I have now gained permission and uploaded my most recent article on the use of parental language in small group settings in antiquity:

Philip A. Harland, “Familial Dimensions of Group Identity (II): ‘Mothers’ and ‘Fathers’ in Associations and Synagogues of the Greek World,” Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Period 38 (2007) 57-79.

This article complements my earlier one on “brothers”:

Philip A. Harland, “Familial Dimensions of Group Identity: ‘Brothers’ (ΑΔΕΛΦΟΙ) in Associations of the Greek East,” Journal of Biblical Literature 124 (2005) 491-513.

These and other articles are also accessible from the publications page.

There is now a review on Review of Biblical Literature on the most recently published book emerging from the Religious Rivalries seminar of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies:

Vaage, Leif E., ed. Religious Rivalries in the Early Roman Empire and the Rise of Christianity. Studies in Christianity and Judaism/Études sur le christianisme et judaïsm 18 Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006.

My own chapter in that volume on the civic context is available online here.

The first of the three volumes from the Rivalries seminar was reviewed here:

Donaldson, Terence L., ed. Religious Rivalries and the Struggle for Success in Caesarea Maritima. Studies in Christianity and Judaism/Études sur le christianisme et le judaïsme 8 Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2000.

For some reason, the second volume, has yet to be reviewed online:

Ascough, Richard, ed. Religious Rivalries and the Struggle for Success in Sardis and Smyrna.  Studies in Christianity and Judaism.  Waterloo: WLU Press, 2005.

I have one of the chapters on rivalries among associations available online here (Doh! That page isn’t transferred to the new format yet.  Excuse all the mess).

As usual, Mary Beard’s blog on The Times Online is witty and interesting. Her latest entry on “Paganism without Blood” discusses some modern neo-pagan revivals involving worship of the Greek gods (about which I have also commented in my post: The worship of Zeus lives on). She concludes with the following:

“As almost everyone who studies ancient Greek religion insists, the key centre of the whole religious system was sacrifice: it was the ritual of killing and sharing the animal that was, if anything, the “article of faith” that defined the ancient community of worshippers. And it was through sacrifice (rather than ecology) that ancient Greeks conceptualized their own place in the world – distinct from animals on the one hand and the superhuman gods on the other.

Until these eager neo-pagans get real and slaughter a bull or two in central Athens, I shan’t worry that they have much to do with ancient religion at all. At the moment, this is paganism lite” (Mary Beard).

Paganism without blood (sacrifice) is no paganism at all. You can also read more about the importance of sacrifice and the accompanying meal for ancient “paganism” on the Meals in the Greco-Roman World site.

Mary Beard also has another post of great interest to me on Racism in Greece and Rome.

Jonathan Scott Perry has made important contributions to the study of associations (collegia), particularly in the western part of the Roman empire, and there is a recent book review offered by Torrey Seland on BMCR:

Jonathan S. Perry, The Roman Collegia. The Modern Evolution of an Ancient Concept. Mnemosyne Supplement 277. Leiden: Brill, 2006

(I am fortunate enough to have Scott as a colleague at York at the moment.)

This reminded me of several other association-related book reviews on BMCR which I meant to draw attention to before:

Yulia Ustinova, The Supreme Gods of the Bosporan Kingdom: Celestial Aphrodite and the Most High God. Leiden: Brill, 1999.

Brigitte Le Guen, Les Associations de Technites dionysiaques à l’époque hellénistique. Vol. 1, Corpus documentaire; vol. 2, Synthèse (= Études d’Archéologie Classique XI-XII). Nancy: Association pour la Diffusion de la Recherche sur l’Antiquité (Distribution: De Boccard, Paris), 2001.

Anne-Françoise Jaccottet, Choisir Dionysos. Les associations dionysiaques ou la face cachée du dionysisme. Vol. I: Text; II: Documents. Zürich: Akanthus, 2003.

John Bert Lott, The Neighborhoods of Augustan Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Quite a while ago my own book was reviewed there:

Philip A. Harland, Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations: Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003.

Another recent work on the meeting places of associations which I should have already read, but haven’t, is:
B. Bollmann, Römische Vereinhauser. Untersuchungen zu den Scholae der römischen Berufs-, Kult-, und Augustalen – Kollegien in Italien, Rome 1998.

As you may know, I always seek to gain permission from journals and others to reproduce my scholarly articles online, and you can read these articles on my publications page. I have now uploaded two of the most recent ones:

“Acculturation and Identity in the Diaspora: A Jewish Family and ‘Pagan’ Guilds at Hierapolis,” Journal of Jewish Studies 57 (2006) 222-244. (This article looks at the grave-inscriptions of Judeans at Hierapolis in Asia Minor).

“The Declining Polis? Religious Rivalries in Ancient Civic Context,” in Leif E. Vaage, ed., Religious Rivalries in the Early Roman Empire and the Rise of Christianity. Studies in Christianity and Judaism, vol. 18. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006, pp. 21-49. (This article discusses scholarly ideas regarding the decline of the ancient city and uses evidence for associations in Asia Minor to refute some common theories).

Yes he was. When studying Paul’s letters, it is important to consider Paul’s views on important social and cultural institutions of Greco-Roman society. One of these institutions was slavery.

Slavery was an important part of the economy in the Roman empire, and the lives of most slaves were by no means easy. You can read about some of this online in Keith Bradley’s Resisting Slavery in Ancient Rome and John Madden’s Slavery in the Roman Empire: Numbers and Origins. Slaves were also integrated within social and family life, as slaves were considered to belong to the “household” as broadly understood in antiquity. They were objects owned by their masters and subject to the orders of their masters, but belonged to the “family” at the lowest rung in the ladder.

Slaves were also subject to punishment for failing to obey their masters, and this could sometimes be quite brutal, as the quotations from Galen and Seneca below indicate. It seems that Paul, like other contemporaries, assumed the continued existence of slavery and did not show any signs of calling for its abolishment or even for the manumission (setting free) of slaves. When Paul wrote a letter of recommendation on behalf of Onesimus, who was most likely a runaway slave, he did not ask Onesimus’ master, Philemon, to free (manumit) the slave. Nor did Paul call for the end of slavery. Elsewhere Paul advised that slaves (and others) should remain as they are in light of the present distress and coming end (1 Cor 7:21-24).

