The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict [1 ed.] 9780813216942, 9780813214894

Citation preview

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

The Power of Sacrifice

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

george heyman

The Power of Sacrifice

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman and christian discourses in conflict

the catholic university of america press washington, d.c.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2007 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 Heyman, George, 1954– The power of sacrifice: Roman and Christian discourses in conflict / by George Heyman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn-13: 978-0-8132-1489-4 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn 10: 0-8132-1489-0 (cloth : alk. paper)  1. Sacrifice.  2. Church history. 3. Rome—Religion.  4. Martyrdom—Christianity.  I. Title. bl570.h49 2007 203'.40937—dc22 2006024759

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Contents

Acknowledgments  vii Introduction  ix

1. Roman Religion and Sacrificial Practice  1 2. The Roman Imperial Cult  45 3. The New Testament and the Discourse of Sacrifice  95 4. The Sacrifice of the Martyr  161

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

5. Conclusions  219 Bibliography  237 Index  253

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge those people who have been instrumental in the production of this study. My thanks go to Professor James Watts of Syracuse University for his patience and scholarly advice as both mentor and friend. It was his graduate seminar on “The Idea of Sacrifice” that prompted my own interest in the study of ancient sacrificial rhetoric. Jim’s guidance was invaluable at every stage of the development of this project. In a similar vein, I need to acknowledge the helpful comments and instrumental critique offered by Professor Patricia Cox Miller, also of Syracuse University. Professor Miller opened up for me new ways to look at the history and literature of the ancient and late antique western world. I also need to acknowledge the patience and enduring support of the people of the Catholic Community of the Blessed Trinity in Wolcott and Red Creek, New York. They have allowed me to be both a full-time teacher as well as their pastor. Without their support this project would not have been possible. I dedicate this project to my parents, George and Mary Ellen Heyman.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

vii

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Introduction

Why does such contentiousness excite us and such a fatal stubbornness please us, when we can live in peace if we obey the king?

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

4 Maccabees 8:26

The quotation above is posed by the author of 4 Maccabees as a collective voice for the seven brothers killed by Antiochus IV in the second century bce. It encapsulates both the fascination and the paradox of the martyrs’ sacrifice. As a youngster I was captivated by the stories and legends of Jews and Christians who fearlessly sacrificed their lives rather than submit to the tyranny of their Graeco-Roman overlords. These texts, commonly called martyrologies, are enthralling because they transport the reader into a world in which heroic victims, pitted against multiple forms of adversity, are always victors. As a literary genre, these texts prompt a related line of inquiry, namely, what constitutes the appeal of martyrdom? While a martyrology is a literary creation, history reveals that some men and women have relished the acceptance of a death sentence. “I do indeed desire to suffer,” writes Ignatius of Antioch as he is led to his death around the year 108 ce.1 Why are the 1. Ignatius of Antioch, To the Trallians 4.2, trans. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1885–96). This reference was taken from the website Early Christian Writings, ed. Peter Kirby.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

ix

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

introduction deaths of martyrs evaluated as the “ultimate sacrifice”2 and yet other forms of death judged differently? As a student of religion I was intrigued by how sacrifice functioned within the literary genre of the martyrology as well as within the existential category of the martyr. My interest in the religious environment of late Republican and early Imperial Rome also prompted me to ask, “why did early Christians in the first three centuries refuse to offer sacrifice, but yet willingly became sacrificial martyrs themselves?” One of the earliest scholarly answers was offered by Johann Mosheim in 1767. He wrote that the Christian appeared “as a sort of Atheist, and by Roman laws those who were chargeable with atheism were declared pests of human society.”3 Adolph Deissmann, writing at the turn of the twentieth century, remarked that the conflict between Christians and Romans arose “less from conscious political or social antipathies, than from the passionate determination of the monotheistic cult of Christ to tolerate no compromises.”4 In short, these scholars maintained that Christians and Romans clashed over ideological religious beliefs. Such a position, however, imposes a christianized notion of “religious belief ” upon the ancient Romans. A simple reading of the ancient texts reveals that doctrinal beliefs were not the core issue between Christians and Romans. Following a lengthy investigation of Christians around the year 110 ce, Pliny the Younger wrote to the Emperor Trajan and conceded that Christianity was nothing more than a “depraved and 2. Describing Pat Tillman, the marine killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004, a spokesman for the Bush administration noted that he “made the ultimate sacrifice for the war on terror.” MSNBC News Online, “Ex-NFL star Tillman makes ‘ultimate sacrifice,’” available from http://www.msnbc.msn.com. 3. Johann Mosheim, An Ecclesiastical History (Dublin: Printed for A. Leathley, 1767), 49, quoted in W. H. C. Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965), x. See also a modern discussion of “atheism” as the principal distinction between Christians and Romans in Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), 424–26. 4. Adolph Deissmann, Light from the Ancient Near East (London: Stoughton and Hodder, 1910), 338.



Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

introduction excessive superstition [superstitio].” Pliny suggested to Trajan that “whatever the nature of their creed might be, their stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy deserved chastisement.”5 At the trial of Bishop Polycarp in 165 ce, this early martyr willingly followed the command of his captors and said, “Away with the atheists!”6 He was killed, not because he was considered an “atheist,” but because he refused to swear by the genius (vivifying spirit or guardian angel) of the emperor. He was not on trial because of his personal convictions, but because of his lack of “proper action.” We find a similar scene in the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs from the year 180 ce. The martyr Speratus said, “We have done nothing wrong . . . for we hold our Emperor in honor.” The Roman proconsul Saturninus responded, “We too are a religious people and our religion is a simple one.”7 The clash between Romans and Christians centered on the nature and function of what constituted proper “religion,” not “belief.” This conflict was couched both rhetorically and physically within the greater discourse of “sacrifice.” Thus, in order to understand this complex phenomenon, the first chapter will explore the nature and function of religion and sacrificial practice in the Roman world. It will examine what constituted religion in the late Republic and early Principate as well as investigate how sacrificial rituals fit into this religious environment. Early scholars studying the persecutions of Christian martyrs focused their research on the relationship between Roman Law and the capital charges that were leveled against the followers of Jesus. As is evident from Trajan’s response to Pliny, the emperor commanded that while Christians were not to be “hunted down,” being known as a “Christian” was enough to bring judi5. Pliny the Younger, Letters of Pliny 10.96, quoted in R. Novak, Christianity and the Roman Empire (Harrisburg: Trinity Press, 2001), 47–49. 6. Martyrdom of Polycarp 9.23, quoted in H. Musurillo, Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 8, hereafter, ACM. 7. Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs 2-3: “Speratus dixit: Numquam maleficimus . . . quod imperatorem nostrum obseruamus. Saturninus proconsul dixit: Et nos religiosi sumus et simplex est religo nostra.” Quoted in Musurillo, ACM, 85.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

xi

introduction

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

cial action.8 However, what Trajan and Pliny both left unspoken was the nature of the crime that Christians had committed, that is, apart from simply being a Christian.9 The extant historical sources do not provide a simple answer to this question because there are many. It was the complexity of the question surrounding such topics as “religion,” “authority,” and “power” that generated hostility between Rome and the early Christians. Given this complexity, “sacrifice” was the most appropriate ritual and rhetorical vehicle for both the Romans and the Christians to use in order to focus their ideological discord. The Romans, and most of the Graeco-Roman world, including the Jews until the revolt of 66 ce, engaged in sacrificial practices to honor the emperor.10 This was what James Scott has called the “public transcript,” the officially recognized public statement concerning how those in domination wish to be perceived.11 The Christians, however, refused to participate in these rites, developing instead their own sacrificial rhetoric and practice that ultimately opposed Roman social control. As a non8. See Trajan’s response in Letters of Pliny, 10.97: “It is not possible to lay down any general rule which can be applied as the fixed standard in all cases. . . . No search should be made for these people, if they are brought before you and found guilty, they must be punished; with the restriction, however, that when the party denies himself to be a Christian . . . he should be pardoned,” quoted in Novak, Christianity, 49. 9. Theodor Mommsen advanced the theory of coercitio as the legal basis invoked by a Roman proconsul. The magistrate had “coercive powers” that could be used to make Roman subjects comply. See Gesammelte Schriften Band III [Juristische schriften] (Berlin: Weidmann, 1965), originally published in 1907; and Band VI [Historische schriften], originally published in 1910. A. N. Sherwin-White, “The Early Persecutions and Roman Law Again,” Journal of Theological Studies 3 (1952), 199–213, advances the legal idea of contumacia (stubbornness or obstinacy) as basis in Roman Law for cases against Christians. G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, “Aspects of the ‘Great’ Persecution,” Harvard Theological Review 47 (1954), 75–113, argued that prior to the Decian persecution there was no specific legal charge used against Christians. Rather the decision to prosecute a person for “being” a Christian was part of a more illdefined Roman legal precedent known as the cognitio extra ordinem. 10. The ta¯mı¯d, or “loyal” offering in the Jerusalem Temple was done to show respect and honor to the Julio-Claudian emperors. See C. Roth, “The Debate on the ‘Loyal Sacrifices’ ad 66,” Harvard Theological Review 53 (1960), 94–97. 11. James Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 5ff.

xii

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

introduction dominant subgroup within the empire, Christianity began to formulate its own “transcript” (to use Scott’s language). The clash between Romans and Christians occurred as a result of Christianity’s expansion and its ideological collision with the Roman religio-political “transcript.” Since the question of “sacrifice” is as much about power as it is about religion, it was natural that the clash between Rome and Christianity be steeped in competing sacrificial discourses. As such, my concern is not with the historical accuracy of the stories of persecution, but rather with the nature of the textual witnesses that have survived from this period. Rather than using contemporary notions of “religion” or “sacrifice” that would be anachronistic, the following pages will explore how the ancient texts exposed the polysemous nature, or the “rhetorical force” of religious sacrifice as understood by the Romans and the Christians. The concept of rhetoric used throughout is that outlined first by Kenneth Burke. Burke noted that the basic function of rhetoric is the “use of words by human agents to form attitudes or to induce actions in other human agents.”12 Aristotle recognized rhetoric as a universal facet of human experience. The Greeks and Romans cultivated it and educated the young in articulate rhetorical style. Rhetorical analysis focuses on language as a symbol system that is used to gain the cooperation of others through the use of persuasive techniques. Burke again summarized it best when he said, “rhetoric is the art of persuasion, or a study of the means of persuasion available for any given situation.”13 At a primary level rhetoric is oral—the persuasiveness used by a speaker to influence an audience. At a secondary level rhetoric can refer to “various patterns of emphasis, style [or] images.”14 When the term “rhetoric” is used, my concern lies with its use at this secondary level. In short, what persuasive patterns emerged as “sac12. Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives (New York: Prentice Hall, 1952), 41. 13. Ibid., 46. 14. George Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 4–5.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

xiii

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

introduction rifice” is described in these ancient texts? And when sacrificial metaphors are used, what ideological emphases recur? It is axiomatic that “all religious systems are rhetorical . . . they attempt to communicate perceived religious truth.”15 Since both Rome and Christianity expressed their religious ideas through texts, the rhetorical quality of their literature will be of primary importance. One of the major problems, however, was that ancient Roman religion, aside from the Sibylline Oracles, was not a text-based system. Therefore we have to rely on ancient historical and poetic texts that afford a glimpse into the religious world of ancient Rome. Christianity on the other hand was text rich. Averil Cameron has argued that because Christianity was precisely fashioned for discourse, it was able to win the hearts of men and women in the Graeco-Roman world. “Early Christianity was not purely a matter of ritual or ethical behavior . . . it was always a matter of teaching, of interpretation, of definition. As Christ ‘was’ the Word, so Christianity was its discourse or discourses.”16 The sacrificial rhetoric of both ancient Rome and early Christianity was inherently discursive. In order to understand the word “discourse,” it will be necessary to examine the work of Foucault, Todorov, and Barthes. These thinkers have suggested that “discourse” is more than a collection of sentences. It presupposes a structural affinity that precedes both speech and writing.17 Discourse arises within the relationships that exist between peoples and their traditions. It is therefore logically prior to the rhetorical forms that it produces. Bruce Lincoln has argued that it constructs society.18 According to Lincoln, human society has used 15. George Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), 158. 16. A. Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 32. 17. R. Barthes, The Fashion System (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983), 208. 18. Bruce Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).

xiv

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

introduction both force and discourse to maintain social borders and establish habituated patterns of behavior. While force might be effective in the short term, the real power of persuasion is achieved when the hearts and minds of a people are converted through an appeal to social discourse. The many and varied forms of sacrifice are key forms of social discourse. While refusing to participate in Roman sacrifices, Christians did not abandon the concept or its ritual interpretation. They fashioned their discourse of sacrifice from disparate rhetorical forms already present in Jewish and GraecoRoman society in order to oppose the religious and political hegemony of the Roman state. While there is no consensus among historians of religion about how sacrifice originated, it is certain that both ancient Rome and early Christianity were steeped in a sacrificial world (much as we ourselves are today, although through different media). Polyvalent at its core, sacrifice is so deeply rooted in the human religious consciousness that its association with specific social behaviors as well as a rhetorically constituted history has produced a sense of identity and stability for peoples throughout the ages. The English word “sacrifice” is derived from two Latin words which mean “to make” (facere) something “sacred” (sacer). Thus sacrificing involves the separation or removal of an object from the ordinary. This act of separation often involves the excessive waste of what is valuable. A glass of unmixed wine is poured on the ground and not consumed. A domestic animal is killed in order to appease the gods. A human being chooses his or her personal convictions over social convention and willingly dies. Georges Bataille has argued that “sacrificing turns its back on real relations” because the world of “things” is marked by duration.19 What is important, Bataille argues, is:

19. Georges Bataille, Theory of Religion, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Zone Books, 1989), 44.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

xv

introduction

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

to leave a world of real things whose reality derives from the long term operation and never resides in the moment—a world that creates and preserves (that creates for the benefit of a lasting reality). Sacrifice . . . is consumption that is concerned only with the moment.20

Thus the act of sacrificing is an act of paradoxical negation. In its most extreme forms the act of sacrificial killing affirms and enhances life itself. In its simplest form it is a gift completely relinquished either in response to, or in expectation of something else. It is not my intention to engage in a protracted debate about what constitutes the essence of “religion” or “ritual.” This book will not engage in an anthropological or historical quest for the meaning of “sacrifice.” Theorists have done so since the late nineteenth century without any consensus. Most of these theories have based their anthropological claims on the analysis of mythic narratives or on highly constructed hypothetical origins of observed ritual behaviors.21 As long as human beings have been engaged in ritualistic behaviors, specific rites that are designated as sacrifices have taken place. Why and how these specific forms of human behavior originated are as complex as are the origins of the human species. Sacrificing is inherently self-descriptive. As some point in the human evolutionary chain early hominids killed animals and recognized in their behavior motives that were not simply limited to the procurement of food.22 What is one person’s sacrifice is another’s meal. Whether it was the pouring of wine at official Roman banquets in honor of Caesar, the burning of incense to the ancestors of the Roman house, or the slaughter of a domestic an20. Ibid., 49. 21. Late nineteenth and early twentieth century theories of the origin of ritual sacrifice can be found in the works of William Robertson-Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (London: A & C Black, 1907); James Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1922 [reprint 1960]); Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, trans. Joseph Swain (New York: Macmillan, 1915). 22. See Walter Burkert, Homo Necans:The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth, trans. Peter Bing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983).

xvi

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

introduction imal, the Romans used their sacrificial discourse to maintain political power and create Roman identity. This is not to limit the discursive quality of Roman imperial sacrifices to mere political expediency, since the Romans were convinced that without the proper exercise of these religious rites, the fragile balance of the cosmos and the empire would cease to exist. In reflecting on the impact of the imperial cult on early Christianity Adolph Deissmann wrote,

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

Thus there arises a polemical parallelism between the cult of the Emperor and the cult of Christ, which makes itself felt where ancient words derived by Christianity from the treasury of the Septuagint and the Gospels happen to coincide with solemn concepts of the imperial cult which sounded the same or similar.23

While a simple adaptation from one cult to another is much too simplistic, Deissmann’s words have prompted scholars to take a closer look at how these “ancient words” were used by Rome and Christianity. The conflict between Rome and the early Church was ultimately a collision of sacrificial discourses. Such sacrificial discourses allowed, on the one hand, Roman proconsuls to condemn the believers of Jesus to death, and on the other it promoted the spread of Christianity with its eventual establishment as the imperial religion by the mid-fourth century. As Christianity emerged from its Jewish roots, ancient Rome had moved from a republic to an empire. For the Romans, concurrent with the rise of empire was the introduction of an associated imperial cult. The imperial cult of ancient Rome had strong precedents in the Hellenistic world as well as within Roman religion itself. The imperial cult was an overarching symbol of all that was connected with Roman religion during the first years of Christianity’s existence. On a practical level it functioned as a political identity marker for a far-flung empire. Since the emperor could not be present everywhere in the ancient Ro23. Deissmann, Light, 342.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

xvii

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

introduction man world, a cult in his name, or that of his deceased ancestors could be. The sacrifices associated with the imperial cult were, on an imperial scale, what the paterfamilias offered to the family ancestors within his local household. By extension then we can understand the imperial cult as both a rhetorical symbol and a ritual practice of Roman sacrificial discourse. Chapter two will examine this multifaceted aspect of ancient Roman religion since the imperial cult, replete with imperial sacrifices, was at the forefront of the conflict between Roman and Christians. The “divinity” accorded the emperor, his ancestors and his family members must not be understood in the absolute sense common in western thought. Rather, for both Christians and Romans, “divinity” existed on a type of sliding-scale since it attempted to make connections between the earthly and the heavenly realms.24 The early Christians could never be God, however, they could, in Paul’s rhetoric, “judge angels” (1 Cor 6:3). With divine-like power, martyrs like Perpetua worked miracles. Killed in 203 ce in Carthage, Perpetua wrote about the miraculous healing of her deceased brother through her prayerful intercession.25 Thus, the divinity of a deceased (and sometimes living) emperor was not as shocking as western minds might at first conceive. While a deceased Roman emperor might be voted “divine honors” by a Hellenistic city, or officially deified by a vote of the Senate, he was still a divus and not a deus (the distinction will be explored more fully in this chapter). As the Roman world honored its “Lord” through sacrificial practice and rhetoric, Christians honored their “Lord” by sacrificing their lives, and thereby obtaining supernatural benefits. Chapter three will explore how the Christian authors of the New Testament utilized sacrificial rhetoric as a means to explain the death of Jesus. Since there was no Jewish precedent for a dy24. The reference to a “sliding scale” is found in Hans-Josef Klauck, The Religious Context of Early Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 290ff. 25. See Passio Sanctarum Perpetua et Felicitas 7-8, in Musurillo, ACM, 116–17.

xviii

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

introduction ing and rising messiah, early Christian rhetoric developed a rationale valorizing the death of Jesus. The early Church adapted the sacrificial discourse of Judaism and imperial Rome in order to understand the death of Jesus. It was not mere coincidence that the “glad tidings” (euangelion) accorded the birth of “the savior (so¯ter) for us and our descendants,” originally inscribed to Augustus at Priene in 9 bce, should be adapted by Luke to refer to Christianity’s savior as well.26 The adventus (triumphal procession) of the conquering Roman general and the parousia (second triumphal return) of the risen Christ also find striking parallels in the literature. Early Christian authors utilized many of the ancient Roman rhetorical forms, including the imagery of sacrifice, to form their own identity and establish social borders and hierarchical offices. The most overt sacrificial rhetoric used to describe the death of Jesus is found in the Letter to the Hebrews. Hebrews borrows the ancient sacrificial rhetoric connected to the Jewish High Priesthood. Much of the scholarly debate surrounding the sacrificial nature of Jesus’ death has centered on a comparison of his death with the complex sacrificial practices of ancient Judaism.27 While Hebrews is heavily laden with Jewish rhetorical forms, the New Testament freely uses other sacrificial images as well. The question whether Jesus’ death was a sacrifice or not should not be limited to an assessment of Jewish sacrificial practice alone. The rhetoric of Paul, the Synoptic Gospels, John, Hebrews and the author of Revelation all made use of multiple sacrificial images that were present in both the traditions of Israel and in the Graeco-Roman world. This chapter will demonstrate how early 26. The inscription from Priene can be found in Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae, ed. Wilhelm Dittenberger (Leipzig: S. Herzel, 1904), 458. See also Luke 2:10–11. 27. See a summary discussion of such ideas in Daniel Aiwi, “Did Jesus Consider His Death to Be an Atoning Sacrifice?” Interpretation 45 (1991), 17–28. James Thompson, “Hebrews 9 and Hellenistic Concepts of Sacrifice,” Journal of Biblical Literature 98 (1979), 567–78, is one example of how scholars have limited the notion of “sacrifice” to Jewish antecedents and then attempted to use such a limited notion to evaluate the texts of the New Testament.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

xix

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

introduction Christian rhetoric included such images as the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, the pharmakos ritual of ancient Greece, Hellenistic ruler cults, the Passover experience of ancient Israel, as well as the expiatory quality of the rituals associated with the Day of Atonement. The sacramental order of the Church expressed by baptism and Eucharist also evidenced the rhetoric of sacrifice. Paul told the Christians in Rome that through baptism they died like Jesus (Romans 6:3). Since Jesus did not die by drowning, Paul’s allusion must refer not the method of Jesus’ death, but to the experience itself. Thus if Jesus died a sacrificial death, then each baptized believer, by ritually participating in the same event, acquired a similar honorable status in the eyes of the Christian ekklesia. One of the first obstacles faced by the early Church was how to deal with the post-baptismal Christian who had sullied the nobility of his or her baptism through sin. The Eucharist provided a solution. That it was connected to the forgiveness of sins through the death of Jesus is evident not only from Paul and the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ final meal, but also from the second century writings of Ignatius of Antioch. Ignatius wrote to the Christians in Rome, “let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ” (To the Romans 4:1). Through both baptism and Eucharist, a believer entered symbolically into the sacrificial death of Jesus. Several New Testament writers (Paul, Hebrews, 1 Peter) extend the rhetoric of sacrifice to the realm of the spiritual. For example, Paul exhorted Christians to offer their bodies as a “living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1). Origen develops this idea by calling them “spiritual sacrifices,” however; they should not be radically distinguished from material or physical offerings. Such sacrificial rhetoric was used by Paul and other New Testament authors as the basis for daily practical living. Regular acts of selfsacrifice became one of the bases for Christian ethics. By the mid-second and third centuries, to live one’s life as a “living sac-

xx

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

introduction rifice” was formative in the development of Christian asceticism.28 The Christian was called to live constantly deferring and relinquishing pleasure in imitation of Jesus’ self-sacrifice. If Jesus’ death was considered a sacrifice it was natural that when the first Christians were unjustly killed, their deaths too should also be couched in the same sacrificial rhetoric. The Christian idea of a “kingdom of God,” coupled with their reported obstinacy, was easily perceived as a threat to the “kingdom of Caesar.” While when or how Roman persecution of Christians began is unknown, this sporadic ill-treatment of Christians led to yet another thread in the Christian construction of its own sacrificial discourse, namely the idea of the martyr. Chapter four examines the sacrificial quality of a martyr’s death. After predicting his own suffering and death, Jesus indicated that “whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:35). It was recognized as early as the death of Stephen (Acts 6:8ff) that those believers who died witnessing their belief in Jesus were to be held in high esteem. The Greek word for “witness” (martus) took on special significance only in the late-second century, but by analogy this term has since been applied to anyone who died “witnessing” to a “higher” calling. This chapter traces the development of the concept of “noble death;” an idea that became highly developed by both Jews and Christians during the Roman Principate. Just as the emperor upon his death was apotheosized into the heavens, the martyrs too were assured some reward beyond their deaths. While the Jews of this 28. See Origen, Exhortation to Martyrdom, in Origen: Prayer/Exhortation to Martyrdom, trans. John J. O’Meara (Westminster: The Newman Press, 1954), 42. Origen’s idea is adapted by Robert Daly, Christian Sacrifice (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1978). See also Geoffrey Galt Harpham, The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Cristicism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), xiii. Harpham argues that asceticism, though formalized and systematized by early Christianity, acts in a more basic way as a “primary transcultural structuring force,” since it raises the issue of culture by the ambivalence it yields in holding culture and its opposites in tension.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

xxi

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

introduction period did have a notion of an afterlife (as did Socrates), it was the early Christians who articulated this eschatological hope in a specific and precise manner. While the Maccabean brothers died rather than violate their conscience in the expectation of a general or national resurrection, Christian martyrs died in imitation of Jesus, awaiting a personal, bodily resurrection similar to the one Jesus had attained. Such a clear teleology focused the Christian martyr tradition in a way that motivated others to attain the same goal. As sporadic persecution of Christians arose throughout the empire, Christian literature was able to valorize the deaths of these men and women with a potent rhetoric. It is important to note that a “martyr” is a creation of the martyrologist. Early Church authors were cautious, however, not willing to accord nobility to everyone who hastened toward death, as evidenced in the Martyrdom of Polycarp.29 While martyrdom was considered to be a type of Christian vocation, this assessment was made only after the death of an individual. Thus martyrs existed primarily as creations of those who wrote and assessed the nobility of a person’s death. Part of the development of a Christian sacrificial discourse lay in the sermons and extended discussions of early Christian theologians. As Christian authors and intellectuals, Origen, Tertullian, and Cyprian lauded the benefits of the martyr’s death with extended exhortations. Tertullian recognized the benefits of water baptism for a Christian, but he regarded the “baptism of blood” attained by the martyr as the most perfect way to attain salvation.30 Christian sacrificial rhetoric also took narrative 29. See the Martydom of Polycarp 3–4 in Musurillo, ACM, 4, where the author contrasts Germanicus, who “with a show of force dragged the beast on top of him, intending to be freed more quickly from this unjust and lawless life,” with Quintus, who, “when he saw the wild animals, turned cowardly.” As early as the death of Socrates, Plato recognized that a type of divine call, or compulsion, was needed to confirm the call to martyrdom. See Plato, Phaedo 57. 30. See Tertullian, Ad Scorpiace 6.9. This reference is found on the website The Tertullian Project, ed. Roger Pearse.

xxii

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

introduction form as evidenced by Perpetua’s autobiography and the stories of Polycarp and Pionius’ deaths. In short, these were, as Avril Cameron has noted, “stories people liked to hear.”31 The Christian martyr texts not only valorized the struggle and deaths of these various individuals, they also elevated that struggle to cosmic proportions. The encounter staged between the Roman magistrate and the martyr was really a battle waged against the forces of Satan. The victory of the martyr’s baptism in blood was an expression of the victory of truth against the forces of evil. Along with the exhortations and narratives we also have the Acta, or shorter Christian narratives that took the form of Roman court records indicating the nature of the judicial procedures used at the time. They reveal imperial Rome at odds with early Christianity. Prevalent in many of these texts is the simple confession “Christianus sum” (I am a Christian). This simple confession evoked the power of naming that pitted the Christian Lord Jesus against the imperial regime of the Lord Emperor. While some Christians were obstinate in their refusal to sacrifice and to acknowledge the hegemony of the Roman sovereign, these court records revealed that they were equally as convinced that a certain type of power existed in being called a Christian.32 By the mid-third century Christianity had not only adapted the polysemous character of sacrificial language as a marker of its identity, it had also adapted an imperial model for its own internal organization. This is evident in the writings of the Carthaginian bishop and martyr Cyprian. Not only did Cyprian write an exhortation to would-be martyrs during the Decian persecution, he himself was killed during the persecution of the clergy under the Emperor Valerian. Thus Cyprian represented a 31. Cameron, Rhetoric of Empire, 93. 32. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.1.20, recounts how the martyr Sanctus refused to give his name to the Roman prosecutor; rather, he repeated “I am a Christian” to every question placed before him. Quoted in Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History, trans. K. Lake (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965), vol. 1, 417.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

xxiii

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

introduction high point in early Christianity’s discourse of sacrifice because as an active theologian and martyr his writings revealed how the Church had imitated that which it had opposed. By the time of his death, Christianity had adapted the sacrificial rhetoric used by imperial Rome to form its own imperially structured embodiment of Christ’s kingdom on earth. Just as Roman social identity and political loyalty were expressed through sacrificial practice and imperial benefaction, Christian identity was structured around a similar sacrificial environment located first in the New Testament’s interpretation of Jesus’ death and then extended to the martyr. By killing Christians in order to silence Christianity, Rome had ironically strengthened Christian identity by allowing it to build a more elaborate discourse of sacrifice. The uniqueness of this approach lies in its connection between sacrifice and the religious discourses of ancient Rome and early Christianity. While scholars such as Boyarin, Bowersock, and Butterweck have examined the development of the Christian martyr tradition within the Roman Empire, none has investigated the pivotal role played by the rhetoric of early Christian sacrificial language.33 Scholars such as Price, Gordon, North, Ross, Fishwick, and Weinstock have researched the discourse of the Roman imperial cult, but none has included a comprehensive analysis of the impact of this discourse on early Christianity.34 In short, while many scholars have looked at pieces of the puzzle offered by the Roman-Christian interaction prior to the fourth 33. Daniel Boyarin, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999); Glen Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Christel Butterweck, “Martyriumssucht” in der Alten Kirche? (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1995). 34. Duncan Fishwick, The Imperial Cult in the Latin West: Studies in the Ruler Cult of the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1987); S. R. Price, Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Lily R. Taylor, The Divinity of the Roman Emperor (Chico: Scholars Press, 1983); R. L. Gordon, “The Veil of Power: Emperors, Sacrificers, Benefactors,” in Pagan Priests, eds. M. Beard and J. North (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), 210–30; J. A. North, Roman Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Stefan Weinstock, Divus Iulius (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971).

xxiv

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

introduction

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

century, none has made a connection between this interaction and the discourses of sacrifice. A unified view is missing from contemporary scholarship. Therefore, the following pages offer, through a methodological synthesis of contemporary theory and historical data, a novel approach to the power of sacrifice and conflict between Rome and early Christianity.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

xxv

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

The Power of Sacrifice

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

chapter one

Roman Religion and Sacrificial Practice

A

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

ccording to ovid, death, sacrifice, and religion were at the center of the founding of the city of Rome. As Romulus marked out the lines for the new city wall, he prayed to Jupiter, Mars, and Vesta. Receiving a favorable augury he marked out the sacred space of the new city and instructed Celer to kill anyone who would cross the furrow. Unaware of this ban, Romulus’ twin brother, Remus, inadvertently leapt across the boundary and was killed.1 Sacrifice, religion, and politics were interwoven in the lives of the ancient Romans. From its foundation as a city, Roman religious discourse sacralized the state as well as 1. Ovid, Fasti 4.833–48. This reference is available (in English) from an original translation by A. S. Kline at his personal website, Poetry in Motion, 2004. The Latin text is available on the website The Latin Library, maintained by Ad Fontes Academy, Centreville, VA (hereafter, The Latin Library website). Livy offers a more nuanced version, History 1.7.2: “Remus is said to have been the first to receive an omen: six vultures appeared to him. The augury had just been announced to Romulus when double the number appeared to him. Each was saluted as king by his own party. The one side based their claim on the priority of the appearance, the other on the number of the birds. Then followed an angry altercation; heated passions led to bloodshed; in the tumult Remus was killed. The more common report is that Remus contemptuously jumped over the newly raised walls and was forthwith killed by the enraged Romulus, who exclaimed, ‘So shall it be henceforth with every one who leaps over my walls.’ Romulus thus became sole ruler, and the city was called after him, its founder.” This reference is a translation by C. Roberts, available from Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum on the website Forum Romanum maintained by David Camden.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of



Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice its physical space on earth. This space was set apart, confirmed by the gods themselves and rendered sacred. Unlike western culture that attempts to distinguish the sacred from the secular, ancient Rome made no such division. While Livy and Ovid understood the mythic nature of Rome’s origin, the textual creations of these authors revealed the deep correspondence between politics, religion, and sacrifice current in Rome during the first century bce. The discourse inherited, sustained, and in some senses created by these historians, sustained the power of Roman identity within the rhetoric of politics and religion. The purpose of this chapter is to analyze first the concept of “discourse” as an operative analytical tool, and second, to analyze the religious discourses of ancient Rome at the beginning of the imperial period. The historical truth of the claims made by such writers as Livy, Ovid, Cicero, and Plutarch, is not the focus of this chapter, rather what their rhetoric reveals about Roman religion at the beginning of the Common Era is the focal point. These ancient authors were themselves unwittingly steeped in a world that witnessed the end of the republic and the beginning of empire. Their textual portrayals of Roman identity revealed a tension between nostalgia for a more remote mythic past and the novel elements of an emergent imperial political order. In order to understand the claims of Christians, it will be necessary to situate Christianity within the religious discourses of the Roman world. Both Roman religion and Christianity embraced what we term today “sacrifice.” Christianity forged its own discourse of sacrifice, modeled on imperial Roman discourse, to challenge the hegemony of the Roman political and religious institutions.

Why Discourse Matters This chapter focuses on the discourses of sacrifice because, as will become evident in succeeding chapters, there is no one,



Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice univocal ritual or practice that can encompass the totality of its meaning. Rather, “sacrifice” must be located within the ritual, verbal and textual discourses that create and sustain it. While both the religions of ancient Rome and early Christianity practiced “sacrifice,” the conflicts that arose were much more than a semantic difference of theological opinion related to proper ritual behavior. The early Christians adopted and later adapted many of the prevailing threads of religious ideology that coalesced around the phenomenon known as “sacrifice.” It is here where the concept of “discourse,” first developed as a tool for literary criticism, will be most helpful. In attempting to understand sacrifice as a discourse it will be shown how Romans and Christians developed their respective ideas in such a way that the conflicts of the first three centuries of the Common Era were inevitable. Discourse theory arose in the 1970s at the intersection of philosophical inquiry and literary structuralism advocated by Foucault, Barthes, and others.2 Barthes described discourse as the “formal description of groups of words superior to the sentence.”3 Just as the meaning of a sentence cannot be reduced to sum of its words, discourse, while no more than a succession of sentences, must not be viewed as simply a linguistic phenomenon. Foucault noted that discourse “is not a slender surface of contact, or confrontation between a reality and a language.” Rather, in analyzing discourses “one sees the loosening of the embrace . . . of words and things, and the emergence of a group of rules proper to discursive practice.” Foucault did not treat 2. Michel Foucault was one of the first theorists to analyze discourse. While much of his theory has been challenged over the past thirty years due to Foucault’s fragmentary and at times inconsistent application, I think many of his ideas have relevance for an examination of sacrificial discourses. While Foucault’s work is significant for an understanding of discourse, his own definition is complex and shifts throughout his work. 3. Roland Barthes, The Rustle of Language (New York: Hill and Wang, 1986), 127.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of



Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice discourse as a group of signs “signifying elements referring to content or representations, but as practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak.”4 Discourse, whether oral or written, is composed of signs, but it uses these signs to do more than designate things. “It is this more that renders discourse irreducible to language.”5 For Barthes, discourse is a type of “second linguistics,” complete with units and rules of grammar that “for a long time bore a glorious name, that of Rhetoric.”6 While rhetoric traditionally confined itself to the art of “speaking well,” discourse presupposes a structural affinity that precedes both speech and writing. Barthes used the concept of fashion to illustrate his point. He observed that fashion “as a system of signifiers” appears much more semiological than semantic.7 In other words, the purpose of clothing is not simply to cover the body but to signify nothing more than fashion itself. How one dresses is equally as guided by the need to protect the body as it is by current fashion and yet we talk and write about “fashion” as if it exists somehow prior to our speech and writing. As an industry and social reality the discourse of “fashion” provides rules and status that are not inherently natural, yet they are equally timeless and time bound. For Barthes “fashion” is a discursive category. At the linguistic level a text is merely a series of sentences, but at the literary level a text is not just the sum of its linguistic components. A text is not simply comprised of the solitary meaning of its author, but is rather a “multi-dimensional space,” a “tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centers of culture.”8 While a text uses language as a mode of signification, meaning is “diffused out of the author’s pens and the physical 4. Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge (New York: Routledge, 1972), 48–49. 5. Ibid., 49. 6. R. Barthes, Image-Music-Text (New York: Noonday Press, 1977), 83. 7. R. Barthes, The Fashion System (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983), 208. 8. Ibid., 146.



Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice bounds of the book . . . into cultural codes.”9 For Tzvetan Todorov “discourse is not made up of sentences, but of uttered sentences, or more succinctly, of utterances.”10 The interpretation of these “utterances” is determined by both the sentences uttered, and the process of enunciation itself. This would include acknowledgement of a speaker, an addressee, a time and place, as well as the discourses that preceded the utterance. A particular text, for Barthes, comes into being as an ensemble of discourses, a “multidimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash.”11 While this never allows a discourse to become fully stabilized, it does highlight its polysemous character. For Barthes, the discursive nature of texts suggests that “if a text is subject to some form, this form is not unitary; it is the fragment, the shards, the broken or obliterated network—all the movements of a vast ‘dissolve’ which permits both overlapping and loss of messages.”12 Foucault noted, however, that there are forms of discourse which “lie at the origins of a certain number of new verbal acts, which are reiterated and transformed, in short, discourse which is spoken and remains spoken indefinitely beyond its formulation.”13 For Barthes, these latter types of discourses are “so many fragments of something that has always been already read, seen, done, experienced; the code is the wake of that already.”14 Myth and ritual are examples of discourse that remain “spoken.” As forms of discourse, myth and ritual order sustain cultural identity as they perdure throughout time. Many theorists like Bruce Lincoln have extended the idea of discourse beyond lit9. T. Murphy, “Discourse,” Guide to the Study of Religion, Willi Braun and Russell McCutcheon, eds. (London: Cassell, 2000), 398. 10. T. Todorov, Genres in Discourse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 16. 11. Barthes, Image-Music-Text, 146. 12. R. Barthes, S/Z (New York: Hill and Wang, 1974), 20. 13. Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge, 220. 14. Barthes, S/Z, 20.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of



Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice erary theory to include other systems of interrelated meaning. For Lincoln, myth and ritual both evoke credible sentiments of authority out of which “society is actively constructed.”15 The differences between myth and ritual are, for Lincoln, a matter of genre. While myth exemplifies discourse (the “already spoken” of Barthes) verbally and textually, ritual embodies a culture’s discourses in a gestural and dramatic mode.16 Divorced from its roots in literary theory, discourse can be seen as a mediating term between persons and their traditions. Philip Lewin has noted that as social behaviors “become affiliated with a rhetorically constituted history, discourse arises as people appropriate these traditions while mastering the associated practices.”17 The discursive quality of myth or ritual (or any set of interrelated phenomenon) does not inhere within the text or the gesture but within the systemic set of relationships that are constructed. Laclau and Mouffe provide an apt example.18 If I kick a spherical object and call it a soccer ball, it only becomes a soccer ball in relation to a host of other social relations that must precede it. These relations are not dependent upon the materiality of the spherical object. There is nothing inherent in a spherical object that makes it a soccer ball. The meaning is socially constructed. This system of relations is what I wish to call discourse. As a conduit for the construction of social meaning, discourse by its nature is also about power; who has it and how it is used to construct social identity. Sandra Polaski has remarked, “discourse is less what is said than control over what may be said.”19 It is here where control 15. B. Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 25. 16. Ibid., 53. 17. Philip Lewin, “Persons, Discursive Practices, Traditions,” Soundings, 74.3–4 (1991), 3. 18. E. Laclau and C. Mouffe, “Post-Marxism without Apologies,” New Left Review 166 (1987): 82. 19. Sandra Polaski, Paul and the Discourse of Power (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 37.



Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice is understood as the flow of power relationships. Foucault observed that institutions gave value to certain forms of knowledge, what he calls a “will to truth,” by using discourse that promotes its interests and excludes other forms of knowledge through prohibition and taboo.20 Discourse then cannot contain all the truths that are possible, but only those propositions that find a logical and beneficial role within social relations. Discourse is not natural, but rather imposed from without by institutions that were themselves discursively constituted as power relations within the social matrix. Foucault’s analysis of discourse seeks to uncover precisely what discourse hides and excludes.21 He envisioned his task as twofold: first critical, distinguishing those forms which discourses do in fact exclude and limit; and second genealogical, how discourses were formed and what made their conditions of growth and variation possible within power relationships.22 James Scott noted that within power relationships there is what he calls a “public transcript”: an officially publicized statement of how those with unequal status relate to each other. He calls it “the self portrait of dominant elites as they would have themselves seen.”23 The public transcript is, however, a decidedly lopsided discussion. Its purpose is not to gain agreement among those subordinated, but rather to intimidate them into compliance and obedience. Scott cites as an example of this public transcript the formal ceremonies organized and celebrated by the elite to dramatize their rule. For my purposes, the Roman ludi (games) are illustrative. Staged at appropriate times for civic celebration, they represented one strand of a carefully staged discourse designed to display the benevolent largess of 20. Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge. 220. 21. Polaski, Paul and the Discourse, 42. 22. Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge, 232. 23. James Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 18.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of



Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice the elite.24 The populace was allowed to participate in these civic rituals in a spirit of celebration and thankfulness while also submitting in quiet obedience to those in power.25 Normally ending in violence, the games provided both the controlled spectacle of death in the arena as well as the collective change of pace needed from daily life. As part of Roman religion’s public transcript, they were grand displays of power, excitement, cruelty and benevolence. What Scott called the public transcript of social discursive practice, Foucault termed the “will to knowledge,” or in the original French, the episteme.26 The episteme, for Foucault, is not a form of knowledge or a type of rational world view, but rather the total set of relations that unite discursive practices at a given time period. Every society tends to view its discursive practices as natural, inevitable and unchangeable. As a result every historical age can, in some sense, be seen as trapped in its own episteme. Social institutions, such as the Roman games, were created and sustained by Roman political and religious discourse. Either through sanction, prohibition or taboo, societies seek both to preserve those institutions that have arisen through shared discourse, as well as to develop novel discursive techniques to maintain those institutions. Foucault saw all such institutions as “fictions unconsciously created by the forces of established power.”27 Scott maintained that within the specific social circle of the non-dominant group a partial refuge from the oppressive nature of domination could be found. Within the subgroup there is “a shared interest in jointly creating a discourse of dignity, of nega24. See the discussion of political benevolence in R. L. Gordon, “The Veil of Power: Emperors, Sacrificers, Benefactors,” in Pagan Priests, eds. M. Beard and J. North (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), 210–30. 25. See Carlin Barton, Sorrow of the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). 26. Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge, 191. 27. David Leigh, “Michel Foucault and the Study of Literature and Theology,” Christianity and Literature, 33 (1983): 84.



Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice tion, and of justice,” as is clear in any discourse relative to martyrdom.28 Scott maintained that this forms a hidden transcript, which if transposed to the context of domination, would represent an act of rebellion. “The first open statement of a hidden transcript, a declaration that breaks an apparently calm surface of silence and consent, carries the force of a symbolic declaration of war.”29 While the early Christians could not wage war against Rome with the weapons of iron, they did so through their discourse. Bruce Lincoln has explored how discourse functions as a tool for ideological persuasion in society. He argued that “discourse and force are the chief means whereby social borders, hierarchies, institutional formations and habituated patterns of behavior are both maintained and modified.”30 Social control is achieved when one group exerts some type of pressure over and against a nondominant group. This can be achieved either through the use of force or discourse. Force is, however, effective only in the short-term. While it can subdue weaker opponents in order to achieve a measure of compliance, the dominant group has to win their hearts and minds, so to speak, if any type of long-term social stability is to be achieved. Therefore, Lincoln argued that discourse supplements sheer force through a longer lasting ideological persuasion. Its appeal to human affect serves to “mystify the inevitable inequities” in any social order.31 In the first century of the Common Era, the discourse of sacrifice was a powerful tool used by both Romans and the early Church. Lincoln also pointed out that even the nondominant group in any social configuration retains access to both force and discourse within social stratification. While the nondominant subgroup can be physically forced to comply, the members still have 28. Scott, Domination, 114. 30. Lincoln, Discourse, 3.

29. Ibid., 8. 31. Ibid., 4.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of



Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice their bodies with which they can forcefully resist aggression. This has never been more clearly attested than in the early Christian martyr narratives that I will examine in chapter four. As a nondominant subgroup within the Roman world, the only weapon of force available to those martyrs who wanted to resist Roman aggression was, in the end, their own bodies.32 Similar to Foucault’s analysis, Lincoln noted that the enduring quality of effective discourse that produces social change is the result of pairing (a) ideological persuasion and (b) sentiment evocation.33 Social borders are created by the manner in which affinities and estrangements are handled within social groups. The more that a group can persuade, not only ideologically but also through an appeal to human affect, the more permanent those social borders will be. Conversely, the more a subgroup like the early Christians can persuade ideologically and emotionally, the more it can destabilize and deconstruct the ideological borders of the dominant group. In the social conditions of the first century both the ideological initiatives of Christianity, and the affective appeal of this new religion found a home.34 Lincoln noted that “those discourses that disrupt previously persuasive discourses of legitimation and those that mobilize novel social formations by evoking previously latent sentiments of affinity or estrangement are among the most powerful instruments of social change.”35 The appeal to a personal sense of religious identity offered by early Christianity, as well as by the cults of Isis and Mithras, filled a void left by official Roman religion. In chapter three we 32. For a fuller discussion of the role of the body as locus of “force” in ancient martyrologies see B. Shaw, “Body/Power/Identity: Passions of the Martyrs,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 20 (1996): 269–312. 33. Lincoln, Discourse, 8–10. 34. See E. R. Dodds, Christians and Pagans in an Age of Anxiety (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965). Dodds argues that Christianity’s ability to mediate a sense of the divine was its chief asset set in the late antique world of the individual filled with a spiritual malaise. 35. Lincoln, Discourse, 173.

10

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

roman religion and sacrificial practice will see how Christian discourse mobilized sentiments of affinity in a personal way that was foreign to official Roman religious ideology. If Christianity enjoyed popularity, it was in part a result of its discourse. The “good news” claimed by the Christian New Testament gospels and letters is not self-evident. Christian discourse was therefore rhetorically poised to persuade its readers/hearers of the authorial power that they believed came from the God of Jesus. The early Christians adapted Graeco-Roman sacrificial and imperial ideology to produce their own unique discourse that challenged the hegemony of Rome.

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

Roman Religious Discourses— Order, Power, and Balance In order to understand how Christianity adapted Roman religious discourse, it will be necessary to chart those elements of Roman religion that were key to imperial discourse during the first century of the Common Era. Since every element of Roman religion cannot be adequately described, I will focus on those ancient elements that are specifically relevant to the foundation of the imperial cult. This chapter will describe those threads of religious discourse that formed the basis of this cult, before chapter two highlights the discourse of the emperor cult itself. The record of Roman religious discourse reveals an amalgam of mythic order and ritual as well as the allure of the exotically foreign. Our sources for Roman religious practices are the historians Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Livy, as well as the poetry of Ovid and Virgil. The writings of Plutarch, Cicero, and the reconstructed fragments of the now lost Human and Divine Antiquities of Varro also provide the modern reader with insights.36 All of these authors lived in the first centuries bce or ce. Their writ36. Chief among the writings available to us are Dionysius, Roman Antiquities; Livy, History of Rome; Ovid, Fasti, Metamorphoses; Virgil, Aenid; Plutarch, Parallel Lives.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

11

roman religion and sacrificial practice

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

ings either rhetorically reified a “golden age” of Roman religious and political power or lamented the long lost ideals of Republican identity. My concern is not with their historical accuracy, but with the discursive threads that they reveal and advocate. On the one hand, the ancient Romans practiced sacrifice and built massive temples to the gods, but on the other, they lacked “religion” as a specific ideological construct separate from “politics.” The Latin religio from which our modern term originated refers to the traditional honors paid to the gods by the state.37 There was no clear division between what we would term today, “politics and religion.” Religio was the proper behavior that characterized the life of the Roman citizen. Roman religion was not concerned with distinguishing true from false beliefs. It was more correctly understood as an existential category, discerning the proper actions that would ensure the success of the people and the state. As an existential category, physical space as well as ritual action and practice were of paramount importance.38 In Roman ideology the opposite of religio was superstitio. This was understood as the improper or even excessive forms of behavior that could threaten the fine balance of divine favor to the state. The gods and state existed in a mutually beneficial, if somewhat tenuous relationship.39 37. According to Cicero, De natura deorum 2.8: “religione, id est cultu deorum” (religion is a way of honoring the gods). All quotations from the works of Cicero are available at The Latin Library website. 38. Christopher Tilley, The Phenomenology of Landscape (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1994), 18, noted: “‘Place’ is about situatedness in relation to identity and action. In this sense ‘place’ is context. Consequently ‘place’ is fundamental to the establishment of personal and group identity.” Jonathan Z. Smith expresses a similar sentiment in “The Influence of Symbols on Social Change,” in Map Is Not Territory (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 143: “place ought not to be viewed as a static concept. It is through an understanding and symbolization of place that a society or an individual creates itself.” 39. In De natura deorum 1.3–4 Cicero argues “if the gods cannot and will not help us . . . if there is nothing on their side that touches our life, what reason have we to devote worship, [cultus] honors [honores] and prayers [preces] to them?” In 1.46–49 Cicero’s character Velleius argued that the gods resembled the human form. Later, in 1.77–82, his character Cotta argues against such a position. Lucretius, De rerum natura 5.146, summarizes the Epicurean notion that the gods exist but are far re-

12

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice If then we can speak at all about a category of Roman “religion,” one of the first elements of Roman religious discourse at the beginning of the imperial age was the intimate connection between “religion” and “place.”40 Just as the gods had “sacred” space in the heavens, this divine template was mirrored on earth within the city of Rome. As Jonathan Z. Smith observed, “once a culture has expressed its vision of its place, a whole language of symbols and social structures will follow.”41 To be “home” meant to be afforded safety and security, not only from the physical forces of one’s enemies, but also emotional and psychic security as well. Cicero observed, “what is more sacred [sanctus] than each citizen’s home? It houses his altars, his hearths, his Penates, his sacrifices.”42 The city, like the womb, wrapped and enveloped the resident. It provided psychic nourishment for body, mind and soul. The home created a sacred “space” which functioned as the center for domestic religion. The city of Rome functioned similarly, creating the same sense of sacred space on a public level. Thus, the city functioned as a socially constructed place for both religious and political purposes.43 The mythic traditions of Rome’s origin served to validate this connection between religious and civic space. A created line known as the pomerium defined the city’s religious “space.” The pomerium was not a uniquely Roman institution since, according to Varro, a similar religious structure could be found in other cities in Italy. Its exmoved from human comprehension: “Indeed, the nature of the gods, so subtle, so far removed from these our senses, scarce is seen even by intelligence of mind.” 40. Suggested by M. Beard, J. North, and S. Price, Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 167; and R. Turcan, The Gods of Ancient Rome (New York: Routledge, 2000), 14–50. 41. Smith, Map Is Not Territory, 141. 42. Cicero, De domo sua, 109. 43. When Augustine (Civitas Dei 6.4.2) commented on Varro’s Human and Divine Antiquities, he was angered that Varro indicated that cities had existed prior to religious institutions “as the artist existed before the picture.” This reference is found in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 2, trans. P. Schaff, on the website Christian Classics Ethereal Library maintained by Calvin College.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

13

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice istence, however, functioned symbolically to delineate the discourse of religious and political power that was attached to the city itself.44 This chapter opened with the creation of the pomerium according to Ovid. Plutarch’s version underscores the religious nature of the interconnection between city and sacred place with even greater intensity. Romulus, Rome’s legendary founder according to Plutarch, summoned diviners from nearby Etruria (the haruspices) who, acting as “expounders of holy ritual” provided advice relative to the construction of the city. As he described the founding of the city Plutarch noted how each person brought a small piece of earth from their native land and deposited into a small pit “the mundus, the same word that they used for the heavens. Then they marked out the city around it . . . [and Romulus] yoked a bull and a cow and drew a deep furrow around the boundary.”45 Plutarch’s description of this furrowed line “next to” the boundary “wall” of the city provided an etymological background for the word “pomerium.” 46 Plutarch’s discourse accentuated the idea that the pomerium functioned as a social construct allowing the topography of the city’s “space” as mundus (earth) to become sacred “place,” or in Latin, a templum. The pomerium served chiefly as a religious marker for the city. It de-limited, or separated the space within the city where official state (and hence religious) business was conducted. By contrast the imperium, or military command of Republican generals, was effective only outside the boundary of the pomerium. Triumphant military leaders were allowed to cross the pomerium 44. See Varro, On the Latin Language 5.143, for the etymology of the word. Plutarch’s description here appears to echo Varro’s common understanding that the boundary marker was dug post murum (behind the wall) in order that the auspices could be correctly taken. 45. Plutarch, Life of Romulus 11.1–4. All quotations are taken from Plutarch, Parallel Lives, ed. Bernadotte Perrin (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1914), and available on the website Lacus Curtius maintained by Bill Thayer. 46. Plutarch here cites the common etymology of the word pomerium, similar to that which Varro cites in note 44 above.

14

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice in full military garb solely on the occasion of an ancient victory “ticker-tape-parade.” This separation of military and political power was modified under the Principate when Augustus asked for imperium in addition to his role as political leader. All succeeding emperors after Augustus exercised both military and judicial control from within the sacred confines of the city, enlarging the pomerium as they thought necessary.47 Thus if Cicero was correct in suggesting that a certain “sanctity” resided in the house of the Roman paterfamilias (kin leader), then by extension the city of Rome itself, as home to the Roman people was also a sacred place as evidenced by the pomerium. In chapter two I will detail how the sacrificial system of emperor worship functioned to further enlarge a conception of Roman religion as “place” in the imperial period. In chapter three I will analyze how the Christians also used the idea of “place” to elaborate the teachings of Jesus. This “kingdom” that Jesus proleptically announced would serve as an antithesis to the earthly kingdom of the emperors. As a sacred “place” the city of imperial Rome functioned as the political link uniting all the nations of the earth. This same sense of “sanctity-of-place” also allowed the city to function vertically, connecting this world to the divine realm. Even though many Roman religious myths borrowed liberally from Greek narrative, the specifically Roman imprint to these stories was their highly developed mythology of “place.” Rome was the axis mundi and the pomerium was a boundary that set apart the city as a “sacred landscape.”48 47. The actual boundary lines of the pomerium were increased several times, most notably by the Emperors Claudius and Vespasian. Tacitus, Annals XII.23–24, provides a description of the boundary lines of the pomerium centered on the Palatine hill. As the empire grew the need to change the pomerium functioned as a tool for the political advantage of the ruling monarch. This reference is from the website The Perseus Project of Tufts University, from a translation by Alfred Church and William Brodribb (New York: Random House, 1942). 48. A term used by Beatrice Caseau, “Sacred Landscapes,” in Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Post Classical World, eds. G. Bowersock, P. Brown and O. Grabar (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), 21–59. Caseau describes an incident in

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

15

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice This Roman sacralization of place extended to the other parts of the empire as well. The rhetorician Libanius writes, if not somewhat apologetically during the reign of Julian in the mid-fourth century, that “in any new city shrines were the first buildings erected immediately after the walls.” But it was not only the city that contained the sacred element of the gods; the countryside also revealed this intense sacralization of place. Seneca, the tutor to the Emperor Nero, writes, “if you ever come upon a dense woods of ancient trees that have risen to an exceptional height . . . your sense of wonderment . . . will persuade you of the presence of a deity.”49 The idea of religion as a sacred “place” was also evident within the home as Cicero noted. Private religion, organized around the Roman paterfamilias, mirrored the same relationship that the state possessed with the gods. Just as the Roman state was dedicated by Romulus to Jupiter, Mars, and Minerva (the Capitoline three), the Roman family had their household gods, known as the Lares. Inside the home was a local shrine, the Lararium, where the entire family made offerings and sacrifices (usually in the form of incense or grain offerings). Religion in ancient Rome was intimately connected to the idea of a “sacred place.” However, as we read Livy, we might be led to think that Roman religion was sui generis, beginning ideally with Romulus and Numa as the city was founded.50 While the idea of “place” was a chief component in Roman religion, 201 ce when the Roman army built a military encampment in Gholaia, the province of Tripolitania (modern Libya). In order not to offend the deity who presided over the site, a sacrifice was made in its honor first, prior to the establishment of their own gods. 49. Libanius, Orations 30.5 and Seneca, Letters 41.5, as quoted by Caseau, “Sacred Landscapes,” 23–24. 50. Livy, History 1.20.1, referring to Numa, Rome’s mythical second king: “Tum sacerdotibus creandis animum adiecit, quamquam ipse plurima sacra obibat, ea maxime quae nunc ad Dialem flaminem pertinent.” (Next he turned his attention to the appointment of priests. He himself, however, conducted a great many religious services, especially those which belong to the flamen of Jupiter).

16

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice the archaeological evidence offers a portrait of Roman religion originating from several “places.” According to Virgil, Aeneas arrived in Italy from Troy carrying the sacred fire and founded the city of Lavinium 18.5 miles north of Rome.51 Excavations at the site (modern Practica di Mare) revealed statuettes of Minerva with details of dress in clear Greek style.52 In addition, excavations near the Church of St. Omobono between the Forum and the Forum Boarium found twin temples that date to Rome’s sixth king, Servius Tullius, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus.53 Reconstruction of fragments from this site revealed a statue group of Minerva and Hercules, suggesting the influence of Greek art in Rome already during the late sixth century bce.54 Virgil’s Aeneid corroborates these Greek influences. After Aeneas left Troy and founded Lavinium, his son Iulus founded the city of Alba Longa and their descendent Romulus founded Rome. Thus Roman religion was generated from an equally ancient Greek religious discourse. While appearing uniquely Roman in the discourse of Livy’s Ab urbe condita, the origin of religion in ancient Rome was without doubt influenced by other religious ideologies present in the classical world. Livy’s assessment of Roman religion is straightforward and unproblematic. If treated in the proper way the gods would assist the Roman state. It must be remembered that Livy wrote during a period of tremendous political change. His parochial view of the Roman-ness of religious discourse was a result of his own nostalgic assessment that the “golden age” had passed. Liebeschuetz overstates the case however, when he concludes that Livy “viewed the possibility of restoring ancestral 51. Virgil, Aeneid 3.389–93, trans. and ed. J. Dryden, available from Perseus Digitial Library at Tufts University. 52. Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 13. 53. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 4.40.7, quoted in Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 2, 19–20. 54. Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 2, 21.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

17

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice virtues pessimistically.”55 Rather, Livy’s portrait of Roman religion could be seen as offering either a simple rationale for the problems Rome faced at the end of the republic or an impetus for the “restoration” that commenced with Augustus. Whatever Livy’s motivation for his portrayal of the origin of Roman religion, it is clear that Roman religion originated from within a matrix of Greek influence. While Livy presented an unconditional Roman-ness for the foundation of religion he was well aware that the subsequent history of religion in Rome revealed an amalgam of influences that were not native to the city. This was especially evident in his accounts of the third century bce when substantial change in the religious climate of ancient Rome took place. Often assessed as a “panic” reaction to the great invasions by the Gauls (220 bce) and the Carthaginians under Hannibal from 218 to 201 bce, Roman religion witnessed the inclusion of many foreign traditions into its structures.56 This period of cultural inclusion also witnessed the further adaptation of Greek thought and culture into the Roman environment. While Hellenistic thinking gradually crept into Rome, the gods and goddesses of the surrounding Mediterranean were also welcomed. This was illustrated by Livy’s account of the evocatio (literally, a “summoning away”) of the goddess Juno from the Etruscan city of Veii. Prior to the invasion of the city, Camillus tempted the goddess away from her Etruscan habitation with the lure of a “tenth of the spoils,” and a “temple worthy of [her] greatness.”57 Livy showed that the gods could be bargained with, just like any aristocratic citizen of the city who might be swayed 55. J. H. W. Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change in Roman Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 61. 56. Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 1, 79, accept the explanation of W. Warde Fowler, The Religious Experience of the Roman People (London, 1911), who located the Hannibalic Wars as the impetus for allowing foreign cults into Rome. 57. Livy, History 5.21.3, Camillus addresses Juno with the offer of a temple, which in Livy’s time was located on the Aventine Hill.

18

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice by the “right price” in order to obtain special favors for the Roman people. Livy suggested that even while the inhabitants of Veii were losing the battle to the Romans they did not know that their goddess had already abandoned them, lured away by the greater fortune offered by Camillus.58 The Greek god Asclepius was also incorporated into the Roman religious system during this period. Livy recounted that this god was introduced after consultation with the Sibylline Books.59 The very antiquity and secrecy surrounding these books, acquired in the quasi-mythical period of Rome’s regal monarchy, assured the “sanctity” of this prophetic tradition for the ancient Romans. Livy described how a politician’s procrastination brought more waves of a deadly plague, even after the Sibylline Books had approved Asclepius’ introduction into the Roman pantheon. Only after the god received his rightful place on an island in the Tiber did healing come to the city.60 Danger could be averted in the latter portion of the third century by an appeal to “foreign gods,” coaxed through an evocatio, or prophetically sanctioned by the Sibylline Books. Striking still is how all this was accomplished without the slightest threat to Roman identity. As with the inclusion of the cult of Magna Mater (Greek Cybele), the Romans believed that these religious innovations were not so much something new as a return to something even older. As Beard et al., assess the matter, “despite their apparent strangeness, these deities could be seen as central parts of the Roman inheritance.”61 Roman religious cults as well as Roman religious festivals witnessed a similar trend toward the innovative and the conservative. That Rome could institute and approve a temple to Mater Magna (after careful appeal to the Sibylline Books) witnessed the innovative and eclectic nature of Roman religion.62 That 58. Ibid., 5.21.6. 60. Ibid., Summaries 11. 62. Livy, History 29.10.7.

59. Ibid., 10.47.7. 61. Beard, Religions of Rome, vol. 1, 84.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

19

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice the Senate became suspicious when the self-castrated priests of the same cult arrived with wild and exotic liturgies testified to their conservative tendencies.63 The same trend toward both the conservative and the eclectic was attested in the Lupercalia, the Parilia, and the Saturnalia, three of Rome’s oldest religious festivals still celebrated as Christianity began. As religious festivals they were steeped in ritual activity that was simply performed and rarely explained. By the time that Ovid, Plutarch, and Livy reflected on the origin of these festivals, they linked these festivals to disparate discourses of an even more ancient time. In Ovid’s poem on the Roman religious calendar, Fasti, he invoked the goddess Pales as he attributed the birthday celebration of Rome known as the Parilia to an ancient pastoral setting.64 He mentioned Vesta, the “mother goddess” of ancient Rome as the supplier of the ritual requirements for the feast. This Parilia used fire, blood, ashes from an unborn calf, as well as milk and the “stalk of a hard bean.”65 In his description of the origins of this feast Livy cited the “piety of Aeneas” and the transfer of the “household gods,” as witnesses to the mythic antiquity of what had become by his day a very Roman feast. Plutarch also described the origin of this festival, however he saw it as a pre-Roman bloodless agricultural festival. For Plutarch, animal sacrifice was a later development.66 Plutarch and Ovid offered different explanations for this religious festival because each was aware of the multiple strands of traditional religious discourse into which these festivals had become embedded. The antiquity of this festival as character63. Lucretius, De rerum natura 2.610ff.: “the image of the divine mother [Magna Mater] is carried through the wide world with terrifying effect,” quoted in Beard, Religions of Rome, vol. 2, 49. 64. Ovid, Fasti, 4.723: “Alma Pales, faveas pastoria sacra canenti, prosequor officio si tua festa meo.” (Kindly Pales, favor me when I sing of shepherds’ rites). 65. Ibid., 4.734. Ideally these material preparations included the ashes of the unborn calf sacrificed at the festival of the Fordicidia (April 15th) and the dried blood was obtained from the sacrifice of the “October Horse” on October 15th. 66. Plutarch, Life of Romulus 12.1.

