[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
The current volume represents the proceedings of a conference hosted by the University of St. Andrews in 2021 entitled, “Aspects of Belief in Ancient West Asia and the Mediterranean Basin: 1000 BCE–100 CE.” As tends to happen, the scope of the papers both narrowed and broadened the prospective aim of the conference. The contributors narrowed their framework to focus specifically on “religious belief” (as fraught as both terms are), and they broadened their framework to capture contributions ranging from the fields of ancient Near Eastern studies, Classical Studies, Biblical Studies, and Philosophy of Religion. The resulting volume collects 11 wide ranging essays.
Edward Armstrong examines religious beliefs interwoven into the speeches of Thucydides. Drawing from four episodes that feature the greatest concentration of religious language, (1) the siege and trial of Plataea (2.71–78, 3.52–68), (2) the fortification and siege at Delium (4.76–78, 89–101), (3) the Melian Dialogue (5.84–116), and the Sicilian expedition (6.8–8.1), Armstrong opposes the older scholarly consensus that Thucydides was uninterested in religion. Utilizing not only direct prayers and references to the gods, but also key religious themes (hope, fortune, and misfortune) and terms (νόμος, ἐλπίς, and δίκη), Armstrong shows that religious language and ideology are essential to understanding Thucydides’s speeches.
The second chapter takes us hundreds of years into the future, focusing on the charge of Christian atheism and its connection to eschatology. After a survey of atheism (essentially a denial of divine providence and/or a failure to honor the civic gods), Stefano De Feo associates Christianity with Epicureanism, noting that both groups were accused of atheism and were associated with the ultimate destruction of the world (Minucius Felix, Oct. 34; Lucian, Alexander 38). The distinctive eschatological vision of a perishable universe, along with the refusal to participate in the rites of civic religion made the charge of atheism possible.
Taking his cue from an assertion made by Clifford Ando (The Matter of the Gods: Religion and the Roman Empire [Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008]) that Roman belief was based on an “empiricist epistemology,” Matthew Sharp attempts to show that Paul’s letters also follow a kind of empiricism. Indeed, he suggests that Paul encourages belief on the basis of his (and others’) vision of the risen Christ (1 Cor 15:1–11), of the “demonstration of spirit” (1 Cor 2:4–5), and of personal experience (Gal 3:5). Even assertions of trust in the unseen (e.g., 2 Cor 4:18; 5:7) can be understood by recourse to knowledge (e.g., 2 Cor 4:13–14; 1 Thess 4:14) based on a witnessed fact (e.g., Rom 8:11). Belief for Paul is the natural conclusion of empirical evidence.
David Johnston attacks the well-known challenge of identifying the “weak” and the “strong” in Rom 14:1–15:13. He argues against the scholarly consensus that the weak are primarily Jewish and the strong primarily gentile, and he suggests that both groups included both Jews and gentiles. Those “weak in faith” are not necessarily Jewish ethnically, but practically; that is, they engage in certain practices that would be viewed as Jewish, regardless of their actual ethnicity. Paul’s goal is to bring together Jews as Jews and gentiles as gentiles into a single faith community in preparation for the eschaton (Rom 15:7–9).
In the fifth chapter, Teresa Morgan discusses the concept of faith in Augustine. She observes that the term becomes increasingly complex in the centuries between the New Testament and Augustine, especially exemplified by Augustine’s fides quae (the content of belief) and fides qua (the attitude of the believer toward the content). After brief surveys of Philo, Clement, and Origen, Morgan states that Augustine most often uses faith as “outright belief,” or the conviction of a proposition’s truth and consequent reliance on it. Faith for Augustine is emotional, as well as relational and propositional. God saves because of his faithfulness, leading humans to trust him.
Thomas Harrison contributes a programmatic essay to explore what belief means in the context of Greek religion. Denying the utility of the notion that Greek religion was merely performative, Harrison suggests that ritual is always grounded in a belief system. Beliefs also serve to make sense of the world, especially the experiences that deny rational explanation. Humans are willing to accommodate contradictory propositions as long as they make sense of lived experience. Finally, beliefs can reinforce themselves, so that reasons for beliefs change. People believe because they choose to believe, and they perpetuate their choices by adding their justifications.
Theodore Lewis next offers an assessment of the royal portrayals of divinity in the monuments of the eighth century Syro-Hittite king Bar Rakib. The king’s religious symbolism reflects a desire to align both with Assyrian ideology and with local interests. He shows a willingness to adhere to the traditional symbols of deity, while editing imagery to suit his political aims. The “beliefs” of the king are difficult to determine, even when he ascribes deliverance to a particular deity, since propaganda always plays a primary role. If we struggle to determine the beliefs of a king whose religious iconography is so well-attested, it is impossible to determine the religious beliefs of Cyrus who has left virtually no extrabiblical religious evidence.