Paul, like virtually all of his contemporaries, could not imagine a society that did not have a system of slavery. Nonetheless, it may be that Paul, like some contemporary philosophers, did advocate that masters like Philemon at least treat their slaves in a more controlled manner, or even as a “brother”, as Paul puts it (at least if the slave belonged to the Jesus movement). In writing his letter, Paul seems to be concerned that Onesimus the slave not receive severe punishment from his master for whatever wrongdoing or disobedience his master perceived.

So Paul’s concerns may have something in common with the sentiments of upper-class authors such as Galen and Seneca. Galen, a physician and philosopher who lived in Pergamum (Asia Minor) in the second century, had this to say about punishing slaves:

“If a man adheres to the practice of never striking any of his slaves with his hand, he will be less likely to succumb [to a fit of anger] later on. . . my father trained me to behave in this way myself. . . . There are other people who don’t just hit their slaves, but kick them and gouge out their eyes. . . . The story is told that the Emperor Hadrian struck one of his attendants in the eye with a pen. When he realised that [the slave] had become blind in one eye as a result of this stroke, he called him to him and offered to let him ask him for any gift to make up for what he had suffered. When the victim remained silent, Hadrian again asked him to make a request of whatever he wanted. He declined to accept anything else, but asked for his eye back — for what gift could provide compensation for the loss of an eye?” (Galen, The Diseases of the Mind, 4; translation from T. Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery [London: Croom Helm, 1981] 180-81).

Seneca, a first-century philosopher, stressed that one needed to control one’s passions or impulses in order to live a wise life (the philosophical life). In the context of discussing the control of anger, he used the treatment of slaves as an example:

“Why do I have to punish my slave with a whipping or imprisonment if he gives me a cheeky answer or disrespectful look or mutters something which I can’t quite hear? Is my status so special that offending my ears should be a crime? There are many people who have forgiven defeated enemies — am I not to forgive someone for being lazy or careless or talkative? If he’s a child, his age should excuse him, if female, her sex, if he doesn’t belong to me, his independence, and if he does belong to my household, the ties of family” (Seneca, Dialogue 5: On Anger, 3.24; translation from Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery, 179-80).

Both Paul and Seneca seem to be concerned with modifying perceptions of status in some cases and with alleviating the negative treatments that could flow from status-distinctions, but neither had in mind an end to slavery.

There is an ongoing seminar within the Society of Biblical Literature that looks at the nature and importance of banquets, symposia, and cultural practices associated with meals (including sacrifice) for our understanding of early Judaism and Christianity within the context of the Greco-Roman world. That seminar now has a website (which I have created and host here) where you can view photos or read papers relating to Meals in the Greco-Roman World.

On previous occasions I have discussed some common ethnic stereotypes that were at work when a given Greek or Roman author described the worldviews and practices of other peoples, and sometimes these views were reflected in novels as well (go here or here, for instance). Sometimes peoples outside of one’s own cultural group were viewed as inferior, barbarous, and dangerous. In particular, a common accusation against minority cultural groups was the claim that such “dangerous” people engaged in human sacrifice followed by a cannibalistic meal.

Judeans (Jews) and Christians were among the minority cultural groups accused of such fiendish activity. Thus, for instance, the Roman historian Dio Cassius (writing in the early third century) describes the revolt of Judeans in Cyrene, who were “destroying both the Romans and the Greeks”: he claims that “they would eat the flesh of their victims, make belts for themselves of their entrails, anoint themselves with their blood and wear their skins for clothing” (Roman History, 68.32.1-2 [Loeb translation]).

There were times when Christians, too, were on the receiving end of such ethnographic stereotypes which tried to underline just how dangerous certain peoples were. Minucius Felix’s second century dialogue presents the view of a critic who claimed that the Christians’ rituals involved the following:

An infant, cased in dough to deceive the unsuspecting, is placed beside the person to be initiated. The novice is thereupon induced to inflict what seems to be harmless blows upon the dough, and unintentionally the infant is killed by his unsuspecting blows; the blood – oh, horrible – they lap up greedily; the limbs they tear to pieces eagerly; and over the victim they make league and covenant, and by complicity in guilt pledge themselves to mutual silence (Octavius 9.5-6 [Loeb translation]; full text online here).

Tertullian, a second century Christian author from North Africa, responded to similar rumours regarding human sacrifice and cannibalism among Jesus-followers with some sarcasm:

‘Come! Plunge the knife into the baby, nobody’s enemy, guilty of nothing, everybody’s child. . . catch the infant blood; steep your bread with it; eat and enjoy it’ (Apol. 8.2 [Loeb translation]).

Tertullian tries to defend the reputation of Christians by drawing attention to how ludicrous he thought such accusations were and by striking to the heart of the reasons for such accusations. He gets at the “rationale” behind the accusations, so to speak. Namely, if one feels that some other group of people are dangerous or threatening, what better way to encapsulate that danger than in depicting the minority cultural group as murderers of “nobody’s enemy” and “everybody’s child”. If they’ll do this to an innocent child, goes the thinking, then imagine how dangerous they are to the rest of us as well. The notion of eating the human body, a child no less, is symbolic of destroying humanity or human society itself.

Similar patterns of demonizing “the other” have been at work throughout western cultural history.

The Greek island of Delos supplies the social historian with an unusually rich source of information regarding immigrant associations in the ancient world (especially for the second century BCE). Seldom can one boast of finding communities of Italians, Samaritans, Judeans, and Egyptians to study in one locale. Added to these many groups were guilds of immigrants from two important Syrian towns, Tyre and Berytos (modern Beirut in Lebanon).

Here I would like to briefly discuss two inscriptions involving the guild of Berytian merchants. These monuments illustrate well the expression of ethnic identity alongside adaptation or acculturation to local ways.

On the one hand is an inscription which shows the continuing importance of the gods of the homeland (Poseidon and, likely, Astarte or Ashtoreth) for this group on Delos:

“The association of Poseidon-worshipping merchants, shippers and receivers from Berytos set up the building (oikos), the pillars, and the oracles for the ancestral gods” (IDelos 1774).