20

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice ized by these writers, along with their hypothetical suggestions of origin, reveals the conservative nature of Roman religious discourse. In the second century ce the name of this ancient festival was changed to Romaia, indicating that it was at the heart of what it meant to be Roman. The odd practices that became associated with the Parilia such as leaping over a fire, and using blood and ashes from sacrificial animals shows the eclectic character of Roman religion as well. The details of another ancient religious festival held on February fifteenth known as the Lupercalia are well attested by Plutarch, but their interpretation is even more obscure than that of the Parilia. They included the sacrifice of a goat, the touch of a bloody knife wiped clean with wool soaked in milk, and youths running nearly naked through the streets of Rome, striking anyone in their path with a thong.67 Plutarch attested to the antiquity of the festival, associating it with the wild environs into which the twins, Romulus and Remus, were exposed prior to being suckled by the wolf. The importance of this rather odd festival is evident as Plutarch also related how Julius Caesar refused the diadem offered by Marc Antony specifically on this feast. That Augustine knew of the feast in the fourth century ce, and that the Christian bishop Gelasius had to prohibit Christians from its celebration as late as the fifth century, manifests not only the marked popularity, but also the solemn Roman identity that was attached to such a festival whose odd rituals defy explanation. The Saturnalia, the third of Rome’s great festivals, was regularly celebrated on the seventeenth of December. While there were public celebrations at the Temple of Saturn, there was a private aspect to this festival that temporarily disrupted the master-slave relationship. Macrobius maintained that during the Saturnalia, the roles of master and slave were reversed.68 Slaves 67. Ibid., 21.3–8. 68. Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.24.23, ed. Ludwig von Jan (Leipzig: Gottfried Bass,

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

21

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice were allowed to dine at the table of the paterfamilias. Thus, as a religious festival, the Saturnalia had a distinct personal character to its celebration that mirrored the traditional Roman household, albeit in reversed form. This festival was popular into the third and fourth century ce and has often been connected with the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus held during the winter solstice. The conservative nature of Roman religious discourse contributed to the marked popularity and longevity of these feasts. The Parilia and the Lupercalia were festivals that linked the Roman religion to Roman identity, though people no longer remembered the origins of such feasts but attached mythic connotations to them instead. This demonstrates how innovative the Romans could be in their religious discourses. Why they leapt over bonfires at the Parilia, or ran naked through the streets of Rome at the Lupercalia, or allowed slaves to dine at the table of the paterfamilias during the Saturnalia remains as mysterious to us as it must have it appeared to many of the Romans themselves. Order, structure, and boundaries were some of the major elements in ancient Roman religious discourse that created both a sense of “place” and a sense of “holiness.” Mary Douglas remarked that “holiness requires that individuals shall conform to the class to which they belong. And holiness requires that different classes of things shall not be confused.”69 The reversal of “order” evident in these ancient feasts through their odd practices (at least as described by first-century authors) was indispensable so that order itself could be renewed. These festivals allowed Roman religion to be brought to the masses in ways that were normally reserved only for the elites and the political appointed members of the priestly colleges. The Roman sense of 1982). This reference is available on the website Lacus Curtius maintained by Bill Thayer. 69. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger (London: Routledge, 1966), 53.

22

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice “place” needed to be renewed even as the opposite experience of “chaos” was ritually controlled and allowed during religious festivals. Jonathan Z. Smith has misinterpreted this period as one filled with “cosmic paranoia,” where “man is no longer defined by the degree to which he harmonizes himself and his society to the cosmic patterns of order.”70 A similar sentiment is echoed by Liebeschuetz: “the sense of inadequacy and helplessness in face of the universe surely is one root of Roman and all religion.”71 I would suggest just the opposite, that the regularity and popularity of these festivals, where “disorder” was ritually controlled through mythic reenactment, evidenced Roman religion’s major concern to establish order and balance in the normal relations between the people and the state and between the state and the gods. The role played by these festivals in Roman religious thinking was not to destabilize but rather, through strict ritual control of ancient traditions, to strengthen Roman confidence in a cosmic balance that was mirrored in the republic and in the empire. They were indicative of the proper and orderly flow of power relations that were constitutive of Roman religion itself. The Roman religious festivals that brought the religion of the elite to the masses were ritually scripted to sustain those in power, preserving and sustaining the Roman family. Religious cults whose identity was focused on the individual believer apart from their relationship to the family (gens) brought suspicion and anxiety to the delicate balance of power. At first receptive to the cults of foreign gods and goddesses, such as Mater Magna, Juno Regina, and Asclepius, the Senate became increasingly suspicious of the “foreign-ness” of these cults. The prohibitions leveled against the cult of Bacchus in 186 bce, whether viewed from a moral or political perspective, illustrated Roman intolerance for cults that were not tied directly to the power of 70. J. Z. Smith, “The Influence of Symbols on Social Change,” 138, 139. 71. Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change, 7.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

23

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice the state and the Roman family. The cult of Bacchus, while responsible for the spread of religious, and hence national identity throughout Italy, supported a form of religious discourse that grounded itself in the personal acceptance of the believer quite apart from allegiance to republic or family. Beginning in the second century and lasting through the Christian era, the “public transcript” of Roman religion, to use James Scott’s terminology, was always suspicious of religious practices that advocated the role of personal belief. The suspicions of the Bacchic cult, as well as the rituals of the cult of Magna Mater, were based on their emotional appeal to individual belief. Domestic and by extension public religion in Rome was not a matter of belief but a matter of proper action due the gods. While officially eclectic and innovative in religious design, Roman ideology was suspicious of religious discourse that did not mirror the local household religious activity of the gens (family unit). If discourse centers around power relations that are simultaneously constitutive of the subject, then Rome’s official “anxiety” over the exotic nature of the foreign cults can be seen as an example of the inability of Roman religious/political discourse to deal with the religious subject as an autonomous agent. In noting the significance of the Bacchic cult, Livy characterized the “damaging effects of this evil which spread from Etruria to Rome like a contagious disease.”72 He described a cult replete with violence, debauchery, sexual promiscuity and even murder. For Livy, such a litany of vices was not an authentic expression of religio, the balance and order needed for both society and the fabric of Roman life. The gravitas (dignity) and the selfcomportment built into patrician Rome considered the Bacchic cult not only false, but a threat to society itself. While Livy’s assessment is no doubt skewed to include all manner of vile behavior, the cult was so ideologically dangerous that the Senate 72. Livy, History 39.9.

24

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice passed a decree in 186 bce that severely curtailed its activity. The restrictions placed on the cult focused on its clandestine and individualizing aspects. The decree reads in part: “neither a Bacchic shrine nor the rites themselves” should be maintained unless the praetor (Roman juridical official) and one hundred senators found such expression necessary. “No man . . . shall seek to be present among the female Bacchants,” nor should there be a male priesthood. The rites themselves could not be held if more than five men and five women were gathered without the permission of the praetor and the Senate.73 Both Livy’s rhetorical description and the extant textual evidence of the senatorial decree reveal that the cult must have been quite popular to warrant such condemnation. While Greek in origin, by the early second century bce it must have made significant inroads into both plebeian and patrician Roman society. This cult must also have filled a “religious” niche that was not available from the traditional Roman religious institutions. However, unlike the cult of Isis that I will examine later, official condemnation was accompanied by wild speculation of moral depravity. Like the Bacchic cult, Christianity would later experience a similar discursive intolerance. Another popular cult imported to Rome was the cult of the goddess Isis. While traditionally worshipped in Egypt, the cult of Isis spread to Rome and grew rapidly. Foreign cults were not new in Rome and Isis capitalized on Roman toleration. By the time Isis arrived in Rome, the cult had been in such close contact with Hellenistic thought that its ideology appeared more Greek than Egyptian. Much like Magna Mater, the cult of Isis brought with it the same sense of “foreignness” to Roman sensibilities.74 73. The text of the senatorial decree against the Bacchic cult was found on a bronze tablet in southern Italy. The text is taken from Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae Republicae 511, ed. A. Degrassi (Florence, 1957–64) and quoted in Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 2, 290. 74. The period of Augustan “reform” witnessed the cult of Isis and other “Egyp-

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

25

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice The cult was perhaps most visible in its processions through the streets of Rome as well as by its temple on the Campus Martius with its unusual design by Roman standards. Priests with shaved heads, colorful clothing, loud musical accompaniment, and “secret” initiatory rites all highlighted the uneasy tension between the discourse of formal Roman religion and a superstitio. Apuleius’ narrative Metamorphoses (also known as The Golden Ass) revealed an intimate relationship between Isis and the main character, Lucius, who while seeking knowledge dabbled in magic and was turned into a donkey. Isis acted as his redeemer promising to protect Lucius all his life, not only in this world, but also in the nether world. Isis even bragged that if Lucius continues in “devout service and continuing purity” she can extend his life “beyond the span laid down by fate.”75 Apuleius then detailed Lucius’ initiation into the cult of Isis, which included a ritual bath, fasting, and ascetic practices prior to what Lucius describes as a type of mystical experience, “being born through all the elements . . . approaching the gods below and the gods above.”76 Secrecy, coupled with a deep sense of personal commitment and the formation of a new family among those who were true believers, made the cult of Isis a formidable part of ancient Roman religion. Thus the discourse of Roman religion at the beginning of the imperial period was composed of both an official pietas (piety) that mirrored the stability and the power of the Roman gens (family) and an eclectic mix of foreign cults which while often tolerated, as were Isis and Magna Mater, were also considered potentially suspect, as was the cult of Bacchus. When Christianity appeared, the Roman world was already a matrix of religious discourses. The state sponsored both official cults with powerful, tian” rites being banned within the pomerium, as detailed by Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, trans. R. Graves (London: Penguin Books, 1979), 132 [Tiberius 36]. 75. Apuleius, Metamorphoses 9.6, trans. P.G. Walsh (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). 76. Ibid., 9.23.

26

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

roman religion and sacrificial practice yet impersonal deities, as well as novel foreign cults that continually engendered suspicion precisely because of their foreignness and their “personalized” belief systems. Religion functioned privately within the sphere of the Roman family, and publicly within the state-funded cults and temples. Central to these varied elements of Roman religious discourse was the need for order and balance that would maintain Rome’s “place” within the cosmic divine-human interchange. But this was not to say that religion was seen as a burden to the Romans; on the contrary, it was valued and highly prized because it was needed and it worked.

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

Roman Religion, Roman Politics, and Roman Priests Cicero’s writings reflect the intimate connection between Roman religion and political life in the first century bce. The late republican period has been falsely characterized as a period when religion faded in importance, when petty political selfinterest ruled over and against the long established “religious” practices of the day.77 I would argue that the late republic, beset with political upheaval, witnessed a change in Roman religion but not a decline in its importance.78 Cicero’s writing provides a witness into the life and religion of this turbulent period. In his speech to the priestly college of pontifices Cicero clearly articulated the intimate connection between religion and politics as he appealed the legitimacy of Clodius’ edict to have his house destroyed: “Nothing is more renowned than [our ancestors’] decision to entrust the worship of the gods and the highest inter77. According to Suetonius, Augustus 31, in The Twelve Caesars, 71, Suetonius suggested that prior to Augustus, official religious practices had “fallen into neglect.” This was evidenced by the fact that the office of flamen Dialis had been vacant from 86–11 bce. This was due not only to the rigors of the office but also to the fact that Sulla had nullified Caesar’s appointment as part of the confusion during the civil wars. See Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 1, 130–32. 78. This will be argued more fully in the second part of chapter two.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

27

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice est of the state to the same men . . . to ensure the proper maintenance of the state by the prudent interpretation of religion.”79 While a work of political theory, Cicero’s De legibus (On the Laws) also revealed a vision, albeit idealized, for the standards of Roman religious practice. His nostalgia is prompted by the desire to see the success of Rome tied intimately to the success of the gods, their cult, and their practices as maintained by the priesthoods of ancient Rome. Speaking as a character in this dialogue, he appealed to the priests to “preserve the rituals of their families and their fathers.” He warned the members of the priestly colleges not to have gods of their own, and to refrain from introducing new gods unless they were publicly approved.80 Cicero’s rhetorical appeal illustrates several discursive features of Roman religion. Key to the balance of religious favor between the gods and humanity is the respect shown for the family (gens) as it functioned as a microcosm of the state. Writing during the turbulent times of the first century bce, he indicated that the ancestral religious traditions served to balance the relationship between the gods and the people, thus yielding a balanced political state. “Let them worship as deities those who have always been recognized as heavenly beings” (emphasis added).81 Unless there was a national consensus and a publicly approved acceptance of newer deities, Roman religion should not be altered. Cicero observed that the role of the priests should be connected with preserving and maintaining the festivals at regular intervals, “so that nothing be omitted from these rites.” Even though he wrote an idealized vision of the priesthoods of Rome, he still managed to give special prominence to his own priestly college, the augures. “What the augur has declared to be improper, forbidden, faulty or ill-omened, let those things be null and voided. Let the penalty for the disobedient be death.”82 79. Cicero, De domo sua 1.1. 81. Ibid.

80. Cicero, De legibus 2.19. 82. Ibid., 2.20.

28

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice There is a certain placid calm, an almost serene evenness in his vision of the ideal religious system. This is best illustrated by his concern that excess should be avoided. The priests are to regulate the “public games” with “moderate song” so that the gods might be honored. This however is done only in those games that lacked the ferocity of “chariot racing” and “bodily contact.” Only the priests of Magna Mater may request financial contributions, and then only on prescribed days. Vows should be fulfilled scrupulously. “The rights of families should be maintained in perpetuity,” and even the “gods of the underworld should be respected.”83 Proper religion, done properly is necessary in Cicero’s vision so that the gods would be placated. Appeased gods in turn will see to it that Rome succeeds. Clearly outlined here is Cicero’s idea, envisioned by all late republican Romans, that the success of the state and the success of religion were intimately connected. His request for an even and orderly religious system was indicative of his desire for a restored political environment, free from the tumult of civil war. However, as the civil wars preceded a political change from republic to empire, the religious landscape of Roman religious practice was also in the midst of change as the republic ended. We will return to this topic in chapter three. As the republic ended Roman religion was characterized by order and balance between the gods and the people. A semipermeable boundary divided the phenomenal from the noumenal realms in ancient Rome. Discerning the will of the gods was intimately connected to both religious and political life. One of the major ways in which the gods were present was through ritual exchange at both the public and familial levels. Unlike the lively anthropomorphic gods of ancient Greece, described by Hesiod in his Theogony, the gods and goddesses 83. “Privata perpetua manento. Deorum Manium iura sancta sunto.” Ibid., 2.21.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

29

roman religion and sacrificial practice

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

of Rome were more remote and distant.84 Seen as “forces outside the human community with whom the man of learning and skill . . . can negotiate and communicate”85 even abstract qualities such as “fortune” (Fortuna), or “goodness” (Bona Dea), or the city of Rome itself (the goddesss, Roma) were linked to divinity. At the family level gods such as the Di Manes were worshipped, but they were more akin to the spirits of deceased ancestors than separate deities. Among the major families of Rome, an orderly succession of ancestors assured the religious identity and the identification of things Roman. The Lares or household gods were the sole divinities associated with the Roman gens (family-based kinship lineage). The Penates were the gods of the cupboard providing abundance for the family through food and drink. Communion with these gods was accomplished by one of two means, either sacrificial exchange, or the interpretation of signs. Both forms entailed some aspect of the sacrificial processes that I will describe later. Ritual sacrifice, in the form of a libation of wine or incense, was offered daily to the Lares. The state was therefore a macrocosm of the family. As the family had its local gods, the state had its official gods, most notably the Capitoline triad, Jupiter, Mars, and Minerva.86 A precise connection 84. Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights (Noctes Atticae) 2.28.2, trans. John C. Rolfe (London: W. Heinemann, 1927). This reference is available on the website Forum Roman maintained by David Camden. Gellius noted that the priests did not always know the gender of the gods to whom they were praying, so they would add “whether you are a god or a goddess,” simply to ensure success. Servius indicated that people prayed to Jupiter, the most good and the most great, “unless you prefer some other name” (sive quo alio nomine te appellari volueris). Servius, Ad Aneus (Commentary on Vigil’s Aeneid) 2.351, ed. Georgius Thilo (Leipzig: Teubner, 1881), available from the website Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University. The uniquely Roman god Silvanus was very popular, the Roman divinity most attested by inscriptions yet quite remote. He was the god of agriculture, forestry, and hunting yet “he had no public cult, no state temple, and no celebrations in the Roman calendar.” See H. J. Klauck, The Religious Context of Early Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 28–29 and Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change, 32ff. 85. Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 1, 41. 86. The Temple dedicated to Jupiter and jointly to Juno and Minerva on the Capitoline Hill dominated early Republican Rome. Livy (History 1.55.1) describes its Etruscan architecture and links it to King Tarquin.

30

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice existed between the gods and state as well as between the gods and the people. Calling upon the gods through rituals of divination was therefore both a political and public (and hence emphatically religious), as well as individual and private art. As an “art” form, it was both practiced by the professional as well as the amateur, the priest, and the magician. Cicero recounted the elections of 163 bce, where divination was used as a type of public arbitration so that propriety and decorum could sustain the delicate balance needed between the gods and the state.87 It appeared that while the results of the election were being announced, the official in charge died on the spot. Since the Romans were extremely sensitive to “unusual” or “unexpected” events, such an occurrence triggered quite naturally a “religious” investigation. When the Etruscan priestdiviners known as the haruspices investigated the matter, they concluded that the rogator comitiorum, Tiberius Gracchus, had acted improperly. Gracchus, himself a member of the priestly college of augures, was so incensed that he should be religiously maligned by the Etruscan foreigners that he had them thrown out. However, Cicero noted that Gracchus himself realized that he had made a procedural error in his role as an auger and thus the gods were justified in their disapproval of the elections. Cicero praised Gracchus because “he preferred to reveal a mistake [that] he could have concealed rather than let a religious error stand in private life.”88 Cicero’s motives for the “correctness” of such priestly divination were no doubt born from his own membership in the augural college as well as his religious and political vantage point from the first century bce.89 The story highlights, in both a public and apologetic way, how religious discourse sought to maintain the balance between the gods and the 87. Cicero, De natura deorum 2.10–12. 88. Ibid., 2.11. 89. Cicero, De natura deorum 2.12, also praises the art of haruspicy: “Quid haruspicum ars nonne divina?” (Is not the art of haruspicy also a divine thing?)

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

31

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice state by praising those who kept the powerful system working. Discerning the will of the gods required a discourse, an agreed upon ideological system that would ensure that the flow of power was communicated correctly. Divination was both a professional task used by the priestly colleges for maintaining this favorable balance between the realm of the gods and the good of the state, as well as by individuals and prophets for intuiting the divine in mundane matters as well. The basis of these religious rituals could be found in the quest to recognize the dangers of disorder and chaos while attempting to neutralize them. The uniqueness of Roman religious discourse lay in the organization of the priesthoods of ancient Rome. As religious specialists, the augures and haruspices used the intricacies of ritual to maintain the balance of the cosmos, while the pontifices were charged with oversight of this ritual language and practice. As religious professionals, they were political appointees, usually guaranteed the position for life. Prior to the imperial period, Roman power lay both in the hands of the Senate and the priestly colleges. Priests controlled the ritual functions of the festival calendar as well as maintaining the fragile divine conduit to the heavens. Roman religion and Roman politics were no more evident than in the organization of the priestly colleges. Chief among these priesthoods were the pontifices. Literally translated as the “bridge builders,” the members of this priestly college oversaw the intricacies of the Roman calendar. As days were marked out by the pontifices for celebration and sacrifice, their chief function amounted to providing a public organization for both Roman ritual and chronological time.90 As timekeepers they preserved “memory” for the Roman people and the Roman state as well as recorded deaths and inheritances.91 Every 90. Cicero, De oratore 2.52, is aware through the writings of Cato the Elder that the pontifices were charged with “publishing” the monumental events of Roman life. 91. Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 1, 25.

32

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice day was therefore somehow religiously charged with power, the power the pontifices regulated and preserved. The second major priestly college was the augures. These priests were technicians whose expertise lay in the methods used to discern the will of the gods. The augures did not have a monopoly on access to the heavens because there was no one central institution in Rome that controlled relations with the gods. The role of the augures was to determine that the proper methods had been used. It was normally the responsibility of the local magistrate to consult the gods prior to making a civic decision. Referred to as “taking the auspices,” a number of techniques were used. The taker of the auspices first defined a templum, or imaginary space in the heavens and then watched for a sign to appear. This was often accomplished simply by noting the flight of birds. It followed that the efficacy of the public action was correlative first, to the correct performance of the augury, and secondly through its proper interpretation. An augur would be consulted when either the validity of the procedures was questioned or in those instances when the divine will could not be read properly. Even the Roman Senate considered the decisions handed down by the augures as binding.92 Of the final two major priestly colleges, the first was the quindecemviri sacris faciundis, or literally translated, the “fifteen men with the responsibility for sacred actions to be perfomed.” This priestly college had responsibility for oversight of the Sibylline Books which Rome’s legendary seventh king, Tarquin the Proud bought from the Sibyl of Cumae.93 Along with the gods, the oracles of the Sibyl could be consulted as situations warranted. This priestly college was concerned with the ritus graecus (Greek rites) especially when an appeal to gods other than those 92. Cicero, De natura deorum 2.12. While praising Gracchus for his decision to resign, Cicero also praises the religious system and the priestly authority: “Magna augurum auctoritas” (great is the authority of the augures). 93. See Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 1.19.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

33

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice native to Rome was made. The fourth major priestly college was the septemviri epulones which, despite its official name, was composed of ten men by the time of Caesar. Their chief responsibility was to act as masters of ceremonies and feed (epulari) the Capitoline gods with a feast to which the members of the Senate were invited. In addition to these four collegia, there were also several other priestly specialists in ancient Rome. The Arval Brethren were a group of twelve members who carried out a very ancient agrarian ritual within a sacred grove. Extant records of the Arvals revealed sacrificial rituals offered to the Roman emperor in postAugustan Rome.94 The haruspices, originally Etruscan religious specialists, were charged with reading the entrails of sacrificial animals. The inclusion of haruspicy as part of the religious environment of Rome signaled an eclectic and innovative approach to Roman religious ideology. The haruspices themselves were probably not foreigners, but the skill they practiced was. Just because the skill was imported into Rome did not diminish its usefulness in establishing a correct sense of the balance between Rome and the gods. The fetiales were an ancient priesthood that was revived under Augustus. Before a declaration of war could be announced, a carefully constructed religious ritual was needed. The fetial priest, according to Livy, first invoked Jupiter’s aid before announcing the demands of Rome against the enemy by throwing the first spear into foreign territory to signal the beginning of war.95 Of all the ancient priesthoods of Rome, the one that most typifies the values of “place” and “balance” within Roman religious discourse was the priesthood associated with the goddess Vesta known as the Vestal Virgins. Ovid traced the antiquity of 94. According to D. Fishwick, The Imperial Cult in the Latin West (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 378ff., the Arval records list sacrifices made to the living emperors only after the time of Nero. 95. Livy, History 1.32.14.

34

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice this cult, as well as the origin of the priestly colleges, to the legendary King Numa (715–673 bce).96 It was not unusual for Roman deities to be interpreted in many and varied ways and Ovid offers a range of possible exegetical interpretations that were current in the first century bce. Among such interpretations is his description of Vesta’s domed temple. Unlike the squared or rectangular temples of Ovid’s imperial Rome, Vesta’s is round and domed because “Vesta is the same as the earth. Perpetual fire constitutes them both. Earth and the hearth both stand for her dwelling place.”97 The temple to Vesta was in the center of Rome, which by Ovid’s time, was rhetorically considered the center of the world. Inside the temple the Vestals both tended the eternal flame and managed such household tasks as cleaning the storeroom. As priests they bridged the private and public. Home and hearth, vital to private religion in ancient Rome, was mirrored officially in the state sponsored cult of Vesta. As each household sacrificed to the Penates, the gods of the storeroom, the Vestals maintained the penus (the storeroom) of the goddess who had made Rome her home. While Ovid’s account is indeed stylized to fit the needs of an emergent empire, the metaphors assigned to the Vestal cult suggest that both the private and public aspects of Romanitas (Roman identity) are supported by a link between heaven and earth. The power of Vesta’s divinity, according to legend, lay specifically in her virginity. The third of Saturn’s three daughters, Vesta as virgin is saved from the wiles of the evil god Priapus when she is awakened by the noise of a donkey. In the myth as recounted 96. Ovid, Fasti 6.257: “regis opus placidi, quo non metuentius ullum numinis ingenium terra Sabina tulit.” ([the establishment of the Vestal priesthood] was the work of the peaceful king [Numa] than whom no man of more god-fearing temper was ever born in Sabine lands). 97. Ibid., 6.267. Beard suggested that Ovid is playing on the etymology of the Latin terra (earth) and the verb torrere (to roast). Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 2, 40, n.4.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

35

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice by Ovid, Vesta’s virginity “separates” her from the other gods to render her “sacred” and “powerful.” As caretakers of the eternal flame the priesthood of the Vestal virgins linked both the “public” (state) and the “private” (home). They were liminal characters who, unlike the male priests, lived their priesthood full time. Their bodies themselves were charged with power because they lived for thirty years in this liminal state. The eternal “fire” which they tended is an apt metaphor, not only for sexual desire, but also for the power needed to keep that desire in check. It is no wonder than that this eternal flame needed constant vigilance by a priesthood of virgins. Plutarch also attested the antiquity of the Vestal priesthood. Due to its uniqueness, the sanctity of this priestly office was distinguished from all others in ancient Rome. It was the only one composed entirely of women. Only six in number, the Vestals were chosen when quite young by the pontifex maximus (leader of the pontifical college), and while they could leave the priesthood after thirty years, Plutarch recounted the perils of such a decision.98 Associated with this female priesthood were certain privileges that were otherwise only allowed for males, such as the ability to make a will and to move about in public without a guardian.99 These reveal nothing less than the “sacred” or separate character associated with the cult itself as well as the power connected with virginity. Such power, like that accorded the flamen Dialis (chief priest of the cult of Jupiter), included the ability to spare condemned criminals should they felicitously cross the path of the Vestal en route to execution. The Vestal virgins occupied a unique niche in Roman religious discourse specifically due to the power relationships with which they connected heaven and earth. Perhaps the most chilling example of these power relation98. Plutarch, Life of Numa 10.3. Plutarch suggested that a Vestal would not want to leave after thirty years since by that time any hope of marriage would have decreased significantly. 99. Ibid.

36

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice ships is Plutarch’s description of the punishment of a Vestal caught dishonoring her virginity. Buried alive, the Vestal was literally extinguished in the bowels of the earth. If she could not keep the flame of the earth alive through her virginity, it would be the earth itself that would require her life (after food and drink were provided in the underground tomb).100 The metaphors associated with the cult of Vesta describe many of the essential elements of Roman religious discourse. Gods and humanity, hearth and home, fire and virginity, death and sacrifice were powerful images kept in front of the ancient Romans. Fire and virginity were symbols kept in a primordial tension. To be dry and hot was preferable to being cold and moist.101 The fire of human passion was kept in check by virginity to epitomize of balance and stability, symbols of true religion that Ovid and Plutarch described so vividly. The Vestals and the rhetoric that surrounded them represented the ideals of Roman religious discourse. Housed in the center of the sacred city, even the shape of their temple represented the primacy of “place” that was so central in Roman religion. As they kept the flame of the hearth burning, they represented the primordial power of life and death. As they swept the storeroom they were everyday women tending to the chores of the family. As liminal figures they were caught between heaven and earth, but as priests they were religious specialists charged with power.

Roman Religious Sacrifice Two of the most central rituals of Roman religion were sacrifice and divination.102 I have already attempted to describe the 100. Ibid. Plutarch remarked that by offering food the pontifex maximus could avoid being accused of starving to death the vestal that he ordered buried alive. 101. See Aline Rouselle, Porneia: On Desire and the Body in Late Antiquity, trans. Felicia Pheasant (London: Basil Blackwell, 1988). 102. For a discussion on Roman sacrificial practice see John North, “Sacrifice

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

37

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice art of divination above and now need to outline the variety of ways in which sacrificial discourse was used in ancient Rome. Writing in the third century of the Common Era, Porphyry provides three reasons for sacrificing to the gods: (1) to honor them, (2) to express gratitude to them, and (3) to obtain some benefits.103 What is lacking in such a description is any type of personal belief or emotive self-transcendence required on the part of the sacrificiant. Roman sacrifice was embedded in a highly symbolic web of even more ancient discourses focused on the necessity and the finitude of life. In the ironic “taking” of a domestic animal’s life, human life was somehow augmented. Part of the complexity of understanding “sacrifice” is that this religious ritual did not always require the death of an animal. Libations of wine or grains of incense thrown onto a smoking altar also counted as “sacrificial” acts for the ancient Romans. The word sacrificium from which our English cognate is derived is a combination of two Latin words meaning to make something (facere) holy (sacer). Various ritual actions were charged with sacrificial meaning in an attempt to discursively “make a statement” relative to the lines of power between heaven and earth, life and death. Ovid recounted that the earliest forms of sacrificial offerings were “grain and the sparkling pinch of salt.” He noted that even vegetable offerings were acceptable to the gods at first. Animal sacrifice originated as a result of the goddess Ceres avengand Ritual: Rome,” in Civilizations of the Ancient Mediterranean, ed. M. Grant (New York: Scribners, 1988) vol. 2, 981–86, or the standard references by William Warde Fowler, The Religious Experience of the Roman People (London: Macmillan and Co., 1911), 176–85; Georg Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer (München: C.H. Beck, 1902), 409–32; U. Scholz, “Zur Erforschung der römischen Opfer,” in Le Sacrifice dans l’antiquité (Genève: Fondation Hardt, 1981), 289–340; Georges Dumèzil, Archaic Roman Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 557–59; Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 2, 148–65. For iconic representations see Inez. Scott Ryberg, Rites of the State Religion in Roman Art (Rome: American Academy in Rome, 1955), and Frederick Fless, Opferdiener und Kultmusiker auf Stadtrömischen Historischen Reliefs (Main: Philipp Von Zabern, 1995). 103. Porphyry, De abstinentia 2. 24, as quoted in S. Price, Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 219–20.

38

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice ing the damage done to her crops by a “greedy sow.”104 Ovid’s mythic understanding presupposed that since humanity evolved from agriculture to animal husbandry, the “science” of sacrifice must have had a like evolution. The facts remain that by Ovid’s time many ritual actions could be considered sacrificial depending upon the framework that was required to negotiate communication with the gods. The efficacy of sacrifice, and Roman religion itself, depended on the specificity of the prayers and the correct process involved with the actual slaughter of the animal. A sacrifice was “accepted” by the gods through some divine “sign” or “omen” discernible in the phenomenal world.105 Livy details that precision was required for a sacrifice in his description of the Ver Sacrum (Sacred Spring). Though perhaps completely mythic, this was an ancient festival undertaken in times of crisis when all firstborn animals were killed during springtime. He was careful to note the exactness of the ritual through the way he details certain circumstances that could invalidate its efficacy.106 Negotiating the flow of communication between the divine and the human required the skill of religious specialists in ancient Rome. This skill was understood as both a religious and political form of power defined and maintained by the elite. As noted above, the priestly college of the augures divined the will of the gods as they gazed into the templum. In order to confirm the divination the Etruscan haruspices examined the entrails of sacrificed animals. The sacrificial animal served as both an offering to the gods and a means to further clarify the omens that were observed. Livy records this dual strategy during the elec104. Ovid, Fasti 1.337 and 1.348. 105. Cato the Elder (234–149 bce), On Agriculture 141, is one of the first to describe the animal sacrifices needed to consecrate farmland. He said that it was forbidden to call the animals or the god Mars by name. 106. Ibid.: “if anyone harms or kills an animal unawares, let it not be a crime. If anyone steals an animal, let no guilt attach to the people nor to him from whom it was stolen.” Quoted in Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 2, 156.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

39

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice tion of Gnaeus Cornelius and Quintus Petilius in 176 bce. According to Livy, the liver of Cornelius’ sacrificial animal had been “consumed by some unspeakable corruption.” Petilius also “added to the gloom by reporting that he had sacrificed three more oxen and still not achieved favorable omens. The Senate bid him complete the sacrifice using greater victims.”107 Sacrifice for the purpose of divination was as much art as it was science. Correct ritual performance meant the officiant had at least a fighting chance of obtaining from the gods an understandable omen that would portend the future. It appeared that under different circumstances a person could keep sacrificing until they got it right or until it was admitted that the gods had truly communicated something unfavorable. One of the few times that the Romans practiced (or at least described rhetorically) human sacrifice is Livy’s description of the ill omen received prior to a major battle by the counsel Decius Mus in 340 bce. When the haruspex reported to him that his sacrifice had revealed a damaged lobe of its liver, Decius called the leader of the pontifical college in order to be instructed how to devote himself to the gods in order that the Romans might be victorious. Livy describes this ritualistic form of self-sacrifice: “it was clear to see from both sides of the battle, a sight more divine than human, as he had seen sent from heaven to expiate all the anger of the gods and turn disaster away.”108 While the story itself had grown to almost heroic proportions by Livy’s time, no doubt it was intended to communicate the power of selfsacrifice. The idea that a human being would choose to die for a perceived “greater” good was not highly developed in Roman religious discourse. This notion of a “noble death,” and the Christian appropriation of this type of sacrificial discourse will be explored further in chapter three. 107. Livy, History 41.15.1–4. 108. Livy, History 8.9.10, “aliquanto augustior humano uisu” (a sight more divine than human).

40

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice Sacrifice also carried an ambivalent meaning for many in the Roman world. Plutarch raised questions about the human sacrifice of two Gauls and two Greeks when their deaths appeared as a synchronous event to the death sentence leveled against the unchaste Vestals in 216 bce and 113 bce. For Plutarch it appeared that “civilized” people would never think of offering a human person in any kind of sacrificial rite as the barbarians had done. “It certainly seems odd that they (the Romans) should do this, while censuring the barbarians on the grounds that they were acting against divine law.”109 Perhaps the most graphic of sacrificial practices was the taurobolium, a ritual associated with the cult of Magna Mater. It was described by the fourth century Christian writer Prudentius as a rite that witnessed the “worthless blood of a dead ox.”110 The sacrificiant would stand in a pit and then be bathed in the sacrificial blood from an animal ritually slaughtered above him. An inscription to accompany the performance of a taurobolium was found at an altar from Lugdunum during the reign of Antoninus Pius dating to the midsecond century ce.111 Sacrifice played a major role in the religious life of ancient Rome as it did in most cultures. It appeared to be one of the consistent ritual practices shared by the Romans throughout their religious history and invoked multiple levels of meaning. Whether expiatory, propitiatory, or salutary, the offering of “something,” be it a cake, an animal, or even a human, signaled humankind’s communication with the divine realm. The efficacy depended on the attitude of the recipient (divined through omens) as well as careful attention to order and ritual. The order and balance that defined the political and religious “place” of Rome vis-à-vis the 109. Plutarch, Roman Questions, 83. 110. Prudentius, Crown of Martyrdom 10.1006, quoted in Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 2, 151. 111. Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae 4131, ed. H. Dessau (Berlin, 1892–1916), quoted in Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 2, 162.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

41

roman religion and sacrificial practice gods was maintained through ritual sacrifice. As such, sacrifice was a key element of Romanitas (Roman identity).

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

Conclusions The task of this chapter has been to situate the multiple threads of Roman religious discourse at the beginning of the imperial age. If all discourse is about power then the religious nature of ancient Roman discourse must be viewed as that power which was perceived to flow between the gods and the people. Admittedly there was no one single definition of what constituted the essence of ancient Roman religion. Rather multiple discursive frameworks, even more ancient than Rome, intersected to become Roman religion. The written texts available to us from Ovid, Livy, Plutarch, and Cicero portrayed Roman identity as a discourse of power relationships oriented vertically toward the sphere of the gods and horizontally through ritual and social praxis between the state (as overseers of the system) and the people. Roman religion can be said to be “proper” when the nexus of these relationships, both divine and human, are in equipoise. Improper religious practices (superstitio) either flaunt or subvert this delicate equilibrium. That proper balance and order were a necessary component of Roman religion is unquestionable, yet how such a system actually worked was under constant negotiation. On the one hand, Roman religion welcomed “foreign” cults, yet it always feared that the “exotic” might become a threat to the equilibrium of divine-human power. Modeled on the Roman family, a professional, politically charged elite maintained balance, order, and security through a network of priestly colleges. Sacrifices, both private and public, served as the ritual means whereby the system could be analyzed and adjustments both political and domestic could be made so that order and harmony would be achieved. Not only in ancient Rome, but also in the modern world as

42

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice well, multiple expressions of sacrifice exist. What is one person’s sacrifice is another’s useless folly. As ritual practice, “sacrifice” refuses any simple description or definition. Rather it has been, and continues to be appropriated by human cultures to constitute meaningful identity. The multiple expressions of sacrificial practice in ancient Rome equally refuse simple analysis. However, I suggest we can use “discourse” as an appropriate concept to understand Roman sacrifice because sacrificial practice did in fact constitute Roman identity. While there was no one essential element that constituted the variety of sacrificial expressions, sacrifice was an integral discursive element in the matrix of Roman religio-political power relations. To be Roman was to be religious. To be religious was to sacrifice in a variety of specified and ritually controlled ways. Sacrifice was done both privately through the family and publicly through a professional priesthood. If discourse is a term that is used to mediate between persons and their traditions constitutive of social identity, then I suggest that we can properly speak of sacrifice as a discourse in the manner defined by Foucault, Barthes, and Todorov. As a discourse Roman sacrifice evoked a sentiment of loyalty and belonging both to the Roman family (gens) and to the state. Sacrifice both constituted and generated Roman identity even as Rome moved from republic to empire. Significant political and religious change took place as the empire commenced. Imperial politics engendered an imperial cult complete with imperial sacrifices. Such a move betokened a new thread in Roman religion. This is the subject of chapter two.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

43

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

chapter two

The Roman Imperial Cult

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

O

vid quizzically muses in Book XV of the Metamorphoses, “I think there’s nothing that retains its form for long.”1 Written at the beginning of Rome’s imperial period, Ovid’s work attested that the gods, humans, and politicians are not exempt from change. This was especially evident during the dictatorship of Julius Caesar and the long tenure of his adopted heir Octavian. The goal of this chapter is to examine the developments that led to the sacrificial cult that was associated with the Roman emperor. This imperial cult was both continuous with the traditions of Roman religion as outlined in chapter one, and at the same time novel. As the power politics of the Roman world changed during the advent of the Principate by uniting vast populations around a monarchical figure, so did the forms of religious power. If the term “discourse” can be applied to the expressions of power that both form and constitute social identity, then the imperial cult should be considered an integral aspect of religious discourse in the ancient Roman world. Since power does not exist in a vacuum but rather is expressed in forms that are tangible and interrelated, the discourse of power relationships can be traced through tangible events expressed in real time. The imperial cult, while novel in some re1. Ovid, Metamorphoses 15.259, trans. Allen Mandelbaum, The Metamorphoses of Ovid (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993), 523.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

45

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult spects, developed out of several deeply rooted traditions in the Graeco-Roman religious environment. Though it might appear as if the “imperial cult” were a single entity, it must be remembered that its many facets cannot be reduced to one simple definition. The term is ours, not the ancient Romans. It represented a matrix of collective religious expressions that encompassed the person of the emperor and the imperial family. While the imperial cult precludes any type of facile reductionism, there is one overarching ritual feature that remained consistent in all of its expressions—sacrifice. Taking many different forms, the sacrificial rituals associated with the imperial cult allowed the political and religious power of the emperor to be symbolically present from the street corners of Rome to the edges of the empire. Because of the multiple ways in which the ancient Romans described sacrifice, we can speak about a sacrifice as a discourse of Roman religion. Given that balance and order marked Roman religion, ritual sacrifices, performed with the utmost precision, were used to “evoke credible sentiments of authority out of which [Roman] society [was] actively constructed.”2 If the imperial cult represented an important element within the discourses of Roman religion, then sacrifices performed as part of this imperial cult were equally discursive as they served to generate Roman identity in the Latin west and the Greek east. As the Roman emperor appropriated a type of novel divinity in ancient Rome and the provinces, this became expressed ritually through sacrifice. The ritual of sacrifice then became the discursive marker in the power struggle between Rome and followers of Jesus. An imperial cult had many political and religious advantages. Unlike the Republican period when political power was vested in the Senate, the Principate coalesced political power in the 2. B. Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 25.

46

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

roman imperial cult

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

hands of a single human being. The emperor became pater patriae (father of the nation) and the princeps (first among citizens). In a kin-based society where identity was localized within the gens (family), the Principate was able to craft a type of political and religious subjectivity that highlighted the individual. Velleius recorded how a barbarian, fleeing Tiberius’ army at the Elbe, stopped and approached the Romans just to marvel at the sight of the emperor. The barbarian praised Tiberius as a god, and was given permission to touch the emperor’s hand (impetratoque ut manum contingeret).3 Velleius’ apologetic account underscores the fact that the emperor had, at least in some minds, become larger-than-life. Within the imperial cult Roman religion was able to locate a unique type of religious subject in the person of the emperor. The imperial cult brought to official expression the idea that unlike the mythical heroes Romulus and Hercules, divinity could be located within the real life of a politically powerful individual. The imperial cult was also able to link Rome as center of the world with the periphery of the empire through ritual.4 This chapter will begin by noting the changes that occurred in religious expression during the final years of the Roman Republic. The Hellenistic antecedents of the imperial cult and the cults of Caesar and Augustus will be explored.

Religious Change in Late Republican Rome The writings of Livy, Cicero, and Ovid are the principal sources for the changes that took place at the end of the republic. All three wrote during this period and provided insightful glimpses 3. Velleius Paterculus, Historiae Romanae 2.107, trans. Frederick Shipley (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1924). This reference was taken from the website Lacus Curtius maintained by Bill Thayer. 4. Synesius of Cyrene, Epistle 148: “people have a definite knowledge that there is a living emperor, because we are reminded of this yearly by his imperial agents who collect taxes, but it is not clear exactly who he is,” quoted in Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987), 48.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

47

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult into the complexity of these changes. While Beard, North, and Price dismiss too quickly the discursive force of Livy’s textual endeavor due to his lack of personal involvement, they do conclude rightly that Cicero takes the reader directly into the matrix of the political and religious life of late Republican Rome. “Cicero’s speech takes us right into the uncertain process of religious decision making. . . . It does not reflect or record the discourse of religion; it is that discourse.”5 The personal force of Cicero’s rhetoric, as formative as it was in his day, should in no way obscure a similar discursive, if passionless, interpretation on the part of Livy. While Livy would appear to merely write a straightforward history of the Roman Republic without the zest of Cicero’s style or the poetic framework of Ovid, he did so from his social location within the beginnings of the Principate. Therefore all three ancient authors must be considered as reflective of the variegated elements of religious discourse during the final years of the republic. As political power changed, so did religious modes of behavior and expression. The following examples highlight the ways in which religious change was evident in the period of late Republican Rome. In 62 bce, Cicero’s long-time adversary, Publius Clodius Pulcher, was charged with secretly infiltrating the religious ceremonies of the goddess Bona Dea. The rituals on this occasion were held in the house of Julius Caesar and open to women only. Clodius allegedly dressed as a woman in order to make a secret liaison with one of the worshippers and was exposed.6 Such an invasion of a religious ritual was a serious matter and the Senate asked the Vestals and the pontifices to investigate. It was concluded that indeed a sacrilege had been committed and a formal trial was held. Cicero, in his Letters to Atticus, clearly opposed ev5. Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 114. 6. Plutarch, Life of Caesar 10.6, relates that Caesar divorced his wife on account of this incident. While not explicit, Plutarch may have been referring to allegations that Caesar’s wife had an extramarital affair with Clodius.

48

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult erything that even remotely dealt with Clodius since it was on account of Clodius’ recommendation to the Senate that Cicero himself had earlier been expelled from Rome. Clodius was eventually acquitted of sacrilege for his alleged invasion of the rites, which caused Cicero to believe that the jury had been bribed. Cicero’s writing, although clearly partisan in sentiment, showed that while the mechanisms of the trial might have been irregular, the magnitude of the sacrilege was critically important. Cicero made it clear that the traditional religious values of Rome must be upheld. My point is to underscore the importance of traditional Roman religious values even during times of political change. Clodius was charged with sacrilege, a violation of religious behavior that was as old and venerable as the republic itself. Cicero’s complaint, however, implied that political intrigue was undermining the system. Political and religious change in the period of the late republic often revolved around the competing interest of the optimates (traditional ruling elite) and the populares (those interested in voicing the concerns of the people of Rome). Upon the death of a member of the priestly colleges, the vacancy was filled through the process of co-optation. The surviving members of a priestly college normally selected a replacement without consultation.7 In 104 bce Domitius Ahenobarbus introduced a bill in the Senate that replaced the traditional method of election with a popular vote. After his bill passed, the priests still retained the power to nominate individuals but vacancies were filled by popular vote.8 This move by Domitius changed the traditional form of 7. The process of cooptation excluded the man chosen to become pontifex maximus. The pontifex maximus was always chosen by popular election after the third century bce. 8. Seventeen of the thirty-five voting Roman tribes participated, the same number as required for the election of the pontifex maximus, as reported in Beard, Religions of Rome, vol. 1, 136. Domitius’ law was repealed by Sulla but reinstated by the tribune Labienus and supported by Caesar as recorded by Cassius Dio, Roman History 37.37.1, “The priestly elections, on motion of Labienus supported by Caesar, were again referred by the plebs to the people, contrary to the law of Sulla, but by

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

49

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult religious politics by taking control away from the ruling elites. The ancient priesthoods that had long been kept within elite families were opened to the plebs. While the politics of religious power shifted, the ancient priestly colleges as institutions unique to Roman religion remained intact as they had for many years. The priestly collegia had a mythic foundation that Livy ascribed to Numa, Rome’s second king.9 Their existence was a central element in Roman religious discourse. Membership in the colleges was coveted by the elites as a means of securing political power. However, this did not mean that the location of religious power remained constant throughout Rome’s religious history. The power of the pontifical college itself was challenged as early as 114 bce during the trial of the Vestals. When the body of a young aristocratic woman (the daughter of a Roman equestrian) was found struck dead by lightning, Plutarch recorded that her tongue was sticking straight out her mouth and her dress was found up around her waist.10 The Etruscan haruspices interpreted this prodigy as a scandal involving knights and virgins. The chastity of the Vestals had traditionally been the symbol of the security and safety of the city. If the gods had sent a sign that sexual impropriety had been committed, an inquiry into the life of the Vestals was the logical way to investigate the meaning of such an omen. As a result, the pontifical college tried three Vestals, but only found one guilty and sentenced her to death. The tribune Sextus Peducaeus, however, introduced a bill in the assembly of plebs that challenged the decision. A new trial was ordered with jurors of equestrian rank and all three were found guilty.11 The a renewal of the law of Domitius.” All quotations from Dio’s Roman History, trans. Earnest Cary (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1914–27). 9. Livy, History 1.20.1. 10. Plutarch, Moralia, vol 4: Roman Questions 83, trans. Frank C. Babbit (London: Heinemann, 1936). This reference is taken from the website Lacus Curtius maintained by Bill Thayer. See also Livy, Summaries 63. 11. Asconius, Commentary on Cicero’s “On behalf of Milo” 45–46, trans. J. P. Adams, available from the translator’s personal website at California State University, Northridge.

50

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult traditional power of the pontifices to correctly discern the will of the gods had been called into question. The power of the ruling elite had been directly undermined by an appeal to the popular assembly, as it would be by Domitius ten years later. A similar event occurred in 59 bce when Caesar, as consul, introduced controversial legislation to distribute land to veterans of military conflict. Caesar’s co-consul, Marcus Bibulus, opposed the legislation and used religious grounds to halt a vote on Caesar’s proposals. According to the lex Aelia et Fufia of 150 bce, the right to disband all assemblies of the people could be invoked by a consul or tribune on the simple declaration that he had witnessed an unfavorable omen. Appealing to this law, Bibulus went to the Forum and indicated before the city magistrate that he would be watching for evil omens, thus intending to halt Caesar’s legislative program.12 The rationale is that if legislation is good for Rome, then the gods would show no signs of opposition, but if a sign could be seen, then the pending legislation was to be abandoned. According to Suetonius, Caesar’s opposition drove Bibulus to such desperation that for the remainder of the year he remained locked in his house, sending messengers to the Senate indicating that he was still watching for evil omens. In the course of his self-imposed house arrest, however, the Senate passed most of Caesar’s legislation. That both Cicero and Suetonius provided textual witness to this event presupposed its importance in the period of the late republic. For Cicero and others, it represented Caesar’s heavyhanded domination of Roman politics and a disregard for the traditions of Roman religion. However, Bibulus’ opposition to Caesar was voided specifically on religious grounds since he had 12. Suetonius, Julius Caesar 20, indicated that Bibulus had already seen unfavorable omens, but was driven out of the Senate by Caesar. Upon returning the next day, he could draw no support to censure Caesar for his ruthless flagrancy of the lex Aelia. Cicero indicated that Bibulus was watching the heavens, implying that a period of waiting was necessary. De domo sua, 39.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

51

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult not followed proper procedure. While Caesar might have acted arrogantly, he was well within the traditions of Roman religious propriety since it was clear from the lex Aelia et Fufia that an objector must appear in public even if only to announce that he would be “watching” the heavens for evil omens. Bibulus’ selfimposed exile, while perhaps necessary at that time, was at least ritually incorrect. What is evident in this incident is the continual perception that the gods could communicate their approval (or lack thereof) with regard to political decisions. The fulmination of Cicero aside, no one questioned the religious validity of divining the will of the gods for the good of the state. What was challenged was the locus of authority with respect to religious matters. During the latter days of the republic religious and political authority began to reside in one man. The incidents related above indicate that while the traditional elements of Roman religion remained intact, the lines of authority through which those elements found expression were changing. The articulation of Roman religious power, long held in control by the elite few of the priestly colleges, was opened for debate in the public arena. With the advent of Caesar’s political power, the focus of religious power also became more personal. If all discourse is, as Sandra Polaski noted, “less what is said than control over what may be said” (italics added), then the late republic witnessed a shift in the discourse of Roman religion as political power shifted from the Senate to the emperor.13 Roman religion was, as outlined in chapter one, a blend of the traditional and the innovative. This was no different during the late republic. Even as the Romans accepted the monarchical rule of a single leader, they clung to the traditional order and balance that only a proper relationship with the gods could bring. This is well illustrated in the debate between Cicero and 13. Sandra Polaski, Paul and the Discourse of Power (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 37.

52

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult Clodius about the events that occurred in 56 bce.14 A strange noise was heard outside Rome that year and when asked by the Senate to investigate, the Etruscan haruspices declared it to be a prodigy—an omen of divine anger from the gods. According to Cicero, the haruspices alluded to various reasons for divine anger: the pollution of the ludi (gladiatorial games), the profanation of sacred places, neglected oaths, as well as ancient and secret rituals improperly performed. In their responses, both Cicero and Clodius freely offered their specific interpretations of what the haruspices had meant. Clodius explained that the “profanation of sacred places” referred to Cicero’s destruction of the temple of Liberty that he had instituted while Cicero was in exile. It just so happened that the shrine had previously been Cicero’s house. As part of their life-long feud, Clodius had had Cicero banished through senatorial decree for his handling of the Catiline affair. While Cicero was in exile, Clodius usurped Cicero’s house and dedicated it to the goddess Libertas. When the Senate recalled Cicero a few years later, he appealed Clodius’ action, citing, not the theft of his property, but improper religious ritual for the institution of a shrine.15 Cicero won the case and returned to his house once again. In his interpretation of the haruspical response that the games had been profaned, Cicero explained that it was Clodius’ disruption of the Megalesian games in honor of Magna Mater that had occasioned such a prodigy.16 Cicero interpreted the improper “ancient and secret rituals” as referring to Clodius’ dis14. J. Lengahan, A Commentary on Cicero’s Oration “De haruspicum responsis” (The Hague: Mouton, 1969), 23, follows Dio, Roman History 39.20 in maintaining that the “noise” was merely an earthquake about which the Senate referred to the haruspices for religious interpretation. Pliny, Natural History 3.544 places the earthquake in ager Latiniensis (the Latin region just northeast of Rome). The debate over the interpretation offered by the haruspices was well documented, but one sided. We can recreate both sides of the debate from Cicero’s speech De haruspicum responsis. 15. Cicero appeal to the Senate can be found in De domo sua. 16. A full recreation of the events is given by Timothy Wiseman, Cinna the Poet and Other Roman Essays (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1974), 159–69.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

53

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult ruption of the rites of the Bona Dea that were alluded to earlier. It is clear that both Clodius and Cicero were engaged in partisan political bickering. Acting as modern “spin-doctors,” they used a religious occurrence to further their own personal and political agendas. However beneath the obvious political character of the incident lies the fact that both Clodius and Cicero positioned themselves as interpreters of the will of the gods. This is exactly the point that needs to be stressed. Both Cicero and Clodius felt no compunction about offering their interpretation as the correct interpretation of a religious experience. In short, each used the vague haruspical response to indicate that they had the allegiance of the gods on their side. What was changing was not the importance of traditional Roman religion, but the direction through which religious discourse was controlled. Lengahan has incorrectly labeled Cicero’s charge against Clodius “more of a social scandal than a religious one.” He criticized Cicero for using “religious association . . . to arouse a genuine sense of social horror” against Clodius.17 Such a critique misses the obvious point that religion and politics in ancient Rome were deeply interconnected. Neither Cicero nor Clodius questioned each other’s religious rhetoric; what was debated was on whose side were the gods located? No Roman politician openly rejected the idea that Roman religion was centered on the delicate but fragile balance of power between the gods and humanity. They consistently saw the fate of Rome linked to the largess of divine benefaction. What did change was who had control of access to the god’s pleasure. Beard, Price, and North have summarized the importance of this shift in late Republican religious discourse: “The question was not whether the gods were perceived to cooperate with (Roman political leaders), but with which political leaders was their favor placed?”18 Liebeschuetz 17. Lengahan, Commentary on Cicero, 121. 18. Beard, Religions of Rome, vol. 1, 140. See also S. R. Price, Rituals and Power

54

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

roman imperial cult too noted that the challenge to Roman religion in the late republic “included a good deal of innovation” as it had in earlier times.19 That a Cicero or a Clodius could by himself offer official interpretation of a religious phenomenon was characteristic of the “innovative” trend in Roman religious discourse. What gets said was not nearly as important in the late republic as who had the right to say it in the first place.20 If an individual could interpret the meaning of a religious experience, thereby claiming the allegiance of the gods, then it was not surprising that the status of any individual vis-à-vis the gods should also be explored.

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

The Military Hero as “God” Scipio Africanus was the military victor in the Roman war against Hannibal in the late third century bce. While the stories that circulated about him were written during the Principate, making them historically suspect, they reflect a discourse of the period that linked the individual with the gods. Aulus Gellius indicated many similarities between Scipio’s birth and that of Alexander the Great. He stated that when Scipio went up to the Temple of Jupiter it appeared that “he was consulting with Jupiter about the state of the Republic.”21 Polybius, writing to a Greek audience that valued philosophical reflection, criticized other authors who had stylized Scipio as “more divine and more worthy of admiration.” Scipio was a man who did not win an empire “for his country by following the suggestions of dreams and omens.”22 Polybius attempted to portray Scipio’s success as due less to his association (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), esp. 234–38, and Robert Turcan, The Gods of Ancient Rome (New York: Routledge, 2000), 105–45. 19. Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change in Roman Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 39. 20. See Bruce Lincoln, Authority: Corruption and Corrosion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). 21. Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 6.1.5, as quoted in Beard, Religions of Rome, vol. 2, 217. 22. Polybius, The Histories 10.2. 7, and 9 trans. W. R. Paton (Cambridge: Har-

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

55

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult with gods than to the force of good Stoic calculation. The protestations of Polybius reveal that such divine honors must have been attached to the traditions of Scipio from an earlier period. The military victories of Republican Rome were occasions when the triumphant general was able to assert his unique individuality by entering Rome in a chariot dressed in religious garb. After a military victory, the conquering army acclaimed the general as imperator (conquering hero) on the battlefield. A report of this acclamation was then sent to the Senate who considered the evidence and allowed a supplicatio (supplication, or thanksgiving) to be held. Supplications were normally prayers and sacrifices to the gods performed in an emergency situation when all the citizens of a given locale took part. As the emergency ended, more thanksgiving prayers and sacrifices were offered. When news of a military victory reached Rome, supplications were offered in thanksgiving to the gods. While ostensibly directed toward the gods, they also took on the tenor of honors accorded the victorious general.23 After the supplications were approved the conquering general met with the Senate outside the pomerium and a formal “triumph” was requested. If approved, he was allowed to ride into Rome in a chariot with his face painted red and clothed in a royal cloak. Pliny the Elder recorded how the color of the general’s face mimicked the statute of the god himself.24 As the procession reached the Capitol such a symbolic entrance permitted the conquering hero to resemble a god.25 vard University Press, 1922–27). This reference is available on the website Lacus Curtius maintained by Bill Thayer. 23. S. Weinstock, Divus Iulius (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 62. 24. Pliny, Natural History 33.111, ed. Karl Mayhof (Berlin: G. B. Teubner, 1897): “Iovis ipsius simulacri faciem diebus festis minio inlini solitam triumphantiumque corpora” (It was the custom for the face of the statue of Jupiter himself to be colored with cinnabar as well as the bodies of persons going in triumphal procession), trans. W. H. S. Jones (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938–63). This reference is available on the website Lacus Curtius maintained by Bill Thayer. See also Plutarch, Life of Aemilius Paullus 34, “he [Aemilius Paullus] was dressed in a purple robe complete with gold.” 25. For a complete explanation of the symbols of “triumph” see Weinstock, Divus Iulius, 60–79.

56

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult Like modern ticker-tape parades, these victory celebrations grew larger in the final years of the republic. According to Roman religious custom, military activity as well as personnel were kept outside the pomerium. However, during these triumphant processions an exception was made. The conquering general and his army paraded the spoils of war as well as prize enemy captives directly through the streets of the city. Similar to the prohibition of military personnel within the pomerium, the use of the chariot was generally restricted during the republic and forbidden inside the city. There were, however, some exceptions and the triumphant procession was among them.26 Livy recorded one of the first triumphal processions, when, after the conquest of the city of Veii in 396 bce, Camillus rode into the city on a chariot drawn by four white horses. Livy commented that this action was “unbecoming” a mortal since a team of four white horses placed him on a par with the gods Jupiter and Sol.27 Livy’s critique however, reflected his own knowledge of the triumph of Caesar, who also rode into Rome behind four white horses. Caesar, however, unlike Camillus, could trace such a precedent to his ancestors in the gens Iulii, notably Aeneas, who, as he arrived in Italy saw four white horses grazing that signified a great military victory.28 When Aemilius Paullus defeated the Greek general Perseus in 168 bce, the triumph lasted three days. Plutarch recalled that Aemilius was seated on a chariot magnificently adorned, “a man well worthy to be looked at, even without these ensigns of power, dressed in a robe of purple, interwoven with gold, and holding a laurel branch in his right hand.”29 Five days before the triumph, however, Aemilius Paullus lost his first son and three days 26. Weinstock, Divus Iulius, 273–74, lists several exceptions. 27. Livy, History 5.23.4–5. 28. Virgil, Aenid 3.537 as quoted in Weinstock, Divus Iulius, 68. He noted that “this valuable antiquarian evidence . . . was not invented by Virgil.” 29. Plutarch, Life of Aemilius Paullus 34.6.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

57

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult after the triumph his second son died. In a speech recorded by Plutarch, Aemilius told the Roman people that the deaths of his children were an act of jealousy by the gods for his defeat of the Greeks.30 Plutarch also reported that at the beginning of the first century bce, Sulla ascribed his military success directly to the goddess Venus/Aphrodite because of the dreams and omens he had received.31 Sulla’s triumph earned him the accolades of the local townspeople who hailed him as a “savior and father.” Because of this, he is alleged by Plutarch to have ordered that they call him the “fortunate one” since “this is what the cognomen ‘Felix’ really means.” Sulla also courted a relationship with the gods, since he wished to be called Epaphroditos (beloved of Venus).32 Sulla at first opposed the triumph given to Pompey in 63 bce on the grounds that Pompey was not a consul or praetor. However, Sulla realized that his own power was waning and allowed the triumph. Like Sulla, Pompey’s success was concretized in the divine-human schema with the dedication of a shrine to Venus Victrix in the year 55 bce. Cicero noted that Rome might have lost the conflict had not the goddess Fortuna (Fortune) allowed Pompey to win the battle.33 According to Plutarch, instead of the traditional four-horse team leading the triumphal procession, Pompey had requested four elephants (to outdo Sulla). However four elephants would not fit through the city gate and he was forced to use horses.34 What is evident in these examples is that Roman religion, 30. Ibid., 37.8: “that for the time to come Fortune will prove constant and harmless unto you; since she has sufficiently wreaked her jealousy at our great successes on me and mine, and has made the conqueror as marked an example of human instability as the captive whom he led in triumph.” 31. Plutarch, Life of Sulla 19.5: “He therefore inscribed upon his trophies the names of Mars, Victory and Venus, in the belief that his success in the war was due no less to good fortune than to military skill and strength.” 32. Ibid., 34.1–2. 33. Cicero, De imperio Cn. Pompei (On the Command of Pompey) 45. 34. Plutarch, Life of Pompey 14.4.

58

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult given its close connection to Roman political power, became increasingly linked to the personal power of the military-civic elite as Rome expanded. The conquering general, dressed as “godfor-a-day,” created the impression that a human being displayed divine-like status in achieving great success for the state. If Rome succeeded, it must have been at the behest of the gods themselves. Cicero concluded that divinity itself was embedded within each of these heroes. Without this quasi divine-human mix, success for Rome would have never materialized.35 Not only did the military hero of the late republic claim the allegiance of the gods as a political tool for their future success, human beings began to flirt with divinity. This produced a new thread in the matrix of ancient Roman religious discourses that contributed to the establishment of the imperial cult. Characteristic of this new discourse is how both Epictetus and Tertullian recorded (how accurately is open to speculation) that a slave would stand near the conquering general and whisper in his ear, “Remember, you are a man.”36 As political power shifted from republic to empire, a corresponding shift in religious ideology also occurred. The changes outlined above during the late republic suggest that there was a gradual move to accord the military hero with divine-like qualities. Such a move was even more overt in the supplications and the triumph celebrated for Julius Caesar in 46 bce. Rather than being hailed as imperator for the brief period of time characteristic of a military triumph, Caesar’s hold on power, both civic and religious, earned him the title on a permanent basis. 35. Cicero, De imperio Cn. Pompei 47. 36. Epictetus, Discourses 3.24.85, trans. Thomas W. Higginson (New York: Thomas Nelson, 1890). Available from the website The Internet Classics Archive maintained by Daniel Stevenson. A similar idea is found in Tertullian, Apology 33.4: “Hominem se esse etiam triumphans in illo sublimissimo curru admonetur. Suggeritur enim ei a tergo: Respice post te! Hominem te memento!” (A man stood behind in the lofty chariot urging, “Ah, consider that you are still are a man!”). Tertullian, Apologeticum, ed. C. Becker (Munich: Kösel, 1961). Available from the website The Tertullian Project, maintained by Roger Pearse.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

59

roman imperial cult The Greek east had long celebrated the close connection between divinity and humanity in the cults of heroes and rulers. The antecedents of Roman imperial religious discourse were interwoven with Greek ideology long before the time of Caesar.

