Reconceiving religious conflict : new views from the formative centuries of Christianity PDF
Preview Reconceiving religious conflict : new views from the formative centuries of Christianity
RECONCEIVING RELIGIOUS CONFLICT Reconceiving Religious Conflict deconstructs instances of religious conflict within the formative centuries of Christianity, the first six centuries CE. It explores the theoretical foundations of religious conflict; the dynamics of religious conflict within the context of persecution and martyrdom; the social and moral intersections that undergird the phenomenon of religious conflict; and the relationship between religious conflict and religious identity. It is unique in that it does not solely focus on religious violence as it is physically manifested, but on religious conflict (and tolerance), looking too at dynamics of religious discourse and practice that often precede and accompany overt religious violence. Wendy Mayer is Professor and Associate Dean of Research at Australian Lutheran College, University of Divinity, and Research Fellow in Biblical and Ancient Studies at the University of South Africa. Chris L. de Wet is Associate Professor of New Testament and Early Christian Studies at the University of South Africa, and Honorary Research Fellow at Australian Lutheran College, University of Divinity. ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN WORLD Routledge Studies in the Early Christian World offers monographs and edited collections which explore the most cutting-edge research in Early Christianity. Covering all aspects of world of early Christianity, from theology, archaeology and history, to urbanism, class, economics, and sexuality and gender, the series aims to situate these early Christians within the wider context of Late Antiquity. Comprising both regional studies and broader thematic surveys, this series explores what changed with the advent of Christianity, what remained the same, and how early Christians interacted with, made sense of, and shaped the world around them. Aimed at early Christian scholars, classicists and historians alike, Studies in the Early Christian World is an invaluable resource for anyone research- ing this fascinating period. https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Studies-in-the-Early-Christian-World/ book-series/SECW Available: RECONCEIVING RELIGIOUS CONFLICT: NEW VIEWS FROM THE FORMATIVE CENTURIES OF CHRISTIANITY Edited by Wendy Mayer and Chris L. de Wet JEWISH GLASS AND CHRISTIAN STONE: A MATERIALIST MAPPING OF THE ‘PARTING OF THE WAYS’ Eric C. Smith MASCULINITIES IN THE COURT TALES OF DANIEL: ADVANCING GENDER STUDIES IN THE HEBREW BIBLE Brian Charles DiPalma THE SLAVE METAPHOR AND GENDERED ENSLAVEMENT IN EARLY CHRISTIAN DISCOURSE: DOUBLE TROUBLE EMBODIED Marianne Bjelland Kartzow Forthcoming: THE CAPTIVE MONK: SLAVERY AND ASCETICISM IN EARLY SYRIAN CHRISTIANITY Chris L. de Wet SEXUALITY, CELIBACY, AND MARRIAGE AMONG THE EARLY CHRISTIANS John Martens RECONCEIVING RELIGIOUS CONFLICT New Views from the Formative Centuries of Christianity Edited by Wendy Mayer and Chris L. de Wet First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 selection and editorial matter, Wendy Mayer and Chris L. de Wet; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Wendy Mayer and Chris L. de Wet to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-22991-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-38766-6 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC CONTENTS Preface vii List of abbreviations x PART I Foundations 1 1 Re-theorizing religious conflict: early Christianity to late antiquity and beyond 3 WENDY MAYER 2 Religious violence and its roots: a view from antiquity 30 JAN BREMMER PART II Rhetorical and literary trajectories 43 3 Blindness in early Christianity: tracking the fundamentals of religious conflict 45 PIETER J. J. BOTHA 4 Religious conflict, radicalism, and sexual exceptionalism in the rhetoric of John Chrysostom 70 CHRIS L. DE WET 5 Give it up for God: wealth, suffering, and the rhetoric of religious persecution in John of Ephesus’s Church History 86 CHRISTINE SHEPARDSON v CONTENTS 6 Epiphanies and religious conflict: the contests over the Hagiasma of Chonai 110 ALAN H. CADWALLADER PART III Christianization 137 7 Contested domains in the conflicts between the early Christian mission and Diaspora Judaism according to the Book of Acts 139 CHRISTOPH STENSCHKE 8 Christianisation and late antique patronage: conflicts and everyday nuisances 182 MAIJASTINA KAHLOS PART IV Threats of violence 209 9 Religious violence in late antique Egypt reconsidered: the cases of Alexandria, Panopolis, and Philae 211 JITSE H. F. DIJKSTRA 10 “A wise madness”: a virtue-based model for crowd behaviour in late antiquity 234 PETER VAN NUFFELEN PART V Ancient and modern intersections 259 11 Collaboration and identity in the aftermath of persecution: religious conflict and its legacy 261 ELIZABETH DEPALMA DIGESER 12 The usefulness of violent ends: apocalyptic imaginaries in the reconstruction of society 282 GERHARD VAN DEN HEEVER Index 326 vi PREFACE In the past two decades, media reporting on global conflict has been permeated with the role of religion and religious discourse. With the rise of the Islamic State (IS), in particular, moderns tend to believe that religion serves as a key factor in the cause and persistence of violent global conflicts and wars. In 2014, for instance, a Reuters report claimed: “Violence and discrimination against religious groups by governments and rival