On the other is a dedication not to the gods of the homeland but to the goddess Roma, personified Rome, herself.

“The association of Poseidon-worshipping merchants, shippers, and receivers from Berytos honoured the goddess Roma, benefactor, on account of the goodwill which she has in relation to the association and the homeland. This was done when Mnaseos son of Dionysios, benefactor, was chief of the cult-society for the second time. Menandros son of Melas, Athenian, prepared this monument” (IDelos 1778)

This was set up at the time of Roman ascendancy in this area of the Mediterranean, when Rome was further facilitating the flow of goods to important ports such as Delos. What particularly stands out in terms of identity and acculturation here is the fact that these immigrants honour the divine “mascot” of Rome. Yet they do so precisely because she is believed to have shown goodwill to the homeland of Beirut (in Syria) itself, as well as to these Syrian immigrants abroad.

These are just some of the many indications of continuing attachments to the homeland combined with a sense of belonging in a new home among immigrants in the Greco-Roman world. There’ll be more to come on immigrants soon.

As I have mentioned, I am presently writing an article on immigrants and immigrant associations in the Greco-Roman world. My primary focus now is on comparing Judean (Jewish) synagogues in the dispersion with other immigrants from the Levant (east of the Mediterranean) who likewise formed associations, especially Syrians or Phoenicians.

Jews were by no means the only group of immigrants who gathered together regularly in associations and maintained important connections with the culture and religion of their homeland. I will save the Syrians for future posts, but thought I’d mention one of our earliest attested cases of a group of immigrants who formed an association devoted to the deity of their homeland: the Thracians devoted to the goddess Bendis near Athens, Greece, in the Piraeus.

Votive relief depicting the Thracian goddess Bendis with a number of torch-race victors approaching their goddess (c. 400-350 BCE, now in the British Museum, photo by Phil)

We know very little about the goddess Bendis herself, who is often (as here) depicted in Thracian hunting gear (and with affinities to Artemis the huntress). At the Piraeus there were at least two associations devoted to her, one of them for immigrants from Thracia (north of Macedonia) specifically and the other for citizens of the city. We first catch a glimpse of a group of Thracians requesting and gaining permission from Athens (which controlled the port city of Piraeus) to set up a temple for their goddess somewhere between 434 and 411 BCE.

I do not know what this says about my book, but Christianbook.com must have acquired some overstock and is selling my book for just $5.99 USD right now (73% off — thanks to Brian Irwin for noticing this). If you were tempted by it but thought it wasn’t worth 15-22 bucks, then now is your chance (this means you, Loren). If you want some information and reviews of the book first, look here.

The most recent issue of Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies (current issue not yet online) has a fascinating article by David Frankfurter (U. New Hampshire): “Fetus Magic and Sorcery Fears in Roman Egypt,” GRBS 46 (2006), 37-62. Frankfurter explores the case of one Gemellus Horion, a partially blind descendent of a Roman veteran who brought a formal complaint before the Roman strategos over an incident that occured in the village of Karanis in 197 CE. Horion’s not-so-friendly neighbours — the family of Julius — had on more than one occasion robbed Horion’s family of their harvest and had ensured that their thieving action would not be stopped by using magic. Not once, but twice, the neighbours had thrown an aborted or miscarried fetus (brephos) in order to “surround [the Horion family] with malice” and create a binding spell that would ensure that noone would stop them –apparently with success to the point of Horion’s petition for Roman action. The complaint on the papyrus, as translated by Frankfurter, reads in part:

“[Julius] again trespassed with his wife and a certain Zenas, holding a brephos (fetus), intending to surround my cultivator with malice so that he would abandon his labor after having harvested . . . Again, in the same manner, they threw the same brephos toward me, intending to surround me also with malice. . . Julius, after he had gathered in the remaining crops from the fields, took the brephos away to his house (PMich VI 423-424, lines 12-14, 16-18, 20-21, as translated by Frankfurter 2006:41).

Frankfurter goes on to discuss this incident of a binding spell within the context of local traditions of magical practice and shows how the fetus functions primarily as something completely out of place or “weird” and therefore impure (making use of Malinowksi’s principle of the “coefficient of weirdness”) (p. 52). I would highly recommend this and the many other solid studies that David Frankfurter has produced, including his Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and Resistance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000) and “Ritual as Accusation and Atrocity: Satanic Ritual Abuse, Gnostic Libertinism, and Primal Murders,” History of Religions 40 (2001), 352-381.

Frankfurter has a knack for picking interesting topics and solving important issues in the process, I would suggest.

There is now an online review of my book in Biblical Theology Bulletin, by Peter Oakes (U. Manchester), who is a member in the Context Group and has done very important work in applying social scientific methods to the study of the New Testament. Oakes highlights some of his hesitancies regarding my arguments, which I will not address here except to say that my book does challenge the way in which the sectarian model has been applied in the past by scholars such as John H. Elliott (another excellent and very influential scholar in the Context Group). Despite such disagreements, Oakes sees my book as a valuable contribution, it seems:

This is a very ambitious and impressive book. Harland manages, astonishingly, to marshal his evidence in such a way as to engage in a serious critique of about a dozen of the leading scholarly conclusions on the nature of interaction among Gentiles, Jews, and Christians and the relative civic context of each.

For previous reviews of my book and some excerpts, go to my book information page.

Speaking of Biblical Theology Bulletin reminded me that I recently wrote a review in that publication of the following:
Judith M. Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

A while back, I referred to an article by Ilias Arnaoutoglou in which he argued, like I had in Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations (pp. 161-173), that evidence from Asia Minor shows that Roman law or legal action regarding associations was generally sporadic and not empire-wide. This argument is significant because so many scholars of the past and present assume that governmental control of associations or collegia was somewhat consistent over time and from one region to another; at times this comes to influence discussions of both Jewish and Christian groups. In other words, a well-ingrained scholarly assumption often distorts discussions of small social-religious groups in the Roman world generally.