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

Hellenistic Ruler Cults Prior to the conquests of Alexander the Great, ancient Greece was already practicing a tradition of honoring its local heroes with “cultic” honors as a way of expressing gratitude for their achievements. In addition, heroic cults were also seen as celebrations that kept the memory of the dead alive. Plutarch exemplified this idea as he recorded the honors given to those who had died in the battle of Plataea against the Persians in 479: “the chief magistrate as he . . . slaughters the bull . . . with prayers to Zeus and Hermes, summons the brave men who died for Greece to come to the banquet . . . next he mixes a bowl of wine, and drinks and then pours a libation.”37 The traditional heroes of Greek mythology were born as mortals, and rarely some like Heracles, had been translated to the heavens upon their death. Their power, however, was limited when compared to the Olympian gods. Later heroic cults were centered at or near the tomb in the city where the hero had lived. Plutarch recorded the veneration the Athenians gave to Theseus, as well the need to bring the hero’s bones back to Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian War: At a later period, a number of reasons led the Athenians to venerate Theseus as a hero. . . . The Athenians, consulting the oracle at Delphi, were commanded to gather together the bones of Theseus, and, laying them in some honorable place, keep them as sacred in the city . . . upon which the Athenians, greatly delighted. . . . [They] went out to meet and receive the bones with splendid processions and sacrifices, as if it were Theseus himself returning alive to the city.38 37. Plutarch, Aristides 21.4–5, trans. Bernadotte Perrin. Available from the website The Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University. 38. Plutarch, Theseus 35.5 and 36.2.

60

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult Heroes were normally recognized by an oracle, as was Theseus, but Plato was aware that the demos (the city assembly) was free to bestow heroic status on any hero.39 They were accorded the traditional chthonic sacrifices (enagismata) as expressions of honor for lives of valor. The sacrifices offered to these heroes were similar to other sacrifices offered on behalf of the dead. Taking place at the tomb “a black beast was slaughtered over a pit in the earth, into which the blood flowed as nourishment for the dead man.” 40 Cults of Greek heroes also retained their distinctive features since the sacrifices (enagismata) were not consumed but completely burned.41 Heroic cults were not completely uniform. “Heroic status” could also be given to living military heroes as well as those who died in battle. At the end of Peloponnesian War in 404 bce, the Spartan general Lysander was the first person to have been given a cult. While Plutarch recorded that Lysander “enjoyed more power than any Greek before him,” Fishwick cautioned that the cult given him at Samos might have been posthumous.42 According to Diodorus, the Sicilian leader Dion was said to have been paid “heroic” honors during his lifetime by the Assembly in Syracuse. Plutarch recalled that when he entered the city in 357 bce he was greeted not as a “hero,” but “as a god.”43 Heroic honors, expressed in cultic form spanned a continuum from the mere 39. Plato, Laws 735.c–d: “a legislator . . . should assign every district its patron god, or spirit, or hero, as the case may be,” trans. A. E. Taylor in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, eds. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982). 40. H-J. Klauck, The Religious Context of Early Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 262–63. 41. The Septuagint also normally translated the Hebrew “whole burnt offering” (‘olah) with the Greek (enagismata). See S. R. Price, Rituals and Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 35–36. 42. Plutarch, Lysander 18.2. Duncan Fishwick, The Imperial Cult in the Latin West (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 7. 43. Plutarch, Dion 46.1, trans. John Dryden. This reference is available on the website The Internet Classics Archive maintained by Daniel Stevenson. See also Diodorus Siculus, Histories 16.20.6, for a parallel version of the incident.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

61

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult mortal to divine. They could serve as remembrances of the dead, as well as expressions of gratitude to the living as if to a god.44 Like late Republican Roman religion, the hero cults of the Greek east also underwent significant changes as more and more heroes were recognized. This was evident in funerary iconography. Unlike Egypt, in classical Greece funerary monuments that illustrated banquet scenes for official heroes were rare, but during the Roman period the same banquet imagery became quite common for any deceased family member.45 Cultic honors, once reserved for local city benefactors, were now extended to the general citizenry of the Hellenistic world.46 With the advent of Hellenism the Greek world also developed specific cults for the rulers along with the traditional cult of the heroes. S. R. Price has stressed the importance of distinguishing “heroic” honors from the divine-like honors found in the cult of the “rulers.”47 What were appropriate honors for the local citizenry were not considered suitable for the Hellenistic monarchs who succeeded Alexander the Great because monarchs were not ordinary citizens. Death always signaled the possibility of political instability in dynastic monarchies. If the monarch could be honored with the status of divine cult, then the problematic nature of his death could be mitigated since he lived on as a god after death. Within the Greek ruler cults, the kings were given divine honors, but not viewed as “gods” during their lifetime. While the heroic cults were reserved primarily for the dead, the ‘ruler’ cults were given to living monarchs. Since Greek lacks a specific word for “cult,” these honors, ἰσόθεοι τιμαί (isotheoi timai) should best be translated as “divine-like” in nature.48 Such 44. Weinstock, Divus Iulius (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 288, records how Homer said that Hector was like a god among men. However, Weinstock dismisses these divine honors as nothing more than “hyperbolic expression.” 45. For the change in funerary iconography in classical Greece see the discussion of Ernst Pfuhl, Die Ostgriechischen Grabreliefs (Mainz: Von Zabern, 1977), Band I. 46. Price, Rituals and Power, 35. 47. Ibid., 32–39. 48. According to Fishwick, Imperial Cult, 11.

62

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult divine-like honors included a statue, a priest, and sacrifices modeled on those of the Olympian gods. The distinctive feature of the sacrifices offered on behalf of the ruler and the Olympian gods (thusia) were the markings on the victim. It was common practice to offer white victims to the Olympian gods and black animals to the dead, heroes, and chthonic deities.49 The motivation for the development of bestowing divine honors on living rulers has been the source of debate. Tacitus described such a practice as mere Graeca adulatio (Greek flattery).50 The poet Pindar reflected, “Do not seek to become Zeus . . . mortal aims befit mortal men.”51 Duncan Fishwick concludes too simplistically that the reason for the development of divine honors within the ruler cults was a result of a changed “religious outlook.” “If the city could depend on (the monarch) in the way it had depended on the gods, why not treat him like a god by offering him a cult such as one paid Hera or Athene?”52 Perhaps more attractive is Price’s suggestion that this development occurred in order for the Greek cities to characterize the sheer “magnitude of power” between ruler and subject. Given that the Greek city-states were once autonomous entities where political power was exercised solely at the local level, the advent of Hellenistic kingdoms meant that these city-states had to manage political power in a new manner. 53 After the conquests of Alexander, Hellenistic cities had to relate to a monarch who no longer was physically present because of the expanded Hellenistic kingdoms. Price argued that a “ruler cult,” modeled on the cult of the gods was a form of religious discourse that attempted to represent this new flow of power from center to periphery 49. See Price, Rituals, 218 ff. According to Philostratus, two victims, one white and one black, were offered to Achilles because of his ambiguous status as a god and a man. 50. Tacitus, Annals 6.18. 51. Pindar, Isthmian Odes 5.14, trans. Diane Svarlien. This reference is available on the website The Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University. 52. Fishwick, Imperial Cult, 6. 53. Price, Rituals, 52.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

63

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult just as the power of the gods flowed between earth and heaven in the traditional religious cults.54 Hellenistic rulers cults developed fully only after the conquests of Alexander the Great. There is no scholarly consensus that supports Alexander’s deification during his lifetime, though most authors cite Alexander’s visit to the oracle of Ammon at the oasis of Siwa in 331 as a pivotal event.55 While the oracle’s reply is not known, Taylor observed that the priest of the oracle recognized Alexander as the son of the Egyptian god Amun Re.56 Given that in Egyptian Pharaonic theory every king was the son of Amun Re, the priest simply recognized the new king in the traditional manner. Since the Greeks identified Zeus with Amun Re, it was not unthinkable to locate the mortal Alexander as descended from the gods. Added to such a mythos surrounding Alexander was his own fascination with the Persian practice of proskynesis. In the Persian court, it was customary to do obeisance to the monarch by prostrating oneself in front of the throne and blowing a kiss. Alexander was known to dress in Persian style and Plutarch recorded that in 328, while at a banquet in Bactria, Alexander so enjoyed the prostration shown him by the Persians that he commanded the Greeks and Macedonians to do the same.57 While various Greek cities, notably those most recently freed from Persian control, approved divine honors for Alexander, it was not 54. Robin Lane Fox claims that “representing power” is too conceptual. He challenges Price’s theory that the Hellenistic rulers caused a problem of categorization. “Stories of the first divine honors are stories of people who are exploring new possibilities, not stories of people who are puzzled.” Pagans and Christians (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987), 40, 686–87n42. Such a conclusion is however, less convincing than that of Price. Even if they are exploring “new possibilities,” there must be a motive for such behavior. 55. According to Eduard Meyer (1905), as quoted by Klauck, Religious Context, 267. In Alexander 2.4, Plutarch attributed the divinity of Alexander to the signs that had accompanied his birth. For Plutarch the appearance of a snake mythically linked Alexander to Zeus instead of his biological father Phillip. 56. L. R. Taylor, The Divinity of the Roman Emperor (Middletown: American Philological Association, 1931), 19. 57. Plutarch, Alexander, 54.

64

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult until 324 that Athens and Sparta were commanded to institute a divine cult in his honor.58 While it is impossible to know if Alexander intentionally styled himself as a god, his actions suggested the distinct possibility. After Alexander’s death, the emergence of a “ruler cult” modeled after the cult of the gods became prevalent throughout the eastern Hellenistic world. Among the Antigonid successors to Alexander, Demetrius Poliorkete¯s (conqueror of cities) was accorded a cult in 304 bce for his military success in Athens. Among the Attalids, Attalos II of Pergamum was described as the sunnaos (temple companion) of the god Asclepius. The Seleucid rulers were also honored with cults, second only to the Ptolomaic rulers of Egypt who possessed the most extensive cultic honors.59 Prior to Alexander, city-states interfaced with rulers who lived within the polis. As Hellenistic rulers/kings gained control over several cities, local citizenry had to manage a new form of political power with a ruler “whose base was not in the city.”60 Since the negotiation of power relationships to construct social identity is achieved through the use of discourse, the ruler cults of the Greek east can be seen as a novel discursive thread in the religious environment of the Classical period. It is not surprising then that the Greek world adapted the sacrificial language used for the Olympian gods to distinguish the power relationships that existed between subject and ruler within the Hellenistic kingdoms. As Roman military and political influence spread, the Hellenistic religious response was to create the cults of Dea Roma, 58. Taylor, Divinity, 23. She noted that Alexander was most often associated with Dionysus, the god of unmixed wine. 59. The titles attached to the names of the Ptolomaic and Seleucid rulers who inherited Alexander’s kingdom revealed specific aspects of divinity: Ptolemy I So¯te¯r (the delivered); Ptolemy III Euergetes (the benefactor); Ptolmey XII Neos Dionysos (the new Dionysus); Antiochus II Theos (god); Antiochus IV Epiphanes (the manifestation of divine power); Antiochus VI Epiphanes Dionysos (the apparition of Dionysus). Taken from Klauck, Religious Context, 275. 60. Price, Rituals, 28.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

65

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult the non-historical embodiment of the Roman state. A cult to Roma, also modeled on that of the Olympian gods, appeared first in Smyrna in 195 bce. The populace created this cult as they appealed to Rome for help against Antiochus III. Twenty cults of Roma were located in Asia Minor in the second and first centuries bce. Roman influence also gained cultic status in the form of cults to the “People of Rome.” In Athens there was even a priestess of the cult known as the “Hearth of the Romans.”61 More widespread and popular than Hellenistic ruler cults, according to Price, the cults connected to Roman influence shared a common objective—the management of power relationships. In order to represent to themselves the external political and military might of the Roman Republic, the Greeks transposed the traditional cults of the gods into cultic activity on behalf of personified Roman ideals.62 Just as Hellenistic cities instituted “ruler cults” to represent to themselves the power of the monarch, these same cities, now faced with the power of Rome, represented this power by creating the cults of Dea Roma. Interesting still is the fact that “Roma” was never a goddess worshipped in Rome until the time of Hadrian. Her cult began as the creation of Hellenistic religious discourse. It was designed to define the Hellenistic world vis-à-vis Roman political hegemony, as well as to court political favor with an even more powerful political presence than the Hellenistic monarch. While there was no cult of the Roman Senate, Roman officials and magistrates were given cults in the Hellenistic world. These cults given to Roman officials by Hellenistic cities were varied in duration and detail. While there was no uniform ruler cult which could be applied categorically to all the political officials who were honored, the sacrifices offered on their behalf were the same as those offered to the Olympian gods. The first Roman citizen to have a cult instituted in his honor was Ti61. Ibid., 41. 62. Ibid., 43.

66

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult tus Flamininus, the Roman liberator of Greece. Instituted in 199 bce, Flamininus received sacrifices (thusia) and a paean sung in his honor. While he was recognized as among the gods, there was no prayer directed at him as if he were a god at the end of the paean. The final invocation of the paean was to Titus So¯te¯r (savior), a term which evoked the intentional blurring between the human and the divine.63 Cicero was offered isotheoi timai (cultic honors) for his administration of Cilicia in 50 bce. He turned down the offer, but not the opportunity to boast that such an offer had been made.64 Scholars have consistently stated that both heroic and ruler cults were unknown to late republican Roman religion. Fishwick maintained that the cultic honors accorded Dea Roma, as well as Roman magistrates and generals “were intrinsically Greek and at no stage can they be ascribed to Roman influences.”65 Klauck noted that “Rome’s own political and religious traditions provided nothing that could have furnished a pretext for the development of the cult of the rulers.”66 Fritz Taeger’s comments are also typical of the discussion. “Rome completely lacked the presuppositions . . . necessary for the development of a cult of the king in line with what happened in the Hellenistic sphere.”67 While they are correct in asserting that there were no specific historical antecedents in Rome that precisely mirrored these forms of Hellenistic cultic activity, Roman religious discourse was ideologically well suited for importing it through social interaction, education, and trade. If the cults of Dea Roma and the Hellenistic rulers arose in 63. See Plutarch, Titus Flamininus, 16.4, where Flamininus is mentioned along with Apollo. 64. Cicero, Ad Atticum, 5.21.7. 65. Fishwick, Imperial Cult, 51. 66. Klauck, Religious Context, 285. 67. Fritz Taeger, Charisma Studien zur Geschichte des antiken Herrscherkultes (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1957), 39: “Daran ist also kein Zweifel möglich, dass für den Königskult im Sinne der hellenistichen Entwicklungen noch um die Wende zum ersten Jahrhundert und darüber hinaus alle religionsgechichtlich-geistigen Voraussetzungen in Rom fehlten.”

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

67

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult response to changing power relationships, then it is possible to account for the emergence of the Roman imperial cult on the basis of a similar shift in the power politics of the first century bce. The divine-like honors accorded a Hellenistic ruler or a Roman emperor, can be viewed on a continuum relative to the management of political power as city-states merged into kingdoms and empires. The cults of Dea Roma and the Hellenistic rulers should therefore not be seen as midpoints on the way to a full blown imperial cult,68 but rather as symptoms of a shifting religious discourse that attempted to represent new forms of power between subjects and rulers. Given the blurring of political and religious ideologies in antiquity, such a representation of power, couched in the ritual expression reserved for the immortal gods, should not be considered remarkable. Such ritual expression symbolized the flow of power from the ruler to the ruled as comparable to the flow of power between heaven and earth. When expressed religiously, this relationship was couched in a language and a ritual that bridged the semipermeable boundary between the gods, as figures central to the maintenance of the cosmos, and humanity, as the peripheral recipients of divine benefaction. While Roman religion of the late republic did not have specific cults for its rulers, this is not to say that key ideological antecedents were not already present before the emergence of the Roman Empire. If discourse is representative of the nexus of power relationships that cannot be reduced to one essential factor, then caution should be exercised when simple diachronic patterns do not appear evident as in the genealogy of something as complex as the Roman imperial cult. Rome, like ancient Greece, did have a tradition of heroes that had become gods. Both Hercules and Asclepius were born mortals, yet transformed into gods upon their death. Asclepius gained immortality after being struck by Jupiter’s thunderbolt. 68. According to Fishwick, Imperial Cult, 50.

68

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult Diodorus recorded how Hercules, after ascending a huge pyre, was consumed by a fire that appeared to fall from heaven like lightning. After the fire had been extinguished the bones of Hercules could not be located. It was assumed that “he had passed from among mortals into the company of the gods.”69 As both hero and god, Hercules embodied the greatest of the Stoic virtues that were highly prized in the republic. Likewise, Romulus, the founder of Rome, was also considered a mortal who had not only been taken among the gods, but had become a god himself. Livy recorded how Romulus simply vanished amidst a “thick cloud” and “great claps of thunder [and then] as a few men gave the lead, they all decided that Romulus should be hailed as a god.” Livy shows his hand when he wrote that some doubted the apotheosis of Rome’s first king since “the king may have been torn apart at the hands of the senators.”70 With this veiled allusion to Caesar’s murder, Livy drew a forceful parallel between the sacrificial death of the god/king Romulus and the god/king Caesar. Perhaps even more rhetorically compelling is Livy’s description of how Proculus Julius, a man of “considerable authority,” came forward and testified to the apotheosis of Rome’s first king. Proculus Julius was, at least mythically, a direct ancestor of Caesar in the gens Iulii. What became a full-fledged Roman imperial cult was rhetorically crafted from within the mythic origins of the state itself. Thus, divine-like heroes, rulers, and generals were nothing new at the time Rome transitioned from republic to empire. These historical vignettes cast into narrative form at the beginning of the empire served not only to locate the imperial cult within Rome’s mythic past, but also to construct a world-view whereby certain individuals could approach divinity in ways not previously possible. 69. Diodorus, History 4.38.5. 70. Livy, History 1.16.4.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

69

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult Thus Roman religious rhetoric of the late republic evidenced both the traditional connection between the state and the gods, as well as an openness to the affinity between specific individuals and the gods. The military successes of the state were seen as religious signs of divine favor that allowed military and political figures to become the natural subjects for divine honors. Within the traditional Roman religious environment where the gods were more impersonal than in ancient Greece, the general/hero/ dictator became a personal embodiment of Roman idealism in its political and religious dimensions. Since these victories were divinely orchestrated, it was natural to see the victor himself more closely connected to divinity than other mortals. It is not surprising then that a conquering general like Sulla, Pompey, or Caesar returned to Rome and quite literally donned the vesture of Jupiter as he processed in triumph to the Capitol. The theme of divine honors accorded human beings is common in the comedy of Plautus, written around 200 bce.71 In his play Persa, we find Saturio trying to obtain a free meal by flattering his benefactor with the exclamation, “O my earthly Jupiter your table companion calls upon you.”72 In Pseudolus, Plautus’s main character grieved that his beloved is to be sold by her owner, the pimp Ballio. He lamented, “Fetch victims, bovines . . . that I can sacrifice to this supreme Jupiter! For he [Ballio] is now to me a much mightier Jupiter than Jupiter.”73 While intended as comedy, divinity is nonetheless characterized not in absolute terms, but rather accorded those who have the most power over one’s fate. Cicero maintained that without the great hope in immortality, no one would give his or her life for the benefit of the state. At the end of De republica, Cicero had Scipio Africanus declare that 71. See the long discussion of Plautus’ work in I. Gradel, Emperor Worship and Roman Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 44–51. 72. Plautus, Persa 99, “O mi Iuppiter terrestris, te coepulomus compellat tuos.” Ed. F. Leo (London: Bell and Sons, 1912), available at The Latin Library website. 73. Plautus, Pseudolus 323, quoted in I. Gradel, Emperor Worship, 45.

70

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

roman imperial cult immortality is in store for the victorious on earth.74 According to Livy, the legendary Scipio refused such symbols as statues and triumphal garb, the very same symbols that would be accorded to Caesar by the Senate.75 While a specific ruler cult was unknown in Rome in the public sphere, the rhetoric of the late republic has yielded sufficient examples to demonstrate its natural affinity for the cult that became associated with Julius Caesar.

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

Divus Iulius Caesar was designated flamen Dialis (priest of Jupiter) in 86 bce at the age of thirteen by his uncle, the dictator Marius. When the time came for him to be inaugurated into the office, Sulla had claimed power and nullified all of Marius’ appointments. The office of flamen Dialis remained vacant until 11 bce. Had Caesar become flamen Dialis, his later political roles would not have been possible because this ancient priestly office was filled with special restrictions.76 His mother lobbied for his cooptation into the pontifical college in 73 bce and ten years later he was elected by seventeen of the thirty-five voting Roman tribes to the office of pontifex maximus. After his victory over Pompey at Pharsalus in 47 bce, he became an augur. Weinstock noted that while he was not the only pontifex to also hold two simultaneous priestly offices, the practice had been quite rare in Republican Rome.77 The unprecedented level of Caesar’s honors marked a turn74. Cicero, De republica 6.13: “sic habeto, omnibus, qui patriam conservaverint, adiuverint, auxerint, certum esse in caelo definitum locum, ubi beati aevo sempiterno.” (And now consider, for all those who preserve, maintain, and cherish the state, there is a place in the heavens where they enjoy an eternal life of happiness). 75. Livy, History 38.56.12. 76. For restrictions on the role of the flamen Dialis see Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 10.15. 77. Weinstock, Divus Iulius, 32, notes that C. Marcius Rutilius held both offices in 300 bce, as did T. Otacilius Crassus in 211. His sources are Livy, History 10.9 and 26.23, respectively.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

71

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult ing point in Roman religious discourse. He received fifteen days of supplicatio for his victories in Gaul, forty days for his victory at Thapsus (46 bce), and fifty days for his victory at Munda (45 bce). His first triumphal procession took place in 46 bce and it surpassed even that of Pompey. He defied the ancient Roman custom that the victorious general was not allowed inside the pomerium prior to the triumph. After the celebrations he dedicated a temple to Venus Genetrix and ludi were instituted in his honor.78 According to Dio he accepted some honors and rejected others. Scholarship can only speculate about the honors that were refused.79 Divine-like honors were accorded Caesar in three phases according to Gradel.80 The first were the honors accorded him by the Senate, which included not only the triumphal procession, but also a chariot and a statue placed on the Capitol. The second phase of honors was bestowed after the battle of Munda when his statue was placed in the Temple of Quirinus. Such a move linked Caesar to Rome’s first mythical king Romulus who, legend suggested, had apotheosized into the god Quirinus. The third phase was the establishment of a cult: a flamen (priesthood), a temple, and a pulvinar (sacred couch for his image). Of special interest to scholars has been Dio’s account of the statue set up on the Capitol and its inscription: “And they decreed that a chariot of his should be placed on the Capitol facing the statue of Jupiter, that his statue in bronze should be mounted upon a likeness of the inhabited world, with an inscription to the effect that he was a he¯mítheos.”81 Dio wrote in Greek and broad scholarly speculation has arisen regarding the original Latin of the statue’s inscription. In short, how are we to understand Dio’s use of the word he¯mítheos in its original Latin context? 78. Weinstock’s detail is incredibly rich, 60–79. 79. Dio, Roman History 43.14.7. 80. Gradel, Emperor Worship, 54-72. 81. Dio, Roman History 43.14.6. Of special concern is Dio’s final clause: grafh;n e{conta o{ti hJmiqeov~.

72

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

roman imperial cult

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

He¯mítheos has often been rendered in English as “demigod.” Weinstock, however, has dismissed the suggestion that the original Latin was semideus because this word is only found in later Latin literature.82 If the Latin word had been the equivalent of “hero” then Dio would have translated it directly with the comparable Greek word, he¯ro¯s. Other possibilities offered by Weinstock were “Deo Caesaris,” “Divo Iulio,” and “Genio Caesaris.” Reconstructing the original Latin from Dio’s translation of the inscription on the second statue in the Temple of Quirinus has been much easier. Scholars are in agreement that Dio recorded the inscription to Caesar as “Deo Invicto” (the unconquered god).83 Weinstock assessed that any possible Latin translations of Dio’s Capitol inscription must remain “mere guesses.”84 Though the historical accuracy of Dio’s translation eludes scholars, the rhetorical effect of his text leaves no doubt that Roman religion had embarked on a subtle, yet powerful transition in its religious discourse, but the transition was not yet complete. Whatever the original inscription was, Dio claims that Caesar erased the word he¯mítheos from the statue when he entered the Capitol and gazed upon his likeness.85 The changes in late republican Roman religion that preceded the worship of the emperor were a mixture of the innovative 82. Weinstock, Divus Iulius, 53, locates the first use in Ovid and ascribes the originality of the word to him. 83. So Weinstock, Divus Iulius, 53; Gradel, Emperor Worship, 62. Fishwick, Imperial Cult, 57, unconvincingly suggests that Dio mixed up the inscriptions, maintaining that the Capitol statue, and not the Quirinal statue was inscribed to Caesar as Deo Invicto. 84. Weinstock, Divus Iulius, 53–54. Fishwick, Imperial Cult, 60, raises the idea that a proper name was used, which Caesar later removed. He suggested that the possible “demigod” that Dio alluded to was Romulus, thus rendering the inscription Caesari Romulo. While such an inscription would make sense given the connection of Romulus with the Capitol, one has to wonder (contra Fishwick) why Dio did not simply translate this obviously appropriate name. Dio has no problem in translating the inscription to Caesar in the Temple of Quirinus with Deo Invicto; why would such difficulties arise with the inscription at the Capitol? I must agree with Weinstock. 85. Dio, Roman History 43.21.2.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

73

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult and the conservative. Dio’s translation of the Capitol inscription witnessed the innovative thread that Caesar’s dictatorship brought to Roman religion. Cicero, on the other hand, evaluated Caesar’s triumph within the conservative practices of Roman religious sacrifice. It was Caesar’s failure to observe these traditional signs that led to his death. Cicero wrote: “Caesar sacrificed on the day he sat on a golden throne and appeared in a purple robe . . . as he was sacrificing there was no heart in the entrails of the sacrificial victim . . . although Spurinna (the haruspex) advised him to beware lest he lose all reason and life . . . these omens were sent to him by the immortal gods so that he should have foreknowledge of his murder and avoid it.”86 Even though Caesar was the temporal catalyst that advanced the imperial cult, it was Caesar’s failure to pay attention to the traditional discourse of Roman religion that led to his murder in Cicero’s eyes. After his death in 42 bce, the Senate officially allied Caesar both to the gods and to the Roman people in a manner that had formerly not been accorded any Roman leader. Taylor maintained that the honors accorded Caesar by the Senate were far more than simple claims to divine ancestry. Rather, “it was a formal declaration of Caesar’s position as representative of the state, the favored son of the goddess who was the mother of all the Romans.”87 Scholarship is again divided on the question: did Caesar plan to establish a divine monarchy in Rome?88 He spent nine months in Egypt and had close contact 86. Cicero, De divinatione 1.118–119, as quoted in Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 2, 352. 87. Taylor, Divinity, 64. 88. At the dedication of the Temple of Venus Genetrix, Caesar refused to stand when a delegation of senators approached. This was interpreted by Suetonius, Caesar 78.1; Dio, Roman History 44.8.2; and Plutarch, Caesar 60.4, as an egregious offence against religious tradition. It was interpreted to mean that Caesar thought of himself as a god and so had no need to rise in the presence of mortals. Weinstock, Divus Iulius, 276, stated that as dictator he was superior to the consuls. Fishwick, Imperial Cult, 71, noted that the “driving force [behind the divine-like honors] was not Caesar” but the Senate. Taylor, Divinity, 61ff., assumed that Caesar’s familiarity with the Egyptian religious system was part of his personal motivation.

74

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult with the Pharaonic political and religious systems, as had Alexander. Caesar also capitalized on his divine ancestry that he traced through Iulus to Aeneas and ultimately to the goddess Venus. The Senate gave him the title pater patriae (father of the nation) and authorized him to stamp his coins with this inscription. Such examples suggest that he was modeling his autocratic ideology on Alexander, but it remains fruitless to psychologize Caesar’s motives for his claims to divinity. What is certain is that after his murder it became much easier to consider him at home among the gods. Nothing elevates a person’s status more than death and Caesar’s death allowed him to catapult into the heavens more quickly than even he probably imagined. The “flattery” accorded by the Senate, to use Dio’s term, was not unequivocally supported by all Romans. Again Cicero represents the minority voice opposing divine honors. “You ask me, do I approve of the pulvinar [sacred couch], the statue, the gable on his house, the special flamen [priest]? No, I disapprove of it all.”89 Cicero could not endorse divine-like honors because Caesar, unlike the gods, was known to have had a tomb where funeral offerings could be made. Romulus had been the exception for Cicero because he had not died, but been transferred to heaven. Caesar, on the other hand, had had a proper Roman funeral. Therefore Cicero wrote: “I could not have been induced to unite any dead man in a religious observance paid to the immortal gods; so that a supplication should be addressed by public thanksgiving to a man who has a tomb where funeral offerings may be celebrated.”90 If the beginnings of the cult were already latent during the reign of Caesar, it was Cicero who exposed the idea that a cult to divus Iulius had been in the planning stages prior to his death. Cicero’s second Philippic address after Caesar’s death is important because, unlike Dio and Plutarch, it represents a rhetorical 89. Cicero, Philippics 2.111. 90. Cicero, Philippics 1.13.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

75

roman imperial cult account that was contemporary to the actual events. Following Caesar’s murder, he attacked Marc Antony with the usual Ciceronian petulance in the following address:

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

And you pretend to preserve a genuine memory of Caesar, to love him even after his death? What greater honor did he receive than when he was given a pulvinar (sacred couch), a statue, a gable on his house, a flamen? So you see, just as there is a flamen that has responsibility for Jupiter, for Mars, and for Quirinus, there is now a flamen for the divus Iulius. And the priest is Mark Antony. Why wait? Why not hold the consecration?91

Cicero’s address implied that prior to Caesar’s death a cult to divus Iulius was at least tentatively in the planning stages. Dio, writing two hundred years later, indicated that the Senators addressed Caesar as Día Ioúlion (Jupiter Julius) and not divus Iulius.92 This has led scholars such as Weinstock, Fishwick, and Taylor to favor Cicero’s first-hand description of the new cult and discount Dio’s Greek translation. These same scholars then conclude that Caesar’s political agenda included the establishment of an official cult modeled on those of the Hellenistic rulers.93 Part of the problem in assessing the accuracy of such a conclusion revolves around an understanding of the Latin divus as used by Cicero. It has been commonly assumed that the word divus was used solely for an apotheosized human being who became a god upon his death. By the third century of the Common Era this was the common understanding that Dio would have learned. It kept a strict separation between the continuous divinity of a deus, and a lesser form of divinity used for a deceased emperor. However, Varro in De Lingua Latina (On the Latin Language—first century bce) was quoted by Servius to have con91. Cicero, Philippics 2.110: “Et tu in Caesaris memoria diligens, tu illum amas mortuum? Quem is honorem maiorem consecutus erat, quam ut haberet pulvinar, simulacrum, fastigium, flaminem? Est ergo flamen, ut Iovi, ut Marti, ut Quirino, sic divo Iulio M. Antonius. Quid igitur cessas? Cur non inauguraris?” 92. Dio, Roman History 44.6.4. 93. Weinstock, Divus Iulius, 391; Taylor, Divinity, 73-74; Fishwick, Imperial Cult, 71 (although it was “at the urging of the Senate”).

76

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

roman imperial cult

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

cluded “divos perpetuos deos qui propter sui consecrationem timentur, ut sunt dii manes” (divi are eternal gods whom we honor because of their deification, as are the ancestral gods).94 In other words, the term divus shares the same character of everlasting divinity (perpetuos) as did the more generic term deus. The only difference, according to Varro, is that the divi are declared to be gods in time (sui consecrationem timentur) as are the spirits of the deceased ancestors (di manes).95 For Varro, a divus was no less divine than a deus.96 In his attempt to define the word divus, Varro suggested that there was a connection between a divus and the sky. He wrote that Jupiter was formally worshipped as Diovis and Diespater “et dius et divum unde sub divo” (for of old he was called Diovis and Diespater . . . from whence they who come from him are called dei, “deities,” and dius, “god,” and divum, “sky,” whence subdivo, “under the sky”).97 A similar sentiment is evoked by Horace who linked heaven and Jupiter with the living Augustus: “caelo tonantem credidimus Iovem regnare; praesens divus habebitur Augustus” (We 94. Servius Grammaticus, Ad Aeneus 5.45, ed. Georgius Thilo (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1881). Available from the website Perseus Digitial Library of Tufts University. 95. I cannot agree with Gradel, Emperor Worship, 66–67. He reads the same passage in Servius and concludes that the divi were not deified whereas di manes were. Clearly propter (on account of) refers to the divi in Servius’ sentence. He interprets Servius this way in order to show why Dio used he¯mítheos when translating the inscription to Caesar on the Capitol. Gradel reasons that the original Latin of the inscription was in fact divus Iulius. In other passages Dio normally translated the Latin divus with the Greek he¯ro¯s, but when he does this he is always writing about an emperor who is already dead. Since he sees the title applied to the living Caesar he cannot use he¯ro¯s because Caesar is clearly not dead when he spots the inscription. Therefore Dio uses he¯mítheos (demi-god). By the third century, when Dio is writing, a divus was in fact seen as a subcategory of lesser quality than deus. However, if Servius’ account of Varro’s comment can be accepted (contra Gradel), then a divus is actually not a subcategory. In short, Gradel has read more into Varro’s statement than is warranted by the Latin of Servius in order to solve the problem of the original Latin on Caesar’s Capitol inscription. 96. Weinstock, Divus Iulius, 391, called Varro’s attempt to find a difference “demonstrably wrong” without substantiating his argument. He merely credited Caesar as, “another linguistic expert, who inspired by Varronian speculations, created a real distinction which was to be lasting.” 97. Varro, Lingua Latina 5.10, trans. Roland Kent (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938), available at The Latin Library website.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

77

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult believe that Jove is king in heaven because we hear his thunder peals. Augustus shall be deemed a god on earth for adding to our empire the Britons and the dread Parthians).98 Because Horace and Varro both wrote at the same time that the Senate accorded divine-like honors to Caesar, it is perhaps not beyond wild speculation to assume that their comments tried to both define and legitimate a title that was already in use. Caesar’s personal ambitions must be left to historical speculation, but his assassination focused and intensified the need to honor both the man and his memory. The reality of Caesar’s murder brought him into the realm of the gods “not simply by the passing of decrees but in the conviction of the masses” as Suetonius noted.99 Whatever the motivation for granting Caesar a cult and the title divus, the result was that the “imperial” form of a religious cult, complete with its own vocabulary, became fixed in Roman religious discourse. If ritual can be understood as an authoritative mode of discourse out of which society is constructed, then the sacrificial rituals of the imperial cult can be viewed as key forms of expression that allowed imperial power to be displayed. The link between Rome, personified in the emperor and a periphery that was encompassed by empire, was ritually connected through sacrifices. The discourse around imperial sacrifices worked two ways. It allowed the conquered, yet obedient foreign lands to express both honor and gratitude for the political benefaction they received from the emperor, at the same time it ritually made the emperor (the embodiment of Roman identity) powerfully present throughout the empire. Even within the city of Rome, imperial sacrifices strengthened Roman identity (Romanitas) because the same sacrifices offered to the gods (as the protectors of the state) were offered on behalf of the emperor (as the closest hu98. Horace, Carmina 3.5.1, trans. C. E. Bennett (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978), available at The Latin Library website. 99. Suetonius, Caesar, 88.

78

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult man expression of divinity on earth). Dio, Suetonius, Appian, and Cicero recorded a simple incident at the end of Caesar’s funeral that justifies this thesis.100 At Caesar’s funeral, Antony mounted the Rostra and held up Caesar’s blood-stained garment as he eulogized the slain dictator. The sight of Caesar’s garment threw the crowd into a frenzy. They brought Caesar’s body from the Campus Martius and built a new pyre directly in the Forum. After the funeral, a man named Amatius (according to Appian) appeared on the scene and claimed to be the grandson of the general Marius. He built an altar on the very spot of Caesar’s funeral pyre and offered the first sacrifice (so Appian) to Caesar as a god (so Dio). Interestingly, both Appian and Dio recounted how Antony ordered the makeshift altar removed and the sacrificers expelled. Suetonius recalled how, at the base of a twenty-foot marble column erected on the same spot, sacrifices were offered and oaths were taken in the name of Caesar. My point here is to show how sacrifice, as the primary ritual of Roman religion, became the first effective expression of the new form of power that existed between divus Iulius and the Roman people. Lifting a dead monarch to the heavens and ritually expressing this new status through sacrifices overcame death as one of the principal obstacles to the perpetuation of monarchy. It was logical then that ritual sacrifice constituted one the first expressions of this novel emperor cult. Imperial sacrifices created a bond and a common identity not only among the people of Rome, but those of distant lands as well.

Divus Augustus Octavian was determined to carry out the decrees of divus Iulius instituted by the Senate. He sold his own inheritance to sponsor the games of 42 bce, the ludi Victorae Caesaris. Accord100. Dio, Roman History 44.51.1; Suetonius, Caesar 85; Appian, Civil Wars 3.3; Cicero, Ad Atticus 14.7–8.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

79

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult ing to Pliny the Elder, a comet was spotted in the sky “at the eleventh hour” of the games indicating that Caesar’s soul had truly ascended to the heavens.101 Octavian began to refer to himself as filius divi Iulius (son of the divine Julius), thereby preparing the way for his own deification. According to Suetonius, Appian, and Dio, when Octavian was about to take the consulship in 43 bce, vultures appeared as an omen. For these ancient authors this was no coincidence because the exact same number of vultures appeared as Romulus assumed the kingship of Rome at its inception.102 Virgil voiced his personal sentiments about Octavian when he endorsed the divinity of the then living emperor in his first Eclogue: “you are a god to me . . . [to whom] a lamb will bleed.”103 While on the one hand Virgil was willing to endorse the divinity of the living emperor, he was also realistic enough to know that any real apotheosis would have to wait until after Octavian’s death.104 Octavian was accorded several adulatory decrees after his victories at Actium and Alexandria. One of the most relevant decrees passed by the Senate in 30 bce included the pouring of a libation to the genius of the emperor at every public banquet. The genius was a divine presence that was external to a person, a type of guiding star or spiritual companion. Fishwick noted, however, that “the earliest references in literature make it abundantly clear that the genius is a divinity, resembling the Greek, daimon.”105 The poetry of Horace revealed that the offering of a libation to the genius of the emperor as prescribed by the Sen-

3.94.

101. Pliny the Elder, Natural History 2.94. 102. Suetonius, Augustus 95; Dio, Roman History 46.46.2; Appian, Civil Wars

103. Virgil, Eclogue 1.6–8, trans. J. B. Greenough (Boston: Ginn and Co., 1900), italics added. Along with Virgil’s Georgics, these references can be found at The Latin Library website. 104. Virgil, Georgics 2.224–25, especially the line “habitura deorum concilia incertum est” (consider that a union with gods is as yet uncertain). 105. Fishwick, Imperial Cult, 378ff. See also Taylor, Divinity, 9ff. and 152 for a discussion of the Hellenistic concept of the agathos daimon (guardian spirit).

80

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult ate had become a regular part of official Roman banquets.106 The significance of this libation cannot be underestimated. As an offering it was a form of ritual sacrifice. The importance of offering a libation to the genius of the emperor lay in the fact that for the first time such a sacrificial practice became part of the public transcript (to use James Scott’s metaphor), officially commanded through state legislation. In 28 bce, Octavian dedicated a temple to Apollo and purged the Senate of some two hundred members. He recreated the list of senators and placed the title princeps next to his own name. The Greek translator of Augustus’ Res Gestae translated princeps as pro¯ton (the first among the citizens). This was a purely honorary title, but it rhetorically positioned the living emperor in a discourse of power relations closer to the gods while he was still alive. On January 13, 27 bce, Octavian convened the Senate and handed over (at least rhetorically) the autocratic powers he had been exercising. As a result of “restoring” the republican image of Roman politics, the Senate was compelled to accord even more honors to Octavian. While appearing to return political power back to the Senate and the people of Rome, Octavian’s move led to a new and more centralized form of monarchy than that of Caesar. Because of the appearance of this imperial benefaction, the Senate bestowed upon Octavian the title Augustus. This title effectively portrayed Octavian as a second founder of Rome by linking him to Romulus who, as an auger, had plotted the dimensions of the city with divine help. This type of “august augery” ensured the closest possible human connection with the divine. Romans were well aware of this link because it was found 106. Horace, Carmina 4.5.31ff.: “hinc ad uina redit laetus et alteris te mensis adhibet deum” (thus with wine one celebrates the feast and with another course invokes you [Augustus] as a god). Gradel, Emperor Worship, 209, suggested that Horace is here directly referring to worship of Augustus at the private level of the house banquet. His argument rests on a reinterpretation of the wall painting from Pompeii variously described (by Taylor and Fishwick) as the genius Augusti. His argument, like all interpretations of the wall fresco, is highly speculative.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

81

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult in Ennius’ national epic of Rome written in the early second century bce: “augusto augurio postquam incluta condita Roma est” (since renowned Rome was founded by august augury).107 At the death of Lepidus in 13 bce, Augustus became pontifex maximus, thus sealing his control of both religious and political power. Traditionally the pontifex maximus lived in the house located next the Temple of Vesta in the Forum. Augustus, however, did not want to give up his home on the Palatine hill. He therefore moved the traditional home of the pontifex maximus to his own estate and brought the shrine of Vesta into his own house. It was Aeneas himself who had brought the fire of Vesta from Troy to Italy. Romulus (son of a Vestal by the god Mars) had transferred it from Alba Longa to Rome. By Augustus’ move the sacred hearth of the goddess attended by the Vestals had been symbolically fused with the private hearth of the emperor.108 Another move made by Augustus was reminiscent of Rome’s sixth king, Servius Tullius. Like Servius, Augustus restructured the city into 14 districts and 265 wards. In Republican Rome each ward (vici) had a shrine to the local Lares (Lares Compitales) where annual sacrifices were offered. The unique aspect of Augustus’ reorganization was not only to enlarge the city but also to remove the older crossroad shrines and build new cults of the Lares Augusti. In other words, what were public ward cults had now become public extensions of the private cult of Augustus and his family. Rituals performed by the local magistrates effectively made the emperor present on every street corner. We learn from the records of the Arval Brethren, that on the altars 107. Ennius, Annales 469, trans. E. H. Warmington (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935–40), available at The Latin Library website. 108. Taylor, Divinity, 183 felt that by making part of his house “public” he was also somehow extending his household cult, that is, the personal cult of his Lares into a public cult. Gradel, Emperor Worship, 115ff., rightly dismisses such a conclusion based on the calendar from Praeneste which lists only Vesta, and not the Lares Augusti as the source of the new cult on the Palatine. Ovid, Fasti 4. 949, does in fact allude to “one house” and “three gods” (Augustus, Apollo, and Vesta), but Gradel reads this as mere poetic hyperbole.

82

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult of the vici a pig was sacrificed to the Lares and a bull for the genius of the emperor.109 Taylor overstated the case when she suggested that the compital cults “speedily became for Roman citizens the object of a great state cult . . . the new symbol of worship became a symbol for the state and the observance of it became an expression of loyalty.”110 However, Gradel is equally as overzealous when he states that “in no way were the compital cults . . . connected with the state cult, or the Roman constitution. Even though the cult took place in Rome, the compita and their worship were as irrelevant to the Roman state cult . . . as were any other cults private or municipal.”111 The cult of the compitales Augusti, while locally operated and funded, linked the emperor to the neighborhoods of Rome. Gradel’s presupposition that a specific “Roman constitution” existed with regard to religious practices misses the discursive quality of both the imperial cult and sacrifice in general. This unique move by Augustus did in fact advance the discursive force of the imperial cult because worship given to the emperor’s genius was a veiled form of worship given to the emperor himself. Klauck perhaps best summarizes Augustus’ attitude when he noted that “Augustus did not allow things in Rome to go as far as a formal veneration . . . but he explored to the utmost the remaining possibilities of a numinous elevation of his own position.”112 The Greek east, influenced by the Hellenistic ruler cults, had little problem with the direct association of divinity to a living emperor.113 The decrees formulated by the Greek east clearly compare Augustus’ actions as emperor and 109. Taylor, Divinity, 192. Although Fishwick, Imperial Cult, 378, places this specific practice “not before the time of Nero.” 110. Taylor, Divinity, 191. 111. Gradel, Emperor Worship, 129. 112. Klauck, Religious Context, 295. 113. This was evident from an inscription (SIG 3/760) found in Ephesus dating to the year 49 bce relative to the cult of then-living Caesar: τῆς θεόν ἐπιφανῆ καὶ κοινὸν τοῦ ἀνθηρωπίνου βίου σωτῆρα (the god who has appeared as sole savior of the life of humanity).

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

83

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult those of the gods. The Roman province of Asia voted in 9 bce to begin the year on Augustus’ birthday because “Caesar (that is, Augustus) exceeded the hopes of all. The birthday of this god marked for the world the beginnings of good tidings (euangelion) through his coming.”114 Similarly a decree from Mytilene attested Augustus’ benefaction to the city and recorded that “the city will not fail in anything that can further deify him.”115 There was a temple to Augustus in Neapolis and a temple to Roma and Augustus erected in the Forum of Pola (Croatia). Games in his honor were instituted in Pergamum under the title, Romaia Sebasta.116 The preceding examples illustrate the ease with which the living monarch was thought to be a god outside Rome. Imperial cults in the Latin west were located in Lugdunum for the three Gauls, Cologne, and on the Elbe River. In all three instances the cult was focused on the construction of an altar where sacrifices were offered. Whether the inhabitants of Gaul or Germany were able to distinguish between sacrifices offered to the genius of the reigning emperor or to the emperor himself will remain forever a mystery. However, it is logical to assume that such a distinction grew more and more imprecise the farther one got away from imperial Rome. We do know that at Pompeii, a sacerdos Augusti (priest of Augustus) was installed soon after 2 bce.117 Therefore Dio’s assertion that there was no worship of a living emperor in Rome or in all Italy must simply be wrong.118 114. Quoted in Price, Rituals and Power, 54. See also the angelic announcement of the birth of Christ in Luke 2:10: “I am bringing you good news [εὐαγγελίων]. . . to you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior.” 115. OGIS 456 = IGR 4.39, quoted in Price, Rituals and Power, 55. 116. Taylor, Divinity, 215. 117. Ibid. However, Gradel, Emperor Worship, 80–83, argues that the inscription on the Pompeiian temple was not dedicated to Augustus’ genius, but to the genius of the colony of Pompeii. I find his reconstruction just as speculative as Taylor’s. Whether or not there was a specific cult to the genius of Augustus remains immaterial to the fact that the emperor in some form was the object of sacrificial worship in Italy itself during the reign of Augustus. 118. Dio, Roman History 51.20.8.

84

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult Further indications of the divine-like honors accorded Augustus appear in the cults dedicated to the emperor’s virtues. These deified abstractions provided much needed political capital as they displayed before the people the greatest qualities of the emperor. The peace brought about by Augustus was ritually embraced as Pax Augusta. There were also cults to Concordia and Victoria Augusta as well. The crowning attribution was the designation of the Ara Numinis Augusti set up by Tiberius in 6 bce.119 Numen is a word first attested in the writings of Lucius Accius (170–86 bce) where it referred to the functional property of a god. Numen is what all gods possess and that through which they manifest their divinity.120 In short, it is that which makes a god a god. In addition to the altar dedicated by Tiberius, which is only known from the Calendar Praenestini, an inscription from Lepcis Magna in Tripolitania (modern Libya) from 11 bce, altars from Tarraco in Spain and Narbo (Gaul) show inscriptions dedicated to the numini Augusti. To credit Augustus with numen is the highest of possible honors. Fishwick has shown that the word can be used not only as the essential property of a god, but as a metonymy for the god himself.121 Sacrifices to the numini Augusti demonstrate that worship of a divinized abstraction was to be understood in a manner similar to worship of any god. Worship given to the genius of Augustus guaranteed the external safety and security of the emperor. Worship given to the numen of the emperor implied religious rites dedicated to an innate divine quality within the man himself.122 Augustus died at Nola in 14 ce and Dio reported how Tiberius eulogized his adoptive father. “You finally made him a demi119. Fishwick, Imperial Cult, 93. 120. Ibid., 383. 121. Ibid., 385–86. 122. Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives (New York: Prentice Hall, 1952), 307, has labeled such an idea “mystic participation,” since the sacrifices to the numen of the emperor identified him with the “principle of order to which he owes his power.” Those offering such a sacrifice would be, in Burke’s terminology, “walking with hierarchy.”

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

85

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult god (he¯mítheos) and declared him to be immortal . . . we should glorify his spirit, as that of a god (theós), for ever.”123 As the funeral pyre was lit for Augustus, Suetonius recorded how a Roman senator testified that at that very moment he had seen the soul of Augustus ascend to heaven. Dio noted that at the same time an eagle was spotted flying immediately into the heavens. On September 17, 14 ce, the Senate formally voted divine honors and enrolled Augustus into the realm of the gods.124 The Pax Romana brought by Augustus was, without doubt, a sign of welcome relief to the population of the empire. However the idea of his apotheosis and subsequent cult had its dissenters. Ovid’s Metamorphoses, written during the reign of Augustus, could be read as a critique of these honors. Ovid began his fifteen-book epic with the creation of the world. True to the conservative ideas inherent within Roman religion, creation began in a balanced state.125 By the time Ovid reflected on the Augustan period in Book XV, he oddly spent considerable time first writing about Pythagoras who died 475 years earlier. And of all the things Ovid could have chosen about Pythagoras, he recounted the ancient philosopher’s contempt for animal sacrifice. “All things were free . . . but then someone began to envy lion’s fare so he fed his greedy guts with flesh . . . they even made the gods share in iniquity; the deities were said to take delight in the destruction of the untiring ox.”126 Such a passage cannot be read simply as plea for vegetarianism. Ovid closed his history of the gods and men with an ambiguously ironic critique of the thencurrent political and imperial sacrificial cult: “I beg you to delay beyond my death, that day on which Augustus having left the world he governs, will ascend on high, and there from heaven will hear the prayers addressed to him.”127 123. Dio, Roman History 56.41.9. 124. Suetonius, Augustus 100; Dio, Roman History 56.46.2. However, Dio’s addition of the eagle may be anachronistic. 125. Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book I. 126. Ibid., 15.100. 127. Ibid., 15.868–70.

86

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

roman imperial cult

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

The Imperial Cult after Augustus The cult of the emperor became an integral dimension of Roman life for both the city and the coloniae of the empire. Dio stated that the imperial cult was, in some sense, a marker of what it meant to be truly Roman. “This practice, beginning under him [Augustus], has been continued under other emperors, not only in the case of the Hellenic nations but also in that of all the others, in so far as they are subject to the Romans.”128 Tacitus recorded that Tiberius issued a decree discouraging his own deification. “I am but a mortal and limited to the functions of humanity.”129 He did allow the province of Asia to erect a temple to both himself and his mother Livia on the grounds that his father had allowed Pergamum to erect a temple to Augustus and Dea Roma. When Further Spain made a similar offer, however, he refused. Tiberius was one of the few emperors that was not divinized due to discord between his successor Gaius (Caligula) and the Senate. From Augustus to Constantine, thirty-six of the sixty Roman Emperors and twenty-seven members of their families were apotheosized and received the title divus or diva. Unlike his predecessor, Gaius did enjoy divine honors paid to him during his lifetime. The Greek population in Alexandria, knowing of Gaius’ love of the Hellenistic ruler cult, ordered that statues of the emperor be placed in Jewish synagogues. Some of the Jews considered this blasphemy and sent a delegation to Rome that included Philo of Alexandria to plead their case. When Philo recounted that the Jews did in fact offer a sacrifice on Gaius’ behalf, he reportedly responded: “you sacrificed to another god . . . you did not sacrifice to me” (italics added).130 Philo 128. Dio, Roman History 51.20.7, referring to the establishment of the cult of Dea Roma and Divus Iulius. 129. Tacitus, Annales 4.38. A similar sentiment is expression in Suetonius, Tiberius 26: “he vetoed all bills for the dedication of temples and priests to his divinity.” 130. Philo of Alexandria, De legatione 35; quoted in Beard, Religions of Rome, vol. 2, 259.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

87

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult indicated that the Jews had indeed sacrificed, but Gaius here is reportedly concerned that the sacrifice was made not to him, but rather on his behalf. This is one of the few reports that discuss explicit divine worship of a living emperor. For the most part, sacrifices made to a living emperor were made to either his genius or his numen. Gaius’ own instability no doubt accounted for his complaint to Philo. As time progressed, the deification of the emperor as well as members of the imperial family became almost commonplace. As a member of the Senate, Pliny the Younger delivered his Panegyricus to the Emperor Trajan. He maintained that, unlike some of his predecessors, Trajan recommended Nerva’s deification without ulterior motives: “You introduce your father to the stars not to put fear into your subjects, not as insult to the gods, not for your own honor but because you believe that he is a god [quia deum credis].”131 Seneca praised Augustus to his pupil Nero saying, “we believe him to be a god [divus] not because we are ordered to do so.”132 However, it was also Seneca who opposed the deification of Claudius in his parody, the Apocolocyntosis (Pumpkinification). Seneca’s work described a divine-like Senate that had convened on Mount Olympus. It was there that divus Augustus voted against Claudius’ deification based upon the crimes committed during his reign.133 Lengthy accounts of imperial funerals were recorded. The three major sources are Dio’s account of Augustus’ funeral in 131. Pliny, Panegyricus 11.2 as quoted in D. Showalter, The Emperor and the Gods: Images from the Time of Trajan (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 63. 132. S. Price, “From Noble Funerals to Divine Cult: The Consecration of Roman Emperors,” in Rituals of Royalty, ed. D. Cannadine and S. Price (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 81. 133. Donald Jones, “Christianity and the Roman Imperial Cult,” Aufsteig und Niedergang der Römischen Welt, II.23.2 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1980),1028. For a fuller description of the Apocolocyntosis see Price, Noble Funerals, 87–88, where the case for Claudius’ deification is argued by the consul-elect Diespiter, who proposes that the Olympian Senate should ratify divus Claudius as a god and that a note to that effect be added to Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Apocolocyntosis 9.2).

88

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult 14 ce as well as his eyewitness record of the rites given to the Emperor Pertinax in 193, and Herodian’s account of the funeral of Septimus Severus in 211. What is striking is the consistency of each of these accounts. Price has concluded that imperial apotheosis had become a “firmly established institution” in Rome.134 The body, or a wax image of the deceased, lay in state in the Forum where appropriate speeches were given. Then the procession of the ancestors followed (usually comprised of actors wearing masks signifying the heroes of Rome). Finally, after the procession reached the Campus Martius, the funeral pyre was lit and an eagle released. While Dio included the release of an eagle at the funeral of Augustus, Price felt that his usage was certainly anachronistic because the eagle did not appear on imperial consecration coins until the second century and Suetonius lacks this important detail.135 As in the apotheosis of Caesar and Augustus, the Senate needed eyewitness testimony prior to the vote for deification. The use of the eagle obviated the need for a witness to the imperial apotheosis because all the participants could publicly see the soul of the emperor ascend to the heavens. By the second century some notable changes had taken place. The Senate’s action became a mere rubber stamp of the new emperor’s wishes. Excavators uncovered an inscription from Ostia that recorded how Trajan’s sister Macrina was granted the title of diva on August 29, 112. Macrina’s public funeral however wasn’t held until September 3, 112. Therefore the Senate’s vote must have preceded the official funeral rites (which would have included the release of the eagle), probably at the request of Trajan.136 What remained consistent however, in narrative, sculptured reliefs, and coins, was the idea that members of the imperial family had taken their place among the gods.

134. Price, “Noble Funerals,” 61. 135. Ibid., 95. 136. Ibid., 92.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

89

roman imperial cult

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

Conclusions Like Roman religion, the imperial cult was an amalgam of ideas and structures, some borrowed from the Hellenistic religious environment of the age and some unique to Rome itself. Roman religious discourse was a complex mix of political and religious ideologies, oftentimes difficult to unweave. The prosperity of the state was considered to be a direct result of the largess of the gods. If the gods guaranteed the peace of the city, the emperor as pater patriae (father of the nation) guaranteed the peace of the empire. Temples to divus Augustus and Dea Roma in the east, as well as blood sacrifices offered to either the genius or the numen of the emperor in the west, were all ways in which the political power of the imperial center was made symbolically present to the periphery.137 The uniqueness of Rome as a sacred “place” was replicated ritually in the sacrificial practices dedicated either to or on behalf of the emperor. The populace might have rarely seen the living emperor, but sacrificial practices made the emperor ritually present (either through his genius, numen, or as a divus) just as he was iconographically present on coins and sculptures. R. L. Gordon has suggested that the imperial cult provided a means whereby power and social control could remain firmly in the hands of the elite. Whenever the emperor is depicted in early imperial iconography (except for statues) he is shown engaged in ritual sacrifice. As chief officiant, he is depicted both as a negotiator with the gods, and implicitly as the benefactor who distributes the largess of sacrificial rituals. Gordon argued that the imperial sacrificial cult was merely a ruse, a type of veil used by the emperor to maintain control of the populace.138 By imitating 137. Fishwick, Imperial Cult, 72 suggested that Caesar was politically motivated to supplant the eastern cults of Dea Roma with his own flaminate. Such a conclusion must be regarded as highly speculative. 138. R. L. Gordon, “The Veil of Power: Emperors, Sacrificers, Benefactors,” in Pagan Priests, eds. M. Beard and J. North (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), 201–31.

90

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult the benefaction of the emperor on a local level, civic magistrates could achieve on a smaller scale what the emperor had achieved for the masses. While Gordon’s analysis highlights the power relationships within the imperial cult, assessment of this complex phenomenon as crass political opportunism is overly reductionistic. Just as in ritual expressions of pre-imperial Roman religion, the imperial cult was also part of the pax deorum (the peace of the gods). Order, balance, and ritual precision ensured that the fragile balance of the cosmos would be maintained. As new forms of political power began to emerge with Caesar, and become further clarified with Augustus, it is logical to assume that Roman religious expressions of power should also develop new discursive features. The imperial cult was both political and religious because as a divus, the emperor both was and was not a god. The complex nature of the imperial cult revealed both the conservative nature of Roman religion as well as its predilection for novelty.139 That a hero could, after his death, ascend to the heavens and become a god was not new (Romulus and Hercules had done it). However the title divus (not deus) that was accorded men like Caesar and Augustus revealed that something new had occurred as a result of imperial apotheosis. The fact that such an apotheosis was “state sponsored” was something novel, but the fact that the Senate had to vote for or against this apotheosis revealed something as old as the republic itself. “Divinity,” as used in Roman religious rhetoric, was not considered an absolute category. Part of the dilemma in analyzing the imperial cult is our penchant for thinking about “divinity,” and by extension, the “divinity” of the Roman emperors, in absolutist terms. Conceiving divinity in such a manner is a result of how Christian ideology has permeated western thought. Ignorance of this distinction has led scholars through protracted 139. S. Price, “Noble Funerals,” 58.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

91

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman imperial cult attempts to unpack and scrutinize the divinity of Caesar. Klauck has perhaps best summarized the discussion when he wrote, “we must recognize the presence of a sliding scale” with respect to the divinity of the Rome emperors.140 It is fruitless to speculate whether the emperor was perceived to be a god, or whether he was treated as if he were a god. Price has shown that ancient Rome had no generally accepted concept of what a “god” was in abstract or metaphysical terms.141 Jupiter was worshipped not because he was a god, but because he was the god of Rome and protector of the city and its people. “Divinity” signaled not the absolute nature of the beings in a far distant heaven, but rather the interrelationship of power and benefaction needed to sustain the cosmos. The actual practices associated with emperor worship varied widely, but common to all forms of imperial worship were ritual sacrifices. If the boundary between the phenomenal and the noumenal in ancient Rome can be described as semi-permeable, then sacrifice ritually channeled the flow of power between heaven and earth in its many and varied forms. Horace recorded that sacrifice in the form of unmixed wine was to be poured at official banquets after Caesar’s victory at Munda. The Arval Brethren recorded bulls sacrificed to the genius of the emperor after the time of Nero. Even the compital shrines at Rome’s crossroads, redesigned by Augustus, had altars set up for sacrifice. Just as sacrificial practices provided ritual communication between humanity and divinity, sacrifices on behalf of the emperor poised the monarch on this “sliding scale” of divinity to provide a ritual focus for social identification and political emulation. This chapter examined the Roman imperial cult as an ancient discourse by taking into account the political, religious and literary modes through which power was expressed in the divine140. Klauck, Religious Context, 290. 141. S. R. Price, “Gods and Emperors: The Greek Language of the Roman Imperial Cult,” Journal of Hellenic Studies, 104 (1984): 79.

92

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

roman imperial cult human economy. If discourse cannot be reduced to an essentialist interpretation, then this is equally true of emperor worship. A philosophical inquiry into a precise differentiation between a divus, deus, he¯mítheos, or theós is not possible since these were not philosophical categories for the ancient poets, historians and politicians.142 Scholarly attempts to locate the origins of the imperial cult in state-sponsored legislation (Gradel), Hellenistic influences (Taylor), or simple political ambition (Fishwick, Gordon) must be viewed as reductionistic. Rather, the emergence of cultic honors for the Roman rulers must be viewed as a complex phenomenon situated within the intersection of historical, political and religious themes and practices. Even the attempt to signify such a phenomenon, calling it the “imperial cult,” must be viewed as an outsider’s way of defining yet another strand in the already complex phenomenon of Roman religion.