Michael Anthony Fowler examines artistic depictions of the sacrifice of Polyxena from the Archaic period. He uses the archaeological evidence of ritualized human sacrifice to suggest that ancient Greeks might have viewed the sacrifice of Polyxena as justifiable. The most famous depiction is the Timiades Painter, which presents Polyxena being held firmly by three men as a knife is plunged into her neck. The Protoattic krater reflects tension and discomfort at the sacrifice, representing a figure turning away from it. The author concludes that the variety of artistic interpretations of the sacrifice of Polyxena indicates continued tension surrounding the idea of human sacrifice in the Archaic period.
Camilla Recalcati examines the Ptolemaic royal background to lexical depictions of God in the LXX. The translators of the Greek Pentateuch seem to be more resistant to Ptolemaic terminology than later books. For example, the Ptolemaic terms δεσπότης and δυνάστης are used sparingly (twice and once, respectively) in the Pentateuch but are much more frequent in later Septuagintal books. This resistance is exemplified by the term εὐεργέτης and εὐεργετεῖν, which are important for the Ptolemies but absent from the Greek Pentateuch. Recalcati argues that the omission was intentional, as the clumsy εὖ ποιέω and the neologism ἀγαθοποιέω are used instead.
In the longest chapter of the book (47 pages), Brent Strawn discusses belief/faith in the Hebrew Bible. In contrast with Martin Buber, among others, Strawn does not advocate a bifurcation between faith and belief, or indeed between cognition and emotion, but cites visual studies to prove that seeing is simultaneously a reflection of and inducement to belief/faith. Turning to archaeological evidence, Strawn stresses that a religious object can provoke beliefs in the viewer that were never intended by the artist. The famous depiction of YHWH “and his Asherah” (if this is the correct rendering) on Pithos A from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud is an example. The multiple stages of artistic production on the Pithos are reflective of various expressions of belief. Belief is always in the eye of the beholder.
Erin Darby addresses the problem of assessing belief in ancient Israel. Basing her analysis on Judean pillar figurines, she critiques the limited way scholars have interpreted the evidence. Fertility, whether defined narrowly (female fruitfulness) or broadly (female, agricultural), may not be the main purpose of these figurines. The fault lies in applying modern theoretical approaches to ancient artifacts. Darby argues that assessing ancient belief must begin by focusing on political economies and social institutions that governed daily life, such as urbanity, what we can learn about production centers, and ritual usages. Darby offers not so much a new answer as a reassessment of methodologies.
Overall, the volume is well-edited and well-written. Nevertheless, I have two regrets about the collection. One is the arrangement of essays. The essays do not proceed chronologically or thematically. For example, general definitional essays (e.g., Harrison) would seem to be better situated toward the beginning. Second is that some essays seem to understand “belief” as “what people thought about X” rather than religious belief specifically (e.g., Recalcati). Such a general sense would be acceptable, except for the fact that the introduction stresses that religious belief is the focus of the volume. These minor points aside, what emerges from the collection is that accurately assessing faith/belief in ancient texts is at best complicated, and perhaps impossible. The volume is a useful introduction to the varieties of belief in a variety of fields of ancient scholarly inquiry.
Authors and Titles
Taylor O. Gray, Ethan R. Johnson, and Martina Vercesi, “Introduction”
- Edward Armstrong, “Speaking of the Gods: Religious Belief in Thucydides”
- Stefano De Feo, “Αἶρε τοὺς ἀθέους (Mart. Pol. 9.2): The Relationship between the Accusation of Atheism and a Radical Interpretation of Eschatology in Early Christianity”
- Matthew T. Sharp, “The Empiricism of the Apostle Paul: Belief and Knowledge in the Context of Roman Divination”
- David J. Johnston, “The Relationship of Faith and Law Observance in Paul: The One Who Is Weak in Faith in Romans 14:1–15:13”
- Teresa Morgan, “Augustine on Faith: Trust, Acceptance, Credence, and Belief”
Thomas Harrison, “The Point of Belief(s): Ritual, Explanation, and the Demonstration of the Divine” - Theodore J. Lewis, “From Bar Rakib to Cyrus: What Do Royal Portrayals of Divinity Have to Do with Belief?”
- Michael Anthony Fowler, “Bad Blood? Varying Attitudes on Human Sacrifice in Archaic Greek Art”
- Camilla Recalcati, “‘God Is Our King:’ How Beliefs Surrounding the Ptolemaic Monarchy Influenced the Depiction of God in the LXX Pentateuch on a Lexical Level”
- Brent A. Strawn, “Is Belief (or Is It Faith?) an Ancient Israelite Notion? Thinking and/as Seeing, Seeing and/as Thinking … and Believing”
- Erin Darby, “(Be)li(e)ving in a Material World: What Can Ancient Figurines Teach Us about the Modern Study of Religion?”