Arnaoutoglou now has another article that hones in on Egypt specifically, and extends the earlier argument in the process: Ilias N. Arnaoutoglou, “Collegia in the Province of Egypt in the First Century CE,” Ancient Society 35 (2005): 197-216. Juxtaposing Philo’s mention of A. Aillius Flaccus’ actions in banning associations in Alexandria around 35 CE (Philo, Flaccus 4) with the actual papyrological and inscriptional evidence for associations from the late first century BCE through the first CE, Arnaoutoglou shows that this action was not part of an empire-wide attempt to quell associations and that, generally, “collegia were alive and kicking in first-century Egypt” (p. 209). For more on Philo and the associations of Alexandria, see Torrey Seland’s online article: “Philo and the Clubs and Associations of Alexandria.” (Also, for Philo generally see Torrey’s blog).

There are two key passages in Philo, the Jewish philosopher, regarding associations that are worth citing (the first reflecting his moral indignation and the latter his respect for Flaccus’ action in banning some of these supposedly wild groups):

In the city there are clubs (thiasoi) with a large membership, whose fellowship is founded on no sound principle but on strong liquor and drunkenness and sottish carousing and their offspring, wantonness. “Synods” and “banqueting-couches” (klinai) are the particular names given to them by the people of the country (Flaccus 136 [trans. by Colson in LCL, with adaptations]).

[The Roman prefect Flaccus] dissolved the associations and guilds, which were continually holding feasts on the pretext of sacrifice and misconducted their offices by insobriety, dealing drastically and peremptorily with the recalcitrant (Flaccus 4; trans. by H. Box as cited in Arnaoutoglou, p. 204)

Philo doesn’t like these non-Jewish associations, in case you hadn’t noticed, and in another treatise on the Therapeutai contrasts the ascetic lifestyle of this particular Jewish group with the wild parties of the worshippers of the god Dionysos and others (see Philo, The Contemplative Life). On the need to exercize caution in evaluating descriptions of wild banquets see my earlier posts here and here. For an entire article on the subject read this: “Culturally Transgressive Banquets in Greco-Roman Associations: Imagination and Reality.”

(Like the associations in Roman Egypt, I, too, am “alive and kicking” despite some major set-backs recently and hope to begin posting somewhat more regularly, though less than usual, soon. My apologies for the hiatus. Despite the temptation, I won’t quote any lyrics from Simple Minds, by the way).

Tony Keen has a post on Robert Graves – is he all bad?, which discusses the value of Grave’s Greek Myths despite its other shortcomings.

Stoa.org points to an article regarding an ancient Greek ship: Robot explores ancient Greek shipwreck.

There is a new blog by Matt Page (thanks to Mark Goodacre’s mention) devoted primarily to discussing films that involve biblical stories and themes: Bible Films Blog. There are already several posts there about the South African film Son of Man. I wonder if Matt Page will also discuss some of the earlier wave of both Bible and Roman-related films from the 1950s, some of which are hokey (corny), which makes them so enjoyable.

I am presently researching questions of cultural interactions in antiquity, particularly with regard to the ways in which immigrants (including Jews) both found a place for themselves within the cities of the Roman empire and maintained their own specific ties with the culture of their homeland. So I thought I’d write a brief post appropriate to the holiday season while addressing issues of acculturation (adopting and adapting to cultural practices of others) and the simultaneous maintenance of cultural or ethnic identities. And I’ll use two Jewish families to illustrate. (This is by no means meant to be a comprehensive discussion of the Maccabean revolt, Hanukkah, and New Year’s, by the way).

On the one hand is the story of a Jewish family who refused to adapt to foreign deities and led a revolt which successfully “cleansed” and re-dedicated the temple in Jerusalem in the 160s BCE. I am speaking of the Maccabees who are at the centre of the story of the festival of Hanukkah, or Chanukah (“Dedication”; for a brief online article go here). The years following Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Mediterranean (he died in 323 BCE) were a time of complicated cultural interactions as peoples living in various parts of the known world gradually adjusted to and/or reacted against the Hellenistic (Greek) customs that made their way through governmental, trade, and other social networks. As you can imagine there was a variety of reactions to Hellenistic ways and religions on the ground. Some, such as the Syrian soldiers who identified their own god — in this case Syrian Ba’al Shamem (“Lord of Heaven”) — with a Greek deity (Zeus Olympios), more readily adopted Hellenistic modes of expression. At the same time these same Syrians were also clearly maintaining certain aspects of their own specific religious practices and worldviews (it was Ba’al they worshipped under the guise of Zeus, so to speak).

We know from the story of the Maccabees itself that Judeans (Jews) were not universally agreed on what aspects of Greek culture should or should not be tolerated, adopted, or adapted. Some Judeans were willing to establish a Hellenistic-style city (polis) and gymnasium in Jerusalem, for instance. What the Maccabees and most other Judeans agreed on, however, was that their tradition of monotheistic worship in the Jerusalem temple not be compromised by identifying their God with any god of the Greeks (a “syncretistic” custom that was common in most other places where polytheism prevaled). So when the Syrian soldiers stationed in Jerusalem established an altar in the Jerusalem temple in order to offer sacrifices to Ba’al, this was normal for the soldiers but the last straw for the Maccabees and others like them (see First, Second, Third and Fourth Maccabees in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, available online by clicking on the numbers above). The Maccabean revolt resulted in the cleansing and re-dedication of the temple which are, essentially, the institution of the Hanukkah celebration (according to 1 Maccabees):

“Early in the morning on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month, which is the month of Chislev. . . they rose and offered sacrifice, as the law directs, on the new altar of burnt offering that they had built. At the very season and on the very day that the Gentiles had profaned it, it was dedicated with songs and harps and lutes and cymbals. . . Then Judas [Maccabee] and his brothers and all the assembly of Israel determined that every year at that season the days of dedication of the altar should be observed with joy and gladness for eight days. . . ” (1 Maccabees 4:52-59 [NRSV]).

Grave of a Jewish family at Hierapolis (IJO II 196; photo by Phil)

On the other hand is a Jewish family settled in Hierapolis (a Greek city in Asia Minor) who apparently celebrated the Roman New Year’s festival (feast of Kalends), as well as customary Jewish festivals including Passover and Pentecost. Our evidence for this comes from a family grave dating to the third century CE, which happens to preserve for us the arrangements that a certain man made for himself and his family ( IJO II 196, revising CIJ 777). (I have a forthcoming article that deals at length with questions of acculturation and identity among Jews in Hierapolis which I will post, if possible, when it comes out. In the mean time, for more on Jews, Christians and guilds in Hierapolis and the Lycos valley, go here.)