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

142. Neither were they simple political categories as Fishwick, Imperial Cult, 72–77, intimates when he notes that Horace’s ascription of the title deus to Augustus was simply “private” and “gratuitous,” thus rendering the title deus, ”banal.” Price, “Gods and Emperors,” 85, along with Fishwick, Imperial Cult, 72–77, rightly show the fluidity of the Greek term theós but opts for the political motivated distinction between divus and deus, citing Varro’s definition as anachronistic.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

93

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

chapter three

The New Testament and the Discourse of Sacrifice

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

B

y the time Jesus died in the early first century of the Common Era, sacrifice was already a fixed part of the Graeco-Roman politico-religious environment. It ritualized the balance of human and supernatural power that was thought necessary to maintain the fragile equilibrium of the cosmos. As a ritual practice in the Graeco-Roman world, sacrifice both ensured divine favor and symbolized imperial control throughout the empire. Ruled by imperial control, local communities of the Greek east and Latin west offered sacrifices as an extension of the imperium. The imperial cult thus assured local civic magistrates the largess of imperial benefaction at the same time that it symbolically valorized the emperor and his kingdom. Sacrifice was also an integral part of Judaism. As Jews, the earliest Christians were not unfamiliar with sacrifice since it was a constant feature of daily worship in the Jerusalem Temple. As citizens of the Roman Empire, Christians would have also been familiar with the sacrifices performed twice daily in the Temple on behalf of the emperor.1 As the early Christians began to reflect on the symbolic power of Jesus’ life and death, it was not surpris1. See Josephus, Jewish Wars 2.10.4. According to Philo, Legatio ad Caium (157, 317), these “loyal” sacrifices began during the reign of Augustus and consisted of two lambs and a bull.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

95

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice ing that their letters and narratives revealed sacrificial themes. Jesus of Nazareth was killed as a common criminal, but those who reflected on his death were able to valorize it by interpreting it with sacrificial symbolism. As the “body of Christ” on earth (Romans 12:5; 1 Cor 10:17; 12:12, 13, 20), Christians also began to see themselves as a “living” sacrifice. Thus the earliest Christian writers of the New Testament utilized the rhetoric of sacrifice as an indispensable tool to fashion their own unique religious identity. Marcus Borg contends that the sacrificial “metaphor” surrounding the death of Jesus “was due in part to timing and location.” He argues that since Jesus died during Passover just outside the city of Jerusalem, the sacrificial symbolism of the Passion Narratives was purely coincidental.2 It could also be possible that this sacrificial “metaphor” was not simply a coincidence, but rather a natural result of a worldview in which both Romans and Jews envisioned the intimacy of divine and human power coextensive with lordship and the gift of kingly rule through sacrifice. Christian sacrificial discourse was part and parcel of the sacrificial world of both pagan Rome and Israel. While Christianity was steeped in a world where sacrifice was common, the New Testament lacks any coherent “theology” of sacrifice.3 As a result, this chapter will be a survey of those New Testament passages that employ the rhetoric of sacrifice. 2. Marcus Borg, “How Did Jesus Die for Our Sins?” Bible Review 11.2 (1995), 18. 3. Contra Robert Daly, The Origins of the Christian Doctrine of Sacrifice (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), and his magnum opus, Christian Sacrifice (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1978). Daly maintains that the New Testament does have a discernible “theology” of sacrifice especially in the Pauline writings (Christian Sacrifice, 230). The problematic nature of his conclusion stems from his methodology. Daly admits in the introduction to Christian Sacrifice that his conclusions relative to the New Testament are based on the tripartite division of Origen’s understanding in his Exhortation to Martyrdom (the sacrifice of Christ, the sacrifice of the Christian, and the Christian as exemplar of the “New Temple”). See Origen, Exhortation to Martyrdom XIII, and the insightful analysis by Jean LaPorte, “Origenian Understanding of Martyrdom and Its Biblical Framework,” in Origen of Alexandria: His World and His Legacy, eds. William Petersen and Charles Kannengiesser (South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), 180–99. Daly reads the New Testament through Origen’s categories and does not allow the texts to speak

96

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice The goal of this chapter is to demonstrate how selected passages of the New Testament clarified not only the death of Jesus, but also the life of the Christian as a “sacrifice.” It will begin with an examination of sacrificial symbolism in the Letter to the Hebrews which contains the most overt discussion of sacrifice in the New Testament, and then move to the rhetoric of Paul and the Synoptic Gospels. This chapter will then examine the sacrificial function of the “lamb” in the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation and explore how sacrificial rhetoric was “spiritualized” and applied to the life of all believing Christians. Since the goal is to demonstrate that the New Testament convincingly portrays the death of Jesus as a sacrifice, this chapter will conclude with an excursus into the thought and writings of René Girard, a scholar who does not support this conclusion. As a disclaimer, it is not my intention to attempt to discern whether the historical Jesus considered his impending death to be a sacrifice or not. While the New Testament does provide access to the historical Jesus, it also contains partisan portraits colored by the theological opinion of its writers. These portraits proved to be pivotal in the shaping of early Christianity, irrespective of Jesus’ own self-understanding. Therefore, my intention in this and succeeding chapters is to explore the rhetoric, that is, the modes of persuasive influence that underlie the texts themselves. The textual tradition of the early Christian authors as well as the ritual practices of baptism and Eucharist formed a sacrificial discourse that was ideologically suited to confronting Roman political hegemony in favor of a kingdom of God.

for themselves. Aside from Daly’s work, the scholarship on biblical sacrifice focuses primarily on the Hebrew Bible. New Testament studies are scarce. Some of the classic texts are C. F. D. Moule, The Sacrifice of Christ (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1956); Vincent Taylor, Jesus and His Sacrifice: A Study of the Passion-Sayings in the Gospels (London: Macmillan Press, 1937). See also Bruce Chilton, The Temple of Jesus (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992).

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

97

new testament and discourse of sacrifice Sacrificial Rhetoric in the Letter to the Hebrews

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

The Letter to the Hebrews, more than any other book of the New Testament, is concerned with the themes of sacrifice, priesthood, and cult. The author develops a unique approach to these themes, making close connections between the death of Jesus and the sacrificial traditions of Judaism.4 The main argument of Hebrews is simple: Jesus became both the victim as well as the officiant of a sacrifice that atoned for sin, once, for all, thus replacing the Temple cult and effecting a new mode of access to God. “We have been made holy through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ” (Hebrews 10:10). The “offering” made by Jesus in accord with the divine will is not an interior action but one that involved a sacrifice of blood (9:12).5 The Letter to the Hebrews has been variously described as “an encyclical tract addressed to the Churches of Asia Minor,”6 “a missionary tract intended to convert Jews,”7 “one long argument—a midrash on Psalm 110,”8 “a word of consolation,”9 and 4. I cannot agree with Daly, The Origins of the Christian Doctrine of Sacrifice, 75, and his longer volume Christian Sacrifice, 285, that “there is nothing in [the Letter to the Hebrews] which cannot be harmonized with Paul’s theology of sacrifice.” There is little reason to force Hebrews back into the categories that Origen developed from a myriad biblical texts. 5. John Dunnill, Covenant and Sacrifice in the Letter to the Hebrews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 7, suggests that since its composition, the Letter to the Hebrews has been the subject of intense of debate due to its “tendency to generate contradictions.” This is due in part to the way in which the letter generates the opposite ends of similar themes. For example, we find both a very high Christology—“Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow” (13:8)—and a very low Christology—“Jesus was made lower than the angels” (2:9). The tension between a realized and future eschatology is also offered, sometimes simultaneously, throughout the text. Referring to the promised “rest” that God will give those who believe already have “entered that rest” (4:3), the author at the same time encourages the reader, “let us make every effort to enter that rest” (4:11). 6. John Dunnill, Covenant and Sacrifice, 22. 7. Marie Isaacs, Sacred Space: An Approach to the Theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992), 23. 8. George W. Buchanan, To the Hebrews (New York: Doubleday, 1972), quoted in Richard Johnson, Going Outside the Camp: The Sociological Function of the Levitical Critique in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 20. 9. A. N. Chester, “Hebrews: The Final Sacrifice,” in Sacrifice and Redemption, ed. S. W. Sykes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 57.

98

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

new testament and discourse of sacrifice

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

“a masterpiece of early Christian homiletics.”10 While doctrinal and parenetic, the author, audience, and location of book as whole remain shrouded in obscurity.11 As we know from Acts 3:1ff., the early Christians continued to participate in the daily ritual of Temple sacrifice. This has prompted some scholars to conclude that Hebrews was addressed to a Jewish audience. Koester has shown, however, that Hebrews is sufficiently nuanced to be at home among Gentile Christians as well as Christians from an indeterminate ethnic mix.12 A later editor, persuaded by the peculiarly cultic presentation of Jesus’ death, added the superscription “to the Hebrews.” The purpose of the Letter to the Hebrews appears to be occasioned by a local persecution. “Remember the former days in which . . . you endured a great contest with sufferings” (10:32–34). It would appear that as a result some members are appearing to “drift” from the “word” (2:1). The author’s concern for those who are “drifting away” is born from his conviction that there is no way back. “For if we willfully persist in sin after having received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment” (10:26). The author 10. Harold W. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989), 2. 11. See the various arguments for authorship, location, and audience in Craig Koester, Hebrews: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 48–54. The standard commentaries include Koester and Attridge, as well as Robert Gordon, Hebrews (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000); Paul Ellingworth, Commentary on Hebrews (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993); F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964); Ernst Käseman, The Wandering People of God: An Investigation of the Letter to the Hebrews (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984); Robert Jewett, Letter to Pilgrims: A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (New York: Pilgrim Press, 1981); George W. Buchanan, To the Hebrews (New York: Doubleday, 1972). The classic modern commentaries include Brooke F. Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews (London: MacMillan, 1909); James Moffatt, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (New York: Scribners, 1924); Ceslas Spicq, L’Épître aux Hébreux (Paris: Gabalda, 1953). 12. Koester, Hebrews, 73–82, concludes that Hebrews demonstrates an awareness of a Jewish “subculture” as part of its target audience but is equally conversant with the greater Gentile Graeco-Roman culture as evidenced by its use of formal Greek rhetorical style. He indicates that part of the skill of the Letter is its ability to defy any one single genre, either ancient or modern.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

99

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice uses an a fortiori argument to continue, “How much worse the punishment do you think will be deserved by those who have spurned the Son of God?” (10:28) This rather dark feature of the letter is part of the author’s overall consideration of Jesus’ sacrifice, which done once needs no repetition. “Darkness is not an incidental feature . . . [the Letter to the Hebrews] is obsessed with death” as a means to exaltation.13 Unlike the Gospel of John, Hebrews is not concerned with the cross as a mode of glorification. And unlike Paul, Hebrews does not dwell on the cross or the Easter “victory,” rather, we “fix our eyes on Jesus . . . who endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God” (12:2). The Letter needs no narrative of victory because it linked Jesus’ death to a well-established cultic celebration, that is, the offering of blood by the High Priest on the Day of Atonement. Of course blood cannot be obtained unless you first kill the victim, but the focus in Hebrews is the offering and not the death of Jesus. The author encourages readers to maintain hope because of the faith they have received. The author of Hebrews takes it as axiomatic that the sacrificial system removed the barrier to sin. Sacrificial rituals often defy explanations and the author of Hebrews repeatedly refers to cultic matters without explaining how or why they work. One could ask the author why it is that “without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins” (9:22b), but no answer would be forthcoming. The atoning power of blood is axiomatic for both Israel and the author of Hebrews. “For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves” (Lev 17:11). This decree locates the ritual of atonement as a sacramental act.14 The Levitical decree did 13. Dunnill, “Methodological Rivalries,” 262–63. 14. See Rolf Rendtorff, Leviticus (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1992), 177, on Leviticus 1, where the verb “atone” (kippur) is used as a technical designation for the disposal of blood and the efficacy of God’s action in Israelite sac-

100

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

new testament and discourse of sacrifice

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

not merely announce what God would accomplish in the blood rite; it effected immediately that which it signified. God worked atonement for his people through their performance of the ritual offering of blood. The distinction between differing types of Israelite sacrifice was often determined by how the blood was disposed.15 However, in Hebrews 9:22a the author is aware that “under the Law almost everything is purified with blood.” The author, knowledgeable in the cultic traditions of Israel, appears to be aware of the Levitical regulations whereby other media, most often barley or other grains, could be used when an animal victim could not be supplied for a prescribed sacrifice.16 The argument in chapters 9–10 situates the key preoccupation of Hebrews, namely that the cult of ancient Israel had now been supplanted by the death/exaltation of Jesus. Hebrews is unique in the way in which it concentrates attention on the nature of Jesus as both priest and victim. Jesus, as perfect victim and perfect priest, has fulfilled all that Israel had ever attempted within the symbol system of Israel’s cultic mindset. The author both “affirms and transforms the system while working within it.”17 It is only by appreciating how at the same time the author rifice. See also John Kleinig, “The Blood for Sprinkling: Atoning Blood in Leviticus and Hebrews,” Lutheran Theological Journal, 33 (1999), 126. 15. See Jacob Milgrom, Levticus 1–16 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 149, for a general description of the use of blood in Hebrew sacrificial ritual. See also pages 1033–35 for his detailed exegesis of the use of blood by the High Priest on the Day of Atonement. For the burnt offering and the peace offerings, the blood was “splashed” (zaraq) on the altar. For the sin offering, the blood could be “daubed” (natan) with the finger on the horns of the altar while the remainder was “poured out” (shaphak) at the base of the altar. On the Day of Atonement the High Priest also “sprinkled” (hizzah) the blood on the curtain dividing the Holy of Holies, directing it toward the mercy seat. See Kleinig, “The Blood for Sprinkling,” 127–29, for a detailed schema of the various uses of blood in Levitical sacrifices. 16. Leviticus 5:11 provides that in place of animal sacrifice, “a tenth of an ephah of flour” may be substituted by the poor for the sin-offering. See also Lev 15:16, which implies that a water-bath also effects a similar type of purification after a bodily discharge: “When a man is cleansed from his discharge, he is to count off seven days for his ceremonial cleansing; he must wash his clothes and bathe himself with fresh water, and he will be clean.” 17. Isaacs, Sacred Space, 92.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

101

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice of Hebrews reconstructs and simultaneously deconstructs the cultic system of sacrifice that the reader can see the inner logic of his argument. Because of the superiority of Jesus’ cultic action the entire operation of the cultus is now rendered null and void. This has led some scholars to conclude that Hebrews decries sacrifice as a valid ritual for believers. Chester maintained that in Hebrews we find nothing less than “a radical rejection of the whole Jewish cultus.”18 Similarly Isaacs suggested that the author’s true purpose was to “move his readers away from an understanding of the sacrificial system.”19 Thompson concludes that when the author of Hebrews speaks about Jesus as High Priest entering a “more perfect tabernacle, not man-made” (9:11 and 24), this intimates a metaphysical argument centered on what he calls cosmic dualism. “The author understands Jesus’ death as the ‘sacrifice of himself.’ Thus ‘blood’ does not refer to a substance. It is used to describe Christ’s self-giving at the cross.”20 Scholars such as Thompson find a metaphorical understanding of “blood” more palatable than to admit the obvious cultic, and hence sacrificially explicit, language of the text. The author of Hebrews does not reject the Jewish cult, but rather he goes to great lengths to affirm the need for its sacrificial logic. While he does move his readers away from Jewish sacrificial practice, he embraces the system as a whole, applying it in a novel way to the death of Jesus. While the ritual of the Jewish cult might have been ultimately ineffective to remove sin, this does not mean that the logic and the need for sacrifice has been replaced or abolished. In 9:24–26, the author argues that while the Jewish High 18. Chester, “Final Sacrifice,” 64. Yet he contradicts himself later when he indicates that “the writer is working at the same time with both a positive appraisal of the cultic traditions and also the need to pass a radically negative judgement upon it” (65–66). 19. Isaacs, Sacred Space, 92. 20. Thompson, “Hebrews 9,” 572.

102

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice Priest was required to go into the Holy of Holies repeatedly each year, Jesus as High Priest offered a better sacrifice because he brought his own blood rather than that of bulls or goats. Jesus’ voluntary self-sacrifice atoned for the sins of humanity for all time, unlike the annual repetitive action of the High Priest.21 Jesus’ sacrifice need not, and cannot, be repeated because he was the victim who died once for all. Thus, while the sacrifices performed by the High Priest were logically necessary given Israel’s symbolic system, the author of Hebrews argues that they were ineffective. Jesus’ self-sacrifice is better not only because it needed no repetition, but also because it had the added benefit of cleansing the “conscience.” While the Temple sacrifice atoned for the build-up of sin that had accrued to the sanctuary the previous year, Hebrews mentions it did little to effect a change in the real lives of the people. Jesus’ sacrifice, while atoning for all the sins of the people, also had the wider effect of assuaging interior human guilt as well (9:14). Conscience (syneide¯sis) should not be understood here as the moral regulator as we, in the postFreudian age, have understood the concept. Rather, the word here indicates the inner sense of human guilt. The author of Hebrews sees the weakness of the Levitical cult in that “it provided no legislation for a guilty conscience.”22 The sacrifice of Jesus thus achieved what was originally intended in the Jewish cult; however, it did so more effectively. While the author considered the need for further sacrifices in the Temple redundant, the underlying sacrificial ideology that was constitutive of its meaning was kept intact. Hebrews not only manifests but also consciously interprets 21. The author indicates that through the offering of Jesus’ body the Law and the first covenant are abolished (10:9). The problem is that God was both the author of the Law and the covenant. Thus the question arises, why would God want Jesus to abolish the Law that he himself had created? Koester, Hebrews, 439, argues that despite the apparent problem, “the key point for Hebrews . . . is that God remains constant in his purpose, which is that the people be sanctified.” 22. Isaacs, Sacred Space, 98.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

103

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice the sacrificial rhetoric of Leviticus. This has led scholars to locate the origin of the Letter’s sacrificial rhetoric within a myriad of sources. Thompson locates Hebrew’s interpretative model in Hellenistic philosophy, specifically the disdain evidenced for blood sacrifices in Plato as well as the writings of Philo.23 While Philo never rejected Temple sacrifices, he did maintain that one could have a pure soul without any material cult, provided that the officiant comes with pure intent.24 Chester, on the other hand, locates the origins of Hebrew’s unique interpretation of sacrifice in Jewish and Rabbinic models. He cites the post-70 ce Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah, who lamented, “‘Woe to us, for the place where the iniquities of Israel were atoned is destroyed!’ Yohannan replied, ‘Do not grieve my son, for we have an atonement which is just as good, namely deeds of mercy, as Scripture says, “For I desire mercy and not sacrifice.”’”25 Chester’s argument is that just as Judaism was able to reinterpret the meaning of sacrifice after the destruction of the Temple, such an ideology was already advocated and re-interpreted by the author of Hebrews. Chester also repeats the suggestion offered by Jacob Neusner that the Mishnah’s emphasis on a non-existent sacrificial cult as late as the third century ce might be a reaction to Hebrews’ declaration of the cult’s inefficiency, although he quickly suggests that there is no proof to substantiate such a claim.26 It is possible that any search for the origins of the sacrificial rhetoric within the Letter to the Hebrews is fruitless. The author of Hebrews, as well as early Christianity, Judaism, and Graeco23. See Thompson, “Hebrews 9,” 576ff. See also Plato Laws 12. 955e, where he raises the question about material sanctuaries made of gold and silver. 24. Philo, On Special Laws 1.272: “And even if they bring nothing else, still when they bring themselves, the most perfect completeness of virtue and excellence, they are offering the most excellent of all sacrifices,” trans. Charles Yonge, available from Early Christian Writings at http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/ yonge/index.html (accessed May 1, 2004). 25. According to A ‘ bot Rabbi Nathan, quoted in Thompson, “Hebrews 9,” 567, n. 3. 26. Chester, “Final Sacrifice,” quoting J. Neusner, A History of the Mishnaic Law of Holy Things, vol. 4 (Leiden: Brill, 1980), 69.

104

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

roman religion and sacrificial practice Roman religions, in general, were all steeped in a rhetoric of sacrifice. As outlined in chapter one, “sacrifice” takes on many and varied ritual forms, all of which form a tapestry that religious communities used to express the relationships of power among peoples as well as between people and their gods. Hebrews represents yet another use of the rhetoric of Levitical sacrifice and constitutes one formative element in early Christian sacrificial discourse attempting to make sense of the death of Jesus. Hebrews’ statement that humanity has been “sanctified” through the sacrifice of Jesus’ body (10:10) points to the paradox that faced the early Christians as they attempted to understand the death of Jesus within a Jewish context. A dead body brought defilement, not sanctification (Nm 19:11). While crucifixion was demeaning and humiliating in the greater Graeco-Roman world, it was considered a curse under Jewish Law. In order to make sense of the death of Jesus the early Christians used the rhetoric of sacrifice to persuade believers that what happened to Jesus was in keeping within the divine plan.27 Much of the debate about understanding “sacrifice” in Hebrews stems from a misunderstanding of the constitutive elements of any sacrificial ritual. Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss have shown that sacrificial rituals are often used to invert the norms of human behavior, thus creating a positive control of disorder by containing it within limits that are defined and prescribed.28 A farmer culls his herd by killing off older animals in order to protect the efficiency of his herd by allowing food to be 27. I cannot agree with Chester, “Final Sacrifice,” 70ff.: “if the death of Christ was the final sacrifice, then what further place has sacrifice within a Christian world of meaning? If a model is redundant, then it is best to abandon it.” Hebrews does declare the mechanics of the sacrificial cult redundant, but this does not preclude the use of “sacrifice” as a discursive tool for understanding humanity’s relationship to the God of Israel or Christianity. For a detailed discussion of the relationship between the sacrifice of Jesus in Hebrews and the Jewish Law, see Koester, Hebrews, 440–42. 28. H. Hubert and M. Mauss, Sacrifice: Its Nature and Function (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), 30 [French original, 1898]. See also J. van Baal, “Offering, Sacrifice, and Gift,” Numen, 23 (1975): 161–78.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

105

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice allocated to those animals that will be productive. Taking a life invokes what appears as disorder for the sake of creation. While no one single theory of sacrifice can do justice to the range of phenomena under this heading, Hubert and Mauss noticed that Israelite sacrifices could serve two irreconcilable goals—warding off divine anger and obtaining divine favor. “It is already a remarkable fact that . . . sacrifice could serve two such contradictory aims as that of inducing a state of sanctity and that of dispelling a state of sin.” In their analysis of the variety of sacrifices, they noticed that rites of sacralization and rites of expiation were all effected through the same action—a ritual called “sacrifice.”29 This is clearly evident in the Passover ritual. While the killing of the lamb is described as a “slaughter” and not a sacrifice, the lamb, as victim, was still used for both expiation and sacralization. In order to avert the wrath of God as destroyer, the Israelites were instructed to put the blood of the lamb on their doorposts (Exodus 12:12). At the same time they were to ritually roast the victim, celebrating the day as a festival and even going so far as to share the meat with their neighbors (Exodus 12:4 and 14). The Passover ritual functioned as a “rite of passage.” Israel, located between Egyptian slavery and freedom in the promised land, ritualized its liminal experience through the death of a victim. The lamb both averted the wrath of God and allowed God to create new communal life for the people of Israel. Thus, the sacrifices of the Jerusalem Temple functioned to both expiate and sacralize. The Temple was a sacred space where the holiness of God had to be protected from the impurity of 29. Hubert and Mauss, Sacrifice, 58–59. In the h.att.a˙t sacrifice, once the blood has been taken into the sanctuary, the victim is rendered impure and must be burned outside the camp. In the še¯lamı¯m, once the blood has been poured at the base of the altar, portions of the victim are eaten. Hubert and Mauss ask: What difference was there then between the impurity of the victim of the first h.att.a˙t and the sacred character of the victim of the še¯lamı¯m? None—or rather there was no theological difference between the expiatory sacrifices and the sacrifices of sacralization.

106

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice creation. But in order for a human person to protect the holiness of God, they themselves had to become “holy.” In short, the closer one approached God the “more” pure one needed to be. In order to obtain this purity one had to undergo rituals that were socially defined by Israel as effecting states of purification. At the first stage of purification one was described as “cleansed,” however a person still needed to be sanctified (or set apart) to enter the forecourt of the tabernacle (usually reserved for the priests). To enter the Holy of Holies, the cleanest and holiest part of the tabernacle, one had to be in the holiest state possible in order to make atonement (done only by the High Priest, once a year).30 This is why the High Priest sacrificed a bull first, to sanctify himself, before he could make atonement for the sin of the people. Only then could he bring about atonement since God had to be, in effect, protected from the inherent impurity caused by “the world.” This was accomplished yearly by the High Priest on the Day of Atonement and, according to Hebrews, once for all by Jesus’ sacrifice (10:11–12). However, since Jesus was ultimately sinless he did not need to offer any animal sacrifice, but he offered himself completely (vis-à-vis his death) for the sins of all humanity for all of time. The effect of “atonement” served both to remove any sin that might remain as well as to avert the wrath of God that could result if one approached in a state of impurity.31 This is why Hebrews indicates that Jesus died as a ransom “to set believers free from the sins committed under the first covenant (9:15). For the author of Hebrews, God the destroyer had to be appeased because of the impurity that had unwittingly accumulated since the foundation of the first covenantal agreement. The sacrifice of Jesus thus expiated, or atoned for the “sin” of the world. At 30. The schema presented is Koester’s. See his work, Hebrews 119–122 for an analysis of the “purification,” “sanctification,” and “atonement” needed in the Jerusalem Temple and their rhetorical function in the Letter to the Hebrews. 31. Ibid., 122.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

107

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice the same time, the blood of Jesus effected a new sacralization of humanity—“those who are called [will] receive the promised inheritance” (9:15). The author here plays on the word diathe¯ke¯, which can mean “testament” or “covenant.” In the Roman world the beneficiaries of an estate only received the inheritance bequeathed in the last will and “testament” after the testator had died. Thus Hebrews emphasizes the real offering of Jesus’ blood and the physical nature of his death as the guarantee of a “new” covenant promised by such prophets as Jeremiah ( Jer 31:33). This new covenant resulted in “salvation for those who eagerly await” Jesus’ return (Hebrews 9:28). A believer can take hope in the blessings they have received because “there remains a Sabbath for the people of God” (4:9). This hope of entering an eternal Sabbath rest means that the listeners “will experience life that transcends the mortality of the present . . . they will join in a festival celebration in the ‘unshakeable kingdom (12:22–29)’”32 Thus Jesus’ sacrificial death was a guarantee of all that God had promised. It sealed the guarantee of an even better covenant. My point in the foregoing analysis is to show that Hebrews weds together the paradoxical polarities that are constitutive of sacrificial rituals in general. In 9:13, the author conflates the sacrificial practice of offering goats with the ashes of the red heifer ceremony. While the slaughter of the red heifer in Numbers 19:3–10 was not part of the rites on the Day of Atonement nor technically a sacrifice, its blood was used by the High Priest and its ashes were mixed with water in order to purify one who had come into contact with a corpse. Later in the same chapter (9:19) he conflates the sacrificial blood used by Moses to inaugurate the first covenant in Exodus 24 with hyssop, scarlet wool, and water. Hyssop was used to daub the door posts with blood at the first Passover (Exodus 12:21). Hyssop, a scarlet material, and water were also used to cleanse lepers in Leviticus 14:4–6. 32. Ibid., 280.

108

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice Daly overstates the case when he indicates that “the author was not at all concerned to present the Old Testament accurately.”33 Rather, the author is skillfully (even if inaccurately) weaving together the many and varied threads of an elaborate Jewish sacrificial discourse in order to highlight the tension and paradox that undergird the understanding of Jesus’ death as a sacrifice. The sacrificial offering of Jesus’ blood both drives away and binds; it expiates and builds a communion at the same moment. In short, Hebrews utilizes the fullest possible range of sacrificial rhetoric as it attempts to understand the death of Jesus, irrespective of specific textual accuracy. The final exhortation in the Letter commends believers to “continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise” (13:15). In keeping with a cultic metaphor, the author suggests that the believers “have an altar from which those who serve in the tent have no authority to eat” (13:10). While Catholic scholars such as Daly have acknowledged an “indirect Eucharistic reference” in 13:10, Protestant scholars such as Dunnill have noted that since the victims on the Day of Atonement are burned and not eaten, Jesus’ death as depicted in Hebrews cannot be linked to any meal, including the Eucharist.34 While altars are not attested for use in the Christian Eucharist before the second century,35 the statement is part of this author’s overall creation of ambiguity to highlight the complex nature of his understanding of Jesus’ sacrificial death. Given that the Jews had an altar in the Jerusalem Temple (although it is unclear whether it still stood when Hebrews was written), and altars abounded in Graeco-Roman world of the first century, Christians were one of the few religious groups that did not possess altars. The author plays on the obvious contradiction to indicate that Christians gather at 33. Daly, Christian Sacrifice, 273. 34. See Daly, Christian Sacrifice, 281, 285; as well as Dunnill, Covenant and Sacrifice, 240. 35. According to Koester, Hebrews, 569.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

109

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice this metaphorical sacrificial site every time they make an offering through Jesus. A Christian who offers his or her life in God’s service, presumably through baptism, thereby effects a metaphorical sacrifice. This cultic motif continues in the exhortation as believers are commanded to make a continual offering (13:15). These offerings are called a “sacrifice of praise.” No one can directly approach God, so these metaphorical sacrifices are offered to God through Jesus. A “sacrifice of praise” is very much at home in the Hebrew Bible.36 Attridge has shown how the tendency to describe this phenomenon as the “spiritualization” of sacrifice is problematic at best.37 Unlike Daly, Koester maintains that “the author is not spiritualizing the notion of sacrifice,” since the believer is exhorted to serve their fellow Christians, as well as strangers and prisoners (13:1–5) with concrete acts of charity. Koester argues that these “sacrifices of praise” are not replacements or substitutions for blood sacrifices, “but tangible responses to the physical sacrifice of Christ’s blood.”38 Thus the author of Hebrews uses the wide variety of Jewish sacrificial forms and terminology primarily to understand the death of Jesus within the greater rhetoric of sacrifice. His unique approach to the death of Jesus unmistakably links Jesus’ death to the complex ritual and cultic traditions of Israel only to deconstruct them in order to show believers that the sacrifice of Jesus was simply better and far more efficacious than any other Jewish or Graeco-Roman sacrifice could have been.

36. The word used as a sacrifice “of praise” (aijnevsew~) is rendered by the LXX Greek translation of Lev 7:4 as the “thanksgiving offering” (qusiva th§~ aijnevsew~). This could be an animal or grain offering. In Ps 50:14, 23; 51:15–17; and 69:30–31 the phrase refers to verbal acclamations of praise. 37. Attridge, Hebrews, 400–01. 38. Koester, Hebrews, 578.

110

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

new testament and discourse of sacrifice Sacrifice in the Letters of Paul

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

Paul presumes that his readers are well acquainted with sacrificial practices. In 1 Corinthians 9:13 he writes: “Don’t you know that those who work in the temple get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar?” In chapter 10 of the same letter Paul also presupposes that the Corinthians are aware that both Jews (whom he stylizes as the “Israel according to the flesh”), as well as others who perform sacrifices effect a type of communion or sharing (koinonı¯a) with the altar (thusiasta¯rion). Most scholars understand “sharing with the altar” as a euphemism for sacrifices shared with the deity.39 Paul’s writing therefore presupposes not only familiarity with the sacrificial world of both Jews and non-Christians, his rhetoric also reveals an understanding of sacrifice as a cultic action that binds participants with each other and with the deity in a type of ritualized communion meal. In the same letter, however, Paul also makes use of the notion of sacrifice as expiation specifically in relationship to the death of Jesus. His understanding of the death of Jesus is best illustrated by 1 Corinthians 5:7, where he indicates that “Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed.”40 Keeping in mind that 39. See the detailed analysis of the thusiasta¯rion in Wendell Willis, Idol Meat in Corinth: The Pauline Argument in I Corinthians 8 and 10 (Chico: Scholars Press, 1985), 184–86. Interestingly Willis (185) points out that Hugo Gressman noted that “it was the divine numen which is referred to in this word” (italics added). Willis’ thorough analysis also reveals that thusiasta¯rion can simply refer to the sacrifice “placed upon the altar,” as is evidenced by the LXX’s use of the word over 500 times to translate the Hebrew mizb-eah.. Given Willis’ zeal to eliminate “sacramentalism” from the concept of koino¯nia, he dismisses the work of Gressman. 40. 1 Cor 5:7 reads “kai gar to pascha he¯mo¯n etuthe¯ christos.” The NRSV, REB, and NIV translate this verse as our Passover (or Paschal) lamb. The KJV, AV, and NJK simply use our passover. The verb etuthe¯ (slaughter or sacrifice) implies the object “lamb,” which is rendered by most English translations. See the study by D. O. Wenthe, “An Exegetical Study of I Corinthians 5:7b,” The Spring Fielder, 30 (1974), 134–40. The Greek etuthe¯ is a cognate of the verb thuo¯, which the Septuagint uses to translate the Hebrew zebah.. It can be translated either “sacrifice” or “slaughter.” On the close connection between them, see Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 367, hereafter BAG.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

111

new testament and discourse of sacrifice

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

Exodus 12:6 refers simply to the “slaughter” zebah. of the Passover lamb, the manner in which it was ritually selected, cooked, and consumed must have contributed to Paul’s understanding of its death as a sacrifice.41 The Hebrew zebah. (slaughter) is not used consistently in the Pentateuchal texts. The Passover described in Exodus 12 clearly refers to a family festival celebrated without a priesthood or an altar, however the same ritual description found in Deuteronomy 16 clearly presupposes that the Passover was a sacrifice and that it was cultically observed in the Jerusalem Temple.42 In the following verse Paul encourages his hearers to “keep the festival,” metaphorically referring to the celebration of freedom won for Israel by God’s victory over the Egyptians at the first Passover. For Paul, the blood of the Passover lamb was a symbol of a freedom that resulted from a sacrificial act. As the blood of the Passover lamb marked the identity of “Israel according to the flesh,” participation in the eucharistic blood of Jesus will mark the identity of the Christian in 11:25–26.43 While Paul does not attempt to develop any theory of the atonement in chapter 5,44 it is clear that he considers the slaughter of the 41. The Mishnaic tract Pesahim 5:2 has an overarching concern for the validity of the rite as well as repeated instructions regarding the proper execution of the blood rite (5:3–8; 7:7; 8:3). This provides evidence that perhaps in the Tannaitic period the sacrificial understanding of the Passover was operative. With respect to the sacrifice of the lamb for the celebration of the Seder at Passover, Rabbi Gamliel is recorded to have said that, “whoever does not say these three things on Passover has not fulfilled his obligations,” the first being that a lamb was sacrificed. Interesting here is the fact that a sentence about ritual has in fact become and replaced the original ritual when the Temple was destroyed. The ritual of sacrifice, displaced by the destruction of the Temple, was subsequently replaced by ritual speech that became part of the Passover Haggadah. See J. Z. Smith, “Trading Places,” in Ancient Magic and Ritual Power, ed. M. Meyer and P. Mirecki (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995), 13–28. 42. Deuteronomy 16:5 reads, “You must not sacrifice the Passover in any town the lord your God gives you except in the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name” (i.e., Jerusalem). 43. As observed by Anthony Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 406. 44. See James Dunn, “Paul’s Understanding of the Death of Jesus,” in Sacrifice and Redemption, ed. S. W. Sykes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), especially 48–50 on propitiation and atonement.

112

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

new testament and discourse of sacrifice

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

Passover victim to be a sacrificial action, and that he considers the death of Jesus to have the same sacrificial meaning. The Passover lamb both averted God’s wrath (expiation) and at the same time marked out the newly liberated family of Israel (communion). To say that because the Passover lamb was not specifically designated as a “sacrifice” in the Book of Exodus, and therefore Paul could not have used it as a sacrificial symbol, is to ignore the flexibility and the paradoxical quality that lies within the sacrificial discourse itself and is already attested in Deuteronomy and the Mishnah’s interpretation of Passover.45 Paul takes up the question of meat sacrificed to idols in chapters 8 and 10 of First Corinthians. Since temple sacrifices were routinely eaten after religious rites were completed, the Christians in Corinth would have been very familiar with the practices of their non-Christian neighbors.46 While eating meat offered to idols was prohibited by Jewish custom, it clearly posed a problem for the non-Jewish Christian converts in Corinth as well.47 In the Hellenistic world public festivals would have provided sacrificial meat for the greatest number of people, however Willis notes that sacrificial meat made available by private associations would have been more frequent.48 Such groups were 45. As noted by Loren Johns, The Lamb Christology of the Apocalypse of John (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 29. Dennis E. Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 190, finds that “the explanation that makes the most sense is that of the martyrological background.” Willis, Idol Meat, 208, maintains that “it was short step from the concept of covenant community formed by Christ’s sacrificial death to terming this meal a sacrifice.” 46. See Dennis E. Smith, Symposium, 173–217. 47. Tractate Chullin 2:18 of the Mishnah: “When one slaughters an animal in honor of the sun, the moon, the stars, the signs of the zodiac, the great archangel Michael, or even for a tiny worm, lo, it is thus meat of an offering for the dead.” Quoted in W. Orr and James Walther, I Corinthians (New York: Doubleday, 1976), 228. Orr and Walther note that Rabbi Akiba did not allow sacrificial meat to be eaten, but when in doubt as to its origin it could be sold, presumably to non-Jews. 48. Willis, Idol Meat, 14. See also pages 18–21 where he proposes two models to understand the possible meanings attached to such sacrificial meals. In the “communal model,” the meal was an occasion of conscious worship where the deity symbolically dined with the participants. In the “social model,” a portion was allotted to the deity, but the focus was on the social relationship among the participants. The deity acted more as observer than participant.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

113

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice considered “religious” because their meetings were often held under the aegis of a patron deity. Sacrificial meat that was not consumed was made available for sale from the local temple sponsoring the sacrifice. That Paul devoted considered time to the question of “meat offered to idols” indicates that it was a serious matter for both him and the Christians in Corinth. The argument advanced by the Corinthians appeared to be simple epistemology: since they “knew” that idols are not real (given the creedal formula in 8:5–6 affirming the oneness of God), eating meat offered to an “idol” was not really an act of idolatry. They believed that by acting on this knowledge and by eating sacrificial meat they would empower “weaker” members to act in a similar manner based on the same knowledge.49 Paul’s reply encompasses chapters 8 and 10 of First Corinthians. He states that “knowledge” (gnosis) is not always a cogent criterion for decision making since it has the ability to “puff up” (8:1), whereas “love” (agape) maximizes the potential to build up the entire community. For Paul, love means being aware of the impact of one’s actions on others. The Christian must be careful that one’s conduct does not act as a “stumbling block” (proskomma) that would lead others to destruction (8:9). Given such an ethical stance, Paul admits that he himself would not eat meat if it meant that a fellow member of the community would be scandalized by such an action (8:13). In chapter 10 Paul again takes up the argument, first by reviewing the history of Israel (10:1–13) to suggest that the moments of weakness narrativized in the sacred texts were meant as a warning from God. Therefore he implores the Corinthians in 10:14: “Flee from the worship of idols” (eido¯lolatria).50 His urgent appeal is directed to the Corinthians who still wish to per49. So concludes Willis, Idol Meat, 111. 50. Smith, Symposium, 343 n. 21, indicates that non-Christians would not have used the term “idol” in their sacrificial worship. The normal Greek term would have been hierothyton to describe that which was “sacrificed for sacred purposes.” Paul’s

114

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

new testament and discourse of sacrifice

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sist in eating meat offered in local temples. His argument is based on the idea that any “sacrifice” effects a sincere “sharing” (koino¯nia). He uses three examples: Christian sacrifice (10:16–17), Jewish sacrifice (10:18), and local civic sacrifices (10:19–21). Willis notes, that although local temple sacrifices were based on unreal deities for the Christian, the pagan meal is still a threat: “It is a real koino¯nia, even if based on demons.”51 The idea that a sacrifice effects a type of koino¯nia (often translated as “communion” or “sharing” or “participation”) predates Paul and is found in Plato.52 The use of the word ranges in meaning from the friendly association of participants who offer sacrifice as evidenced from Plutarch’s usage, to the mystical unity of participants and their deity. Aelius Aristides indicated that in sacrifices to his patron god Sarapis, the koino¯nia effected was a unity between the god and the officiant.53 While the Septuause of the term eido¯lothyton (rendered as “idol sacrifice”) was a Jewish term, used pejoratively to cast a negative evaluation on food offered in sacrifice. 51. Ibid., 167. Willis goes to great lengths to deny what he terms any “sacramentalism” present in the concept of koino¯nia when this idea is associated with sacrificial practice. After a lengthy analysis of the ancient uses of koino¯nia in the description of sacrificial cultic acts, he concludes: “these words simply describe a relationship between two or more people (or things) sharing with a third person (or thing). It is really begging the question to assume the presence of these words in cultic speech implies sacramentalism” (Idol Meat, 174). By “sacramentalism” he understands the union of a deity and an officiant in a sacrificial action. However, Robertson-Smith, Frazer, Durkheim, Burkert, and Girard have provided ample examples of just such a sacramental unity in the sacrificial practices of nonwestern ancient peoples. I would argue that the communion effected by a sacrificial action has both vertical and horizontal efficacy, though this is not present in every sacrifice or in every culture at the same time. To deny any “sacramental” presence presupposes more a biased understanding of what constitutes “sacramentalism” than a clear theory of how koino¯nia (participation or sharing) is present in ritual sacrifice. 52. See Hauck, “κοινωνέω,” in G. Kittel, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 3, 798–809 and the dated but relevant article by George Jourdan, “ΚΟΙΝΩΝΕΩ in I Corinthinans 10:16,” Journal of Biblical Literature 67 (1947): 111– 24. In the Symposium 188b Plato maintained that “the sole concern of every rite and divination—that is to say, the means of communication (koino¯nia) between god and man—is either the preservation or the repair of love” (translated by Michael Joyce in Plato—Collected Dialogues, eds. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961], 541). 53. See Plutarch, Quaestiones Conviviales 10.64f., and Aelius Aristides, Sarapis VIII: “men share in a special way the truest communion [koino¯nia] to this god alone,

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

115

new testament and discourse of sacrifice

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

gint rarely uses the term koino¯nia, it is found in Philo and quite often in Josephus. Willis notes that in Josephus’ discussion the term is used to express the mutual obligations between God and worshipper in a manner related to Paul’s use of the term in First Corinthians.54 Paul’s complaint in 1 Corinthians 10:20 is that sacrifices offered in local temples effect a koino¯nia with demons.55 While it is not clear what Paul meant by demons, it is clear that they are the recipients of what is sacrificed to idols. Willis notes that it is not “the fear of demons which Paul has foremost on his mind, but that being involved in these cult meals involves one with a tacit recognition of supernatural powers opposed to God. . . . Just as one shows his master by whom he serves (Romans 6:16ff.), so also one shows his allegiance by the worship in which he participates.”56 Given Paul’s understanding that any sacrificial ritual effects a powerful koino¯nia, he rhetorically asks in 10:16: “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation (koino¯nia) in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?”57 Whether Paul understood the koino¯nia of 10:16 as a “sacramental” union between God and humanity or merely an “assoas they invite him to the altar and appoint him as guest and host.” Both sources are quoted in Willis, Idol Meat, 173. 54. Josephus, Against Apion 2.196f.: “Our sacrifices are not occasions for drunken self-indulgence. . . . At these sacrifices prayer for the welfare of the community [koine¯s] must take precedence of those for ourselves; for we are born for fellowship [koino¯nia], and he who sets its claims above his private interests is specially acceptable to God.” Quoted from Willis, Idol Meat, 181. 55. 1 Cor 10:20b: “ou thelo¯ de humas koino¯nous to¯n daimonio¯n” (I do not wish you to become “sharers” or “participants” with demons). 56. Willis, Idol Meat, 193. 57. It must be noted that Paul has inverted the more traditional order (bread, then cup) found later in the same letter (11:23), as well as in Matthew and Mark. Willis (Idol Meat, 193–95) concluded, with the majority of scholars, that this resulted from the pre-Pauline character of the original expression as found in 11:23 and in Matthew and Mark. In 10:16 Paul’s inversion of the order is a conscious desire to link the idea of bread/body to the Christian assembly with the next verse: “we who are many are one body because we partake of one loaf ” (10:17)

116

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice ciation” among believers who shared a common cup is beyond the scope of the present study. Instead two points based on this pivotal text must be explored. First, that the mention of the “blood” of Jesus at the beginning of the verse entails an understanding on Paul’s part of the sacrificial nature of Jesus’ death. And second, that the koino¯nia produced by the believer’s ritual participation in the Christian cultic meal is as real as the koino¯nia produced through the eating of meat sacrificed to idols. Therefore, Paul warns the Corinthians that while a sacrifice to nonexistent gods might be meaningless, the resultant koino¯nia is, in effect, an affront to the God of Jesus since it is a real koino¯nia with the demonic. Paul is echoing the tradition of Hellenistic sacrificial practice, namely that the death of the victim is only one element in the meaning of “sacrifice.” The ideological and social borders that are formed through the complex discourse of sacrifice (killing-cooking-eating-sharing) are more important that the death of the victim. In 1 Corinthians 11 Paul appears concerned about believers who have gathered for the communal meal but begin to eat ahead of others, thereby causing division in the community. Beginning in verse 23 he reiterates what was originally handed down to him and what follows in verses 23–26 is what Dennis Smith calls “a text of the Jesus story.”58 The meal pictured by Paul contains all the elements of a traditional Graeco-Roman banquet. While “at supper” (the traditional deipnon of the Graeco-Roman banquet), a blessing is invoked over the bread, which is then shared. Jesus interprets the bread as his body and any future enactment should 58. Smith, Symposium, 188–89. Smith notes that Paul’s mention specifically of the “Lord Jesus” in verse 23 “removes the text from any historical imagining.” As in Phil 2:11, the title “Lord” is pronounced only after Jesus is exalted to the heavens; the “meal being pictured here takes place on a mythological level,” borrowing motifs from the messianic banquet that takes places in the heavenly sphere. He cites Aelius Aristides, Hymn to Sarapis 54:13–15, where Sarapis is also called “Lord” and envisioned as a mythic host of a sacred meal whereby participants commune with the god while dining.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

117

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice be seen as a memorial meal. Following the meal proper, the traditional symposium begins with the sharing of cup of wine. Since Paul admits that what he relates did not originate with him, the function of this text at Christian meals in Paul’s time remains unclear. This meal, called by Paul “the Lord’s Supper” in 11:20, appears to have been formative for the early Christians as a community of believers.59 While what has commonly been called the “Institution Narrative” will be explored along with the Synoptic Gospel accounts, it is instructive to point out the sacrificial language already present in Christian texts as early as Paul’s writing. In 1 Corinthians 11: 25 Paul, quoting Jesus, says, “this is my body which is for [huper] you,” and also “this cup is the new covenant in my blood [kaine¯ deathe¯ke¯ estin en to¯ emo¯ haimati].” That Paul accepted the death of Jesus as a sacrifice is attested by his use of the word huper to locate the expiatory quality of Jesus’ death on behalf of, or for, others.60 In keeping with the tradition of the covenant sacrifice of Exodus 24, in 1 Corinthians 11:25 Paul reiterates a traditional formula that already had understood the death of Jesus expressed by the cup representing a new covenant in blood (en to¯ . . . haimati). Because Paul is merely expressing what had been handed down to him, the sacrificial quality of Jesus’ death must have been recognized very early in Christian rhetoric. In two syntactically difficult passages, one in 2 Corinthi59. I cannot agree with Smith (Symposium, 190), when he understands the identification of bread and wine with the death of Jesus as stemming from a martyrological background. He notes that “the language of ‘body for you’ and ‘shedding of blood’” had already become established terminology for the death of the martyr. Jesus’ death could easily have been interpreted very quickly as a martyrdom. While he states that “the evidence suggests that [this] was the case,” he offers none to back up this claim. The martyrological associations applied to the death of the historical Jesus are somewhat anachronistic, given that Smith, and others who make the same argument, fail to define what they mean by “martyrdom.” 60. Daly, Christian Sacrifice, 237. Daly notes that the vicarious nature of Jesus’ sacrificial death is attested by the Greek huper in 2 Cor 5:14; Romans 5:6–11; Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 5:2, 25; Colossians 1:24; 1 Timothy 2:5; Titus 2:13; and 1 John 3:16.

118

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

new testament and discourse of sacrifice

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

ans and the other in Romans, Paul indicates that God made Jesus, who did not know “sin” (hamartia), to be “sin” (hamartia).61 The double use of the word “sin” suggests Paul’s understanding of the sacrificial nature of Jesus’ death as a “sin offering.” This view is supported by Daly, who maintains that Paul’s double use of the word “sin” is a play on the Hebrew words in Leviticus 4:25 and 29, where h.att.a˙t means both “sin” and “sinoffering.”62 Victor Furnish rejects such a conclusion in 2 Corinthians since it would introduce an “idea foreign to the context. . . . It is more likely Paul is thinking in a general way of Christ’s identification with sinful humanity.”63 However, in Romans 8:3, where Paul again uses the double occurrence of hamartia, Brendan Byrne notes that the phrase to peri te¯s hamartias regularly occurs in the Septuagint as a translation of an explanatory comment indicating the purpose and effect of rituals (slaughtered or sacrificial animals and the sprinkling of their blood) prescribed for the expiation of sin.64 The scriptural allusion that most scholars find behind Paul’s 61. 2 Cor 5:21: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (τὸν μὴ ἁμαρτίαν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἁμαρτίαν ἐποίησεν). And Romans 8:3: “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh could not do; sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin,” (ὁ θεὸς to;n eJautou§ uio;n pevmya~ ἐν ὁμοιώτατι σαρκὸς ἁμαρτίας καὶ περὶ ἁμαρτίας) “he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.” Dunn, “Paul’s Understanding,” 51, notes that in 2 Cor 5:19 Paul has already indicated that “God was in Christ” reconciling the world. Jesus represented “God” to sinful humanity, and “humanity” to a merciful God. Dunn thus avoids the language of propitiation with regard to a theology of atonement in Paul. 62. Daly, Christian Sacrifice, 238–39. 63. Victor Paul Furnish, II Corinthians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Garden City: Doubleday, 1984), 340. However, later he maintains that “Christ, then was made sin—not ‘a sinner’—in the sense that he was made to bear the burden of sin. . . . In these passages Paul is dependent upon traditional ideas of atonement” (351). If Paul was dependent upon traditional modes of atonement, then it is quite possible that he did intend Jesus’ death to be a type of “sin-offering” and not merely an abstract idea like “sin.” Daly (Christian Sacrifice, 239) does note, however, that hamartia is not used to designate a “sin-offering” anywhere else in the New Testament. 64. Brendan Byrne, Romans (Collegeville: Michael Glazier, 1996), 243. See Lev 4:3, 14, 28, 35; 5:6,7,8,10,11,13; Nm 6:16, 7:16; 2 Chron 29:23–24; Ezekiel 42:13, 43:19.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

119

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice thinking is the Suffering Servant in the Septuagint Greek translation of Isaiah 53:10, where the servant is crushed “because of his sins” (peri te¯s hamartias). The Hebrew text of the same verse notes that the servant was a guilt-offering (˙asˇa- m) one of the traditional sacrificial offerings of ancient Israel. Therefore, while there is no consensus on Paul’s double use of the word “sin” in either Romans 8:3 or 2 Cor 5:21, it is quite conceivable that Paul understood Jesus’ death within the symbolism of Jewish sacrificial offerings. Such an explanation is plausible even to the mixed audience of Jewish and Gentile Christians that Paul addressed in Corinth and Rome. The allusion to a specific Jewish sacrificial practice would have been more easily received (but perhaps not completely understood) than comparing Jesus’ likeness to an abstract quality such as “sin.” Given the Septuagint’s use of hamartia as a translation for ˚ašam in Isaiah 53, it is conceivable that Paul’s double allusion to hamartia referred not to an abstract concept such as sin, but to the “sin-offering” which was common in the Hebrew Bible. Such a translation is also in keeping with Paul’s notion of the sacrificial quality of Jesus’ death.65 One final Pauline passage must be considered, Romans 3:24– 25: “[24] . . . they [sinners] are justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus [25] whom God put forward [proetheto] as an expiation [hilaste¯rion] by his blood to be received by faith.”66 This is the first and only usage of the word hilaste¯rion in the Pauline corpus. It is used again only in Hebrews 9:5, where it refers not to Jesus but to the furnishings in the Temple. It is related to the verb hilaskesthai, which means “to appease” or “propitiate,” often used by classical Greek writers in 65. The second century text the Epistle of Barnabas 5:1–2 makes an explicit connection between Jesus’ death and the sacrifice offered by the Suffering Servant of Isaiah. 66. The translation is mine. (24) δικαιούμενοι δωρεὰν τhÛ` aujtou§ cavriti dia; th`~ ajpolutrwvsew~ th§~ ejn Cristw`/ jIhsou§ (25) ὁ ̀ν προέθετο ὁ θεὸς ἱλαστήριον διὰ [τῆς] πίστεως έν τῷ αὐτοῦ αῐματι.

120

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice reference to assuaging the anger of the gods.67 When first used by the Septuagint in Exodus 25:17, hilaste¯rion translates the Hebrew hakkappo¯ret (which referred to the gold lid that covered the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies, commonly referred to as the “Mercy Seat”). In Hebrew, kippe¯r in the pi’el means to “wipe away,” “pacify,” “make clean” or “cover over.”68 Because it was the ark’s cover, the High Priest would smear it with the blood of a sacrificed bull on the Day of Atonement (Lev 16:14– 20), thereby cleansing the ark from impurity. Part of the problem with Romans 3:24 is finding a proper translation for hilaste¯rion. Because the verbal form of this noun is often used in connection with “appeasing the anger of the gods,” it is possible to interpret Paul as suggesting that God had publicly displayed (proetheto) Jesus as a means of appeasing his own wrath. Such a translation, while supported in classical Greek, is not attested elsewhere in the Septuagint or anywhere in the New Testament.69 The problem is compounded by the fact that if we assume the substantive form of the word, we find God publicly displaying Jesus as the new “Mercy Seat.” While the ark was a common feature in Jewish artwork, access to the physical ark was restricted to the High Priesthood and not open to the general public. Such a reference could have left Paul’s mixed Jewish-Gentile audience with more questions than answers. Perhaps Paul had in mind a more generic sense of “expiation” as a simple offering made to gods. Such an interpretation is supported by an inscription to the Emperor Augustus at Cos which also used the word hilaste¯rion to refer to an offering to 67. See BAG, 376, for all the occurrences of both hilaste¯rion and hilaskesthai. 68. BAG, 497. In the Vulgate hilaste¯rion was translated by propitiatorium; hence the translation “the propitiatory” in some older English Bibles (KJV). Luther translated hilaste¯rion with Gnadenstühl, thereby rendering the covering of the Ark with the phrase “Mercy Seat,” still widely used as a translation today. See Joseph Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Garden City: Doubleday, 1992), 120–23. 69. Such as Homer, Iliad 1.386, and Strabo, Geography 4.4.6, as attested in BAG, 376. See also Bryne, Romans, 132, and Fitzmyer, Romans, 349.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

121

new testament and discourse of sacrifice the gods.70 While an exhaustive exegesis is beyond the scope of my analysis, whatever the sense Paul intended with the use of hilaste¯rion it is evident that he used the term to portray the death of Jesus as a public sacrifice which also exhibited expiatory characteristics found in Leviticus 16. Thus as the earliest Christian writer, Paul was already aware of a sacrificial interpretation of Jesus’ death. He rhetorically placed Jesus’ sacrificial death squarely within the broader discourse of a sacrifice as something that both attracts and binds even as it repels and purifies. For Paul, the death of Jesus effected a sharing or unifying of the greater body of the Christian community while it also achieved a type of atonement or purification for the sins of humanity.

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

Sacrifice in the Synoptic Gospels The Gospel writers, or the oral traditions they incorporate, augmented the rhetorical impact of Jesus’ death by narrativizing it and thus further shaping the early Christian discourse of sacrifice. Like Paul, the authors of the Synoptic Gospels offered a portrait of Jesus’ death cast from their own unique theological perspectives. Unlike Paul and the author of Hebrews, they used oral narratives to develop the “Jesus story” in textual form. These earliest interpreters of the “Jesus story” had to cope first and foremost with the manner of his death. Since Deuteronomy 21:23 considered anyone accursed who died by “hanging on a tree,” the manner of Jesus’ death required an explanation for his followers. As a result, one of the first important moves made by Paul and the Gospel writers was to interpret Jesus’ death “in fulfillment of the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3). If Jesus’ death was predicted by the Scriptures, then his death must be considered part of 70. “The people offer this as an oblation [hilaste¯rion] to the gods for the salvation of Imperator Caesar Augustus, son of God.” Quoted in Greek by Fitzmyer, Romans, 350.

122

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

new testament and discourse of sacrifice

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

a greater divine plan.71 That a person’s death could be considered “useful” or “effective” was one of the major rationales that allowed it to be understood as a “sacrifice.”72 Deeply engrained within the interpretive modes of human ritual behavior was the irony that an offering of blood somehow enhanced life. The “usefulness” of Jesus’ death (as opposed simply to its necessity) is first expressed in Mark 10:45. After James and John request Jesus to grant them special places “when he comes into his glory,” Jesus immediately lectures the brothers regarding the correct status of discipleship. He concludes with the statement: “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (kai dounai te¯n psyche¯n autou lutron anti pollo¯n). C. F. D. Moule suggested that this verse along with the narrative of the Last Supper form “the two great sacrificial sayings of Jesus.”73 While perhaps overstating the case, Moule and other scholars have long debated both the historicity of this text as well as the meaning of the word lutron (ransom).74 Daly and others have suggested that the role of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53:12 was the operative image for Mark’s inclusion of this saying.75 The Servant “poured out his life unto death” for 71. In Mark 8:31 Jesus indicates that the “Son of Man . . . must [ὁ ́τι δεῖ] be killed and after three days rise again.” Mark implies here that no human agency was involved. In Mark 14:49, prior to his arrest and crucifixion, Jesus questions whether they think he was leading a rebellion. The very next words from Jesus are, “but the Scriptures must be [ ἱ ́να πληρωθῶσιν] fulfilled.” 72. See my discussion of Socrates’ death and Plato’s idea of divine necessity in chapter 4. 73. Moule, Sacrifice of Christ, 11. 74. See the discussion of the history of interpretation of the text in Morna Hooker, The Gospel According to Mark (London: A.C. Black, 1991), 247–50. See also Friedrich Büchsel “λύτρον,” in The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), vol.3, 341–46. Büchsel has shown that in the Septuagint lutron has both a “secular” meaning (ransom) and a “cultic meaning (atonement). In the Septuagint lutron translates the Hebrew kippe¯r (atonement) six times. I cannot agree with Daly (Christian Sacrifice, 217) when he notes that the “cultic [meaning] predominates and sets the tone,” since he offers no substantive evidence to back this claim from the uses of λύτρον in the Septuagint. 75. Daly, Christian Sacrifice, 217. See also Büchsel, “λύτρον,” 342 for the history of interpretation behind Mark 10:45.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

123

new testament and discourse of sacrifice

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

“he bore the sins of many.” Hooker and Büchsel have both suggested that such a starting point is mistaken because the only common word between the Markan text and Servant poem of the Septuagint is the word “many” (pollo¯n).76 However, while the vocabulary may be dissimilar, both Hooker and Büchsel have missed the expiatory, and hence, sacrificial nature of the Servant’s “pouring out his life unto death,” and Jesus’ pronouncement that his death will act as a “ransom” for many. Just as the Servant vicariously suffers on behalf of the nation of Israel as an ˙a-ˇsa- m or “guilt-offering” (53:10), the Markan Jesus views his death as equally beneficial for others.77 While the history of the tradition that underlies the source of the Markan saying may be debated, the text clearly asserts that by “ransoming” his life, Jesus’ death effects a type of sacrifice since it was understood to be beneficial for others. While Luke did not utilize the sacrificial dimension of the fourth Suffering Servant poem as did Matthew and Mark, he did echo the beneficence of Jesus’ blood in Paul’s speech to the elders of the Ephesian Church in Acts 20:28: “Keep watch then, over yourselves and over the whole flock, of which the Holy Spirit has appointed you overseers, to shepherd the Church of God, which he has acquired (peripoie¯sato) with his own blood.”78 While 76. See Hooker Mark, 248, and Büchsel, “λύτρον,” 344. While Hooker provides a convincing argument relative to the Markan text at 10:45, I cannot agree with her conclusion that the statement that the Servant “poured out his life to death” is simply a euphemism suggesting nothing more than he “gave up the ghost.” The word used for “to pour out” (echkein) is a technical word used in sacrificial rituals, as is ˙a-ˇsa- m (guilt-offering). By “pouring out” his life, the Servant effectively becomes a willing scapegoat in a sacrificial display of death. 77. Hooker, Mark, 250–51, sees a greater parallel with the idea of ransom found in 4 Maccabees 6:29 and 17:21, but the word translated as “ransom” in these texts is ἀντίψυχον (antipsyuchon), not λύτρον (lutron). Her major concern is to show that Jesus, as well as the seven brothers in 4 Maccabees, “ransom” their lives as representatives of a greater body of people—that is, Israel, or in Jesus’ case, all humanity—as opposed to offering their lives in substitution for another. Whether one wishes to understand the notion of “ransom” as either “substitution for” or “representative of ” another, this does not mitigate the sacrificial quality of the way in which the words for “ransom” were used in the Greek of the late first century. 78. In Acts 8:26–40 Luke narrates the story of the Ethiopian eunuch who was

124

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice this text is beset with some minor text critical problems, it is the only Lukan text that explicitly attributes an atoning sacrificial efficacy to the death of Jesus.79 Much like Hebrews 9:13, as well as the motif of “ransoming” in Mark, Luke indicates that God has bought, or “acquired” (peripoie¯sato) a people by allowing Jesus to “pay the price” with his blood. Whereas the “ransom” motif indicated that divine rage was assuaged by the blood of a sacrificed victim, Luke appears to distance himself from such a theory of atonement. Perhaps it was not exactly clear to Luke why God would need to be assuaged by the death of his Son, which would explain why the idea of sacrifice as “communion” was perhaps more palatable to him and his community. The fact that God had “acquired” (peripoie¯sato) a people was a common theme in the Hebrew Bible, as evidenced in Isaiah 43:21 and Psalm 74:2. Thus, for Luke it is conceivable that while the expiatory nature of sacrifice did not seem an appropriate understanding of Jesus’ death, the idea of viewing his death as a communion-sacrifice did. Luke has Paul remind the Ephesian church leaders that it was through the sacrifice of his son that God has acquired a people such as themselves, and they in turn needed to keep watch over the whole community. Jesus’ death, cast as communion sacrifice, had effectively created a new community which, like the Israelites before them, was considered valuable in the eyes of God. In the Synoptic Gospels Jesus says very little about ritual sacrifice directly. In two separate conflict stories that appear in all three Gospels, Matthew alone places the quotation from found reading Isaiah 53:7ff. Philip approaches and explains the “Jesus story,” beginning with the Servant poem, and then the eunuch is subsequently baptized. Interestingly, Luke has Philip cite Is 53:7, while the major sacrificial themes of the fourth Servant Poem are found in 53:4–6 and 10–12. This is also in keeping with Luke’s omission of the Markan phrase (Mark 10:45) that the Son of Man came “to give us life as a ransom for many.” It is clear that unlike Matthew and Mark, a sacrificial understanding of the fourth Servant poem was not foremost in Luke’s thinking. 79. Some manuscripts read “with his own blood,” while others read “with blood of his own.” The text critical problems do not significantly affect the sacrificial implications of the passage. For a complete text critical analysis see Joseph Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles (Garden City: Doubleday, 1998), 680–81.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

125

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice the prophet Hosea, “I desire mercy and not (kai ou) sacrifice” into the mouth of Jesus (in 9:13 and again in 12:7). Matthew inserts this prophetic remark in both scenes immediately after Jesus is criticized by his opponents, once for eating with sinners (9:13) and again for allowing his disciples to pluck heads of grain on the Sabbath (12:7). While both conflict situations appear in Mark and Luke, they lack Jesus’ comments relative to sacrifice. Schweizer notes that these Matthean additions display the evangelist’s theological interests comparing the position of Jesus and the demands of cultic law. Matthew’s intent was not to show Jesus dismissing ritual sacrifice, as Luther maintained, but demonstrating that “mercy excels ritual observance in the case of conflicted interests.”80 Luz suggests that the Greek kai ou should be interpreted comparatively which rendered the phrase “I desire mercy more than sacrifice.”81 In the second use of this prophetic quotation (12:7), Matthew allows Jesus to make a comparison. If the priests are able to violate the Sabbath rest in order to perform ritual sacrifice, how much more then must it be allowed because of the mercy needed for the truly hungry. The issue for Matthew is not that the laws of ritual sacrifice are annulled since at the time it was written the Temple had already been destroyed,82 but rather, as Luz notes, that “the entire Torah is subordinate to its own center, mercy (Hosea 6:6).”83 80. Eduard Schweizer, The Good News According to Matthew (Atlanta: John Knox, 1977), 278. 81. Ulrich Luz, Matthew 8–20 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 34. 82. A similar comparative understanding existed in Judaism in the wake of the Temple’s destruction. See the comment of Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai in Abot Rabbi Natan 4: “Once, as Rabban Johanan ben Zakkai was coming forth from Jerusalem, Rabbi Joshua followed after him and beheld the Temple in ruins. “‘Woe unto us!’ Rabbi Joshua cried, ‘that this, the place where the iniquities of Israel were atoned for, is laid waste!’ ‘My son,’ Rabban Johanan said to him, ‘be not grieved; we have another atonement as effective as this. And what is it? It is acts of loving-kindness, as it is said, For I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’” A distinction must be noted between how Hosea’s prophetic sacrificial critique is used by Jewish and Christian writers. While the Matthean Jesus considered actions of charity greater than sacrifices because of his reformulation of Torah purity, Johanan ben Zakkai considered charity greater than sacrifice due to its atoning power. 83. Ibid., 183.

