In this collection of essays, most of which is based upon papers delivered at a conference held in June of 2014 in Frankfurt-am-Main, the question of religious diversity in the ancient world is examined from a variety of perspectives with concentration on evidence from Asia Minor. In their introduction, the editors make clear how difficult a subject this is, noting in particular how the categories mentioned in the title of the volume are not straightforwardly descriptive but always used in a perspectival way, which necessarily overlooks complex issues of variety. Much, of course, has been made of this in discussion of the category of Jew and Christian, but the editors are also at pains to emphasise how it applies also to the term ‘Heide’ (in German), pagan or Gentile. The use of such a category betrays its background in a Judaeo-Christian perception of the world and cannot be deemed a properly descriptive term, as is the case with the triad, Jew, Christian and pagan. The volume, whose authors hail from the world of New Testament and early Christian studies as well as Classics, will, as so often in current study, be an agent of complexification, showing up the fluid nature of identity, and especially pressing home its local variations.
The volume divides itself into two parts. Part i, the shortest section, entitled ‘Grundsatzfragen’, begins with a contribution from Tobias Nicklas, critiquing the well-known model of examining Jewish-Christian relations as the parting of the ways. Nicklas shows that such a model is predicated upon a too static vision of Jewish and Christian identity and calls for a model which takes more account of the messy, even chaotic nature of separation and interaction. Manuel Vogel examines the complex ways in which different conceptions of Christianity, Judaism and paganism arose, positing the second century as the period in which such conceptualisation began within an often polemical and subjective context. In the final essay in this section James B. Rives looks at what he asserts to be two different models of ‘religion’ in the ancient world, those of orthopraxy and of orthodoxy. Such a distinction, which he uses to categorise paganism and Christianity respectively, is in some ways crude, and barely helps to categorise Judaism. Accepting this and other provisos, Rives sees orthopraxy as allowing for ‘multiple sources of religious authority and multiple non-exclusive identities’, whereas the latter tends towards a totalising system in which all sources of authority are subsumed under a more hierarchic structure. For Rives this means that for pagan religious authorities diversity was largely unproblematic, for Christian leaders less so.
The second section of the volume is entitled ‘Fallstudien’ or case studies. Gian Franco Chiai examines the way in which Christian identity is expressed in inscriptions from imperial Phrygia from the second to fifth centuries ce. While accepting that these inscriptions betray Christian features, he also notes that they share much in common with epitaphic expressions found in the wider non-Christian world, suggesting that those who constructed them were fully integrated into their wider social environment. Chiai suggests that insofar as exclusivist elements are present, these relate to inner-Christian disputes, here referring to later inscriptions which profess a belief in the Trinity. Christian Marek discusses the well-known ‘Theos hypsistos’ inscriptions, noting how they point to a complex and fluid religious landscape in which pagans, Christians and Jews moved. Ulrich Huttner examines a set of grave inscriptions which invoke the power of God, above all in Phrygia and Lyaconia. He argues that it is often difficult to know the identity of those writing the inscriptions (even when a passage from the Old Testament is cited – these could be either Jewish or Christian), and many reflect non-Christian conventions. The failure of some of these to demonstrate clear Christian attachments leads Huttner to speculate whether they may provide evidence for the existence of crypto-Christians. Martin Böhm presents evidence for a Samaritan Diaspora, speculating that some inscriptions, which mention ‘ioudaioi’ in diasporic settings may in fact be referring to Samaritans. Dorothea Rhode examines the religious landscape, as she puts it, of Ephesus, seeking, inter alia, to contextualise Acts xxi and the Demetrius incident, arguing that the latter and his co-rioters would have seen Paul as a Jew. Further elucidation of this incident from Acts is found in the helpful essay by Kay Ehling, in which different aspects of it are contextualised within our wider knowledge of Ephesus, especially as this relates to existing archaeological evidence. She, too, assumes that the riot was anti-Jewish, rather than one in which Paul was treated as a ‘Christian’. Alexander Weiss examines the letters to the seven churches in Revelation showing, in a thought experiment, how they can be seen to show up considerable knowledge of the cities concerned and how the author, often seen as a distant and ascetical figure, was fully integrated into the religious and social environments of the cities whose Christian populations he addresses. Carsten Claussen examines the identity of Jews in Sardis. Attempts made by Jews, recorded by Josephus, to secure their right to assemble, observe the Sabbath and related matters show that their place within the city was more fragile than some have thought. This, posits Claussen, changed in the third century, partly as a result of Caracalla's decision to make all members of the empire citizens, and is seen not least in the evidence that Jews became councillors in the city and in the presence of a large synagogue in its centre. Stefan Alkier helpfully shows how the terminology which Luke uses to describe the Christian community barely betrays the kind of distinction some assume to have existed between Jews and Christians (the word ‘Christian’ appears as a foreign intrusion into the text) and that by and large Jews and Christians are seen as brothers or men of Israel. Jan Bremmer examines four apocryphal acts, showing how they can be seen to betray a great deal of variety in early Christian communities in Asia Minor; and Hartmut Leppin, in one of the most interesting essays in the collection, demonstrates how Justin can be seen as presenting himself as an intellectual among other intellectuals in the Dialogue with Trypho. This leads in particular to a weak presentation of Christianity as a Church or institution, and related to this, an internalisation of religious identity. Although Justin presents Trypho as different from him, they share a common intellectual culture, a point which Justin implicitly emphasises. In the final essay Walter Ameling looks at the religious landscape of Smyrna against the background of ideas of a religious market place. In a wide-ranging essay, Ameling raises interesting questions about the character of religious interaction in the city, not least on the basis of what he sees as evidence for limited knowledge of Christian ideas, and a potential challenge to the model of a religious market place.
The volume concludes with what the editors refer to as a terminological epilogue in which they reiterate the difficulty of deciding upon a satisfactory terminology for the triad of groups that their volume ostensibly discusses. Awareness of the Christian origins of this description need to be at the forefront of the researchers’ mind. Christianity and Judaism can act as umbrella terms at best, and the term ‘pagan’ should probably be avoided. Capturing the historical variety and complexity which lies behind these contested terms is perhaps the best we can do.
The volume reflects many current trends in both the study of ancient identity, and more particularly Christian and Jewish identity. Its emphasis on variety and diversity, on the constructed nature of textual identity, its keen attention to the significance of locality for the expression of identity, its avoidance of essentialising definitions, and its concomitant reluctance to use terms which might imply a settled, even static, view of Judaism, Christianity and in particular paganism, give it a post-modern colour and character, and reveal the volume as a work of its time. The essays, many of which are richly furnished with evidence both archaeological and literary, are full of helpful observations and, against the intellectual background just described, form a kind of coherent whole, made greater by the decision to concentrate on evidence from Asia Minor. Perhaps more could have been made in the editors’ introduction of recent historiography in the area discussed, especially as this relates to the methods and assumptions of study. Inevitably, individual essays contain the names of those who have influenced the field in recent times; in this respect some form of mapping might have been beneficial to the reader.
All in all, however, this is a stimulating set of essays, much of whose rich content this review has barely touched upon.