It was customary for wealthier people in Asia Minor to make arrangements (leave money) for particular people or a group, such as a guild, to come to the family grave on a regular basis and to care for the grave itself. What stands out in this case is that Glykon and his wife, Amia, who were apparently Jews, arranged to have local guilds of purple-dyers and carpet-weavers (who likely included non-Jews in their membership) attend to the grave-ceremonies on both Jewish and Roman holidays. The Roman New Year festival, a precedessor of our New Year celebrations, took place in early January and, as Ovid emphasizes, centred on the exchange of “good wishes” and gifts, including “sweet” gifts (e.g. dates, figs, honey), as well as cash, indicating an omen of a sweet year to come (Fasti 1.171-194). The celebrations were also associated with the Roman god Janus (hence January). Here, then, is a family that clearly maintained Jewish aspects of its identity and arranged for others to continue to remember them on Jewish holy days, but also a family that adapted to some Roman practices, in this case the New Year celebration.

I’ll post again in the new year. Have a good one.

UPDATE (Dec 23): For two different media takes on the Maccabees and Hanukkah (mentioned by Jim Davila), see Hanukka and Hellenization (Jerusalem Post) and The Maccabees and the Hellenists (Slate).

(Dec. 27): Even more media reflections on the Hasmoneans a.k.a. Maccabees (thanks to Jim Davila’s keen eye) here and here.

In a previous post, I have discussed the (“gnostic”) mythology surrounding the figure of Sophia (Wisdom personified) as developed in some of the Nag Hammadi writings. My discussion of Sophia’s mistake in connection with the document called The Sophia of Jesus Christ placed this mythology within the framework of Middle Platonic philosophy and discussed the manner in which Sophia, as a divine being (aeon), was responsible for the mistake that led to the creation of the inferior material realm, our world as we know it.

The second-century Apocryphon of John (or Secret Book of John, online here) presents a far more developed story of the emergence of the perfect spiritual realm and the abortive creation of the material realm. Here Sophia is once again instrumental in performing a massive blunder that leads to the creation of our physical world, but the story is extended in various ways, including a more developed reference to the fact that Sophia was repentant for the mistake and willing to do penance, so to speak.

In the Apocryphon of John, Sophia is once again among the many emanations from the original monad or perfect spirit, the Father. Sophia is also once again responsible, on her own (apart from her “consort”), for the emergence or emanation of the “ruler” (archon) or “world-creator” (demiurge), here called Ialdabaoth:

“Now the wisdom [Sophia] belonging to afterthought, which is an aeon, thought a thought derived from herself. . . She wanted to show forth within herself an image, without the spirit’s [will]; and her consort did not consent. . . And out of her was shown forth an imperfect product, that was different from her manner of appearance, for she had made it without her consort. And compared to the image of its mother it was misshapen, having a different form” (Apocryphon of John 9.25-10.7; trans. by Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation with Annotations and Introductions [New York: Doubleday, 1987]).

Ialdabaoth (also spelled Ialtabaoth or Aldabaoth), who is largely identified with the creator god of Genesis, then goes on to create other “rulers” (archons) like himself who assist in creating the material realm, including human beings (Adam and Eve). He is an ignorant god (ignorant of where he had come from and from where his power came), according to this author, a god who just loves to assert how he’s the one-and-only (playing on passages from the Hebrew Bible), when in fact he is not : “It is I who am god, and no other god exists apart from me” (11.21-22), or “For my part, I am a jealous god. And there is no other god apart from me” (13:8-12). (This author, like some other “gnostic” authors, expresses some clear anti-Jewish tendencies, at least in the rejection of the Jewish scriptures’ creator God as an ignorant god.) So the physical world comes into being as a result of acts of ignorance and a divine element is trapped within the physical bodies of human beings, an element that properly belongs in the spiritual realm of the Father.

The repentance of a pacing Sophia comes into the picture once she sees what has happened as a result of her independent action:

“when she saw the imperfection that had come to exist and the theft that her offspring had committed, she repented. And in the darkness of unacquaintance, forgetfullness came over her. And she began to be ashamed, moving back and forth. . . And the entreaty of her repentance was heard, and all the fullness lifted up praise on her behalf unto the invisible virgin spirit, and it consented. And while the holy spirit was consenting, the holy spirit poured over her something of the fullness of all. For her consort did not come to her (in person); rather, it came to her through the fullness in order to rectify her lack. And she was conveyed not to her own eternal realm but to a place higher than her offspring, so as to dwell in the ninth (heaven) until she rectified her lack” (13.21-14.12).

Sophia’s mistake, however massive in the view of this author, did not preclude rectification and a continuing important role as part of the perfect spiritual realm.

A paper I have written will be among those discussed in the Meals in the Greco-Roman World seminar at SBL on Saturday afternoon (Nov. 19). Since the papers will not be read at the conference, I have made a draft of the paper available online here (pdf). It deals with wild banquets, including those that involve accusations of human sacrifice and cannibalism, a topic I have touched on in earlier entries on ethnography on this blog. The paper explores ethnographic discourses as reflected in Greek and Roman novels as well as historical works, and places the discussion within the framework of actual associations’ meals as known from inscriptions. It also sheds light on the supposed Oedipean unions (incest) and Thyestean feasts (cannibalism) of the early Christians. If you will attend, you may wish to read the paper in advance.

S19-118 Meals in the Greco-Roman World
11/19/2005 (SATURDAY)
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Room: Washington A – Loews Hotel

Theme: Meals in Greco-Roman Associations

Dennis Smith, Phillips Theological Seminary, Presiding (5 min)

Richard Ascough, Queen’s Theological College
Eating with the Gods: Strengthening the Bonds of Community in Greco-Roman Associations (10 min)

Philip Harland, Concordia University
Culturally Transgressive Banquets in Reality and Imagination: Banqueting Values and the Associations (10 min)

Discussion (45 min)
Break (15 min)
Discussion (45 min)
Other (20 min)

My article on rivalries among associations is now also available in pdf on my site (courtesy of WLU Press): “Spheres of Contention, Claims of Preeminence: Rivalries Among Associations in Sardis and Smyrna,” in Religious Rivalries and the Struggle for Success in Sardis and Smyrna, edited by Richard Ascough, pp. 53-63. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2005.