126

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

new testament and discourse of sacrifice

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

With regard to the sacrificial cult in the Jerusalem Temple it must be noted that one incident common to both canonical and non-canonical Gospels was Jesus’ so-called cleansing of the Jerusalem Temple. While a detailed historical analysis is beyond the scope of this study, the ubiquity of this incident in all major Gospel witnesses supports the historicity of Jesus’ action aimed at the heart of Jewish sacrificial life.84 What motivated Jesus to drive out those “who were buying and selling” sacrificial victims (Mark 11:15) continues to be debated by scholars.85 Though the 84. The frequency of this incident in the Gospels has led some scholars, like Daniel Aiwi, to conclude that Jesus “was consciously engaged in the process of a functional identification of himself with the cult as an institution of atonement.” Such a theological claim is highly speculative. See Daniel Aiwi, “Did Jesus Consider His Death to be an Atoning Sacrifice?” Interpretation 45 (1991): 27. 85. See Mark 11:15–18, Luke 19:45–47, Mt 21:12–13, John 2:13–16, and Thomas 64.12. If Markan priority can be assumed, then Jesus did two things. First, he drove out those who were “buying and selling,” and then, overturned the moneychanger’s carts as well as the dove merchants’ benches. Mark concludes with two quotations, the first from Isaiah 56:7, indicating that sacrifice will be joyfully accepted in God’s house of prayer; and the second from Jeremiah’s “Temple Sermon” (Jer 7:11), where the prophet rhetorically asks if the Temple has become a “den of robbers.” This passage has been interpreted in multiple ways. The so-called cleansing aspect of the Temple, which belies the idea of Christian supersessionism, is first attributed to Ezra Gould, Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Mark (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1896, reprinted 1983). Others have suggested that Jesus’ action was a foreshadowing of a political take-over of Temple politics. Such an interpretation is characteristic of Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1774) and later noted by Dennis Nineham, The Gospel of St. Mark (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1963). An economic model which advances the theory of price-gouging and the strangle-hold of the High Priesthood on the Jerusalem economy is championed by Richard Horsely, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance in Roman Palestine (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987), as well as Martin Goodman, “The Pilgrimage Economy of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period,” in Jerusalem: It’s Sanctity and Centrality to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, ed. Lee I. Levine (New York: Continuum, 1999). The symbolism of prophetic destruction of the Temple and the subsequent end of blood sacrifices is credited to E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 69–73. This idea was then incorporated into the notes of the HarperCollins 1993 Study Edition of the NRSV. Recent studies have focused on the idea of ritual and cultic purity. For these scholars, Jesus’ action foreshadowed his intention to maintain the sacrificial tradition, reemphasizing the need for even greater cultic purity that had become corrupt. See Bruce Chilton, The Temple of Jesus (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992); Hans Dieter Betz, “Jesus and the Purity of the Temple (Mark 11:15–18): A Comparative Religion Approach,” Journal of Biblical Literature 116 (1997): 455–72; Adela Y. Collins, “Jesus’ Action in Herod’s Temple,” in Antiquity and Humanity: Essays on Ancient Religion and Philosophy, ed. A. Y. Collins (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 45–61.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

127

new testament and discourse of sacrifice

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

incident has a surplus of meaning, one thing is certain: the Gospel writers’ inclusion of Jesus’ symbolic “action” in the Temple was a pivotal element in the early Christian discourse of sacrifice. While we cannot be certain if the historical Jesus thought his rhetoric of a “kingdom” and his outburst in the Temple would one day lead to his death, it was his interpreters that crafted a specifically sacrificial discourse to explain it. While animal sacrifice was a common practice in the ancient world, human sacrifice was not. Crafting Jesus’ death as a type of human sacrifice allowed his interpreters to understand Jesus’ life in a unique manner. Thus whatever hermeneutic is used to interpret Jesus’ outburst, the fact that so many early Christian authors included it indicates that such an outburst within the Jewish “place of sacrifice” testifies to the importance of a developing sacrificial discourse within early Christianity. Immediately after the “cleansing” incident, the Synoptics describe the final meal between Jesus and his followers with language that has clear sacrificial overtones.86 Mark 14:22–25 indicates that Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it saying, “Take it, this is my body.”87 After an indeterminate period of time (“as 86. Whether the Last Supper Jesus ate with his disciples was in fact a Passover meal has been fiercely debated. J. Jeremias, Eucharistic Words, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 9–82, offers evidence that this was the case. Daly, Christian Sacrifice, 219–21, evaluates the same data, but does not reach the same conclusion as Jeremias. Smith, Symposium, 225–26, takes the opposite position, citing the fact that aside from the Passover references in the Markan introduction (Mark 14:12–16), there is “little relationship to a Passover meal in the Last Supper text at all.” While the historical argument must remain open, the rhetorical force of the classic “Last Supper” texts not only allude to the “Passover” theme, as we find in Mark, but seem to have augmented it over time. Given the Lukan embellishment in 22:15 (“I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer”) and the Johannine reference to the “Day of Preparation” (when the Passover lambs were slaughtered—John 19:14), what we find is a clear desire among the Gospel writers (not to mention Paul in 1 Cor 5:7) to link Jesus, his final meal, and his death to the festival of Passover. 87. Jeremias, Eucharistic Words, 191–93, 213, suggested that the separation of time between the bread and the wine was indicative of the sacrificial separation in the act of killing (the flesh) and pouring the blood. This overstates the case, since the emphasis within ritual sacrifice was never on the moment of actual slaughter but on the use of the victim’s blood and the feast that followed. See Smith, Sym-

128

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

new testament and discourse of sacrifice

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

they were eating”), he took the cup and said, “This is the blood of the covenant which is poured out [ekchunnómenon] for many.” The “blood of the covenant” recalled Moses’ covenant sacrifice in Exodus 24:3–8. After Moses had received the Law on Mount Sinai he set up an altar at the foot of the mountain and sprinkled the blood of the sacrificial oxen on the altar and then on the people. After the sprinkling, Moses read from the Book of the Covenant and the people responded, “We will do and obey everything the Lord has said.” Thus the Sinai covenant was ratified with sacrificial blood and a communion was effected between God and the people. The Markan passage not only borrows the image of sacrificial blood from the Mosaic covenant sacrifice, but the evangelist indicates that the blood of this covenant will be “poured out for many.” To be “poured out” contains the technical verb ekchein which is used in connection with the sacrifices offered for the consecration of a priest in Exodus 29:12 and for the h.att.a˙t (purification, or sin offering) in Leviticus 4:7, 18, 25, 34. While the last part of the phrase, “for many,” lacks any sacrificial precision,88 it is reminiscent of the vicarious suffering of the Servant in Isaiah 53. Sacrifices offered on behalf of others were not unknown in the ancient world.89 ͂ (blood) is not attested in the Septuaposium, 67–69. The use of σῶμα(body)—αἱμα gint, rather when sacrificial rituals are described the word for “flesh,” σάρξ (sarx) or κρέας (kreas) is most often paired with blood. See Genesis 9:4 and Ezekiel 39:17. The use of σῶμα in the Markan text (and parallels) is perhaps best understood as a sacrifice of “one’s body—the self-giving of one’s whole person.” Daly, Christian Sacrifice, 224, quoting J. Betz. 88. While the Septuagint of Isaiah 53:4, 10 uses περὶ πολλῶν (as does Matthew 26:28), not ὑπὲρ πολλῶν (as does Mark 14:24), Daly (Christian Sacrifice, 222) has suggested that the Markan, Lukan, and Pauline use of ὑπέρ functions as a technical sacrificial word that “can be properly understood as a one-word summary of the main theme of the vicarious suffering of the Servant of God.” While Daly may be overstating the case in his assessment of the word ὑπέρ, the use of the word “many” (πολλοί) by Mark and Matthew does occur five times in Isaiah 53. Paul and Luke use the word ὑπέρ, however they do not use πολλοί, but instead ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν, literally “for you.” 89. In addition to the Jewish daily ta¯mı¯d offering on behalf of the emperor, often called the “loyal sacrifice,” we also find the Septuagint of 1 Esdras 8:63, which

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

129

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice Matthew follows Mark to indicate that the cup represents “the blood of the covenant poured out for many.” However, he nuances the Markan text with yet another sacrificial idea, namely that the “pouring out” of Jesus’ blood is “for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt 26:28). While both Paul and Mark use the wine/ blood symbolism as a covenant or communion bond created by a sacrificial outpouring, Matthew complements this idea by adding an expiatory quality that allows the death of Jesus to be both a communion and an expiatory-sacrifice. Matthew’s words have long been a flash point of contention over the understanding of the Christian Eucharist. If Jesus understood his death as a “communion,” then the bread and wine represented a covenantal bond sacralizing his followers in a unique bond that foreshadowed an even greater eschatological banquet. But if Jesus understood his death as an expiatory sacrifice, then the Christian eucharistic ritual could be viewed as an unbloody reenactment of this sacrifice “do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19).90 In addition to uniting believers through a covenant meal, the reenacted ritual of the Last Supper also symbolized for Matthew a further means of atonement or purification for the sins of all believers. That the same action, namely Jesus’ final meal, could both induce a state of sanctity and at the same time dispel a state of sin appears contradictory and has been debated along confessional lines. However, such a problem is precisely part of the greater discourse surrounding the meaning of “sacrifice,” as Hubert and Mauss have noted.91 indicates that twelve bulls were offered to the Lord on behalf of all Israel. In the Illiad (1.444) Odysseus offers a sacrifice on behalf of the Danaans. See also further references in Adela Yabro Collins, “Finding Meaning in the Death of Jesus,” Journal of Religion 78 (1998): 176, n. 2. 90. See Pope John Paul II’s letter, Dominicae Cenae, paras. 49–50 (February 24, 1980): “Thus, by virtue of the consecration, the species of bread and wine re-present in a sacramental, unbloody manner the bloody propitiatory sacrifice offered by Him on the cross to His Father for the salvation of the world.” This reference is available from The Vatican Website,” Papal Archives. 91. Hubert and Mauss, Sacrifice, 58.

130

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice Throughout Christian history, when Jesus’ Last Supper has been emphasized as a covenant meal, the sacrificial dimension of expiation has been downplayed (e.g., in the Protestant Reformation). Conversely, when Jesus’ final meal was seen as a sacrifice that expiated sin, the idea of a communion meal was deemphasized (e.g., in the Catholic tradition). For our purposes, it must be stressed that Jesus’ death, ritually symbolized through bread/wine as metaphors for his body/blood, had multiple levels of meaning, all of which can be subsumed under the various ancient meanings of ritual sacrifice and all of which can be found in the subtle distinctions made by the Synoptics and Paul. While scholars have found the imagery of the Suffering Servant behind Jesus’ self-description as a “ransom” given “for many” alluded to above in Mark 10:45, they have also traced this imagery to the narrative tradition behind Jesus’ Last Supper. It was Joachim Jeremias who first suggested that the sacrificial terminology of the Synoptics resulted from a combination of disparate imagery found in the poem of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53. In 53:10 the Servant is specifically called an ˙asˇa- m (guilt-offering). In the first strophe of 53:12 the Servant “poured out his life to death.” However, it is only in latter half of the second strophe of 53:12 that we learn that “he bore the sin of many.” This has led to the implication that in Isaiah there is no logical connection between the death that the servant has “poured out” and his bearing the “sin of many.” Jeremias suggested that the authors of the New Testament borrowed two originally independent themes.92 These exegetical issues notwithstanding, the atoning and sacrificial qualities of this enigmatic figure are hard to miss since the prophet purposely plays with the various symbols that were part of Israel’s sacrificial repertoire. Unlike the heroic status of a Moses or a David, the Servant is perhaps the only nonlegendary figure in the Hebrew Bible who 92. Joachim Jeremias, Eucharistic Words, 226–27.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

131

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice suffers vicariously for another prior to the time of the Maccabees. Because so many different images are used to describe this enigmatic figure from the Hebrew Bible, the poem invited many levels of interpretation.93 It is easy to conceive why Jesus’ interpreters saw in this passage a prefiguration of his death. It is not surprising, then, that they used this image to craft Jesus’ death as a sacrifice, “in fulfillment of the Scriptures.” The cup representing Jesus’ blood, “poured out for many,” also evokes allusions to the pharmakos ritual of ancient Greece. The word pharmakós (with accent on the final syllable) was used by the sixth century bce poet Hipponax to describe the ritual expulsion of a member of Athenian society during the festival of Thargelia.94 The poet and grammarian Herodian, writing during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, defined a pharmakós as someone who “dies for the purification of the city.”95 The related word phármakos (with an accent on the first syllable) was used more frequently to refer to a sorcerer or magician, especially in the time of Jesus.96 Similar to the way in which drugs (dispensed from a modern pharmacy) contain both lethal and healthful effects, the ancient pharmakós was an enigmatic figure who was treated paradoxically as a poison that needed to be expelled from the city, as well as a medicine that brought healing and security. In many ways, the “sacrifice” of this figure from Greek antiquity must be understood with the same ambiguous combination of “sanctity” and “profanity” noticed by Hubert and Mauss with regard to ritual sacrifices in general. Jan Bremer noted that in many of the scapegoat rituals of ancient Greece, “ugly persons, strangers, young men and women, and a king” were often driven away, or in some cases killed.97 93. A simple Google search for the “Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53” yielded 76,900 references on April 4, 2004. 94. For a detailed analysis of Hipponax’s work see Jan Bremmer, “Scapegoat Rituals in Ancient Greece,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 87 (1983): 299–320. 95. Quoted in Collins, “Finding Meaning,” 183, n. 33. 96. See BAG, 862. 97. Bremmer, “Scapegoat Rituals,” 304.

132

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice Of special relevance is the fact that all the above-named categories represent people found on the margins of Greek society. Even a king could be considered a marginal figure since the ruler cults often elevated him to the status of divinity.98 While a surrogate victim most often represented the “king,” the fact that he could be a victim underscores the idea that the pharmakós was also considered a valuable member of Greek society. Since the efficacy of a sacrifice was often tied to the value of the object offered, the more valuable the victim was perceived, the more efficacious a sacrifice could become.99 By describing the special meal of barley cakes, figs, and cheese that the pharmakós consumed prior to this expiatory ritual, Hipponax suggested that the pharmakós was often treated with the royalty due a king.100 The pharmakós was ritually accorded the status of nobility because of the value he brought to the city. By taking upon themselves some form of social ill, their deaths were able to unite the city and created a sense of peace and calm for the coming year. Scholarly opinion, however, is divided on whether the pharmakós was actually killed. Bremmer concluded that at the mythic level, that is, in the narratives of local communities, the scapegoat figures are almost always killed, but in the actual ritual records that have survived from Athens, Abdera, Leukas, and Massilia, the pharmakós was simply banished from society. Bremmer maintains, however, that the question is really moot since “the expulsion of the scapegoat amounted to a killing, since, like the dead, they disappeared from the community never to return.”101 Whether banished or killed, the rhetoric of the pharmakós ritual has obvious parallels not only to the Servant poem of Isaiah 98. See my discussion of the development of Hellenistic ruler cults in chapter 2, section 3. 99. See Euripides’ tragedies Alcestis and Medea where the victims sacrificed (Admetus’ wife and Medea’s own children, respectively) represent the people most valued by the one who sacrifices them. 100. Ibid., 306. Bremmer has even found parallels to an ancient Hittite ritual, where special meals were given to societal scapegoats prior to their banishment. 101. Ibid., 318.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

133

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice but to early Christianity’s understanding of the death of Jesus as well. Just as the pharmakós was beaten before being driven out of the city (to die?), Jesus’ own passion has a similar leitmotiv.102 In both Matthew (27:27–31) and Mark (15:16–20) Jesus was first mocked and beaten, then clothed with a purple cloak (as was Caesar). A crown of thorns was placed on his head and a staff in his hand. He was ridiculed as the “King of the Jews” and spat upon after being struck on the head with his staff. Finally, he was led out of the city to die.103 The Passion Narratives of Luke and John lack these details, since they avoid any description of Jesus’ humiliation throughout their narratives. Given Markan over Matthean priority in the formation of the Gospels, however, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the tradition of the pharmakós, coupled with the images of the Isaianic Suffering Servant, contributed to the sacrificial understanding of Jesus’ death crafted by the early Christian writers. Their sacrificial interpretation of his death was as much at home in a Jewish as in a Graeco-Roman environment, but also provided a unique blend of images and symbols prevalent in the ancient world. In short, the early Church adapted many of the prevailing symbols of sacrificial rhetoric that existed within its environment to formulate its own discourse of sacrifice.

102. Hipponax recorded that the pharmakós was “hit on the genitals with the squill and with twigs of the wild fig tree and other plants,” quoted in Bremer, “Scapegoat Rituals,” 300. Bremer cautions that because Hipponax wished his enemies be treated as a pharmakós, “he was given to malicious invective,” therefore we should not rely too heavily on the historical accuracy of his exact words. It was recorded, however, that in Chaeronea the slave expelled from the city was chased out of the city with twigs of a tree like the lygos or agnus castus. These plants were associated by Pliny (Natural History 16.26.110) with infertility. For a further discussion of the nature of the plants used in the pharmakós ritual see Bremer, 310ff. 103. Ironically, however, Mark is well aware that, at least for his readers, Jesus is the very king whom the Romans mock.

134

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

new testament and discourse of sacrifice

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

The “Lamb of God” in John and the Book of Revelation Like the Synoptics, John’s Gospel also makes extensive use of sacrificial rhetoric. When Jesus speaks of his death in the fourth Gospel, he describes it as the “hour” when God’s glory will be revealed.104 In John 1:29, however, the evangelist places a reference to a lamb in the mouth of John the Baptist. As John sees Jesus coming toward him he exclaims: “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” The scene is enigmatic because it is not clear to whom John is speaking. Haenchen suggests that the readers of the Gospel are being addressed and maintains that the pronouncement “Look!” holds a “compositional significance” since it allows yet another title of Jesus to be added to those already mentioned in chapter one. Haenchen further notes that the saying about the lamb “floats rather freely in narrative space.”105 It sounds as if it echoes the Hebrew Bible, but which passage the fourth evangelist has in mind is unclear. The first problem with this phrase is the word amnos, which is rendered in English as “lamb.” The Book of Revelation also speaks of a slaughtered lamb, but the word arnion (a diminutive form of aren) is used. In the Animal Apocalypse of Enoch (Enoch 90:38), a horned bull turns into a lamb at the end of history, but again aren and not amnos is used. The Paschal lamb of Exodus 12 may be behind John’s image; however, the Septuagint Greek translation refers to this lamb as probaton and not amnos. A second problem surrounds the function of this “lamb” as one who “takes away the sin of the world.” While in Exodus 29:38–46, the Septuagint uses the word amnos in describing the 104. See John 12:23: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified”; as well as 12:27: “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.” 105. Ernst Haenchen, John 1: A Commentary on the Gospel of John 1–6 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 152.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

135

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice ta¯mı¯d or daily sacrificial offering, the h.att.a˙t of Leviticus 4: 32 (which specifically expiates sin) is rendered by the word probaton. In general bulls and goats were more common than sheep as victims for the sin-offering.106 Another possible source for the fourth evangelist is again the fourth poem of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53. The Septuagint of Isaiah uses both probaton and amnos in a parallel fashion (Isaiah 53:7) to describe the activity of the servant. However, the prophet indicates that the servant “took upon” or “bore” the sins of many whereas the lamb in John’s Gospel actively takes away the sin of the whole world. While there is only a subtle difference between “taking away” and “bearing” sin, such a distinction dissuades Haenchen from viewing the “lamb” image found in the Servant poem as background material for John.107 While acknowledging the objection raised by Haenchen, Raymond Brown concludes that the fourth evangelist was in fact drawing from multiple images of “lambs” present in his day, most especially the idea of the Paschal lamb.108 Brown argues that because the Passover symbolism is popular in John, the idea of the Passover lamb lies behind the image in 1:29. As early as Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians (5:7) some early Christians were comparing the death of Jesus to the Passover lamb. And unlike the Synoptic accounts, John (19:14) records Jesus’ death on the day prior to Passover, the same day when the Temple priests were slaughtering the lambs for the Passover meal. Again, unlike the Synoptics, John describes how a sponge soaked in wine on a hyssop branch was raised to Jesus’ lips as he hung on the cross (19:29). Hyssop, as noted earlier, was the branch used by the Is106. See Lev 4:3, 8, 14, 20; 8:2, 14; 9:2; 16:5, 11, 15, 27; Numbers 7:46, 52, 58, 87; 8:6, 12; 29:5, 11 for the abundance of bulls, rams, and goats used for the h.att.a˙t sacrifice. 107. Ibid., 153, 155. However by the time of First Clement 16:20 we find explicit Christian identification of Jesus as the Suffering Servant. 108. Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John 1–12 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1966), 60–62.

136

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice raelites to smear the blood of the slaughtered lamb so that the angel of death might pass over their homes.109 While Brown correctly notes that the Passover lamb was not sacrificed, he suggests that since the priests of the first century ce had reserved to themselves the duty of slaughtering the Passover lambs “a sacrificial aspect had begun to infiltrate the concept of the paschal lamb.”110 He notes that there is only a slight difference between a lamb’s blood smeared on the doorpost as a sign of God’s deliverance of his people and a lamb’s blood offered in sacrifice for the deliverance of the people. New Testament scholars such as Brown are being too cautious. The sacrificial connection to the Passover ritual is already explicit in Deuteronomy and only precluded from the Book of Exodus if we assume that Deuteronomy’s emphasis on cultic centralization came later. There is really no difference between a lamb’s blood smeared on the doorpost and a lamb’s blood offered in sacrifice. It must be added that what the New Testament’s use of Jewish cultic language lacks in precision, it makes up for in the rhetorical force of such sacrificial symbolism for interpreting Jesus’ death. The notion of a slaughtered lamb reappears in the Book of Revelation. Of the thirty-six times that a word for “lamb” appears in the New Testament, twenty-nine are found in Revelation. In his vision, the seer is taken up “in the Spirit” to a heavenly throne room (4:2) where he finds a mighty angel, four living creatures and twenty-four elders engaged in an act of worship. The vision depicts a heavenly Temple (which is explicitly mentioned in 11:19), complete with references to incense (5:8) and an 109. For Daly (Christian Sacrifice, 294), John replaces the “reed” (kalamos) of Mk 15:36 and Mt 27:48 with a stalk of hyssop specifically “to introduce a further allusion to the Passover.” 110. Ibid., 62. Interesting, too, is that by the late second century we find in a homily by Melito of Sardis an explicit Christian reference that links the death of Jesus not only to the lamb of Isaiah 53, but also to the Passover lamb. Melito described Jesus’ death in terms of Isaiah 53:7, as “led forth as a lamb, sacrificed as a sheep, buried as a man.” Quoted in Brown, John, 63.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

137

new testament and discourse of sacrifice altar (thusiaste¯rion in 6:9). Unlike John’s Gospel, which uses the word amnos, Revelation uses the alternate word arnion, a diminutive form of the word aren, or “lamb”.111 This distinction has led scholars to conclude that Revelation developed independently from the traditions associated with the Fourth Gospel.112 Since the main function of a Temple altar is for ritual sacrifice, it is logical that the author of Revelation was aware of the sacrificial themes that we’ve been tracing in the New Testament. The imagery of the lamb operates as a sacrificial image of Jesus’ death. As the scene in chapter 5 unfolds, a “mighty” angel asks the assembly whether there is one worthy enough to break open the seals of the scroll lodged in the right hand of God. One of the elders announces (5:5) that the “lion of the tribe of Judah” has triumphed and is able to open the scroll and break its seals. The next verse (5:6) indicates, however, that as the seer looked he saw no lion but a lamb “standing as though it had been slaughtered” (este¯kos ho¯s esphagmenon). For Loren Johns and many commentators, this verse “lies at the theological heart of the Apocalypse. It is designed to communicate the shock (and) irony . . . that the conquering one conquers by being a slain lamb.”113 Essential to the rhetorical force of the Book of Revelation is that the lamb, as a metaphor for Christ, has already triumphed by his death and resurrection. A close reading of the hymn that follows in 5:9–10 indicates that the lamb is worthy because he has been slain and that through his blood he has already purchased humanity from every tribe and nation. Aune, Guthrie, and other scholars acknowledge that the lamb, as an agent of God, “is a

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

.

111. See J. Jeremias, “ἀρνίον” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G. Kittel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 1:344ff. 112. See Brown, John 1–8, 59ff. 113. Loren Johns, The Lamb Christology in the Apocalypse of John (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 159. See also a similar evaluation by Paul Achtemeier, “Revelation 5:1–14,” Interpretation 40 (1986): 284–85; David Barr, “The Apocalypse as Symbolic Transformation of the World: A Literary Analysis,” Interpretation 38 (1984): 39–50; and David Guthrie, “The Lamb in the Structure of the Book of Revelation,” Vox Evangelica 12 (1987): 64–71.

138

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

new testament and discourse of sacrifice symbol of sacrifice.”114 While Johns observes that the logic and language of slaughter “as political resistance and martyrdom” is common in Revelation, he dismisses the sacrificial imagery of the slain lamb because “sacrificial language (itself) is imprecise and often implies an expiatory force” that he finds “rare” in the Book of Revelation.115 On the contrary; while the cultic language might be imprecise, there is still an abundance of sacrificial symbolism and allusion. It is precisely because sacrificial language itself is polysemous that the author of Revelation can play on its multiple levels of imagery in order to develop further a specifically Christian sacrificial discourse. As suggested above, “sacrifice” can be both expiatory and communion-oriented. The rhetorical effect created by the image of a “slaughtered lamb who conquers” was precisely to engender a sense of identity and community among the early Christians. Friesen summarizes this idea when he writes:

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

The spilling of [the Lamb’s] blood established the kingdom composed of the churches (1:5–6). . . . The Lamb’s blood is said to generate human reality for he is slain from the establishment of the cosmos (13:7). God had already won the battle with the Dragon through the blood of the Lamb. They [the early Christians] needed only to hold onto this truth to escape the second death and to participate in the reign of the Lamb.116

Thus, while Revelation might not have directly emphasized that the actual slaughter of the lamb effected the expiation of human 114. Guthrie, “Lamb,” 65. David Aune, Revelation 1–5 (Dallas: Word Books, 1997), 367–73, concludes that there are two ways of interpreting the image of the lamb: as a metaphor for a ruler or leader or as a sacrificial metaphor. He suggests that there is no need to choose between these two possibilities, since the author has “fused both of these associations together” (368). See also Daly, Christian Sacrifice, 298, as well as the observation by Steven Friesen, Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 190, that “John introduces the Lamb by juxtaposing messianic and sacrificial allusions in 5:5–6; the conqueror is the one who was slain. This unlikely image of a slaughtered living lamb then serves as the primary symbol for Jesus, overshadowing both the epiphany of the Risen Christ (1:12–16) and the appearance of the Warrior (19:11–12).” 115. Johns, “Lamb Christology,” 161. 116. Friesen, Imperial Cults, 191.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

139

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice sin and impurity, it did effect a bond of solidarity among believers. Since sacrifice itself is fraught with the paradox of promoting life through the death of a victim, the author of Revelation uses paradox to underscore a Christology in which power, strength, and authority do not lie with those who practice violence. Just as “sacrifice” is filled with the unresolved tension between life and death, the author of Revelation leaves unresolved the juxtaposition of “a lion who appears as a lamb, a slaughtered lamb that lives, a victor who is vanquished.” Jesus is characterized by “the sacrifice of himself on behalf of others from the foundation of the world into the time of the new Jerusalem.”117 The author of Revelation describes this christological claim as a mode of witness (martus). Jesus himself is described as a “faithful witness” (1:5 and 3:14). Similarly a man by the name of Antipas, who “was put to death” like Jesus, is also called a faithful witness (ho martus mou, ho pistos mou—2:13).118 The author here suggests that Jesus’ faithful witness led to his execution, but through his death Jesus became victorious over the powers of this world which included both Rome and death itself. The word martus in Revelation was on its way to becoming a technical term for “martyr,” but its formulation would not be complete until the mid second century.119 In 1:9 the author indicates that he is on the island of Patmos because he too shared in the martyria Ie¯sou even though he has obviously not been killed. This 117. Ibid., 200. 118. Μαρτυρία jIησοῦ occurs six times: 1:2, 9; 12:17; 19:10 (twice); and 20:4. The syntax of the Greek raises the question whether the genitive is either objective or subjective; that is, whether the witness is a witness to Jesus or Jesus’ own witness. For a detailed discussion of the issue see Petros Vassiliadis, “The Translation of Martyria Ie¯sou in Revelation,” Bible Translator 36, no. 1 (January 1985): 129–34. That the concept of “witness” is pivotal in the Book of Revelation is evidenced by the uses not only of μαρτυρία jIησοῦ but also of other nouns, μαρτυρία (6:9; 11:7; 12:11), μάρτυς (1:5; 2:13; 3:14; 11:3; 17:6), and μαρτύριον (15:5), as well as the verb marturevw five times (1:2; 22:16;18.20). 119. As evidenced by the use of μάρτυς as a distinct genre designating those who died in imitation of Jesus. This is first found in the Martyrdom of Polycarp dated to 160–165 ce. See chapter four for further clarification.

140

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice type of “witness” envisioned in the Book of Revelation is a nonviolent resistance to evil that may or may not result in the death of the believer. Just as Jesus was slaughtered for his witness, so too were a group designated as “the saints.” It was because of their testimony (martyria) that they died like Jesus (6:9). That the author envisioned the deaths of these witnesses as a sacrifice is suggested by the fact that he connects them with the altar: “I saw under the altar those who had been slaughtered.” In addition, each of these who had been slaughtered (on account of the word of God—logon tou theou) received a white robe that had been made white (eleúkanan) by having been washed in the blood of the lamb (7:14). While the saints share in the slaughter/sacrifice of the lamb, it must be noted that the lamb itself is never described as being sacrificed, although it must be assumed that Revelation was well aware of the Gospel narratives.120 The author of Revelation is again engaged in the art of paradox. Just as Jesus became a victor by becoming a sacrificial victim, Christians also experience a victory through their persecution. Since blood acts as a potent staining agent, it is ironic, but typical of sacrificial discourse that the saints’ robes are actually purified by the blood of Jesus. This paradox operates on two levels. It has a metaphorical application for all Christians who, as Paul suggested, were immersed into the death of Jesus through baptism (Romans 6:3), and a real application for those early Christians who died in the sporadic outbreaks of persecution. Not only is the altar mentioned as the place where the saints await the vindication of God (6:9–11), but it appears again in 120. This can be explained by the fact that the author has envisioned the lamb as having been slain (sacrificed) “from the foundation of the world.” I cannot agree with Friesen, Imperial Cults, 152ff., when he concludes that the lamb is not described as a sacrifice “because sacrifice will be irrelevant when the first earth comes to an end.” Revelation 21:22 imagines a new city without a temple, since the “Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb” now function in this capacity. I suggest that sacrificial rhetoric changes but does not become irrelevant with the destruction of Jerusalem.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

141

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice 8:1–5 in connection with another type of sacrificial ritual, the offering of incense. In this chapter an angel stands nears the altar holding a burning censer. He offers the flaming incense along with the prayers of the saints to God and then hurls the censer and the prayers down to earth where they cause earthquakes, lightening, thunder, and finally the blowing of seven trumpets. The altar appears one final time in 16:7, and here somewhat surprisingly it speaks! In this chapter the voice from the Temple commands the seven angels to “pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God” (16:1). As the third angel poured his bowl into the rivers the water became blood because the unbelievers “shed the blood of the saints and the prophets.” At this point the seer tells us that he heard the altar itself respond: “Yes, O Lord God, the Almighty, your judgments are true and just” (16:7). The author paints a dark portrait of God’s vindication, reminiscent of the plagues of Egypt, where the entire sacrificial system of Jewish worship embodied in a “talking altar” assents to the divine plan. The author envisions this type of sacrificial cult as bringing both weal and woe. Just as the actual moment of physical death on an altar was not highlighted in ritual sacrifice, the author of Revelation also does not dwell on the death of Jesus. Thus the lamb is never mentioned as a specific sacrificial offering in the text. The author focuses rather on the effects of such a sacrificial offering, namely the victory that Jesus’ death accomplished as well as the witness, or testimony, that it brought to the Graeco-Roman world. The idea of being a “faithful witness” is what binds together the characters of the Book of the Revelation.121 Such a description is used for Jesus (1:5, 9; 3:14; 21:20), the author (1:2:9; 21:18), Antipas (2:13), the saints who remained faithful (11:3,7; 19:10), and the mediating angel of the final chapter (21:16). For the author of Revelation the witness (ho martus, ho pistos) 121. According to Johns, Lamb Christology, 175ff.

142

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice of Jesus is twofold. It not only functions as an expiatory sacrifice, freeing “us from our sins by his blood” (1:5a), it also functions as a communion sacrifice by making us a “kingdom, priests to his God and Father” (1:5b).122 This drawing together into a kingdom, however, stands in opposition to the kingdom of Rome. Friesen maintains that the author of Revelation considered the churches of Asia to be an “alternative sovereignty,” a “polity resisting the imperialism” of the time.123 The lamb’s blood founded a new kingdom and the angels concurred, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power . . . honor and blessing (5:12).” As chapter two demonstrated, it was the centrality of political authority embodied in worship that was constitutive of the sacrifices connected with the imperial cult. This same imagery of power-embodied-in-worship was associated with the sacrifice of the lamb. In short, the rhetorical force of the imagery in Revelation stands in direct contrast with Roman hegemonic control. It is not the emperor and members of the imperial family who become worthy of worship but the Lamb and the Ancient One. For the author of Revelation, the present time is one of harassment and hostility. This is clearly evident in the latter half of the book. Borrowing the image of a messianic figure from Ps 2:9, the author of Revelation describes a woman who, after giving birth to a child, is harassed by the dragon but manages to escape into the wilderness (12:13-14). Identified clearly as Satan (20:10), the dragon goes down to the sea where a beast emerges. Almost all commentators identify this beast with Roman hegemonic power.124 Borrowing the imagery from the Book of Daniel (7:17), Revelation characterized the Roman Empire as a composite 122. The theme is reechoed in the hymn of 5:9–10. 123. Friesen, Imperial Cults, 181. The author of Revelation does not follow either the Hebrew or the Septuagint rendering of Exodus 19:6 (“you shall be for me a priestly kingdom, a holy nation”); instead he separates “priests” and “kingdom,” shifting emphasis to the term βασιλεία (kingdom). 124. See the detailed discussion in David Barr, Tales of the End: A Narrative Commentary on the Book of Revelation (Sonoma: Polebridge Press, 1998), 107ff.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

143

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice of all previous tyrannical empires. The author of Revelation left little to the imagination when he wrote that the beast received its authority from the dragon and that humanity found itself worshipping both the beast and the dragon (Revelation 13:1–2). In 13:11–18, a second beast is introduced, coming this time from the earth in order to distinguish it from the first beast. Again there is widespread agreement that this second beast symbolized the civic officials involved in the local administration of the imperial cult.125 The author of Revelation also uses a prostitute as yet another image symbolizing the demonic power of Roman hegemony. This woman symbolized “the great city that rules over the kings of the earth” (17:18), she is dressed in purple and scarlet (17:4) and is drunk with the blood of the saints (17:6). She sits on the seven hills (17:9) which makes the identification with Rome complete. A final battle is imagined where the lamb is ultimately victorious because he is “Lord of lords and king of kings” (17:14). Thus, just as “sacrifice” symbolized the paradox of expiation and communion, the author of Revelation used this tension to portray Jesus as the slaughtered lamb who was the true king of kings. The believers who paradoxically purified their robes in the lamb’s blood were thus formed into a new kingdom that stood at the threshold of a cosmic battle. As a result, the author of Revelation debunked the temporal and spatial mythos of the imperial cult. No earthly city (like Rome) could function as the geographical center of reality. While the sacrifices of the imperial cult allowed Roman power to be symbolically present in the provinces, the followers of the slaughtered lamb awaited a new heaven and a new earth. Authentic worship could not be 125. See Friesen, Imperial Cults, 203, especially notes 46–50, which detail the breakdown of the scholarly consensus relative to the identity of the beast from the earth. See also A. Y. Collins, Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984), 82, where she identifies the beast from the earth with the “leading families of Asia Minor who had control of both political office and the various priesthoods.”

144

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

new testament and discourse of sacrifice rendered to an apotheosized emperor or his imperial family as if they somehow lived beyond the reaches of human mortality.126 True worship was accorded only to the Lamb (Jesus) and the Ancient One (God).

“Spiritual” Sacrifice in the New Testament

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

Since Christians distinguished themselves as partakers in an alternative community known as the “kingdom of God,” this distinction not only attracted the suspicious eye of Roman officials,127 it also fostered a rhetoric that envisioned the life of the Christian as a “living sacrifice.” If “sacrifice” is, as its Latin derivation suggests, a “making sacred or separate,” then Christians, distinguishing themselves as “separate” from their GraecoRoman counterparts, could just as easily apply sacrificial rhetoric to their behavior as to that of Jesus. This idea is what scholars have called “spiritual sacrifice.”128 As noted earlier relative 126. However, I cannot agree with Friesen, Imperial Cults, who maintains that “John chose a thorough eschatology,” rejecting what he calls the “flawed eschatology of imperial cults” (165–66). He maintains that “the eschatology of the imperial cults denied the symbolic character of Roman rule. The imperial discourse forced the religious system into an untenable position by requiring exemption of the imperial dynasty from the terminal condition of existence” (131). I have shown in chapter two how it was exactly this eschatology that was key to the success of the imperial cult. An apotheosized emperor did not violate “Roman mythic consciousness,” as Friesen suggests, because such a consciousness found an apt home especially in the Hellenistic east. I have demonstrated that the logical outcome of Augustus’ reform was to link the emperor, the empire, and the gods in the closest of systems. Friesen’s critique reveals the inability of Western minds to conceive of divinity in anything but absolutist terms. 127. Richard Horsley,“Rhetoric and Empire—And First Corinthians,” in Paul and Politics, ed. R. Horsley (Harrisburg: Trinity, 2000), 74–76, 91ff., argues that Paul’s use of the word ekkle¯sia (church), especially in 1 Cor 11:18, was an intentional move to construct an alternative assembly to establish unity and concord against the Graeco-Roman assembly in Corinth. The use of the word the ekkle¯sia had its origins in the maintenance of social power within the Greek city assembly. Forceful oratory and spirited debate were meant to influence the citizens of the polis (city) as they gathered to decide the future of their collective lives See his detailed discussion in Jesus and Empire (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003). 128. As used by Robert Daly, “The Power of Sacrifice in Ancient Judaism and Christianity,” Journal of Ritual Studies 4/2 (1990): 181–98; as well as Frances Young,

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

145

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice to the Letter to the Hebrews, such a designation is misleading since it implies a distinction between blood and bloodless sacrifices in which the former lack a “spiritual” dimension while the latter lack “physical” content. On one level, the use of this term reflects the dichotomy between sacrifices which are material in nature from those which lack materiality.129 On another level, this term has been used to refer to the internal disposition of the one performing the offering, which may or may not be material in nature. We find as early as Plato the notion that the “good man is most excellently fit to do sacrifice and be ever in communion with heaven through . . . all manner of worship,” whereas from the “polluted neither good men nor God may ever rightly accept a gift.”130 The Stoics of the first century echoed a similar sentiment to that expressed by Seneca: “The honor which is paid to the gods lies not in the victims for sacrifice . . . but in the upright and holy desire of the worshipper.”131 Apollonius of Tyana adopted the vegetarianism of Pythagoras and as a result rejected any form of blood sacrifice and opted instead for attainment of wisdom to win the favor of the gods.132 As noted earlier in this chapter, Israel’s prophetic critique of sacrifice also challenged those who performed the rituals to have the proper internal disposition.133 Thus long before Christianity we find a spiritualizThe Use of Sacrificial Ideas in Greek Writers from the New Testament to John Chrysostom (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1979), especially chapter 5. A compendium of references relating to “spiritual sacrifices” may be found in Evert Ferguson, “Spiritual Sacrifice in Early Christianity and Its Environment,” in Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt, II. 23.2 (Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 1980), 1151–91. 129. Daly, “Power of Sacrifice,” 185, makes the distinction between a “spiritualizing” and an “institutionalizing” trend within the Jewish and Christian notions of sacrifice after the fall of the Temple. Such a distinction, however, overlooks the fact that even within institutional trends of sacrifice (for example, Roman Catholicism’s theology of the “sacrifice of the Mass”) a spirituality, however this term is defined, can be applied to sacrificial practice as well. “Spiritual” sacrifices do not necessarily lack an institutional base. 130. Plato, Laws 4.716d. 131. Seneca, De beneficiis 1.6.3, translated by Ferguson, “Spiritual Sacrifice,” 1152. 132. Apollonius, Epistle 26, quoted in Ferguson, 1154. 133. See chapter one.

146

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice ing, or dematerializing trend that used the rhetoric of sacrifice to challenge not only the efficacy of material rituals but also the internal motivations of the person performing the ritual. It was to be expected that this trend would continue even after the destruction of the Temple. My point is that while the “content” of what constituted a sacrifice may have changed, the importance of sacrificial rhetoric did not. “Sacrifice” did not cease with the destruction of the Temple; the discourse continued and utilized other rhetorical symbols and continues to this day.134 We find this trend in the New Testament when Paul described the sacrificial nature of the Christian life: “I appeal to you . . . to present [parastánai] your bodies as a living sacrifice [thusían zo¯san], holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship [logike¯n latreían]” (Romans 12:1). Whereas nonChristians and Jews in Paul’s day offered the blood of a slaughtered dead animal, Christians are called upon to offer their living bodies as an acceptable sacrifice. The verse is ambiguous since it does not specifically detail how this offering is to take place. Whatever Paul has in mind, the end result of such an offering is (logike¯n latreían), which can also be translated as “rational service” or “rational worship.” The use of the Greek concept logike¯n is perplexing, since Paul favors the word pneumatikos when referring to “spiritual” categories.135 Daly has suggested that Paul has deliberately blended the “irreconcilable notions” of a Semitic concept of the body (so¯ma) with the Hellenistic influence of “rational” worship.136 Rather than viewing them as irreconcilable, it could be suggested that Paul was creatively adapting the discursive threads of sacrificial rhetoric that were readily available in 134. I cannot agree with Young, Sacrificial Ideas, 81, when she concludes: “as Christianity spread outside Jerusalem, the importance of sacrifice naturally decreased.” While the practice of sacrifice may have changed, the importance of sacrificial rhetoric did not. 135. Ibid., 245ff. We find the expression logike¯n . . . thusian in the Testament of Levi 3:6 and logikas thusias in the Corpus Hermeticum 131. See also Ferguson’s discussion (1159–60) of Philo’s use of pneuma logikon. 136. Daly, Christian Sacrifice, 244ff.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

147

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice the Hellenistic world. A similar trend is evident in the writings of Philo who, while accepting animal sacrifice, also sought to allegorize Israel’s ritual system within a moral framework. Thus a sacrificial offering consists, “not in the victim but in the offerer’s intention and zeal.”137 While Philo suggested that God is more concerned with the purity of the officiant’s pneuma logikon (rational spirit) than with the number of victims offered, he still upheld the sacrificial system as a viable means of Jewish worship. For Paul, the Christian was a unity of body and spirit already made holy through baptism. As such, he could envision the totality of a Christian’s life as a type of worship to God. Given the sacrificial world in which he lived, Paul could articulate this totality of a Christian’s worship as a type of living sacrifice. This worship was therefore not merely the fulfillment of external ritual but the dedication of one’s entire life, rhetorically framed in sacrificial language. Far from being dematerialized, especially since the Christian might well suffer physically as Paul did, this type of sacrifice required an ethical commitment from the mind and body of the Christian. Paul also conceived his own ministry as a type of sacrifice. In Romans 15:15ff. he defended the “bold” (tolme¯rotero¯s) manner of his writing by indicating that as a minister (leitourgon) of Christ Jesus he was exercising a priestly service (hierourgounta) of the Gospel so that the Gentiles might be an acceptable offering (prosphora). While his use of hierourgounta is unique in the New Testament, in other Hellenistic literature it clearly refers to the sacrificial action of those in priestly service.138 And, while he never explains what the sacrificial “priestly service” of the Gospel actually entailed, he did conceive of his mission and his resultant Gentile converts using sacrificial language and metaphors. 137. Philo, Special Laws 1.290. See also 1.277: “in the eyes of God it is not the number of things sacrificed that is accounted valuable, but the purity of the rational spirit [πn;eu`ma logikovn] of the sacrificer.” 138. BAG, 374.

148

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice Paul conceived not only his ministry but also himself as a sacrifice. In Philippians 2:17, he indicated that he was “to be poured out as a libation.” In the same verse he viewed the faith of his Philippian converts as a “sacrifice and service” for which he was willing to offer his life. While again somewhat enigmatic in meaning and syntactically difficult to translate, this verse indicates that Paul considered the gift of one’s life through preaching the Gospel as a sacrificial act. In the same letter, Paul also uses sacrificial imagery in a completely different manner. In referring to the money Epaphroditus had collected from the Philippians in 4:18, Paul remarked that these gifts were a “fragrant offering” (osme¯n euo¯dias), “an acceptable sacrifice.”139 If Paul could conceive of his own ministry as a type of sacrifice, then the money given in support of the Gospel for the needy in Jerusalem could also be viewed as a sacrifice. It is here where the notion of sacrifice as “gift” is most evident. Since the object (or victim) of a sacrifice was relinquished and given “to the gods,” Paul could conceive of charity on behalf of the poor as yet another type of sacrificial action. First Peter 2:4–5 is yet another of the several allusions to a “spiritual” sacrifice in the New Testament. Calling Jesus a “living stone,” the author indicates that Christians “will be built up as living stones into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices (pneumatikas thusias), well pleasing to God through Jesus Christ.” The idea of a “living stone” has a dual meaning. On the one hand it reflected the essential, life-giving foundation stone mentioned in Isaiah 28:16 (which was essential to God’s construction of Zion), but on the other hand it also referred to the stone altars which were prevalent in the Hellenis139. Paul also spoke about his apostolic activity as a type of “aroma of Christ to God” in 2 Cor 2:15. Ezekiel 20:40–41 and Leviticus 1–3 indicate that a “fragrant odor” is a common metaphor for a sacrificial offering. In Hesiod, Theogony 11.548– 558, the gods are duped into taking the fat and bones of the sacrificial animal because they love the aroma of the roasting animal, leaving the meat for humans to consume.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

149

new testament and discourse of sacrifice

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

tic city.140 This image, first applied to Jesus in verse 4, is then extended to all Christians who offered spiritually acceptable sacrifices to God. The house to be built from these living stones is a “spiritual” (pneumatikos) edifice, in contrast to the Jerusalem Temple that was a material building. Since all believers share in a type of priesthood, they too offer appropriately “spiritual” sacrifices.141 Similar to Paul’s idea, the author of 1 Peter again suggests that Christian sacrifice is pure gift. The author envisions a surrender of the whole person whose conduct is irreproachable, thereby placing oneself at the disposal of God’s service.142 The New Testament’s “spiritualization” of sacrifice is yet another thread in the sacrificial discourse of the early Church. As the New Testament authors reflected on the death of Jesus as both gift and relinquishment, expiation and communion, they were able to symbolically extend these metaphors into the life of the ordinary Christian. Rather than rejecting the efficacy of Jewish and non-Christian sacrificial rituals, the New Testament authors exploited the manifold symbolism of these ancient rites by applying their technical vocabulary and metaphorical meanings to both Jesus and the life of the Christian.

140. According to Bo Reicke, The Epistles of James, Peter and Jude (Garden City: Doubleday, 1964), 90. 141. The idea of “living stones” being built into a spiritual sanctuary is reflected in the Dead Sea documents, especially IQS 8:7ff., as well as 4QFlor 1: 6ff.: “And he proposed to build him a sanctuary of men in which should be offered sacrifices before him, the works of the Law”(italics added). Quoted in Daly, Christian Sacrifice, 253. 142. Following Reicke, James, Peter, Jude, 91. Daly, Christian Sacrifice, 250, overstates the case when he suggests that “this is the most comprehensive of all NT texts on the theology of sacrifice.” While this text refers to the life of the Christian, it lacks any reference to the death of Jesus. 1 Peter 2:4 refers to Jesus as “that living stone rejected by men.” While rejection is rightly an unfavorable status, to be truly comprehensive, as Daly suggests, one would have thought that some reference to the sacrificial death of Jesus were needed.

150

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

new testament and discourse of sacrifice Excursus—René Girard and the Nonsacrificial Death of Jesus

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

This chapter has explored how the authors of the New Testament used various threads of sacrificial discourse to rhetorically characterize the death of Jesus and the life of the believer. Describing Jesus’ death as a “sacrifice,” however, has not met with a universal scholarly consensus. Foremost among those theorists who have maintained a nonsacrificial understanding of Jesus’ death is René Girard. As a theorist, Girard’s writing of the 1960s and 1970s was similar to the work of William Robertson-Smith and James Frazer of the late nineteenth century. All sought to formulate an exhaustive theory of the meaning of ritual sacrifice. 143 Of particular relevance for this study is Girard’s conclusion that while Jesus was a victim of what he terms the “scapegoat mechanism,” his death was not a sacrifice since 143. Some of the earliest theoretical understandings of sacrifice were formulated by William Robertson-Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (London: Black, 1907); and James Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1922, 1960). Girard began his career as a literary critic with Deceit, Desire and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1965). It is in this work that he first described his theory of mimetic desire. His second major work was La violence et le sacre [Violence and the Sacred] (Paris: B. Grasset, 1972). In this work he used an anthropological approach to examine the role of the “victim” within human culture, as well as in the works of Freud and Greek tragedy. Immediately following the widespread reaction to Violence and the Sacred, he published a collection of essays, To Double Business Bound: Essays on Literature, Mimesis, and Anthropology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1978), wherein he refined and summarized his theory of mimetic of desire and ritual scapegoating. His next, and by far most problematic work, Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World, appeared in French in 1978, but not in English until 1987 (from Stanford University Press). A magnum opus, it is written in the form of a dialogue between Girard and two psychiatrists. It is in this work that Girard explored how Christianity alone unveils and exposes the mechanism of the ritual scapegoat that had been “hidden since the foundation of the world.” Girard maintains that this was accomplished specifically through the way in which the New Testament reveals the death of Jesus as the true un-doing of the scapegoat mechanism. The development of his thought can be seen in the one-volume collection The Girard Reader, edited by James Williams (New York: Crossroads, 1996). Girard has recently published yet another work translated by James Williams, entitled I See Satan Fall like Lightning (New York: Orbis, 2001), in which he continues to develop his main line of thought.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

151

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice it exposed, rather than covered up, the true meaning of all ritual killing. Girard notes that “there is nothing in the Gospels to suggest that the death of Jesus is a sacrifice.”144 This short excursus will elucidate the main lines of Girard’s theory and offer a critical assessment. James Williams has characterized Girard’s thought as a “movement in three acts.”145 (1) Humanity is utterly prone to violence due to its innately imitational, or as Girard puts it, mimetic, constitution. (2) Scapegoating is an age-old mechanism whereby convergence on a single victim produces a release of violence that then becomes ritualized as religious “sacrifice.” (3) The Bible, and the Gospels in particular, represent a singularly unique moment whereby the scapegoat mechanism is unmasked as the true source of all human violence, thus freeing humanity from the endless cycle of violence. For Girard, the biblical God is unique among human religions since he always identifies with the victim. Even though the founding murder is portrayed by the story of Cain and Abel, a “differential system” is introduced at the dawn of creation because God enunciates “a law against murder” as early as Genesis 4:15.146 The distinctiveness of the biblical tradition is further developed for Girard in the story of Joseph (Gen 36–48). Not only did Joseph become a scapegoat for his brothers’ jealousy, he was also falsely accused of an incestuous liaison with Potiphar’s wife. Even though Joseph is cast in the traditional role of the scapegoat, he survives unsacrificed (that is, not killed) in the narrative and ironically prospers in the court of Pharaoh. By its siding with the victim, Girard maintains that the Hebrew Bible gradually revealed and unmasked the mechanism by which human culture engendered the figure of the scapegoat until this mechanism became unraveled and exposed by Jesus. Gi144. Girard, Things Hidden, 180. 145. James Williams, The Girard Reader, 3–13. 146. Girard, Things Hidden, 146.

152

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice rard says, “I think it is possible to show that only the texts of the Gospels manage to achieve what the Old Testament leaves incomplete” (italics added).147 For Girard, Jesus died as a scapegoat for all humanity because he dared to reveal and uproot the “structural matrix of all religion,” which for millennia had attempted to hide the scapegoat mechanism through ritual sacrifice.148 While Jesus died as a scapegoat, Girard is quick to point out that his death cannot be considered a “sacrifice,” since this would mean that Jesus merely fell into the cyclical trap of mimetic violence that had masqueraded as religious ritual for all of human history. Jesus dies because “continuing to live would [have meant] a compromise with violence.”149 Building extensively on the Johannine portrait of Jesus as a willing servant looking forward to his “hour” of exaltation on the cross (John 12:23, 27), Girard understands Jesus as the incarnate God fully in control of his own death. Jesus revealed how the grip of the founding murder “broadened its hold upon mankind, because at no point did it take hold upon him.”150 Those who continue to read the Passion Narratives replete with sacrificial overtones (as accomplished in this chapter) “must be criticized,” says Girard, since such a reading reveals “mankind’s radical incapacity to understand its own violence.”151 Thus those who do not subscribe to Girard’s theoretical framework are part of the cultural cover-up that continues to mask the true source of human violence which was exposed by Jesus. Several areas of Girard’s thesis are problematic. Mark Wallace noted that “Girard’s hermeneutic is a hybrid of a postmodern concern with alterity and marginality, and a theological conviction that the ‘real’ is present (yet hidden) in the texts valorized by the Christian community as the word of God.”152 Chief among the challenges to Girard’s theory is the highly se147. Ibid., 158. 148. Ibid., 179. 149. Ibid., 214. 150. Ibid., 216. 151. Ibid., 180–81. 152. Mark Wallace, “Postmodern Biblicism: The Challenge of René Girard for Contemporary Theology,” Modern Theology 5 (1989): 322.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

153

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice lective manner in which he uses biblical proof-texts to substantiate his theological and anthropological claims. In addition, his anthropological “founding murder” lacks credible historical evidence. Girard also assumes a post-Nicene portrait of the historical Jesus unmediated by the nuances of the biblical authors as he seeks to legitimize Christianity as the only true religion that demystifies the cyclical and mimetic violence of human culture. While Jesus does in fact command his followers to “love your enemies” (Mt 5:44), the New Testament contains images of brutal force and destruction. Girard neglects the overwhelming evidence that most of the Bible, including the Gospels, is filled with the rhetoric of violence, as previously shown.153 In his critique of Girard’s theoretical framework, Theo Hobson suggests that “Christianity is not so much the ‘unmasking’ of violence as the assertion of its defeat—to which a certain form of violence remains indispensable.” A “victory over violence itself entails the exercise of a form of violence.”154 Jesus’ words in Matthew 12:34 militate against a quietistic portrait of Christianity’s leader: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” In Luke 12:51 Jesus said that in place of peace he has come to bring division. Whether these are the historical words of Jesus is immaterial to the fact that the evangelists recognized some form of violence implicit in the kingdom as envisioned within the Christian worldview. If Jesus has come to “destroy” death (1 Cor 15:26), this must mean that a type of violence was somehow envisioned by Paul as well as by other New Testament authors. Girard omits any serious discussion of the Letter to the He153. See, for example, Revelation 16. Robert Jewett correctly points out that in the Book of Numbers Phineas is described as a man consumed with the “zeal of Yahweh” as he kills an Israelite man and Midianite woman on their marriage bed in order to avert plague. This overt act of biblical murder was approved because it was identified with divine rage. Quoted in Robert Hamerton-Kelly, ed., Violent Origins (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987), 139. 154. Theo Hobson, “Faith and Rhetorical Violence: A Response to Girard,” Modern Believing 40 (1999), 37, 39.

154

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice brews because it is the most explicit source in the New Testament that calls the death of Jesus a sacrifice. He avoids Hebrews because of his disdain for an Anselmian notion of atonement that envisioned the Father “insisting upon the sacrifice” because of feeling the need to “avenge his honor.”155 While such a medieval hermeneutic need not be imposed on the text of Hebrews, the New Testament is equally forceful in its rhetorical presentation of Jesus’ death as part of a greater divine plan. Several passages characterize Jesus as predicting the necessity of the death of the apocalyptic “Son of Man.”156 Not only does Jesus die expiating sin as the “Son of Man,” the rhetoric of sacrifice operates as an overarching discourse throughout Hebrews as already shown.157 While Girard rightly acknowledges the rhetoric of these texts, he calls the sacrificial understanding that has been occasioned by them relative to the death of Jesus a “paradoxical misunderstanding.”158 It would appear that Girard indicts even the author of Hebrews as complicit in the cover-up of humanity’s continued refusal to see how Jesus exposes the inherent violence at the foundation of culture. Such a conclusion, however, selectively uses the New Testament as “proof texts” for a previously crafted theological position. It also renders other texts hermeneutically invalid as examples that allow access to understand the death of Jesus. As a result of his nonsacrificial understanding of the Jesus’ death, Girard has theologically reduced Jesus to the status of a divine messenger sent to enlighten an ignorant humanity. John Dunnill calls such a move on Girard’s part the production of a 155. Girard, Things Hidden, 182–83. See Anslem, Cur Deus Homo, and a compendium of “atonement” theories in Gustav Aulén, Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement (New York: MacMillan, 1969). 156. See Mark 8:31; 9:12, 31; 10:33; Mt 26:24, 52–54; John 19:11. 157. See especially Hebrews 9:26; 10:10;12.14; 13:15; as well as 1 John 14:10: “God sent his son to be an expiation [iJlasmovn] for our sins.” 158. Girard, Things Hidden, 180.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

155

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice “gnostic theology.”159 Dunnill notes that what is really being confused are the notions of “sacrifice,” on the one hand, and “punishment” on the other.160 While Jewish sacrifices could expiate impurity as well as effect a communion among believers, they did not involve the transfer of punishment to the sacrificial animal. This is clearly evident in the prescriptions for the Day of Atonement. The scapegoat, the animal upon whom Israel’s sins are transferred, is precisely not sacrificed but sent out into the wilderness. This sin-laden goat comes to be identified with rituals of “riddance” and not sacrifice.161 The “other goat” (the one destined for the Lord in Leviticus 16:9) is called a h.att.a˙t (a “sin” or “guilt” offering), specifically designed to expiate the cultic impurity accrued to the High Priest and his household (Lev 16:11). Girard is caught in his own paradoxical misunderstanding, since his disdain for any sacrificial reading of the death of Jesus is caught up in this confusion between “punishment” and “sacrifice.” Both the novelty and deficiency of Girard’s theoretical formulations stem from his combination of data from widely divergent scholarly disciplines. He writes at times as a literary critic, as a cultural anthropologist, a social historian of religion, a biblical exegete, and a believing Christian. His wearing so many hats at once is both the attraction of his theory—accounting for the origins of all sacrificial rituals—as well as its greatest weakness.

Conclusions The Graeco-Roman world of the first century was steeped in sacrificial symbolism. The fragile balance of power that flowed 159. John Dunnill, “Methodological Rivalries: Theology and Social Science in Girardian Interpretations of the New Testament,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 67 (1996): 114. 160. Dunnill, “Methodological Rivalries,” 114. 161. Baruch Levine, “René Girard on Job: The Question of the Scapegoat,” Semeia 33, 127.

