The Symbolic Power of Food in the Greco-Roman World

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John David Penniman
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
Child Rearing ◽  
Symbolic Power ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Human Formation ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
The One

This chapter highlights some of the foundational philosophical, medical, and moral texts that account for the power of nourishment within the formation of the human person in the Greco-Roman world. Focusing primarily on Hippocratic treatises, Plato, and Aristotle, it first considers how classical anthropological theories about the relationship between body and soul broadly emphasize the importance of food in shaping human nature (both bodily and intellectually). The chapter then turns to the social and political context of the Roman Empire and its explicit program of family values within which breast-feeding and child-rearing were highly politicized—and thus highly theorized—activities. These disparate texts contribute to the discourse of human formation in antiquity. In each attempt to describe or theorize the power of food, such writings are located within a larger ideological constellation about eating and feeding, the result of which is what the book broadly identifies as the symbolic power of nourishment. This symbolic power produces a tension, or at least an ambiguity, between statements about actual nourishment and what it was specifically believed to do, on the one hand, and the symbol of nourishment as a nebulous cultural value, on the other.

Same Essence, Same Food: Nourishment, Formation, and Education in Early Christianity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John David Penniman
Keyword(s):  
Source Material ◽  
World Food ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Dynamic Relationship ◽  
Human Formation ◽  
False Dichotomy ◽  
The One ◽  
Intellectual Formation ◽  
Inside Out

Ancient theories of intellectual formation depended upon corresponding theories of the power of material food to shape both body and mind. These theories show little investment in a stark distinction between literal and metaphoric nourishment. This introduction unpacks the dynamic relationship between literal and symbolic food within ancient discussions of human formation. It argues that, in the Greco-Roman world, food was understood to contain an essence that was transferred to the one being fed, transforming them from the inside out. Scholarship on ancient education has often overlooked this crucial emphasis on food and nurturance within the source material and that this has resulted in a false dichotomy between “literal food” and metaphorical references to “food for the soul.” Discussing the ambiguous Greek and Latin vocabulary for food and formation, and engaging post-structural linguistic theory, the introduction concludes that the proper education and formation of children was, throughout antiquity, dependent upon the material provision of food and the ways in which that provision was theorized and regulated.

“Who is his mother so I can curse him?”: The role of the mother as a passive (dangerous) medium on curse tablets

2021 ◽  
Vol 60 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 353-362
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Interesting Phenomenon ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Care Giving ◽  
Private Action ◽  
The Family ◽  
The One

Abstract Curse tablets are artefacts of a very specific nature. They are generally interpreted as material expression of a particular magic action, usually performed by an individual. Such finds are especially interesting for the study because they represent an epigraphic monument, on the one hand, as well as a standard archaeological find with its specific context on the other hand. A particularly interesting phenomenon is visible on curse tablets throughout the Mediterranean – the presence of mother's name to identify the victim of the curse. The “boom” of this phenomenon occurs in the 2nd century AD, but there also are much older examples, particularly from the 4th and 3rd century BC. In the 2nd century AD, the identification of the mother spread to Italy and the African provinces, where this kind of targeting became dominant. In my paper, I will focus on the later, Latin and Greek curse tablets in the Roman Empire. Mothers' names were assigned to identify a particular person: This is interesting because patronyms were usually used in the Greco-Roman world as the identifier. The purposes of the curse tablets bearing the mother's name were thus different: the tablets were used in cases of private action in competition, love or trials linked to family affairs – all within a ritual framework. For this reason, this paper aims to observe the curse tablets as an important medium of the ritual practice which should enable us to answer the questions: Why should the name of the father, which is usually used, be replaced by the name of the mother? Could the reason for such replacement be the recognition of the mother as a mediator for targeting her child? Is this the most precise identification, as the mother is more accurately identifiable than the father? What does it tell us about the care-giving function of the mother within the family and about the authors of the curse tablets?

scholarly journals The Catechetical School in Alexandria

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Willem H. Oliver
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Great Difficulty ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Theological Perspective ◽  
Out Of Africa ◽  
Other World ◽  
The One ◽  
The Temple

During her Golden Era, Alexandria, the Delta City of Egypt, was the pride of Africa in that she was larger than the two other world cities of the Roman Empire � Rome and Antioch � and also the unrivalled intellectual centre of the (Greco-)Roman world. Her schools, including the Didaskaleion � the Catechetical School � outshone the schools of her rivals by far. During the first half of the 1st century CE and specifically after the destruction of the temple and the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, many Jews fled their home country for different parts of the Roman Empire, like Transjordan, Syria and Africa. A number of these Jews � later called Christians � believed in Jesus of Nazareth. In Alexandria, these believers were confronted with different religions, cults and philosophies. The Didaskaleion was founded to rival these religions and cults and to provide the students with the necessary basis for their newly found religion. The lack of literature, on the one hand, and the credibility of the extant literature, on the other, caused great difficulty in reasoning with authority on the Didaskaleion. This is part one of two articles, the second one being constructed around the heads of the School.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: Research about Africa done by Africans (inhabitants of Africa) need to increase because, in many ways Africa, is silent or silenced about her past. The fundamental question is: �Can anything good come out of Africa?� My answer is, �Yes! Come and see.� Therefore these two articles attempt to indicate the significance of Africa, which was actually the place where Christian Theology was founded. This has intra- as well as interdisciplinary implications. In this case the investigation is done from a theological perspective.

scholarly journals CONSERVATIVE AND LIBERAL, HIERARCHICAL AND EGALITARIAN: SOCIAL-POLITICAL USES OF THE CONCEPT OF “HOME” IN GRECO-ROMAN ANTIQUITY AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY

Phronimon ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Strijdom
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
House Churches ◽  
The Family ◽  
George Lakoff ◽  
The One ◽  
Roman Antiquity ◽  
Point Of Departure

The cognitive linguist George Lakoff has argued that in the human brain two concepts of the family are mapped onto two contrasting political concepts, which reveal two kinds of systemic morality: a hierarchical, strict and disciplining father morality of conservatives on the one hand, and an egalitarian, nurturing parent morality of progressives or liberals on the other. Taking Lakoff’s thesis as point of departure, I offer a critical comparison of social-political uses of the concept of “home” in the early Roman Empire and Pauline Christianity. For this case study I engage primarily with the work of John Dominic Crossan, a prominent scholar of early Christianity within its Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts. Although “home” does not constitute the focus of his analysis, a close reading of his oeuvre does allow us to identify and highlight this as a crucial theme in his work. The focus will be on the patriarchal home under Greco-Roman imperial conditions as model of the imperial system, the Pauline egalitarian concept of the Christian home and house churches, and the deutero-Pauline return to the imperial model. By comparing these case studies from another epoch and another culture, thevalidity of Lakoff’s thesis will be tested and our understanding of the concepts “liberal” and “conservative” will be enriched.

Hellenization and Keeping Body and Soul Together

1997 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heleen M. Keizer
Keyword(s):  
Early Development ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
The Church

The Christian church had its early development in the Hellenistic, Greco-Roman world and for that reason it can certainly be stated that the church was “Hellenized”. But how should we define this Hellenization? And what should be our judgement of it? The collection of essays entitled Hellenization revisited centers on an important theme.

Lead pollution and the Roman economy

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 354-364
Author(s):  
Damian Pavlyshyn ◽  
Iain Johnstone ◽  
Richard Saller
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Roman Economy ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Institutional Frameworks ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Industrial Societies ◽  
Somatic Energy

More than a decade ago, the Oxford Roman Economy Project (OXREP)1 and the Cambridge economic history of the Greco-Roman world put the question of the performance of the Roman economy at the center of historical debate, prompting a flood of books and articles attempting to assess the degree of growth in the economy.2 The issue is of sufficient importance that it has figured in the narratives of economists analyzing the impact of institutional frameworks on the potential for growth.3 As the debate has continued, there has been some convergence: most historians would agree that there was some Smithian growth as evidenced by urbanization and trade, while acknowledging that production remained predominantly agricultural and based primarily on somatic energy (i.e., human and animal).4 This is, of course, a very broad framework that does not differentiate the Roman empire from other complex pre-industrial societies. The challenge is to refine the analysis in order to put content into the broad description of “modest though significant growth”5 and to offer a deeper understanding of the dynamics of the economy.

The Theoretical Possibility of Extensive Infanticide in the Graeco-Roman World

1982 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
William V. Harris
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Psychological Effects ◽  
Theoretical Possibility ◽  
Female Infanticide ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Roman Antiquity ◽  
Different Parts

We have extremely strong reasons for supposing that the exposure of infants, very often resulting in death, was common in many different parts of the Roman Empire, and that it had considerable demographic, economic and psychological effects. The evidence for the first of these propositions has been reviewed or alluded to in several recent publications.1 However, a thorough new study, covering the whole of Greek and Roman antiquity, would be worth while. In the meantime Donald Engels has declared that in the Greek and Roman worlds the exposure of children was ‘of negligible importance’ (‘The problem of female infanticide in the Greco-Roman World’, CPh 75 (1980), 112–20).

Regulating Sex in the Roman Empire

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Wheeler-Reed
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Family Values ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Bible ◽  
American Values ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Family ◽  
Modern Family ◽  
Ideological Norm

Engaging with Foucault’s ideas on sexuality, this book demonstrates how conservative organizations and the Supreme Court have misunderstood Christian beliefs on marriage and the family. It challenges the long-held assumption that American values are based on “Judeo-Christian” norms, by comparing ancient Christian discourses on marriage and sexuality with contemporary ones, maintaining that modern family values owe more to Roman Imperial beliefs than to the Bible. Ultimately, this book undermines the conservative ideology of the family, starting from the position that early Christianity, in its emphasis on celibacy and denunciation of marriage, was in opposition to procreation, the ideological norm in the Greco-Roman world.

scholarly journals Subversive Faith and Competition in Patronage: A Note on ΠίΣΤΙΣ in Mark

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter-Ben Smit
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Gospel Of Mark ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
General Picture ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The People ◽  
Christian Discourse

Abstract In her influential monograph Roman Faith and Christian Faith: Pistis and Fides in the Early Roman Empire and Early Churches, Theresa Morgan has convincingly shown how closely the early Christian discourse on ‘faith’ was bound up with similar notions in the broader Greco-Roman world, particularly in relation to the system of patronage, with both humans and deities fulfilling the role of (trustworthy and trusted) patrons. Thus, she has shifted attention from πίστις/fides as a primarily ‘theological’ notion to an interpretation along more ‘social’ lines and situated it in realm of human and divine/human relations. She also analyses this in relation to the Gospel of Mark, showing how Mark also fits this general picture. This note builds on Morgan’s work and will further develop one aspect of Mark’s use of the language (and concept) of patronage and πίστις. This is its subversive character, which is present to a lesser extent in Morgan's work; by calling for πίστις directed to him on the part of the people that he encounters, Jesus also draws these people away from other allegiances and ‘πίστις commitments’, that is, intersubjective relationships based on trust and leading to personal allegiance.

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