I had also recently posted my article on fictive “brother” language which is also available: “Familial Dimensions of Group Identity: ‘Brothers’ (ΑΔΕΛΦΟΙ) in Associations of the Greek East,” Journal of Biblical Literature 124 (2005) 491-513.

These and several other articles can be accessed freely on my publications page.

The mythologies preserved in the Nag Hammadi documents can be both fascinating and bewildering to the modern reader. Many, such as The Sophia (Wisdom) of Jesus Christ (usually dated to the second century CE) quite clearly express their views concerning the origins of the divine realm. Often they build on the assumptions and concepts of contemporary Platonic philosophers who elaborated on the creation of the universe in Plato’s Timaeus (online article on “Middle Platonism“; online translation of Timaeus). One of The Sophia’s main sources, Eugnostos the Blessed, is saturated in such Platonisms (and Sophia takes them on) in presenting its insights into the five main beings which emerged from the one perfect and indescribable Good, called “God of truth” or “Forefather” by the author. (Eugnostos and The Sophia available online here — check them out for yourself).

Both Eugnostos and The Sophia then go on to innumerate the other main emanations or beings that came to constitute the perfect, spiritual realm along with the Forefather. These beings include the “Self-Father” (the image of the Forefather as if viewed in a mirror), the “Immortal Androgynous Man” (who emerges in the beam of light as the Forefather views his/her image), the “Son of Man” (who is the first-begotten–the others were not begotten), and the “Saviour” (who is “revealed” as a “great androgynous light” by the Son of Man). Each of these figures are androgynous and have their corresponding “female” portion, usually called “Sophia” (Greek for Wisdom). So far, so confused, and I won’t try and sort these out for you now (in the document it is only the Saviour who can explain the whole thing in order to bring understanding).

What I especially want to point out is what The Sophia of Jesus Christ does with this source and an important “story” which the author uses to supplement this scenario. The Sophia places the whole letter of instruction into the form of a dialogue between “the Saviour” (identified with Christ) and his disciples (Eugnostos, on the other hand, shows no signs of being “Christian”, and very little, if any, indication of being “Jewish”). Absent in Eugnostos is any elaboration on how the material realm (rather than the spiritual realm discussed above) came to be, or on who it was that created the material realm in which we humans live and on how we got here.

Enter Sophia and her mistake, referred to in The Sophia document. “Saviour” (Christ) talking here:

“All who come into the world, like a drop from the Light, are sent by him to the world of Almighty, that they may be guarded by him. And the bond of his forgetfulness bound him by the will of Sophia, that the matter might be revealed through it to the whole world in poverty concerning his (Almighty’s) arrogance and blindness and the ignorance that he was named. But I (Saviour) came from the places above by the will of the great Light. . . I have cut off the work of the robbers (powers that created or control the material realm); I have wakened that drop that was sent from Sophia, that it might bear much fruit. . . And you (disciples being addressed) were sent by the Son, who was sent that you might receive Light and remove yourselves from the forgetfulness of the authorities. . . Tread upon their (the robbers or authorities who rule the material realm) malicious intent” (Sophia of Jesus Christ 106-108; trans. D. M. Parrott in The Nag Hammadi Library in English ; explanatory notes added by me).

Here we have what does recur (in variant forms) in some other Nag Hammadi documents (such as the Apocryphon of John) and which is referred to in some heresiologists (like Irenaeus). This is a reference to the story of Sophia’s mistake in desiring, by herself and without her consort, “to bring these (authorities including Almighty, or Yaldabaoth) to existence” (114; BG 118). She created, by this mistake, the “Almighty”, the god of the Hebrew Bible, and his “robber” buddies, in this author’s view. Here the god of the Hebrew Bible is cast as the ignorant creator of the material realm (demiurge), whose work necessitated the sending of a Saviour from another God, the perfect and ineffable Forefather, to awaken and bring back the drops of the perfect spiritual realm (trapped within bodies-prisons in this material realm) to the place they belong. The Saviour came to bring the knowledge of the situation so that “they (the drops) might be joined with that Spirit and Breath. . . and might from two become one,” one with the perfect spiritual realm of the Forefather. This scenario is precisely what salvation is all about, for this author (and some others who also thought of themselves as followers of Christ).

But don’t expect to understand such mythology easily, since the documents that present it presume some previous knowledge of this way of thinking. We (moderns) can at least begin to get a sense of how different this is from some other early Christian writings where salvation instead pivots on Jesus’ death and resurrection (as in Paul’s letters, for instance).

These discussions of Nag Hammadi material (traditionally “gnosticism”) are far longer than what you want a blog entry to be and they certainly do not do justice to the topic. But what can you do?

Worship of the emperors is a fascinating aspect of religious life in the Roman empire. Over on BMCR, there is a review (by Kieran Hendrick) of a recent book that deals with the title “temple-warden” (neokoros) in connection with provincial imperial cults (temples devoted to worship of the emperors): Barbara Burrell, Neokoroi: Greek cities and Roman Emperors. Cincinnati Classical Studies, New Series Volume IX. Leiden: Brill, 2004.

Cities throughout Asia Minor and other eastern areas of the empire proudly took on the title “temple-warden” when they came to host a provincial temple in honour of the “revered ones” (Sebastoi), the emperors or imperial family as gods. Burrell’s book gathers together and provides an overview of the evidence for this practice.

If you would like to know more about worship of the emperors in the eastern part of the empire, you can read a brief overview here on my site. Or, if you would like to read more about imperial cults at the local level within associations, read my journal article here (or this one). On the significance of these cults for John’s Apocalypse (Revelation), which speaks of “worshipping the beast”, read this. The classic study which set the stage for much recent research in this area, including my own, is Simon Price’s Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 1984). That is still the place to start if you want to read a book on the subject.

