Evidence.” Pages 1–46 in Landscape and History in the Lykos Valley: Laodikeia and Hierapolis in Phrygia. Edited by Celal Şimşek and Francesco D’Andria. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars. Strasser, Jean-Yves. 2002. “Choraules et pythaules d’époque imperial. À propos d’inscriptions de Delphes.” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 126:97–142. Sweeney, Naoíse Mac. 2013. Foundation Myths and Politics in Ancient Ionia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Theophilos, Michael. 2020. Numismatics and Greek Lexicography. London: T&T Clark. Thonemann, Peter. 2004. “Polemo, Son of Polemo (Dio, 59.12.2).” Epigraphica Anatolica 37:144–150. Thonemann, Peter. 2011. The Maeander Valley: A Historical Geography from Antiquity to Byzantium. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wandsnider, LuAnn. 2013. “Public Buildings and Civic Benefactions in Western Rough Cilicia: Insights from Signaling Theory.” Pages 176–188 in Rough Cilicia: New Historical and Archaeological Approaches. Edited by Michael C. Hoff, and Rhys F. Townsend. Oxford: Oxbow. Welch, Katherine. 1998. “The Stadium at Aphrodisias.” American Journal of Archaeology 102:547–569.

15

Vibrant Pomegranates Urbanism and New Materialism in Ancient Side Jaimie Gunderson

If nature is to matter, we need more potent, more complex understandings of materiality. Stacy Alaimo (2010)

15.1

The Pomegranate City

In 1976, while sitting in the back of a taxi, graphic designer Milton Glaser scrawled the now iconic “I (Heart) NY” logo on a scrap of envelope paper with a red crayon.1 Since 1977, Glaser’s (refined type faced) logo has been the basis of New York state’s tourism campaign, appearing on t-shirts, mugs, posters, billboards, and other promotional items. As the logo grew in popularity, it collided with New York’s nickname, “The Big Apple,”2 to produce a hybrid version of itself: “I (Apple) NY.”3 Print references to “The Big Apple” appear as early as 1921, but it wasn’t until the late 70s that the nickname became ubiquitous. A new place-specific sociality emerged from the convergence of the “I (Heart) NY” campaign with the “The Big Apple.” The apple marshaled social energy that offered coherence across diverse social groups (New Yorkers and non-New Yorkers) and discourses (politics, capitalism, history, en­ tertainment, etc.).4 Under the emblem of the apple, the lights of Broadway, the Empire State Building, NYC-style hot dogs, the Knicks and Yankees, Wall Street, the Statue of Liberty, and the American Dream itself became sutured into a meaningful assemblage that we have come to recognize as New York City.5 The apple (whether manifest in nickname or logo) functions as an affect––“a palpable vibrancy” (Pauketat 2020a, 7–8)––of New York City (or more specifically, Manhattan). The apple variously attracts or repels visitors as it also defines and delimits the urban atmosphere. In this way, the apple serves as an integral element in the process of urbanism. In a recent monograph, Susan Alt and Timothy Pauketat (2020) ask readers to rethink urbanism beyond “the human element” by attending to the ways that “properties and qualities of landscapes, materials, and atmospheres (or affects)” produce “complex, dense, and stratified relationships that we today label as urban.” Much like “The Big Apple,” Pauketat points out, cities nicknamed after their qualities––“grey city, sun city, sin city, and the big DOI: 10.4324/9781003344247-20

Vibrant Pomegranates 259 easy”––are afforded “agency owing to their vital tendencies and intra-active qualities” (2020a, 8).6 Pauketat thus encourages us to consider how the material affects (and effects) of other-than-human elements––a color, a sun, sin, and an apple––participate in the ways that cities are bound and bundled together. Urbanism, as Alt and Pauketat conceive it, is not simply marked by “dense concentration[s] of people, architecture, infrastructure, and material,” but by a “roiling maelstrom of affect” (Pauketat 2020b, 131, quoting Thrift 2004, 57). This chapter takes up Alt’s and Pauketat’s call to examine the “other-thanhuman ingredients in urbanism” (Pauketat 2020a, 1) through an exploration of pomegranates in the ancient “Pomegranate City,” Side (Sidē). Located in the region of Pamphylia in Asia Minor, Side was the most important maritime trading center in the region during the Hellenistic and Roman periods and gained fame as six-time (!) Neokoros––the most of any city. The name of the city corresponds to a Greek term for pomegranate (sidē). As a city named after a thing, we might ask how thingly qualities defined and shaped the urban atmo­ sphere. Growing abundantly in the landscape, appearing on coins, measurement tables, portable altars, monuments, and statuary, pomegranates and their material representations were ubiquitous in the ancient city. So striking is the pervasive pomegranate presence in Side that Johannes Nollé (1993, 38–40) labels the fruit as the “sprechende Wappen” (meaningful coat of arms) of the city. Despite the palpable pomegranate-y materiality of Side, the material affects (and effects) of pomegranates largely have gone unstudied. Scholarly analyses have tended instead to focus on traditional elements of urbanism––the devel­ opment of the harbor, the defense walls, and various buildings. This, of course, is helpful for better understanding specific categories of urban phenomena like building phases or city planning. But it also obscures our view of the ways that cities are impossibly complicated affective entanglements of human and other-than-human relations. When pomegranates have featured in scholarly analyses, insights have been limited primarily to functionalist observations about 1) the semantic connection between “pomegranate” (sidē) and the city name, and/or 2) the landscape: pomegranates were an abundant crop in Asia Minor, held in esteem by local peoples, and subsequently conveyed in top­ onyms (cue observation #1). Both observations flatten pomegranate presence in Side by conceptualizing the relationship between city and fruit as uni­ dimensional and instrumental. That is, prior studies have rendered pome­ granates as resources to be utilized or exploited by humans. As a result, Sidetan pomegranates have almost uniformly been understood symbolically, as devices that convey the economic and agricultural abundance of the city.7 I don’t dispute that pomegranates held symbolic value as signs of fertility and fecun­ dity in Side or the ancient world more generally (they clearly did). It seems to me, however, that they far exceed symbolic ascription in their relational and affective capacities that effectively put the pomegranate in The Pomegranate City. So while it has now become commonplace for scholars to assert that “matter matters,” material analyses, as Gavin Lucas critiques, often miss

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that “materiality is fundamentally a relational process … and what really matters is the relations between entities” (2012, 167–168). Otherwise put, matter is always entangled in webs of relations. If we are to understand (ancient) cities and their histories, we must examine how they are “being as­ sembled, disassembled, and reassembled relationally” (Pauketat 2020, 3). My approach to urbanism in ancient Side marshals insights from new materialist approaches.8 New materialisms comprise a diverse (but over­ lapping) corpus of theoretical orientations––inclusive of material feminisms, posthumanisms, material environmentalisms, object-oriented ontologies, actor-network theory, and more. These orientations, as Stacy Alaimo explains, can serve as “critiques, compliments, extensions, or reframings of social con­ structionist, postmodern, and poststructuralist theories,” but are united in their insistence upon “the significance and agency of materiality” (2020, 177). New materialisms seek to extend the ambit of critical inquiry in conceptualizing things not as passive objects upon which humans act but as “actants, forever lost in friendships and duels” (Harman 2009, 21). What happens to our un­ derstanding of Side’s urbanism, I wonder, if we move beyond thinking about Sidetan pomegranates as passive ornaments signaling civic prosperity and instead attend to them as agents in the shaping of the city’s urban atmosphere? My contention in this essay is that pomegranates comprise part of a “landscape-based urban ontology”9––a mode of urban identity enmeshed in vegetal relations. To explore these relations, I use Yannis Hamilakis’s concept of assemblage. Building on Deleuze and Guattari (1987), Hamilakis defines assemblages as “temporary co-presences, deliberate arrangements, and ar­ ticulations of things, beings, enunciations, memories and affects” that “co-function and cohere” to enact a distinctive spatiality (2017, 176, 172; cf. Hamilakis 2013).10 Hamilakis frames assemblages––inclusive of deliberate and involuntary associations––as intensely affective, temporal, and sensorial. This framework allows his articulation to include not only bodies, things, and landscapes, but also memories, histories, and feelings. Hamilakis’s conception offers us a way to think about antiquity as informed by the intensity of contact between humans and other-than-human entities without removing ancient humans from the world of direct experience in order to represent it (cf. Abram 2010, 3–4). I suggest that within Sidetan assemblages, pome­ granates possess a powerful affectivity in evoking the sensorial modalities of memory and time. Accordingly, pomegranates were (and continue to be) territorializing elements––entities that hold civic assemblages together by joining people, place, and other things in a place-specific sociality. Admittedly, this essay is something of a thought experiment. Unsurprisingly, no ancient author waxed poetic on the ontological status and relational capacities of pomegranates in Side (or elsewhere, for that matter). Additionally, we have only the representations of fleshly pomegranates emblazoned on coins, altars, and other materials. That said, the pervasive pomegranate presence in the ancient city begs us to engage it differently, to answer a call that, as Virginia Burrus puts it, “resounds through materiality itself … always inviting relation”

Vibrant Pomegranates 261 (2019, 195). Answering this call entails analyzing pomegranates through the mediating layers of stone and metal that bring the fruit into various states of vibrancy.11 In exploring city-as-assemblage, we encounter assemblages within assemblages. Accordingly, pomegranate-y relations emerge through unique material configurations of human bodies, fleshly fruit, landscape, and other urban elements. My consideration of Sidetan pomegranates begins by theorizing the vegetal. Here, I spotlight epistemologies that recognize the inseparability of other-thanhumans and humans to demonstrate that urbanism cannot be reduced to a stable archive of human action and inscribed symbolic meaning. Under this epistemological umbrella, I further articulate assemblage thinking by attending to the ways entities territorialize. I then turn to Side’s pomegranate-y relations and investigate material spaces where pomegranates assemble. I explore how these assemblages function on temporal, affective, historical, and political registers within the webs of relations that undergird urbanism. This exploration engenders a sense of Side’s landscape-based ontology, thereby making legible a host of vegetal intimacies. This essay is inspired by and pays homage to Steve Friesen and his work in the archeology and material culture of the ancient Aegean, particularly his observation that there are always material bases to ancient literary, social, and religious imaginaries. Wielding particular influence on this essay is Friesen’s “Material Conditions for Seeing the Divine,” in which he invokes Charles Long’s theorizations of materiality to assess human visualizations of divinity as immaterial imaginings that have material consequences. In doing so, Friesen (2018, 3) identifies social phenomena––societal taxonomies, hierarchies, and spaces across literary and archeological landscapes––“that would otherwise have eluded us.” My new materialist orientation runs par­ allel to Friesen’s Marxist materialism in our shared effort to question tradi­ tional understandings of material culture. I, too, seek to identify a phenomenon that “would otherwise have eluded us” by devoting attention to the role of an other-than-human entity in the urbanism of an ancient city. 15.2

Theorizing the Vegetal

In the epigraph that opens this chapter, Stacy Alaimo (2010, 1) alerts us to a problem that crosses academic theory and popular culture: “the rather shabby theoretical and rhetorical treatment of ‘matter’ and ‘environment.’”12 Modern discursive formulations of nature–matter (e.g., the vegetal, the floral, the lithic, the pathogenic, etc.) have tended to dematerialize the other-thanhuman world by rendering matter and/or the environment as “little bits of nature, or a blank slate, surface, or site passively awaiting signification” (2010, 1, quoting Barad 2003, 821). Similarly, in her study of the lives of matsutake mushrooms, Anna Tsing asserts that 20th-century scholarship has advanced “the modern human conceit,” which has “conspired against our ability to notice the divergent, layered, and conjoined projects that make up

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worlds” (2015, 22). Consequently, rather than conceptualizing worlds as irreducible to human relations, scholarship has tended to theorize nature–matter as bundled in human subjectification. That is, the significance of nature–matter is limited to human inscription and development. This mode of theorizing encodes (and easily sets aside) Sidetan pomegranates as decorative footnotes in the (hi)story of the city. Yet scholars attentive to agential material worlds, like Alaimo and Tsing, would advise us that other-than-humans can point to new or previously unrecognized intimacies, to new ways of relating, and to the recognition that “making worlds is not limited to humans” (Tsing 2015, 22). So, to paraphrase Alaimo, if pomegranates are to matter, we need more potent, more complex understandings of materiality. Assemblage thinking is a profitable starting point for generating these more complex understandings. By attending to the “interconnections, inter­ changes, and transits between human bodies and nonhuman natures,” assemblage thinking disrupts contemporary nature–matter reductionism (Alaimo 2010, 2). Through the lively activity of humans and other-thanhumans, assemblages “wrap and tangle” memory and cultural-and-natural histories “in an affect-laden knot” (Tsing 2015, 52). Accordingly, affect and time comprise critical dimensions of assemblages. Entangled “geological times, archaeological/historical times, human experiential times, non-human experiential times” enable us to consider how/when things interact and the temporal (civic) rhythms that emerge from contact between elements (Hamilakis 2017, 173). The heterogeneity of shifting elements, rhythms, histories, and affects produces assemblages that are inherently open-ended and unstable. Entities, however, have the capacity to act as territorializing forces. That is, one or more entities can stabilize an assemblage by increasing its degree of internal homogeneity or sharpening its boundaries (DeLanda 2006, 22).13 We might, for example, consider the apple of “The Big Apple” (whether in nickname or logo) as a territorializing element in a New York City assemblage. The dis­ tinctive and highly visible apple evokes meaningful relationships with mon­ uments, traditions, and histories. The apple holds together the assemblage by producing certain qualities: locative boundaries as well as feelings of shared identity. Such qualities are produced through interactions between entities (e.g., the apple, the Statue of Liberty, a souvenir saltshaker, and a human body). The continued existence of these qualities is contingent on their con­ tinuous interactions. When interactions between entities in an assemblage (re)occur or cease, the assemblage is reconfigured, and relations (de)intensify. In relation to the apple assemblage, the “event-ness” of September 11, 2001, is an instructive example. The moment the first plane hit the North Tower, contingent interactions within the assemblage started, stopped, and reconverged. These interactions prompted the emergence of different quali­ ties. In the (re-)formed assemblage, “Big Apple” iconography continued to embody New York histories, consumer capitalist enterprises, and civic ex­ ceptionalism. At the same time, the apple also became entangled (or more

Vibrant Pomegranates 263 intensified in its entanglement) with politics and global topographies. Whether in the “vintage” iconography of apples emblazoned with the twin towers standing resolute in the “old” New York skyline (a popular design for tourist trinkets pre-9/11) or in apples inscribed with the One World Trade Center, in a post-9/11 world the apple articulates a break in the old assem­ blage and an emergence of new(ly revitalized) qualities: patriotism, U.S. ex­ ceptionalism, empire, and terrorism––an “intensification of more of the same,” as Jasbir Puar puts it (2007, xxvi). In this way, the apple territorializes; it fosters not just a New York subjecthood, but also an American one. Yet in its entanglements with terrorism and terrorism’s fold into Islamophobia, the apple resists. The apple indicates that one possible future is a world constructed for some bodies and not for others. Territorialization, then, is a process of push and pull underpinned by affect and temporality. “The Big Apple” returns us to Puketat’s and Alt’s call to reconceptualize (ancient) urbanisms. Assemblages help us to think differently about how things like nature–matter (and its contingent relations) enact place. Cities do their assembling affectively, Alt insists, “by creating atmospheres that pull people into relationships with other-than-human beings and by defining the terrain wherein human-human relationships take place” (2020, 21–22).14 Like the New York apple, pomegranates are territorializing entities in Sidetan assem­ blages acting as catalysts for relating. Exploring pomegranate-y assemblages allows us to discern how pomegranates matter materially, rather than just symbolically. 15.3

Pomegranate-y Relations: Sidetan Assemblages

Pomegranates can be found within numerous layers of the urban strata of Side: staples of the landscape, enfolded in divinity, enmeshed in commerce and geopolitical connectivity. Whether in their organic lives or crafted in metal and stone, pomegranates communicate an autobiography of Side––a vegetal-propelled (hi)story that highlights nature–matter as an affective quality of Side’s urban atmosphere. Plumbing the vegetal in the city and the civic in the pomegranate,15 this section offers both historical background and analysis on Side’s pomegranate-y history. Here I explore topographic, numismatic, lithic, commercial, and athletic assemblages that function within (and comprise) a larger civic assemblage. Across these diverse assemblages, pomegranates territorialize relational fields through which Side, as a recog­ nizable civic spatiality, emerges. Side is situated on the coastal plain of south Asia Minor on a sand-covered rocky peninsula (approx. 800 m long and 400 m wide) that juts out into the Pamphylian Sea (modern Gulf of Antalya). Nearby the ancient Melas River (modern Manavgat River) flows from the Tauros Mountain range. In anti­ quity, the Melas was a crucial feature of Side’s urban development since it served not only as the source of fresh water for the city, but also as the vehicle that transported fertile soil from the mountains.16 The soil accumulated at the

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mouth of the Melas and, as a result, a vast swath of arable farmland emerged that allowed for an abundance of crops year-round––particularly grain, olives, and, of course, pomegranates. On Roman imperial coins, the Melas was frequently personified holding a pomegranate or a pomegranate branch, expressing the relationship between nature–matter (water, land, and pome­ granate) and Side’s urban emergence.17 Side’s pomegranates, according to Feriştah Soykal Alanyalı, were of a white variety endemic to the area.18 Outside of Side, pomegranates were abundant in other areas of Asia Minor. The Greek writer Theophrastos, in fact, designates Asia Minor as a center of pomegranate production (Hist. plant. 4.5.4).19 Yet as we will see, Side’s pomegranate-y relations are distinctive among Anatolian cities. “Side” was the name given to the city in the Hellenistic period when its inhabitants adopted Greek as the official language. Prior to this, despite the presence of Greek merchants and migrants, Sidetic––a local Anatolian language––was dominant.20 The entanglement of pomegranate and city, how­ ever, seems to pre-date the Greek (re)naming of the city. Numismatic evidence from the 5th century BCE shows pomegranates as canting devices, suggesting a close relationship between city and fruit. While pomegranates are easily legible on these coins, the city name and ethnikon are not. Despite this fragmentary evidence, Johannes Nollé (1993, 38) argues that the pre-Greek name of the city almost certainly began with “Si-” and relates, in some way, to the Greek word sidē or one of its variants––sibda or ximba. He thus concludes that the Anatolian name of the city was intimate to the pomegranate and that this vegetal rela­ tionship continued in the city’s Greek name (cf. Mansel 1963, 3).21 Endowing cities with vegetal names, Nollé indicates, was a common practice in Hittite times. Drawing on the work of Günter Neumann, Nollé (1993, 39) points to cities like Kadyanda (“wheat place”) and Oinoanda (“wine place”) as examples of this trend. Civic vegetal naming continued in the Greek period where multiple cities named Side (or a similar appellation) took root in regions outside Pamphylia, such as Pontos, Thessalia, Lakonia, and Lykia. Hüseyin Sabri Alanyalı and Adem Yurtsever warn, however, that despite sharing a common name with Pamphylian Side, these cities should not be viewed uniformly (2020, 40). The other pomegranate cities, Alanyalı and Yurtsever stress, have no connection to or relationship with the pome­ granate city in Pamphylia; nor do their pomegranate-y appellations derive from an Anatolian language source, as reflective of Hittite practice, but are a result of Greek settlement. Lacking a vegetal past akin to Pamphylian Side, the other Sides, Alanyalı and Yurtsever continue, do not express the same forceful materiality concerning the semantic relationship between their name and the pomegranate (though, to be sure, each has their own vegetal story to tell). Pamphylian Side, then, is not only unique in its pomegranate-y rela­ tions, but also in the way that its Anatolian past carried affective weight into its Greek present and beyond. In the act of civic naming, pomegranates––the fleshly fruit that populated the banks of the Melas––were assembled with human bodies and built

Vibrant Pomegranates 265 landscape to define urban space. Shaping both Anatolian and Greek pasts, pomegranates reveal an Anatolian-Sidetan deep time.22 That is, pomegran­ ates bespeak a pre-Greek history of the city (much of which remains inaccessible to us) that persists in other historical presents (Greek, Roman, modern city) in different material forms. The fleshly fruit transmogrifies, for instance, into metallic representations on Sidetan coins, such as in the imagery of a personified Melas holding a pomegranate. More than a decorative em­ bellishment or visual pun on the city’s name, the encoined pomegranate is both an access point to Side’s deep time and an organic-material collusion that evidences the constant interaction and interconnection between humans, nature–matter, and the processes of urbanism. Alaimo might describe this interaction as “trans-corporeality”––a term that signals that “the human is always enmeshed with the more-than-human world,” transforming it and being transformed by it (2010, 2). Fleshly pomegranates and their vital material forms, then, are co-creators of civic space in which a vegetal past mobilizes a present (and a present enlivens a vegetal past). We can follow AnatolianSidetan deep time even further into the founding narratives of the city. Ancient writers offer varying reports of Side’s origins. Eusebius (Chron.75 F) states that the city was founded in 1405 BCE, while Arrian (Anab. 1.26.4) as­ serts that Side was founded by immigrants from the Aeolian city of Kyme. Scholars are skeptical of the historicity of both claims, noting that the domi­ nance of Anatolian customs (exemplified by the Sidetic language) casts suspi­ cion on the narrative of a Kymelian founding and an absence of archeological evidence leaves a founding date in the second millennium BCE in question. Rather than a city founded by Greeks, Alanyalı and Yurtsever argue that Greek settlers were “followers, not pioneers” in a non-Greek city that blossomed “under the umbrella of Anatolian high culture” (2020, 41, 44; my translation).23 Moreover, other Pamphylian cities boasted a heroic founder. Perge, for ex­ ample, claimed Mopsos and Kalkhas as its founders. Side, however, claimed no hero. Instead, it asserted a god as its founder. Roman-period inscriptions indicate that a unique local iteration of Apollo—Apollo Sidetes24—was ele­ vated as ktistēs (“founder”) of the city and that the city claimed to be theoktistos (“founded by a god”).25 Alanyalı and Yurtsever propose two possible inter­ pretations for the lack of a founding hero and the emphasis on a quirky local Apollo. Either Side was the first religious center of Pamphylia (hence the em­ phasis on deity over hero), or the city’s commitment to its own cultural past was so strong that it prioritized the name of a god as its founder (2020, 43). Given the dominant Anatolian character of the city, Alanyalı and Yurtsever favor the latter option. This option posits that Apollo was associated with a nowunknown local god whose identity as city founder dates to Hittite times (H. Alanyalı 2011, 77). For all his fame as ktistēs, however, Apollo Sidetes was second in importance to the goddess of the city, Athena, labeled in one inscription as prokathezomenē theos (“foremost deity”).26 Originally a local mother goddess who was syncretized with the Hellenic goddess Athena, the Athena of Side reflects a fusion of Greek and local

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Anatolian characteristics.27 Most notably, she is deeply entangled with pomegranates. A.M. Mansel, the first archeological director of Side, argues that Athena’s co-presence with pomegranates in Sidetan iconography can’t (and shouldn’t) be explained with recourse to Greek mythological traditions involving goddesses, but with Anatolian nature goddess traditions (1963, 3–4). The entanglement, then, extends back to the Phrygian goddess Matar (Kybele), if not to Late Bronze Age Hittite religion.28 In the earliest shrines (9th–7th centuries BCE), perhaps best exemplified by the Matar/Kybele statue found in Boğazköy, the goddess is depicted in a standing position wearing an elaborate dress and polos (a cylindrical crown), holding a pomegranate in her hand.29 Overflowing with earthly intimacies, the pome­ granate anchors Matar in nature–matter by reflecting the goddess’s identifi­ cation with land, caverns, mountains, and vegetation. In this lithic ensemble, it would be a mistake to read the pomegranate as an indifferent fertility symbol. Assemblage thinking pushes us to see that it is much more. Bundled in a web of relations, which we might best describe as a “geochoreography,” the pomegranate invites alliance. Taking inspiration from environmental phenomenologist David Abram, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen describes geochoreography as the “language of inhuman being”––the other-than-human participations, presences, and movements that bind “[human] flesh” to the “flesh of the earth” (2015, 187–188, quoting Abram 2010, 4). A 6th century BCE Matar/Kybele shrine, now known as the Küçük Yazılıkaya (Arezastis) Monument, is instructive in this regard. The shrine was cut into an unusual shaped, sheer, vertical rock at the base of a massif. Emplaced in the presence of an outstanding natural phenomenon, the shrine beckoned (and still beckons) human bodies. This is a location where humans’ entanglement with the natural world was recognized and remembered; a location where contact and interchange with the topography and terrain en­ gendered imaginings of divinity. Indeed, inscriptions in the central niche of the shrine invoke Matar. In this space, geochoreography abounds. The Boğazköy Matar/Kybele almost certainly stood in a similar shrine. And in the ongoing dance between human and other-than-human that the shrine communicates, the pomegranate enclosed in her limestone fingers only intensifies the geo­ choreography. As Abram might describe it, the “friendship” between fruit, stone, earth, and human body enacts “the kindredness of matter with itself” (Abram 2010, 29). The vegetal folds into the lithic; the geologic folds into the human. The stony pomegranate amplifies trans-corporeality. Matar/Kybele with her vegetal companion is a patron of an active (ancient) ecological materialism in which the other-than-human world possesses palpable rhythms, movements, and animations that “run through [humans] in endless waves” (Alaimo 2010, 11, quoting Fromm 1997, 2). In this assemblage, the pome­ granate clasped in Matar/Kybele’s hand allies humans with nature–matter and divinity. Like the personified Melas holding a pomegranate on Sidetan coins, scenes of geochoreography commemorate the role of nature–matter as a col­ laborator in the making of (human) worlds.

