Group Identity & Religious Individuality in Late Antiquity

336 Pages·2015·3.2 MB·English

by  Eric Rebillard (Editor)

Group Identity and
Religious Individuality
in Late Antiquity
CUA STUDIES IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY
General Editor
Philip Rousseau, Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor
Editorial Board
Katherine L. Jansen, Department of History
William E. Klingshirn, Department of Greek and Latin
Trevor C. Lipscombe, The Catholic University of America Press
Frank J. Matera, School of Theology and Religious Studies
Timothy Noone, School of Philosophy
Sidney H. Griffith, Department of Semitic and
Egyptian Languages and Literatures
International Editorial Board
Pauline Allen, Australian Catholic University
Lewis Ayres, Durham University
Daniel Boyarin, University of California, Berkeley
Gillian Clark, University of Bristol
Angelo di Berardino, OSA, Istituto Patristico Augustinanium, Rome
Hubertus R. Drobner, Theologische Facultät, Paderborn
David W. Johnson, SJ, Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley
Judith Lieu, University of Cambridge
Frederick W. Norris, Emmanuel School of Religion
Éric Rebillard, Cornell University
John M. Rist, University of Toronto
Linda Safran, University of Toronto
Susan T. Stevens, Randolph-Macon Woman’s College
Rita Lizzi Testa, Università degli Studi di Perugia
Michael A. Williams, University of Washington, Seattle
GROUP IDENTITY AND
RELIGIOUS INDIVIDUALITY IN
LATE ANTIQUITY
Edited by
Éric Rebillard and Jörg Rüpke
£
The Catholic University of America Press
Washington, D.C.
Copyright © 2015
The Catholic University of America Press
All rights reserved
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of American National Standards for Information
Science—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z39.48-1984.
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Group identity and religious individuality in late antiquity /
edited by Éric Rebillard and Jörg Rüpke.
pages cm.—(CUA studies in early Christianity)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8132-2743-6 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Identification
(Religion) 2. Church history—Primitive and early church,
ca. 30–600. I. Rebillard, Éric, editor. II. Rüpke, Jörg, editor.
BR200.G76 2015
270.2—dc23 2014044878
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations vii
Part I. Background
Introduction: Groups, Individuals, and Religious Identity 3
Éric Rebillard and Jörg Rüpke
1. The Legal Framework of Religious Identity in 13
the Roman Empire
Karl Leo Noethlichs
Part II. Religion and Religious
Individuals
2. A m I a Christian? The Individual at the Manichaean- 31
Christian Interface
Jason David BeDuhn
3. Sixth-Century Individual Rituals: Private Chapels 54
and the Reserved Eucharist
Kim Bowes
4. Gregory of Nazianzus: Mediation between 89
Individual and Community
Susanna Elm
Part III. Group Strategies and
Individual Religiosity
5. The Mother’s Role in Maccabean Martyrology 111
Tessa Rajak
6. Perpetua’s vas: Asserting Christian Identity 129
Judith Perkins
vi Contents
7. Senatorial Aristocracy: How Individual Is 165
Individual Religiosity?
Kristine Iara
8. “Initiation” in the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire 215
Wolfgang Spickermann
Part IV. Individuals,
Identities, and Religion
9. Roles and Individuality in the Chronograph of 354 247
Jörg Rüpke
10. Bishop Aeneas and the Church of St. Theodore in Gerasa 270
Rubina Raja
11. Late Antique Limits of Christianness: North Africa in 293
the Age of Augustine
Éric Rebillard
Contributors 319
Index of Ancient Names 321
General Index 327
ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 3-1. Plan, Palace of the Dux, Apollonia (Richard Goodchild, 59
“The ‘Palace of the Dux,’” in John Humphrey, ed., Apollonia, the Port of Cyrene:
Excavations Conducted by the University of Michigan 1965–1967 [Tripoli: Department
of Antiquities, 1976], fig. 1).
Figure 3-2. Plan, Chapel, Palace of the Dux, Apollonia (John Bryan 60
Ward-Perkins, “The Christian Architecture of Apollonia,” in John Humphrey, ed.,
Apollonia, the Port of Cyrene: Excavations Conducted by the University of Michigan
1965–1967 [Tripoli: Department of Antiquities, 1976], fig. 3).
Figure 3-3. Plan, Theater House, Ephesus. Hypothetical Hellenistic 61
phase in black; fifth-century phases in gray (Hilke Thür, “Kontinuität und
Diskontinuität im ephesischen Wohnbau der frühen Kaiserzeit,” in Christof Berns,
Henner von Hesberg, Lutgarde Vandeput, and Marc Waelkens, eds., Patris und