156

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice not only vertically between heaven and earth, but also horizontally between Rome and its provinces was epitomized in the many and varied forms of sacrifice. Rome established its earthly kingdom through military terror and then deified its lord by honoring him with religious sacrifice.162 Sacrifices either to or on behalf of the emperor ritualized this powerful political presence and in turn assured local aristocracy the continued flow of imperial benefits. The earliest Christians saw themselves as citizens of a new kingdom. In Philippians 3:20 Paul utilized imperial rhetoric to indicate his preference for the kingdom of God. He told the Philippians that “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await the Savior, the Lord Jesus, the Messiah.” As residents in a Roman colonial city, the Philippians could not possibly have been unaware that since the Augustan age, they already had a “savior” and a “lord.” Paul, however, was suggesting that the Philippian assembly was an outpost of God’s kingdom, and not Caesar’s. Just as the New Testament authors freely borrowed the political and religious rhetoric of imperial ideology, they also incorporated the rhetoric of sacrifice that was equally at home in the Roman religio-political worldview. The Letter to the Hebrews was steeped in the sacrificial rhetoric of first century Judaism. Jesus was both the victim and 162. Susan Mattern, Rome and the Enemy: Imperial Strategy in the Principate (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 119, notes that brutal conquests, mass slaughter, and total devastation “was traditional; it was the Roman way.” Richard Horsley, Jesus and Empire (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), especially 20–31, suggests that Roman military terrorism had a religious side as well. Given the intimate connection between religion and politics in the fragile interplay that constituted a sense of cosmic balance, “extracting a sense of fides/pistis (loyalty) from subjected peoples was integral to assure the survival of Rome.” Bruce Malina, The Social Gospel of Jesus (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 29, has suggested that Rome had a “near monopoly” on physical violence because it was such an effective form of social control. He compared the all-embracing social control of Rome to that of modern-day organized crime: “Roman political control was like a power syndicate founded entirely on fear—its function was to provide protection . . . in return for taxes and services.” See also Augustine, City of God 4.4, where a government without justice is described as latrocinium (“banditry” or “robbery”) on a large scale.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

157

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice the officiant of a perfect sacrifice that needed no repetition. His sacrificial death effected an expiation for sin, thus intimately linking believers to the power of heaven. Paul also utilized the rhetoric of sacrifice to emphasize the power of communion that established a bond among participants. Paul indicated that when Christians are baptized they become immersed in the sacrificial death of Jesus (Romans 6:3). The Synoptic Gospels carefully utilized the technical language of ritual sacrifice as they reflected on the meaning of Jesus’ final meal. The author of the Fourth Gospel crafted the image of Jesus as a sacrificial lamb and the Book of Revelation takes this image one step further by attributing the same sacrificial death to a faithful band of witnesses. In addition, Revelation also happens to be the most outspoken New Testament book in openly opposing Roman power as well as the imperial cult. And finally the New Testament suggested that the Christian life itself could be metaphorically a kind of “living” sacrifice. As Jesus taught that one could only save their life by losing it (Mt 10:39), the entire ethical life of a Christian could be envisioned as one act of witness that somehow symbolically imitated the actual sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. This chapter has also demonstrated that the debate among scholars surrounding the “sacrificial” symbolism of the New Testament is usually centered on an a priori understanding of what exactly constitutes a “sacrifice.” In fact many ritual actions were seen as acts of “sacrifice” in the ancient world. They ranged from the pouring of wine, to the offering of incense, to the slaughter of domestic animals. As actions that “make sacred” (sacer + facere, in Latin), the rhetoric surrounding “sacrifice” was often invoked whenever questions arose relative to the power and authority that constituted the complex relationship between heaven and earth. In short, the writers of the New Testament were able to valorize and idealize the death of a common criminal through the use of the ancient language of sacrifice. In addition, such theorists as Hubert and Mauss have shown

158

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

new testament and discourse of sacrifice that a “sacrifice” can paradoxically both appease divine wrath and court divine favor within the same action. By creating a positive control of disorder, sacrifices can invert the normal course of human behavior. Thus the temporal death of Jesus became necessary as a means to an eternal form of life. Equally as paradoxical is the command of Jesus that Christians must take up their own cross and follow him (Mark 8:34), presumably to die. Thus, by valorizing human “death,” specifically through the use of sacrificial rhetoric, early Christianity was able to invert the norms of Graeco-Roman culture in which balance and equipoise were required of citizen and the gods. Christians became a “living sacrifice” not because they sought a balance in life, but rather because they rushed ritually toward a type of “death” expressed in a baptism that allowed them to become faithful “witnesses” to the death of Jesus. As Christianity grew, it naturally attracted the suspicions of the Roman political machine. In an ironic move, as Rome attempted to kill the followers of Jesus and subvert this superstitio, early Christians seized upon such mistreatment as yet another even more perfect way to give “witness” to Jesus. Such esteemed “witnesses” became designated specifically as martyrs. By the second century we find this normal Greek word for “witness” taking on a more unique categorical understanding. The rhetoric of martyrdom formed yet another thread in the forceful sacrificial discourse that Christianity used to challenge Roman hegemony. This is the subject of chapter four.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

159

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

chapter four

The Sacrifice of the Martyr

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

I

n the Acta Proconsularia Sancti Cypriani, the Roman proconsul of Africa, Aspasius Paternus, summoned the Christian bishop Cyprian after having received a letter from Rome in the year 257 summoning “all who do not practice Roman religion . . . to acknowledge Roman rituals” (italics added).1 A widespread persecution of the Christian clergy that had begun under Decius in 250 ce was revived in 257 under Valerian and Gallienus. Because Cyprian refused to acknowledge the rituals of official Roman religion, he was treated as an enemy of the gods and a traitor to the Roman state. The “Roman rituals” referred to in the Acta Cypriani were the imperially commanded sacrifices that constituted the civic expression of imperial Roman religion. G. E. M. de Ste. Croix argued that “Emperor worship is a factor of almost no independent importance in the persecution of Christians . . . since the cult act involved . . . is usually with an oath by his Genius . . . or a sacrifice to the gods on his behalf.”2 This chapter will show exactly the opposite, namely that “emperor worship,” understood as the complex of sacrificial practices outlined in chapter two, was at the heart of the persecution 1. Acta Proconsularia Sancti Cypriani (The Acts of Cyprian) 1: “quibus praeceperunt eos qui Romanum religionem non colunt, debere Romanas caeremonias recognoscere” (translation), taken from The Acts of the Christian Martyrs, trans. Herbert Musurillo (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979). Hereafter ACM. 2. G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, “Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted,” Past and Present 26 (1963), 10.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

161

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr of Christians. It was not coincidental that the battleground between Christians and Romans centered on the practice of ritual sacrifice. Both Rome and Christianity had developed a discourse that ritualized their understanding of how the cosmos functioned. Such a discourse was embodied in sacrificial rhetoric and practice. As demonstrated in chapter two, Rome had transitioned from republic to empire through the aid of an imperial cult designed to maintain the pax deorum that was pivotal for political and social success. In a trickle-down effect, civic magistrates enjoyed political benefaction as they emulated the benevolence of the emperor. By offering sacrifices intended to honor both the emperor as well as the gods, Roman society functioned smoothly. Chapter three demonstrated that as Christianity developed within this imperial religio-political world of sacrifice, the earliest Christians credited Jesus with the announcement of an alternative pax deorum, namely a basileia tou theou (kingdom of God). They crafted a unique sacrificial rhetoric that allowed Jesus to be both the leader of a new imperium as well as its sacrificial victim vis-à-vis his death. This death, reinterpreted by sacrificial language, was constitutive of a new type of power made ritually available to his followers through baptism and Eucharist. Such a display of power, however, was perceived as a threat to the Roman Empire. Sporadic persecutions resulted in the death of many Christians. This chapter will suggest that in the second and third centuries the early Church supported its countercultural imperium by echoing the same persuasive rhetoric of sacrifice that was constitutive of the Roman religio-political machine. This was the era of the martyr. The goal of this chapter is to show how the early Church developed its discourse of sacrifice through the texts associated with martyrdom. The same sacrificial rhetoric early Christians used to transform Jesus’ death into a discourse of power and freedom was used to transform victims of imperial persecu-

162

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr tions into martyrs, models of Christian virtue. Ignatius of Antioch and Cyprian of Carthage were killed because of their failure to “acknowledge Roman rituals.” Since their deaths were effective in achieving a faithful “witness” to their Lord Jesus, their executions were seen as a sacrifice like his. Such mimetic rhetoric allowed humanity to become connected to divinity in a way that was not available to the average Roman who, through sacrificial worship and political office, imitated the beneficence of the Lord Emperor, but never attained his imperial or divinelike status. The specific manner in which the Church developed and promoted the phenomenon of martyrdom augmented the sacrificial discourse that was previously outlined in the New Testament in chapter three. This discourse, arising as it did from a clash with Roman sacrificial practices contributed to an antiRoman, yet equally imperial, agenda offered by Christianity.3 I will first outline the meaning of martyrdom. What actually is a “martyr”? After situating the phenomenon of martyrdom within the tradition of the “noble death,” selected martyrological texts from the first three centuries will be examined. By the time of Cyprian in the mid-third century, the Church had successfully imitated a Roman religious model that linked a highly stratified imperial-type Church order with a developed sacrificial discourse. The purpose of this examination is not to evaluate these texts for their historical-critical accuracy, but to examine how they rhetorically shaped a worldview that was able to confront Roman power. In short, this chapter will show how 3. Not all scholars have concurred that worship of the Roman emperor was at the heart of the friction between Rome and the Church. G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, “Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted,” Past and Present 26 (1963), 10, remarked: “One often hears it said that Christians were martyred ‘for refusing to worship the emperor.’ In fact, emperor-worship is a factor of almost no independent importance in the persecution of Christians. . . . When the cult act involved does concern the emperor, it is usually with an oath by his Genius.” I believe de Ste. Croix to have missed an essential element, namely that emperor-worship (or the imperial cult) was not a single phenomenon but rather a collective expression of Roman sacrificial discourse. See my discussion in chapter two.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

163

sacrifice of the martyr these texts developed sacrifice as a discursive force to oppose Roman hegemony.

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

The Rhetoric of Martyrdom Just as those who presided at imperial cult sacrifices displayed political and social power, those who wrote about the deaths of the early Christians were able to invest Christianity with a power to transcend the social control of the empire. Elizabeth Castelli has noted that within the martyr texts, sacrifice is both “thematized and obliquely transformed.” Because the martyrs refused to offer the required sacrifices of Roman civic responsibility, they disrupted the “orderly configuration of the sacrificial economy.”4 By refusing to sacrifice, the martyr him/ herself became the sacrifice that repeated the original sacrifice of Jesus. As “sacrifice,” martyrdom became an endless cycle of imitation and repetition. Where baptism and Eucharist had begun to ritually inscribe the mimetic quality of sacrifice for the followers of Jesus, the martyr became the representative of the physical struggle that all Christians faced as they awaited their “blessed hope—the coming of [their] great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). As Castelli noted, the martyr’s death set in motion “a whole series of historical inevitabilities—a single willing death simultaneously destroying and creating empires.”5 Christians born and raised within the Graeco-Roman world shared with their non-Christian neighbors the quest to understand human freedom, self-control, and the passions.6 Human 4. E. Castelli, “Imperial Reimaginings of Christian Origins,” in Reimagining Christian Origins, ed., E. Castelli (Valley Forge: Trinity Press, 1993), 179. 5. Ibid., 180. 6. See M. Foucault, The Care of the Self, trans. R. Hurley (New York: Random House, 1986). Foucault attempts to locate what he calls the “intense problematization of the aphrodisia” (39), a mistrust of pleasure and its consequent negative effects on the body. Foucault attributed the privation of an ethics of pleasure and the concurrent emphasis on the development of the self as prime elements of Augustus’ legislative agenda (40).

164

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

sacrifice of the martyr

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

suffering was seen as contemptible when imposed against one’s will. However, it paradoxically became all the more glorious when it was embraced actively with the will. Carole Straw notes that “whatever one willed freely was honorable—even, and especially, degradation—because that self-abnegation was the ultimate and most solemn of sacrifices.” 7 In the Christian martyr texts we encounter condemned men and women conspicuously central and active as they welcomed their fate. The sacrifice of the martyr became more effective because the martyr actively controlled his/her death vis-à-vis the freedom with which it was embraced. By describing their deaths as a human form of sacrifice, the martyrologist “exalted the victim and rendered him or her divine.”8 Carlin Barton notes that, like the Greeks before them, the Romans believed that a person truly possessed only that which they could freely give away. As such, the value of a human life increased as it was expended.9 Seneca praised the wise man who “lived as long as he ought, not as long as he can.” He wrote that “it is not a question of dying earlier or later, but of dying well or ill. And dying well means escape from the danger of living ill.”10 Voluntary renunciation thus enhanced life. And since voluntary death was seen as recapturing in one final movement the honor so integral to human life, it empowered the hero, whether it was the gladia7. Carole Straw, “Martyrdom in Its Classical Context,” in Sacrificing the Self: Perspectives on Martyrdom and Religion, ed. Margaret Comack (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 40–41. See also Geoffrey Galt Harpham, The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). Harpham argues that asceticism, though formalized and systematized by early Christianity, acts in a more basic way as a “primary transcultural structuring force.” He defines asceticism in a “tight sense” as the product of early Christian ethics, and in a “looser sense” as “any act of self-denial undertaken as a strategy of empowerment or gratification” (xiii). 8. Carlin Barton, “Honor and Sacredness in the Roman and Christian Worlds,” in Sacrificing the Self: Perspectives on Martyrdom and Religion, ed. Margaret Comack (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 30. 9. Ibid., 26. 10. Seneca, Epistles 70.2–5. Such a position was not unique to the Stoics but vigorously discussed by all the major philosophical schools. One need only look at the writings of Sophocles, for example, Ajax 473: “It is a shameful thing to want to live forever,” trans. Richard Jebb (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1893). This reference can be found at Perseus Digitial Library at Tufts University.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

165

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr tor or the martyr, with an energy that was highly prized in the ancient world. The success of Christian sacrificial discourse lay specifically in way it was able to embrace and exploit the paradox of what others have called a “noble death.” Transforming the death of Jesus through the use of sacrificial rhetoric and then mimetically applying this ideology to the men and women who ironically refused to participate in the imperial sacrificial cult produced a powerful witness for the earliest followers of Jesus. Not everyone in the ancient world embraced the paradoxical nature of a “noble death” with the same logic. This is best articulated by the question posed by the author of 4 Maccabees who, as a collective voice for the seven brothers killed by Antiochus IV, raised the question: “Why does such contentiousness excite us and such a fatal stubbornness please us, when we can live in peace if we obey the king?” (4 Macc 8:26). Simply put, the reason why throughout human history some people have embraced death rather than life has remained a paradox. As he was led to his death in 108 ce, Ignatius of Antioch wrote, “I do indeed desire to suffer” (To the Trallians 4.2). Whether it is the ancient or modern world, when a person chooses to die the discourse generated around this death is never neutral. The range of moral appraisal spans the swing of the pendulum. Whether the evaluation of a person’s death is deemed “ill-considered,” “wasteful,” or “heroic,” those judgements are created by social discourse. One person’s martyr is another person’s fool. As such, martyrs, whether ancient or modern, are created by the evaluations made by their biographers. A victim of suicide or martyrdom might have made a choice to die even though the option to remain alive may have been available. One death is judged meaningless and the other meaningful. To die as a “martyr” simply means that one’s death is considered “noble” or “value-laden” by some outside observer.11 11. Arthur Droge and James Tabor use this designation in an attempt to isolate and contain as much as possible the moral evaluation associated with a person who

166

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr A search for the meaning of “martyrdom” is once again very much in vogue.12 Since martyrs are created, it is my contention that a search for the historical roots of the phenomenon we call “martyrdom” will ultimately remain fruitless.13 Martyrs are created specifically through the rhetorical and discursive forms that are generated in social communication. In a word, martyrs are primarily creations of the martyrologists, that is, those who write and specifically ascribe “nobility” to the deaths of these individuals. That someone died a martyr is ultimately not subject to historical verification. The Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Christians all wrote about people whose lives ended both voluntarily and somehow nobly. My interest lies in the form and function of the discourse that was created around these deaths and how a specifically Christian sacrificial rhetoric linked the deaths of Jesus’ followers to their leader himself. The “nobility” that was rhetorically accorded to the deaths of these early Christians generated a discourse similar to the New Testament’s transformation of the death of Jesus into an effective sacrifice. The rhetoric that was generative of this discourse was no doubt apologetically enhanced by its authors, but it reified what must have been a forceful, yet bold, confrontation between the Christian minority and the Roman majority. The magistrates who condemned early Christians to death were charged with maintaining the fabric of Roman society through the proper acknowledgment of Roman rituals. Refusal to acknowledge these rituals was viewed not only as disloyalty to the Roman state, but voluntarily dies. See A. Droge and J. Tabor, A Noble Death (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1992), 3–7, and also J. W. van Henten and F. Avemarie, Martyrdom and Noble Death (New York: Routeledge, 2002). 12. The AAR-SBL Annual Meeting in Toronto, November 23–26, 2002, devoted five hours to this very theme. Three papers were presented on the Passio Sanctarum Perpetua et Felicitas alone! 13. One need only witness the divergent views of G. Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), and D. Boyarin, Dying for God (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999) on whether martyrdom originated within a peculiarly “Jewish” or “Christian” milieu.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

167

sacrifice of the martyr

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

also as precarious to the balance of power, the pax deorum with which the gods sustained the Graeco-Roman world.14 While eschewing a Roman religio-political world view, the early Christians, though a nondominant subgroup within the empire, retained access to both force and discourse to oppose Roman prosecution.15 The early Christians still had their bodies with which they forcefully resisted Roman compliance. In fact the only weapon of force available to the martyrs to resist local civic officials was, in the end, their own bodies. The martyr’s body signified a weapon of choice used by those who had nothing else to oppose the domination of those in power.16 Much like the gladiators in the Roman arenas, martyrs recaptured a dignity and an honor by dying.17 Thus early Christian martyr narratives, exhortations, and court transcripts offered a powerful discourse upon which other Christians could reflect with both pride and longing.18 The stories of the martyrs fueled the Christian cause. Not only did those who are labeled martyrs utilize the force of their bodies to resist the social and political hegemony of Roman religious ideology, those that wrote about these men and women were also able to utilize a rhetorical discourse to achieve 14. One need only consider Cicero’s comment in De natura deorum I.3–4: “If the gods cannot and will not help us . . . if there is nothing on their side that touches our life, what reason have we to devote worship [cultus], honors [honores], and prayers [preces] to them?” 15. See Bruce Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), especially 9–10. 16. For a fuller discussion of the role of the body as locus of “force” in ancient martyrologies see B. Shaw, “Body/Power/Identity: Passions of the Martyrs,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 20 (1996): 269–312. 17. See Carlin Barton, The Sorrow of the Ancient Romans (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), especially part one. By sacrificing their lives, the gladiators were able to recover their sacred honor. Barton frames the discussion even further in “Honor and Sacredness,” 24: “these humiliated and defeated heroes attempted to wring glory from their own bowels.” 18. The most powerful exhortations to martyrdom were written by Origen, Exhortation to Martyrdom; Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 4; Tertullian, Ad Scapulam, De fuga in persecutione, and Ad martyres. In his Homilies on Leviticus 2.4, Origen placed martyrdom second only to baptism as the means whereby the Christian could obtain forgiveness for their sins.

168

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr a similar end. Bruce Lincoln has observed that nondominant groups, like their dominant counterparts, have access to rhetorical forms to “demystify, delegitimate, and deconstruct the established norms, institutions, and discourses that play a role in their subordination.”19 Since the idea that one could “die nobly” was already prevalent in antiquity, it was the early Christians who capitalized on this type of rhetoric to oppose the ideological supremacy of Rome. The discourse surrounding martyrdom extended the story of Christianity’s founder to its members through a very physical mimesis. Barbara Harlow suggests a theory of what she calls “resistance literature.” She suggests that the images used must be historically rooted “in order to fully expose the parameters of the resistance struggle.”20 This type of literature is inherently subversive because it exposes “the circumstances of economic, political, and cultural domination and repression which systematically challenge the master narrative.”21 Many of the early martyrologies are cast as Acta, or transcripts of the actual court proceedings used as the legal foundation upon which the martyrs were condemned to death. While it must be admitted that even the Acta have been highly editorialized, they do lend an aura of historical authenticity, which allows the deaths of the martyrs to be viewed even more nobly as they resisted their Roman persecutors. The discourse surrounding martyrdom reframes the imagery so that the reader is forced to consider the person as hero, a witness (martus) under torture, rather than a criminal under investigation. These texts resist the idea that the early Christians could in fact be a menace to “good” Roman social order (politeia), and instead “challenge the reader to put the proconsul himself on trial as one who is unable to understand the truth.”22 19. Lincoln, Discourse, 5. 20. B. Harlow, Resistance Literature (New York: Methuen Press, 1987), 83. 21. Ibid., 78. 22. Kate Cooper, “The Voice of the Victim: Gender, Representation, and Ear-

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

169

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr Given that the earliest written discourses relative to martyrdom were meant to disrupt the religio-political hegemony of Roman ideology in favor of Jesus’ prediction about the kingdom of God, it needs to be demonstrated how these early narratives and exhortations gained a hearing. Whether a discourse can functionally persuade another person, let alone another group, depends not only on the discursive text or speech itself, but also on the reaction of the audience. Not only were the martyrs acting in imitatio Christi, their biographers were skillfully constructing an appeal for all Christians to learn from and emulate their faith. There is both the crowd within the text and the crowd (or audience) outside the text as reader or listener. Within the text, the martyrs act as teachers, persuading even their executioners of the truth of Christ. Outside the text the reader is advised to take notes. This is evident in both the Martyrdom of Pionius and the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs.23 Pionius, otherwise unknown except for the Acta that bear his name, is said to have been executed during the reign of Decius (249–251 ce). While awaiting execution, he instructs both pagans and Jews by making references to Homer as well as the Old Testament (Martyrdom of Pionius 14.2–14). The narrator indicates that Pionius “left us notes for our instruction”(1.2).When challenged to offer a sacrifice and cease being a fool, Pionius retorts, “Is this your rhetoric? Is this your literature (biblia)?” Alluding to the death of Socrates he queries whether Socrates was considered a fool for dying at the hand of the Athenians (17.1– 4). In the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs, perhaps one of the earliest of the Acta from the Latin west, dated to July 180, we find the spokesman Speratus also acting as a teacher.24 When the proly Christian Martyrdom,” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 80 (1998): 154. 23. The Martyrdom of Pionius the Presbyter and His Companions, trans. H. Musurillo ACM, 136–67. Passio Sanctorum Scillitanorum (Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs), trans. H. Musurillo ACM, 87–89. 24. According to Musurillo, ACM, xxii.

170

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

sacrifice of the martyr

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

consul Saturninus urges the twelve Christians to return to the “simplicity of Roman religion” (simplex est religio nostra), Speratus remarks that if Saturninus would give them a “calm hearing” he would explain to the proconsul the very “mystery of simplicity” (Acts of the Scillitan M. 4). This interaction between martyr as protagonist and the Roman official as antagonist, all under the watchful gaze of the reader, evokes strong sentiment in the reader. Bruce Lincoln notes that the enduring quality of effective discourse that produces social change is the result of the paired instruments of ideological persuasion and sentiment evocation.25 Social borders are created by the manner in which affinities and estrangements are handled within social groups. The more that a group can persuade, not only ideologically but also through an appeal to human affect, the more permanent and stable those social borders will be. Conversely, the more a less dominant subgroup like the early Christians could persuade ideologically and emotionally, the more they would destabilize the ideological borders of the dominant Roman world. It is precisely in this period that the social conditions for both the ideological initiatives of Christianity as well as the affective appeal of this new religion found a home.26 25. Lincoln, Discourse, 8–10. 26. See E. R. Dodds, Christians and Pagans in an Age of Anxiety (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1965). Dodds argues that Christianity’s ability to mediate a sense of the divine in a world that was filled with a spiritual malaise was its chief asset. Jonathan Z. Smith, “The Influence of Symbols on Social Change,” in Map Is Not Territory (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978), 140, maintains that “to ascend to another world of freedom and openness becomes the aim of Hellenistic man and the chief concern of his religion.” However, not all scholars maintain the depressing mood of ancient paganisn as outlined by Dodds and Smith. See Antigone Samellas, Death in the Eastern Mediterranean (50–600 ad) (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 2002), especially 114: “In a era when all schools of thought promised salvation, that is, release from the passions, Christianity availed itself of all the possible means to become the dominant consolation philosophy. It (1) made the divine logos the consolatory topoi of classical literature, (2) proposed an asectic way of life which familiarized men and women with death, and (3) introduced new rituals which shifted the emphasis from grief which arises from . . . inevitable misfortunes to the grief that stems from the failure to achieve things for which one will be held accountable to God.”

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

171

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr In these texts the reader is caught up in both the horror of the martyrs’ torture as well as the rightness of their resolve. Whereas Jesus was divinity incarnate, the martyrs’ pain was all too human and the Roman thirst for blood, usually orchestrated in the texts at the behest of the demonic, was all too evil. Couched in the spirit of athleticism and competition, the martyr symbolized heroism’s appeal for a new life liberated from the power of routine drudgery. “Those discourses that disrupt previously persuasive discourses of legitimation and those that mobilize novel social formations by evoking previously latent sentiments of affinity or estrangement are among the most powerful instruments of social change.”27 While classical heroes died for noble causes, they usually remained dead, whereas the Christian longed to die in order that he/she could live forever. The Christian myth offered a powerful teleological reward that was absent from most classical thinking. In his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius includes a letter to the Churches of southern Gaul that scholars date to 177 ce.28 He wrote that Sanctus, one of the martyrs of Lyons and Vienne, “resisted with such determination that he would not even tell them his own name, his race, or the city he was from. . . . To all their questions he answered in Latin: ‘I am a Christian’” (H.E. 5.1.20).29 Recorded in many several texts, the confession “Christianus sum” served to redirect the process and the power of naming. By substituting the name, or more precisely the title, “Christ,” the martyr and his/her biographers crafted a link between these early Christians and Jesus. The common bond they shared was the nobility accorded an otherwise ignoble state-sponsored execution. As Jesus freely sacrificed his life, so too did the martyr. Thus, by both withholding their names and inserting the name 27. Lincoln, Discourse, 173. 28. So van Henten, Martyrdom, 98. 29. Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History, trans. K. Lake (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926).

172

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

sacrifice of the martyr of Christ, martyrs were able to rhetorically and forcefully deny their Graeco-Roman identity and subvert the legitimate role of the state to deal with them as enemies of the empire. The martyrs, created by those who would name them as such, embodied a powerful countercultural rhetoric of sacrifice.

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

“Noble Death” and Martyrdom: The Debate The ancient world did not have a separate linguistic category for distinguishing either a heroic or a shameful death. In fact, no Latin word “suicidium” has ever existed, and our English word “suicide,” while Latin-sounding, is not attested prior to the seventeenth century.30 A host of Greek and Latin words are used to describe what we would call a voluntary death.31 Only in the Martyrdom of Polycarp,32 written sometime between 155 and 160 ce, does the normal Greek word for “witness” (martus) first take on the specific meaning of “martyr,” thus giving birth to a concept that will be applied to anyone at anytime in history whose death is somehow considered heroic. Designating a specific category of people in the mid-second century, the concept of the “martyr” in turn generated a unique literary genre, the martyr texts. What were formally narratives of heroic deaths were now labeled “martyrdoms.” Throughout the New Testament, however, the word martus is consistently rendered as “witness.” When referring to the death of Stephen in Acts 22:20, Luke used the 30. So Droge and Tabor, Noble Death, 7. See also p. 16, n. 12, where suicide does not conform to the rules of Latin word building, and if it did, (sus, suis) would suggest the “killing of a pig.” For further thoughts see David Daube, “The Linguistics of Suicide,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1972): especially 422–35. 31. For example, in Greek: lambano thanaton (to grasp death); teleutao bion (to end life); hekousios apothneisko (to die voluntarily); kteinein heauton (to kill onself). In Latin we find the expressions mors voluntaria (voluntary death); mortem sibi consciscere (to inflict death upon oneself); manus sibi infere (to bring one’s hand against oneself), and vim sibi adfere (to inflict violence on oneself). For further usage see Droge and Tabor, 7ff. Their point is that the ancient world lacked a single expression to denote a self-inflicted death. 32. The Martyrdom of St. Polycarp, trans. H. Musurillo, ACM, 2-21.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

173

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr term for “witness,” although many have understood him somewhat anachronistically to be the first Christian martyr.33 Because of the complexities of language, the distinction of “martyr” will be limited solely to those who died after Polycarp, since it is only after this time that we encounter martyrdom as a distinct category in the Greek east and Latin west. This is not to limit the “nobility” accorded to the deaths of many people who died prior to the mid-second century, but it does provide a convenient, albeit Christian, demarcation for the “martyr” as a rhetorically constituted classification of people and the subsequent literary genre of “martyrdoms” that developed. One of the problems encountered in any evaluation of who should be counted as a “martyr” lies again in the rhetorical evaluations made after the deaths of an individual. Christians did not invent “martyrs,” but their rhetorical formulations specified the category for later generations by linking it to the polysemous category of “sacrifice” and augmenting the literary genre of the “noble death.”34 The early Christians believed that those who died in the persecutions had in fact truly “witnessed” to the faith of Christ, just as Jesus had “witnessed” to the reality of the “kingdom of God” through his death. The Syriac language of the third century and Arabic in the seventh followed the Greek usage in extending their common word for “witness” to include those who had died nobly and voluntarily.35 Latin, however, merely trans͂ Στεφάνου τοῦ μάρτυρός σου and 33. Acts 22:20: καὶ ὅτε ἐξεχύννετο τὸ αἱμα when the blood of your witness Stephen was shed). I cannot concur with Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome, 15, who reads this passage, “while the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed.” This reading appears forced. Paul clearly understands Stephen to be what we would call a martyr, but throughout Acts as well as the Gospel, Luke uses the term mavrtu~ (martus) in the more common understanding of a simple “witness.” 34. Euripides’ Alcestis is the classical “martyr” text of Greek tragedy. Written in the 438 bce, it depicts the self-sacrifice of Alcestis, who freely exchanged her life for that of her husband, Admetus. She is praised by Admetus, who says: “But you [Alcestis] have saved me by sacrificing in return for my life your most precious possession” (Euripides, Alcestis and Other Plays, trans. John Davie [New York: Penguin Books, 1975], 18). Rescued by Heracles, she is later reunited with her grieving husband. 35. The Arabic for “to testify” and “witness/martyr” is shahada/shahid. In Syriac sahada is the verb and sahadutha is the translation of “martyrdom.”

174

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr literated the Greek martus into martys and never associated its word for witness (testis) with the phenomenon we call martyrdom.36 Thus the very definition of the word “martyr” is inherently problematic. One cannot discern precise criteria for when someone’s violent (and at times voluntary) death is to be considered a “martyrdom” as opposed to a “suicide.” Evaluations made of deaths in the ancient world are no less problematic. Glen Bowersock concluded that “an honorable or glorious death has nothing like the resonance of martyrdom,” and he claims that “there is no reason to think that anyone displayed anything comparable to martyrdom before the Christians.”37 The weakness inherent in Bowersock’s argument is his insistence on a “pure” notion of martyrdom or, for that matter, a pure notion of “Christianity.” While he rightly wants to distinguish martyrdom from “any heroic death,” he is not able to define the concept apart from its specifically Christian usage. Daniel Boyarin, responding to the restrictive nature of Bowersock’s claim, has rightly shown how both Christians and Jews “similarly and in some senses together, if not equally so, were engaged in contest and reflection about the new-fangled practice of martyrdom.”38 Boyarin’s argument draws both from the Babylonian Talmud and early Christian patristic texts and highlights the fact that in the face of Roman oppression both Jews and Christians alike opted to die rather than compromise their faith. For the Jews however, the Talmud valorizes death in the face of oppression, but also accepts escape and tricksterism to avoid persecution.39 Boyarin 36. Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome, 19. 37. Ibid., 5 and 7. 38. Boyarin, Dying for God, 42. 39. Ibid., 65. He recalls the story of Rabbi Eliezer’s escape from martyrdom. His “crime” amounted to what could only be considered an acceptance of a Christian messianic claim for Jesus. Through a slight twist of speech Rabbi Eliezer escapes, but Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai was killed for his anti-Roman views. Boyarin’s main thrust is to show that Rabbinic Judaism, as well as early Christianity, were struggling together to understand and thus develop a deepened sense of religious identity specifically through a discourse related to death and political persecution.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

175

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr maintains however, that Christian discourse, in its attempt to silence other voices in favor of a supposed orthodoxy, valorized only martyrdom and provided no room for flight from persecution, despite Jesus’ words to the contrary.40 While Boyarin rightly criticizes Bowersock for limiting martyrdom to a specifically Christian understanding, he also adheres too rigidly to a selection of Talmudic and patristic stories that completely distance Christianity and Judaism from their “pagan” environment. Rather, along with Jan Willem van Henten, it must be noted that analogies between Christian, Jewish, and pagan sources are considerable and complex.41 It was among early Christians, specifically through their peculiar use of discourse, that martyrdom as we understand it today took hold and became a recognizable category. By nuancing Bowersock’s position, we can see that though the historical roots of martyrdom cannot be limited to Christianity, a specifically Christian discourse developed (but did not create) the genre. While Bowersock maintains that “martyrdom was alien to both the Greeks and the Jews,” Lacey Baldwin Smith contends that “the concept of martyrdom . . . emerged fully developed from the head of Plato.”42 Both positions are too simplistic since they attempt to search unswervingly for the historical core of what is in fact a discursive category. Though it was developed in antiquity the Christians, the Greeks, Romans, and Jews all had begun a discussion of how one dies nobly in the face of persecution.

40. For example, Matthew 10:23 and the parallel in Luke 21:21: “When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.” But see the discussion of Cyprian and Tertullian below, where “flight” is, at times, considered an acceptable alternative for Christians. 41. Van Henten, Martyrdom, 4. 42. Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome, 8, and Lacey Balwdin Smith, Fools, Martyrs, Traitors (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997), 23.

176

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

sacrifice of the martyr

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

The Non-Christian Discourse The death of Socrates was well known among Roman and Greek thinkers.43 Among those in the ancient world who died a “noble death,” Socrates stood out as a prime example. There was a certain admiration for him, since both his life and his death exemplified philosophical virtue. This was evidenced by his calm and unyielding demeanor characterized by Plato in the Apology. “I assure you,” Socrates states, “that if I am what I claim to be, and you put me to death, you will harm yourselves more than me.”44 While Socrates was accused of “impiety” (asebeia) for corrupting the youth of Athens, Smith maintains that the hidden transcript calling for his death was the charge that Socrates was a “crypto-oligarch, dangerous to an insecure and unstable democracy” in Athens in 399 bce.45 Whether Socrates’ death is a suicide (judged negatively) or a martyrdom (judged positively) is never fully answered. In the Phaedo, Socrates cautions against self-inflicted death, inasmuch as the philosopher “will hardly do himself violence, because they say it is not legitimate” (italics added).46 The reference Socrates makes here in the Phaedo was to the Pythagorean school, one of the only philosophical schools that unequivocally disapproved of voluntary death. Since the soul was imprisoned in the body at the behest of the gods, its release was not possible until the gods deemed it so.47 Socrates nuances this Pythagorean position 43. Tertullian, Ad nationes 1.4.6, considered Socrates a forerunner of the Christian martyrs inasmuch as he, like they, suffered for the truth at the hands of ignorant men. In the Apology 46.5 Tertullian again praises Socrates, indicating that to some degree he too considered God’s truth: “aliquid de veritate sapiebat deos negans” (in denying your divinities he had a glimpse of truth). 44. Plato, Apology 30C, trans. H. Tredennick, in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, eds. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), hereafter CDP. 45. According to Lacey Baldwin Smith, Fools, Martyrs, 31. 46. Plato, Phaedo 61C, trans. H. Tredennick, CDP. 47. See Droge and Tabor, Noble Death, 20–22, for a fuller explanation of the nuances of Pythagorean, Cynic, and Stoic views.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

177

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr in the Phaedo by indicating that since humanity is in the possession of the gods, “we must not put an end to ourselves until God sends some compulsion [ananke¯n] like the one which we are facing now” (Phaedo 62C). Plato even rhetorically turns the tables on Socrates’ Athenian accusers; “supposing that you should offer to acquit me . . . I am your grateful and devoted servant, but I owe a greater obedience to God than to you” (Apology 29D). Socrates concludes that “we are quite mistaken in supposing death to be an evil” (Apology 40C) and reminds Crito at the end of the Phaedo to send a cock to Asclepius. By sending the traditional thank-offering to the god of healing, Socrates employed the rhetoric of sacrifice to embrace death as a cure for life. Seneca commented on the death of Socrates that by refusing to flee when he had the opportunity, Socrates achieved a certain atonement in that he “freed humanity from two grave things, death and imprisonment.”48 Epictetus also positively evaluated Socrates’ death. Calling him a “soldier,” Epictetus remarked that while Socrates could have preserved his life for the sake of his children, “he intended to preserve something else, not his poor flesh, but his fidelity, his honorable character.”49 Thus Socrates’ death is a suicide (in our sense of the word), since he could have accepted exile as an alternative. However, the discourse recreated by Plato makes him also a martyr in the later sense of the word since he died so “fearlessly and nobly that I [Phaedo] could not help feeling that when he arrived . . . [at] the other world he would be under the providence of God” (Phaedo 57E). There is a decided ambivalence in this early religious rhetoric about voluntary death. One cannot simply end one’s life for the sake of ending it; rather God must bring about some necessary compulsion, ananke¯. This “divine call” will also be a key factor in Christian martyrdom. In the Greek version of the Martyrdom of 48. Seneca, Epistles 3.24.4: “ut duarum rerum gravissimarum hominibus metum demeret, mortis et carceris.” This reference is available on the The Latin Library website. 49. Epictetus, The Discourses 4.1.161.

178

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr Carpus, Papylus and Agathonike,50 it is noteworthy that while Carpus and Papylus each confess to being a Christian, Agathonike does not. However, even without this confession she nevertheless “saw the glory of the Lord” (as Carpus had). Realizing that it was a call from heaven (kai gnousa kle¯sin eiai ouranion) she immediately threw herself into the fire which had been prepared for the others. True martyrdom entailed a divine call or compulsion. Distinguishing “proper” from “improper” voluntary death would remain the crux of great debates throughout western history. Deciding “when” such an ananke¯ becomes present was not always easy to discern.51 In the opening verses of the Martyrdom of Polycarp the narrator positively evaluates martyrdom as “blessed and noble” so long as it takes place “in accord with God’s will” (kata to thele¯ma tou theou) (M. Polycarp 2.1). The idea of a divine “compulsion” which authorized a voluntary death for Socrates will become obedience to a divine call for the Christians. Since God did not call everyone to the vocation of martyrdom, this criterion allowed a writer to distinguish people who were simply volunteering to become martyrs. This is attested in Polycarp’s martyrdom where the narrator first described the actions of Quintus, who when he saw the beasts “turned cowardly.” “This is the reason . . . that we do not approve of those who come forward of themselves” (M. Polycarp 4.26). The actions of Quintus are purposefully contrasted with those of Germanicus, who “dragged the beasts on top of him” to hasten his death. An 50. The Martyrdom of Saints Carpus, Papylus, and Agatonicê, trans. H. Musurillo, ACM, 22–37. 51. Cicero, De officiis 1.112, articulates the dilemma of Cato’s suicide: “Indeed, such diversity of character carries with it so great significance that suicide may be for one man a duty, for another [under the same circumstances] a crime.” This reference was translated by W. Miller (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1913) and is found in the Corupus Scriptorum Latinorum on the website Forum Romanum maintained by David Camden. Droge and Tabor, Noble Death, 34, note that the early Stoics reasoned that if a rational person decided to end his life, it was presumed (much as Cicero does) to be a good, hence “rational” decision. They note, however, that “for everyone else a divine sign will be needed.”

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

179

sacrifice of the martyr

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

irrational zeal for martyrdom devoid of the divine call was also condemned by Clement of Alexandria, who called these people “athletes of death” who do not know the real God.52 Like the Greeks, the Romans created a discourse that addressed the positive elements in one’s decision to die voluntarily. The Romans often evaluated a soldier’s intentional death on the battlefield as a noble event, especially if the gods had sent an omen. On the one hand this Roman practice known as devotio could be seen as a form of military suicide, but on the other hand it could also be considered one of the noblest acts of a martyr-like hero who sacrificed his life for national glory. David Seeley has shown that the essential components of a “noble death” included a vicarious expression of benefit for others, a sense of obedience to a “higher command,” a military context of battle either real or mythic, and the overcoming of some physical vulnerability.53 He limits the sacrificial dimensions of these deaths because overt metaphors of sacrificial rituals are missing. While such technical ritual language as “being poured out” or “offering up in fire” are missing, this does not necessarily detract from the sacrificial evaluation of a death. As shown in chapter three, “sacrifice” has not historically been limited in this period to simple cultic categories or vocabulary.54 Livy considered the 52. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 4.16.3–17.3. See A. van den Hoek, “Clement of Alexandria on Martyrdom,” Studia Patristica 26, ed. E. Livingstone (Leuven: Peeters, 1993), 324–41. Clement’s opposition to a purely “voluntary” form of martyrdom should be understood from his own personal decision to flee Alexandria rather than remain and be killed when the persecutions of 202–203 occurred. While he disapproved of those volunteering to become martyrs, he did maintain the value of martyrdom. He admits (Stromateis 4.43.4) that “it will be given to some” to become martyrs so that fellow believers may be confirmed in their faith, the nonbeliever converted, and the rest astounded. In keeping with Stoic tradition, he claims that an individual cannot choose to become a martyr without being called by God. Droge and Tabor, Noble Death, 143, note that Clement’s evaluation of the relative importance of martyrdom is the “first sustained discussion” of the notion of the problem of voluntary death by an early Christian. 53. David Seeley, The Noble Death: Graeco-Roman Martyrology and Paul’s Concept of Salvation (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990). 54. Seeley limits his definition of what constitutes a “sacrifice,” especially with respect to the Graeco-Roman practice of devotio (Seeley, Noble Death, 134). This is

180

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr devotio of Decius Mus on a par with (or perhaps greater than) the ritual killing of animals. This is evident from Livy’s description of Decius’ devotio as a piaculum, a type of atonement.55 Because the gods had foreordained a military disaster, the offering of a human life could compel the gods to reverse the outcome. The subtext throughout this discourse is the belief that the gods needed, or perhaps better, required a sacrifice before they would grant a favorable outcome. Thus the brave soldier could devote himself to the gods by charging headlong to the front of the battle, where certain death would be the expected outcome. Livy’s assessment of Decius’ decision is, as expected, utterly positive. “When Manlius heard the fate of his colleague, he honored his glorious death with tears no less than with the due reward of praise.”56 Given the Roman conception of religio as intertwined with political ideology and civic action, can we say that Decius’ death was any less religiously motivated than were those of the early Christians? The point here is to highlight the discursive way in which the rhetorical evaluation of a voluntary death is positively characterized in religious language much the same way as was the death of the martyr. This same idea of noble self-sacrifice is used by Lucan in Book 4 of his Bellum civile, written during the reign of Nero. As the supporters of Caesar became trapped by Pompey’s army, Vulteius, the commanding general of the Caesarian troops, counsels his men to die by their own hands so that the rather odd given his treatment of Pauline soteriology and the link he makes to the Suffering Servant of Isaiah. Since the metaphors are not overt, he dismisses the notion of sacrifice as “unimportant” not only in Pauline thought but in 4 Maccabees as well. A broader notion of sacrifice as both an expiatory and a communion sacrament would warrant the notion of “vicarious” benefit as a clear signal that while metaphors might be missing, a conscious discourse of sacrifice is clearly at work in all these texts. See my discussion of the work of Hubert and Mauss in chapter three. 55. Livy, History 8.9.10: “aliquanto augustior humano uisu, sicut caelo missus piaculum omnis deorum irae qui pestem ab suis auersam in hostes ferret.” ([Decius] seemed to appear somewhat superhuman, sent from heaven to expiate all the anger of the gods and to avert destruction.) Translation mine. 56. Livy, History 8.10.1.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

181

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr witnesses know that “we welcome death . . . that we are invincible [indomitos].” Vulteius announces, “great must be the prowess of our end.”57 According to Lucan, as dawn appeared the men devoted themselves to the gods of the underworld with a joyous, yet bloody mass suicide.58 Barton notes that the Romans rarely wanted to be seen as victims, therefore such stories by Lucan and Livy were meant not to elicit pity but to reveal the greatest of Graeco-Roman virtues, namely the strength of an unconquered human will.59 This is also evident in Seneca’s reflection on the self-inflicted death of Cato. Seneca mentioned that Cato had a sword and “Plato’s Book” by his side. “Drawing the sword . . . he cried out ‘Fortune, you have accomplished nothing by resisting my endeavors.’”60 For Seneca, Cato patterned his own death after that of Socrates in “Plato’s Book.” Death by his own hand granted him a freedom from the efforts of the goddess Fortune. It also attested the supremacy of the controlled human will in a type of mythic battle, not with the forces of Caesar (against whom he had been aligned), but the gods themselves. In this same Epistle 24, Seneca also recounted the death of Scipio who, when he saw his ship falling into enemy hands, killed himself. Recounting the heightened stature of Scipio’s ancestor who died centuries earlier in the Roman conquest of Africa, Seneca remarked that the death of the younger Scipio provided evidence that “it was a great deed to conquer Carthage, but a greater deed to conquer death.”61 Even Tertullian conceded that these classical heroes had “despised death and all sorts of savage treatments.”62 A self57. Lucan, Bellum civile 4.505 and 4.513, trans. E. Riley (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1896). This reference is available on the website The Online Medieval and Classical Library maintained by Roy Tennant. 58. Ibid., 4.549–51. 59. Barton, Honor and Sacredness, 27. 60. Seneca, Epistle 24.7. 61. Ibid., 24.10. 62. Tertullian Apology 50.10: “O gloriam licitam, quia humanam, cui nec praesumptio perdita nec persuasio desperata reputatur in contemptu mortis et atrocitatis omnimodae, cui

182

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr inflicted death could have great value in the ancient world when it was the result of a controlled and deliberate choice that displayed honor even in the face of utter defeat. Such a display of the Stoic conception of the controlled “self ” could in fact yield a “noble death.”63 Christians adopted much of the same language and the ideology of the controlled “self ” as they reflected first on the death of Jesus, and later on the death of Jesus’ followers. A type of Roman devotio is also found in 2 Maccabees. In chapter 14 the narrator recounted the death of an elder named Razis who “thrust himself upon his sword.” The narrator indicated that Razi was “well thought of ” because of his “goodwill” within the Jewish community. The Greek ruler Nicanor, “wishing to exhibit [the] enmity he had for the Jews,” had Razis arrested. Unwilling to be taken prisoner he “preferred to die nobly rather than to fall into the hands of sinners” (14:39–42). Having been pierced with his own sword he hurls himself onto the mob and then “stood up with blazing anger, the blood spurting from his wounds” (14:44). He then cast his bowels into the mob, praying to God that in the resurrection he receive them back again. While there is no specific “divine call” in this incident, the narrator valorized Razis self-inflicted death as a “devoted action.” Not only does he represent the Jewish nation by offering himself as a sacrifice for the benefit of his country, his embrace of death is further sanctioned by his conviction in a resurrection. This same theme is found in the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch, who died around the year 108 ce. He wrote to the Romans that he was “eager to die” (To the Romans 7:2) and urged tantum pro patria, pro imperio, pro amicitia pati permissum est quantum pro deo non licet.” (O legitimate glory, because it is human it is not considered reckless loss nor desperate persuasion to despise death and savage treatment of all kinds on behalf of your country, your empire, or for friendship that which god does not permit.) 63. In De providentia Seneca takes up the death of Regulus, a Roman consul captured by the Carthaginians during the First Punic War. Regulus’ death is also described by Silius Italicus Punica 6. A further example of the ancient concept of devotio can be found in Plutarch, Moralia 475–76.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

183

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr them not to interfere in his execution: “Let me be food for the wild beasts through whom I can attain God. I am the wheat of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ” (Romans 4:1). Reminiscent of the Roman devotio, Ignatius employed an overt sacrificial metaphor when he asked to be “poured out as an offering to God” (Romans 2:2), and “found worthy to be a sacrifice [thusia]” (Romans 4:2).64 Allen Brent has argued that Ignatius’ procession to martyrdom reflected the Christian counterpart to the imperial procession that ended with a sacrificial offering on an imperial altar.65 In his letter to the Romans (6:1ff.) Ignatius set his impending martyrdom in contrast to the rule of the emperor: “It is better for me to die for Christ Jesus than to rule over earth’s farthest ends.” He can think of no greater favor to be bestowed upon him than he “be sacrificed to God while the altar is being prepared” (2:1). The Roman community that will be gathered around Ignatius as he arrives acts as a choir singing praises to the God the Father (2:2). The liturgical emphasis of Ignatius’ imagined entrance in the heart of Rome paralleled not only the Christian Eucharist but also the imperial cult. An inscription on the altar to Roma and Augustus at Pergamon reveals that a choir of the imperial cult had dedicated the altar.66 Formed like a choir at the Eucharist (Ignatius to the Ephesians 4:1–2), the Christians at Rome were 64. Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution (London: Basil Blackwell, 1965), 199, maintained that “Ignatius regarded martyrdom as a sacrifice.” However, he also concluded that “though the thought is that of the New Testament, the terminology Ignatius uses to express the sacrificial element in martyrdom is Jewish through and through.” I will argue that the rhetoric used by Ignatius was influenced as much as by the Roman imperial cult as it was by the tradition of the Maccabees that Frend points out. 65. See Allen Brent, The Imperial Cult and the Development of Church Order (Leiden: Brill, 2000), especially chapter six. 66. Ibid., 194, n. 82. A choir member named Capito was given the title θεολόγος (i.e., one who speaks the words of the god). This cultic functionary sang the praises of the emperor as the sacrifices proceeded. This same title was also found inscribed on two pillars in the Church of St. John in Ephesus, believed to designate the seer from Book of Revelation.

184

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr to gather around the martyr singing praises to God even as the emperor was praised during the sacrifices of the imperial cult. Not only did Ignatius connect his death to the sacrificial rhetoric of the eucharistic assembly and the imperial cult, his vision of Church order in these same writings also reflected the imperial order in ancient Rome. Ignatius’ description of the liturgical assembly (ekklesia) is idealized and visionary because he had little knowledge of the actual churches to which he wrote.67 His idealized vision is characterized by an equally idealized eucharistic cult where local communities are represented in the person of the bishop. In Polybius, Bishop of Tralles, Igantius saw not an individual personality but “the whole multitude gathered in him” (Trallians 1:1). The clerical role itself became iconic for Ignatius. The clergy, presiding at the eucharistic liturgy, displayed Jesus’ victory over demonic powers. “For whenever you assemble frequently, the powers of Satan are destroyed” (Ephesians 13:1). Such a visionary statement also needs to be compared with Ignatius’ practical command: “Submit yourselves to the bishop and to each other, as Jesus Christ to his Father . . . and the Apostles to Christ . . . that there may be a union both fleshly and spiritual” (Magnesians 13:2). Church authority comes from the “indivisible life” (to adiakpiton he¯mon ze¯n) of the Father, “even as the bishops . . . are in the mind of Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 3.1). For Ignatius, the bishop was the expression of the divine order: “The Lord did nothing without the Father, being united to Him, neither by Himself nor by the apostles, so neither do anything without the bishop and presbyters” (Magnesians 7:2). By connecting this ecclesial typology to the godhead, Ignatius was rhetorically imitating the iconography of the imperial cult reformulated by Domitan.68 67. So William Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch: A Commentary on the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 12ff. 68. So Allen, 226–28. See Suetonius, Domitan 4, for the full account of Domitan’s action.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

185

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr Suetonius recorded that Domitan wore a special crown in connection to the cult of Jupiter Capitolinus, in which he claimed to be dominus et deus. While Domitan’s crown contained the images of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, the flamen Dialis and priests assisting him wore crowns containing the three gods plus an image of Domitan himself. Just as Domitan as Pontifex Maximus allowed the Capitoline Triad to become sacramentally present, he too was present to those who wore his image on their crowns, thereby uniting their individual acts into his one cultic act. Allen argues that Ignatius’ eucharistic typology of Church order also rhetorically suggested that “the saving figures of Father, Spiritfilled Apostles, and Son, are made sacramentally present by the liturgical drama enacted by bishop, presbyters, and deacons.”69 Just as the bishop in Ignatius’ writing stands in the center of the eucharistic assembly, the emperor stood in the center of the empire uniting the periphery sacramentally as the local expressions of the imperial cult took place throughout the empire. Ignatius is able to link the traditions of noble death, the Christian eucharistic sacrifice, and an emerging monarchial order, all of which paralleled an imperial structure. The threefold order in Christianity of bishop, priest, and deacon appears unambiguously for the first time in the writings of Ignatius. As one of the earliest witnesses to Roman persecution outside of the New Testament, his writing echoed a sacrificial discourse which, by his day, was being explored ritually in the Christian Eucharist. In a sense, the discourse created by Ignatius’ Letters, as well as the description of his subsequent martyrdom, could be interpreted as a type of public liturgy whereby Christian martyr discourse was able to hold both the written word and religious ritual as mimetic moments for the followers 69. Ibid., 227. Allen also repeats Herodian’s account of Elagabalus in 218 ce. According to Herodian V.5.6–7 Elagabalus erected a life-size portrait of himself posed in the act of sacrifice placed above the statue of the goddess Victory in the Senate House. When the Senate convened, they poured a libation and burned incense in full view of the “divine-like” emperor in sacrificial posture.

186

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

sacrifice of the martyr of Jesus.70 While worship, the reading of Scripture, and the eucharistic meal were still private actions celebrated in Christian “house” churches, the deaths of these earliest martyrs were public and dramatic. Martyrdom brought the hidden transcript of the Christians into a ritualistic public display.

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

The Jewish Notion of “Noble Death” The books of Maccabees demonstrate that the Jewish community had its own discourse positively evaluating those who voluntarily died a noble death. The primary texts for consideration, 2 and 4 Maccabees, were based on an overt persecution of the Jews during the reign of the Greek Seleucid King Antiochus IV (175–164 bce). There are two other “noble” deaths described in 2 Maccabees in addition to the one accorded to the elder Razis. The first describes the death of the aged scribe Eleazar (6:18–31) who refused to eat meat sacrificed to idols, reasoning that even if he could avoid human punishment he “could not escape the hands of the Almighty, dead or alive.” Therefore he is content to prove himself worthy of his old age “by departing this life now as a man [leaving] behind a noble example” (6:27–28). The second story found in chapter 7 recounts the death of an anonymous mother and her seven sons. The sons are systematically killed because they refused to eat pork, which was prohibited in the Law of Moses. Two new ideas relative to the building of a discourse on martyrdom run though this chapter. The first locates a rationale for such extraordinary human suffering: “we suffer these things having sinned before our own God” (7:18). The second is a confidence that suffering is temporary (7:36) and that death will yield a reward. “The King of the world will raise 70. See Robin Darling Young, In Procession before the World (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press 2001), 12ff., for a fuller explanation of the liturgical component underlying the martyr texts.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

187

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr us, who die for his laws, up from the dead for an everlasting renewal of life” (7:10). Fourth Maccabees dates to the beginning of the second century ce and is primarily a eulogy for the martyrs of 2 Maccabees.71 These folk heroes were consciously chosen to be called martyrs because both Jews and Christians have revered them as such.72 While 4 Maccabees makes no reference to the historical battles outlined in the earlier Books of Maccabees, the behavior of the martyrs, their courage, conviction, and use of reason are enough to defeat Antiochus, the tyrant king. In a sense, the martyrs themselves represent the entire Jewish people and the exchange between the dominant king and nondominant Jewish nation is cast in terms of an athletic contest. “Eleazar was the first contestant, the mother of the seven brothers competed and the brothers contended as well. The tyrant was the antagonist, and the world and the human race were the spectators” (17:13– 14). As he was being tortured, Eleazar, “the courageous and noble man . . . was unmoved, as though being tortured in a dream” (6:5). “Like a noble athlete, the old man, while being beaten, was victorious over his torturers” (6:10). As he was being burned he could be heard praying, “Be merciful to your people and let our punishment suffice for them. Make my blood their purification, and take my life in exchange for theirs” (6:28–29). We find here the idea that while suffering is the expected result of human sin, it also serves as a vicarious atonement that yields a corporate reward for the nation. Cast in rhetorical style, the text encourages 71. According to van Henten, 47–48. 72. Augustine, City of God 18:36, stated that the Church cherished their memory because of their “extreme and wonderful suffering.” Bernard of Clairvaux recounted how they were equal to any Christian martyr, even surpassing John the Baptist. Bernard reasoned that since John incited Herod because of his faith in Jesus, he was killed. The Maccabean “martyrs,” however, are superior because they were killed being forced to deny their faith. See the further discussion in Smith, Fools, Martyrs, 51. Van Henten, Martyrdom, 45, notes the Christian tradition wherein the relics of the Maccabean martyrs are held in a marble sarcophagus inside the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome.

188

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr the reader to “see who wins,” knowing that there can only be one winner, and realizing that those who are virtuous will ultimately succeed. In the historical moment of persecution the dominant party wins through a sheer appeal to force, but in the discursive world of martyrdom, this victory is turned upside down. With one voice, all seven brothers together said: “if you take our lives because of our religion, do not suppose that you can injure us by torturing us. For we . . . shall have the prize of virtue and shall be with God” (9:7–8). The tradition of the Maccabean martyrs introduced a teleological component into the rhetoric of noble death. While the classical heroes of Greece and Rome could sacrifice their lives for the sake of reclaiming their honor and displaying an unconquered will, these early Jewish and Christian martyrs were depicted as doing all that and also conquering death itself in view of an even greater reward. Fourth Maccabees contains macabre portraits of dismemberment, agony, and dislocation, countered with the heroic quality of the brothers’ reasoned adherence to the traditions of their ancestors. The seventh and youngest son (12:19), as well as their mother (17:1), voluntarily leaps into the fire rather than being tortured. The value of these deaths according to the narrator was the way in which they collectively “vindicated their nation looking to God” (17:10). Calling the contest in which they were engaged “truly divine,” the prize won was “immortality in endless life” (17:11–12). Thus we find in these texts a prototype for all martyr stories: an evil, cruel despot who represents all arrogant and autocratic authoritarian figures; handsomely cheerful, yet equally rigid steadfast heroes displaying their heroism in public while engaging their tormenters with an instructive dialogue meant for the reader. Unlike the Greek Socrates and the Roman Decius however, these Jewish martyrs were more than just weighing life and death in the arena of public opinion. Whereas Socrates’ death was cast in view of an immediate, albeit indeterminate heaven

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

189

sacrifice of the martyr which awaited him, and Decius’ death ensured the immediate glory of the Roman Republic, the deaths of the Jewish martyrs takes on a decidedly eschatological and teleological tone. Their martyrdom was seen as part of a great divine plan that ultimately would be efficacious for the entire people of Israel. Socrates had no clear picture of what the ultimate plan of the cosmos was all about, since only he would benefit from his death. Decius’ noble death accomplished an expiation of some type of divine anger, ensuring a civic military victory but nothing more. Thus, unlike the discourse created by the noble deaths of Socrates and Decius and more closely aligned to the later Christian martyrs, the discourse surrounding the Maccabean martyrs draws the reader into a moral evaluation that these deaths are not merely noble or well convicted but vicariously effective. These martyrs are depicted as true witnesses not only to a higher truth or philosophy, but to truth itself.

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

A Specifically Christian Discourse of Martyrdom Early Christian writers built upon the sacrificial rhetoric found in the Books of Maccabees. Similar to the discourse utilized by the Maccabeean authors, these early Christian texts also invited the reader to enter a world where death was merely a portal to a new and eternal kind of life. Paul expressed one of the fundamental paradoxes of Christian philosophy. “For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain . . . which I shall choose I cannot tell” (Philippians 1:21–22 [italics added]). Without exegetically evaluating the difficulties in the first half of this quotation, two ideas are nevertheless paramount: first, death appears as a viable choice for Paul; and second, it is to be desired because it is paradoxically better than life. While many of the martyrs had little or no choice in changing their fated death sentences, within the rhetorical description of their martyrdom death was portrayed as the one thing that remained a completely free act of the will. While their torturers

190

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

sacrifice of the martyr

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

were carrying out a sentence mandated for a capital crime, the martyrologists were able to portray the martyrs as noble heroes who freely embraced death. The martyrs were able to paradoxically accept death with a spirit of “nobility” because they were convinced that this was the path to life. Unlike the Jewish martyr texts, in which Eleazar and the seven brothers died either because of their sins or for the good of the nation, the specific “nobility” accorded to the Christian martyr was that he or she died like Jesus, the very son of God. This divine-like mimesis situated the death of the Christian martyr in a rhetorical category that was unlike that of Jewish predecessors. Just as Jesus experienced a bodily resurrection, the Christian who died like Christ could also expect the same. Jewish notions of a bodily resurrection did exist during the first century ce, but there was no developed notion of resurrection or a theology of the afterlife. There was no consistency of opinion among the various segments of Judaism.73 Christian belief on the other hand was situated firmly on the notion of a bodily resurrection as early as the writings of Paul.74 While any Christian who died could hope for the same eschatological experience, martyrs’ 73. Daniel 12:1–4 is one of the earliest texts that looks forward to a resurrection of “many . . . that sleep in the dust.” Josephus, Antiquities 17.1, indicated that the Sadducees denied the resurrection. The author of the Slavonic Book of the Secrets of Enoch (12: 8–10), written between 50 bce and 70 ce, believed in a resurrection of spirits without a body. The author nevertheless believed in a spiritual body, because he described the righteous as clothed in the glory of God. The authors of the Book of Jubilees (23:31) and the Assumption of Moses (10:9) believed in a resurrection of the spirit only, without a body. Rabbinic arguments in favor of resurrection are given in Sanhedrin 90b–92b. 74. 1 Cor 15:14: “If Christ has not been raised then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain.” When Paul is asked, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” (1 Cor 15:35), he replies, “what was sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. . . . It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body [so¯ma pneumatikon]” (15:42–43). While Paul does not explain what constitutes a so¯ma pneumatikon, he does consider the resurrection to be both personal and bodily. See also Phil 3:21: “Jesus . . . will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” In John 6:40 Jesus said that it is the “will of my Father that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life and I will raise him [autou] up at the last day.”

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

191

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr deaths were unique since they died unjustly as a common criminal like their Lord. As such, the martyrs were crafted by their biographers as examples for others to imitate. As Robin Darling Young notes, all martyrs were “themselves like letters meant to be read by the community and the world.”75 Thus, the martyrologists were able to valorize the death of these early Christians by creating the category of the martyr as the highest expression of a faithful witness. Such a move was a natural development of the sacrificial discourse that was begun by the authors of the New Testament. By the second century a specifically Christian concept of “martyrdom” took the disparate strands of the sacrificial rhetoric in the New Testament to their logical conclusion. While it is impossible to determine how Jesus evaluated his own death, his early interpreters created a discourse that allowed his death to be interpreted as what Lacey Baldwin Smith calls the “perfect martyrdom.”76 In chapter three it was suggested that the New Testament authors purposefully used multiple sacrificial images to help the community understand the ignominious death of Jesus. In John’s Gospel Jesus longed for the “hour” of his death in which “glory” might be revealed (12:23). In reflecting on his impending death Jesus asked, “what should I say? Father, save me from this hour? No, it is for this reason that I have come” (12:27). The death sentence is almost incidental in John’s Gospel, since Jesus, specifically through his death, wields the greatest power. Like the Jesus of John’s Gospel, later Christian martyrs are rhetorically depicted as persons of utter power and control. Having control over their bodies enabled martyrs to be silent, allowing their bodies to speak. While the martyr never confessed honor to the emperor through the ritual offering of sacrifice, the reader/hearer is “forced to confess the superior power of the tortured body.”77 The rhetoric of power and identity became the hallmark of 75. R. D. Young, In Procession, 10. 77. Shaw, “Body/Power/Identity,” 278.