Photo (above right): Head of the colossal statue of emperor Domitian (or Titus) associated with the provincial imperial cult temple at Ephesus (which made the city “twice temple warden” in the Flavian era, the late first century). Now in the Ephesus Museum (mini-photo-tour of museum here). Photo by Phil.

Bandits or pirates play an important role within many of the ancient Greek novels. In essence, these thugs come to embody just about every improper social and religious activity you can imagine, including human sacrifice and cannibalism (as I discussed in earlier entries on ethnography. They are also depicted as engaging in improper banqueting activity in other respects.

Apuleius’ Golden Ass (aka Metamorphoses) relates the story of a man who is turned into an ass through magic and goes on adventures towards his ultimate salvation from the goddess Isis. In the mean time, his adventures include capture by a guild (collegium) of bandits (6.31), whose meal etiquette is characterized thus:

They ate and drank in utter disorder, swallowing meat by the heap, bread by the stack, and cups by the legion. They played raucously, sang deafeningly, and joked abusively, and in every other respect behaved just like those half-beasts, the Lapiths and Centaurs (Metamorphoses 4.8, trans LCL).

According to Greek mythology, the wedding celebration of Peirithous, a Lapith, ended in utter violence between the two peoples due to the drunken behaviour of a Centaur (cf. Homer, Od. 21.285-304). So these mythical figures became the epitome of terrible and violent banqueting behaviour ever since, as evidenced in the title of Lucian’s satirical Symposium, or The Lapiths, and in many artistic representations (cf. Pausanias, Guide to Greece 1.17.2; 1.28.2; 5.10.8).

A Lapith struggles with a Centaur
(Parthenon metope, now in the British Museum)

The brigands in Apuleius’ novel have “principles,” by the way, which are manifest in their (foiled) plan to punish the girl and the ass in the most humiliating manner: by having the living girl sewn inside the executed animal and leaving them both in the hot sun for dogs and vultures to devour.

You can read more about such characterizations of wild meals or anti-banquets of bandits and other “low-lifes” in a paper I wrote here.

I recently re-watched Pink Floyd’s “Live at Pompeii” (originally 1972) film which has now been released as a director’s cut DVD (also with the original version included). The live concert was recorded (with no audience, I might add) in the amphitheatre at Pompeii, with excellent results in sound. The new director’s cut version of the film adds considerable Roman archeological material as background (the original version had some). In particular, “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun”, which is mesmerizing to begin with, is now interspersed with shots of the paintings from the Villa of the Mysteries (Villa Item), which pertain to the mysteries of the god Dionysos (Dionysus) or Bacchus (which you can read about here). If you do like Pink Floyd’s music or you are interested in Roman archeology and the mysteries, then it’s well worth a watch. It also has the track “Madame Nobs” (recorded in a studio, not Pompeii) which is a blues tune with harmonica and live howling dog accompaniment (my son enjoys that the most).

Over on “Towards an Archaeology of Iconoclasm“, Troels mentions a new study by Jakob Munk Højte on Roman imperial statue bases. Troels then goes on to the question of the mutilation of inscriptions, and mentions a case in the Prytaneion (presidency building) at Ephesus which involves the obliteration of the goddess Artemis’ name (probably by Christians). Troels also promises some more entries on the topic, to which I will look forward.
Troels also mentions the relative commonality of the erasure of an emperor’s name in cases where an emperor was so disliked by other senators that his memory was “condemned” (damnatio memoriae) after his death. I happen to have on hand a photo of an inscription, now in the museum at Ephesus, that involves a dedication to the emperor Domitian in 88-89 CE (by the city of Klazomenae) (IEph 235). After the condemnation of Domitian’s memory, Domitian’s name was erased and the monument was rededicated to the emperor Vespasian. The erasure and re-inscription took place on lines two and four, with Domitian being replaced with “god” (theos) in line two and Germanicus being replaced with “Vespasian” in line four).

You can also check out some other monuments and statues in the Ephesus museum, as well as other Turkish museums, here.

UPDATE: Welcome to readers of Respectful Insolence (aka Orac Knows), a blog by an “academic surgeon and scientist” that covers just about everything you could imagine, including science and history (especially WW II and the Holocaust). If you are interested in Roman history and the history of religions in the Roman empire (including Judaism and Christianity, of course), you may (are sure to) find other entries of interest here.

Thanks to David Meadows for noting a new journal devoted to the study of “Hellenic religion” (Journal of Hellenic Religion). This is not an academic journal but a journal produced by those who wish to promote and continue practicing the worship of the ancient Greek gods. If you are interested in the study of neo-paganism (new, modern paganism), then, this may be of interest to you. To use an analogy: You wouldn’t want to use Pat Robertson’s 700 club show as a source of information if you were doing a research paper on the New Testament or on ancient Christianity, but you would need to watch him if you were studying and doing a paper on a particular brand of modern American religion.

For those of you who are not familiar with neo-paganism, it takes a variety of forms such that the single term is misleading. It includes people today who are devoted to the worship of specific deities such as Demeter, for instance, and those who claim to practice ancient Druidism, as well as others such as the Wiccans and still others that combine little bit of each, so to speak. Belief.net has an article on modern polytheism here. IMPORTANT: This is a case where it is very important to distinguish between academically-minded and religiously-minded websites that deal with ancient religions. The ones just listed are religiously-minded, produced by those who practice their “pagan” religion in a modern form.

As you may know, you can read a number of articles dealing with the social and religious life of associations and guilds in the Roman empire by clicking on my full-text online articles (and scrolling down). But I thought I’d mention a few other articles on associations (collegia, thiasoi, synodoi, etc) that are also freely available online:

Our friendly neighbourhood Philo scholar has the following very interesting paper hosted on the Ioudaios site (which later appeared in revised form in the volume edited by John S. Kloppenborg and Stephen G. Wilson):
Torrey Seland, “Philo and the Clubs and Associations of Alexandria.”

The Hendrickson site has Richard S. Ascough’s general discussion (from an edited book) of “Greco-Roman Philosophic, Religious, and Voluntary Associations.”