faiths have reached new highs in all regions of the world except the Americas, according to a new report by the Pew Research Centre.”1 However, the complexity of how human conflict arises and persists hardly allows for a simplistic answer to the role of religion in global conflict. Religion is very seldom the sole cause of conflict. What is true is that in societies where religion still occupies a priority in members’ construction of meaning and belonging, the experience of conflict will very often be articulated within religious and moral discourse. This is the main point made by Mark Tomass in his work The Religious Roots of the Syrian Conflict (2016).2 Societies, which have enduring legacies of religious communities, structure their social, cultural, and political interactions in terms of religion and belief. This is especially the case when religious communi- ties are under pressure from certain agendas of secularization. Now with the decline of colonial systems, economic development has become the responsibility of the state; however, the political mandate for economic devel- opment has also given rise to what one may call political entrepreneurs, who are often closely and influentially embedded in faith communities. Often political entrepreneurs also occupy positions in structures of religious authorities, and act on behalf of such authorities, blurring the lines even more between political and religious involvement. Thus, while one could argue from various examples that religion plays a major role in the cause and proliferation of conflict, another may forward examples of where religion served to ameliorate and even resolve a con- flict. Little will be achieved from such simplistic arguments. What is perhaps eas- ier to gauge is the effect that the representation of religion within global conflict has on religious communities. Several articles from the Pew Research Center,3 referenced earlier, indicate that global and local restrictions on religion often have vii PREFACE a direct effect on religious tolerance in a given society. In other words, the more religion is asserted within instances of conflict (without necessarily looking at the nature and content of that religious assertion), the more likely it becomes that groups in societies will become intolerant of religion or a specific religious group. So while the causative role of religion within global conflict is complex and mani- fold, the result of preconceptions and representations of “religious conflict” are less elusive. One of the main strengths of Tomass’ work is that he traces the development of religious communities and traditions within areas of conflict, which then gives a better sense of the social and political ideals of said religious communities and structures of religious authority. There exists then an urgent need to conceptual- ize and theoreticize religious conflict in such a manner that it takes account of the complex causalities, pervasive dynamics, and historical lines of development between conflict and religion – and what may then be termed “religious conflict.” The current volume hopes to answer this call for a focused discursive and his- torical complexification – a “reconceiving” – of religious conflict. The lines of development in this case reach back to antiquity and the formative centuries of Christianity, from the first to around the seventh century CE. Each chapter in this collection links up with every other chapter in numerous ways. We have divided the chapters into various parts, although the parts should be seen as organiza- tional. The cohesion of the chapters will become evident upon reading. The book starts with two chapters, both of which function as theoretically foundational and introductory to the volume. Thereafter follow chapters on rhetorical and literary trajectories of religious conflict in antiquity, Christianization, and studies prob- lematizing violence and threats of violence. At the end of the book we have two chapters that bring ancient discourses of religious conflict into dialogue with mod- ern cases. Finally, the studies in this volume do not aim to provide one unified “theory” or “model” of religious conflict in antiquity. Our purpose is perhaps the opposite – to question long-standing and unified theories of religious conflict; to decon- struct commonplace discourses that have, for centuries perhaps, girded the debate around religion, conflict, and violence; and to also demonstrate the variety of per- spectives on religious conflict both ancient and modern. One “unifying” theme, so to speak, of the volume is this – all the studies opt for a broad view of religious conflict that is not limited to instances of explicit and overt religious violence. To examine religious conflict means to move beyond cases of violence and ask more about the nature and effect of the frameworks and presuppositions that often func- tion prior to and behind religious violence. Chris L. de Wet Pretoria, 2017 viii PREFACE Notes 1 Reuters, “Religious Conflict in Global Rise – Report,” January 14, 2014, sec. World, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/10572342/Religious-conflict-in- global-rise-report.html, accessed November 11, 2016. 2 Mark Tomass, The Religious Roots of the Syrian Conflict: The Remaking of the Fer- tile Crescent, Twenty-First Century Perspectives on War, Peace, and Human Conflict (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). 3 www.pewresearch.org//search/?query=religion. ix
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