Imperium. Kulturelle und politische Identität in den Städten der römischen Provinzen
Kleinasiens in der frühen Kaiserzeit [Leuven: Peeters, 2002], fig. 7).
Figure 3-4. Computer Reconstruction, Chapel, Theater House, 62
Ephesus (Kim Bowes).
Figure 3-5. Plan, Governor’s Palace, Ephesus (Clive Foss, Ephesus after 63
Antiquity: A Late Antique, Byzantine and Turkish City [Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1979], fig. 13).
Figure 3-6. Plan, House D, Kom el-Dikka, Alexandria 65
(Mieczyslaw Rodziewicz, “Remarks on the domestic and monastic architecture in
Alexandria and surroundings,” in The Archaeology of the Nile Delta. Problems and
Priorities. Proceedings of the Seminar held in Cairo 19–22, October 1986 [Amsterdam:
Netherlands Foundation for Archaeological Research in Egypt, 1988], fig. 4).
vii
viii illustrations
Figure 3-7. Reconstruction drawing, fresco on the south wall 66
of the courtyard of House “D,” Kom el-Dikka, Alexandria
(Mieczyslaw Rodziewicz, Les habitations romaines tardives d’Alexandrie à la lumière
des fouilles polonaises à Kôm el-Dikka [Warsaw: Editions scientifiques de Pologne,
1984], fig. 236).
Figure 3-8. Plan, Central Church, Apollonia (John Bryan 68
Ward-Perkins, Richard Martin Harrison, Richard Goodchild, and Joyce
Reynolds, The Christian Monuments of Cyrenaica [London: Society for
Libyan Studies, 2003], fig. 26).
Figure 3-9. Plan, first phase of the Church of St. Mary, Ephesus 69
(Stefan Karwiese, “Die Marienkirche und das dritte ökumenische Konzil,” in
Renata Pillinger, Otto Kresten, Fritz Frinzinger, and Eugenio Russo, eds., Efeso
Paleocristiana e Bizantina—Frühchristliches und Byzantinisches Ephesos [Vienna:
Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1996], fig. 54).
Figure 10-1. Decapolis Region (Rubina Raja) 275
Figure 10-2. Plan of Gerasa (Church of St. Theodore highlighted) 276
(Rubina Raja, Urban development and regional identity in the eastern Roman
empire, 50 BC–AD 250. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2012, figure 62).
Figure 10-3. Gerasa, main street, from the south (photo by 277
Rubina Raja).
Figure 10-4. Gerasa, sanctuary of Zeus, from northwest (photo 278
by Rubina Raja).
Figure 10-5. Gerasa, Church of St. Theodore and surrounding 280
buildings (Gerasa. City of the Decapolis, edited by Carl H. Kraeling.
New Haven: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1938, plan XXXIII).
Figure 10-6. Gerasa, Church of St. Theodore, longitudinal 281
section (Gerasa. City of the Decapolis, edited by Carl H. Kraeling. New
Haven: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1938, plan XXIV).
Figure 10-7. Gerasa, Church of St. Theodore, ground 282
plan (Gerasa. City of the Decapolis, edited by Carl H. Kraeling. New
Haven: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1938, plan XXXIII).
Figure 10-8. Gerasa, Church of St. Theodore, fragment 285
of dedicatory inscription (photo by Rubina Raja).
Éric Rebillard and Jörg Rüpke
Introduction
Groups, Individuals, and Religious Identity
Is religious individualism a feature unique to modernity? This is the larger
research question that was addressed by an international research group, based
at the Max Weber Centre of the University of Erfurt, Germany, under the
heading “Religious Individualization in Historical Perspective.” Obviously
anachronistic when viewed against the backdrop of the conclusions adduced
by modernization theory, the heuristic use of “religious individualization”
has, nevertheless, directed our attention to important historical phenomena
that do not fit with the fundamentally collective character usually ascribed
to religion. It is, however, not “individuality” per se which is interesting. In
a banal sense, individuality is a general trait of living beings, even those that
are genetically identical; it is as much a truism as the social character of the
individual and its “self.”1 Hence, it is much more interesting to focus on pro-
cesses of waxing (or waning) degrees of individuality and processes of empha-
sizing or resisting individualism—contingent periods of, as we have called it,
individualization or deindividualization. With this focus on changes in forms
of individuality comes the study of the intentions and functions of such forms.
This holds particularly true for religion, frequently seen as a bundle of cultur-
al practices and discourses communicating and guaranteeing social cohesion,
1. A fundamental text for this subject area is George Herbert Mead, The Individual and the Social
Self: Unpublished Work of George Herbert Mead (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982).
3