Vibrant Pomegranates 267

Figure 15.1 Silver Stater with a pomegranate and cable border on the obverse; head of Athena with plumed Corinthian helmet facing right on the reverse. 460–430 BCE. Minted in Side. Courtesy of the American Numismatic Society.

Unlike earthy Matar/Kybele perched in rock-cut shrines, Athena of Side represents a civic deity with new intimacies in an assemblage shaped by Greek colonization and Roman imperialism. Yet as H. Alanyalı (2011, 83) reminds us, old traditions were never abandoned even as the city was Hellenized and Romanized. Alanyalı’s observation highlights an important aspect of assem­ blages: assemblages are ways of articulating and re-articulating relationships. Matar/Kybele’s slide into Athena transfers, translates, and repositions rela­ tional fields. What kinds of relationships does the new assemblage enact? A bronze coin minted in the 5th century BCE offers some clues. The obverse shows the head of Athena facing right, wearing a plumed Corinthian helmet; the reverse presents a pomegranate (Figure 15.1). Assembling goddess and pomegranate, the city’s past is inseparable from the vision of its present. Matar/ Kybele’s geochoreography is enacted (if not remembered) in the metallic merging of Athena and pomegranate. The coin, to use Cohen’s gloss, is a “temporal palimpsest”––an object that conveys voices across time (2015, 108). To conceptualize the multi-temporal dimension of assemblages, Hamilakis writes that it is best to conceive of time (past, present, and future) as “coexistence rather than succession, whereby all pasts co-exist with––in a con­ densed and virtual form––and [are] contained by the present moment” (2017, 173). Alt illustrates this mode of temporal relations using the example of a pot: “a pot is never just a pot, but is part of all of the other pots ever made and the potential pots in an assemblage yet to come” (2020, 21). Like the pot, the coin bears multiple temporal registers: pomegranate-y pasts, presents, and futures. Anatolian goddess and pomegranate fold into Greek goddess and pomegranate. The artfully produced balance of urban goddess and nature–matter re-articulates a mother goddess and her

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Figure 15.2 Bronze Coin with bust of Domitian facing right on the obverse; Athena standing, facing left in front of a snake, with a Lance over her shoulder, holding a shield in her left hand and a pomegranate stalk in her right on the reverse. 81–96 BCE. Minted in Side. Courtesy of the American Numismatic Society.

earthly intimacies. In this respect, the relationship between goddess and pomegranate is one of co-presence, not simply continuity. In the Hellenistic and Roman city, however, pomegranate-y relations reveal more than earthly intimacies. In Side, Athena was connected primarily with commerce and maritime pursuits. The location of her temple beside the harbor was no coincidence––she was protector of the city and its economic lifeblood. She, along with Apollo Sidetes, whose temple was positioned beside hers (see n. 26), was commemorated in the Epibaterios Festival, which celebrated the resumption of maritime activity after winter. Numismatic depictions from the early imperial period show Athena in mid-stride adorned with a crested helmet, lance, and shield, holding a pomegranate in her outstretched right hand. Athena’s body bisects the word SIDĒTŌN (“Minted by the Sidetans”) in the center of the coin (Figure 15.2).30 In the built landscape of the city, Athena’s temple linked goddess to maritime activity, trade networks, and the civic economy. This type of coin, Nollé (1990, 245) notes, was commemorative, a way for Sidetans to celebrate their city. The success of Side, of course, was garnered through its reputation for maritime activity (both naval and commercial) and its abundance of agricultural resources. The pomegranate that Athena holds is a companion in these endeavors. The deliberate assembling of local fauna, goddess (with her connection to the built landscape––harbor and temple), and the civic economy draws awareness to nature–matter as a formative process in the shaping of the city. Like the stony pomegranate in the grasp of the Boğazköy Matar/Kybele, the pomegranate in Athena’s hand is not a simple mechanistic emblem of agri­ cultural fecundity or economic abundance. Rather, the encoined pomegranate

Vibrant Pomegranates 269 grasped by the encoined goddess highlights the flows of movement––the pro­ cesses of urbanism––that emerge from the entangled relations of humans and other-than-humans. Pomegranate-y relations propel movement from the arable land beside the Melas toward Side’s harbor and outward across the Mediterranean world. This motion, however, ultimately leads back to the divine, to the protectors of Side, to Athena (and Apollo Sidetes, who makes his own numismatic appearances with pomegranates31), and even further to Matar/Kybele and her geochoreography. Entangled in divine relationships, the vegetal undergirds the very idea of Side as a sacred city. The vegetal intimacies behind Sidetan economic and political networks come into sharper focus on a bronze coin from the reign of the Roman Emperor Caracalla (r. 198–217 CE). The coin’s reverse shows a galley sailing over waves under full sail with a statue of Athena on the prow and a pomegranate tree astern; the word SIDĒ/TŌN appears on two lines across the sail (Figure 15.3). Although dwarfed by the ship, the diminutive pomegranate tree materializes robust relations. It is the catalyst for both the presence of the ship and the presence of the goddess (cf. Nollé 1993, 40). The city’s deep past is made palpable in a geochoreography of divinity, seascape, and fruit as the goddess brokers the city’s safety and fortune in maritime pursuits. Old intimacies connect with the new. Expanding Sidetan influence outward, the pomegranate tree provocatively invites economic (and political) confederation. A new partner in this confeder­ ation appears on the obverse of the coin: the emperor, whose stern bust stares intently forward as if perceiving the Sidetan galley on the horizon. Caracalla granted Side one of its many neokorate titles, and to commemorate this occa­ sion, he sent a golden bust of himself to the city to be displayed in the Temple of

Figure 15.3. Bronze coin with draped and cuirassed bust of Caracalla facing right on the obverse; a galley sailing right with SIDĒTŌN in two lines across the sail, a statue of Athena on the prow, and a pomegranate tree astern on the reverse. The 3rd century CE. Minted in Side. Image reproduced with permission of wildwinds.com, ex Forum Ancient Coins. Coin type also Published in Robinson 1914.

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Athena (H. Alanyalı 2011, 77). With this event, the civic assemblage shifted. The pomegranate-y goddess became (further) entwined with imperial power––drawing a deep past into a new Roman present. Bound and bundled together in this numismatic assemblage, imperial politics, economics, a goddess, and her geochoreography give shape to the qualities of the city. Pomegranates territorialize across divinity, commerce, built architecture, and empire. Pomegranate-y relations also emerge in civic games. A 2nd-century CE nymphaeum just outside the city gate commemorates this assemblage. An architectural plate from the structure’s second floor depicts a monumental prize crown inscribed with the word OIKOUMENIKOS (“people from all over”). The prize crown depicts two protruding palm branches and a pome­ granate. Mansel posits that the plate commemorates a specific agon––open to all cities of the Roman Empire and held in honor of a specific deity (1963, 55, 59, Abb.40). The name of the games and the honored deity are unknown; this information may have appeared on a nearby plate but is now lost. There are, however, two possibilities: the “Pythian Games” held in honor of Apollo and the “Agon Mystikos” held in honor of Dionysos. Although we cannot determine which games or gods this plate commemorates, we can observe how the addition of a pomegranate to the common imagery of prize crown and palm branches crystallizes pomegranate-y relations. A deep past irrupts from the stony pome­ granate recalling telluric intimacies and the divine co-presences it indexes. Like the encoined pomegranates, the prize pomegranate asserts its place in the city’s political and economic history as a relational hub connecting people, places, and commerce to Side. This pomegranate-y assemblage, however, doesn’t end at its lithic display. Instead, it overflows with fleshly pomegranates. Victors of the games, Mansel (1963, 55) comments, were given real pomegranates as prizes in addition to the traditional trophies of crown and palm branches (cf. Nollé 1983, 127). This transaction constitutes a potent engagement between humans and nature–matter: pomegranates (real and lithic) coalesce mythologies, histories, rituals, and human and divine bodies within the urban atmosphere of Side. From the fleshly fruit to lithic and encoined representations, pomegranates were vibrant matter in ancient Side. Multi-temporal and affective, pomegran­ ates bundled with local deities, the economy, trade networks, and civic en­ tertainment to enact Side-as-city. Coordinating civic order, divine favor, and the health of the economy (and navy), the presence of pomegranates increased the internal homogeneity of Side’s urban space. Accordingly, pomegranate-y relations (re)surface a place-specific sociality––a historic city, a sacred city, a city favored by the emperor. At the same time, they coalesce “insiders” and “outsiders”––traders, athletes, and politicians. Yet as relations shift, so do assemblages; the city transforms and emerges anew. Matar/Kybele slides into Athena; Caracalla’s golden bust becomes the present extension of a deep past and a new relation of (political and economic) power. Pomegranate-y materi­ alities, whether conscious or unconscious, (re)establish and reinforce a sense of place where the past co-exists with the present, where the locative boundaries of Side are sharpened and territorialized through vegetal vibrancy.

Vibrant Pomegranates 271 15.4

Conclusion: A Vegetal Inheritance

In his study of stone, Cohen (2015, 257) reminds readers that “every object is full of strange relation.” Trans-corporeality may not be what we expect when we marvel at a pomegranate chiseled into an architectural relief or when we squint at a petit pomegranate on a worn coin. But interchanges and inter­ connections between human and other-than-human bodies are what we find. To rephrase a famous expression, it’s pomegranates all the way down. In modern Side, pomegranates maintain their pervasive presence: you can step over a manhole cover decorated with a pomegranate (Figure 15.4), pose in front of a promotional pomegranate display (Figure 15.5), or marvel at the pomegranate logo of a local business (Figure 15.6).32 The modern city is an ancient assemblage reconfigured for the 21st century, yet the vegetal continues

Figure 15.4 Manhole cover in modern Side with central pomegranate decoration. Photo by Author (2022).

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Figure 15.5 Participants in Steve Friesen’s 2022 travel seminar on Anatolian religions pictured in modern Side with a promotional graphic cut-out featuring a pomegranate. Photo by Author (2022).

Figure 15.6 Logo of the Side Archeological Museum featuring a pomegranate. Photo by Author (2022).

Vibrant Pomegranates 273 to sustain relations in an entanglement of human and other-than-human that has defined and delimited the urban history of Side for thousands of years. Side can never be divorced from its deep past. In a landscape-based ontology, ancient pomegranate-y relations alongside modern vegetal inheritances dem­ onstrate that the structures of a city “are not simply about human invention and economic investment.” Rather, as Pauketat (2020a, 3) writes, “they are comprised of fluid, permeable, and metamorphological relationships vital to the constitution and history of peoples, places, and things themselves.” The political relevance of reconceptualizing things and their qualities within processes of (ancient) urbanism is not only a provocative theoretical proposi­ tion, but a potent necessity to recast the “modern human conceit” that pervades the study of materiality in antiquity. To assert that “matter matters” means taking seriously the heterogeneous assemblages that make up worlds. The ve­ getal (hi)story of Side brings ancient and modern in proximity and reveals how attention to stories of pomegranate-y entanglement opens up possibilities of material intimacies beyond tired tales of human exceptionalism. While the stories we know of the other-than-human, Cohen reminds us, will always be human stories, what we call human is “always the very stuff of the messy contingent emergent mix of the material world” (Cohen 2015, 8, 55–56, quoting Bogost 2012, 3). Notes 1 Glaser’s concept sketch is now in the Museum of Modern Art in New York (object number 388.2009). 2 While New York is a producer of Empire apples (a variety developed in the 1940s at Cornell University that now accounts for 60% of apples grown in New York), the nickname is not derived from the fruit, but linked to The Morning Telegraph sportswriter, John J. Fitz Gerald. In his May 3, 1921 column, Fitz Gerald referred to the New York horse-racing circuit as “the big apple.” For more on the history of “The Big Apple,” see Cohen and Popik 2011. 3 The alliance between logo and nickname has implications beyond the borders of New York. In 1885, Manhattan, Kansas was founded by the Cincinnati Land Company and so named because of the influence of New York investors within the Company. In 1977, in correlation with New York’s tourism campaign, Manhattan, Kansas began to call itself “The Little Apple”––an attempt to harness some of the (affective) qualities of “The Big Apple.” www.visitmanhattankansas.org 4 My thinking on “The Big Apple” was inspired by Jenna Supp-Montgomerie’s (2021) study of network culture. 5 There are, of course, many more elements that comprise this NYC apple assem­ blage. Notable but missing from this list are histories of immigration and indig­ enous presence. As Yannis Hamilakis describes, an assemblage enacts various kinds of temporal relationships, yet only certain pasts are actualized. Actualized pasts carry affective weight. Consequently, the mnemonic selection of (actualized) pasts erases or obscures uncomfortable pasts, “enabling certain futures to emerge and others to disappear.” Every assemblage, then, has political effects. See Hamilakis 2017, 173–5. 6 Pauketat borrows the term “intra-active” from Karen Barad (2007, 33), who defines it as “the mutual constitution of entangled agencies.”

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7 A notable exception to this is Atk, Danaci, and Erdoğan (2010) who approach landscape as a complexity of interactions rather than a static backdrop for human action. Their conclusions, however, largely reinforce symbolic readings of the fruit. Nollé (1993) also complicates our thinking on the role of pomegranates within Side’s urbanism by noting their ties to Side’s topographic, economic, and sacred structures. 8 Alaimo 2010; Alt and Pauketat 2020; Bennett 2010; Cohen 2015; Hamilakis 2017; Tsing 2015. “New materialism” is a fraught label. For a discussion (with bibli­ ography) on the controversies surrounding “new materialism,” see Alaimo 2020, 177–191. 9 I borrow this descriptor from Susan Alt (2020). Alt, however, does not offer a definition. 10 Hamilakis’s understanding of an assemblage as constituted by both deliberate and involuntary/unexpected arrangements diverges from other scholarly renderings of assemblages as (flat) machinic aggregations of materials based on formal similarity (a rendering commonly found in archeological studies) or configurations of indeterminate relations (a rendering commonly found in ecological studies). In Hamilakis’s view, foregrounding the deliberate act of bringing things into asso­ ciation (as one aspect of an assemblage) honors Deleuze’s and Guattari’s French term agencement, which stresses the agency involved in bringing things together. For a concise overview of different modes of assemblage thinking, see Hamilakis and Jones 2017, 80. 11 The term vibrant comes from Jane Bennett who uses it to “equate affect with materiality” and describe the way things “act as quasi-agents or forces with tra­ jectories, propensities or tendencies of their own” (2010, xiii, viii). 12 Alaimo is not the only scholar to scrutinize nature’s discursive and theoretical formations. See Alaimo 2010 for bibliography. 13 Entities can also act as “deterritorializing” forces by disrupting (or interrupting) boundaries and internal homogeneity, thereby pulling apart the assemblage. 14 Cf. Hamilakis 2017, 170: “a fundamental property of all assemblages is their sensorial and affective import.” 15 I take inspiration here from Jeffery Jerome Cohen’s (2015, 10) aim to “plumb the petric in the human and the anthropomorphic in the stone” in his lithic ecology of the inhuman. 16 Alanyalı and Yurtsever (2020, 44) posit that the earliest settlement was not on the peninsula, but closer to the Melas River. 17 Nollé (2018, 196) comments that coins offer insight into urban identities in in­ teresting ways because their obverses “almost exclusively represent the identity/ identities of their minting authorities” with the reverses “focused on urban iden­ tities.” 18 Private Lecture. Ancient Side, Turkey. June 9, 2022. 19 Beyond its capacities as an edible fruit and flavoring for wines, in the ancient world pomegranates were used for medicine, perfumes, dyes for textiles, and to tan leather, among other applications. For more on the uses of pomegranates in an­ tiquity, see Stone 2017; Ward 2003. 20 According to Feriştah Soykal Alanyalı (2017, 187–8), recent investigations of the Sidetic language indicate that it belongs to the Luwian language group. 21 Nollé further indicates that the word used by both the indigenous inhabitants of Asia Minor and the Greeks to designate a pomegranate likely came from the same language source, although the exact source is unclear (e.g., an ancient Mediterranean language or an imported language from “the east”). Sara A. Immerwahr (1989, 403, fn. 25) suggests that the Greek term sidē derives singularly

Vibrant Pomegranates 275

22

23

24

25 26

27

28 29

30

31

32

from Pamphylian Side since it is an “alternative term” to the other Greek word for pomegranate, rhoia. I follow Noah Heringman’s (2023, 8) understanding of deep time as “any kind of long-scale time outside recorded history” (original emphasis). Heringman’s defi­ nition opens up use of the phrase beyond its traditional usage as geological time defined against human history. See also Bosch 1957, 17. Georgia Irby (2021, 166–7) suggests that a clue to Side’s (now-lost) founding story might be referenced on early coins that picture a pomegranate paired with a dolphin. Without further evidence, however, Irby’s suggestion cannot be confirmed. Apollo Sidetes is a peculiar figure who is depicted wearing a short tunic with a chlamys (wide cloak) and booties; he holds either a laurel wreath or a staff with laurel leaves sprouting at its tip. Appearing very gender ambiguous, A.M. Mansel mistakenly first identified Apollo as the goddess Kore, but later corrected this mistake. For more on Apollo Sidetes, see H. Alanyalı 2005, 89–92, esp. 76 n. 8 for a discussion of Mansel’s misidentification. It was not exceptional for cities to claim to be theoktistos, but it was exceptional not to connect the founding story to a hero, particularly Greek heroes. See Alanyalı and Yurtsever 2020, 42–3; Nollé 1993, 41–2. The rank of these deities begins to shift in the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries CE with the rising popularity of Apollo. This is evidenced, some scholars argue, by the size of their temples. Two temples (N1 and N2) were constructed on the edge of the harbor in the 2nd century CE, likely on the site of earlier temples. Mansel iden­ tified the larger temple (N2) with Athena and the smaller temple (N1) with Apollo. These identifications have been called into question in recent scholarship since gorgon heads appear on the frieze of N1 and a tripod on the frieze of N2. Such iconographic schemes would suggest that the smaller temple (N1) should be identified with Athena and the larger temple (N2) should be identified with Apollo. See H. Alanyalı 2011, 78. Mansel (1963, 3–4) comments that there is evidence that an armed goddess, likely Ma, seems to have been worshiped within Komana in Pontos as well as in Cappadocia. Thus, Mansel suggests that this evidence may account for the assimilation of the local goddess in Side with Athena. See also H. Alanyalı 2011, 76. For more on the history of Matar/Kybele, see Rutherford 2020, 163–83; Roller 1999. The Boğazköy Matar/Kybele is now in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. Beginning in the mid-6th century BCE, Greek iconography of Kybele becomes dominant. Rather than standing, she is depicted sitting down with a lion, although still frequently holding a pomegranate. Nollé (1990, 245) notes that coins of this type “may already have started under Augustus; in large quantities, however, they were only brought out for issue under Tiberius” and continued to be minted well into the 2nd century (my translation). In some cases, the word SIDĒTŌN appears vertically on the coin in parallel to Athena’s body. In a similar fashion to Athena, a standing Apollo Sidetes often appears on coins holding a pomegranate in his outstretched right hand and a scepter in his left. In other variations of this imagery, he holds a patera in his right hand and a pomegranate hovers above his outstretched arm. Like Athena’s numismatic as­ semblages, these coins point to pomegranates as vital copresences in the city’s history and deep past. Another famous modern pomegranate city is Granada, Spain. As in Side, pome­ granate imagery is ubiquitous: the traffic posts are pomegranates, street signs are

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painted with pomegranates, decorative pomegranates adorn the doors of the royal palace, the coat of arms includes a pomegranate, etc. I thank Acacia Chan for bringing Granada and its pomegranates to my attention.

Bibliography Abram, David. 2010. Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology. New York: Vintage. Alaimo, Stacy. 2010. Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Alaimo, Stacy. 2020. “New Materialisms.” Pages 177–191 in After the Human: Culture, Theory, and Criticism in the 21st Century. Edited by Sherryl Vint. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Alanyalı, Feriştah Soykal. 2017. “Side. Bir Kentin Kayboluşunun Hikayesi.” Arkeoloji Ve Sanat 155:187–196. Alanyalı, Hüseyin Sabri. 2005. “Apollon Sidetes.” Pages 89–92 in Synergia: Festschrift für Friedrich Krinzinger. Vienna: Phoibos. Alanyalı, Hüseyin Sabri. 2011. “Side’nin Roma Dönemi Panteonu.” Anadolu-Anatolia 37:75–92. Alanyalı, Hüseyin Sabri, and Adem Yurtsever. 2020. “Pamphylia Bölgesi ve Side’nin Tarihi Coğrafyasına Genel Bir Bakış.” Pages 37–63 in Canan Parla Armağani. Sanat Tarihi, Arkeoloji, Tarih ve Filoloji Araştirmaları. Edited by M. Erol Altınsapan, and B. Yelda Olcay Uçkan. Istanbul: Doğu Kütüphanesi. Alt, Susan M. 2020. “From Weeping Hills to Lost Caves: A Search for Vibrant Matter in Greater Cahokia.” Pages 19–39 in New Materialisms Ancient Urbanisms. New York: Routledge. Alt, Susan M., and Timothy R. Pauketat, eds. 2020. New Materialisms Ancient Urbanisms. New York: Routledge. Atik, Meryem, Hacer Multu Danaci, and Reyhan Erdoğan. 2010. “Perception of Plants in Ancient Times and Their Uses as Motifs Revealing Aspects of the Cultural Landscape in Side, Turkey.” Landscape Research 35:281–297. Barad, Karen. 2003. “Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter.” Signs 28:801–831. Barad, Karen. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham: Duke University Press. Bennett, Jane. 2010. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham: Duke University Press. Bogost, Ian. 2012. Alien Phenomenology, or, What It’s Like to Be a Thing. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Bosch, C. E. 1957. Pamphylia Tarihine Dair Tetkikler. Ankara: Turk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi. Burrus, Virginia. 2019. Ancient Christian Ecopoetics: Cosmologies, Saints, Things. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Cohen, Gerald Leonard, and Barry Popik. 2011. Origin of New York City’s Nickname “The Big Apple.” Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Cohen, Jeffery Jerome. 2015. Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. DeLanda, Miguel. 2006. Assemblage Theory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006.

Vibrant Pomegranates 277 Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Friesen, Steven J. 2018. “Material Conditions for Seeing the Divine: The Temple of the Sebastoi at Ephesos and the Vision of the Heavenly Throne in Revelation 4–5.” Pages 3–25 in Seeing the God: Image, Space, Performance, and Vision in the Religion of the Roman Empire. Edited by Marlis Arnhold, Harry O. Maier, and Jörg Rupke. Culture, Religion, and Politics in the Greco-Roman World 2. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Fromm, Harold. 1997. “The ‘Environment’ Is Us.” Electronic Book Review. Jan. 1. http://www.altx.com/ebr/reviews/rev8/r8fromm.html. Hamilakis, Yannis. 2013. Archaeology and the Senses: Human Experience, Memory, and Affect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hamilakis, Yannis. 2017. “Sensorial Assemblages: Affect, Memory and Temporality in Assemblage Thinking.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 27:169–182. Hamilakis, Yannis, and Andrew Meirion Jones. 2017. “Archaeology and Assemblage.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 27:77–84. Harman, Graham. 2009. Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics. Melbourne: re.press. Heringman, Noah. 2023. Deep Time: A Literary History. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Immerwahr, Sara A. 1989. “The Pomegranate Vase: Its Origins and Continuity.” Hesperia 58:397–410. Irby, Georgia. 2021. Using and Conquering the Watery World in Greco-Roman Antiquity. London: Bloomsbury. Lucas, Gavin. 2012. Understanding the Archaeological Record. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mansel, Arif Müfid. 1963. Die Ruinen von Side. Berlin: De Gruyter. Nollé, Johannes. 1983. “Zum Landbau von Side,” Epigraphica Anatolica 1:119–129. Nollé, Johannes. 1990. “Side: Zur Geschicte einer kleinasiatischen Stadt in der römischen Kaiserzeit im Spiegel ihrer Münzen,” Antike Welt 21:244–265. Nollé, Johannes. 1993. Side im Altertum: Geschichte und Zeugnisse. Band I. Bonn: Habelt. Nollé, Johannes. 2018. “Dionysos in Roman Imperial Thrace—What Do the Coins Tell Us about Him?” Pages 195–209 in Proceedings of the First International Roman and Late Antique Thrace Conference: “Cities, Territories and Identities,” Plovdiv, 3rd–7th October 2016. Edited by Lyudmil Vagalinski, Milena Raycheva, Dilyana Boteva, and Nicolay Sharankov. Bulletin of the National Archaeological Institute 44. Sofia: National Archaeological Institute. Pauketat, Timothy R. 2020a. “Introducing New Materialisms, Rethinking Ancient Urbanisms.” Pages 1–18 in New Materialisms, Ancient Urbanisms. Edited by Susan M. Alt, and Timothy R. Pauketat. New York: Routledge. Pauketat, Timothy R. 2020b. “Immanence and the Spirit of Ancient Urbanism at Paquimé and Liangzhu.” Pages 130–157 in New Materialisms Ancient Urbanisms. Edited by Susan M. Alt, and Timothy R. Pauketat. New York: Routledge. Puar, Jasbir K. 2007. Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. Durham: Duke University Press. Robinson, E. S. G. 1914. “Coins from Lycia and Pamphylia.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 34:36–46.

