Conversion in Late Antiquity: Christianity, Islam, and Beyond

437 Pages·2015·3.38 MB·English

by  Arietta Papaconstantinou

Conversion in Late antiquity:
Christianity, isLam, and Beyond
in memory of tom sizgorich
Adieu, chers compaignons, adieu, mes chers amis,
Je m’en vay le premier vous preparer la place.
Pierre de ronsard, Derniers vers (1586)
Conversion in Late antiquity:
Christianity, islam, and Beyond
Papers from the andrew W. mellon Foundation sawyer
seminar, university of oxford, 2009–2010
Edited by
Arietta Papaconstantinou, University of Reading, UK,
with Neil McLynn, University of Oxford, UK
and Daniel L. Schwartz, Texas A&M University, USA
© arietta Papaconstantinou, neil mcLynn and daniel L. schwartz 2015
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
arietta Papaconstantinou, neil mcLynn and daniel L. schwartz have asserted their right
under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this
work.
Published by
ashgate Publishing Limited ashgate Publishing Company
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
andrew W. mellon Foundation sawyer seminar (2009-2010 : university of oxford)
Conversion in late antiquity : Christianity, islam, and beyond : papers from the andrew
W. mellon Foundation sawyer seminar, university of oxford, 2009-2010 / edited by
arietta Papaconstantinou, with neil mcLynn and daniel L. schwartz.
pages cm
includes bibliographical references and index.
isBn 978-1-4094-5738-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) – isBn 978-1-4094-5739-8 (ebook) –
isBn 978-1-4094-6385-6 (epub) 1. Conversion–Christianity–history–to 1500–
Congresses. 2. Church history–Primitive and early church, ca. 30–600–Congresses. 3.
Church history–middle ages, 600-1500–Congresses. 4. Conversion–islam–history–
Congresses. 5. islam–history–to 1500vCongresses. i. Papaconstantinou, arietta, joint
editor. ii. title.
Bv4916.3.a53 2009
204'.2–dc23
2015002622
isBn: 9781409457381 (hbk)
isBn: 9781409457398 (ebk – PdF)
isBn: 9781409463856 (ebk – ePuB)
In Memoriam:
Thomas Sizgorich (1970–2011)
Vita enim mortuorum in memoria est posita vivorum.1
On Tuesday 25 January 2011, I received an email from Tom agreeing to participate
in this volume, and promising to ‘get you a title and abstract this week’. I could
still see his name further up my inbox when on Friday 28th I received a message
from Clifford Ando letting a small group of common friends know that Tom had
suddenly died of a stroke the day before. The news came as a bucket of cold
water, and everyone who found out in the following days and weeks had the same
reaction. Over his short career, and during his visits to Europe, Tom had acquired
many admirers and friends. For all of us he was full of life and intellectual energy.
We all imagined him as a towering figure in the future of a young academic field,
of which he was already one of the most eloquent practitioners. It simply did not
make sense.
I remember like yesterday the thrill of reading his first article in Past and
Present. Entitled ‘Narrative and Community in Islamic Late Antiquity’, it
expressed in an articulate, clear and yet amazingly sophisticated manner things
that several scholars, including myself, had been trying to say - rather gauchely,
it now felt. The professionalism and maturity of his work, and his astonishing
gift for language, were there from the very start, and only got better with time.
That article prompted us with Muriel Debié to invite him to a panel on
Near Eastern hagiography and historiography at the International Congress
of Byzantine Studies in London in 2006. We were told by those who knew him
that he would be easy to recognise, ‘a California guy with orange hair’. At the
conference, we looked vainly for orange hair in the midst of a crowd of rather
conventionally dressed Byzantinists, until a young man with hardly any hair at
all came up to me and introduced himself as Tom. That was the beginning of
a very exciting intellectual encounter. Sadly, Tom’s participation in the Mellon
Sawyer Seminar that produced this book was its last manifestation. It was a
very powerful one, as will be obvious from the references to his paper by other
impressed speakers and contributors.
This master of both textual and sociological analysis, with a background
in journalism, also excelled in relating his work to the reality of today. His
understanding of Middle Eastern politics was uncommonly lucid and subtle,
1  Cicero, Philippic IX 10.
vi Conversion in Late Antiquity: Christianity, Islam, and Beyond
and it was a pleasure to discuss issues with him. He left us as the first events
of the Arab Spring had just taken place in Tunisia, perhaps sparing himself the