76. Smith, Fools, Martyrs, Traitors, 45.

192

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr the Christian martyr texts. Unlike the collective anonymity of the Maccabean brothers, Christian readers knew the names of their fellow believers who were killed by the Romans. A specifically Christian discourse of martyrdom blended the sacrificial themes of “noble death” found in the Graeco-Roman world with the future eschatological rewards found in the Maccabean texts. In addition, however, the martyrologists and Christian apologists cast the martyrs rehearsing the Gospel texts as an imitatio Christi. While in antiquity the belief in a dying god was not unusual,78 such a complete identification between believers and the Christian concept of an incarnate deity was significant. This unique mimesis of the sacrifice of Jesus, more than anything else, both confounded the Romans and also underscored Christianity’s contribution to the discourse of sacrifice. A close reading of several martyr texts will demonstrate the validity of this conclusion. More than any other martyr text, the Martyrdom of Polycarp rhetorically situated the hero as a Christ-like sacrificial offering. Just as Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, so Polycarp entered Smyrna on the “Great Sabbath Day” riding on a donkey (M. Polycarp 8.1). Similar to the crowd in Mark’s account of the Passion, the crowd in Polycarp’s martyrdom actively participated by shouting in unison and preparing the fire (12.3). Like Isaac “bound” and led by Abraham to be sacrificed in Genesis 22, Polycarp is bound (not nailed down) and prays, “May I be received this day as a rich and acceptable sacrifice, as you the God of truth . . . have prepared” (M. Polycarp 14.1–2). As the flames 78. Usually an older female deity is partnered with a younger deity who is carried off into the underworld and killed. Gerd Theissen, Religion of the Earliest Churches (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999), 59, notes that even in the mystery cults of Eleusis, Magna Mater, and Isis, where initiates celebrated the festival of the dying god, “they usually join the older female deity in mourning the loss of the partner deity. The adherents thus do not experience the death itself themselves, but lament it.” It was the Christian who identified specifically with the death of Jesus symbolically in baptism. The martyr identified as completely with the death of Jesus as humanly possible.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

193

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr formed a vault around his body, the bystanders saw not burning flesh, but “bread being baked” or “gold and silver being purified” with a “delightful fragrance like incense . . . or some costly perfume” (M. Polycarp 15. 2).79 “He was not only a great teacher, but a conspicuous martyr [whom] everyone desires to imitate” (19.1). The martyr texts are inherently persuasive. Not only do they capitalize on the tradition of the classical “noble death,” they also depict humans utterly in control of their lives while imitating the Christian God and inviting others to share in the same example. Not only was honor reclaimed in the face of death, their deaths were effective as sacrificial offerings that guaranteed them a place in the resurrection. So Pionius acts like the Johannine Jesus by freely choosing to die as he declares to his fellow inmates, “in obedience to my teacher I choose to die” (Martyrdom of Pionius 4.7). Though he stood condemned for confessing that he was Christian, death was not forced upon him. Like the Johannine Jesus, Pionius chose death as an act of free will. Even as the proconsul tried to dissuade him, asking why he was rushing toward death, he said that he was not rushing toward death, but toward life (M. of Pionius 20.5). In the Passio Perpetua et Felicitas, written in 203 ce during the persecutions of Septimus Severus, Perpetua’s words show the ability of the martyr to act in persona Christi in view of impending martyrdom.80 Perpetua’s second dream recounted a vision in which her deceased younger brother was prevented from reaching a drinking fountain because of his small stature. After she awoke, she offered prayers on her brother’s behalf and in a subsequent dream not only was he able to drink fully and “play as 79. See the interesting discussion of the “odor” of sanctity emitted by the martyrs in A. Lallemand, “Le parfum des martyrs dans les Acts de martyrs de Lyons et le Martyre de Polycarpe,” Studia Patristica 17 (Leuven: Peeters, 1985), 186–93. 80. Passio Sanctarum Perpetua et Felicitatus (The Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas), trans. H. Musruillo, ACM, 106–31.

194

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr children will, joyfully,” but the cancer that disfigured his face was now replaced by a scar (Passio Perpetua 7–8). The vision is replete both with baptismal imagery of new life, as well Perpetua’s miraculous abilities to achieve a type of redemption on behalf of the dead even before she herself is martyred. Just as Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross effected the redemption of humanity (Romans 5:15–18), the same atoning power was at least rhetorically available through the sacrificial act of the martyr. As the Christians began to rhetorically interpret the deaths of their members through textual means, not only was the eschatological reward of a future resurrection highlighted, but we also find another Christian contribution to the development of a sacrificial discourse. The “contest” that was displayed within these texts between the Roman prosecutor and the martyr now took on cosmic proportions. The eruption of this hidden transcript into public view set Christian discourse not only against the domination of Rome, but against Satan. The Roman judge became merely a stage actor in a drama that now depicted a universal battle between the forces of good and evil. In the writings of Ignatius of Antioch, though the Roman officials are considered the dominant antagonists in his personal drama, Satan is introduced as the true opponent, the real “ruler of this world.”81 In Eusebius’ copy of the Letter to the Churches of Lyons and Vienne, it was the Adversary (antikeimenos) who “swooped down with full force . . . [going] to great lengths to train and prepare his minions against God’s servants” (H.E. 5.1.4). The devil’s role as the chief organizer of the opposition allowed the crowd and the judge to play only a minor role in the drama of the text. Perpetua described how Satan was at work. Her father, after learning that she had made the famous confession, Christiana sum, attempted to torture her, moving “towards me as though he would pluck my eyes out.” She described how he left, “van81. Ignatius, To the Trallians 4:1: ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου (the ruler of this world). See also Ignatius of Antioch, To the Romans 7:1; and To the Magnesians 1:1.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

195

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr quished along with his diabolical arguments” (Passio Perpetua et Felicitas 3.3). In her first vision she described a ladder “of tremendous height.” At the foot of the ladder “lay a dragon of enormous size” who would attempt to bite those attempting to climb to the heavens. As Perpetua made her way up the ladder the dragon “stuck his head from underneath . . . then using it as [the] first step [she] trod on his head and went up” (Passio Perpetua 4.7). Perpetua’s readers would not have missed the allusions to Satan’s role in Genesis and the Book of Revelation.82 In her final vision, Perpetua battled an Egyptian “of marvelous stature.” She pummeled him, once again stepping on his head [et calcaui illi caput]. After waking, Perpetua wrote, “I realized that it was not with the wild animals that I would fight, but with the Devil, but I knew I would win the victory” (Passio Perpetua 10:14). While no doubt these early Christians were killed in the local amphitheater, the martyrologists depict the real contest as the theater of world, the entire cosmos. This cosmological grandeur associated with the trials and deaths of political dissidents served only to heighten the nobility of their deaths. Just as the sacrificial offering of a Roman or Greek hero could expiate divine wrath, so too the death of a martyr, by “devoting” him- or herself to Christ, could be effective in defeating the powers of Satan. Since honor in the Roman world was a type of “force-field [or] radioactive boundary whose existence was demonstrated by the consequences of its breach,” the athletic contest was often used as a metaphor for the agonistic world of this period.83 While 82. In Gen 3:15 God curses the serpent with the words: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head.” And Revelation 12:9 says: “The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.” 83. C. Barton, “Honor and Sacredness,” 25. See also Julian Pitt-Rivers, “Honour and Social Status,” in Honor and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society, ed. J. Peristiany (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 35ff. Such a consideration is also offered by Marcel Mauss, The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic

196

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr the notion of a martyr’s struggle was metaphorized by the figure of an athletic contest in 2 Maccabees, the Christian addition to this rhetorical formulation imbued this contest with cataclysmic urgency. The death of a martyr was a contest between good and evil in which “endurance” (hupomone¯) was the key to success. Just as the athlete who endured to the end won the laurel, the martyr would win his or her prize when God’s kingdom was finally established. In the Acts of Justin, a brief martyr account cast in the form of a dialogue between Justin, his companions, and the Roman prefect Rusticus, Justin is asked if he believed that he would ascend to heaven. He answered, “I have confidence from my hupomone¯ [often translated perseverance] . . . for those who lead a just life there awaits the divine gift . . . we are confident that if we suffer the penalty we shall be saved” (Acts of Justin, A 5:2–5).84 “Endurance,” in these early martyr texts, was not only cultivated as an important virtue providing hope to a persecuted minority; it was also another facet of the mimetic quality of Jesus’ personal self-sacrifice.85 The martyrs of Lyons and Vienne were described as “athletes of piety” (eusebeias athle¯to¯n). They were cast as the true gladiators, who were supported by Jesus during their contest. One of the martyrs, Blandina, was so deeply in communion with Jesus, according to Eusebius, that she did not even feel the pain of being gored by a bull (H.E. 5.1.56). Young notes that this was “indeed a ritual of sacrifice performed in front of an audience of potential catechumens . . . its object was the conversion of the world.”86 Blandina, both a slave and women, is described as a “noble athlete.” Rather than show signs of weakness, marked doubly through her status as slave and womSocieties (New York: W. W. Norton, 1967), and by W. Warde Fowler, The Religious Experience of the Roman People (New York: Cooper Square Press, 1971), 118–19. 84. The Acts of Justin and Companions, trans. H. Musurillo, ACM, 42–61. 85. This is evident in Paul, Romans 15:4–5; 2 Corinthians 1:6, 6:4; Colossians 1:11; 1 Thessalonias, 1:3; and in Revelation 1:9, 13:10, and 14:12. 86. R. D. Young, In Procession, 37.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

197

sacrifice of the martyr

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

en, she was filled with so much power from confessing that she was a Christian that her torturers themselves were unable to endure their task. The text indicated that they were exhausted and weary, having worked “from dawn to dusk” (5.1.18–19) to kill her. In his Letter to the Philippians, Polycarp connects the sense of endurance and Christ-like imitation within a larger discursive framework. “Imitators of his endurance let us be, and if we suffer for his name, let us glorify him. For this is the example (hupogrammos) he left us” (8.2).87 In the Martyrdom of Pionius the narrator recalled that one of those present specifically described Pionius as a “noble athlete.” There was even an aesthetic quality associated with the victory of martyrdom. While gazing at the charred body of Pionius, the narrator recalled that “even his ears were not distorted, his hair lay in order” and his beard was full. Even his face “shone once again” (22.3–4). The martyr’s body, engaged in such a noble contest with Christ-like endurance, is able to rhetorically defy the natural processes of decay, thereby vitiating the macabre sight of torture and death.88 Such a description invested martyrdom with a divine-like power that, like Jesus’ resurrection, defied death itself. Not only did the Christian martyr texts rhetorically cast condemned men and women as athletes competing with the powers 87. Polycarp, To the Philadelphians, trans. K. Lake, The Apostolic Fathers (New York: Macmillan, 1912–13). This reference is found on the website Early Christian Writings edited by Peter Kirby. R. D. Young, In Procession, 22, reads hupogrammos as a “set of notes.” Such an intriguing reading would highlight the discursive character of Jesus as, ritually, the Word to be read. Hupogrammos can be translated: “pattern or model to be copied in writing or drawing.” See BAG, 851. 88. J. Perkins, The Suffering Self (New York: Routledge, 1995), 119, quotes Tatian, Oratio ad Graecos 6, where there is an increased concern in early Christian literature away from a merely transformed or resurrected body, as advocated by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, to a reanimated earthly body. This is evident at the conclusion of the Letter to the Churches of Lyons and Vienne, 62. The pagans kept the dead bodies of the martyrs from being buried for six days, after which they were cremated and swept into the Rhone River. The narrator tells us that his was done so that the pagans could be assured that there was absolutely no possibility of a reanimated, that is, resurrected body. It also denied their followers the possibility of establishing a cult after their death.

198

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr of evil able to physically deny death, they were also able to complement this form of sacrificial discourse by recrafting the image of the “self ” through the use of gender and the body. Gendered roles are especially fluid in many of the martyr texts.89 Ignatius of Antioch wrote: “The pangs of birth are upon me. . . . Allow me to receive the pure light, when I have arrived there I shall become a man of God” (To the Romans 6:1–2 [italics added]). While for Ignatius the topos of birth is his conception of being “born again” in the kingdom of Heaven (John 3:3), the “birth pangs” he envisioned in this world can also be read as an inversion of his gendered status as a male, especially in light of that fact that only after his martyrdom would he then consider himself to be a man of God. The martyr texts recrafted the social ideal of “maleness” in the Graeco-Roman world from an image of dominance to passive endurance. Passivity became the ideal because it not only produced a highly visible portrait of the “controlled will,” it also imitated Jesus’ call to “turn the other cheek” (Mt 5:39) and validated his claim that the “meek would inherit the earth” (Mt 5:5). By definition a martyr welcomed pain and either passively accepted death or else actively helped the executioner to bring it about. One of the hidden transcripts of this Christian sacrificial discourse was to impress on an ancient patriarchal society a positive evaluation of weakness, normally described as feminine virtue.90 It was somehow now honorable to passively endure punishment even if it was undeserved. Because passivity was marked as part of female virtue, female martyrs took on aspects of male dominance. After Perpetua’s father pleads with his daughter to recant her Christian confession, she noted that he finally left “kissing my hands and throwing himself down before me” (Passio Perpetua 5.6). He no 89. Therefore I cannot agree with Salisbury, The Blood of Martyrs (London: Routledge, 2004), 115–29, when she suggests that there was an ambiguous relationship between martrydom and maternity. Rather, feminine and masculine gender roles were both being redefined in the martyr texts prior to the fourth century. 90. See the fuller discussion by Perkins relative to Perpetua, 104–23.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

199

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr longer addressed her as “daughter” but rather as domina (translated as mistress, wife, lady-love, or owner).91 Given that the role of the Roman pater was one of the fundamental organizing principles of Roman society, Judith Perkins notes that Perpetua’s narrative opens by “deconstructing both her father’s authority and the institution supporting it [because it is] evil and diabolical.”92 Rather than remaining socially passive as women of ancient Roman Carthage were expected to do, Perpetua presented an image of the Roman mater as a formidable challenge to the fundamental order of Roman society. As male martyrs became passive in the face of Roman opposition, female martyrs became male. As texts used by Christians, these martyr narratives provided a new mode of Christian identity within the GraecoRoman world that represented an opposition to the dominant religio-political agenda of the empire. Not only do the martyr texts reimage the “self ” in the ancient Roman world, the notion of the “body” was also continually reevaluated. Brent Shaw has observed that “not in the most refined of male ideologies in antiquity . . . was the male body seen as a seamless whole constructed solely of male elements.”93 Borne out by the medical texts of the time, in which female genitalia were merely male genitalia “turned inside,” gender was socially, rather than biologically determined.94 With “maleness” as the standard in a patriarchal social setting, what it meant to be “a man” (andreia) as a social ideal was under constant discussion.95 The narrator in the prologue to the martyrs of Lyons and Vienne described 91. According to Charlton Lewis and Charles Short, The Latin Dictionary, rev. ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955). 92. Perkins, Suffering Self, 105. 93. Shaw, 284. 94. See Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), especially 5–82. See also Aline Rouselle, Porneia: On Desire and the Body in Late Antiquity (London: Basil Blackwell, 1988), especially chapter two on “women’s bodies.” 95. For a further discussion of the social construction of maleness in the Roman world, see the discussion of Maud Gleason, Making Men: Sophists and SelfPresentation in Ancient Rome (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).

200

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr the valor of these twelve men and women using the adjective andreia.96 Part of the hidden transcript of the martyr texts is that they purposefully “play” with male identification, “progressively loosening rigid gender categories from their anchoring in the social hierarchy of the polis.”97 Weakness and endurance, prototypically “feminine” qualities, were now considered virtuous for males. Equally as axiomatic is the role of female martyrs such as Perpetua and the Maccabean mother who have to “become men” inasmuch as their inscribed female weakness is now overcome by their newly inscribed role as martyr.98 The martyr-body was in many ways cross-dressed: men’s bodies took on socially defined feminine virtues, and females became men. As Pionius is led into the amphitheater, the narrator recounts how after he gladly removed his clothes he realized with great joy “the holiness and dignity of his own body.” (M. of Pionius 21.1). The author of the Letter to the Churches of Lyons and Vienne described the tortures of the Deacon Sanctus, whose very “body bore witness to his suffering.” His whole body became “one bruise and one wound, stretched and distorted out of any recognizable human shape” (H.E. 5.1.23). After a second day of similar tortures his tormenters were completely amazed that “he recovered this former appearance and the use of his limbs . . . the second trial by the grace of Christ, proved not to be a torture but a cure” (5.1.24). The body itself was, as Brent Shaw notes, “a critical site of power discourses.”99 Individuals could, in the face of extreme pressures from the dominant social group to conform, still maintain their convictions through 96. This is also attested by Plato’s inability to define manly “courage” with any precision in the Laches. The reference to the Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne is found in Eusebius H.E. 5, prologue. 97. Shaw, “Body/ Power/Identity,” 287. 98. In Perpetua’s final dream she is stripped of her clothes and becomes a man (et expoliata sum et facta sum masculinus) Passio Perpetua 11.7. The Maccabean mother is praised because her devout reason has given her heart “a man’s courage in the very midst of her emotions” (4 Macc 15:23). 99. Shaw, “Body/Power/Identity,” 309.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

201

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr the use of their bodies. Thus, martyrs, while powerless to confront their executioners with overt force, did indeed exert the full force of their convictions through their bodies, so much so that the rhetoric attached to martyrdom revalorized the normal meanings attached to the body itself. The male Christian authors used feminine virtues in a novel fashion, “as a means of interpreting their world, including forms of resistance to it.”100 And the women took on male qualities. Thus, the martyr texts of early Christianity, much like the New Testament before them, borrowed important rhetorical formulations from the sacrificial discourses of the Graeco-Roman and Jewish worlds. While there was no separate category designating a “martyr” prior to its early Christian usage in the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the tradition of a person’s death valorized with the sacrificial rhetoric of “nobility” can be found as early as Plato’s assessment of the death of Socrates. The Graeco-Roman world also valorized death on the battlefield. Livy rhetorically interpreted a “devotion” to the state (and the gods) such as that exhibited by Decius as sacrificial. By the time of the Books of the Maccabees, Jewish authors used this same rhetoric. The Jewish general Razis “devoted” himself in much the same way as Decius. The anonymous brothers of 2 Maccabees also died for the good of the nation. In these Jewish texts however, a clear sign of eschatological reward appears. God will vindicate the deaths of these heroes (as representatives of the nation) through a final resurrection. Christian texts beginning with the New Testament capitalized on this same discourse.101 Later Christian authors also used it, but they were able to formulate an even more powerful sacrificial discourse. The death of Jesus provided the perfect model for the martyrologists to pattern their writings. Because the martyrs died like Jesus Christianity offered the believer the pos100. Ibid., 295. 101. Such as John 15:13: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

202

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

sacrifice of the martyr sibility of a divine-like identification normally reserved for the emperor and imperial family. While resurrection was not unknown in the Judaism of the first centuries ce, the eschatological reward of a bodily, individual resurrection was one of Christianity’s main tenets. If the Christian could endure (hupomenos) even the pain of death, he or she would rise just as Jesus did. The Christian martyr texts also allowed the “body” to become a critical site of power and control. The normal Graeco-Roman system of honor and shame was inverted when a female like Perpetua achieved a victory when she died in the amphitheater. Passivity and endurance, considered feminine virtues, were rhetorically characterized as modes of dominance and power. Thus in creating “martyrs,” the martyrologists borrowed from rich traditions of sacrificial discourse and yet managed to augment them to produce a powerfully discursive tool to contest Roman religio-political hegemony.

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

The Theologians and the Martyrs’ Sacrifice While the sacrifice of the martyrs was textually portrayed by the skillful narratives of the martyrologists, martyrdom was important for Christianity’s earliest theologians as well. Having explored in the previous section how the martyrologist broadened Christianity’s sacrificial discourse, I want to demonstrate that “martyrdom” as sacrificial discourse was also the product of the philosopher and theologian. While the narratives and texts of the martyrs were able to seize the attention of the reader, the preaching and writing of several early Christian scholars also helped Christians and non-Christians alike understand the power of sacrifice. At the beginning of the third century, Clement of Alexandria was the first Christian who was not a martyr to evaluate the merits of martyrdom with any sustained discussion. Responding to the criticisms leveled by the Valentinian “gnostic” Basilides,

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

203

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr Clement was quick to point out that Heracleon, a pupil of Valentinus himself, did not deny the value of a martyr’s death but maintained that it was of only relative importance. Clement disagreed with the “gnostics” on many points, but he did agree with Heracleon on the relative importance of martyrdom. If the confession to God is martyrdom, each soul which has lived purely in the knowledge of God, which has obeyed the commandments, is a witness both by life and word, in whatever way it may be released from the body, shedding faith as blood along its whole life till its departure.102 While Clement linked “true” martyrdom to the knowledge (gno¯sis) of God (in addition to the physical death of the Christian which he almost grudglying concedes), it must also be noted that he did use the sacrificial metaphor, “shedding faith as blood.” Whatever he means by this phrase, he clearly understands the “martyr” experience within a sacrificial context. For Clement, the process by which the Christian “witnessed” to a true “knowledge” of God was comparable in meaning to the process of shedding blood in a sacrificial context. In contrast to the cautious opinion offered by Clement, his Latin contemporary Tertullian maintained that martyrdom provided a safe haven from the prison of this world. “If we reflect that the world is really a prison . . . O blessed, you may consider yourselves as having been translated from prison to, perchance, a place of safety.”103 For Tertullian, deliverance from the prison of “this world” cannot solely come through a ritualized vicarious identification with Christ’s sacrifice in baptism, since the possibility of human failure after one was baptized was all too certain. Salvation can only be guaranteed by a “second baptism” in 102. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 4.15.1–2, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2, trans. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1885–96). This reference is found on the website Early Christian Writings, edited by Peter Kirby. 103. Tertullian Ad martyres, 2.1 and 2.4. The standard commentary on Tertullian is T. D. Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study, rev. ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985).

204

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr blood. God “therefore appointed a second source of comfort, and the ultimate means of protection, the fight of martyrdom and the baptism of blood that followed it. . . . For appropriately nothing can be held against the martyrs by whom life is laid down in a baptism [of blood].”104 Written to strengthen the Carthaginian Christians during the persecutions of 202–203,105 Tertullian’s argument was quite simple. God has forbidden idolatry, otherwise martyrdom would never take place. Since God has ordained it and God is good, martyrdom, too, must be a good willed by God (bonum contendo martyrium apud eundem deum).106 Implicit in Tertullian’s language is the idolatrous nature of the sacrificial acts that the Christians were required to perform. For Tertullian martyrs became the sacrifice even as they refused to participate in the imperial sacrificial cult. Does this mean that God requires human sacrifice? Tertullian answered “yes—and happy is the man whom God devours” (et non beatum amplius reputasset quem deus comedisset).107 In his treatise To His Wife (Ad uxorem 1.3.4), Tertullian did concede that when faced with persecution it was permissible to flee. For Tertullian this was never a good option to apostasy, but it was preferable. In On Flight, his later work written during his Montanist phase, he rejected this view, arguing as he had earlier in Ad Scorpiace that since persecution comes from God, to flee is ultimately to run away from God’s will. Since God cannot will that which is not good, flight from persecution is not an option for the later Tertullian.108 Even though Jesus instructed his disciples to flee in the face of persecution (Matthew 10:23), Tertullian critically evaluated the text as belonging solely to the apostles and their times (in persona proprie apostolorum et in tempora et in causas eorum pertinere defendimus).109 Unlike Clement, Tertullian approved 104. Tertullian, Ad Scorpiace 6.9.and 10 (translation mine, italics added). 105. According to Barnes, Tertullian, 172. 106. Tertullian, Ad Scorpiace 5.3. 107. Ibid., 7.7. 108. Tertullian, De fuga in persecutione 4.1. 109. Ibid., 6.2.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

205

sacrifice of the martyr

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

of martyrdom unconditionally, finding no need to even discern a divine command. There was no authentic or inauthentic martyrdom for Tertullian. However, like Clement, Tertullian underscored his idea of martyrdom with an appeal to sacrificial themes. By refusing to participate in the idolatrous sacrificial cult of the emperor, the Christian became a sacrifice at God’s command, thereby achieving salvation from the prison of the world. Unlike his Alexandrian predecessor Clement, Origen had much more in common with Tertullian on the subject of martyrdom.110 He composed his Exhortation to Martyrdom in 235, during an outbreak of persecution in Caesarea. He placed martyrdom second only to baptism as the means of achieving forgiveness for one’s sins. Since “one cannot be baptized twice in water,” sins committed after baptism could only be forgiven by what he calls the “baptism of martyrdom.”111 Origen linked the Pauline notion of baptism as participation in the death of Christ with the sacrificial theology of Hebrews. Jean LaPorte noted that “Origen clearly defines the death of Christ as a sacrifice for sin.”112 Origen indicated that because Jesus accepted a baptism that effect110. Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution, 392–95, notes that Origen’s contribution lay in two conflicting directions. One the one hand, he was a “zealot for martyrdom and a preacher of defiance against the established authorities”; and on he other, he was a mystic and a philosopher who continued, much as Clement had done, to integrate Platonic idealism into Christian thought. Frend locates the Exhortation to Martyrdom as representative of Origen as the rebel. 111. Origen, Exhortation to Martyrdom 30, trans. John J. O’Meara (Westminster: The Newman Press, 1954). Homilies on Leviticus 2.4, trans. Gary Barkley (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1990). 112. According to Jean La Porte, “Sacrifice in Origen,” in Origen of Alexandria: His World and His Legacy, ed. Charles Kannengeisser and William Peterson (South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), 267. Interestingly La Porte notes that Origen’s notions of sacrifice are drawn from the writings of Philo. Philo was concerned with the principal forms of sacrifice found in Leviticus—the first fruits, the whole-burnt offerings, sacrifices for sin, and what La Porte terms “sacrifices of salvation” (253). La Porte cites numerous texts of Origen to support his case, most often Origen’s Homilies on Leviticus. La Porte finds a warrant in the thought of Philo used by Origen to understand Jesus’ sacrifice as both an expiatory sacrifice and a communion sacrifice. However, La Porte never cites Origen’s Exhortation to Martyrdom. This omission leads him to the conclusion that “Origen always refers to Christ when he deals with sacrifice” (258). Such a conclusion misses the central message of

206

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr ed an atonement for the entire world, martyrs who received this same baptism of blood also effected an atonement for their sins. Not only did the martyrs imitate the sacrificial death of Jesus, they also shared in the same redemptive activity of Jesus. Origen’s Exhortation is replete with sacrificial images and metaphors from the Bible. He begins by drawing on the image of the “cup of salvation” from Psalm 116:13. In the Gospels the image of a “cup” was used by the evangelists to link the disciples to the death of Jesus.113 It also recalled the eucharistic themes found in the Last Supper scenes that linked Jesus’ death to a sacrificial expiation of sin. Pamela Bright notes that Origen’s lines of argumentation intersect around “a constant biblical image, the High Priest in the Epistle to the Hebrews.” Origen’s distinctive contribution to the early Christian literature of martyrdom is the way in which he applied the sacrificial themes associated with the High Priest in Hebrews to the act of martyrdom itself.114 For Origen, martyrdom and expiation are intertwined within the greater discourse of sacrifice that is evident in Hebrews. He called Jesus the “High Priest [who] offered himself in sacrifice.”115 And just as the High Priests who throughout the history of Israel “thought they were ministering forgiveness of sins by the blood of bulls and goats,” the martyrs who have been “beheaded for their witness to Jesus” also “minister forgiveness to those who pray.”116 Imitating the sacrifice of JeOrigen’s Exhortation, where he consistently links the death of the martyrs not only to the release of the soul but to the sacrifice of Jesus. Clearly Origen considered the death of the martyrs to be sacrificially mimetic of the offering of Jesus. 113. See Mark 10:38: “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” 114. Pamela Bright, “Origenian Understanding of Martyrdom and Its Biblical Framework,” in Origen of Alexandria: His World and His Legacy, ed. Charles Kannengiesser and William Peterson (South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), 193–94. She notes that the image of the “cup,” the “High Priest,” and the “ascent of Christ” provide a “general ambiance” for the treatment of the topic of martyrdom drawn from the Letter to the Hebrews. 115. Origen, Exhortation to Martyrdom, 30. 116. Ibid.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

207

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr sus was, for Origen, the clearest way to salvation for the martyr him/herself. It also effected a type of atonement for others who pray for them as well. This led Origen to what must be described in Tertullian-like terms as a zeal for martyrdom: “If we wish to save our soul . . . let us lose it in martyrdom. For if we lose it for Christ’s sake, laying it before Him in dying for Him, we shall achieve for it our true salvation.”117 Echoing the Stoic idea of maintaining one’s honor through a control of the will, Origen praised both Eleazar and the seven brothers in 2 Maccabees. “What dead person could be more deserving of praise than he who of his own choice elected to die for his religion?”118 Origen underscored the idea that the Maccabean brothers elected to die by their own choice. Origen had no problem identifying Eleazar and the seven brothers as true martyrs, since the same criteria he applied to the early Christians was evident in the Old Testament texts as well. It was pivotal for the rhetoric of Christian martyrdom to highlight the fact that even though men and women were arrested against their will, their deaths, like Jesus’, were completely voluntary. At least rhetorically they were described as being in complete control of their fate. The martyr was not put to death, but freely chose to die. Thus was the rhetoric of the Passion Narratives applied mimetically to the martyr. By the time Origen wrote in the early third century, such an ideology was critical for understanding the phenomenon of martyrdom.119 Just as water was thrown on the head of the sacrificial animal to make it nod thereby giving its consent to becoming a sacrifice, the same sense 117. Ibid., 12. 118. Ibid., 22. 119. See Joseph Trigg, Origen: The Bible and Philosophy in the Third Century Church (Atlanta: John Knox Press. 1983), especially 199. Trigg argues that Origen’s concern for Christian anthropology, a unified system of body (soma) and soul (nous), far outweighed any detailed concern for a systematic ecclesiology. Thus, the martyr as valorized Christian hero could not be forced against his will to die, he or she must have freely chosen to commit his or her body to the will of God, as did Jesus.

208

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr of freedom and personal volition were integral to Christianity’s idea of martyrdom.120 Reminiscent of many of the martyr narratives alluded to earlier, Origen saw the cosmic dimensions of the martyr’s task. He noted that while the Romans forced the Christians to acknowledge polytheism (which for Origen was a form of atheism), it was really the “Enemy” orchestrating the entire persecution. There was no middle ground for Origen such as we found in the writings of Clement and Tertullian. Those brought to trial before the Roman magistrates were going to be either idolaters or martyrs.121 Martyrdom, as an act of the will and human freedom, freed the soul from the impediment of the body and the wiles of the demonic: “Why then do we hesitate and waver . . . why not be delivered from our bonds and free ourselves from the storms that are born of flesh and blood? We would then repose with Christ Jesus in the repose that comes with eternal bliss alone.”122 For Origen martyrs were “exalted higher” than they would have been “if they had only been justified and not also become martyrs.” The sacrifice of the martyr was so effective that not only did the martyr gain heaven, God himself was glorified in the process.123 Thus the writings of Clement, Tertullian, and Origen provide an early evaluation of martyrdom. While Clement’s ideas are closer to the New Testament concept of “spiritual sacrifice,” where true “knowledge” forced the Christian to act in ways that mirrored the sacrificial love of Jesus, Tertullian saw martyrdom as a valid escape from the world. Such a “baptism of blood” was the best way a believer could vicariously identify with Jesus. Origen’s work was pivotal because it linked the tapestry of biblical 120. See W. Burkert’s ritual description in Greek Religion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 56–57. 121. Origen, Exhortation to Martyrdom, 32. 122. Ibid., 47. 123. Ibid., 50.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

209

sacrifice of the martyr metaphors to the real-life situation of the early Church. Origen’s rhetorical style situated martyrdom squarely within the greater discourse of sacrifice that the Church had begun fashioning centuries earlier. By the mid-third century the battlelines were drawn between Imperial Rome and the early Christian Church. Both understood “sacrifice” and ritualized it in various ways as expressions of power and identity. Christianity not only narrativized sacrifice through the texts of martyrdom and the New Testament, its earliest preachers exhorted believers to martyrdom with an equally forceful rhetoric.

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

Cyprian of Carthage: “The Baptism of Blood, the Crown of Virtues” By the time Cyprian of Carthage (200–258 ce) was martyred during the persecutions of Valerian on September 14, 258, Christianity had developed an internal order of ecclesiastical organization that mirrored the imperial strategy of Rome. In his life and death can be found a culmination of Christian sacrificial discourse. Therefore a discussion of Cyprian is a fitting way to conclude this chapter, since as preacher, theologian, and martyr he represents early Christianity’s synthesis of Jewish and GraecoRoman discourses. As Christianity emerged from the sacrificial world of political power molded by the imperial cult, it envisioned an alternative kingdom articulated through the sacrifice of Jesus. It then was able to extend this sacrificial rhetoric to the death of the Christian martyr. Coming full circle by the mid-third century, Christianity established its own imperial internal order replete with sacrificial imagery. This Christian sacrificial discourse is most completely represented in the life and writings of Cyprian. Not only do we have Cyprian’s exhortation to others about the glories of martyrdom, we also have his writings on the structure of Church order and an Acta that describes his martyrdom.

210

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr Cyprian’s theology, as well as his other writings and personal martyrdom, provide a summary of Christianity’s attempt to formulate its own imperial sacrificial discourse. By the mid-third century, Christianity had succeeded in adapting the imperial strategy of the Roman Empire. Sage suggests that the Church of the third century “had all the markings of a “state within a state.”124 Allen similarly suggests that the Church became an “imperium in imperio.” It had formed a counterculture that had absorbed key elements from its host culture.125 Christianity’s success in developing such an imperial counterculture was based primarily on its rhetorical, ritual, and personal application of “sacrifice” as a topos that linked the death of Jesus both ritually and physically to the believer. The Church forcefully opposed Roman hegemony by creating its own imperial government justified by a discourse of sacrifice. Converted to Christianity in 246, Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus rose quickly to power in the Church of Carthage and became bishop in 249.126 During the Decian persecution of 250, Cyprian went into hiding and returned to Carthage shortly after the death of Decius in 251. Like Tertullian, Cyprian indicated that flight was one possible option available to Christians, since Jesus himself had recommended it. Martyrdom was reserved for those whom God had called.127 According to the Acta Proconsu124. Michael Sage, Cyprian (Cambridge: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1975), 177. 125. Allen, The Imperial Cult, 11. 126. See Sage, Cyprian¸ 192–93. The sentences handed down during the Decian persecution were relegatio (banishment), confiscatio (confiscation of property), and poena capitalis (capital punishment). Sage remarks that the “infliction of capital punishment in the west appears to have been somewhat restricted” (187). Decius was perhaps more concerned with eliminating the power structure of the Church than eradicating Christians themselves. A dated but valuable reference for Cyprian’s understanding of martyrdom is Edelhard Hummel, The Concept of Martyrdom According to St. Cyprian of Carthage (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1946), especially 108–66. See also J. Patout Burns, Cyprian the Bishop (New York: Routledge, 2002). 127. Cyprian, On the Lapsed, 10. All the quotations from Cyprian are taken from Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 5, eds. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, trans. Earnest Wallis

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

211

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr laria Sancti Cypriani, Valerian decreed in August 257 that all those who “do not practice Roman religion” should “acknowledge Roman Rites” (Acta Cypriani 1.2). Paternus, the Roman proconsul of Africa, summoned Cyprian, who acknowledged that he was a Christian but accepted Paternus’ offer of exile to the city of Curubis. Valerian issued a second edict in 258 that included specific punishments for Christian clergy. It was in response to this second edict that the new African proconsul, Galerius Maximus, summoned Cyprian from exile and ordered him to perform the sacrifices (caeremoniari). When Cyprian refused, Galerius pronounced him an enemy of the gods of Rome and Roman religious practices (inimicum te diis Romanis et sacris religionibus constituisti—Acta 4.1). Because he was a Roman citizen, there was no torture or humiliation such as other martyrs experienced; he was quickly beheaded. While the Acta that bears his name is simple and without ornamentation, Cyprian’s own writing revealed the glory and benefit of martyrdom itself. Much of his language was reminiscent of the classic Roman devotio. The martyr became a champion warrior who died a noble death: “If the battle shall call you out, if the day of your contest shall come engage bravely, fight with constancy, as knowing that you are fighting under the eyes of a present Lord, that you are attaining by the confession of His name to His own glory.”128 Cyprian’s militaristic language was a constant theme in his writings about martyrdom. Cyprian wrote: “how acceptable to the eyes of God is the allegiance and devotion of his soldiers” (Epistle 8). “The Lord desired that we should rejoice and leap for joy in persecutions” because it is through persecution that the “crown of faith” awaits those in battle (Epistle 55.2). He consistently referenced Paul’s theme, the Christian agon, the race and (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1885–96), and available on the website Christian Classics Ethereal Library at Calvin College. 128. Cyprian, Epistle 8.

212

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr the crown of immortality that awaited those who endured to the end (1 Cor 9:24). “Behold a lofty and great contest. . . . Christ everywhere looks upon his soldier fighting for the sake of persecution and gives a reward to him when he dies” (Epistle 55.8 and 4). Cyprian located the death of a martyr within the same sacrificial rhetoric as was used in both Roman religious politics and the writings of the New Testament. He indicated that Paul declared “he would soon be a sacrifice for the Lord” and “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.”129 He also cited Wisdom 3:4, in which the imagery of resurrection is articulated. For those who suffered “their hope [is] full of immortality because God has tried them and found them worthy to be a sacrifice” (Epistle 80.2). For Cyprian, the martyr’s suffering became a sacrifice that acted as “a certain medicine” so that “they might redeem their sins committed and be regarded as washed in the gore by his blood” (On the Glory of Martyrdom 23).130 Cyprian asked: “For in what manner should we be able to recognize the dignity of martyrdom, if we were not constrained to desire it, even at the price of the sacrifice of our body?” (On the Glory of Martyrdom, 2). He rhetorically cast the drama of the martyr’s struggle as a cosmic battle waged by the martyr against the emperor as Satan. “Let us fortify ourselves . . . to resist the threats of the Devil” (Epistle 55.9). The Roman persecutors are themselves merely puppets in the long cosmic battle waged 129. Ibid., quoting 2 Timothy 4:6–8). The theme of the “crown” is found in many of Cyprian’s Epistles. See especially Epistles 8; 20.1; 55.8; 80. 130. The authenticity of On the Glory of Martyrdom, attributed to Cyprian, has long been questioned by scholars. Harnack considered it spurious, but there is no consensus. For my purposes, more important than a text-critical analysis is the way in which the rhetoric of martyrdom is advanced in this text. The expiatory character of the martyr’s death-as-sacrifice is evident in paragraph 2: “For assuredly you ought to consider what glory there is in expiating any kind of defilement of life and the worldly guilt incurred by so great a lapse of time, by the remedial action of one stroke whereby both reward may be increased and guilt excluded.”

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

213

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr against the people of God. “It is an ancient adversary and an old enemy with whom we wage our battle: six thousand years are now nearly complete since the devil first attacked man.” Fear of persecution must be put aside because “greater is the Lord to protect than the Devil to assault” (Exhortation to Martyrdom, Preface, 2). In the midst of persecutions Cyprian suggested that the “Antichrist is threatening, but Christ is protecting; death is brought in, but immortality follows” (Exhortation to Martyrdom 13.1). Since death cannot be avoided, Cyprian reasoned that it should not be feared. If it is inevitable, then it should be embraced as part of God’s plan for the crown of immortality. He cited the traditions of Daniel, as well as Eleazar and the Maccabean brothers, as heroes who nobly embraced death by standing in opposition to religious persecution. To those who were weak in faith, Cyprian cautioned that because God dislikes idolatry, “he has . . . commanded those to be slain who persuade others to sacrifice and serve idols . . . besides, we must teach that God does not easily pardon idolaters” (Exhortation to Martyrdom 4 and 5). Like Tertullian, Cyprian believed that martyrdom acted as a second baptism “greater in grace, more lofty in power, more precious in honor.” In the baptism of water the believer received the remission of sins, but in the “baptism of blood” one received the “crown of virtues” (Exhortation Preface, 4). Cyprian’s rhetoric echoed that of Origen and Tertullian: martyrdom is more effective than even baptism. After baptism the potential for sin remained, but not so after martyrdom. As a sacrifice, martyrdom expiated all sins and effected a communion with the saints of heaven.131 Cyprian’s writing acknowledged the impor131. Burns, Cyprian, 20–24, argues that it was the growing influence of the confessors (those who were imprisoned and tortured but not killed) in interceding on behalf of the lapsed Catholics (those who had sacrificed, or purchased a certificate indicting they had) that posed a serious threat to the authority of the local bishop and the unity of the Church.

214

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr tance he placed on the unity and communion among the various Christian churches of his day. It should not be surprising that the rhetoric of Church order also mirrored the imperial order of Roman religious politics. Cyprian valued the power of the episcopate as the unifying force within the Church.132 In his stand-off with Stephen of Rome regarding the rebaptism of heretics, Cyprian was led to conclude that the independence of the bishop “was the only principle that could assure a measure of unity within the Church.”133 Cyprian’s idea is best expressed in his treatise De catholicae ecclesiae unitate (On the Unity of the Catholic Church): “Thus also the Church, shone over with the light of the Lord, sheds forth her rays over the whole world, yet it is one light (unum tamen lumen est) which is everywhere diffused, nor is the unity of the body separated (nec unitas corporis separatur).”134 Cyprian’s language witnessed not only to the Neo-Platonic ideas of the third century, but also the reforms of the imperial cult during the Severan Age. Caracalla’s decree granting universal citizenship to freeborn men in the empire in 212 ce was a reenergized effort to unify a widely divergent empire. Given the close connection between political and religious symbolism in Roman ideology, Caracalla’s move also had particular religious implications.135 The Severan Age saw the integration of diverse cultures into the Roman religio-political fabric. It was during this time that the cult of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun) was merged with the imperial cult. A coin depicting Geta from 202 reads: Severi invicti Aug(usti), pii fil(ii) (the dutiful son of the 132. In Cyprian’s theory the episcopate existed for the sake of the Church and must be one because the Church was one. The unity of the Church was expressed in episcopal collegiality. In the episcopal college, each member was the equal of every other and no one had authority over another. In practice some bishops had greater influence over their peers. See the discussion in Burns, Cyprian, 151–65. 133. So Sage, Cyprian, 334. 134. Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church, 5 135. See J. B. Rives, Religion and Authority in Roman Carthage from Augustus to Constantine (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 250–55.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

215

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr unconquered Augustus). Geta is not depicted with the normal crown of an emperor, but rather wears a circle of rays of the sungod and raises his right hand in blessing.136 Caracalla is also portrayed on coins with Sarapis and associated with Sol Invictus as kosmokrato¯r (ruler of the universe). While kosmokrato¯r was associated with Mithraism, an inscription found in the baths of Caracalla links the emperor and the god to a type of political divine monotheism.137 Rives argues that this type of universalized political monotheism, evident among the Severans, was used along with the imperial cult to refocus the particular Roman religious identity originated by Augustus.138 The similarities between Severan iconography and Cyprian’s rhetoric of Church order are striking. Just as Roman political power was depicted emanating from the emperor/sun-god uniting the far-flung reaches of the empire, Cyprian advanced a theory of Church order that saw local Christian Churches united by the light/truth which emanated from God through Christianity. It is striking to see how both the Severans and Cyprian use the same Neo-Platonic ideological framework (“the one and the many”) as markers for their religio-political agendas.139 For the Severans, their moves were an attempt to unify a far-flung, religiously diverse, and politically unwieldy empire. For Cyprian, his ecclesiology was an attempt to mystically unite distant churches (who worshipped the same heavenly Christ) around the imperial role of each local bishop. While Cyprian eschewed any centralized universal Church authority, his Neo-Platonic imagery, when applied to the mystical nature of the Church itself, provided early Christianity with a powerful rhetoric used to unite believers. To advance such an agenda it is not difficult to see how Cyprian, as well as the emperors Decius and Valerian, used 136. Quoted in Allen, Imperial Cult, 268. 137. Ibid., 269: εἱς͂ Ζεὺς Σάραπις Ηλιος ̓́ κοσμοκράτηρ ajneivkhto”. 138. So Rives, Religion and Authority, 9. 139. See a fuller discussion of this ideological comparison in Allen, Imperial Cult, 269ff.

216

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

sacrifice of the martyr “sacrifice” as the ritual marker for their vision of religio-political identity and loyalty. “Sacrifice” effected ritual communion as well as atonement. It was used to unite humanity to divinity, emperor to citizenry, believer to a crucified Lord, and martyr to resurrected God. “Sacrifice” worked well within imperial structures to signify hierarchical power and maintain social borders. Just as sacrifice to the emperor/Unconquered Sun linked an imperial center to provincial towns, so too the sacrifices connected with Christian thought and practice united local Churches to the one Church of the risen Lord Jesus. If in the end Christianity “succeeded,” it was because its sacrificial rhetoric and ritual practice promoted its imperial agenda better than did Rome’s sacrificial discourse.

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

Conclusions While ancient Rome and Greece had heroes that devoted themselves to the gods and the state, the Christians had a rhetoric of martyrdom that was not based on the fragile pax deorum but on the pax Christi. Just as the Christian God had become human and sacrificed his life, so too the martyr was guaranteed to become “like Jesus” through his/ her own self-sacrifice. Roman persecution was, in a sense, a convenient means for Christians to do what Jesus had instructed his followers: “whoever loses his life for my sake will save it” (Matthew 16:15). The Christian martyr was thus very much at home in a classical world where honor could be reclaimed through physical contest. The gladiator’s sacramentum (oath) “to be burned, to be bound, to be beaten and to be slain by the sword” sanctified and concentrated power within the oath-taker.140 While the gladiator was ultimately consumed by death within the arena, the Christian martyr was rhetorically invincible, conquering even death 140. See Carlin Barton, “Honor and Sacredness,” 28–29.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

217

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrifice of the martyr itself as Jesus had. Cyprian asked: “What is more glorious than by dying to have overcome death itself which is feared by all?”141 Thus the Christian concept of the “martyr” was a rhetorical label used by Christian writers. Such a label extended to its members the sacrificially conceived ideology of death that the New Testament writers had used to interpret the death of Jesus. Not only did the rhetoric of martyrdom valorize the death of Christians persecuted throughout the empire, it was also used to counter the claims made by imperial power. Just as Jesus overcame death by dying on a cross, the “crown of immortality” awaited those who died “unjustly” at the hands of Roman officials. Since its first use to distinguish a separate category of persons in the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the idea of martyrdom has been a rhetorical category used to valorize any type of “noble” death. As previously suggested, a “martyr” is a creation of the martyrologist. Martyrdom functioned as one thread in the more general discourse of sacrifice. It has demonstrated that while many people “died nobly” in the ancient world, the Christian martyr died not only to defeat death but to become personally and bodily transformed in the resurrection. As such, the rhetoric of martyrdom augmented the discourse of sacrifice found in the New Testament. Because Christians refused to assent to the power of the emperor and the fragile order of the cosmos symbolized by imperial sacrifices, they became sacrifices like Jesus. The sacrificial discourse of the early Christian Church was also constitutive of an imperial ideology that provided Christians with a means to challenge the authority of Rome. 141. Cyprian, Epistle 31.3.

218

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Conclusions

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

I

n reflecting on the clash between early Christianity and ancient Rome, Adolph Deissmann observed almost one hundred years ago that “solemn concepts” of the “cult of Christ” happened to coincide with the “Imperial Cult” of the Roman emperor.1 The task throughout this study has been to explore one of those “solemn concepts,” namely how the idea of sacrifice functioned in a pivotal manner for both the ancient Romans and the early Christians. While Deissmann saw a “polemical parallelism” between the ideas shared between the imperial cult and Christianity, I have argued the opposite. Both groups drew effectively from a common well where the idea and practice of sacrifice functioned as a central forum for political and religious discourse. The hostility between Rome and early Christianity arose from Christian refusal to become fully identified with Roman religio-political rule. The idea of sacrifice functioned as a rhetorical marker for creating political power and social identity. Viewed from its semantic origins, our English word “sacrifice” refers to the act of removing something from the realm of the profane and rendering it sacred. While such a definition appears quite simple, this form of ritualized separation has taken 1. Adolph Deissmann, Light from the Ancient Near East (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1910), 342.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

219

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

conclusions so many forms throughout human history that no one definition of “sacrifice” can do justice to its polysemous nature. The word itself has a rhetorical force that grants nobility and a sense of heightened dignity to the object or persons removed from the world of the profane. Viewed as such, sacrificial rhetoric and practice have a surplus of meaning, much of which has been used by human culture to define identity and purpose in an otherwise paradoxical world. “Sacrifice” is both a ritual practice and a mode of social discourse. “Discourse” refers to the multiple ways in which social power can be communicated through a network of words, symbols, and practices. A round spherical object filled with air only becomes a “soccer ball” when other social factors are present. Either a precise ritual dictates the naming of the ball or, perhaps even simpler, those who possess a power over this spherical object arbitrarily designate it as such. As Sandra Polaski commented, discourse is not so much about what is said as about control over what may be said.2 Discourse is logically prior to the rhetoric that attempts to describe it. There is no one “thing” which is “fashion,” yet somehow everyone engages in it. The clothes we selected from the store were already predetermined by the discourse of fashion prevalent in our society. Discourse is about power, control, and identity. Bruce Lincoln has argued that discourse functions to create social borders within human culture.3 Effective social change and subsequent social control come about when discourse evokes long-lasting sentiments of identification. I have suggested that “sacrifice” functions as a mode of human social discourse in and above its purely religious identification. Multiple expressions of “sacrifice” existed not only in an2. Sandra Polaski, Paul and the Discourse of Power (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 37. 3. Bruce Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).

220

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

conclusions tiquity but in the modern world as well. For the ancients, sacrifice consisted in a spectrum of ritual actions. The pouring of unmixed wine at a banquet, the burning of incense, the ritual slaughter of a domestic animal, even the death of a human person could all be described as “sacrifices.” The French theorists Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss noticed that the same sacrificial action could ward off the anger of the gods at one moment and invite the same gods to be participants in a ritual communion banquet at the next.4 Thus, a sacrifice is as much about how one subjectively names it as it is about a precisely defined objective ritual. Because of the ubiquitous nature of sacrificial rhetoric throughout human history, sacrifice is best seen as a mode of social discourse that has provided human culture with the power to establish and control social identity by both inverting and reinforcing accepted social norms. If sacrifice can be viewed as a mode of social discourse, then it is fruitless to search for its origins. Somehow humanity realized that it was both continuous and discontinuous with the created universe. In death, somehow that which was once human returned to the very dust of the earth. I agree with Georges Bataille when he argued that this paradox of human connection and separation from creation produces an “anguish.”5 This anguish then becomes reified in sacrificial practice and rhetoric. It is only in the paradoxical anguish of sacrificing a life that somehow the value of life is understood to be enhanced. A sacrifice is both noble and socially valuable because it is both simultaneously a relinquishment and a gift. This is as true for the pouring of a libation as it is for the death of a warrior. The normal “use” of sacrificial objects is inverted, since wine that is normally drunk is poured on the ground and the life of a human being, normally 4. H. Hubert and M. Mauss, Sacrifice: Its Nature and Function (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964). 5. Georges Bataille, Inner Experience (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), 194–95.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

221

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

conclusions preserved as long as possible, is terminated. Valorized as such, the wine that was wasted is declared a tribute and an honor to the emperor; the warrior who was killed is esteemed as one who had not died “in vain.” Sacrifice can thus encompass the “power” of life and death. It has operated horizontally among human beings to valorize the gifts that are freely relinquished without an expectation of return, and vertically by appealing to the largess of some divine benefaction (do ut des—I give in order that you may give). As a universal human expression of power and control that lacks a specifiable historical beginning and yet inverts the norms of human behavior, sacrifice is most fully explained as a mode of human discourse. The purpose of this study has been to examine how and why the early Christians chose death rather than participate in the imperially mandated sacrifices during the first three centuries of the Roman Principate. There is no one simple answer, but as a small minority within the confines of the Roman world, the earliest Christians refused to be confined or conscribed by the kingdom of Rome because their focus was on another kingdom. “The time has come,” Jesus said. “The kingdom of God is near” (Mark 1:15). The clash between Christians and Romans was a clash within discourses. If “sacrifice,” as either a ritual act or a rhetorical tool, can unite a group by creating identity and social power, then it can be used as an ideological or ritual weapon when identity and social power are contested. Simply put, because sacrifice was such a symbolic focal point for the expression of both religious and social power, it was natural that it became the lightning rod for social conflict. This Christian expectation of a “kingdom of God” quite naturally made the “kingdom of Caesar” nervous. This is not simply to impute crass political motives to the rhetoric of early Christianity, but to suggest a rationale for why such a highly ritualized form of religious behavior, like sacrifice, became so contentious. Romans 13:1–2 notwithstanding, much of the rhetoric of the New Testament and other

222

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

conclusions early Christian authors can only be read in the context of opposition to Roman religious and political hegemony.6 The struggle between the power of Rome and the Church was played out visà-vis a clash within sacrificial discourses and not a collision of competing systematic theologies. This study began by noting that religion and politics were not separate categories in the ancient world. Chapter one outlined the basic tenets of ancient Roman religion gleaned from the history of Livy and the writings of Plutarch, Ovid, and Cicero. Religio was the proper behavior that characterized the life of the Roman citizen. The cosmos functioned in direct proportion to the equipoise established between the gods and humanity. Proper action ensured the success of the people and the state. As such, physical space as well as ritual action were important factors in Roman religion. The birth of the city was itself a “religious” action as Romulus furrowed a mythical boundary known as the pomerium. It should not be surprising then that the power to maintain this balance was ritualized through the many forms of sacrifice. In fact, Romulus sacrificed his twin brother Remus because the latter unwittingly violated the sacredness of the city’s ritual space. From its legendary inception, then, Roman religion was intimately linked to the distribution of political power ritualized in sacrificial action. The basic unit of Roman society was the family, symbolized 6. One need only look at the recent scholarly research that has described the subtle anti-imperial rhetoric within the New Testament. See, for example, Richard Horsley, Jesus and Empire (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003); Bruce Malina, The Social Gospel of Jesus (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001); John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1994), and The Birth of Christianity (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1998); Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, Jesus against Christianity: Reclaiming the Missing Jesus (Harrisburg: Trinity Press, 2001); Gerd Theissen, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus : The Question of Criteria (Westminster: John Knox, 2002);William Herzog, Jesus, Justice, and the Reign of God : A Ministry of Liberation (Louisville: Westminster, John Knox, 2000). Even the writings of Paul (including Romans 13) have been analyzed in a similar vein. See Paul and Empire, ed. Richard Horsley (Harrisburg: Trinity Press, 1997); Paul and Politics, ed. Richard Horsley (Harrisburg: Trinity International, 2000); and Rome and the Bible in the Early Church, ed. Peter Oakes (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002).