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Roller, Lynn E. 1999. In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rutherford, Ian. 2020. Hittite Texts & Greek Religion: Contact, Interaction, and Comparison. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Supp-Montgomerie, Jenna. 2021. When the Medium Was the Mission: The Atlantic Telegraph and the Religious Origins of Network Culture. New York: NYU Press. Stone, Damien. 2017. Pomegranate: A Global History. London: Reaktion. Thrift, Nigel. 2004. “Intensities of Feeling: Towards a Spatial Politics of Affect.” Geografiska Annaler 86B:57–78. Tsing, Anna. 2015. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ward, Cheryl. 2003. “Pomegranates in Eastern Mediterranean Contexts during the Late Bronze Age.” World Archaeology 34:529–541.

16

Problematizing the “Discovery” of Pepouza and Tymion Caroline Crews

16.1

Introduction

In her monograph The Lives of Objects, Maia Kotrosits (2020) considers the use of fantasy for ancient people and for the modern scholars observing them. As Kotrosits observes, ancient people formed their subjectivity by viewing and being viewed as well as through narrative creativity and internalized selfreflection (Kotrosits 2020, 7–8; cf. Elsner 2007). That is, ancient people understood themselves by fantasizing narratives about themselves and others. Kotrosits links these ancient fantasies to modern ones; modern scholars use ancient sources to fantasize about how they wish the ancient world worked or looked in order to understand their modern selves. Modern scholars produce narratives to feed those fantasies, as I argue is the case with efforts to recover Pepouza and Tymion—the long-lost centers of Montanism. In August 1998, a resident from Susuzören, Turkey brought a white, marble slab containing a bilingual Greek-Latin inscription to the Uşak Archaeological Museum (inv. 16.1.98; Tabbernee and Lampe 2008, 69). According to this donor, the slab had been used as a step leading to the entrance of his grand­ father’s house. His grandfather had dug up the stone in the mid-1970s as he was plowing his field in an area locally known as Saraycık. Although the left and lower parts of the slab have broken off, no other pieces could be recovered from the area. What remains is a slab split into three extant pieces, causing some letters to be damaged or missing. The bilingual inscription—a rescript from Emperor Septimius Severus (r. 193–211 CE)—prohibits anyone from de­ manding excessive taxes of the tenant farmers residing in Simoe and Tymion. Because “Tymion” and “Pepouza” were named as the sites for the coming Jerusalem by Montanus, a leader of “the New Prophecy” group, the recovery of this inscription led William Tabbernee and Peter Lampe to conclude they had found Tymion and Pepouza. In this chapter, however, I reexamine the evidence for the locations of Pepouza and Tymion. I acknowledge that Tabbernee and Lampe may have indeed identified the Pepouza and the Tymion. Additionally, Tabbernee’s and Lampe’s research does provide a helpful starting point for more excavation work if the local farmers whose land, heritage, and livelihood would be disrupted DOI: 10.4324/9781003344247-21

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could consent and were sustainably compensated. That said, the towns’ “dis­ covery” depends upon unreliable evidence, as Christoph Markschies has observed. Expanding Markschies’s work, therefore, I examine all of the evidence for the locations of Tymion and Pepouza to argue that the current data remain inconclusive. The burden of proof falls on those presenting evidence to support their claim, and that burden has not been met. My analysis proceeds in three major sections. After providing a brief background of “Montanism” to provide context for the sites’ significance, I consider evidence for the presence of Montanism in Phrygia among allegedly Montanist inscriptions. Finally, I analyze the evidence for the Tymion and Pepouza identifications. As I argue, the literary evidence does not support the archaeological evidence recovered at the sites. I conclude by returning to Kotrosits’s work to explain the dangers of this scholarly fantasy. Recovering Tymion and Pepouza facilitate fantasies of pure origins—a point when an innovative and eclectic group of Christians were victimized by the misogy­ nistic orthodox, who later appropriated the iconography of the heretics. Such fantasies imply that if the origins of this group can be recovered, a purer form of Christianity can be recovered, as well. But the extant evidence reveals more complex dynamics than the simplistic heresy-orthodoxy dichotomy allows. Instead, I recommend further analysis of the evidence already recovered from the surface surveys to elucidate the development of Christianity in Phrygia, more broadly.1 16.2

“Montanism” in Phrygia

A Christian group emphasizing prophetic activity, “Montanism” devel­ oped in Asia Minor during the 2nd century CE. The name derives from one of its first prophet leaders, Montanus,2 but evidence of the term montanoi does not appear until Cyril of Jerusalem’s Catechesis (16.8) from the mid-4th century CE. Since some sources indicate that the group re­ ferred to themselves as “the New Prophecy,” scholars have often used that as a self-designated title.3 But they may also have simply referred to themselves as “Christians” (Epiphanius, Pan. 48.12.1). Therein lies the problem with the extant sources for Montanism/New Prophecy. These sources are primarily heresiologists, who make conflicting—and conve­ niently denigrating—reports about the group.4 Epiphanius (4th c. CE), for example, records unflattering prophecies about the group’s eschatological expectations. According to Epiphanius, Montanus’s co-prophet Maximilla predicts that no prophetess will replace her and instead that the “end” (sunteleia) will come (Pan. 48.2.4). Since the same term appears in New Testament contexts implying an imminent es­ chaton, the group has been associated with an apocalyptic worldview.5 Nevertheless, as Anne Jensen has pointed out (1996, 157–58), Maximilla’s prediction of an “end” may simply refer to the end of “prophecy,” meaning no prophets and/or prophetesses will come after her. Jensen adds that for an

Problematizing the “Discovery” of Pepouza and Tymion 281 opponent of Montanism, a false prediction of the eschaton makes the group look ridiculous and lose credibility, and Epiphanius is recording this prophecy for that precise reason. Due to these unreliable sources, therefore, Laura Nasrallah (2003, 202–3) has convincingly argued for the dismissal of the category “Montanism.” As she points out, no clear evidence remains extant to reconstruct the temporal and geographical variations of those whom ancient heresiologists lumped under several categories (i.e., “Phrygians,” “Cataphrygians,” and “Montanists”). That is, people reading, writing, and circulating certain material throughout the Mediterranean do not necessarily reflect a single group of Christians—as dis­ tinct from other Christians. Instead, sources traditionally cited to understand Montanism are better understood as listening to and partaking in broader debates about prophecy and ecstasy in antiquity. Furthermore, since no extant sources explicitly identify themselves as adhering to “Montanism” or to “New Prophecy,” both titles remain problematic.6 Descriptions of New Prophecy also become wrapped up within discussions of the Phrygian location. In fact, Eusebius refers to the group as the “so-called Phrygian heresy” (Hist. eccl. 5.18.1). Numerous other sources seem to use “Phrygia” or “Phrygian” as a cypher for “New Prophecy” (cf. Markschies 1994, 10). As Origen’s correspondent Firmilian of Caesarea (3rd c. CE) writes, “those who are called Cataphrygians” say they preach about the version of the Christ who “sent the Spirit which has spoken through Montanus and Prisca” (Ep. 75.7). Similarly, Theodore of Heraclea (3rd–4th c. CE) writes, the “heretics from Phrygia” suppose the Holy Spirit “was sent through Montanus and Priscilla” (In Iohannis 14.15). New Prophecy and Phrygia remain intimately connected among the extant source material, so scholars have focused on Phrygia as the group’s main residence. Several scholars have proposed locations for Tymion and Pepouza around Uşak, Turkey. Based on the presence of Christian inscriptions, William M. Ramsay (1883, 404) argues that Pepouza may have been at Yanikören and Tymion at Hocalar (contra Friesen 1995, 292–301). Despite few relevant in­ scriptions, he later proposes Pepouza’s location to be near Delihidirli (Ramsay 1895, 573, n. 1). Ramsay adds that when John of Ephesos destroyed Pepouza, as I discuss further below, Justinian I rebuilt it as “Justinianopolis.”7 William Tabbernee finds this implausible because “Pepouza” appears to be distinct from Justinianopolis among sources from the 8th to 9th centuries (2008, 24 n. 61). By contrast, Georges Radet identifies Pepouza at Üçkuyu (1895, 530–1). Based on an inscription he considers Montanist, William M. Calder argues for Tymion to be at Üçkuyu—modifying Radet’s identification of Üçkuyu as Pepouza—and Pepouza at Bekilli (1931, 421–5). In his extensive and expansive project Montanist Inscriptions and Testimonia, Tabbernee finds evidence of Montanism within numerous inscriptions from the Mediterranean region. Several of these inscriptions do reflect late antique Christian activity, but Tabbernee sees them as indicating specifically Montanist activity. He appeals to three inscriptions, in particular, all of which were carved

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into grave-doors recovered at Temenothyrai (modern Uşak, Turkey). After I describe these grave-doors, I then explain the criteria Tabbernee is utilizing in order to justify the presence of Montanists within the Uşak region and thus within the sites identified as Pepouza and Tymion. These three grave-door inscriptions all revolve around a church official named Diogas. One inscription (#4)8 was recovered in 1895 by Karl Buresch among the ruins of the Church of Constantine and Helena but is now con­ sidered lost. There are no recorded measurements of the inscription nor of letter height, and no line drawing, facsimile, nor photograph has ever been published. Tabbernee, however, includes Buresch’s transcribed inscription as follows: “Diogas, episkopos, for Ammion, presbytera, in memory.”9 Diogas is mentioned in two other extant Christian inscriptions (#3 and #5) recovered from the same area. In one of these other inscriptions (#3), Diogas com­ missioned a tomb for Artemidoros (an “ebiskopos”) out of church funds.10 The other inscription (#5) refers to Diogas’s tomb: “Aurelia Tatiane, while still living, for herself and her husband Diogas, episkopos, in memory.”11 The inscriptions seem to reflect a promotion for Diogas at some point in his career: In inscription #3, he remains untitled yet able to draw upon church funds. Then, by inscriptions #4 and #5, Diogas has gained the title “epis­ kopos.” The “Aurelia” of this inscription suggests a date after 212 CE (Mitchell 2013, 186). After Caracalla issued the Constitutio Antoniniana in 212 CE, citizenship was granted to free people throughout the Empire, and these new citizens were given variations of Caracalla’s adopted nomen, “Aurelius.” Neither the “Aurelia” nor “episkopos,” however, remain visible on the inscription, so I cannot confirm these details. In any case, Diogas’s tomb seems to reflect Christian symbols: a wreath-shaped loaf rests on a twolegged table (altar?), which might represent the Eucharist (Tabbernee 1997, 75; cf. 80–87). Although their dating remains tenuous, all three inscriptions might reflect Christian activity. To identify Montanist inscriptions, Tabbernee establishes ten major criteria (1997, 6–10). These criteria take the appearance of a systematic approach and appear as follows:12 1 An inscription’s provenance is within the Montanist “sphere of influ­ ence.” 2 Inscribed names relate to the major figures’ names (i.e., Montanus, Maximilla, Priscilla). 3 Inscriptions are produced within workshops exclusively working with Montanist clientele. 4 The inscription contains a cross. 5 The inscription contains the letter “chi” carved to resemble a cross. 6 The inscription contains other Christian symbols (e.g., symbols for the Eucharist). 7 The inscription contains Christian-themed formulae, such as “Christians for Christians.”13

Problematizing the “Discovery” of Pepouza and Tymion 283 8 Christian identity—in some form—has been openly and concretely professed before Constantine’s Edict of Milan (313 CE). 9 The inscriptions date to a period when the symbols would appear anachronistic for “mainstream Christianity,” which later adopted the same symbols (Tabbernee 1997, 10). 10 The inscriptions reflect beliefs and practices recognizable as Montanist and thus distinct from other Christian communities. Nevertheless, all of these criteria leave room for error—a fact which Tabbernee (1997, 6) himself acknowledges. Tabbernee extends the Montanist “sphere of influence” to other geographical areas outside of Asia Minor, but Markschies (2012b, 282) cautions against this (cf. Nasrallah 2003, 158). Drawing comparisons between texts from Asia Minor and those from other areas, such as North Africa, generate anachronisms that obscure the diverse conditions of different regions. Additionally, the “Montanist” names are not altogether rare, so their presence is not inherently a Montanist signal. Although all of the Diogas inscriptions appear to have come from one workshop, the same workshop seems to have also produced several other funerary doors without any Christian symbols (Mitchell 2013). So a collec­ tion of inscriptions need not point to one religious group; rather, they signal that the patrons lived in a geographically proximate area and had access to sufficient resources to commission such inscriptions. Tabbernee’s criteria can be used to confirm Christian activity, not inher­ ently Montanist activity. Tabbernee maintains that when he considers it unsafe to profess Christian identities and practices (before the Edict of Milan), such allusions are specific to Montanists. But these allusions are not specific to Montanists. Any differentiation from other Christians does not necessarily distinguish the boundaries of intra-Christian group identity, but the diversity of early Christian practice. Martin Steskal (2020, 124–5) chal­ lenges the assumption that burials, in particular, would imply certain beliefs of an affiliated group. No consistent nor defined funerary procedures for Christians were established before the late 5th century CE, so these Diogas grave-doors cannot be considered distinctly Montanist. Similarly, Édouard Chiricat (2013, 203) questions how widely the fear of persecution in Asia Minor was experienced. Chiricat thus doubts whether it was even necessary for Christians to hide their identity in 3rd-century Phrygia. Assuming the Diogas grave-doors could even be dated to the late-2nd to early 3rd c., they attest variation among Christian burials and among Christian perceptions of persecution, not Montanism. Finally, recognizably Montanist beliefs and practices remain problematic, and a closer look at inscription #3 elucidates this further. Based on a common Phrygian term of affection for “mother,” the presbytera Ammion has a feminine name. Tabbernee draws upon anti-Montanist polemics by Epiphanius and Augustine (using Epiphanius) that women held visible positions within Montanist hierarchies (Epiphanius, Pan. 49.2.5; Augustine,

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Haer. 27). Tabbernee concludes that Ammion’s identification as a Montanist presbytera “makes the best sense out of the total available evidence.”14 Ammion’s Montanist leadership position, however, is not the “best” con­ clusion to be drawn from the evidence. Epiphanius and Augustine rely upon common polemical tropes to ridicule a targeted group. In this case, they are ridiculing Montanists for giving women recognizable leadership titles. Such accusations should not be relied upon as an accurate description of a group which heresiologists are working to delegitimize. Moreover, presbyterai are not restricted to Montanism. Tabbernee (1997, 68–70) acknowledges that “presbytera” (and cognates) can refer to women in both Jewish and (non-Montanist) Christian inscriptions from the 3rd to 4th centuries CE across the Mediterranean region. Tabbernee (1997, 70) also cites multiple sources, including the Council of Laodikeia (the mid- to late4th c.), declaring that women known as “presbyterai” could not be ordained. Such admonishments reveal an existing problem that needed clarification: presbyterai were, in fact, being ordained. Rules do not need to be stated—much less repeated—unless they are responding to an established and recurring problem (Mitchell 2013, 196). The term might not even refer to ordination powers at all. Ammion could have been an elder, widowed, or unmarried woman held in some esteem within Diogas’s community.15 Because Ammion’s inscription is missing, important details that could clarify its use or context are inaccessible. Its size and recovery setting are unclear; alternate readings of the inscription might be interpreted; and pre­ viously missed details remain unnoticed. The inscription remains noteworthy if it does refer to a “presbytera” who is honored by an “episkopos.” But it does not prove Montanist activity in the Uşak region. 16.3

The Identification of Tymion

Little evidence of Tymion’s existence survives. Only one late literary source—preserving an earlier source—attests any connection between Pepouza and Tymion. No other ancient literary source references the ex­ istence of Tymion at all. With the 1998 donation of the Severan rescript stele to the Uşak Archaeological Museum, however, there is now one epigraphic reference to Tymion. Upon learning about this stele, William Tabbernee and Peter Lampe began searching for Tymion around Uşak, Turkey. The Tymion relevance to New Prophecy lies only with Apollonius of Ephesos (active ca. 180–210 CE), as preserved by Ephesos: Montanus named two small Phrygian towns, Pepouza and Tymion, “Jerusalem.” Here, Montanus was thought to be expecting the “New Jerusalem” of Revelation 21 to descend (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.18.2). This reference does not explicitly identify Pepouza and Tymion as geographically proximate. But Revelation 21:10 specifies the “New Jerusalem” to sit upon “a great and high mountain.” Reading Apollonius and Revelation together, therefore, Heinz Kraft (1955, 260–61) has suggested that a mountain lay between Pepouza and Tymion,

Problematizing the “Discovery” of Pepouza and Tymion 285 thus also assuming the geographical proximity of Pepouza and Tymion. But Tymion is not mentioned in any other literary source. Christoph Markschies (1994, 14) interprets this silence as an indication that the city was either abandoned or destroyed. While some evidence might point to a location called “Tymion,” this evidence certainly cannot confirm a “center of Montanism in Phrygia” (Tabbernee and Lampe 2008, 107). Now held at the Uşak Archaeological Museum, the Severan rescript is inscribed onto a marble stele split into three surviving pieces.16 The inscrip­ tion is bilingual, in both Latin and Greek. At the top of the stele, the Greek text says that it is responding to petitions presented to the emperors. It then notes that the following rescript is also displayed in the colonnade of the Baths of Trajan in Rome, but this copy does not survive. Switching to Latin, the inscription reads that Emperor Septimius Severus and his sons, Caracalla (as Antoninus Pius) and Geta, prohibit anyone from demanding excessive dues (exactiones) of the tenant farmers among the Tymians and Simoens. Nevertheless, this inscription does not explain—nor have any connection to—any local, religious movement. Lampe (2016, 384; 2017, 107) suggests that the ecstatic prophesying of Montanism created an outlet for these financially burdened farmers. But the surviving prophesies are attributed only to Montanus, Priscilla, and Maximilla. The authority to prophesy might have been limited to those specific individuals and not necessarily open to all group participants. Furthermore, Lampe’s conclusion is based on causal conjecture, as if isolated epigraphic data like this could explain the cause of a religious phenomenon. Similar rescripts issued by Septimius Severus survive from other locations and in other media. As P.Mich. 9.529 (v) attests, for example, the Severan administration had previously issued an edict prohibiting tax collectors from demanding additional dues. But residents of Karanis, Egypt continued to complain to imperial authorities, so the papyrus contains a reiterated rescript (Oliver 1989; Lewis 1975). Such rescripts suggest empire-wide enforcement efforts against individuals, such as tax collectors, who were burdening locals with either illegal taxation or abusive fees (Tabbernee and Lampe 2008, 61–62). Although the circumstances of the rescript on behalf of the farmers in Simoe and Tymion remain unclear, the inscription still reflects imperial protection against local financial burdens. Lampe argues that the donor’s grandfather recovered the slab in situ. Consistency among local reports maintains that the field was the recovery location (Tabbernee and Lampe 2008, 69). Its size and weight might make its movement cumbersome. Additionally, geomagnetic mapping conducted at the stele’s recovery location has shown no indications of a settlement there. The mapping does reveal a few small structures, two ancient roads, and a well. According to Lampe, none of the data suggests a settlement large en­ ough to have received an imperial rescript.17 Assuming it was recovered in situ, therefore, the Severan inscription may have been set up on a cross­ roads between two larger settlements found in the area, where the two major ancient roads intersected.

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Nevertheless, as Lampe admits, the stele’s movement from another previous location is not impossible nor implausible (Tabbernee and Lampe 2008, 245, n. 3). Even if local reports can be considered reliable, they can only speak to living memory—not the 1700 years between its erection and its modern use (Tabbernee and Lampe 2008, 245–46). It was certainly moved and used for another purpose (i.e., as a porch step) during the 1970s, and the reuse of architectural pieces (spolia) is common in the area. Spoliated material might even travel large distances in the medieval and renaissance periods either to save costs on new constructions or to be displayed within wealthy house­ holds.18 No other shards of the slab were found in the same field, so no cor­ roborating material evidence of its location can be established (Tabbernee and Lampe 2008, 69). It is within the realm of possibility, therefore, that this Severan inscription was moved from another location before being recovered in the Saraycık field, just as it is possible that it was set up in the Saraycık field. Its original location simply cannot be determined with the available evidence. In larger areas near the inscription, Lampe has identified two settlements as the imperial estates mentioned in the inscription, Simoe and Tymion. At least eight large buildings have been spotted on geomagnetic mapping in an area north of the slab’s recovery location.19 Lampe interprets those structures to be manorial farm buildings—suitable for an imperial estate. Likewise, an additional area south of the inscription’s recovery location might hold a larger settlement.20 Ancient structures lie under and next to Şükraniye, and as with the Severan rescript, residents regularly recover and reuse ancient marble architectural fragments for their properties (Lampe 2008, 179–80; Tabbernee and Lampe 2008, 247). The recovery of Tymion can—at best—be a possibility, not a certainty. Only one literary source attests the relevance of Tymion for Pepouza (Apollonius, via Eusebius), so the relationship between Tymion and Pepouza has stayed murky. With the recovery of the Severan inscription, however, Tabbernee and Lampe have identified the first and smaller settlement as Simoe, and the second and larger settlement as Tymion. With one literary source and one epigraphic source, Tabbernee and Lampe began to look in the same geographical area for Pepouza. 16.4

The Identification of Pepouza

By the 4th century CE, the connection between Phrygia, New Prophecy, and Pepouza had become deeply intertwined. Eusebius provides several testimonies corroborating a Phrygian locale, particularly near Hierapolis. Serapion (Bishop of Antioch, late 2nd to early 3rd c. CE) reports that Claudius Apollinaris (Bishop of Hierapolis) had written on the “new prophecy” (via Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.19.1–2). Serapion implies that Apollinaris and some other local bishops might have a geographically proximate relationship with the group. In the mid-4th c., Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechesis 16.8) likewise describes Pepouza as a very small village in Phrygia. Epiphanius (Pan. 48.14.1–2)

Problematizing the “Discovery” of Pepouza and Tymion 287 attests that Pepouza has since been destroyed although pilgrims still gather at the site in Phrygia. Despite Epiphanius’s attestation of its destruction, tenuous reports of “Pepouza” continue. A traveling guide for touring major bishoprics, Hierokles’s Synekdemos (late 5th to early 6th c. CE) seems to record the locations in the order his readers would likely travel. He lists “Pepouza” among Phrygian cities, some of which remain unidentified.21 After discussing the possibilities of Hierokles’s route, Christoph Markschies concludes that Pepouza might be somewhere north of Hierapolis. But Markschies (1994, 18–21) adds that nothing more specific can be determined (contra Tabbernee and Lampe 2008, 21–24). In the early 5th c. CE, Philostorgius states that Constantius II (r. 337–361 CE) handed over an early leader of Anomoean Arianism—Aetius—to Basil of Caesarea to be exiled to Pepouza. But Philostorgius does not mention any later destruction (Hist. eccl. 4.8). This section of Philostorgius’s Ecclesiastical History is also preserved as an epitome only by Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople in the mid-9th c. CE. Philostorgius is writing a defense of Arius and Arianism, and Photius interprets this as an attack upon the “orthodox.” Thus, not only may some of these details be condensed, but they may also contain two conflicting layers of polemical redaction. Theodoret (5th c. CE) corroborates that Aetius was exiled to Phrygia. Even so, Theodoret does not name a location and contradicts Philostorgius’s account. According to Theodoret (Hist. eccl. 2.27.12), Basil was not given Aetius by the emperor but removed Aetius from custody himself. Even though Epiphanius writes that Pepouza had been destroyed by the late-4th c., much later sources attest that Montanist facilities were destroyed during the 6th c. CE by John, Bishop of Ephesos. John’s personal testimony on the event is no longer extant, but later sources reference his work. According to an anonymous Chronicle, traditionally attributed to Dionysius of Tell Maḥrē (9th c.), John discovered the bones of Montanus alongside Maximilla and Priscilla. This source also says that the entire site was burned and destroyed to its foundations.22 Similarly, Michael the Syrian (12th c.) reports on the reign of Justinian I, who had reigned 600 years earlier (527–565 CE). According to Michael, Bishop John of Ephesos burned part of the Montanists’ place of assembly by a Justinian imperial order.23 Michael proceeds to say that John’s squadron discovered a marble shrine with an inscription, “of Montanos and the women.” Beside this lay the skeletons of Montanus, Maximilla, and Priscilla, all containing golden plates on their mouths. The skeletons and the group’s books were subsequently burned. After this, their facility was purified and became a church. Yet, neither the anonymous Chronicle nor Michael’s Chronicle identifies the site as “Pepouza,” only as Montanist facilities. This last testimonial detail—the site being purified into an acceptable church—provides a lot of meaning for Tabbernee (1997, 1, 35–47), but Michael’s representation of events should be treated more carefully. Tabbernee considers Michael’s testimony as evidence that Pepouza was