pain of seeing the hopeful Spring turn into an ugly Autumn. Yet how we could
benefit, today, from his capacity to probe and dissect situations of contested
identities and competing claims to power. His Violence and Belief, exploring the
early Caliphate, has so much to teach us about the modern one if we care to look.
It has been four years, and as this book went into production, it marked the
sad anniversary almost to the day. Much has been written already about Tom
and his qualities, both human and scholarly. At the initiative of his friends
and colleagues, a Memorial Award has been established in his name at the
University of California at Santa Barbara, to support graduate students ‘from
an economically disadvantaged or non-traditional background’ – a cause we
all know was close to his heart. Most of all, vivid memories of his work and
his presence hover over conferences and seminars concerned with a range of
subjects related to the late antique and early Islamic Near East. If indeed ‘the
life of the dead lies in the memory of the living’, Tom is still very much with us.
Arietta Papaconstantinou
Contents
In Memoriam: Thomas Sizgorich (1970–2011) v
Abbreviations ix
List of Contributors x
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction by Arietta Papaconstantinou xv
PrInCIPles
1 Christian Conversion in late Antiquity: some Issues 3
Averil Cameron
2 Christians and Others: The Conversion ethos of late Antiquity 23
Polymnia Athanassiadi
3 Competing religious Conversions and re-conversions in
Contemporary Mongolia 49
Vesna A. Wallace
PrACTICe I: rAIsOn d’ÉTAT
4 From Unholy Madness to right-mindedness: Or How to legislate
for religious Conformity from decius to Justinian 67
Simon Corcoran
5 From Constantine the Great to emperor Wu of the liang: 95
The rhetoric of Imperial Conversion and the divisive emergence
of religious Identities in late Antique eurasia 95
Antonello Palumbo
6 The Diffusion, Persecution and Transformation of Manichaeism
in late Antiquity and pre-Modern China 123
Samuel N.C. Lieu
PrACTICe II: HUMAn AMbIGUITIes
7 narratives of Violence: Confronting Pagans* 143
Christopher Kelly
viii Conversion in Late Antiquity: Christianity, Islam, and Beyond
8 Mind the Gap: Accidental Conversion and the Hagiographic
Imaginary in the First Centuries A.H.* 163
Thomas Sizgorich †
9 rural Converters Among the Arabs* 175
Elizabeth Key Fowden
10 Conversion, Apostasy, and Penance: The Shifting Identities of
Muslim Converts in the early Islamic Period 197
Uriel Simonsohn
PrACTICe III: syMbOls And InsTITUTIOns
11 The rabbinic Conversion to Judaism; The rabbinic Conversion of
Judaism 219
Moshe Lavee
12 How to Get rid of Venus: some remarks on Jerome’s Vita
Hilarionis and the Conversion of elusa in the negev 241
Konstantin M. Klein
13 Conversion and environment in east Asia – The Case of buddhism 267
Max Deeg
bUIldInG JerUsAleM
14 The Conversion of Aelia Capitolina to Christianity in the Fourth
Century* 283
Jan Willem Drijvers
15 A Christian City with a Major Muslim shrine: Jerusalem in the
Umayyad Period 299
Robert Schick
References
Primary Sources 319
Bibliography 331
Index 373
Abbreviations
CJ Codex Justinianus
CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (Berlin, 1863–).
CCSL Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina (Turnhout,
1953–)
CSCO Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium
(Leuven, 1903–)
CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
(Vienna, 1866–)
CTh Codex Theodosianus
GCS Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller (Berlin,
1897–)
ILS Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae (Berlin, 1892–1916)
LCL Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA, 1912–)
NPNF Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (New York/London,
1886–1900)
P. Ant. The Antinoopolis Papyri (London, 1950–67)
P. Kellis Papyri from Kellis (Oxford, 1995–)
P. Lips. Griechische Urkunden der Papyrussammlung zu Leipzig
(Leipzig/Munich, 1906, 2002)
P. Mich. Michigan Papyri (Ann Arbor, 1931–)
P. Oxy. The Oxyrhynchus Papyri (London, 1898–)
P. Ryl. Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri in the John
Rylands Library, Manchester (Manchester, 1911–52)
PG Patrologia Graeca (Paris, 1857–66)
PL Patrologia Latina (Paris, 1844–55)
PO Patrologia Orientalis (Paris/Turnhout, 1904–)
QS The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts
with English translations, edited by James H.
Charlesworth with Frank M. Cross et al., 7 vols
(Tübingen 1994–2011)
SB Sammelbuch griechischer Urkunden aus Ägypten (1913–)
SCh Sources chrétiennes (Paris, 1942–)
TTH Translated Texts for Historians (Liverpool, 1985–)
WSA The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the
21st Century (Hyde Park, NY, 1990–)