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

223

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

conclusions by the paterfamilias. Roman homes contained shrines to Lares (the gods of the ancestors) where daily sacrifice, usually in the form of a libation, was offered. What occurred within the local Roman kin group was then metaphorically extended to the nation as a whole. The practices of Roman religion were delegated to the priesthoods of ancient Rome. It was the priestly colleges that specialized in discerning the will of the gods, as well as the political benefaction that characterized the republican system. Ancient Roman religion was both innovative and conservative. On the one hand, foreign cults such as Isis, Cybele, and Mithras were welcomed into the city and incorporated into civic life. On the other hand, however, official scrutiny was always on the lookout for superstitio: excessive or improper forms of cultic and religious expression (e.g., the Bacchanalian scandal of 286 bce). Accompanying the flow of priestly power was the control of the Roman calendar. The celebration of numerous religious festivals signaled relief from the drudgery of daily life. Games and sacrifices were offered and funded by the elites for the benefit and the control of the masses. The blood sacrifices that accompanied these rites witnessed the distribution not only of food, but also of political power. There is no one single definition that can encompass the essence of Roman religion. The flow of power both vertically between the gods and the Roman state as well as horizontally between the urban elites and the populace was kept in balance by the correct observance of sacrificial rituals. Even Roman sacrifices cannot be reduced to one single descriptive event. Thus Roman religious sacrifice was itself a discourse composed of several different, yet related, actions. The purpose of the varied rites was to maintain the pax deorum, the fragile “peace of the gods.” Failure to do so meant failure for the Roman state itself. Chapter two extended this discussion by looking at the change in Roman religious practice at the dawn of the empire. As Julius Caesar, and later Augustus, managed to consolidate po-

224

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

conclusions litical power in the person of the emperor, there was, not surprisingly, a change in Roman religious practice as well. As imperium shifted political and religious power into the hands of a single leader, a corresponding imperial cult also developed. The point here is that the imperial cult did not become a rigidly fixed religious phenomenon throughout the empire, but it did form what James Scott has called the “public transcript” of Roman identity.7 Participation in the rites of the imperial cult provided a symbolic expression of Roman identity for peoples hundreds of miles from Italy. While the imperial cult came to the fore with the advent of empire, the preconditions that made it possible were already present in the Hellenistic world. As the Romans won military victories in the Greek east, they increasingly came into contact with Hellenistic customs. “Divine-like” honors were accorded Greek heroes as early as the fifth century bce. These heroic honors began to include civic as well as military leaders. With the advent of Alexander’s conquests and the subsequent Hellenistic kingdoms that were established, “ruler-cults” flourished, replete with sacrifices offered on behalf of the monarchs. S. R. Price has argued that such a development was the outgrowth of the Hellenistic cities’ coping with a political power that was no longer based in the citystate.8 With monarchs no longer resident in the cities of these Hellenistic kingdoms, the flow of power from the periphery to the center was symbolized and managed by a “ruler-cult” that was modeled on the cult of the gods. Evidence of such ruler cults abounds in the Antigonid, Attalid, and Seleucid Kingdoms. Given the importance of divine status in Pharonic theory, the Egyptian Ptolomaic rulers enjoyed the most highly developed ruler cults in the Hellenistic world. The Hellenistic world, ac7. James Scott, Domination and the Art of Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 18ff. 8. S. R. Price, Rituals and Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

225

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

conclusions customed to honoring civic and military heroes with “divinelike” honors, offered Roman provincial magistrates cults complete with a priesthood and sacrifices. Cicero was voted such an honor for his tenure as proconsul of Asia, but he declined. Given both the intra-Roman penchant for “divine-like” honor accorded military generals and the prevailing climate of sacrificial cults for heroes and rulers, it was not surprising that Caesar, as he consolidated both political and religious power, was accorded “divine-like” honors by the Roman Senate. His murder left little to complete the process of apotheosis, as the Senate voted him the status of divus Iulius in 42 bce. A cult was established in his honor, complete with a priesthood, games, and sacrifices. It is important to note that the title accorded the deceased emperor was divus and not the usual term reserved for a “god,” deus. Since our western minds conceive of divinity only in absolute terms, English does not have the ability to distinguish the conceptual difference between divus and deus. Whatever difference did exist was known to the ancients because they used different concepts to express the divinity of the gods and that of an apotheosized emperor. There was a “sliding-scale” of divinity upon which a deceased emperor (and later members of the imperial family) could be placed after their deaths. “Divinity” was not a static concept in the ancient world. What Caesar had established by way of preparation for the imperial cult, his successor Octavian would complete. By announcing in 27 bce that he was “handing-over” the autocratic powers he had inherited from Caesar, Octavian was hailed as a hero and given the title Augustus (the august one). He restructured and enlarged the city of Rome, placing crossroad shrines dedicated to the Lares Augusti. In other words, what were public ward cults were now extensions of the private cults of Augustus and his family. Through sacrificial practice, the emperor became present on almost every street corner. While religious in nature, such sacrifices, usually in the form of incense altars, were for-

226

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

conclusions mative of a Roman sacrificial discourse in which political control was established without the physical presence of the ruling monarch. Cults to Augustus and the Sebastoi (the imperial line) were easily welcomed in the Greek provinces previously accustomed to similar “divine-like” honors accorded the former Hellenistic rulers. A sacrifice of unmixed wine was poured at each official Roman banquet in honor of the emperor after the death of Augustus in 14 ce. The Latin west also saw altars inscribed to the numen Augusti (the “divine spirit” of Augustus) from Spain to Gaul and North Africa. While the imperial cult cannot be reduced to any single expression throughout ancient Roman history, one common element that perdured was the practice of sacrifice. The sacrificial dimension of the imperial cult was important because as a mode of discourse it was part of Rome’s “public transcript” of power and social identity. Rome’s ability to formulate this discourse through sacrificial rhetoric and practice was an effective way to maintain social control. It was within this world that Christianity emerged and later developed its own discourse of sacrifice. Much like Rome’s use of the discursive dimension of sacrificial rhetoric, Christianity would develop its own view of “how the cosmos functioned.” Sacrificial rhetoric helped to shape Christian identity and power. When Christianity’s “public transcript” became manifest, it sparked suspicion and hostility from Imperial Rome. What Christians lacked in military might, they made up for by their use of sacrificial rhetoric. The antagonism between Christians and Romans was a clash within their respective discourses. Chapter three traced the sacrificial rhetoric found in the New Testament. Without attempting to isolate the historical Jesus, it is clear that the rhetoric of early Christianity interpreted his death as a sacrifice. Since Jesus died as a common criminal, the early Church was faced with a dilemma. If Jesus was the messianic herald of God’s kingdom, Christianity, rooted in Judaism,

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

227

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

conclusions had to account for the fact that there was no precedent for a suffering and dying messianic figure. To compound matters, the manner of his death (on the wood of the cross) was considered a curse according to Deuteronomy 21:23. In short, early Christian authors had to valorize Jesus’ death if they believed him to be the harbinger of God’s final kingdom. This was done in part by using sacrificial rhetoric. While the New Testament does not purport to develop any theory of sacrifice, it does use sacrificial rhetoric to allow Jesus’ death to evoke sacrificial themes found in the Old Testament and the sacrificial discourse found in the Graeco-Roman world. A pivotal place for a sacrificial understanding of Jesus’ death is found in the Letter to the Hebrews. Hebrews utilized the sacrificial imagery from the Jewish Day of Atonement to valorize Jesus’ sacrifice as something even greater than that of the High Priest. Whereas the High Priest had to offer a sacrifice, first, for himself (in order that he might be purified to enter the holiest part of the Jerusalem Temple), and then, one for the people, Jesus acts as both priest and victim. There was no need for sacrificial repetition, since Jesus’ death accomplished once and for all the reconciliation between God and humanity that the High Priest had to ritualize each year. One of the underlying assumptions generated by Hebrews is that the sacrificial system of Israel really worked, but that the offering of Jesus has now superceded it. Paul linked the death of Jesus to the sacrificial dimensions of the Jewish Passover ritual. Because the Passover lamb had been effective in warding off divine anger directed at the Egyptians, Paul used this imagery to indicate that “Christ our Passover has been sacrificed” (1 Cor 5:7). Similar to the Passover lamb, Jesus’ death effected an “expiation by his blood” (Romans 3:25). And just as the Passover-Exodus experience forged a bond of freedom for the Israelites from the tyranny of Egyptian slavery, so too the sacrificial death of Jesus incorporated believers into the

228

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

conclusions very “body of Christ” (Romans 12:4–5; 1 Corinthians 12:12–13). Paul, as well as the Synoptic Gospels, saw sacrificial themes in the final meal between Jesus and his followers. The cup of wine used at the final meal symbolized the “blood” of a new covenantal sacrifice (1 Corinthians 11:25), the first being offered by Moses when Israel and God entered into the Sinai covenant. Mark and Luke utilized the technical language of Jewish sacrificial ritual when they indicated that Jesus’ blood is “poured out” (Mark 13:24; Luke 22:20). Matthew augmented this sacrificial rhetoric by specifically noting the expiatory character of Jesus’ offering “for the forgiveness of sin” (Matthew 26:28). Paul objected to the Corinthians’ insistence that meat offered to “idols” could be consumed because these divinities were powerless (1 Cor 8:1ff). While Paul agreed that these divinities were not truly gods, he insisted that Christians should not consume “meat offered to idols,” since this action would effect a communion or koinonı¯a (sharing or participation) with the demons who lay behind these sacrifices. Paul was cognizant of the power that could be effected by participation in sacrificial rituals. In a sense, Paul was expressing the discursive quality of a sacrificial ritual. He was well aware that these rites had a power to create a sense of social identity and establish a bond among participants. What should be noted here is both the power inherent in sacrificial rituals and the Christian refusal to become part of the socially constructed “body” that could be achieved by participation, even indirectly, in such rites. In John’s Gospel and the Book of Revelation, the theme of the sacrificial lamb is applied to the death of Jesus. While each text uses a variant form of the Greek word for “sheep,” the majority of scholars have traced this symbol to allusions in the poem of the “Suffering Servant” of Isaiah 53 as well as the ritual expulsion of the pharmakós in ancient Greece. Both the Servant and the pharmakós suffered vicariously for others. Treated royally prior to his or her expulsion, the pharmakós was led out of the

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

229

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

conclusions city (presumably to die), thus appeasing the gods and restoring a sense of peace and tranquility to the community. A parallel can be found in the modern idea of the scapegoat, where a group vents its rage upon one victim as the sole source of misfortune or disaster. The New Testament also applied sacrificial rhetoric to the daily lives of all believers. This alleged “spiritualization” of sacrifice should not be understood as lacking a material referent. Such phrases as offering “sacrifices of praise” (Hebrews 13:15), or exhortations to offer one’s body as a “living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1), or calling all Christians a “royal priesthood” offering “spiritual sacrifices” (1 Peter 2:5) should be understood as tangible ethical responses required of those who have sacramentally participated in Jesus’ sacrificial death through baptism. This type of rhetorical approach was parallel to the prophetic demand for an interior conviction from every sacrificial officiant. Though Jesus quoted the prophet Hosea, “it is mercy I desire and not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13 and 12:7), such a sentiment must not be read as a rejection of sacrificial practice but as an ingredient added to the entire praxis of any sacrificial ritual. As Paul exhorts Christians to offer their bodies as living sacrifices in order to effect a “spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1), he is purposefully playing with the broad spectrum of meaning attached to sacrifice as a discourse of power in the ancient world. A sacrifice is not just the “thing” offered, be it a libation, an incense offering, or a domestic animal, but must include the ethical composure of the officiant as well. Since a sacrifice makes something sacred, to suggest that each Christian become a living sacrifice underscores Christianity’s notion that each believer, regardless of social class, was somehow different (Galatians 3:28), a member of an alternative community, the ekklesia of God. While sacrifice was common among the followers of Isis, Cybele, and Mithras and in Judaism, the evangelizing efforts, social concern, and the abundance of texts created by Paul and the

230

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

conclusions other early Christians allowed their sacrificial discourse to become popular and widespread. As Christian popularity grew, so did Roman opposition. If Jesus’ death was understood as a sacrifice, and if all Christians ritually shared in the effects of his sacrifice through baptism and Eucharist to the point that they were exhorted to become “living sacrifices,” then it was not surprising that when Rome sentenced Christians to death a new and potent dimension of Christian sacrificial rhetoric emerged—the phenomenon of martyrdom. In an ironic twist, as Rome began to kill Christians for refusing to sacrifice, the rhetoric of martyrdom elevated the dead by utilizing the discursive quality of sacrifice. Chapter four traced the rhetoric of Christian martyrdom as yet another mode of sacrificial discourse. While the word “martyr” has been used to apply to anyone who “dies a noble death,” a separate category and language of martyrdom were not used in the Greek world until the mid-second century. In its original context it referred to the manner in which Polycarp of Smyrna (died 165 ce) “witnessed” to Jesus by accepting a similar fate as his Lord. It is in the Martyrdom of Polycarp that the usual Latin word for “witness” (martus) was used to designate a separate class of people for the first time. To be martyr was to be made such by those evaluating the circumstances of a person’s death. The Greeks, Romans, and Jews all produced narratives about people whose deaths were somehow accorded a noble status. In many cases these people willingly gave up their lives for a greater good, such as personal conviction (Socrates), military success (Decius Mus), or religious/national identity (the Maccabean brothers and Eleazar). Because death has to have a “meaning,” those who consciously gave up their lives for a good purpose were hailed as “martyrs” (though not yet with that term) to distinguish them rhetorically from those who had committed suicide. While we have only limited access to the historical Jesus in the New Testament, we do have the words attributed to Je-

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

231

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

conclusions sus predicting the necessity of his death as part of a divine plan for the cosmos. As the resurrection validated Jesus’ victory over death for believers, Jesus is recorded by the Gospel writers to have encouraged others to “take up [their] cross” and follow him so that “whoever loses his life for [Jesus’] sake and for the Gospel will save it” (Mark 8:34–35). As Christianity became a threat to the fragile pax deorum of ancient Rome, the martyr was seen as a person who embodied Jesus’ command in a literal manner. Because martyrdom imitated the death of Jesus far more concretely than did ritual baptism, the early martyrs were considered Christian heroes (saints). To the official Roman magistrates they appeared obstinate and foolhardy. It was not coincidental that the clash between Christians and Romans coalesced around the fulfillment of the civic rituals of sacrifice connected to the imperial cult. Rome conceived of power, identity, and political control as embodied and symbolized by participation in local expressions of the imperial cult throughout the Empire. Christian refusal to participate in these rituals was viewed as an affront to civic duty, Roman loyalty, and the necessity of proper ritual behavior to maintain the pax deorum. Because Christians had formed a unique identity through their own sacrificial discourse, the most effective way to proclaim allegiance to their Lord (and not to Caesar) was by becoming the sacrifice that Jesus had become. Rather than offer sacrifice on behalf of the emperor, they were willing to become the sacrifice themselves. Christians believed that this personal form of witness guaranteed them the same type of reward that had awaited Jesus—a personal and bodily resurrection. Unlike Judaism, Christianity had a precise notion of the afterlife. It was able to articulate a definition of martyrdom that was more precise than any advanced by other subgroups whose adherents had died “noble deaths.” Socrates’ death guaranteed him a reward, but Plato characterized it as an ambiguous type of heaven. The Maccabean brothers died in the expectation of a general resurrection of all Israel. The Christian

232

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

conclusions martyrologies, however, extended the personal and bodily resurrection of Jesus to those believers who had died at the hands of the Romans. The martyr texts present heroic stories of men and women whose bodies themselves became instruments of power and forceful opposition to Roman political authority. Within these texts social norms are reversed. Perpetua, for example, lectures her father on the rightness of her resolve to die. Many of the martyrologies reach a crescendo as the martyr is portrayed doing battle with Satan in a type of cosmic theater that extends far beyond the material world. Among the martyr texts we possess not only the narratives and the Acta (editorialized court proceedings of a martyrs’ trial), but also exhortations to martyrdom offered by early Christian theologians such as Origen and Tertullian. While these Christian authors believed that in baptism the Christian “died with Christ” (Romans 6:5), Tertullian extolled the even greater virtue of dying a second “baptism of blood.”9 Origen portrayed the martyr as “exalted higher” than other Christians because in the process of martyrdom God is exalted and the soul is freed from the impediment of both the body and the demonic.10 Not all early Christian authors were as zealous in their praise of martyrdom as were Origen and Tertullian. Clement of Alexandria grudgingly conceded that physical death was the martyr’s supreme act, but his arguments reflected the “spiritualized” notion of martyrdom. He encouraged faithful “witness” to Christ, but suggested that this was available through gnosis (knowledge), in which faith is “shed as blood.”11 Not all who rushed headlong to die were equally characterized as martyrs. Clement stylized those with this type of irrational zeal as “athletes of death.”12 The Martyrdom of Polycarp clearly stated that to be a martyr one 9. Tertullian, Ad Scoripace 6.9. 10. See Origen, Exhortation to Martyrdom 47. 11. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 4.15.1. 12. Clement, Stromateis 4.17.3.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

233

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

conclusions needed a divine call, unlike a certain Quintus who, when he saw the beasts, “turned cowardly.”13 This study concluded with an examination of the life and work of Cyprian of Carthage. Not only did Cyprian exhort others to martyrdom as did Tertullian and Origen before him, but we also have an Acta that details his martyrdom in the year 258 ce. Cyprian was a pivotal figure in the early Christian discourse of sacrifice because not only does he exhort the glories of martyrdom itself, but as an influential bishop and theologian of the early Church he was beheaded as a martyr in the persecutions of the emperor Valerian. Branded as an “enemy of the gods of Rome and Roman religious practices,”14 Cyprian encouraged others to “leap for joy in persecution” because the “crown of faith awaited those in battle.”15 He reasoned that since death was inevitable, it must not be feared because God had ordained it. Rather than succumb to the horror of idolatry, the martyr embraced death and expected to receive the glory of immortality. Ritual sacrifice betokened Roman imperial power just as it signified the same for Christianity. It was not surprising, then, that by the mid-third century, Cyprian used the power of sacrifice to advance rhetorically the “kingdom” envisioned by Christ over that envisioned by Decius and Valerian. Just as imperial coins of the time depicted the emperor radiating the light of the sun-god, thus uniting distant provinces around an imperial center, Cyprian’s treatise on the unity of the Catholic Church rhetorically united the mystical nature of the one Church with the multiplicity of Christian churches that had appeared throughout the world. Cyprian wrote that the relationship of local churches to the mystical Church of Christ is similar to the rays of God’s light illuminating the whole world yet originating from a single source. By the third century both Church 13. Martyrdom of Polycarp 4.26. 14. The Acts of Cyprian 4.1, taken from Mursuillo, ACM, 173. 15. Cyprian, Epistle 55.2.

234

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

conclusions and empire saw themselves as unified and unifying agents of the phenomenal world. Since the power of sacrifice unites, the same power was also used as an ideological weapon that divided Church and empire. Steeped in the sacrificial milieu of the Graeco-Roman world, Christianity not only fashioned its own sacrificial rhetoric to exalt Jesus as Lord, it also adopted the imperial model to organize its social structure. Just as sacrificial rituals brought identity and displayed imperial power, early Christianity used sacrificial rhetoric to achieve its social identity. If the adjective “success” applies to Christianity by the fourth century, it must be ascribed to the way in which it adapted Roman sacrificial discourse and imperial ideology. The “public transcript” of Roman sacrificial discourse had been taken over and enhanced by the rhetoric of Jesus’ sacrificial death and later by the witness of the Christian martyr. In place of the pax deorum, the Church envisioned the pax Christi (the peace of Christ). In place of the social control ritually portrayed in imperial sacrifices uniting the center and periphery, Christianity ritualized Jesus’ sacrificial death through Eucharist and baptism in the life of each believer. Just as the emperor and the imperial family were exalted along the “sliding scale of divinity,” so too the Christian martyr shared (as much as theologically possible) in the exalted status of the risen Jesus. Just as Rome portrayed power and imperial benefits through ritual sacrifice, the martyrs’ second baptism of blood infused them with power to do battle with the forces of Satan. However, unlike the Roman model, where only the emperor was apotheosized after his death, all Christians, especially those called by God to martyrdom, were guaranteed the reward of heaven. Discourse is more effective than sheer force in achieving longlasting social control and identity. It is not surprising, therefore, that human societies have used the discourse of sacrifice for political and religious displays of power and social control throughout human history.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

235

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Bibliography

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

Primary Sources Apuleius. Metamorphoses. Translated by P. G. Walsh. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Asconius. Commentary on Cicero’s “On Behalf of Milo.” Original translation by John. P. Adams. Available from the author’s personal website at California State University, Northridge, Department of Modern and Classical Langauges. Augustine. Civitas Dei. Edited by Philip Shaff. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. Series 1, vol. 2. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956. Available on the website Christian Classics Ethereal Library at Calvin College. Cicero. Ad Atticum. Edited by E. O. Winstedt. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1912. Available on the website The Latin Library at Ad Fontes Academy, Centerville, VA. ———. De divinatione. In Cicero: On Old Age, On Friendship, On Divination. Translated by W. A. Falconer. London: Heinemann Press, 1923. Available on the website The Latin Library at Ad Fontes Academy, Centerville, VA. ———. De domo sua. In Cicero: Orations. Translated by N. H. Watts. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969. Available on the website The Latin Library at Ad Fontes Academy, Centerville, VA. ———. De imperio Cn. Pompei ad quirites oratio. Edited by C. MacDonald. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1966. Available on the website The Latin Library at Ad Fontes Academy, Centerville, VA. ———. De legibus and De republica. Translated by Clinton Keyes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928. Available on the website The Latin Library at Ad Fontes Academy, Centerville, VA. ———. De natura deorum and De haruspicum responsis. Edited by Wilhelm Ax. Leipzig: Teubner, 1887. Available on the website The Latin Library at Ad Fontes Academy, Centerville, VA. ———. Philippics. In M. Tulli Ciceronis: Orationes Selectae, XXI. Edited by C. F. Mueller. Leipzig: G. B. Teubner, 1907–09. Available on the website The Latin Library at Ad Fontes Academy, Centerville, VA.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

237

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

bibliography Clement of Alexandria. Stromateis. Edited by A. Roberts and J. Donaldson. In The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1885–96. Available on the website Early Christian Writings, edited by Peter Kirby. Cyprian. Epistles of Cyprian, On the Lapsed, On the Glory of Martyrdom, On the Unity of the Church. Edited by A. Roberts and J. Donaldson. In The AnteNicene Fathers, vol. 5. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1885–96. Available on website Christian Classics Ethereal Library at Calvin College. Dio, Cassius. Roman History. Translated by Earnest Cary. Dio’s Roman History. New York: Macmillan, 1914–17. Available on the website Lacus Curtius: Into the Roman World, edited by Bill Thayer. Ennius. Annales. Translated by E. H. Warmington. In Remains of Old Latin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1935–40. Available on the website The Latin Library at Ad Fontes Academy, Centerville, VA. Epictetus. Discourses. Translated by Thomas W. Higginson. In The Works of Epictetus. New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1890. Available on the website The Internet Classics Archive, edited by Daniel Stevenson. Euripides. Alcestis and Other Plays. Translated by John Davie. New York: Penguin Books, 1975. Eusebius. The Ecclesiastical History. Translated by Kirsopp Lake. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926. Gellius, Aulus. Attic Nights. Translated by John C. Rolfe. In The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius. London: W. Heinemann, 1927-28. Available on the website Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum at forumromanum.org, edited by David Camden. Horace. Carmina. Edited and translated by Lucien Müller. In Q. Horatii Flacci carmina. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1887. Available on the website The Latin Library at Ad Fontes Academy, Centreville, VA. Ignatius of Antioch. To the Trallians, To the Romans, To Polycarp, To the Magnesians. Edited by A. Roberts and J. Donaldson. In The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1885–96. Available on the website Early Christian Writings, edited by Peter Kirby. Livy. History of Rome. English text edited by Ernest Rhys and translated by Canon Roberts. In The History of Rome, vols. 1–6. London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1905. Available on the website Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum at forumromanum.org, edited by David Camden. Latin text edited by B. O. Foster. Livy. London: Heinemann, 1919–59. Available on the website The Latin Library at Ad Fontes Academy, Centreville, VA. Lucan. Bellum civile. Translated by Edward Riley. In The Pharsalia of Lucan. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1896. Available on the website The Online Medieval and Classical Library, edited by Roy Tennant. Macrobius. Saturnalia. Edited by Ludwig von Jan. Leipzig: Gottfried Bass, 1982. Available from the website Lacus Curtius, edited by Bill Thayer Origen. Exhortation to Martyrdom. In Origen: Prayer/Exhortation to Martyrdom. Translated by John J. O’Meara. Westminster: The Newman Press, 1954. ———. Homilies on Leviticus. Translated by Gary Barkley. In Homiliae in Leviticum. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1990.

238

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

bibliography Ovid. Fasti. Original translation by A. S. Kline. Available on the translator’s personal website, Poetry in Translation, 2004. ———. Metamorphoses. Translated by Allen Mandelbaum. In The Metamorphoses of Ovid. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993. Philo. On Special Laws, On the Embassy to Gaius. Translated by C. D. Yonge. In The Works of Philo Judaeus. London: H. G. Bohn, 1854–90. Available on the website Early Christian Writings, edited by Peter Kirby. Pindar. Isthmian Odes. Translated by Diane Svarlien. In Pindar: Odes. 1990. Available on the website The Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University. Plato. Apology. Translated by H. Tredennick. In The Collected Dialogues of Plato, edited by E. Hamilton and H. Cairns. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982. ———. Laws. Translated by A. E. Taylor. In The Collected Dialogues of Plato, edited by E. Hamilton and H. Cairns. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982. Plautus. Persa. Edited by F. Leo and translated by Henry Riley. In The Comedies of Plautus. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1912. Available on the website The Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University. Pliny. Natural History. Edited by Karl Mayhof. In Naturalis Historia. Leipzig: Teubner, 1906. Available on the website Lacus Curtius, edited by Bill Thayer. Plutarch. Roman Questions. Translated by Frank C. Babbit. In Plutarch’s Moralia, vol. 4. London: Heinemann, 1936. Available on the wesbite Lacus Curtius: Into the Roman World, edited by Bill Thayer. ———. Romulus, Numa, Sulla, Pompey, Aemilius Paulus, and Titus Flamininus. Translated by Bernadotte Perrin. In Plutarch: Parallel Lives, vols. 1–11. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914. Available on the website Lacus Curtius, edited by Bill Thayer. ———. Theseus, Aristides, Dion, Lysander. Translated by Bernadotte Perrin. In Plutarch: Parallel Lives, vols. 1–11. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914. Available on the website The Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University. Polybius. The Histories. Translated by W. R. Paton. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1922–27. Available from the website Lacus Curtius, edited by Bill Thayer. Polycarp. To the Philadelphians. Translated by Kirsopp Lake. In The Apostolic Fathers. New York: Macmillan, 1912–13. Available on the website Early Christian Writings, edited by Peter Kirby. Seneca. Epistles. Translated by Richard Gummere. In Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales. London: W. Heinemann, 1917–25. Available on the website The Latin Library at Ad Fontes Academy, Centreville, VA. Servius Grammaticus. Ad Aeneus. Edited by Georgius Thilo. In Servii Grammatici qvi fervntvr in Vergilii carmina commentarii. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1881. Available on the website The Perseus Digitial Library at Tufts University. Sophocles. Ajax. Translated by Richard Jebb. In The Ajax of Sophocles. Cam-

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

239

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

bibliography bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1893. Available on the website The Perseus Digitial Library at Tufts University. Suetonius. The Twelve Caesars. Translated by Robert Graves. London: Penguin Books, 1979. Tacitus. Annals. Edited by Alfred J. Church, William J. Brodribb, and Sara Bryant. In The Complete Works of Tacitus. New York: Random House, 1942. Available on the website The Perseus Digitial Library at Tufts University. Tertullian. Ad nationes. Translated by Peter Holmes. In The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3, edited by A. Roberts and J. Donaldson. Edinburgh: T & T. Clark, 1885–96. Available on the website The Tertullian Project, edited by Roger Pearse. ———. Ad Scorpiace, De fuga in persecutione, Ad martyres, and Ad uxorem. Translated by S. Thelwell. In The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vols. 3–4. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1885–96. Available on the website The Tertullian Project, edited by Roger Pearse. ———. Apologeticus. Translated by T. R.Glover. In Tertullian: Apology. New York: G. P. Putnam and Sons, 1931. Available on the website The Tertullian Project, edited by Roger Pearse. Varro. De Lingua Latina. Edited by Andreas Spengel. In M. Terenti Varronis: De Lingua Latina Libri. Berlin: Weidmann, 1885. Available on the website The Latin Library at Ad Fontes Academy, Centreville, VA. Velleius Paterculus. Historiae Romanae. Translated by Frederick Shipley. In Historiae Romanae. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1924. Available on the website Lacus Curtius, edited by Bill Thayer. Virgil. Aeneid. Translated by J. Dryden. In Virgil: Aeneid, edited by R. Fitzgerald. New York: Macmillan, 1965. Available on the website The Perseus Digitial Library at Tufts University. ———. Eclogues and Georgics. Edited by J. B. Greenough. In Bucolics, Aeneid, and Georgics of Vergil. Boston: Ginn & Co., 1900. Available on the website The Latin Library at Ad Fontes Academy, Centreville, VA.

Secondary Sources Achtemeier, Paul. “Revelation 5:1–14.” Interpretation 40 (1986): 283–88. Agnew, Mary Barbara. “A Transformation of Sacrifice: An Application of René Girard’s Theory of Culture and Religion.” Worship 61 (1987): 493–509. Albinus, Lars. “Discourse Analysis with the Study of Religion.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 9–3 (1997): 203–232. Aniwi, D. “Did Jesus Consider His Death to Be an Atoning Sacrifice?” Interpretation 45 (1991): 17–28. Armstrong, Arthur. Expectation of Immortality in Late Antiquity. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1987. Attridge, Harold. The Epistle to the Hebrews. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989. Aulén, Gustav. Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement. New York: Macmillan, 1969.

240

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

bibliography Aune, David. Revelation 1–5. Dallas: Word Books, 1997. Barr, David. “The Apocalypse as Symbolic Transformation of the World: A Literary Analysis.” Interpretation 38 (1984): 39-50. ———. Tales of the End: A Narrative Commentary on the Book of Revelation. Sonoma: Polebridge Press, 1998. Barthes, Roland. S/Z. Translated by Richard Miller. New York: Hill and Wang, 1974. ———. Image-Music-Text. Translated by Stephen Heath. New York: Noonday Press, 1977. ———. The Fashion System. Translated by Richard Howard and Matthew Ward. New York: Hill and Wang, 1983. ———. The Rustle of Language. Translated by Richard Howard. New York: Hill and Wang, 1986. Barton, Carlin. Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. ———. “Honor and Sacredness in the Roman and Christian Worlds.” In Sacrificing the Self: Perspectives on Martyrdom and Religion, edited by Margaret Comack, 22–38. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Bataille, Georges. Inner Experience. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988. ———. Theory of Religion. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Zona Books, 1989. Bauer, Walter, W. Arndt, and W. Gingrich. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957. Baumeister, Theofried. Genese und Entfaltung der Altkirchlichen Theologie des Martyriums. Bern: Peter Langer, 1991. Baumgarten, Albert, ed. Sacrifice in Religious Experience. Leiden: Brill, 2002. Beard, Mary, John North, and S. R. Price. Religions of Rome, Vol. 1: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. ———. Religions of Rome, Vol 2: A Sourcebook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Beckwith, R. “The Death of Christ as Sacrifice in the Teaching of Paul and Hebrews.” In Sacrifice in the Bible, edited by R. Beckwith and M. Selman, 112–34. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1995. Benko, S. “Pagan Criticism of Christianity during the First Two Centuries ad.” In Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt, Band II. 23 (2), 1055– 1111. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1980. Bergen, Robert. “Text as Guide to Authorial Intention: An Introduction to Discourse Criticism.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 30/3 (1987): 327–36. Betz, Hans Dieter. “Jesus and the Purity of the Temple (Mark 11:15–18): A Comparative Religion Approach.” Journal of Biblical Literature 116 (1997): 455–72. Borg, M. “How Did Jesus Die for Our Sins?” Bible Review 11.2 (1995): 18. Bowersock, Glen. Martyrdom and Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

241

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

bibliography Boyarin, Daniel. Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. Bremmer, Jan. “Scapegoat Rituals in Ancient Greece.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 87 (1983): 299–320. Brent, Allen. The Imperial Cult and the Development of Church Order. Leiden: Brill, 1999. Bright, Pamela. “Origenian Understanding of Martyrdom and Its Biblical Framework.” In Origen of Alexandria: His World and His Legacy, edited by C. Kannengeisser and W. Petersen, 180–99. South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988. Brown, Peter. The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. Brown, Raymond. The Gospel According to John 1–12. Garden City: Doubleday, 1966. Bruce, F. F. The Epistle to the Hebrews. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964. Bryant, Donald. Rhetorical Dimensions in Criticism. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1973. Buc, Phillippe. The Dangers of Ritual. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. Buchanan, George W. To the Hebrews. New York: Doubleday, 1972. Büchsel, Friedrich. “λύτρον.” In The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 3, edited by R. Kittel, 341–46. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965. Burke, Kenneth. A Rhetoric of Motives. New York: Prentice Hall, 1952. Burns, J. Patout. Cyprian the Bishop. New York: Routledge, 2002. Burrell, David, “René Girard: Violence and Sacrifice.” Cross Currents 38, no. 4 (1988–89): 443–47. Butterweck, Christel. “Martyriumssucht” in der Alten Kirche?: Studien zur Darstellung und Deutung Frühchristlicher Martyrien. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1995. Byrne, Brendan. Romans. Collegeville: Michael Glazier, 1996. Cagnat, R., ed. Inscriptiones Graecae Ad Res Romanas Pertinentes. Paris: Leroux, 1911–27. Cameron, Averil. Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Carter, Warren. Matthew and Empire: Initial Explorations. Harrisburg: Trinity International, 2001. Carter, Jeffrey, ed. Understanding Religious Sacrifice: A Reader. New York: Continuum, 2003. Caseau, B. “Sacred Landscapes.” In Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Post Classical World, edited by Glen Bowersock, Peter Brown, and Oleg Grabar, 23–34. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. Castelli, Elizabeth. “Imperial Reimaginings of Christian Origins.” In Reimagining Christian Origins, edited by E. Castelli, 173–84. Valley Forge: Trinity Press, 1993. Chester, A. N. “Hebrews: The Final Sacrifice.” In Sacrifice and Redemption, edited by S. W. Sykes, 57–72. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Chilton, Bruce. The Temple of Jesus: His Sacrificial Program within a Cultural

242

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

bibliography History of Sacrifice. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992. Collins, Adela.Y. “Finding Meaning in the Death of Jesus.” Journal of Religion, 78 (1998): 175–96. ———. “Jesus’ Action in Herod’s Temple.” In Antiquity and Humanity: Essays on Ancient Religion and Philosophy, edited by A. Y. Collins, 45–61. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001. Combrink, H. J. Bernard. “The Rhetoric of Sacred Scripture.” In Rhetoric, Scripture, and Theology, edited by S. E. Porter and T. H. Olbricht, 102–23. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996. Cooper, Kate. “The Voice of the Victim: Gender, Representation and Early Christian Martyrdom.” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 80 (1998): 147–57. Cuss, Dominique. Imperial Cult and Honorary Terms in the New Testament. Fribourg: University Press, 1974. Daly, Robert. Christian Sacrifice. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1978. ———. The Origins of the Christian Doctrine of Sacrifice. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978. ———. “The Power of Sacrifice in Ancient Judaism and Christianity.” Journal of Ritual Studies 4/2 (1990):181–98. ———. “Is Christianity Sacrificial or Antisacrificial?” Religion 27 (1997): 231–43. Daube, David. “The Linguistics of Suicide.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1972): 387–437. Davies, Jon. Death, Burial and Rebirth in the Religions of Late Antiquity. New York: Routledge, 1999. Degrassi, A., ed. Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae Rei Publicae. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1957–64. Dehandschutter, B. “Le Martyre de Polycarpe et le développement de la conception du martyre au deuxième siècle.” In Studia Patristica 17, part 2, edited by E. Livingstone, 569–70. New York: Pergamon Press, 1982. Deissmann, Adolph. Light from the Ancient Near East. London: Stoughton and Hodder, 1910. Delorme, Jean. “Sacrifice, Sacerdoce, Consécration: Typologie et Analyse Sémantique de Discours.” Recherches de Science Religieuses, 63 (1975): 343–66. de Sainte Croix, G. E. M. “Aspects of the Great Persecution.” Harvard Theological Review 47 (1954): 75–114. ———. “Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted?” In Studies in Early Christianity, edited by E. Ferguson, 15–48. New York: Garland Publishing, 1993. Dessau, Hermann, ed. Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae. Berlin: Weidmann, 1892– 1916. Dodds, E. R. Christians and Pagans in an Age of Anxiety. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965. Dreyfus, Herbert, and Paul Rabinow. Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

243

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

bibliography Droge, Arthur, and James B. Tabor. A Noble Death: Suicide and Martyrdom among Christians and Jews in Antiquity. San Francisco: Harper 1992. ———. “The Crown of Immortality: Toward a Redescription of Christian Martyrdom.” In Death, Ecstasy, and Other Worldly Journeys, edited by John J. Collins and Michael Fishbane, 56–73. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. Dumèzil, Georges. Archaic Roman Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. Dunn, J. D. G. “Paul’s Understanding of the Death of Jesus as Sacrifice.” In Sacrifice and Redemption, edited by S. W. Sykes, 35–56. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Dunnill, John. Covenant and Sacrifice in the Letter to the Hebrews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. ———. “Methodological Rivalries: Theology and Social Science in Girardian Interpretations of the New Testament.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 67 (1996): 114. Durkheim, Emile. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, translated by Joseph Swain. New York: Macmillan 1915. Edwards, Douglas. Religion and Power: Pagans, Jews and Christians in the Greek East. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Ellingworth, Paul. The Epistle to the Hebrews : A Commentary on the Greek Text. Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans, 1993. Elsner, John. “Cult and Sculpture: Sacrifice in the Ara Pacis Augustae.” Journal of Roman Studies 81 (1991): 50–61. Feeney, Denis. Literature and Religion at Rome. NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Ferguson, E. “Spiritual Sacrifices in Early Christianity and Its Environment.” In Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt, Band II. 23.2, 1150–89. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1980. ———, ed. Church and State in the Early Church. New York: Garland Press, 1993. ———. “Early Christian Martyrdom and Civil Disobedience.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 1 (1993): 73–83. Fernandez, Victor M. “La Vida Sacerdotal de los Cristians Segun La Carta a Los Hebreos.” Revista Biblica 52 (1990): 145–52. Finn, Thomas. From Death to Rebirth: Ritual and Conversion in Antiquity. Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1997. Fishwick, Duncan. The Imperial Cult in the Latin West: Studies in the Ruler Cult of the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire, 3 vols. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1987. Fitzmyer, Joseph. Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Garden City: Doubleday, 1992. ———. The Acts of the Apostles. Garden City: Doubleday, 1998. Fless, F. Opferdiener und Kultmusiker auf stadtrömischen historischen Reliefs. Main: Philipp Von Zabern, 1995. Foucault, Michel. Archaeology of Knowledge. Translated by A. M. Sheridan. New York: Routledge, 1972.

244

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

bibliography ———. Power and Knowledge. Translated by Colin Gordon. New York: Pantheon Books, 1980. ———. The History of Sexuality. Vol. 3. The Care of the Self. Translated by R. Hurley. New York: Random House, 1986. Fox, Robin Lane. Pagans and Christians. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987. Frazer, James. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, 3rd ed. New York: Macmillan, 1911–22. Reprint, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1955. Frend, W. H. C. Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church. Oxford: Blackwell Press, 1965. Friesen, Steven. Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Furnish, Victor Paul. II Corinthians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Garden City: Doubleday, 1984. Girard, René. Deceit, Desire and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure. Translated by Yvonne Freccero. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965. ———. Violence and the Sacred. Translated by Patrick Gregory. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977. ———. “To Double Business Bound”: Essays on Literature, Mimesis, and Anthropology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1978. ———. Job: The Victim of His People. Translated by Yvonne Freccero. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987. ———. Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World. Translated by Stephen Bann and Michael Meteer. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987. Gleason, Maud. Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. Glucklich, Ariel. “Self and Sacrifice: A Phenomenological Psychology of Sacred Pain.” Harvard Theological Review 92 (1999): 479–506. Goodman, Martin. “The Pilgrimage Economy of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period.” In Jerusalem: Its Sanctity and Centrality to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, edited by Lee I. Levine, 69–76. New York: Continuum, 1999. Gordon, R. L. “The Veil of Power: Emperors, Sacrificers, Benefactors.” In Pagan Priests, edited by M. Beard and J. North, 210–30. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993. Gordon, R. P. Hebrews. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000. Gould, Ezra. Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Mark. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1896. Reprint, Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1955. Gradel, Ittai. Emperor Worship and Roman Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Griffe, Élie. Les Persécutions Contre les Chrétiens aux Ier et IIe Siécles. Paris: Letouzey at Ané, 1967. Guthrie, David. “The Lamb in the Structure of the Book of Revelation.” Vox Evangelica 12 (1987): 64–71. Guthrie, George H. The Structure of Hebrews: A Text-Linguistic Analysis. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

245

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

bibliography Haenchen, Ernst. John: A Commentary on the Gospel of John 1–6. Translated by Robert W. Funk. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984. Hamerton-Kelly, Robert. “Violence and the Law (Galatians 3:13): The Death of Christ as a Sacrificial Travesty.” New Testament Studies 36 (1990): 98–118. ———. Sacred Violence. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992. Hardin, Michael. “Violence: René Girard and the Recovery of Early Christian Perspectives.” Brethren Life and Thought 37 (1992): 107–20. Harlow, Barbara. Resistance Literature. New York: Methuen Press, 1987. Harpham, Geoffrey Galt. The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. Hauck, Friedrich. “κοίωνέω.” In The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 4, edited by G. Kittel, 798–809. Grand Rapids: Eerdmanns, 1965. Henrici, Peter. “‘Do This in Remembrance of Me’: The Sacrifice of Christ and the Sacrifice of the Faithful.” Communio 12 (1985): 146–57. Herrenschmidt, Oliver. “Sacrifice: Symbolic or Effective.” In Between Belief and Transgression: Structuralist Essays in Religion, History, and Myth, edited by Michel Izard and Pierre Smith, 24–42. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Hobson, Theo. “Faith and Rhetorical Violence: A Response to Girard.” Modern Believing 40 (1999): 34–41. Hooker, Morna. The Gospel According to Mark. London: A.C. Black, 1991. Horbury, William, and Brian McNeil, eds. Suffering and Martyrdom in the New Testament. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Horsley, Richard. Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance in Roman Palestine. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987. ———. Paul and Empire: Religion and Power in Roman Imperial Society. Harrisburg: Trinity Press, 1999. ———. “Rhetoric and Empire—And First Corinthians.” In Paul and Politics, edited by R. Horsley. Harrisburg: Trinity Press, 2000. Hubert, Henri, and Marcel Mauss. Sacrifice: Its Nature and Function. Translated by W. D. Halls. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964. Hummel, Edelhard. The Concept of Martyrdom According to St. Cyprian of Carthage. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1946. Isaacs, Marie E. Sacred Space: An Approach to the Theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992. Izard, Michel, and Pierre Smith, eds. Between Belief and Transgression: Structuralist Essays in Religion, History, and Myth, translated by John Leavitt. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Jensen, Robert. “On Hegemonic Discourse.” First Things 45 (1994): 13–15. Jeremias, Joachim. “ajrni>on.” In Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 1, edited by G. Kittel, 228–41. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964. ———. The Eucharistic Words of Jesus. 3rd ed. Translated by Norman Perrin. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977. Jewett, Robert. Letter to Pilgrims: A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews. New York: Pilgrim Press, 1981. John Paul II, Pope. Dominicae Cenae. Apostolic Letter of February 24, 1980.

246

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

bibliography Available from The Vatican Website at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/ john_paul_ii/letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_24021980_dominicae-cenae_ en.html; Internet; accessed May 3, 2004. Johns, Loren. The Lamb Christology of the Apocalypse of John. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003. Johnson, Richard. Going Outside the Camp: The Sociological Function of the Levitical Critique in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001. Johnston, S. “Ritual.” In Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Post Classical World, edited by G. Bowersock, P. Brown, and O. Grabar, 670–72. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. Jones, D. “Christianity and the Roman Imperial Cult.” Aufsteig und Niedgang der Romischen Welt, Band II.23.2, 1023–53. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1980. Jourdan, George. “ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΑ in I Corinthinans 10:16.” Journal of Biblical Literature 67 (1947): 111–24. Käseman, Ernst. The Wandering People of God: An Investigation of the Letter to the Hebrews. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984. Kennedy, George. Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980. ———. New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984. Kinneavy, James L. Greek Rhetorical Origins of Christian Faith. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. Klauck, Hans-Josef. The Religious Context of Early Christianity. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003. Kleinig, John W. “The Blood for Sprinkling: Atoning Blood in Leviticus and Hebrews.” Lutheran Theological Journal 33 (1999): 124–35. Koester, Craig R. Hebrews: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. New York: Doubleday, 2001. Laclau, Ernst, and Claude Mouffe. “Post-Marxism without Apologies.” New Left Review 166 (1987): 79–106. Lallemand, Annick. “Le parfum des martyrs dans les Acts de martyrs de Lyons et le Martyre de Polycarpe.” Studia Patristica 17, edited by E. Livingstone, 186–93. Leuven: Peeters, 1985. LaPorte, Jean. “Origenian Understanding of Martyrdom and Its Biblical Framework.” In Origen of Alexandria: His World and His Legacy, edited by William Petersen and Charles Kannengiesser, 250–76. South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988. Lash, Nicholas. “What Might Martyrdom Mean?” In Suffering and Martyrdom in the New Testament, edited by William Horbury and Brian McNeill, 45– 72. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Lathrop, G. “Justin, Eucharist, and ‘Sacrifice’: A Case of Metaphor.” Worship 64 (1990): 30–48. Le Glay, Marcel, Jean-Louis Voisin, and Yann Le Bohec. A History of Rome. Translated by. Antonia Nevill. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2001.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

247

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

bibliography Leigh, David. “Michel Foucault and the Study of Literature and Theology.” Christianity and Literature 33 (1983): 75–85. Levine, Baruch. “René Girard on Job: The Question of the Scapegoat.” Semeia 33: 125–33. Levoratti, Armando, J. “Tú No Has Querido Sacrificio Ni Oblación: Salmo 40:7’ Hebreos 10:5.” Revista Biblica 48 (1986): 65–87. Lewin, Philip M. “Persons, Discursive Practices, Traditions.” Soundings 74.3–4 (1991): 459–83. Liebeschuetz, J. H. W. G. Continuity and Change in Roman Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979. Lincoln, Bruce. Discourse and the Construction of Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. ———. Death, War and Sacrifice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. ———. Authority: Corruption and Corrosion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Livingston, Paisley. Models of Desire: René Girard and the Psychology of Mimesis. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. Luz, Ulrich. Matthew 8–20. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001. MacCormack, Sabine G. Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. Mack, Burton. A Myth of Innocence. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988. MacMullen, Ramsay, and Eugene Lane, eds. Paganism and Christianity 100–425 c.e. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992. Malina, Bruce. “Mediterranean Sacrifice: Dimensions of Domestic and Political Religion.” Biblical Theology Bulletin 26 (1996): 26–41. ———. The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology. 3rd ed. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001. ———. The Social Gospel of Jesus. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001. Mattern, Susan. Rome and the Enemy: Imperial Strategy in the Principate. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Mauss, Marcel. The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. Translated by Ian Cunnison. New York: W. W. Norton, 1967. McDonnell, Sergius. “The Age of Persecution.” Orthodox Life 50, no. 5 (2000): 25–34. Milgrom, Jacob. Leviticus 1–16. New York: Doubleday, 1991. Moffatt, James. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews. New York: Scribners, 1924. Moule, C. F. D. The Sacrifice of Christ. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1956. Mowery, Robert L. “Son of God in Roman Imperial Titles and Matthew.” Biblica 83 (2002): 100–110. Mühlenberg, Ekkehard. “The Martyr’s Death and Its Literary Presentation.” In Studia Patristica 29, ed. Elizabeth Livingstone, 85–93. Lueven: Peeters Press, 1997. Murphy, Tim. “Discourse.” In Guide to the Study of Religion, edited by Willi Braun and Russell McCutcheon, 396–408. London: Cassell, 2000. Musurillo, Herbert. The Acts of the Christian Martyrs. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979.

248

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

bibliography Newcastle, R. G. “Martyrdom in Saint Ignatius of Antioch and the Stoic View of Suicide.” In Studia Patristica 16, edited by Elizabeth Livingstone, 201–5. New York: Pergamon Press, 1985. Neusner, Jacob. A History of the Mishnaic Law of Holy Things, vol. 4. Leiden: Brill, 1980. Nineham, Dennis. The Gospel of St. Mark. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1963. North, John A. “Sacrifice and Ritual: Rome.” In Civilizations of the Ancient Mediterranean, vol. 2, edited by M. Grant. 981–86. New York: Scribners, 1988. ———. Roman Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. North, Robert, “Violence and the Bible: The Girard Connection.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 47 (1985): 1–27. Novak, Ralph M. Christianity and the Roman Empire: Background Texts. Harrisburg: Trinity Press, 2001. Orlin, Eric. Temples, Religion, and Politics in the Roman Republic. Leiden: Brill, 1997. Perkins, J. The Suffering Self: Pain and Narrative Representation in the Early Christian Era. New York: Routledge, 1995. Petruccione, J. “The Martyr Death as Sacrifice: Prudentius, Peristephanon 4, 9–72.” Vigiliae Christianae 49 (1995): 245–57. Pfuhl, Ernst. Die Ostgriechischen Grabreliefs, Band I. Mainz: Von Zabern, 1977. Pitt-Rivers, Julian. “Honour and Social Status.” In Honor and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society, edited by J. Peristiany, 29–41. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966. Pobee, J. S. Persecution and Martyrdom in the Theology of St. Paul. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1985. Polaski, Sandra. Paul and the Discourse of Power. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999. Porter, Stanley E., ed. Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period: 30 b.c.—a.d. 400. Leiden: Brill, 2001. Potter, David S. Prophets and Emperors: Human and Divine Authority from Augustus to Theodosius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994. Price, Simon. R. “Gods and Emperors: The Greek Language of the Roman Imperial Cult.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 104 (1984): 79–95. ———. Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. ———. “From Noble Funerals to Divine Cult: The Consecration of Roman Emperors.” In Rituals of Royalty, edited by D. Cannadine and S. Price, 56– 105. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Reicke, Bo. The Epistles of James, Peter and Jude. Garden City: Doubleday, 1964. Rendtorff, Rolf. Leviticus. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1992. Rives, J. B. Religion and Authority in Roman Carthage from Augustus to Constantine. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. Robbins, Vernon. “The Dialectical Nature of Early Christian Discourse.” Scriptura 59 (1996): 353–62. Robertson-Smith, William. Lectures on the Religion of the Semites. London: A. and C. Black, 1907. Reprint, edited by John Day, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

249

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

bibliography Roth, C. “The Debate on the Loyal Sacrifices, a.d. 66.” Harvard Theological Review 53 (1960): 94–97. Rousselle, Aline. Porneia: On Desire and the Body in Late Antiquity. Translated by Felicia Pheasant. London: Basil Blackwell, 1988. Ruffin, C. Bernard. The Days of the Martyrs. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Press, 1985. Ryberg, Inez. Scott. Rites of the State Religion in Roman Art. Rome: American Academy in Rome, 1955. Sage, Michael. Cyprian. Cambridge, MA: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1975. Salisbury, Joyce. The Blood of Martyrs. London: Routledge, 2004. Samellas, Antigone. Death in the Eastern Mediterranean, 50–600 ad. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 2002. Sanders, E. P. Jesus and Judaism. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985. Schoedel, William. Ignatius of Antioch: A Commentary on the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985. Scholz, U. “Zur Erforschung der römischen Opfer.” In Le Sacrifice dans l’antiquité, 289–330. Genève: Fondation Hardt, 1981. Schweizer, Eduard. The Good News According to Matthew. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1977. Scott, James C. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990. Scott, Kenneth. The Imperial Cult under the Flavians. New York: Arno Press, 1975. Seeley, David. The Noble Death: Graeco-Roman Martyrology and Paul’s Concept of Salvation. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990. Shaw, Brent. “Body/Power/Identity: Passions of the Martyrs.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 20 (1996): 269–312. Sherwin-White, A. N. The Roman Citizenship. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973. Showalter, Daniel N. The Emperor and the Gods: Images from the Time of Trajan. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993. Smith, Dennis E. From Symposium to Eucharist. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003. Smith, Jonathan Z. “The Influence of Symbols on Social Change.” In Map Is Not Territory, edited by Jonathan Z. Smith, 12–29. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978. ———.“Trading Places.” In Ancient Magic and Ritual Power, edited by M. Meyer and P. Mirecki, 111–43. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995. Smith, Lacey Baldwin. Fools, Martyrs, Traitors. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. Spicq, Ceslas. L’Épître aux Hébreux. Paris: Gabalda, 1953. Stott, Wilfrid. “Conception of ‘Offering’ in the Epistle to the Hebrews.” New Testament Studies 9 (1962): 62–67. Straw, Carole. “Martyrdom in Its Classical Context.” In Sacrificing the Self: Perspectives on Martyrdom and Religion, edited by Margaret Comack, 39–57. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Strong, Eugenie, S. Apotheosis and Afterlife: Three Lectures on Certain Phases of Art and Religion in the Roman Empire. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1916.

250

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

bibliography Sullivan, Lisa. “I Responded, ‘I Will Not . . .’: Christianity as Catalyst for Resistance in the ‘Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis.’” Semeia 79, edited by Vincent Wimbush, 63–74. Missoula: Scholars Press, 1997. Swetnam, James. “Sacrifice and Revelation in the Epistle to the Hebrews: Observations and Surmises on Hebrews 9:26.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 30 (1968): 227–34. Sykes, S. W., ed. Sacrifice and Redemption: Durham Essays in Theology. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Synge, F. C. “Mark 14:18–25, Supper and Rite.” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 4 (1973): 38–43. Taeger, Fritz. Charisma Studien zur Geschichte des antiken Herrscherkultes. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1957. Tanner, R. G. “Martyrdom in St. Ignatius of Antioch and the Stoic View of Suicide.” Studia Patristica, 16, part 2, edited by Elizabeth Livingstone, 201– 5. New York: Pergamon Press, 1985. Taylor, Lily Ross. The Divinity of the Roman Emperor. Middletown, CT: American Philological Association, 1931. Reprint, Chico: Scholars Press, 1983. Taylor, Vincent. Jesus and His Sacrifice: A Study of the Passion-Sayings in the Gospels. London: Macmillan Press, 1937. Theisen, Gerd. The Religion of the Earliest Churches. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999. Thiselton, Anthony. The First Epistle to the Corinthians. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000. Thompson, James W. “Hebrews 9 and Hellenistic Concepts of Sacrifice.” Journal of Biblical Literature 98 (1979): 567–78. Tilley, Christopher. The Phenomenology of Landscape. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1994. Todorov, Tzvetan. Genres in Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Trevett, Christine. A Study of Ignatius of Antioch in Syria and Asia. Lewiston: Edward Mellon Press, 1992. Trigg, Joseph. Origen: The Bible and Philosophy in the Third Century Church. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1983. Trout, D. “Christianizing the Nolan Countryside: Animal Sacrifice at the Tomb of St. Felix.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 3 (1995): 281–98. Turcan, Robert. The Gods of Ancient Rome. New York: Routledge, 2000. van Baal, J. “Offering, Sacrifice and Gift.” Numen 23 (1975): 161–78. van den Hoek, Annewies. “Clement of Alexandria on Martyrdom.” Studia Patristica 26, edited by E. Livingstone, 324–41. Leuven: Peeters, 1993. van Henten, Jan Willem, and Friedrich Avemarie. Martyrdom and Noble Death: Selected Texts from Graeco-Roman, Jewish and Christian Antiquity. New York: Routledge, 2002. Vanhoye, Albert. “Esprit éternal et Feu du Sacrifice en He 9:14.” Biblica 64, no. 2 (1983): 263–74. Vassiliadis, Petros. “The Translation of Martyria Ie¯sou in Revelation.” Bible Translator 36, no. 1 (January 1985): 129–34.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

251

bibliography

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

von Balthasar, Hans Ur. “Jesus and Forgiveness.” Communio: International Catholic Review 11, no. 4 (1984): 322–34. Wallace, Mark. “Postmodern Biblicism: The Challenge of René Girard for Contemporary Theology.” Modern Theology 5 (1989): 309–25. Warde-Fowler, William. The Religious Experience of the Roman People. London: Macmillan, 1911. Reprint, New York: Cooper Square Press, 1971. Weinstock, Stefan. Divus Iulius. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. Westcott, Brooke F. The Epistle to the Hebrews. London: Macmillan, 1909. Williams, James, ed. “The Innocent Victim: René Girard on Violence, Sacrifice, and the Sacred.” Religious Studies Review 14 (1988): 320–26. ———. The Girard Reader. New York: Crossroads, 1996. Williams, Sam. Jesus’ Death as Saving Event: The Background and Origin of a Concept. Missoula: Scholars Press, 1975. Willis, Wendell. Idol Meat in Corinth: The Pauline Argument in I Corinthians 8 and 10. Chico: Scholars Press, 1985. Wissowa, Georg. Religion und Kultus der Römer. München: C. H. Beck, 1902. Wood, Diana, ed. Martyrs and Martyrologies. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1991. Yerkes, Robert. Sacrifice in Greek and Roman Religion and Early Judaism. New York: Charles Scribner, 1952. Young, Frances. The Use of Sacrificial Ideas in Greek Christian Writers from the New Testament to John Chrysostom. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Patristic Society, 1979. Young, Robin D. In Procession before the World: Martyrdom as Public Liturgy in Early Christianity. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2001.

252

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

Index

Acta, xxiii; 169, 233. See also Cyprian; Pionis; Scillitan Martyrs Alba Longa, 17, 82 Alexander the Great, 55, 62–65, 75 Antiochus II, 65n59 Antiochus III, 66 Antiochus IV, ix, 166, 187–88 Antiochus VI, 65n59 Antoninus Pius, 41 Antony, Marc, 21, 76, 79 Appian, 79n100 Apuleius, 26 Aristotle, xiii Arval Brethren, 34, 82, 92 Asclepius, 19, 23, 65, 68, 178 Asconius, 50n11 atheist, x–xi, 209 augures, 28, 31–33, 39 Augustine, 13n43, 21, 157n162, 188n72 Augustus, xix, 15, 18, 25n74, 27, 34, 47, 77–79, 81–89, 91–92, 93n142, 95n1, 121, 122n70 145n126, 157n 162, 164n6, 184, 216, 224, 226–27. See also Octavian Bacchus, cult of, 23–24, 26 baptism, xx, xxii, 97, 110, 141, 148, 159, 162, 164, 168n18, 193n78, 204, 206, 207n113, 214, 215, 230–33, 235; of blood, xxii–xxiii, 205, 207, 209–10, 214, 233, 235 Barthes, Roland, xiv, 3–6, 43 Bataille, Georges, xv, 221 Bona Dea, 30, 48, 54 Burke, Kenneth, xiii, 85n122, 115n51

Caesar, Julius, xvi, xxi, 27n77, 34, 45, 47–48, 59–60, 49n8, 69–76, 77n95, 78–81, 83n113, 89, 90n137, 91–92, 134, 181–82, 222, 224, 226, 232; Bibulus and, 51–52. See also divus Iulius Camillus, 18–19, 57 Campus Martius, 26, 79, 89 Capitoline gods, 16, 30, 34, 186 Caracalla, 215–16 Claudius, 15n47, 88 Cicero, 2, 11, 13, 15–16, 27, 42, 47–49, 51–53, 58–59, 67, 70, 74–76, 79, 223, 226; Ad Atticum, 48, 67n64, 79n100; Clodius and, 53–55; De divinatione, 74n86; De domo sua, 13n42, 28n79; De harupsicum responsis, 53n14; De imperio Cn. Pompei, 58m33, 59n35; De legibus, 28–29; De natura deorum, 12n37, 12n39, 31, 32n90, 33n92, 168n14; De officiis, 179n51; De republica, 70, 71n74; Phillippics, 75–76 cult, Hellenistic ruler, 60–70. See also imperial cult Corinthians, First Letter to the; 111–20, 136, 145n127, 197n85, 198n88, 229 Cybele, 19, 224, 230. See Magna Mater Cyprian, xxii–xxiii, 161, 163, 210–17; Acta Cypriani, 211–12; on church order, 215–17; exhortation on martyrdom, 176n40, 212–14 Decius (emperor), 161, 170, 211, 216, 234 Decius Mus, 40, 181, 189–90, 202, 231 deus, xviii, 73, 76–77, 91, 93, 226

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

253

index devotio, 180–84, 196, 202, 212. See also Decius Mus; noble death di manes, 30, 77 Dio, Cassius: Roman History, 49n8, 53n14, 72–77, 79–80, 84–89, 116 Diodorus Siculus, 41 Dionysius of Halicarnasus, 11, 17 discourse: theory, xiv, 2–10; social force of, xiv–xv divine honors, xviii, 56, 62–64, 70, 75, 86–87 divinity, and emperor cult, xvii–xviii, 46–47, 59, 69–70, 76–80, 84–85, 91–92, 163, 172 divus Augustus, 79–86 divus Iulius, 71–78

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

ekklesia, xx, 185, 230 Etruria, 14, 24; Etruscan haruspices, 14, 31–32, 34, 39–40, 50, 53–54, 74 euangelion, xix, 84 Eucharist, xx, 97, 109, 112, 130, 162, 164, 184–87, 207, 231, 235 Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History, xxiii, 172, 195, 197, 201 evocatio, 18–19 flamen Dialis, 16n50, 27n77, 36, 71–72, 75–76, 186 Foucault, Michel, xiv, 3, 3n2, 5, 7–8, 10, 43, 164n6 Fox, Robin Lane, xn3, 47n4, 64n54 Gaius, 87–88 Gelasius, 21 genius, xi, 80–81, 81n106, 83–85, 84n117, 88, 90, 92, 161, 163n3 Girard, René, 151–55 Gospel of John, 133–37 Gospel of Luke, xix, 84, 124–26, 127n85, 129n88, 130, 134, 154, 173–74, 176n40, 229 Gospel of Mark, xxi, 116, 123–31, 134, 155n56, 159, 193, 207n113, 222, 229, 232 Gospel of Matthew, 126, 129–30, 134, 154, 176n40, 205, 217, 229–30

Gospels, Synoptic, xix, 97, 118, 122, 125, 128, 131, 135–36, 158, 229 Gracchus, Tiberius, 31, 33n92 Hannibal, 18, 55 Hebrews, Letter to the: death of Jesus and, 100, 102, 109–10; Jewish elements, 98–99, 102–5, 110, 228 Hellenistic world, xvii–xviii, xx, 18, 25, 47, 60, 62–68, 76, 80n104, 83, 87, 90, 93, 104, 113, 117, 145n126, 147–49, 171n26, 225, 227 Hercules, 17, 47, 68–69, 91 Hesiod, 29, 149n139 ideological persuasion, 9–10, 171 Ignatius of Antioch, ix, 163, 195; To the Magnesians, 185, 195n81; To the Romans, xx, 183–84, 199; To the Trallians, ixn1, 166 imperial cult, xvii–xix, 11, 13–15, 45–47, 163n3, 219, 225, 226–27; Book of Revelation and, 143–145, 158; later emperors and, 87–89; martyrs and, 164, 166, 184–86, 203, 205, 210–11, 215–18; social control and, 90–93. See also divus Augustus; divus Iulius Isis, cult of, 10, 25–26, 193, 224, 230 Israel, xix–xx, 96, 100–101, 103–4 105n27, 106–7, 110–14, 120, 124, 126n82, 130n89, 131, 146, 148, 156, 176n40, 190, 207, 228, 229, 232 Israelite, 101, 106, 125, 154n153, 228. See also Jews Jesus: and Jerusalem Temple 127–28; as lamb, 135–38, 140, 144; Last Supper, 128–30; martyr parallels, 194–95, 197–99, 202–3, 207–11; and Rabbi Eliezar, 175n39; sacrificial death, xix–xxi, 96, 110, 117–20, 122–25, 128, 132, 134, 137–38, 142, 151, 191, 207, 228, 231. See also Hebrews, Letter to the; Girard, René Jews, xvii, xix; xxi; Gaius and 87–88; martyrdom of, 167n13, 175–76, 183, 190–91, 202; sacrifices of, xixn27, 95–96, 109, 129n89, 146n129, 156; sac-

254

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

index rificial meat and, 113n47, 115; Temple of, 126n82 Juno, 18, 23, 30n86, 186. See Minerva Jupiter, 1, 16, 30, 34, 36, 55, 56n24, 57, 68, 70–72, 76–77, 92, 186 Kingdom of God, xx, 97, 145, 157, 162, 170, 174, 222

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

lares, 16, 30, 82–83, 224; Augusti, 82, 226 Libanius, 16 Livy: History of Rome, 1n1, 2, 11, 16–20, 24–25, 30n86, 34, 39–40, 42, 47–48, 50, 57, 69, 71, 180–82, 202, 223 Lucan: Bellum civile, 181–82 ludi, 7, 53, 72, 79 Lupercalia, 20–22 Maccabees, martyrdom of, ix, xxii, 124n77, 132, 181n54, 183, 184n64, 187–90, 197, 202, 208 Macrobius, 21 Magna Mater, 19, 20n63, 24–26, 29, 41, 53, 193n78. See also Cybele Mars, 1, 16, 30, 39n105, 58n31, 76, 82 martyrdom, 163–68, 173–87; Clement of Alexandria and, 203; Cyprian and, 210–15; noble death and, 173–77; non-Christian, 177–83; Origen and, 168n18, 206–9; in Plato, xxiin29, 176–78, 182, 201n96, 202, 232; rhetoric of, 164–73; Tertullian and, 204–6; theology of, 203 martyrology, 233; definition of, ix, 10n32, 169 Minerva, 16–17, 30, 186 Mithras, cult of, 10, 224, 230 Mosheim, Johann, x Nero, 16, 34n94, 88, 92, 181 New Testament: imperial rhetoric in, 223, 234–35; Jewish sacrifice and, 137, 142, 229; martyrdom in, xxi, 190–92; Synoptic Gospels, 122–26 noble death: Jewish conception, 187–89; Christian conception, 190–202 Numa, 16, 35, 50

Octavian, 45, 79–81, 226. See also Augustus Origen, xx, xxii, 96n3, 98n4, 168n18, 206–10, 214, 233–34 Ovid, 1–2, 11, 14, 20, 34–39, 42, 45, 47–48, 73, 82n108, 86, 223; Fasti, 1n1, 11n36, 20n64, 35n36, 39n104, 82n108 Parilia, 20–22 Passover, xx, 96, 106, 108, 111–13, 128n86, 136–37, 228 paterfamilias, xviii, 15–16, 22, 224 Paul: Eucharist and, 118–22; imperial rhetoric, 157; Jewish sacrifice and, 120–21, 228; sacrificial meat and, 111–13, 115. See also Corinthians, First Letter to the; Romans, Letter to the pax deorum, 91, 162, 168, 217, 224, 232, 235 Penates, 13, 30, 35 Perpetua, xvii–xviii, xxiii, 194–96, 199–201, 203, 233 Peter, First Letter of, 149–50 phármakos, 132 pharmakós, ritual of, xx, 132–34, 229 Philo: Jewish sacrifice and, 148, 206n112 Pionis: Martyrdom of Pionis, 170, 194, 198, 201 Plutarch, 2, 11, 14, 20–21, 36–37, 41–42, 50, 57–58, 60–61, 64, 74n88, 75, 115, 223 Polycarp: Martyydom of Polycarp, xi–xxiii, 140n119, 173–74, 179, 193–94, 198, 202, 218, 231, 233–34 pomerium, 13–15, 26, 56–57, 72, 223 pontifices, 27, 32–33, 48, 51 priesthood, Roman, 27, 28–34, 35–37, 50–51 public transcript, xii, 7–8, 24, 81, 225, 227, 235 religio, 12, 181, 223 Remus, 1, 21, 223 Revelation, Book of; xx, 97, 135–44, 158, 184n66, 196, 197n85, 229 rhetoric: New Testament and, xix, xxii; religion and, xiii–xiv; theory, x. See Burke, Kenneth Romanitas, 35, 42, 78

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

255

index Roman law, xi, xiin9n10; lex Aelia, 51–52 Romans, Letter to the, xx, 96, 116, 118n60, 119–22, 141, 147–48, 158, 195, 197n85, 230, 233 Rome: mythic origins of, 1–2, 13–15; political origins of, 11–13; Principate, xxi, 15, 45–48, 55, 222; religion of, 26, 32, 35; religious change in, 47–60; Republic of, x–xi, xvii, 2, 12, 14, 23–24, 43, 46–57, 59, 62, 66–71, 73, 81–82, 91, 162, 190, 224; ritual sacrifices in, 37–41; spatial location, 14–16 Romulus, 1, 14, 16–17, 21, 47, 69, 72, 73n84, 75, 80–82, 91, 223

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

sacrament, xx, 100, 111n39, 115n51, 116, 130n90, 181n54, 217, 230 sacrifice, theory of, xv–xvii, xvin21, 105–6 Satan, xxiii, 143, 185, 195–96, 213, 233, 235 Saturnalia, 20–22, 35 Saturninus, xi, 171 scapegoat, 124n76; in ancient Greece, 132–34; Israelite, 156; Jesus as, 153; mechanism, 151–52 Scillitan Martyrs, xi, 170–71

Scott, James, xii–xiii, 7–9, 24, 81, 225 Seneca, 16, 88, 146, 165, 178, 182–83 Septuagint, xvii, 61n41, 111n40, 119–21, 123n74, 124, 129nn87–89, 135–36, 143 Sibylline: Books, 19, 33; oracles, xiv Speratus, xi, 170–71 spiritual sacrifice, 145–47; Pauline idea of, 147–49 Stephen (martyr), xxi, 173, 174n33 superstitio, xi, 12, 26, 42, 259, 224 supplication, Roman, 56, 59, 72, 75 Tarquin the Proud, 30n86, 33 Tertullian, xxii, 59, 176n40, 177n43, 182, 204–6, 208–9, 211, 214, 233–34 Titus, Letter of, 164 Todorov, Tzvetan, xiv, 5, 43 Trajan x–xii, xiin8, 88–89 triumph, 56–59 Tullius, Servius, 17, 82 Valerian, xxiii, 161, 210, 212, 216, 234 Varro, 11, 13, 14n44, 76–78, 93 Vesta, 1, 20, 34, 82 Vestal virgin, 34–37, 41, 48, 50, 82 Virgil, 11, 17, 80

256

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of

Copyright © 2007. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

The Power of Sacrifice: Roman & Christian Discourses in Conflict was designed and typeset in Hoefler by Kachergis Book Design of Pittsboro, North Carolina. It was printed on 60-pound House Natural Smooth and bound by Sheridan Books, Inc. of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Heyman, George. The Power of Sacrifice : Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict, Catholic University of