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reclaimed by “orthodox” Christians who might attend Church Councils, as I discuss further below. Michael’s Chronicle, however, functions to increase the historical legitimacy of the Syriac Orthodox Church, especially over and against other geographically proximate Christian groups (Weltecke 2009). Furthermore, Michael’s perception of historical events affects how he pres­ ents his source material. Michael is trying to persuade his readers that the Syriac Orthodox Church has always been the heir of God’s community and has always triumphed under pressure (van Ginkel 2009, 55). Thus, Michael’s retelling of the destruction and downfall of the Montanists fits his narrative of the triumph of the Syriac Church, which he traces through John of Ephesos. Even if the anonymous Chronicle could also be trusted, one could only confirm that John of Ephesos publicized his destruction of a site he considered to be Montanist. Tabbernee’s conclusions that this site was indeed the Pepouza—and that it became a non-Montanist church—remain highly speculative. Although no diocese of “Pepouza” appears on any list of participants from Church Councils from 553, 680, or 692 CE,24 Tabbernee points to lists of signatories at the Second Council of Nicaea (787 CE) as evidence of Pepouza’s orthodox conversion. A certain Theophylactus “praeses Pepuzon” signed a dogmatic degree of one of the Nicaea II sessions (Mansi 1761, 13.631 C). The “praeses” title is unclear in this context because it more commonly refers to Roman governors. Tabbernee and Lampe (2008, 19) interprets it as “bishop” to align with Hierokles’s identification of bishoprics around Phrygia. But Markschies problematizes this detail, observing that Tabbernee’s reading seems to have been caused by a conflation of lines in the manuscript tradition.25 Thus, a problem with Giovanni Mansi’s critical edition has facilitated Tabbernee’s interpretation. During the same Council, a certain Euthymius seems to have signed his name as the “superior of the Pepouzians.” To Tabbernee, the “superior” title implies the existence of a monastery attached to a town named “Pepouza,” but this is not necessarily the Pepouza. Tabbernee (2008, 97–100) focuses on a textual variant in Mansi’s critical edition to interpret Euthymius’s signature as proof of a monastery’s existence at or near the Montanist Pepouza (cf. McKechnie 2019, 142). But as Markschies argues, this variation only confirms confusion across the textual transmission process.26 Even so, Tabbernee heavily depends upon this variant as both validation for Michael the Syrian’s attestation of an orthodoxification of the Montanist facility and proof of a monastery’s presence at the now-orthodox Pepouza. I do not think that this “Pepouza” is necessarily the same Montanist Pepouza, nor can the variant even be a reliable data point because of contradictions within the manuscript tradition. At a synod held at the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (879 CE), Tabbernee finds another attestation of an orthodox Pepouza. A list of sig­ natories contains “Nikolaos, [bishop] of Tepouza.”27 Because of linguistic similarities, Tabbernee (2008, 19) interprets the “t” to be interchangeable with

Problematizing the “Discovery” of Pepouza and Tymion 289 “p” and thus equates “Tepouza” with “Pepouza.” Markschies (1994, 14) points out, however, that “Tepouza” appears in a list of locations not restricted to Phrygia. That is, “Tepouza”/“Pepouza” need not even be within the region of Phrygia. Moreover, Markschies demonstrates that other episcopal chairs mentioned in this list do not appear elsewhere. The host of the synod, Photius, may have ordained numerous bishops for various small towns in order to increase the appearance of his following for this particular synod. Ultimately, confirmation of Pepouza’s participation in church activities must rely upon numerous, tenuous suppositions. First, one must trust Michael the Syrian’s unreliable account that a Montanist pilgrimage site was reclaimed as “orthodox” church space. Second, a delegate could have such inconsistent attendance that he might be absent from three major Council meetings and attend only one. Third, textual variation should conveniently be reconstructed with “Pepouza.” Fourth, the “praeses” title should be equivalent to “bishop,” despite the more common “episkopos.” Fifth, “t” and “p” should be con­ sidered linguistically interchangeable. Sixth, Nikolaos’s “Tepouza” is within Phrygia despite being on a list of several cities around Asia Minor. Seventh, the political motivations behind signatories’ locations can be disregarded. And, eighth, the “Pepouza” in all of these lists must be synonymous with the Montanist “Pepouza.” Only by accepting all of these suppositions can the possibility of a monastery at Pepouza be accepted, in turn. According to Tabbernee, then, Pepouza needed to be within Phrygia, to be geographically proximate to Tymion, and to house an orthodox monastery—criteria not fulfilled by any previous attempts to locate Pepouza and Tymion. After the recovery of the Severan inscription and their sub­ sequent identification of the Tymion settlement, therefore, Tabbernee and Lampe began looking for sites with a monastery and, with the help of a local guide, found one in the Ulubey Canyon Valley along the Banaz Stream.28 Along cliffside donkey paths above the Valley, hermit-dwelling caves were also spotted near the monastery (Figure 16.1). The caves indicate a semi-cenobitic monastic community, in which monks may dwell in the private caves, the monastic complex, or both. The monastery seems to have been carved into the rock canyon wall around a natural grotto, which serves as a basis for the central half-dome visible to the exterior (Figure 16.2). In total, 63 rooms span across 3 floors: Level A on the lowest register, Level B in the middle, and Level C at the highest. Due to rock slides and erosion, Level A has been significantly damaged and is not accessible for mapping (Figure 16.3).29 Without climbing equipment, most of the monastery remains inaccessible (Figure 16.4). Several rooms are visible and open to the cliffside, connected by hallways and balconies. When the monastery was active, a wooden staircase and lift connected the levels, and some stone-cut steps still connect Level A to B. Remains of a wooden beam on Level A have been radiocarbon dated to a tree cut between the 9th and 11th centuries. The beam was also a secondary

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Figure 16.1 An individual walks underneath hermitage holes carved into the cliffside wall in the Ulubey Canyon Valley. Photo by Caroline Crews.

installation to repair damage underneath it (Tabbernee and Lampe 2008, 251–2). Based on this beam, Lampe suggests the monastery may have been built around the 5th–6th c. CE, when Anatolia experienced a “building boom.” But Hugh Elton and Ine Jacobs (2019, 5) point out that although this period is often considered a prosperous time in Asia Minor, prosperity cannot be equated with the number of new constructions. Most monuments undergo decorative, structural, and technical alterations—like the wooden beam—that can make construction, renovation, and day-to-day maintenance difficult to distinguish and to date accordingly. Determining a more specific date for the creation and use of this monastery has been difficult and would require further research. Some animal bones and plant litter were recovered in a possible refectory (B12a). Because they remain untested, however, they cannot be determined to be ancient, medieval, or modern. More radiocarbon dating can also be done on the traces of a large fire that destroyed much of the monastery. Soot is detectable on all three Levels and within crosses etched into some of the walls. Benches in some rooms, particularly in B3c, were partially cut from the rock-wall, but traces of burnt wood around them suggest they were also covered in wood. In any case, numerous recovered items can undergo testing to get a more precise date for the complex’s use.

Problematizing the “Discovery” of Pepouza and Tymion 291

Figure 16.2 The grotto is at the highest register of the rock-cut monastery in the Ulubey Canyon Valley. Photo by Caroline Crews.

By conducting surface surveys and geomagnetic mapping, Tabbernee and Lampe have also found remains of a nearby settlement now identified as the Montanist center, Pepouza (2008, 165, 248–49). Walls of two structures were detected on a “Central Terrace” of the settlement area. The two structures on the terrace are oriented on different axes and are of different sizes.30 Lampe suggests the larger structure is a Byzantine-era basilica, dated based on substructural walls he identifies as Byzantine. A Byzantine bread stamp was also recovered on the surface near the Terrace. Now held at the Uşak Archaeological Museum, the stamp resembles the encircled cross on the aforementioned grave-doors from Temenothyrai/Uşak (Tabbernee and Lampe 2008, 103–5, 188–9). Along the slope of the Central Terrace’s canyon wall, a Nymphaeum and “Cave 4” can be found. Although the top of the entrance has apparently been dug out by other individuals, Cave 4 has been largely buried. The Cave is in danger of collapsing and has not been thoroughly examined. But from the exterior, Cave 4 is clearly not a natural formation but was carved. Lampe also notes that it appears to be filled with fragments of ancient bricks and ceramics (Tabbernee and Lampe 2008, 167–9). Based on his dating of the fragmentary material, Lampe has determined Cave 4 to have been the tomb for the “founders of Montanism” destroyed by John of Ephesos. He concludes that

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Figure 16.3 The lowest level of the rock-cut monastery in the Ulubey Canyon Valley has eroded, making the higher levels difficult to access without climbing equipment. Photo by Caroline Crews.

the Central Terrace may have contained Montanist churches serving as pil­ grimage sites. Nevertheless, no evidence of soot, fire damage, or other sources of destruction has been observed to corroborate this conclusion. Small finds from the settlement seem to show continuous habitation from the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods. Recovered from the surface were coins from the late-3rd to mid-6th centuries.31 But as Andrea Augenti (2012, 356) observes, abandoned monasteries often arise among ruins of “lost cities.” So the dating of the settlement does not necessarily support the dating of the monastery. Furthermore, Efthymios Rizos (2019, 52) demonstrates that shrines to martyrs often became monastic centers in late antiquity, especially in rural areas of Asia Minor. If Cave 4 is indeed a martyr shrine, the development of a monastery in close proximity to a pilgrimage network would be entirely normal—if not, expected—for the growing institutional

Problematizing the “Discovery” of Pepouza and Tymion 293

Figure 16.4 An individual is crouching in a room accessible without climbing equipment at the rock-cut monastery in the Ulubey Canyon Valley. The room may extend further than pictured, but the rocky and dusty floor makes the rest of the room too unstable to access. A thick layer of soot coats the ceiling. Photo by Franz Gilbert Hetroza Biantan, used with permission.

autonomy and material wealth of monasticism in Asia Minor (Rizos 2019, 46). Cave 4 need not have any connection to Montanism at all. 16.5

Conclusion: Fantasies of Pure Origins

This chapter pushes back against Tabbernee’s and Lampe’s identifications of Pepouza and Tymion. As I demonstrate, every piece of evidence used to identify the sites can be problematized. Identifying features of Montanism, such as the Temenothyrai grave-doors, cannot reliably distinguish Montanists from other Christians in Phrygia. The relevance of Tymion to Pepouza only comes from one literary source, as preserved by another centuries-later source. The Severan rescript mentioning Tymion may not have been recovered in situ and thus may have originated in another location entirely. Literary sources disagree about the date, circumstances, and consequences for a destruction of Pepouza. The use of Pepouza by the “orthodox” comes from one source written 600 years after the recorded event, within a work detailing the victories of the Syriac Orthodox Church against heretics, including Montanists. The mentions of “Pepouza” in signatory lists remain problematic, as well, and cannot prove the existence of a bishopric nor monastery at a Pepouza within

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nor even outside of Phrygia. The recovered monastery has had no features identifying it as a Pepouzian monastery at all, nor have the possible basilicas on the Central Terrace provided any clear evidence of Montanism. No references to “Pepouza” or Montanism appear on any in situ inscriptions or on other artifacts. The proximity of a martyrion—if the Central Terrace can even be identified as a martyrion—to a monastery is much more likely to reflect common Christian constructions in Asia Minor than a distinctly Montanist Pepouza. Tabbernee’s and Lampe’s proposed locations might certainly be the places, if not places considered Pepouza and Tymion at some point. But the evidence they have offered has not proven their case. Despite Tabbernee’s and Lampe’s confidence in their “discovery” of Pepouza and Tymion, other scholars have expressed skepticism. Markschies (2012a) has provided a brief but strong critique of their identifications, especially the aforementioned textual basis for a Pepouza monastery. A specialist on Montanism, Christine Trevett (2009) hopes Tabbernee and Lampe are correct, but she acknowledges the circumstantial nature of their evidence. Stephen Mitchell (2013, 169) similarly expresses some cautious optimism for their identification but ultimately determines the location of Montanism’s “origins” to be “now broadly clear.” Even Tabbernee and Lampe (2008, 106) briefly acknowledge the lack of identifying evidence. At what point does caution yield to confidence? I return now to Maia Kotrosits’s (2020) work, in which she explores the self-definition produced by fantasies. Just as ancient Christians defined themselves through their imagination, so too have modern scholars. To inform their own definitions of self, scholars produce narratives to feed their fantasies of how they wish the ancient world worked. In this case, the recovery of Pepouza and Tymion feeds the modern fantasy of recovering pure origins, veiled beneath anti-Catholic ideologies. In Prophets and Gravestones, Tabbernee (2009) writes an “imaginative history” of the origins and development of Montanism. He pens conversations and events he imagines happened in order to fill out his narrative: not only did Montanists participate in an organized group, but they even existed as innovative—yet pure—Christians victimized by orthodox figures dealing with their own hierarchical pressures. For example, Tabbernee (2009, 21‐3) describes a particularly harrowing walk Apollinaris experiences around Hierapolis—including choking on the cloud of sulfur wafting out of the Plutonion—before coming to the conclusion that he must denounce the New Prophecy as a heresy.32 Should Tabbernee’s audience infer that Apollinaris was not in his right mind when he made his decision? Tabbernee (2009, v) even dedicates the volume to Montanist prophetesses, “whose courageous Christian faith, deep spirituality, and prophetic vision transcend the vagaries of history.” Tabbernee (2009, xxiii) explicitly defines his desired outcome of this volume: “It is this evidence of the losers as preserved by the victors that I have sought to bring to light.” In his verbiage, “victors” and “losers” take on an embittered tone—an occasion when Goliath wickedly destroyed the courageous David, as it were. At the same time, the

Problematizing the “Discovery” of Pepouza and Tymion 295 emphasis on a pure and original version of Christianity—particularly a charis­ matic one—echoes early 20th-century scholarship valorizing the revolutionary nature of charismatic Protestantism against rigid Catholicism (cf. Nasrallah, 2003, 13–19). Tabbernee’s fantasy has also been endorsed and replicated by others. Paul McKechnie (2019, 103) relies upon Tabbernee’s imaginative history as a reliable source for contextualizing the nature of prophecy in Asia Minor. Tabbernee’s history suits McKechnie’s overall narrative that Christians innovated and transformed oracular customs in the region—for the better, of course. Similarly, Cecil Robeck (2010, 415) approvingly uses Tabbernee’s work, including Prophets and Gravestones, in order to trace continuity between ancient Montanism and modern Pentecostal and Charismatic movements. According to Robeck, “some of the same dynamics that tend to separate denominational leaders from self-proclaimed ‘prophets’ today were present nearly two millennia ago.” In fact, he adds (2010, 417), Montanism serves as “an instructive proto-type” of modern Pentecostal and Charismatic movements. The underlying assumption for all of these works seems to be that Montanist prophets represent a purer form of Christianity that should be reinstated, as if they practiced the most creative and influential forms of early Christianity. By projecting these modern ideals onto an ancient movement, such scholars avoid interrogating their own institutional biases and privilege within their Christian and academic communities. Instead, they can find precedent for their ideal in antiquity and shift the blame for those harmed by institutional authority onto the traditional “orthodox.”33 Instead of searching for the origins of Montanism, therefore, I recommend examining the evidence as interesting and important for understanding the development of Christianity, more generally. If the Temenothyrai (Uşak) grave inscriptions can be reliably dated before the Edict of Milan, they might suggest that Christians in the area had access to wealth and privilege that could protect them from persecution efforts. The Severan rescript reveals that the Severans were engaging in a large-scale effort to protect individuals from excessive and illegal taxation. The rock-cut monastery could be fruitful for studying the development of Christian monasticism in Asia Minor. Despite their popularity in other areas of Turkey, like Cappadocia (cf. Kostof 1972), this monastery remains the only known rock-cut monastery in the entire Uşak region (Tabbernee 2003, 92). Much more work can be done, but it need not be motivated by fantasies of a pure, charismatic, original Christianity. Notes 1 For over a decade, I have relied upon Steve Friesen as an immense source of guidance and mentorship. In May–June 2022, Steve led my colleagues and me to several sites in Turkey, including the Uşak Archaeological Museum and the rockcut monastery now associated with “Pepouza.” This project led us through muddy trails, fragile bridges, and treacherous climbs—all driven by Steve’s excitement, encouragement, and adventurous spirit. Where possible, I have included images of

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this trip and—in one case—his own participation. No words can adequately ex­ press how grateful I am for his support—both academic and emotional—all of these years. My sincerest thanks also go to Birol Can and Mehmet Imamoğlu for their help in locating the site. Heinz Kraft (1955, 263) argues that Montanus was not a prophet but was con­ sidered a prophet only by later followers. Anne Jensen (1996, 154) challenges this. Apollinaris of Hierapolis and Serapion of Antioch, as preserved by Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.16.4, 5.19.2. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.16.13, 5.18.3; Jerome, Ep. 41.4. Matt 13:39, 40; 24:3; 28:20; Heb 9:26. Cf. Marjanen 2005, 203–4. For the duration of this paper, I interchange “Montanism” and “New Prophecy” to refer to the same group. The name used depends upon the scholarship I am engaging. Rather than rehashing the merits of treating them as an organized group, this paper is assessing the merits of the arguments identifying Pepouza and Tymion to be “the headquarters of the Montanists,” as Lampe (2016, 384) writes. I thank Peter Lampe for graciously directing me to this article. Ramsay 1895, 574–6, 578–9, 616; 1931, 15, 31. For simplicity, I use #n to represent Tabbernee’s inscription numbers ( Tabbernee 1997, 66–72). I have not been able to find inventory numbers for any of these grave-doors. Διογᾶς ἐβίσκοπος Αμμιῳ πρεσβυτέρᾳ μνήμης χάριν ( Tabbernee 1997, 66). Δειογᾶς Ἀρτεμιδώρῳ ἐβισκόπῳ ἐκ{κ} τοῦ κυριακοῦ μνήμης χάριν ( Tabbernee 1997, 62–65). Αὐρ Τατιανὴ ἑαυτῇ ζῶσα σεαυτῇ καὶ Διογᾷ συνβ[ί]ῳ ἐβισκόπῳ μνήμης χάριν ( Tabbernee 1997, 72–76). For easier organization, I have changed the order of Tabbernee’s criteria. The phrase “Christians for Christians” appears on several inscriptions dated to 3rd c. CE and recovered from Appia (modern Pınarcık). Cf. Tabbernee 1997, 251–7, 261–80, 288–92, 296–300. Tabbernee 1997, 71. Lampe (2017, 110) upholds Tabbernee’s conclusion. I sin­ cerely thank Peter Lampe for directing me to this work. Mitchell 2013, 185; contra McKechnie 2019, 137–8. McKechnie pushes back against Mitchell’s identification of “Diogas” as a bishop. McKechnie argues that the title and duties of “bishop” had not yet been established, and I do not disagree. However, McKechnie proceeds to make a contradictory point. Challenging Mitchell again, McKechnie argues that Ammion’s rank as female presbyter shows a “clear Montanist influence.” Thus, for McKechnie, the “bishop” title cannot have been clearly defined in the early 3rd c., but the “presbytera” title was. Estimated to have originally measured 0.97 meters in width and 0.8 m in height, the slab—when all of the pieces are aligned—now measures approximately 0.79 m wide and 0.73 m tall. A total of 16 lines of the bilingual inscription remain partially extant, with the letter heights around 2 cm. The same engraver likely inscribed both the Greek and Latin texts, but Tabbernee supposes that the engraver had a better knowledge of Greek than of Latin. The Latin text contains inconsistent use of interpuncts, especially around abbreviations. A few spelling errors seem to have been carved, as well. Instead of “maiorum,” for example, “maeorem” has been inscribed, but the first “e” has been crossed out to resemble an “i” ( Tabbernee and Lampe 2008, 51–54). Some ceramic shards and a Byzantine coin were also found on the surface, but Tabbernee’s and Lampe’s team has not received permission to excavate any of the relevant areas ( Tabbernee and Lampe 2008, 246). It should be noted that transporting spolia across great distances is more likely in areas of affluence, such as Rome, where wealthy individuals or institutions could

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pay for this transportation. So although this area of Phrygia is less likely to have attracted the attention of medieval and renaissance tourists, the point still stands: it is not impossible for a marble slab with an inscription to have been moved nearby nor further away ( Esch 2016; Flood 2016). The buildings are located 2.66km northeast of the inscription’s recovery location. Roman and Byzantine ceramic shards, bricks, tiles, and glass fragments have also been found there ( Tabbernee and Lampe 2008, 246–7). This area is 4.8km southwest of the inscription’s recovery location and spans 23.4 hectares, larger than the current village of Şükraniye. An assortment of small finds has also been recovered from this second settlement, including a marble relief of Pan, stones marked with a cross, and a marble grave stele for a married couple who were possibly Christian: on the right, a feminine symbol of a mirror; on the left, a stylized scroll symbolizing literacy, presumably for the husband. A cross was engraved into each of the two arches of the stele. On the southern outskirts of the second settlement, Şükraniye, is a necropolis with Ottoman tombs from the 19th century. These Ottoman tombs contain reused late Roman architectural fragments, two of which bear Greek inscriptions Lampe dates to late antiquity. One inscription, he dates to the 4th–5th century CE, was itself reused by late ancient Christians whose names—Theodorus and Kyndynis—are accompanied by a Chi-Rho. The other inscription, which he dates based on the onomastics sometime before the late-3rd century CE, bears a weathered “Aurellios.” But several other inscriptions from Phrygia and Lykaonia containing variations of the name “Aurelius” can be dated into the 4th and even 5th centuries CE and need not be restricted to the late-3rd century CE ( Moga 2011, 179; Larsen 1946): MAMA 11.272 (4th c., grave stele, Laodikeia); MAMA 11.237 (4th/5th c., grave stele, Kinna); MAMA 11.238 (4th/5th c., grave stele, Kinna); MAMA 11.239 (4th/5th c., grave stele, Kinna); MAMA 11.240 (4th/5th c., grave stele, Kinna). Due to the datable pottery recovered from the site, Lampe concludes that it seems to have been inhabited since the late Bronze Age (2010; 2008). I am extremely grateful to Peter Lampe for bringing his articles to my attention. Synekdemos 667.2–10. The list appears in the following order: Lounda, Moltē, Eumeneia, Siblia, Pepouza, Briana, Sebaste, Ilouza, Akmona. Pseudo-Dionysius, Chronicle, entry for year 861 of Seleucid era (i.e., 550 CE). Cf. Tabbernee 1997, 28–35; Tabbernee and Lampe 2008, 19. Michael the Syrian, Chronicle, 9.33. Only one extant Syriac manuscript of the text remains from the late 16th century. Markschies 1994, 13; contra Tabbernee and Lampe 2008, 88, n. 10. Tabbernee challenges Markschies’s work by arguing that the bishopric could still exist even if a bishop is not included on other council lists. He points out that Bishop Eugenios of Laodikeia did not attend one of the other church councils. Tabbernee winds up contradicting his point, however, by demonstrating that a bishop might not attend one council. This does not explain why a bishop might miss three important councils. The line likely read, instead, “Θεοφύλακτος ἡγούμενος Βόρδου” ( Markschies 2012a, 1203–4). This council list is preserved in both Latin and Greek manuscripts, but in his critical edition, Mansi (1761, 13.153) includes the Greek and Latin side-by-side, “Εὐθύμιος ἡγούμενος Οξυβετῶν ὁμοίως • Euthymius hegumenus Oxybetensium si­ militer.” Then, in the margins, Mansi adds a variant to the Latin line, “Euthymius hegumenus Pepuz ensium.” This variant, he notes, comes from one Latin manu­ script (Bibliotheque Nationale de France, lat. 17339). Yet as Markschies shows (2012a, 1203–4), Mansi’s note is incorrect. The variant does not come from a single Latin manuscript, but actually from three Greek manuscripts, which write: “Εὐθύμιος ἡγούμενος τῆς Πεπουζῶν.” In the edition process, the Pepouzōn variant got transliterated into Latin and mistakenly attributed to a single Latin

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manuscript, making it appear less common and in a different language than it actually is. Thus, Tabbernee’s trust in the Pepouzōn variant over Oxybetōn does, in fact, seem warranted—perhaps more so than he is aware. Mansi 1761, 17.377 BC: Νικόλεω Τεπούτζης. For a full description of the monastery, see Tabbernee and Lampe 2008, 206–30. See Tabbernee and Lampe 2008, 211 and 220 for floor plans of Levels B and C, respectively. The larger structure is oriented east-west and measures 23 × 35 × 35 m. On the Terrace, a marble threshold for this structure measures 156 × 88 × 88 × 20 cm. The smaller structure seems oriented northwest-southeast. Lampe states a northeastsouthwest orientation, but the maps reflect an NW–SE axis. No measurements have been provided for the smaller structure. The settlement also contains several tombcaves, Roman-period villas, a Roman aqueduct bridge, and two marble quarries. The coins are from Maximian (r. 285–305 CE); Constantius II (r. 337–361 CE); Theodosius I (r. 379–395 CE); and Justinian I (r. 527–565 CE). Cf. Tabbernee and Lampe 2008, 188. From the nearby Karayakuplu site, Neolithic items have also been recovered ( Oy 2019). As another example, Tabbernee imagines the issues John of Ephesos was wrestling with before he ultimately pillaged Pepouza ( 2009, 297–303). For a similar critique of Jan Bremmer’s work on ancient female figures, see Stefaniw 2020, 273–77.