Ascough’s book on What are they Saying about the Formation of the Pauline Churches, which also has introductory discussions on associations and on mysteries as a backdrop for Pauline groups, is available for browsing on GooglePrint

Ilias Arnaoutoglou, an expert on Greek law, has an article on whether or not there were strictly enforced laws regarding associations in Asia Minor (answering, as do I in my book [pp.161-176], in the negative):
Ilias N. Arnaoutoglou, “Roman Law and Collegia in Asia Minor,” Revue Internationale des droits de l’antiquité 49 (2002): 27-44.

I was just looking at Paul R. Trebilco’s webpage at the University of Otago and had to share what I found. Trebilco is best know for his excellent work on Jewish Communities in Asia Minor (Cambridge University Press, 1991), and more recently he has written The Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius (Mohr-Siebeck 2004). Yet among his earlier refereed publications are:

Blunt, J.W., Hartshorn, M.P., Munro, M.H.G., Lee, T.S., Thompson, R.S., Trebilco, P.R., Vannort, R.W. and Vaughan, J. ‘Reactions of Propargyl Alcohols VI. Lithium Aluminium Hydride Reductions of 2,2-Dimethyl-3-phenylhex-4-yn-3-ol, its 1- methoxy-derivative and 2,2-Di-(meth-oxy-met-hyl)-3-phenylhex-4-yn-3-ol.’ Australian Journal of Chemistry 36 (1983): 581-591.

‘Paul and Silas, Servants of the Most High God – Acts 16:16-18.’ Journal for the Study of the New Testament 36 (1989): 51-73.

The transition from chemist to scholar of Christian origins took less than 6 years, apparently. Impressive!

Unofficial groups in the Greco-Roman world that I (and others) typically call “associations” used a variety of terms to describe themselves. Some of the favourite Greek terms were synodos (“synod”), koinon, synergasia (“guild”), thiasos (“cult-society”), and mystai (“initiates”). Today, when people (including many scholars) hear the term synagogue or head-of-the-synagogue (archisynagogos) they tend to assume some Jewish group (or building) is in mind. However, the term synagogue (stemming from the Greek synagō, meaning to gather or bring together) was also used by other “pagan” associations and was not necessarily a sign of Jewish connections.

Thus, for instance, one monument from Apamea in Bithynia (northern Asia Minor / Turkey), which involves a group of men and women devotees (thiasitai and thiastides) honouring a priestess of Cybele (the Great Mother), mentions that the inscription was set up in the “synagogue” of Zeus (IApamBith 35). Across the Propontis in Perinthos-Herakleia in Thracia, there was an occupationally-based “synagogue of oar (or small-ware) dealers” that shows no sign of Jewish connections (IPerinthos 59 [first or second century]). At both Beroia and Hagios Mamas in Macedonia there were associations (devoted to Poseidon and a hero-god respectively) whose main leader was known as the head-of-the-synagogue (archisynagogos) (IMakedD 747 [second century]; SEG 27 [1977] 267). And there are many other “pagan” cases where the chief leader of the group, as in some Jewish gatherings, was termed head-of-the-synagogue (e.g. NewDocs I 5; IG X.2 288-289; SEG 42 [1992] 625).

Diaspora Jewish groups (including Jesus-devotees) shared more in common with “run-of-the-mill” associations of the Greco-Roman world than often acknowledged, and their “gatherings” would have been viewed as such by outsiders in some important respects.

To read more about associations in the Greco-Roman world, as well as their relevance to early Judaism and Christianity, go here.

As pointed out on the Stoa consortium, the well-established journal Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies is now freely available online (at least the current year). Let’s hope it stays free-access.

There are sometimes articles dealing with religions of the ancient Mediterranean in this journal, including the recent article by Velvet Yates on “The Titanic Origin of Humans: The Melian Nymphs and Zagreus” (link to pdf not working at the moment). Another article by Michael Carter, titled “Archiereis and Asiarchs: A Gladiatorial Perspective“, argues that the positions of the highpriests of the imperial cult are, in fact, one and the same with the positions of asiarchs in the province of Asia. D.R. Jordan’s article from 2000 which lists recently discovered curse tablets, or defixiones, is also available (“New Greek Curse Tablets (1985-2000)“.

Until recently, the suggestion that members of the early Christian congregations may have simultaneously been members in other associations and guilds remained under-explored. In my book, I dealt with the question of multiple memberships in connection with the Christians at Corinth (addressed by Paul in 1 Cor 8 and 10) who were attending banquets alongside non-Christians (“pagans”). I also considered the possibility that the opponents addressed by John’s Apocalypse, especially those accused of eating idol-food (or idol-meat) with “Jezebel”, may have been encountering sacrificial food as members in the guilds of Thyatira (something that William Ramsay suggested, but did not explore, long ago). For all this, see pp. 205-10, 259-63 of Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations.

In a more recent article dealing with Sardis and Smyrna, which you can read on my site, I looked at the implications of multiple memberships for questions of rivalries and competition among different groups.

I have now just read a very interesting article on associations on the island of Rhodes by Vincent Gabrielson, which drew my attention to another interesting case of multiple memberships in associations (dealing with IG XII[1] 155). A man named Dionysodoros, who was an immigrant from Alexandria (in Egypt), was honoured by a number of associations (koina) at Rhodes in the second century BCE, including the “Haliasts and Haliads,” the “Paniasts,” and the “Dionysiasts” (devoted to the god Dionysos). A closer look at this lengthy inscription shows that he was not only honoured by these groups, but was also a member in at least four associations at Rhodes! (See Vincent Gabrielson, “The Rhodian Associations Honouring Dionysodoros from Alexandria, ” Classica et mediaevalia 45 [1994] 137-60.)

And these memberships were not fleeting. Dionysodoros was a member of the “Haliasts and Haliads” for 35 years, and he acted as their chief-of-banquets (archeranistas) for 23 years. Simultaneously he was a faithful member and benefactor of other associations, including the “Paniasts” whom he served as chief-of-banquets for at least 18 years. This is the sort of atmosphere of multiple affiliations and interactions in which the early Christians and diaspora Jews found themselves. So we should not be too surprised if we find some Jews or Christians going to synagogue or church one day, and hanging out with friends in the guild or association the next.