Bibliography Augenti, Andrea. 2012. “Concluding Remarks: A Tale of Many (Lost) Cities: Past, Present and Future.” Pages 353–357 in Vrbes Extinctae: Archaeologies of Abandoned Classical Towns. Edited by Andrea Augenti and Neil Christie. London: Routledge. Calder, William Moir. 1931. “The New Jerusalem of the Montanists.” Byzantion 6:421–425. Chiricat, Édouard. 2013. “The ‘Crypto-Christian’ Inscriptions of Phrygia.” Pages 198–214 in Roman Phrygia: Culture and Society. Edited by Peter Thonemann. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Elsner, Jaś. 2007. Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Elton, Hugh, and Ine, Jacobs. 2019. “Introduction.” In Asia Minor in the Long Sixth Century: Current Research and Future Directions. Edited by Ine, Jacobs, and Hugh, Elton 1–8. Oxford: Oxbow. Esch, Arnold. 2016. “On the Reuse of Antiquity: The Perspective of the Archaeologist and of the Historian.” Pages 13–31 in Reuse Value: Spolia and Appropriation in Art and Architecture from Constantine to Sherrie Levine. Edited by Richard Brilliant and Dale Kinney. London: Routledge. Flood, Finbarr Barry. 2016. “Appropriation as Inscription: Making History in the First Friday Mosque of Delhi.” Pages 121–147 in Reuse Value: Spolia and Appropriation in Art and Architecture from Constantine to Sherrie Levine. Edited by Richard Brilliant and Dale Kinney. London: Routledge. Friesen, Steven J. 1995. “Revelation, Realia, and Religion: Archaeology in the Interpretation of the Apocalypse.” Harvard Theological Review 88:291–314. Jensen, Anne. 1996. God’s Self-Confident Daughters: Early Christianity and the Liberation of Women. Louisville: Westminster John Knox.

Problematizing the “Discovery” of Pepouza and Tymion 299 Kostof, Spiro. 1972. Caves of God: The Monastic Environment of Byzantine Cappadocia. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kotrosits, Maia. 2020. The Lives of Objects: Material Culture, Experience, and the Real in the History of Early Christianity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kraft, Heinz. 1955. “Die altkirchliche Prophetie und die Entstehung des Montanismus.” Theologische Zeitschrift 11:249–271. Lampe, Peter. 2004. “Die Montanistischen Tymion und Pepouza im Lichte der neuen Tymionschrift.” Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 8:498–512. Lampe, Peter. 2008. “Die 2006-Kampagne der archäologischen Oberflächenuntersuchungen in Tymion und Pepouza.” Araştirma Sonuçlari Toplantisi 25: 179–184. Lampe, Peter. 2010. “Die 2008-Kampagne der archäologischen Oberflächenuntersuchungen in Tymion und Pepouza.” Araştirma Sonuçlari Toplantisi 27:166–178. Lampe, Peter. 2016. “The Phrygian Hinterland South of Temenothyrai (Uşak).” Early Christianity 7:381–394. Lampe, Peter. 2017. “Temenothyrai’in (Uşak) Güneyinde Bulunan Frig Ard Bölgesinde Geç Roma ve Erken Bizans Dönemi: Montanizm İzleri.” Pages 105–115 in Yüzey Araştirmalari ve Kazilar Işiğinda Uşak. Edited by Rainer M. Czichon, Şerif Söyler, Birol Can, and İlhan Çavuş. Istanbul: Uşak Müzesi Müdürlüğü. Larsen, J. A. O. 1946. “Tituli Asiae Minoris, II, 522 and the Dating of Greek Inscriptions by Roman Names.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 5:55–63. Lewis, Naphtali. 1975. “The Severan Edict of P. Mich. IX 529.” Chronique d’Égypte 50:202–206. Mansi, Giovanni Domenico. 1761. Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio. Florence: Zatta. Marjanen, Antti. 2005. “Montanism: Egalitarian Ecstatic ‘New Prophecy.’” Pages 185–212 in A Companion to Second-Century Christian “Heretics.” Edited by Antti Marjanen and Petri Luomanen. Leiden: Brill. Markschies, Christoph. 1994. “Nochmals: Wo lag Pepuza? Wo lag Tymion?: Nebst einigen Bemerkungen zur Frühgeschischte des Montanismus.” Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 37:7–28. Markschies, Christoph. 2012a. “Montanismus.” Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 24:1197–1220. Markschies, Christoph. 2012b. “The Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis and Montanism?” Pages 277–290 in Perpetua’s Passions: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis. Edited by Jan N. Bremmer and Marco Formisano. New York: Oxford University Press. McKechnie, Paul. 2019. Christianizing Asia Minor: Conversion, Communities, and Social Change in the Pre-Constantinian Era. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mitchell, Stephen. 2013. “An Epigraphic Probe into the Origins of Montanism.” Pages 168–197 in Roman Phrygia: Culture and Society. Edited by Peter Thonemann. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moga, Iulian. 2011. “Characteristics of the Sources Related to the Jews and Godfearers: A Critical View.” Classica et Christiana 6:171–181. Nasrallah, Laura. 2003. An Ecstasy of Folly: Prophecy and Authority in Early Christianity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Oliver, James Henry. 1989. Greek Constitutions of Early Roman Emperors from Inscriptions and Papyri. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society.

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Oy, Harun. 2019. “İçbati Anadolu’da Prehi̇ stori̇ k Döneme Ai̇ t Bi̇ r Mermer Atölyesi̇ : Karayakuplu Höyük.” Olba 27:1–40. Turkish with English abstract (“A Marble Workshop of the Prehistoric Age in Central Western Anatolia: Karayakuplu Mound”). Radet, Georges. 1895. “En Phrygia: Rapport sur une mission scientifique en Asie Mineure (Août-Septembre 1893).” Nouvelles archives des missions scientifiques et littéraires 6:425–594. Ramsay, William Mitchell. 1883. “The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, Part 1.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 4:370–436. Ramsay, William Mitchell. 1895. The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia: Being an Essay of the Local History of Phrygia from the Earliest Times to the Turkish Conquest. Oxford: Clarendon. Ramsay, William Mitchell. 1931. “Phrygian Orthodox and Heretics 400–800 A.D.” Byzantion 6:1–35. Rizos, Efthymios. 2019. “Sixth-Century Asia Minor through the Lens of Hagiography: Ecclesiastical Power and Institutions in City and Countryside.” Pages 45–61 in Asia Minor in the Long Sixth Century: Current Research and Future Directions, edited by Ine Jacobs and Hugh Elton. Oxford: Oxbow. Robeck, Cecil M., Jr. 2010. “Montanism and Present Day ‘Prophets.’” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 32:413–429. Stefaniw, Blossom. 2020. “Feminist Historiography and Uses of the Past.” Studies in Late Antiquity 4:260–283. Steskal, Martin. 2020. “Mortuary Landscape and Group Identity in Roman Ephesos.” Pages 123–134 in Religion in Ephesos Reconsidered: Archaeology of Spaces, Structures, and Objects. Edited by Daniel N. Schowalter, Steven J. Friesen, Sabine Ladstätter, and Christine M. Thomas. Leiden: Brill. Tabbernee, William. 1985. “Early Montanism and Voluntary Martyrdom.” Colloquium 17:33–44. Tabbernee, William. 1997. Montanist Inscriptions and Testimonia: Epigraphic Sources Illustrating the History of Montanism. Macon: Mercer University Press. Tabbernee, William. 2003. “Portals of the Montanist New Jerusalem: The Discovery of Pepouza and Tymion.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 11:87–93. Tabbernee, William. 2007. Fake Prophecy and Polluted Sacraments: Ecclesiastical and Imperial Reaction to Montanism. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 84. Leiden: Brill. Tabbernee, William. 2009. Prophets and Gravestones: An Imaginative History of Montanists and Other Early Christians. Peabody: Hendrickson. Tabbernee, William. 2013. “Material Evidence for Early Christian Groups during the First Two Centuries CE.” Annali di storia dell’Esegesi 30:287–301. Tabbernee, William, and Peter Lampe. 2008. Pepouza and Tymion. Berlin: De Gruyter. Trevett, Christine. 2009. “Pepouza and Tymion. The Discovery and Archaeological Exploration of a Lost Ancient City and an Imperial Estate.” Church History and Religious Culture 89:529–531. Van Ginkel, J. J. 2009. “Michael the Syrian and His Sources: Reflections on the Methodology of Michael the Great as a Historiographer and Its Implications for Modern Historians.” Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 6:53–60. Weltecke, Dorothea. 2009. “Michael the Syrian and Syriac Orthodox Identity.” Church History & Religious Culture 89:115–125.

17

Partaking of the Death-Proclaiming Meal for Life Re-Reading 1 Cor 11:17–34 from the Lens of Post-Traumatic Growth Ma. Marilou S. Ibita

17.1

Introduction

As I write this contribution to honor Steven J. Friesen and his work, the world continues to reel under the millions of people who died and who continue to be infected by the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2). The pandemic-induced health and economic havoc, the ecological crisis worldwide, and various wars, particularly the Russian invasion of Ukraine (one of the most important international wheat suppliers), are worsening immensely the global hunger situation. The multi-agency “State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022: Repurposing Food and Agricultural Policies to Make Healthy Diets More Affordable” report claims: Between 702 and 828 million people were affected by hunger in 2021. The number has grown by about 150 million since the outbreak of the COVID19 pandemic: 103 million more people between 2019 and 2020 and 46 million more in 2021. Projections are that nearly 670 million people will still be facing hunger in 2030–8 percent of the world population, which is the same as in 2015 when the 2030 Agenda was launched. (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations et al. 2022, xiv) Hunger, whether due to the everyday experience of food insecurity secondary to poverty or owing to big crises like war, violence, or ecological devastation, produces and predisposes people, especially mothers and children, to experience mental health problems like trauma (see Ke and FordJones 2015; Weaver and Hadley 2009). This context makes me ask about the contribution of religious traditions in responding to the problem of hunger worsened by the pandemic, the ecological crisis, and the ongoing wars. With this background, I would like to ask how we as scholars can help explore the biblical tradition and find resources and inspiration to respond to the hunger problem. I shall re-read 1 Cor 11:17–34, considering the contribution of Steven J. Friesen in interpreting this text while using the added lens of DOI: 10.4324/9781003344247-22

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post-traumatic growth (Collicutt McGrath 2006), given the challenges that we face today. 17.2

Friesen’s Influence on My Reading of 1 Corinthians 11:17–34

Friesen’s studies on the socio-economic stratification of the Pauline communities continue to further scholarly conversation.1 Friesen’s insight is particularly impactful in engaging the economic aspect of Pauline communities such as the Corinthians. He noted that 1 Cor 11:17–34 is “the most egregious example of scholars ignoring poverty in Paul’s letters” (2004, 348). In the context of the Corinthians’ divisive and non-commendable communal partaking of the kyriakon deipnon, Friesen places tous mē echontas (“the ‘have-nots,’” 11:22), under his proposed Poverty Scale 7 (2004, 341, 348). They form part of those living below subsistence level which includes “some farm families, unattached widows, orphans, beggars, disabled, unskilled day laborers, prisoners” and represent up to 28% of the population (Friesen 2004, 341, 348). My narrative-critical analysis agrees with Friesen that the “havenots” are those who go hungry at the communal meal (Ibita 2014). Alongside this proposal, Friesen’s inclusion of material evidence in engaging New Testament interpretation adds to my interest in analyzing the textual and archeological evidence related to the alleged famine in Corinth behind the issue of hunger in 1 Cor 11:17–34 (Danylak 2008; Ibita 2014, 2016; Winter 2001). Together, these multi-disciplinary approaches and insights informed my engagement of the issues of poverty, hunger, and the alleged food crises at this passage’s time of writing. I argued that, given the many Corinthian saints living below subsistence level, most likely those referred to in 11:30, astheneis kai arrōstoi kai koimōntai hikanoi, are the poor, hungry adelphoi living below subsistence level (Ibita 2016). Their poverty-induced daily experience of food deprivation makes them vulnerable to malnutrition and its grave consequences, which might have worsened even more if there were food crises at the time of Paul’s writing (Ibita 2016). Moreover, Friesen’s economic stratification and encouragement to consider the material evidence from Corinth invites a rethinking of each interpreter’s imagined venue of the Corinthians’ kyriakon deipnon (11:22, 33–4). There are still many who hold on to the proposal that the Corinthians can be envisioned as gathering in a villa with the idea that some ate better fare in the triclinium while others were fed a much lower quality food in the atrium (Murphy-O’Connor 2002, 153–72, especially 153–61). Friesen’s reevaluation of the majority of the Corinthian saints and the inclusion of more recent archeological findings, however, cast doubts on this claim (Friesen 2004; Horrell 2004). Instead, these analyses open new possibilities. I have posited a much humbler house made of light materials for an indoor venue (Ibita 2014, 180–4) and a wide array of non-house possibilities like commercial buildings and outdoor places have been suggested, too (see Adams 2016).

Partaking of the Death-Proclaiming Meal for Life 303 While the Corinthians did not write to Paul about the communal division manifested at the kyriakon deipnon, he did hear about it and sought to rectify the situation by including 1 Cor 11:17–34 in his response. Paul harks back to the beginning, back to the tradition of the death-proclaiming meal for life that he received. If Paul could have mentioned only vv. 24–25 as the main focus for correcting the Corinthians, why did he sandwich it between references to the traumatic death of Jesus in vv. 23 and 26? As I approach this passage from the perspective of post-traumatic growth (Collicutt McGrath 2006), I posit that it was important for Paul to address the Corinthians’ problematic partaking of the kyriakon deipnon and to reference the traumatic aspect of the meal-proclaiming death to promote the continued life and growth of the Corinthians as followers of the crucified and risen Christ, manifested in ensuring that the poor, hungry adelphoi (brothers and sisters) are fed and taken care of in their group identity-forming meal. 17.3

Re-Reading through a Post-Traumatic Growth Lens

Before I use the post-traumatic growth lens to interpret 1 Cor 11:17–34, it is necessary to address a methodological concern. Joanna Collicutt McGrath (2006, 293–294) acknowledges three important issues in using her post-traumatic lens. She recognizes that post-traumatic growth tends to be recognized more in individual cases rather than group processes, even if the model has a strong social component. Moreover, the gap between the New Testament’s time of composition as well as its originating cultural milieu, on one hand, and the present, global—though mainly Western in character—engagement of the biblical text, on the other, must be borne in mind. Finally, the subject of the study is an ancient text and not a contemporary human group which could be engaged through interviews and observations. Nonetheless, I agree with Collicutt McGrath when she writes, “it is possible to read the New Testament texts as outcomes of the psychological process of constructing a coherent narrative (or narratives) of trauma and its aftermath” (2006, 293). These elements will be analyzed below using 1 Cor 11:17–34 as a test case where clues of post-traumatic growth can be found. Basic in this endeavor is the recognition of trauma. Collicutt McGrath’s study (2006, 294) recognizes the difficulty of defining what is considered a traumatic event and how prone it is to circularity. Our treatment here will be more limited. Collicutt McGrath notes the criteria found in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) includes “‘actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others,’ and that the person’s response must involve ‘intense fear, helplessness, or horror.’” More recently, DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association 2013, 274) describes the diagnostic features of PTSD: The essential feature of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the development of characteristic symptoms following exposure to one or more traumatic

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events. Emotional reactions to the traumatic event (e.g., fear, helplessness, horror) are no longer a part of Criterion A. The clinical presentation of PTSD varies. In some individuals, fear-based reexperiencing, emotional, and behavioral symptoms may predominate. In others, anhedonic or dysphoric mood states and negative cognitions may be most distressing. In some other individuals, arousal and reactive-externalizing symptoms are prominent, while in others, dissociative symptoms predominate. Finally, some individuals exhibit combinations of these symptom patterns. DSM-V lists several directly experienced traumatic events for adults and children (2013, 274–75). Those relevant here are “threatened or actual physical assault” for the story of Christ crucified, “natural or human-made disasters” for the alleged food crises, and the claim that “Indirect exposure through learning about an event is limited to experiences affecting close relatives or friends and experiences that are violent or accidental” for those who have believed in Christ crucified. Collicutt McGrath recognizes that “trauma is conceived as an event–person complex, with personal appraisal of meaning of the event implicit in its definition” (2006, 294). She differentiates it from chronic adversity; while acknowledging that trauma may cause it, trauma has the “potential to effect radical ‘transformation’” (2006, 295). This study notes that the psychological impact of trauma also affects one’s own “core positive beliefs.” Consequently, as Collicutt McGrath’s study shows (2006, 295) unlike resilience, growth advancement after trauma is “beyond the baseline” level of functioning in terms of process and outcome in terms of “improved interpersonal relationship, changed self-perception, and a shift in philosophy of life.” Collicutt McGrath recognizes the important role that the surviving letters of Paul played in the spread of the Jesus movement within Judaism and its expansion as an official religion under Constantine (2006, 291–93). She also underlines the centrality of Jesus’s death among the communities under Pauline influence, citing 1 Cor 1:22 and 15:3–4. Her study provides a much more detailed analysis of the elements of post-traumatic growth covering clues from various New Testament materials (2006, 297–304). This chapter focuses only on 1 Cor 11:17–34 and its potential contribution to understanding this post-traumatic growth following Collicutt McGrath’s adaptation of Calhoun and Tedeschi (1998). 17.4

A Re-Reading of 1 Corinthians 11:17–34

First Corinthians repeatedly references the character of “the Lord Jesus Christ” (cf. also “Christ Jesus,” 23 combined occurrences) as one who suffered the trauma of being crucified (stauros, 1:17, 18; Christos estaurōmenos, 1:23; 2:2; estaurōsan, 2:8), which caused his death (8:11; 15:3, 12, 13). This has been a focus of many studies (see, e.g., Cousar 1998; Finney 2005). He was also raised from the dead (6:4; 15:4, 12–17, 20), and he will come again

Partaking of the Death-Proclaiming Meal for Life 305 (11:26). This observation led some scholars to note Paul’s advancement of a “cruciform life in Christ” to respond to the divisions in the Corinthian community (Gorman 2009; Watts Henderson 2022). Thus, from Paul’s point of view, this reference to Jesus’s death and resurrection as lived out in their community and expressed in their common meal is crucial for the formation of their group identity as followers of Christ and pervasive in their symbolic universe (Ibita 2014). In their symbolic universe, this common meal helps form their identity-as Christ-followers, members of the ekklēsia tou theou (Ibita 2014, 2016; McRae 2011). The context includes remembering the trauma of betrayal and crucifixion of Christ but also points toward something more as the community flourishes until the Lord comes, albeit with growing pains. These elements point to clues about post-traumatic growth following Collicutt McGrath’s study of early Christianity (2006, 291–306) based on the psychological insights of Calhoun and Tedeschi (1998). Below is Collicutt McGrath’s proposed list of post-traumatic growth elements (listed a–o) which I shall use to explore the observable clues in 1 Cor 11:17–34, and which must be engaged on two levels. One is the level of the impact of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus on the Corinthians and the other is on the level of the faulty communal meal where the crucified Lord is supposed to be remembered. a Event. As noted above, 1 Corinthians has multiple mentions of Christ’s death. In 1 Cor 11:17–34, the recollection is at the heart of the Pauline correction of the Corinthians’ problematic community meal in vv. 23–26. Using the language of tradition, readers of the letter are reminded of the trauma of betrayal and the trauma of his death. While nothing is said in this pericope of how this death came about, the previous mention of the cross and his being crucified brings back the violence of the crucifixion (see Cook 2014; Chapman and Schnabel 2015; Hengel 1977). Thus, while neither Paul nor the Corinthians were direct witnesses of Christ’s crucifixion, the letter does not allow them to forget about this fundamental truth about the one in whom they have come to believe (1:17, 3:5, 15:2, 11). This point highlights the importance of sharing the kyriakon deipnon properly. It is their link to Christ whom they have not known in person but only through Paul and companions. It is also the new baseline of how they ought to commemorate and partake of it. However, according to Paul (11:17–22), the character of their meal sharing falls short and is characterized as idion deipnon (“your own supper”) with all its limitations (v. 21). b Initial behavioral and emotional responses to threat of death. Even if we have the tradition of Jesus’s words about the meal, we do not have an explicit reference from 1 Cor 11:17–34 about the behavioral and emotional responses of Jesus’s disciples. However, one can glean that the response included the disciples’ faithful following of Jesus’s command, passed on from their generation in their land to that of the Corinthians in and through the tradition found in vv. 23–25 and the command in v. 26.

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c Cognitive responses: shattered assumption about the self. While Collicutt McGrath could trace this feature in the Gospel stories, one cannot find it explicitly in our passage. Nevertheless, Paul refers to this facet of the trauma and post-traumatic growth when he discusses the foolishness of the cross and having the mind of Christ (1 Cor 1:18–2:16). This discussion shows how the early Christ-followers were struggling about this sense of self, the sense of group identity of believing in a crucified and risen Christ. d Cognitive responses: shattered assumption about a just world. In 1 Corinthians, Paul mentions kosmos 21 times. Instead of a just world, he presents it as something opposed to God’s wisdom (1:20–21; 3:19) and its values contrary to God’s (1:27–28; 4:9, 13; 5:10). The Corinthian saints are said to have the Spirit from God instead of the world (2:12), they will judge it (6:2). It is also passing away (7:31). Paul also underlines the focus on the world of married people (7:34). Paul reiterates that in offering food to idols, the Corinthians know that the idols of the world do not really exist (8:4). Most relevant in our discussion are Paul’s words in 11:32 concerning the need to be discerning as the saints worthily partake of the meal: krinomenoi de hypo [tou] kyriou paideuometha, hina mē syn tō kosmō katakrithōmen (“But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world” NRSV). Thus, while the general baseline values outside their symbolic universe tend to be from the perspective of the world, Paul encourages the Corinthian Christ-followers to go beyond it, to accept being disciplined on how they must behave at the communal table, indeed from the Greco-Roman eranos meal at the symposium toward a Eucharistic meal (see Lampe 1994; McRae 2011; Smith 2003, 173–217). e Cognitive responses: disappointed hope. While Collicutt McGrath discusses this feature found in Luke 24:13–35 (2006, 299–300), in 1 Corinthians Paul does not speak of a disappointed hope in connection with the trauma related to Christ’s death. Instead, in the context of speaking about the resurrection of Christ and of the dead, Paul speaks of the act of hoping: ei en tē zōē tautē en Christō ēlpikotes esmen monon, eleeinoteroi pantōn anthrōpōn esmen (“If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied,” NRSV, 15:19). One can link this discussion to the partaking of the kyriakon deipnon worthily as a way to follow Christ’s command faithfully until the hope of his return comes true: hosakis gar ean esthiēte ton arton touton kai to potērion pinēte, ton thanaton tou kyriou katangellete, achri hou elthē (“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes,” 11:26 [NRSV]). f Rumination and questioning of existing schemas. This element is very crucial for post-traumatic growth (Collicutt McGrath 2006, 296, 300; Calhoun and Tedeschi 1998, 78). Collicutt McGrath writes, “growth may involve either the incremental modification, refinement, and tweaking of schemas, resulting in ‘development,’ or alternatively something more akin to a quantum Kuhnian paradigm shift resulting in radical ‘transformation’” (Collicutt McGrath 2006, 296), as already reflected in the previous

Partaking of the Death-Proclaiming Meal for Life 307 elements in points c, d, and e above. The idea of a crucified and risen Lord contrasts with the claims of imperial cults (for instance, see Friesen 2001, 197–198; Finney 2005). Likewise, the central role of Jesus’s death and resurrection flanking the command to partake of the bread and the cup makes their communal meal different from the other food-sharing, like the eranos meal, according to the conventions of the Greco-Roman symposium (see McRae 2011; Smith 2003, 173–217). g Provision of a new way of seeing things. Building on the previous elements of post-traumatic growth detectable in 1 Cor 11:17–34 mentioned above, this element and those below will show more clues of going “beyond the baseline.” Because of this new perspective, Paul takes issue with what he has heard about the faulty way the Corinthians’ have been partaking of the common meal (11:18), even if it does not seem problematic for the Corinthians who wrote to him. Paul’s letter indicates that they should have been sharing the meal in a new way: synerchomenōn oun hymōn epi to auto ouk estin kyriakon deipnon phagein, hekastos gar to idion deipnon prolambanei en tō phagein, kai hos men peina, hos de methyei (“20 When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper. 21 For when the time comes to eat, each of you proceeds to eat your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk,” 11:20–21 [NRSV]). He problematizes the way the “haves” treat the ekklēsia space and time, as if it were just their usual home, without due regard to the change in the symbolic sanctuary space and time once they have gathered as ekklēsia (Ibita 2014, 178–84; Økland 2004). Focusing on Paul’s various points of view, the pericope provides the new manner in which they ought to treat one another at table. It offers a review of how to eat and drink together in the inclusive and life-giving example of the Lord (vv. 23–26) and not the limited ways of the eranos meal. It tells them how they must prepare for it (vv. 27–32; cf. McRae 2011). Finally, it tells them how they must treat the “have-nots” by eating the same food and drink at the same time and at the same place (vv. 33–34; Ibita 2014, 181; 2016, 48–49). h Initial growth: the emotion of hope. Collicutt McGrath’s explanation of this element (2006, 301) does not necessarily include the word “hope.” Instead, she cites the disciples’ burning hearts on the way to Emmaus (Luke 24:32), Jesus’s being with the disciples (Matt 18:20; 28:20), and experiencing the Holy Spirit. Collicutt McGrath (2006, 301) also refers to Tedeschi and Calhoun (1995) mention of Romans 5:5b. However, in 1 Corinthians there are a few mentions of hope. In 9:10–11, Paul speaks of hope using the metaphor of planting, growth, and crop reaping in the context of his and his companions’ apostleship to the Corinthians and their claims on the community, even if they have not made use of this right. Paul also cites the triad of faith, hope, and love (13:13). In 1 Cor 11:17–34, we do not find the word hope but there are indications of hope coupled with intense emotions. Given the problematic partaking of the meal, one gleans that Paul was hoping that the gathering (synerchomai, vv. 17, 18, 20, 33–34) of the

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“haves” and “have-nots” in the ekklēsia was an occasion for them to relate to one another in an ekklēsia way and not in the divisive manner in which they have met so far. Hope is also found implied in the tradition about the Lord’s words and actions in vv. 23–25. Inherent in the Lord’s commandment of remembering through the partaking of the meal is the hope that his followers will indeed continue to do so in his memory. Implied also in 11:26 is the hope to continue the kyriakon deipnon until the Lord comes (v. 26). Paul’s discussion in vv. 27–34 also implies a hope for a concrete resolution to the issue, which will practically mean the inclusion of the hungry “havenots” and their being satiated at the same time and place of the communal meal in the near future as part of the violators’ immediate understanding, conversion, compliance, and correction of the idion deipnon from the receipt of the letter. i Initial growth: a new schema. As pointed out above, the carrying out of the new schema beyond the baseline indicates post-traumatic growth. Paul’s preaching of the traumatic presentation of Jesus Christ as crucified Lord provides a central, novel aspect of the Corinthians’ openness to faith in Christ as well as the sample praxis of Christ Jesus. Their common faith in Jesus turned them into members of the ekklēsia tou theou with their own symbolic universe. Consequently, the kyriakon deipnon also provides a new schema replacing the conduct that they know by partaking of their idion deipnon. However, since they are still transitioning and learning how to make their faith in Jesus translate into a new behavior, the problems at table that Paul was trying to solve show that there is still a need to continue teaching them and theologizing with them to enable them to reach the new baseline provided by the contextual limit of the kyriakon deipnon: temporal (en tē nykti hē paredideto, “On the night he was betrayed”), spatial (in Jerusalem), and participants (Jesus and his disciples). Their new context demands a recontextualization, a growth beyond these baseline limits in their own generation’s time (50s CE), their own locale (Corinth) and the participants in their community (the “haves” and the “have-nots”) as members of the ekklēsia tou theou who need to share the same food and drink at the same time and in the same place with all the members, especially the hungry “have-nots.” Without overlooking the influence of the oral tradition behind 1 Cor 11:17–34, its position as the oldest extant written evidence of the Christ-group-identifying meal invites further exploration regarding its contribution in the post-traumatic growth of the other meal stories about Jesus Christ, particularly in the Gospels. The words over the bread and the cup in Luke 22:17–21 have long been linked to the Corinthian passage. Nonetheless, the theme of hunger and the meal scenes in Luke and Acts invite a reconsideration of the influence of 1 Cor 11:17–34 from the lens of post-traumatic growth. j Initial growth: emergence of affective behavior. Paul is trying to address the different indications of divisions among the Corinthians with various kinds of affective behavior manifesting in different ways in the letter. Paul

Partaking of the Death-Proclaiming Meal for Life 309 has expressed some of these in the opening salutation and in his thanksgiving (1:1–9). Paul’s preaching to the Corinthians of the crucified and risen Christ and the handing on of the tradition to partake of the kyriakon deipnon have turned them into an ekklēsia tou theou (11:18, 22). Being part of this community and joining in their common meal ought to provide the occasion for the growth of the affective demand as members of the ekklēsia tou theou.2 The affective demand is also made by their relationship as adelphoi to one another, made stronger by the use of the vocative (1:11, 26; 2:1; 3:1; 4:6; 7:24, 29; 9:5, 10:1; 12:1; 14:6, 20, 26; 15:1, [31], 50; 16:15, 20) or Paul’s emphatic variation, adelphoi mou (11:33, 14:39 [mou]; 15:58). The affective demand for the Corinthians is no less than agapē for one another as 1 Cor 13:1–13 spells out, an agapē that should be manifested in their conduct at the kyriakon deipnon (Ibita 2017). k Continuing tension with existing schema. Paul’s impassioned critique in 11:17–22 demands the emergence of new affective behavior based on their new symbolic world as members of the ekklēsia tou theou, following a crucified and risen Lord. The use of the inclusion of ouk epainō (vv. 17, 22) and the intensity of each of his words in vv. 22 critique the affect of the Corinthian “haves” toward the “have-nots” and the consequent meal etiquette. The affect of the “haves” toward the “have-nots” does not demonstrate being ekklēsia tou theou or being adelphoi to each other. Paul’s appeal to the traumatic context of the kyriakon deipnon also rhetorically increases the pressure so that as the members gather to partake of the kyriakon deipnon and read 1 Corinthians in their sympotic gathering upon receipt of the letter, they might change their ways as Paul commands in vv. 33–34. Paul’s reference to them as adelphoi mou coupled with the words in vv. 27–32 (Ibita 2014, 2016; Suh 2020) also heightens the invitation and demand for examining their affective behavior, particularly their agapē (1 Cor 13) and changing their conduct at the common meal (Ibita 2017). l Emergence of wisdom: integration of affect and cognition. Paul speaks of the baseline wisdom of the world or other people (1:17, 19, 20, 21, 22; 2:1, 4, 5, 6, 13; 3:19) and contrasts it with the godly wisdom gained from being affiliated with Christ (1:21, 24, 30; 2:6, 7; 12:8) and the wisdom given him in 1 Corinthians. Collicutt McGrath (2006, 302) notes that this wisdom that integrates affect and cognition in the early Christian communities is born out of the passion narrative about Jesus that has grown from the oral to the written tradition. She writes: “They would have been repeated many times and, in the Pauline churches at least, formed a central part of the Eucharist (1 Corinthians 11: 23–26). Thus emotion, cognition, and action were managed and brought together around reflection on the death of Jesus” (Collicutt McGrath 2006, 302). This wisdom ought to be integrated as part of the faith and praxis of the Corinthians such as its prime manifestation in their changed behavior when they partake of the kyriakon deipnon.

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m Recognition and management of uncertain knowledge: a paradoxical wisdom. In continuation of point l above, this kind of wisdom gleaned from a crucified and risen Lord is paradoxical. As Collicutt McGrath (2006, 302) writes, “This juxtaposition of conventional symbols of power and might with one of weakness, mortality, and defeat expresses the crucifixion-as-victory schema which is the mark of the post-traumatic response of the first Christians.” As noted above, 1 Cor 11:17–22 indicates the lack of sustained post-traumatic growth among the Corinthians. They already have the wisdom and the praxis but the Corinthian saints, especially the “haves,” are unable to continue carrying it out consistently in their new symbolic universe. This is the reason Paul had to write 1 Cor 11:17–34 for their immediate compliance and evaluation when he sees them again. n Recognition and management of life uncertainty: a spirituality based on attachment to Jesus. This element of post-traumatic growth is very evident in 1 Cor 11:17–34. The Corinthians were already able to partake of the kyriakon deipnon, according to them. However, from the report that Paul heard (11:18), it is clear that their practice is inadequate: ouk estin kyriakon deipnon phagein (“it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper,” v. 20). This is why Paul tries to correct them and to encourage them to continue growing in their spirituality based on attachment to Jesus by reminding them of the traumatic background of the meal (vv. 23–25) and one which they ought to correctly observe as adequate commemoration of the death-proclaiming but life-giving and fulfilling kyriakon diepnon. This is especially the case for the poor and hungry adelphoi until the Lord comes. o Recognition and acceptance of human limitation. Paul recognizes the limits of the Corinthians in this pericope. He recognizes the affective and praxis limitations in 11:17–22. While he acknowledges and accepts that some of the members are “have-nots” and are hungry, Paul does not settle for less than the baseline provided by the kyriakon deipnon in its original setting, following the tradition. This is the reason why he encourages them in vv. 27–32 and gives them manageable and realistic ways to respond to the problem by writing vv. 33–34. The human limitation of having hungry “have nots,” made worse by alleged food crises and the inadequate response to it by the civic and ecclesial bodies as of Paul’s writing, prompted him to provide more opportunities for post-traumatic growth in vv. 33–34 to prevent the continuation of the ongoing trauma of division and hunger in their midst with fatal results (v. 30). 17.5

Conclusion

This exercise in re-reading 1 Cor 11:17–34 has shown that using a posttraumatic lens yields new insights into a more effective way of incarnating one’s own faith in a crucified and risen Lord, individually and communally.

Partaking of the Death-Proclaiming Meal for Life 311 This is possible particularly in a challenging context like first-century Corinth, where the majority of the members were from those who live at or below subsistence level, suffering hunger because of poverty and perhaps because of an ongoing food crisis. The Corinthians already exhibited posttraumatic growth from the old baseline of the eranos meal to the new baseline of the kyriakon deipnon in its contextual limit (temporal, spatial participants in the time of Jesus). Nonetheless, the Corinthians are invited, even commanded, to grow further beyond the new baseline in their recontextualization of their identity-forming, common meal in their own temporal, spatial, and communal context in Corinth during the 50s CE, where many poor, hungry members lived under subsistence level, and (possibly worse) under the threat of the alleged food crises. I started this contribution with the pandemic context of worldwide hunger amidst the global ecological crisis. This exercise of exploring a biblical tradition like 1 Cor 11:17–34 as a resource and inspiration for making sense of what we can do and why we must respond to hunger extends the posttraumatic growth challenge beyond the Corinthian generation into our own generation amidst the twenty-first-century’s predicaments. Those who hold this passage as a revelatory text until now are invited and dared to continue growing in their individual and communal faith that does justice, manifested through multiple, multi-layered, multi-agency efforts against hunger. Can Christians find inspiration and respond to the world hunger problem amid our own traumas through the examination of how we partake of the kyriakon deipnon today? Notes 1 See, for instance, Friesen 2004; Longenecker 2009; Scheidel and Friesen 2009. 2 Note the repetition of ekklēsia before (1:2; 4:17; 6:4; 7:17; 10:32) and after (12:28; 14:4–5, 12, 19, 23, 28, 34–35; 15:9; 16:1, 19) the pericope, as well as synerchomai (11:17, 18, 20, 33, 34; also 14:23, 26).

Bibliography Adams, Edward. 2016. The Earliest Christian Meeting Places: Almost Exclusively Houses? Revised edition. Early Christianity in Context. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark. American Psychiatric Association. 2013. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 5th edition. Washington: American Psychiatric Publishing. Calhoun, Lawrence, and Richard G. Tedeschi. 1998. “Posttraumatic Growth: Future Directions.” Pages 215–238 in Posttraumatic Growth: Positive Changes in the Aftermath of Crisis. Edited by Richard G. Tedeschi et al. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum. Chapman, David W., and Eckhard J. Schnabel. 2015. The Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 344. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

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Collicutt McGrath, Joanna. 2006. “Post-Traumatic Growth and the Origins of Early Christianity.” Mental Health, Religion & Culture 9:291–306. Cook, John Granger. 2014. Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 327. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Cousar, Charles B. 1998. “Paul and the Death of Jesus.” Interpretation 52:38–52. Danylak, Barry N. 2008. “Tiberius Claudius Dinippus and the Food Shortages in Corinth.” Tyndale Bulletin 59:231–270. Finney, Mark T. 2005. “Christ Crucified and the Inversion of Roman Imperial Ideology in 1 Corinthians.” Biblical Theology Bulletin 35:20–33. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, International Fund for Agricultural Development, United Nations Children’s Fund, World Food Program, and World Health Organization. 2022. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022: Repurposing Food and Agricultural Policies to Make Healthy Diets More Affordable. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) 2022. Rome: FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, WHO. Friesen, Steven J. 2001. Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the Ruins. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Friesen, Steven J. 2004. “Poverty in Pauline Studies: Beyond the So-Called New Consensus.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 26:323–361. Gorman, Michael J. 2009. Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Hengel, Martin. 1977. Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross. Philadelphia: Fortress. Horrell, David G. 2004. “Domestic Space and Christian Meetings at Corinth: Imagining New Contexts and the Buildings East of the Theatre.” New Testament Studies 50:349–369. Ibita, Ma. Marilou S. 2014. “Including the Hungry Adelphoi: Exploring Pauline Points of View in 1 Corinthians 11:17–34.” Pages 159–184 in By Bread Alone: The Bible through the Eyes of the Hungry. Edited by Sheila E. McGinn, Lai Ling Elizabeth Ngan, and Ahida Calderón Pilarski. Minneapolis: Fortress. Ibita, Ma. Marilou S. 2016. “Food Crises in Corinth? Revisiting the Evidence and Its Possible Implications in Reading 1 Cor 11:17–34.” Pages 33–53 in Stones, Bones, and the Sacred: Essays on Material Culture and Ancient Religion in Honor of Dennis E. Smith. Edited by Alan H. Cadwallader. Early Christianity and Its Literature 21. Atlanta: SBL. Ibita, Ma. Marilou S. 2017. “Sibling Love and Ethics at the Supper of the Lord in Corinth.” Pages 117–129 in Orientierung an der Schrift: Kirche, Ethik und Bildung im Diskurs. Edited by Julian R. Backes, Esther Brünenberg-Bußwolder, and Philippe Van den Heede. Biblisch-Theologisch Studien 170. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Ke, Janice, and Ford-Jones, Elizabeth Lee. 2015. “Food Insecurity and Hunger: A Review of the Effects on Children’s Health and Behaviour.” Paediatrics & Child Health 20:89–91. Lampe, Peter. 1994. “The Eucharist: Identifying with Christ on the Cross.” Interpretation 48:36–49. Longenecker, Bruce W. 2009. “Exposing the Economic Middle: A Revised Economy Scale for the Study of Early Urban Christianity.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 31:243–278.

Partaking of the Death-Proclaiming Meal for Life 313 McRae, Rachel M. 2011. “Eating with Honor: The Corinthian Lord’s Supper in Light of Voluntary Association Meal Practices.” Journal of Biblical Literature 130:165–181. Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome. 2002. St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archaeology. Collegeville: Liturgical. Økland, Jorunn. 2004. Women in Their Place: Paul and the Corinthian Discourse of Gender and Sanctuary Space. Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplements 269. London: T&T Clark. Rambo, Shelly. 2010. “Haunted (by the) Gospel: Theology, Trauma, and Literary Theory in the Twenty-First Century.” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 125:936–941. Scheidel, Walter, and Friesen Steven J. 2009. “The Size of the Economy and the Distribution of Income in the Roman Empire.” The Journal of Roman Studies 99:61–91. Smith, Dennis E. 2003. From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World. Minneapolis: Fortress. Suh, Michael K. W. 2020. “Δοκιµάζω in 1 Corinthians 11:28–29 within the Ancient Mediterranean Context.” Novum Testamentum 62:157–179. Tedeschi, Richard, and Calhoun, Lawrence. 1995. Trauma and Transformation: Growing in the Aftermath of Suffering. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Watts Henderson, Suzanne. 2022. “Mending What Is Broken: The Logic of the Cross in 1 Corinthians.” Interpretation 76:5–14. Weaver, Lesley Jo, and Craig, Hadley (2009). “Moving beyond Hunger and Nutrition: A Systematic Review of the Evidence Linking Food Insecurity and Mental Health in Developing Countries.” Ecology of Food and Nutrition 48: 263–84. Winter, Bruce W. 2001. After Paul Left Corinth: The Influence of Secular Ethics and Social Change. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Index of Ancient Sources Prepared by Jordan Swanson

Note that page numbers appear in bold font when the reference is to a table on that page and in italics when the reference is to a figure or caption on that page. Hebrew Bible Genesis (Gen) 22:10 105n4 Exodus (Exod) 12:6 105n4 14:31 36 16:11 105n4 16:15 105n4 19:6 32 30:1 123n23 30:34–38 117 34:15–16 88n38 Leviticus (Lev) 10:1–2 117 16 117–118 Numbers (Num) 10:1–2 117 12:7 36 16–17 117 17:3 117 22–25 88n38 Deuteronomy (Deut) 4 109 4:28 109 31:16 88n38 34:5 36 1 Kings (1 Kgs) 16–21 88n38

2 Chronicles (2 Chr) 2:3 123n19 13:11 123n19 26:16–21 123n21 29:7 123n19 Psalms (Ps/Pss) 115 109 115:4–7 109 135 109 141:2 110 Song of Songs (Song) 5:13 112 6:2 112 Isaiah (Isa) 1:21 88n38 22:13 154 23 87n26 56:12 154 61:6 32 Jeremiah (Jer) 3:1–14 88n38 7:33 101 11:19 105n9 Ezekiel (Ezek) 8:10 115 8:11 114 9 36

Index of Ancient Sources 315 16:15–22 88n38 16:18 115 23:41 115 27:7–25 114 39:17 101 44:11 105n4 Daniel (Dan) 1:8–16 86n14 Hosea (Hos) 1:2 88n38 Amos 3:7 35 Nahum (Nah) 3 87n26 Zechariah (Zech) 12:10 93 Hebrew Bible Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha Ascension of Isaiah (Ascen. Isa.) 4:17 161n26 Apocalypse of Abraham (Apoc. Ab.) 31:1–2 157 Apocalypse of Moses (Apoc. Mos.) 42:1 42 2 Baruch (2 Bar.) 29:4 106n10 4 Baruch (4 Bar.) 3:2–3 157 1 Enoch (1 En.) 60:7–10 106n10 60:24a 106n10 85–90 94 90:19 94 2 Enoch (2 En.) 22:8–10 161n26 4 Ezra (4 Ez.) 6:23–26 6:49–52 106n10 Jubilees (Jub.) 3:27 109, 121n2

2 Maccabees (2 Macc) 1:1 72n11 8:11 37 Odes of Solomon (Odes Sol.) 15:8 161n26 Sibylline Oracles (Sib. Or.) 4:115–127 80 4.137–139 80 Sirach (Sir) 11:29–30 139 14:18–19 161n24 17:31 161n24 26:29 139 50:16 122n12 Testament of Moses (T. Mos.) 12:9 42 Tobit (Tob) 7:10 154 Wisdom of Solomon (Wis) 12:5 161n24 Dead Sea Scrolls 4Q169 (Pesher Nahum) 3–4 III, 7–9 88n38 4Q339 (List of False Prophets) 2 88n38 4Q382 (papyrus Paraphrase of Kings) I, 3 88n38 4Q403 (Songs of the Sabbath Sacrificed) 1 I, 41 119 11Q17 (Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice) IX, 4–5 123n26 11Q18 (New Jerusalem) 18.1 119 22.5 119 New Testament Matthew (Matt) 11:16 130, 131, 139 13:39 296n5 13:40 296n5 16:17 161n24 18:20 307

316

Index of Ancient Sources 20:3 130, 140 23:7 130, 140 24:3 296n5 24:31 157 28:20 296n5, 307

Mark 6:56 130 7:4 130, 139 12:38 130, 140 Luke 1:8–20 117 7:32 130, 139 11:43 130, 140 20:46 130, 140 22:17–21 308 22:20 88n40 24:13–35 306 24:32 307 Acts of the Apostles (Acts) 2 61n11 15:20 86n15 15:29 86n15 17:17–18 130 19:35 244 21:25 86n15 Romans (Rom) 2 69 2:17 67, 69 2:22 69 2:24 69, 72n13 5:2 160n8 5:5b 307 6:20 33 11:20 160n8 13:12–14 161n26 16:5 171 1 Corinthians (1 Cor) 1:1–2 150 1:1–9 309 1:2 311n2 1:11 309 1:17 304, 305, 309 1:18 304 1:18–2:16 306 1:19 309 1:20 209 1:20–21 306 1:21 309

1:22 304, 309 1:23 304 1:24 309 1:26 309 1:27–28 306 1:30 309 2:1 309 2:2 304 2:4 309 2:5 309 2:6 309 2:7 309 2:8 304 2:10 73n15, 88n37 2:12 306 2:13 309 3:1 309 3:5 305 3:19 306, 309 4:6 309 4:9 144, 160n13, 306 4:13 306 4:17 311n2 5:10 306 6:2 306 6:4 304, 311n2 6:10 173 7 66 7:1 66 7:2 66 7:9 66 7:17 311n2 7:21 41 7:24 309 7:26–31 66 7:29 309 7:31 306 7:34 306 7:37 158 8 66, 69, 88n40 8–10 94 8:1 66, 70 8:1–4 88n37 8:4 66, 70, 306 8:7–13 78 8:8 66 8:10 79 8:11 304 8:13 79 9:5 309 9:10–11 307 9:19 33 9:19–27 144

Index of Ancient Sources 317 10 66, 69 10:1 309 10:12 160n8 10:13–14 88n40 10:14–22 172 10:20–21 70 10:23–28 78 10:25–28 79 10:28 69, 70 10:28–29 70 10:32 311n2 11:2 160n8 11:17 307, 309, 311n2 11:17–22 305, 310 11:17–34 8, 301ff 11:18 307, 309–310, 311n2 11:20 307, 311n2 11:20–21 307 11:21 305 11:22 302, 309 11:23 303 11:23–25 310 11:23–26 305, 307, 309 11:23–35 305, 308 11:24–25 202 11:26 303, 305–306, 308 11:27–32 307, 309–310 11:27–34 308 11:30 302, 310 11:32 306 11:33–34 302, 307, 309–310, 311n2 11:48–49 307 12:1 309 12:8 309 12:28 311n2 13 309 13:1–13 309 13:13 307 14:4–5 311n2 14:6 309 14:12 311n2 14:19 311n2 14:20 309 14:23 311n2 14:26 309, 311n2 14:28 311n2 14:34–35 311n2 15 7, 144–161 15:1 309 15:1–57 144 15:2 305 15:3 304

15:3–4 304 15:3–28 151 15:4 304 15:9 311n2 15:11 305 15:12 304 15:12–17 304 15:13 304 15:19 306 15:20 304 15:20–28 154 15:24 154 15:25 154 15:26 154 15:29 151 15:30 151–2 15:30–32 151 15:31 152, 309 15:32 144, 152–154, 160n14, 160n16, 160n18 15:34 161n21 15:35–49 154 15:36 154 15:38–41 155, 161n22 15:42 155 15:50 156, 309 15:50–57 156–157 15:52 156 15:53 157 15:53–54 156 15:54–55 158 15:58 158, 309 16:1 311n2 16:15 309 16:19 171, 311n2 16:20 309 2 Corinthians (2 Cor) 1:24 160n8 4:7–13 144 5:3 161n26 6:8 156 11:13–15 70 11:14 70, 73n15 11:15 70 Galatians (Gal) 1:10 33 1:16 161n24 Ephesians (Eph) 6:10 161n26 6:10–17 150

318

Index of Ancient Sources 6:12 161n24

Philippians (Phil) 2:17 88n40 Colossians (Col) 1:5 255n46 1:23 255n46 1 Thessalonians (1 Thess) 1:3 70 4:16 157 4:16–17 71 5:21 160n8 Philemon (Phlm) 2 171 Hebrews (Heb) 9:4 123n23 9:26 296n5 Revelation (Rev) 1:1 33, 35, 41, 72 1:3 58 1:4 67 1:4–5 72n1 1:5 67, 93, 105n2 1:5–6 105n2 1:6 32, 42, 45 1:7 93, 99–100, 105n2 1:11 58 1:17 46 1:19 52–53 2–3 5, 42, 65–66, 68, 71–72, 72n1–3, 80–81, 83 2:2 70 2:6 82 2:7 71, 82, 99–100 2:9 65, 67, 69, 70, 72n13, 92 2:11 71, 99–100 2:13 73n15, 96 2:14 66, 69, 92, 94 2:14–15 82 2:17 44, 71, 82, 87n31, 100–101 2:20 33, 41, 66, 69, 82, 92, 94 2:20–22 47 2:21 69 2:24 73n15, 82 2:26 71, 99–100 2:28 45 3:4 62n14

3:5 45, 71, 99–100 3:9 65, 67, 69, 92 3:12 71, 99–100, 120 3:14–16 57 3:14–22 5, 52–53 3:17 57–58, 255n38 3:17–18 52 3:18 57, 59 3:19 59 3:20 57–58, 61n2 3:21 45, 71, 99–100 3:22 57–58, 61n2 4 24 4–5 110–11, 121 4:6 24 5 23–25, 61n6, 110 5:1 43 5:5 23 5:5–6 121n1 5:6 93, 98, 100 5:8 110–113, 118, 122n5–6 5:9 41, 45, 93, 98, 100, 105n8 5:9–10 105n2 5:12 93, 98, 100 6 25 6:4 93 6:6 119 6:9 93, 99, 122n14 6:9–10 114 6:10 93, 122n6 6:11 33, 101 6:12 93 6:15 33, 46, 102 6:15–17 49n18 7:2–3 42 7:3 33, 35–36, 43 7:9 114 7:9–17 28 7:13–14 44 7:14 93, 98 7:17 83, 88n33 8 114, 118 8:1 113, 122n12 8:1–4 113 8:2–5 93 8:3 111, 113–114, 122n14 8:3–4 110–111 8:3–5 100, 118 8:5 110, 114, 118, 122n14 8:6 113 8:7 93 8:8 27, 93

Index of Ancient Sources 319 8:11 88n33 9 28 9:2–3 98 9:6 49n18 9:13 122n14 9:13–14 119 9:13–19 80, 93 9:20 94, 109 10:7 33, 41 10:9–10 109 11:1–2 93, 122n14 11:2–3 87n31 11:6 88n33, 93 11:8 93 11:18 33, 41, 46 12 24–25, 81, 87n31 12–13 80–81 12:1–6 25 12:4 81 12:6 81, 87n31 12:7–9 24 12:9 25 12:11 93, 100 12:14 81, 87n31 12:16 25 12:17 25, 71, 73n16 13 3, 24–25, 80–81 13–19 117 13:1–10 80 13:3 93 13:5 87n31 13:6 69 13:7 100 13:8 93, 98–100 13:14 94 13:16 33, 36, 42, 46, 102 13:16–18 45 13:17 94, 105n8 13:18 80 14:1 42, 45 14:3–4 105n8 14:3–5 100 14:4 41–43, 84, 89n43, 99–100 14:8 83, 100 14:9 94 14:9–11 100 14:10 83, 99–100 14:11 98 14:12 71 14:18 93, 122n14 14:19–20 83, 100 14:20 93

15 118 15:2 99–100 15:3 33, 36, 41 15:6 118 15:7 110, 118, 123n22 15:8 98, 118 16 83, 98, 118 16:1 123n22 16:1–17 110 16:2 123n22 16:3 93, 123n22 16:3–6 98 16:4 88n33, 93, 123n22 16:4–6 88n33 16:6 75, 81, 84, 93, 100–101 16:7 93, 119, 122n14 16:8 123n22 16:10 123n22 16:12 80, 123n22 16:15 103 16:17 123n22 16:19 83 16:24 84 17 75, 80–81 17–18 37 17:1 118, 123n22 17:2 75, 81, 83, 100–101 17:2–6 87n28 17:4–6 75, 81, 84 17:5 37, 44 17:6 93, 100–101 17:8 99 17:8–11 80 17:12–17 80 17:12 101 17:14 99 17:16 80, 100 17:16–17 101 17:17 100 17:18 100 18 37, 81, 114–115 18:3 83, 100 18:4 38, 105n2 18:6 75, 81, 84 18:7 49n17 18:9 98, 100 18:11 105n8 18:11–13 37, 41 18:13 35, 38, 83, 101, 114 18:18 98, 100 18:24 75, 81, 84, 93, 100 19 25, 28

320

Index of Ancient Sources 19:1–4 100 19:2 28, 33, 41, 93, 100 19:3 98, 100 19:5 33, 41, 46, 119 19:5–10 105n10 19:7–8 45 19:9 82 19:10 33, 47 19:13 93, 99 19:15 83 19:17–21 100–101, 105n10 19:18 33, 46, 102 20:4 94 20:7–15 100 21 81, 284 21–22 120 21:3 119 21:5 58 21:6 83, 101 21:7 99–100 21:8 94 21:9 110, 118, 120, 123n22 21:10 120, 284 21:22 101, 110, 120–121, 173 22 27 22:1 83 22:1–2 101 22:2 101 22:3 33, 41 22:6 33, 41 22:6–9 32 22:8 58 22:9 33 22:15 94 22:17 83 22:17–18 52 22:19 101

Rabbinic Works Midrash Tehillim (Midr. Teh.) 137.6 86n14 Mishnah (m.) ʿAbodah Zarah (ʿAbod. Zar.) 2.3 86n14 Baba Batra (B. Bat.) 60b 86n14 Middot (Mid.) 3.2 96 Yoma 5.6 96

Tosefta (t.) Soṭah 15.11–12 86n14 Other Greek and Latin Works Aelian Varia historia (Var. hist.) 5.21 239n16 Anthologia Palatina (Anth. Pal.) 6.95 247 Appian Bella civilia (Bell. civ.) 1.14.116 Aristotle Politica (Pol.) 1.5 48n12 8.3.4 76 1253b33 33 1254b20–23 48n12 Arrian Anabasis (Anab.) 1.26.4 265 Athenaeus Deipnosophistae (Deipn.) 7.552b 160n13 11.473b–c 255n44 Athenagoras Legatio pro Christianis (Leg.) 3.35 86n10 Augustine of Hippo De haeresibus (Haer.) 27 284 Cassiodorus Variae (Var.) 5.42.2 155 Cassius Dio Historia romana (Hist.) 37.30 76 46:33 96 51.7.2–6 159 59.28.1 254n24 60.6.6 85n7 66.19.3 80

Index of Ancient Sources 321 68.32.1–2 85n6 69 245 69.2.5 244 70.1.1–3 244 71.4.1 77 Cicero De lege agrarian (Agr.) 2.95 Epistulae ad Atticum (Att.) 6.3.9 145, 255n33 Epistula ad familiares (Fam.) 7.1 145 120–127 47 Orationes philippicae (Phil.) 2.59 76 2.72 76 6.5.13 156 Pro Balbo (Balb.) 5.12 206 Pro Milone (Mil.) 34.92 159 Pro Murena (Mur.) 77.16–21 154 Tusculanae disputationes (Tusc.) 2.17 146 2.17.41 158 2.41 150, 156 2.54 150 Clement of Alexandria Paedagogus (Paed.) 2.1 86n15 Cyril of Jerusalem Catachesis (Cat.) 16.8 280, 286 Demosthenes Orationes (Or.) 21.53 255n44 Didache (Did.) 6.3 86n15 9.5 86n18 10.7 88n39 Digesta (Dig.) 27.1.6.1–10 255n34 50.7.5.prol 250 50.7.5.1 250

Dio Chrysostom Orationes (Or.) 31.121 147 Diodorus Siculus Bibliotheca historica (Bib. hist.) 1.96.4–5 85n4 3.43.7 153 4.25.1 85n4 4.55.1 233 34/35.2.27 43 Dionysius of Halicarnassus Antiquitates romanae (Ant. rom.) 7.72.15 96 Epiphanius Panarion (Pan.) 26.5.5 86n22 48.2.4 280 48.12.1 280 48.14.1–2 286 49.2.5 283 Euripides Alcestis (Alc.) 780–789 154 Medea (Med.) 1378 233 Eusebius Chronicon (Chron.) 75 F 265 Historia ecclesiae (Hist. eccl.) 4.7.11 86n22 5.1 86n10 5.16.3 296n4 5.16.4 296n3 5.18.1 281 5.18.2 284 5.18.3 296n4 5.19.1–2 286 5.19.2 296n3 Firmilian of Caesarea Epistula ad Cyprianus (Ep.) 75.7 281 Gospel of Peter (Gos. Pet.) 10:39–42 119 Herodotus Historiae (Hist.)

322

Index of Ancient Sources 2.78 154 2.42.2 85n4 2.48.2–49.1 85n4 2.114.2 85n4 3.142 206 3.38 76 3.99 76 4.26 76 4.64 76 4.106 76

Hierocles Synecdemus (Synec.) 667.2–10 297n21 Homer Iliad (Il.) 2.305 206 4.5–38 230 4.37–61 228 4.50–54 229 Iamblichus Vita Pythagorae (Vit. Pyth.) 82 86n12 Irenaeus Adversus haereses (Haer.) 1.6.3 86n15 1.20.2 86n22 1.24.5 86n15 1.28.2 86n15 Jerome Epistulae (Ep.) 41.4 296n4 Josephus Antiquitates judaicae (A.J.) 3.143 112 3.249 105n4 4.129–30 88n38 8:317–318 88n38 13.282 117 Bellum judaicum (B.J.) 5.2–5 77 5.27–28 77 5.440–441 77 6.372–373 77 7.38 153 Contra Apionem (C. Ap.) 2.89 76

Julian Epistulae (Ep.) 198 147 Justin Apologia I (1 Apol.) 26.7 86n10 65–67 88n39 Apologia II (2 Apol.) 12 86n10 Dialogus cum Tryphone (Dial.) 34–35 86n15 Justinian Institutiones (Inst.) 1.3.3 42 Livy Ab urbe condita (Ab urbe cond.) 9.40.17 161n19 21.42–44 152 39.8–39 76, 86n19 41.20 145 Lucian Demonax (Demon.) 57 147 Macrobius Saturnalia (Sat.) 2.3.12 248 Menander Rhetor Treatise (Treat.) 1.10.3 254n23 1.11.2 254n23 1.12.28 255n33 1.15.2 246 1.15.25 250 1.16.5 249, 251 1.16.11 251 Michael the Syrian Chronicon ecclesiasticum (Chron.) 9.33 287, 297n23 Minucius Felix Octavius (Oct.) 9.2 86n10 Nonnus Dionysiaca (Dionys.)

Index of Ancient Sources 323 9.28 87n30 Orosius Historiarum adversum paganos (HAP) 7.6.15 85n7 Passio sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis (Pass. Perp. Fel.) 10.13 160n17 17.1 154 20.7 160n17 Pausanias Graeciae descriptio (Descr.) 2 228 2.1.7 225 2.3.6 238n14 2.3.7 233 2.3.10–11 233 2.4.7 232 2.11.1–2 234 2.11.2 234 2.12.2 234 2.13.2–4 234 2.13.11 231 2.17.1 230 2.17.1–3 230 2.17.4 230 2.17.4–5 230 2.22.1 232 2.24.1 231 2.25.10 234 2.29.1 234 2.30.8–9 232 2.36.1 230 2.38.2–3 234 3.13.8 229 3.15.9 229 5.13.8–11 96 5.13.811 206 5.14.4–5.15.11 210, 219n13 5.24.9–10 212 7.22.2 213 8.9.2 239n18 8.22.1–3 234

Philo of Alexandria De migratione Abrahami (Migr.) 113–114 88n38 De vita contemplativa (Contempl.) 37 86n14 73–74 86n14 81 86n14 De vita Mosis (Mos.) 1.277 88n38 1.294–299 88n38 In Flaccum (Flacc.) 175 160n13 Quis rerum divinarum heres sit (Her.) 57 161n24 226 119 Philostratus Vita Apollonii (Vit. Apoll.) 4.22 147 5.33 86n17 6.25 76 7.2 87n27 7.2–3 87n27 7.17 87n27 7.20 87n27 7.33–34 87n27 8.5 87n27 Philostorgius Historia ecclesiae (Hist. eccl.) 4.8 287 Photius Bibliotheca (Bibl.) 320a 18–20 215 Pindar Pythionikai (Pyth.) 2.2 220n18 4.56 220n18 Plautus Casina (Cas.) 401 43 Plato

Petronius Satyrica (Sat.) 36.6 157 45.6 155 117 146

Respublica (Resp.) 363c–d 78 Pliny the Elder Naturalis historia (Nat.)

324

Index of Ancient Sources 5.29.105 244 7.9–10 76 35.52 156

Sallust

Pliny the Younger Epistulae (Ep.) 10.96 79 Panegyricus (Pan.) 33.1 156 34.4 155

Seneca

Plutarch Antonius (Ant.) 24.4 85n5 Cato Major (Cat. Maj.) 20.3–4 45 Cicero (Cic.) 10.4 76 Cimon (Cim.) 1.2 78 De cohibenda ira (Cohib. ira) 11 43 De esu carnium (De esu) 1.996c 86n12 De Iside et Osiride (Is. Os.) 35 85n4 Lucullus (Luc.) 23 145 Moralia (Mor.) 1099b 154 Nicias (Nic.) 29 43 Pericles (Per.) 26 43 Theseus (Thes.) 36 206 Polybius Historia (Hist.) 3.62 152 30.25–25 145 Pomponius Mela Chronographica (Chron.) 2.1.2 76 Prudentius Contra Symmachum (C. Symm.) 1.501 96 Quintilian Declamationes (Decl.) 9.6.1–14 153, 157

Bellum catalinae (Bell. Cat.) 22 76 De Clementia (Clem.) 1.18.1–2 47 De providentia (Prov.) 2.8 151 3.4 152 4.4 152, 160n8 De tranquillitate animi (Tranq.) 2.13 155 11.4–5 152 Epistulae morales (Ep.) 24.5 151 24.20 152 37.2 146 71.23 146 83.25 76 93.12 156 118.20–22 79 Silius Italicus Punica (Pun.) 11.51–54 161n19 Strabo Geographica (Geogr.) 5.4.13 161n19 8.6.21 231 8.6.22 231 Stephanus Byzantius Ethnika (Ethn.) 11.37 Suetonius Divus Augustus (Aug.) 35.3 210 Divus Claudius (Claud.) 21.5 156 21.6 157 Nero 40.2 80 40.57 80 Tacitus Annales (Ann.) 2.85 86n21 4.14 245 4.15 245 4.55–56 245

Index of Ancient Sources 325 14.27 248 15.44 79 Tatian Oratio ad Graecos (Or. Graec.) 25.3 86n10 Tertullian Ad nationes (Ad nat.) 1.15.2 86n10 Apologeticus (Apol.) 7.1 86n10 42.5 154 De spectaculis (Spect.) 22 156

British Museum Coins of Phrygia (BMC Phryg) 48 254n30 49 254n30 109 242, 254n12 114 242, 254n12 115 242, 254n12 118 242, 254n12 254 n1 Bulletin épigraphique (BE) 1965.264 160n8 1974.54 151 1974.340 160n8 1974.380 160n8 1988.834 160n8

Theodore of Heraclea In Iohannis (Ioh.) 14.15 281

Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum (CIG) 2877 244

Theodoret Historia ecclesiae (Hist. eccl.) 2.27.12 287

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL) 1.2.728 248 2.5439 149 10.4915 157

Theophilus of Antioch Ad Autolycum (Autol.) 3.4–5 86n10 3.15 86n10

Epigrammata Graeca ex lapidibus conlecta (Epigr. Gr.) 344.3 154

Theophrastus Historia plantarum (Hist. plant.) 4.5.4 264 Thucydides Historia belli Peloponnesiaci (Hist.) 2.71 213 Ulpian Epitome Ulpiani (Epit. Ulp.) 22.6 268n24 Xenophon Cyropaedia (Cyr.) 8.3.12 220n19 Oeconomicus (Oec.) 8.22 135 Inscriptions and Coins Aphrodisias and Rome (IAphRome) 3 250

Fouilles de Delphes (FD) 3.4.478 253n5 Greek Constitutions of Early Roman Emperors (GCRE) 42 255n41 45 255n41 71 255n41 79 255n41 84 255n43 113 252 124 252 154 250 263 245, 250 266 245 281 249, 255n35 444 247 Inschriften von Ephesos (IEph) 10 116 478 243 625 254n11 781 255n42 1022 116

326

Index of Ancient Sources 1023 1024 1025 3030 3070

116 116 116 243 160n16

Inschriften von Iasos (IIasos) 602 244 Inschriften von Laodikeia am Lykos (ILaodLyk) 9 248 10 252 45 241, 253n5 50 253n5 53 253n1, 253n5, 255n39 62 251 65 248 72 242 82 255n45 135 248, 253n5, 254n17 136 253n5 Inschriften von Perge (IPerge) 2.374 116 Inschriften von Sestos und der thrakischen Chersones (ISestos) 17 247 Inschriften von Smyrna (ISmyrna) 697 243, 245, 254n11 814 244 Inschriften von Tralleis (ITrall) 74 244, 254n11 Inscriptiones Graecae (IG) 4.365 160n4 Inscriptiones graecae ad res romanas pertinentes (IGR) 3.43 157 4.1074 160n8 4.1456 160n8 Inscriptiones graecae urbis romae (IGUR) 37 253n5 326 249 352 249 1063 249 1288 250–251

Inscriptiones latinae liberae rei publicae (ILLRP) 177 248 Inscriptions of Cos (IKosPH) 156 246 L’Année épigraphique (AE) 1999.1576 244 Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua (MAMA) 11.237 297n20 11.238 297n20 11.239 297n20 11.240 297n20 11.272 297n20 Pylos Tablets (PY Tn) 316 228 Roman Provincial Coinage (RPC) 1.2469 254n20 1.2893 254n28 1.2901 254n28 1.2913 254n28 1.2917 254n28 2.1268 254n28 2.1271 254n33 2.1282 243 2.1283 243 2.1284 243 2.1286 254n16 2.1287 254n16 2.1288 254n28 2.1291 254n16 3.2076 243 3.2077 243 3.2082 243 3.2318 254n16 3.2319 254n28 3.2323 254n16 3.2324 243 3.2329–2331 243 3.2330 243 3.2331 243 3.2335 243 3.2340 243 3.2356 243 3.2357 243 4.2.1718 253n3 4.2.1819 253n2, 253n3

Index of Ancient Sources 327 4.2.1820 253n2, 253n3 4.2.2065 253n3 4.2.2102 253n2, 253n3 4.2.2103 253n2, 253n3 4.2.2104 253n2, 253n3 4.2.2111 253n2, 253n3 4.2.2121 253n1 4.2.2123 253n1 4.2.2134 253n1 4.2.2138 253n1 4.2.2949 253n3 4.2.3322 253n1 4.2.9793 253n1 4.2.9795 253n2, 253n3 4.2.10879 254n31 4.2.11601 253n1 6.4867 242, 254n11 6.5432 243 6.5502 242, 253n7 6.5503 242, 253n6, 253n7 6.5519 242, 254n10 6.11006 254n31 6.30308 253n7 8.ID20762 253n1

8.ID20790 254n31 Sardis VII, 1: Greek and Latin Inscriptions (ISardis) 7 254n11 Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (SEG) 11.923 213 14.703 244 34.1089 252 1978.1041 160n8 1979.1258 160n8 Papyri and Manuscripts Bibliotheque Nationale de France lat. 17339 297n26 P.Mich. 9.529 285 P.Oxy. 10.1258 211

Index of Subjects Prepared by Jordan Swanson

Note that page numbers appear in bold font when the reference is to a table on that page and in italics when the reference is to a figure or caption on that page. Actium 211 actor(s) 3, 8, 25, 110–111, 115; actornetwork theory 260; imperial 56–57; colonized 56–57, 59 Aegean Sea: islands of 232; region 7, 261 affect(s) 39, 46, 93, 95, 104–105, 110, 258–264, 270, 273n3, 274n11, 274n14, 309–310; affective behavior 308–309 Agathos daimon 168, 170 agora 6–7, 79, 105n8, 129–141, 209, 212–214, 216, 219n14, 244, 249, 251 Agrippa, Marcus Vipsanius 137 altar 7, 79, 93, 95–7, 99, 105n7, 110, 112–114, 116, 118–119, 121, 122n6, 122n14, 123n23, 166–170, 177, 188, 200n10, 204–218, 218n1, 219n3–5, 219n10–11, 219n13–17, 220n19, 251, 259–260, 282; to Aphrodite 220n19; ash 96–97, 104; “ash altars” 96–97; Ash Altar (Pergamon) 104; to Demeter and Kore 209; of Demeter and Persephone (Eleusis) 215; of Dionysus 215, 219n17; to the Egyptian Gods 209; to Helios 234; to Hermes 212–213, 219n14; to Isis and Serapis/Anubis 209; to Pan 220n19, 234; of the Twelve Gods 134; of Victory 210–211; untempled 7, 204–220; to Zeus/ Asklepios 208–209; of Zeus (Pergamon) 96, 208, 220n19 Alexander the Great 135, 137, 208, 219n9

Alexandria Troas 157 America, United States of 1, 3–4, 34, 40, 258, 263 Amerindian 5, 18–19, 28, 29n7 amphitheater(s) 138, 148–149, 153, 157, 161n20, 210; Corinthian 149, 153; Flavian 156; Roman 148, 153 amphorae 122n11, 192–193, 195, 198–199, 201n18 angel(s) 21–22, 24, 27–28, 32, 35, 42, 47, 52, 57, 97, 99, 100, 101, 113–114, 118–120, 123n26; “angelic Christ” see Christ animal slaughter 93, 97, 99, 102, 104; See also sacrifice Anatolian culture 264–267 anthropophagy 75–77, 79–80, 84, 86n19, 89, n42 Antioch 145, 286, 296n3 Antiochus III 254n29 Antiochus IV 145 Antoninus Pius 103, 248, 252, 253n1, 255n34, 285 Apameia 254n23 Aphrodisias 3, 7, 80, 94, 103, 250; Sebasteion 94 Apocalypse of John see Revelation (Book of) apocalyptic(ism) 17–18, 22–24, 42, 92, 102, 280; literature 29n6, 29n8, 46 Apollo 245–247, 265, 270, 275n24, 275n26; Patroos 135; Philesios 97; Sidetes 265, 268–269, 275n24, 275n31 Apollonius of Tyana 87, 147 Appia 296n13

Index of Subjects 329 Argos 147, 228–229, 231–232 Aristotle 33, 38, 48n12, 54, 76, 137 Artemis 39, 112, 115–116, 172, 244, 245 asceticism 78–79, 81, 83–84, 86n20 assemblage 97, 177, 188–189, 193, 195–196, 199, 258–263, 266–267, 269–271, 273, 273n5, 274n10, 274n13–14, 275n31 Asia Minor 2, 6, 8, 38–39, 41, 65, 67, 71, 76, 83–84, 87n27, 92, 95–96, 100, 102, 104, 109, 114–115, 121, 152, 168, 181, 205, 242–246, 248–250, 253n1, 254n17, 254n25, 259, 264, 274n21, 280, 283, 289–290, 292–295; Western 2, 52, 56, 60, 75, 80, 96, 182; south 263 Asiarch 249, 253n1 associations 5, 81, 84, 260, 255n40; cultic 78, 81 Axial Age 20, 29n4 Athena 212, 219n12, 239n18, 265–270, 275n26, 275n27, 275n30, 275n31; Boulaia 209–210; Polias 208; of Side 265–269 Athens 135, 137, 147, 148–149, 151–152, 173n6, 215, 226, 232, 267; agora 129–130, 134–138 see also agora; Hephaisteion 135; Library of Pantainos 137; Metroon 135–136; Monument of Eponymous Heroes 136; Odeion of Agrippa 137; Southern Fountain House 134; Stoa of Attalos II 135, 137–138; Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios 135; theater of Dionysus 147, 215; temple of Apollo Patroos 135; Tholos 135 athletes 144, 160n9, 212, 270 atonement 93–94, 104, 117–118 Babylon 25, 28, 37, 114; See also Woman Babylon Balaam 65, 82–84, 88n38–39 Bamberg Bible 25, 26 baptism 36, 105n2; of the dead 151, 160n12 Beroia 160n11 beasts (wild) 144, 146–147, 150, 152–155, 160n4, 160n15–16; Beast(s) 36, 42, 45–46, 80–81, 94, 99, 106n10 blind(ness) 5, 52–55, 57–61, 61n7 blood 6, 27, 41, 45, 75–77, 81–83, 87n28, 88n33, 88n40, 92–105, 105n7, 109,

144, 146, 155–156, 159, 161n24; of Jesus Christ 82, 87n28, 93, 105n2; See also sacrifice blood-drinking 5, 75–77, 80, 81–2, 84, 85n3, 87n28, 88n3, 101 body 36–8, 56–60, 85n3, 95, 112–113, 145–146, 155–156, 159, 161n22, 193, 262, 268, 275n30; disabled 54; “flesh and blood” 146, 155–156, 159, 161n24; mortal 155–156, 159; “normate” 56, 58, 61n4, 62n17; of enslaved persons 43; of Jesus Christ 87n28; of Woman Babylon 80–81; resurrected 144, 154–156; social 77, 84–85, 89n42; women’s 24; See also enslaved persons bones, animal 7, 96, 179, 186, 188–189, 191, 195, 290; See also sacrifice bouleutēria 7, 134–135, 205, 209–214, 216, 219n13 Brazil 18, 28–29, 29n2, 30n10 bull 96, 103, 161n20, 209, 220, 255n44 Caesarea 138 Cappadocia 275n27, 295 capitalism 4, 104, 258, 262; “capitalist criticism” 4 Caracalla 241–246, 253n8, 254n17, 269–270, 282, 285 Caria 252 Catholicism 18, 295; anti-Catholicism 8, 294 censer 110–114, 116, 118, 123n23; See also thymiatēria Christ 22–23, 25–26, 28, 33, 44, 46–47, 55, 58–60, 86n22, 93, 121, 157, 281, 303–306, 308–309 Christ-follower(s) 17, 20–21, 35–36, 46, 65, 75–76, 78–85, 86n15, 86n18, 87n28, 87n31, 88n37, 88n39, 88n40–41, 93, 103, 104, 151, 153–154, 158–159, 280–284, 288, 293–295, 297n20, 305–306, 309–311 Christian nationalism 3 citizenship 32, 76–77, 137–138, 145, 147, 168, 170–171, 174n14, 210, 213 Claudius (emperor) 80, 211, 247 Cleopatra 76, 211 cognition 40, 95, 304, 309 Colloquium on Material Culture and Ancient Religions (COMCAR) 1, 129, 225–226

330

Index of Subjects

colonialism 3, 7, 56–57, 59–60, 62n13, 85, 137, 147–149, 231, 236–237, 266 Colossae 62n15 commodities 37–38, 41–42, 104, 115; commodity people 28 Commodus (emperor) 241 communal meals 78–79, 81–84, 88n40, 302, 305–308 conceptual domains 39–41, 48, 49n14 Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) 5, 33, 39, 40, 49n14 connectivity 17, 23, 263 Constantinople 287–288 Corinth 2, 7–8, 70, 88n37, 144–149, 151–152, 159, 161n27, 225, 228–229, 231–234, 236, 239n16, 267, 302, 308, 311; assemblies 66, 69–70; letters to 7–8, 33, 66, 69–71, 78, 88n37, 144, 150, 152, 302, 304–307, 309 Cosmic polity 19–21 cultic utensils 6, 109–112, 118–120 cultural memory 225–227, 235–237, 238n4, 238n6 Cyzicus 160n11 death 8, 25, 41, 47, 49n18, 81, 84, 88n33, 100, 117–118, 120, 144–146, 148, 150, 152–154, 156–159, 159n2, 160n2, 160n13, 160n15, 161n21, 171, 233, 249, 301, 303, 305, 310; of Jesus 88n40, 93–94, 99, 109, 303–307, 309 decoding 92–93, 95, 98, 99, 102 demons 20–22, 24, 27–28, 68, 70, 172 Didyma 96 Dionysus 78–79, 85n4, 85n5, 87n30, 147, 214–215, 219n17, 232 Disability Studies 52–55, 57 domestic worship/cult 18, 105n5, 115, 165, 169, 171–172, 174n10, 174n16, 218 Domitian 62n18, 87n27, 243, 252, 254n16, 268 doulos 32–37, 39, 41, 46–47, 48n6; See also enslavement dragon 24–25, 80–81, 83 dualism 5, 17, 20–22, 24 eagle 24–25, 242, 247 ecofeminism 21 Egypt 62, 76–77, 79, 86n21–22, 137, 154, 209, 227, 238n6, 285

eidōlothyta 5, 65–70, 75, 78–84, 86n15, 87n31, 94, 99, 306; meat market 96, 99, 212–213 Elagabalus (emperor) 241–244, 253n8 elders: seventy 114; twenty-four 46, 110, 113, 118 Eleusis 85n4, 215 elites 6, 38, 94, 100, 102–104, 105n8, 137–138, 145–146, 237, 248–249 embodiment 40, 53, 55–56, 58, 60, 92, 95, 97–99, 102, 105n5, 112, 215, 227 emotions 36, 95, 307 empire 4, 38, 54, 60, 85, 249, 263, 270; imperialism 266; imperial ideology 7, 54, 145 encoding 92–95, 98–99, 102, 105n10 enslavement 5, 32–48, 48n2–3, 48n11–12, 49n15, 80, 96, 102–104; slave trade 38, 40–41; tattooing/branding 5, 35–37, 40, 43 Ephesos 2, 7, 38, 46, 70, 82, 110, 112, 115–116, 152, 158, 165–166, 168–169, 171–173, 173n2, 205, 242–245, 249, 254n11, 254n12, 284; the Embolos (aka “Kouretes Street”) 165, 173n3; Great Theatre 116; Parthian Monument 102–103; Terrace Houses 7, 115, 165–168, 170–171, 173n1–2; Terrace House 2 165–167 Epidauros 234 epistolary formulas 5, 66–68, 72n1, 72n9, 72n11 epithets 225, 228–229, 234–237, 244, 251 ethnographic discourse 5, 19, 76–77, 97 Eucharist 81–82, 87n28, 87n31, 123n26, 282, 306, 309; See also communal meals Euphrates river 80 Evangelical 18, 30n10; See also Protestant fallen angels See demons false apostles/prophets 60, 68, 70–71 fantasy 8, 27, 76–77, 121, 279–280, 293–295 Flavians 62n18, 156, 170, 191 food 6, 8, 44, 66, 75, 81–84, 87n31, 88n33, 104, 140, 141n1, 154–155, 167–168, 233, 301–302, 304, 306–308, 310–311; See also sacrifice, eidōlothyta food insecurity See hunger fountain of Glauke 232–233, 238n15 foreign(ness) 5, 29n2, 30n11, 75–81,

Index of Subjects 331 84–85, 85n4, 87n25–26, 89n42, 137, 210, 212, 219n12 forum 6, 137–138, 269 frankincense 112, 114–116, 122n17; See also incense funerary culture: banquet 168, 174n6; epitaph 154, 157; games 146; inscriptions 36, 88n35; monument 157; relief 168; rites/rituals 116, 174n6, 283 Gentile 65, 67–69, 71, 77–78, 174n18 geochoreography 266–267, 269–270 Geta (emperor) 285 gladiators/gladiatorial games 7, 144–159, 159n1–2, 160n3, 160n8–10, 160n15–17, 161n19, 161n23, 161n27, 255n33 goats 7, 177, 179, 186, 199, 200n1, 229 Gytheum 213 Hadrian (emperor) 8, 103, 116, 231, 241–245, 252–253, 254n11 Hall, Stuart 92, 95, 98, 102 Hawaii 3 Hera 8, 87n30, 225–237, 238n10, 238n15, 239n18–19; Aigophagos 229; Akraia 231–233, 232, 238n12; Antheia 232; Argeia 228–229; Bounaia 232; Hyperkheiria 229; Limenia 238n13 Hermes 212–213, 219n14, 232, 246–247; Agoraios 213; Eriounios 247 heros equitans 166, 168–169, 174n8 Hestia Boulaia 209 Hierapolis 62n15, 243, 286–287, 294, 269n3 Hittites 264–265 holy ones (hagioi) 6, 93–94, 98–101, 103, 105n6–7, 105n10, 110–111, 113–114, 118, 120, 121n3, 123n26 homonoia 243, 252, 253n2–3, 254n12 horse 43, 101, 168, 220n19, 273n2 house churches 7, 171, 174n15 household shrines 165–169, 172, 174n10 hunger 8, 301–302, 308, 310–311 hybridity 23–24, 258 Iliad 228–229 immanence 5, 18–22, 29n4 imperial cults 2, 4, 6, 8, 83, 94, 96–98, 100, 112, 116, 134, 137–138, 145, 241, 243–244, 249, 251, 307; worship 2, 94, 96–97, 134, 244, 249, 251

incense 6, 97–98, 105, 109–120, 122n4–5, 122n13, 122n17, 123n19–20, 123n23, 166–167, 172, 210, 218, 219n5, 219n17 inequality 2, 4, 48 information 132–136, 138–141 institutional function 129–141 intersectionality See kyriarchy Ionia (region) 169, 174n7, 205, 218n2 Israel 7, 23, 30n8, 52, 82, 84, 88n38, 110, 115, 117, 122n12, 154, 177 Jericho 138 Jerusalem 77, 138, 308 Jew/Judaean 5–6, 21, 28, 37, 60, 65–67, 69, 72n2, 72n8, 76–79, 81–82, 84–85, 85n6–7, 86n17, 86n21, 88n38, 92, 130, 139, 193; Jewish diaspora 17, 172–173; Jewish epistolary style 68, 72n11; in inscriptions 284; Jewish literature 23, 68, 94–95, 109, 112, 115, 120, 140; purity laws 67, 75, 139; “socalled Jews” 65, 68–69 Jezebel 47, 65–66, 71, 81–84, 88n38–39 John of Ephesos 281, 287–288, 291, 298n32 John of Patmos 4–6, 22, 25, 48n4, 48n10, 49n17, 52–55, 57–61, 61n3, 62n17, 65–72, 75, 81–85, 87n31, 88n33, 88n40, 89n43, 92–99, 101–102, 105n2, 105n5–6, 105n9–10, 114–116, 118, 120–121, 121n1, 131; and eidōlothyta 66, 69–70, 75, 82–85; and letter-writing 67–69, 71–72, 72n1, 72n9; and Paul 65–72; rhetoric of 54, 65–66, 69–71, 76; and Rome 76, 81, 83–85, 94, 99, 101, 116; as seer/prophet 35, 52, 55, 57, 59–60, 66, 88n37, 88n39, 110; and sexual immorality 66–67, 82; and slavery 32–48 Josephus 76–78, 88n38, 105n4, 112, 117, 153 Judaea 92, 103 Judean Revolt, First (66–73 CE) 62 Julius Caesar 149, 248 justice (dikaiosynē) 27, 211–212, 251 Justinian (emperor) 42, 49n15, 281, 287, 29n31 Justinianopolis 281 Karanis 285 Khersonesos 160n11

332

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Kybele 209, 219n11, 266–270, 275n28–29 kyriakon deipnon 302–303, 305–311; See communal meals kyriarchy 2, 4 labor 70, 97, 103–105, 140, 198, 302 lamb 3, 23–25, 32, 39, 41–42, 45–46, 48, 52, 61n6, 92–95, 98–102, 105, 105n9–10, 110–111, 113–114, 120–121, 121n1, 173, 199; See sheep lamps 116, 146, 167, 191–193, 198, 201n19 Laodikea 8, 52–55, 57–60, 61n2, 61n7–8, 62n15, 241–250, 252–253, 253n1, 253n5, 254n11, 254n17, 254n23, 254n27, 254n30, 255n35, 297n20; Council of Laodikeia 284 Lei Day 3 Libitina (goddess) 153 lion 23–24, 52, 151–152, 214, 275n29 Livia 169–170 London Missionary Society 56–60 Lucius Verus (emperor) 103, 248 Lykaonia 297n20 magic 17–18, 22, 75–76, 80, 85n4, 87n27, 88n38 manna 81–84, 87n31, 101 Marc Antony 76–77, 85n5, 211 Marcus Aurelius (emperor) 103, 252, 253n3 martyrs 101, 105n6, 292; See also holy ones Matar See Kybele materiality 3–4, 6, 18, 21–22, 56, 110–111, 120, 208, 216, 218, 226, 258–262, 264, 266, 269–270, 273, 274n8, 274n11; See also New Materialism marginalized peoples 2, 5, 17, 52, 56, 58–59, 77, 102–104 Medea 231, 233–234, 236, 238n14, 239n16 Mediterranean (region) 1–3, 7, 21, 23, 28, 32, 43, 61n11, 172, 204–205, 216, 218, 238n6, 269, 274, 281, 284 Megalopolis 234 Melas River 263–266, 269, 274n16 memory 3, 4, 7–8, 56, 95, 172, 225–227, 231, 237, 251, 260, 262, 286, 308; cultural memory 225–227, 235–237, 238n4, 238n6

Menander 245–246, 249, 251, 254n23, 255n33 metamorphosis 5, 17, 21, 23, 28, 273 Michael (archangel) 24 Michael the Syrian 287–289, 297n23 Miletos 205, 245; theater 96 military (Roman) 42, 145–146, 160n9, 245; See also empire ministri 100, 103, 158 monster(s) 23–24, 28 Montanism 8, 279–285, 287–289, 291–295, 296n2, 296n6, 296n15 Mycenae 228–230 mysteries 85n4, 230, 234; Artemisian 112, 115–116; of Dionysus 5, 76–79, 84, 85n4, 86n19–20, 214; Eleusinian 85n4; of Hera 234; of Isis and Serapis 85n4; of Mithras 102; Orphic 78–79, 84, 86n17 myth 3, 24–25, 28, 52, 80–83, 86n22, 94, 214, 216, 226, 228, 233, 235, 237, 266, 270; mythopoesis 17, 23 Nemesis 153, 158 Nikomedia 160n11, 253n2–3 neokoros 8, 241–247, 249–253, 253n4–5, 254n11, 254n19, 254n21, 255n42, 259, 269 neoliberalism 93, 104–105 Nero (emperor) 79–80, 231 New Institutional Economics 6, 129–134, 136, 141, 141n2 new materialism 258, 260, 274n8 New Jerusalem 3, 83, 85, 101, 119–121, 279, 284 New Prophecy See Montanism New Testament Studies 2, 4, 22, 129 New York City 8, 258, 262–263, 273n1–3, 273n5 Nicolaitans 65–66, 71, 82, 88n39 Nineveh 87n26 Numismatics 8, 227, 243, 263–264, 267–270, 275n31 oaths 76–79, 146, 206, 211–213 Octavian (Augustus) 116, 137–138, 211, 246, 275n30 Odyssey 228 olfaction 95, 97, 109, 113, 119–120; See also senses oracle 75, 81–82, 233, 247; of Akraian Hera 231; of Apollo 247; to

Index of Subjects 333 Ephesos 82; Laodikeian 53–59, 61n2; of Perachoran Hera 233; to Pergamon 82 omphalos 111–113 Omrit 7, 177–199, 200n2; Early Shrine (ES) 7, 177–189, 193–199, 194, 200n5–7, 200n10, 201n20, 201n22; Temple 1 (T1) 177–179, 183, 193–194, 196–197, 197–198, 201n17; Temple 2 (T2) 177–179, 183, 189, 191, 193, 196–197, 199, 201n23 Ostia 165, 205 pandemic 8, 301, 311 Parthians 80 passions 36, 147, 153, 158–159 Paul (apostle) 65; and the body 161n21; and death 161n21; and death of Jesus 304–310; communal meal 303, 305–308; and gladiatorial games 7, 144–145, 150, 152–155, 158–159, 160n9, 160n15, 160n16; and imperial ideology 7; letters of 5, 33, 41, 65–69, 71, 72n9, 82, 144, 161n26, 165, 302, 304, 307; and marriage/sexual ethics 66–67; and the “other” 65; and resurrection 7, 151, 154–159; and slavery 33, 42; and trauma 306, 308–310; Pauline assemblies 65–69, 165–166, 171–173, 174n17, 302, 309; Pauline rhetoric 5, 65–66, 69–71; Pauline Studies 2, 4, 129; Pauline tradition 5, 71–72, 255n46 Pausanias 8, 96, 137, 149, 206, 210, 212–213, 219n13, 225–238, 238n1–3, 238n6, 238n8, 238n14, 239n18 Peloponnese 8, 225–229, 231–232, 234–237, 238n9, 239n20 Pepouza 8, 279–298 Perachora 231, 233 Pergamon 32, 44, 82, 87n31, 94, 96, 104, 116, 135, 243; Altar of Zeus 208 Perge 265 phialai 110–112, 118, 122n8, 122n11 Philadelphia (ancient) 250 Philemon, Letter to 41 Philo of Alexandria 21, 86n14, 88n38, 119, 123n23, 160n13, 161n24 Phrygia 252, 266, 280–281, 283–289, 293–294, 297n18, 297n20

pietas 216, 245–246, 251–252 piety (eusebeia) 251 Plataea 213–214 Plato 21, 78 Platonism 21–22 polemic 65–66, 69–71, 84, 120, 283–284, 287 pomegranate 8, 230, 258–273, 267–269, 274n7, 274n19, 274n21, 275n21, 275n23, 275n29, 275n31–32, 276n32 Pompeii 165–166, 173n2, 205 porneia 66–67 postcolonial theory 2 poststructural theory 56, 260 post-traumatic growth 301–308, 310–311 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 303–304 poverty 2, 4, 53, 57, 59–60, 61n7, 129, 200, 301–302, 311 prayers (proseuchai) 18, 88n39, 93, 109–111, 113–114, 117–118, 120, 122n4, 122n6, 122n13 Priene 7, 204–210, 212–215, 218, 218n2, 219n4, 220n19; Acropolis 215; agora 7, 209, 212–214, 219n14; bouleuterion 7, 205, 209–212, 214, 219n13; domestic spaces 205, 220n19; meat market 212; prytaneion 212, 219n13; sanctuary to Cybele 209, 219n11; sanctuary to the Egyptian Gods 209; shops 212; temenos boundaries 207, 215–216, 219n6; Temple of Athena Polias 208, 212; Temple of Zeus/Asklepios 212; Theater of Dionysus 7, 205, 214–215, 219n17 priest/priestess 2, 32, 42, 99–101, 117–118, 122n12, 210, 215, 230, 233, 249–250, 253n1 prophet/prophetess 35, 46–47, 54, 58, 60, 81–82, 87n26–27, 88n37–39, 104, 105n6, 114, 280, 294–295, 296n2 prostitution 6, 37, 44, 80, 139–140 Prosymna city 229; daughter of Aterion 230 Protestant 29n2, 104, 295 publicity 6, 80, 86n20, 131, 134, 136–137, 139–140, 145–146, 154, 156, 159, 171–172, 205, 212–214, 218, 249 public space 100, 213 Pylos 228

334

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Pythagoreans 78–79, 84, 86n17, 87n27, 147 resistance 3, 6 resurrection 7, 119, 144, 150–151, 153–155, 157–159, 305–307 Revelation (Book of) 1–6, 17–18, 20, 22–24, 26–28, 30n8–9, 48n11, 52–54, 56–60, 61n6, 62n15, 65–66, 68–69, 71–72, 72n1, 72n3, 72n12–13, 75–76, 78, 80–85, 85n1, 87n28, 87n30, 88n33, 88n38, 109–111, 114–115, 117–121, 123n26; and disability 52–61, 61n6; dualism 20, 22–24, 28–29; and enslavement 5, 32–48, 48n11; and imperial cults 2, 6, 85, 94, 116, 241; interpretation of 22, 29, 30n9–10, 39, 48, 92; and Judaism 65–72, 92; and New Jerusalem 3, 120, 284; and Paul 65–72; and Rome 38, 80, 92, 94, 102; and sacrifice 6, 92–105, 105n2; and seven churches 58–59, 65–72, 72n1; and “so-called Jews” 65, 68–69; and Temple 109, 114, 117, 119–120; visions 52, 109, 118, 121 ritual 3, 7, 18, 60, 75, 77, 79, 81–82, 94, 96–97, 99, 101, 103–104, 105n5, 116, 121, 171, 174n16–17, 178, 180, 186, 188, 191, 193–195, 198–200, 201n21–22, 204–216, 218, 219n4, 231, 234–236, 255n44, 270; associations 5, 76, 215; deposition 195; discourse 208; Greek 204, 208, 216–217; initiation 77–78; meal 83, 86n18, 94, 96–97, 100–101, 105n10; murder 76, 86n19; objects 6, 205–206; practitioners 5; purification(s) 112; Roman 97, 186; slaughter 94, 99, 101 ritualized space 165–174, 204–220 Roman Empire 2–3, 7, 27, 32, 44, 77, 80, 85, 94, 102–103, 115, 137, 140, 145–146, 159, 161n22, 166, 190, 237, 249–251, 270, 282, 285; eastern 7, 145, 166; western 166, 186 Romanitas 5, 77, 137–138, 245–247, 252 Roma (goddess) 80–81, 83, 245 Rome 17, 37–38, 42–43, 76–77, 79–81, 83–85, 85n5, 85n7, 86n19–20, 87n27, 93–94, 100–101, 115–116,

137, 145, 147, 156, 158, 165, 197, 210, 237, 245–252, 285, 296n18; senate 210–211, 242, 244–246, 249–250, 254n11 sacrifice 5–7, 29n3, 75, 78–80, 86n20, 93–94, 96–104, 105n7, 109–110, 116–117, 122n12, 177, 188, 195–197, 199, 204, 206, 210, 212–213, 215–216, 219n5, 219n11, 220n19, 230, 233, 252; animal 6, 92–100, 102, 104–105, 105n5, 105n7, 112, 121n1, 255n44; blood 92–93, 95–99, 101–102, 104, 109; deposits 7, 96, 177–199, 201n13, 201n15–16, 201n18, 201n23l; human 75–77, 85n4, 87n27–28, 160n3; of Jesus 93–94; libation(s) 83, 88n40, 96, 98, 103, 105n3, 105n5, 112, 123n26, 168, 198, 219n5; victims 77, 93, 96–97, 99–103, 188, 199, 201n13, 201n24 Sagalassos 218 saints 18–19, 42, 46, 111, 118, 121n3, 302, 306, 310; See also “holy ones” sanctuaries 92, 96–97, 99, 112, 123n25, 174, 195, 207–209, 211, 219n12, 225, 228, 231, 307; Greek 207, 209; to Cybele 209, 219n11; of Demeter and Kore 232; to the Egyptian Gods 209; of Hera 228–230, 233–234, 236, 238n15; of Hera (Corinth) 233; to Hera Limenia 238n13; of Hera (Sikyon) 234; of Leto 232; of the Mother of the Gods 135 Sardis 62n14, 218, 245, 254n11 Satan 22, 24–25, 70–71, 72n8, 73n15, 82, 88n37, 96, 100 seal (sphragis) 35–36, 42–43, 45, 48, 61n6; seven seals 23, 25–26, 33, 113 seer 52–54, 57, 59–60, 120, 173 senses 6, 20–21, 57–58, 61n6, 93, 95, 97, 104, 109, 113–114, 120, 260, 274n14; kinaesthesia 109, 113, 120; hearing 52–53, 57–58, 61n2, 62n16, 109, 113, 117, 120, 153, 157, 206; smell 95, 97–98, 105, 109, 113, 119, 122n9, 122n16; sight 5, 52–55, 57–61, 61n3, 61n7, 62n16–17, 97–98, 109; taste 58, 97, 109; touch 97, 109, 112–113, 201n18

Index of Subjects 335 Septimius Severus (emperor) 253n4, 279, 285 Severus Alexander (emperor) 242–244 seven churches/assemblies 65, 67–69, 71–72, 72n1 sexual immorality 66–68, 75–76, 80, 82–84, 88n38, 89n42; See also porneia sheep 7, 92, 94, 98, 100–101, 105n9, 177, 179, 186, 200n1; See also lamb Sicily 43 Side (Pamphylian) 8, 258–273, 274n7, 274n18, 275n21, 275n23, 275n27, 275n32 Sikyon 225, 231–234 Simoe 279, 285–286 smoke 97–98, 111, 113–114, 118, 122n16; See also sacrifice, incense Smyrna 88n35, 151, 160n11, 243, 245–246, 254n11–12 socioeconomics 34; See also poverty, elites Sparta 213, 229 spectacles 94, 138, 144–145, 147, 149, 151, 153, 157, 159, 248, 255n33; See also gladiatorial games Stoicism 36, 130, 144, 152–153 subversive consumption 75 synagogue 72n8, 131; “synagogue of Satan” 70, 72n8 Syracuse 220n18 Tarsis 157 Tauros Mountains 263 temenos 178, 183, 200n4, 204, 206–209, 211–212, 215–216, 219n6, 220n18, 233–234, 249, 251 Temenothyrai (Uşak) 282, 291, 293, 295 temple(s) 7–8, 39, 79, 95, 97–101, 104, 105n5, 135, 170, 172–173, 204–212, 214–216, 218, 218n1, 219n3, 219n12, 220n19, 227, 230–234, 238n15, 241–243, 245, 250–251, 275n26; of Akraia 232, 238n12; of Apollo Patroos 135; of Aphrodite (Acrocorinth) 233; of Artemis 39, 115, 172; of Athena (Priene) 212; of Athena (Side) 268–269; of Athena Polias 208; Greco-Roman 92, 95, 102; heavenly 6, 98, 109–110, 114,

117–121, 121n1; Hephaisteion 135; Hera 8, 233–234, 239n18; of Hera Anthea 232; of Hera Bounaia 232; imperial cult 98, 100, 134, 137–138, 243–244; Jerusalem 77, 86n14, 95, 112–114, 122n12, 122n14, 172–173; to Roma 245; Roman 200n5, 238n15; temple-tombs 181–182; of Zeus/Asklepios (Priene) 210, 212; of Zeus (Laodikeia) 245, 249, 251–252; of Zeus Philios 243; See also Omrit territorialization 260–263, 270, 274n13 Thasos 235 theater(s) 132, 138, 147, 149, 153, 160n4, 209, 214–216; at Assos 147; Corinthian 148, 151–153; of Dionysus (Athens) 147, 215; of Dionysus (Priene) 214–215, 219n17; Greek theater (Corinth) 147; at Miletus 96; at Priene 7, 205 Thessalonikē 160n11 Thyatira 47, 82, 94 thymiatēria 112, 114–116, 119, 122n8, 122n11, 123n23, 166–167, 219; See also incense throne(s): divine 23–24, 28, 46, 52, 60, 110–111, 114, 119; of Hera’s cult statue 230, of the Lamb 25; of the faithful 34; of Rome 60; of Satan 73n15, 96; throne room 52, 60, 114 Tiberius (emperor) 79, 116, 165, 169, 170, 211, 275n30 Titus (emperor) 62n18 Tomis 160n11 trade 114, 268, 270 transcendence 5, 18, 20–22, 27, 29, 29n4, 53, 113 transaction cost theory 131–136, 139 trauma 8, 27, 301, 303–311 Tralles 254n11 Tripolis 243 trumpet 122n12, 157; last 156–157; seven trumpets 26–27, 113 Tymion 279–298 Tyre 87n26, 201n15 Ukraine 8, 229, 238, 239n21, 301 Ulubey Canyon Valley 289–293 unguentaria 192, 193, 194, 198

336

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upward mobility 37 urbanism 258–261, 263, 265, 268, 273, 274n7 Uşak (modern) 281–282, 284, 291, 295 Uşak Archaeological Museum 1, 284–285, 291, 295n1 venationes (beast-fights) 146–147, 150–153, 155–156, 158, 160n4, 160n15–16, 161n20, 161n22 Vespasian (emperor) 62n18 victimarii 96–97, 100, 102–104 violence 6, 35–36, 39, 47–48, 93–94, 99, 301, 305 votive(s) 96, 111, 153, 177; altars 217–218, 219n4 West/Westerner 19–21, 28–29, 95, 97,

104–105, 303; dualism 20–21; interpreters 5 “Whore of Babylon” See Woman Babylon Woman Babylon 37, 44, 49n17, 75, 80–81, 83, 87n25, 89n42, 101 Zeus 96, 135, 213, 220n19, 228–229, 235–236, 238n9, 242, 244–247, 249–253, 255n44; Aetophoros 246, 253n9; Ammon 220; Boulaios 209–210; Eleutherios 135; Horkios 212; Ktesis 255n44; Laodicensis 253n9; Nemean 231; Pergamene Altar of 96, 208; Philios 243; Salaminios 122n10; Temple of (Priene) see Priene