A Greek Christian World?

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fergus Millar
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Literary Culture ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Local Context ◽  
The West ◽  
Greek Culture ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Roman Culture ◽  
Roman Near East

The great temple of Artemis at Gerasa (Jerash) in Jordan is one of the finest expressions of Greco-Roman culture in the Near East. Built in the second century, it includes a church that was erected on top of another building. This chapter explores the combination of Greek and Hebrew or Aramaic that characterised the mosaic floors of synagogues of the period from Palestine, across the Jordan to the west, where the roles of the two languages tend to be reversed: Hebrew or Aramaic was used for the strictly religious components while Greek was used for the names of benefactors. More specifically, it considers the combination — or alternation — of co-existence and hostility between Christians and Jews. After providing a background on the Roman Near East, the chapter analyses the language that Jews possibly used in daily life, and whether pagans of the Roman Near East spoke Aramaic. It then examines documentary evidence that offers insights into Greek culture in the Near East in its local context before concluding with a discussion of Greek literary culture in the region.

The leges municipales as a Means of Legal and Social Romanization of the Provinces of the Roman Empire

2020 ◽  
pp. 315-331
Author(s):  
Werner Eck
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Southern Spain ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Legal Regulations ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
General Phenomenon ◽  
The West ◽  
The Law

Sections of the leges municipales from at least forty different cities in Southern Spain have survived to us. These laws, understood as a powerful instrument by which Roman legal regulations were introduced into the provinces, are usually connected with Baetica. As a result it is too easy to overlook the fact that corresponding leges were issued wherever Roman or Latin cities were founded, and continued to be issued long after the Flavian era, the time to which most of the surviving fragments date. Documentary evidence has now made clear that leges municipales are a general phenomenon which continued to play a role in the second and third centuries CE. Fragments of city laws are known not only in the province of Alpes Maritimae, but also in Noricum (Lauriacum), Moesia superior (Ratiaria), and in Troesmis (Moesia inferior). The law for Troesmis is especially important because, in contrast to the laws from Baetica, it was issued for a Roman and not a Latin municipium. This demonstrates that specific Roman legal regulations, which were issued in Augustan times exclusively for Roman citizens, were still of relevance in the second century and also must have been used in the province of Moesia inferior. This material indicates that people had to obey Roman legal regulations more or less everywhere in nearly all provinces of the West. The leges municipales were thus one of the decisive means by which Roman law spread in the provinces—more so than has previously been realized—and could even be the basis for daily life.

scholarly journals Antinous: From the Pederastic to the Divine

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desmond Wong
Keyword(s):  
The West ◽  
Greek Culture ◽  
Roman Culture ◽  
Public Setting ◽  
Different Response ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Ideal

No face is more recognized as the ideal of ancient male beauty than Antinous and yet little is known about his life. Scholars have used his relationship with the Emperor Hadrian as evidence for their own means. This relationship has gone from a sordid and scandalous affair to purely platonic and educational, depending on the personal orientations of the scholars and the cultural trends of their age. The controversy about Antinous began immediately: the establishment of his cult after his death was mocked by contemporaries as an exaggeration and inappropriate mourning. Soon after it was fuel for Christian critics about the arbitrary nature of pagan deities. However, in Hadrian’s lifetime the cult became an established sect of the Imperial Religion, spreading throughout the Eastern provinces. Why did this cult function successfully in the East, while being scorned in the West? This thesis explores the reasons for the different response. I will argue that the pederastic relationship had been a long established tradition within the East but mocked as inappropriate in the West, at least in a public setting. In Greek culture there were numerous cases of such relationships in myth. The contemporaries who criticized the relationship of Hadrian and Antinous, and especially his cult, were reacting against a trend of Hellenization of Roman culture. This had been a debated issue since the Roman conquest of the East, and many times before, the champions of Roman tradition had depicted the spread of Greek ways as the triumph of moral corruption.

scholarly journals Antinous: The Pederastic to the Divine

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desmond Wong
Keyword(s):  
The West ◽  
Greek Culture ◽  
Roman Culture ◽  
Public Setting ◽  
Different Response ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Ideal

No face is more recognized as the ideal of ancient male beauty than Antinous and yet little is known about his life. Scholars have used his relationship with the Emperor Hadrian as evidence for their own means. This relationship has gone from a sordid and scandalous affair to purely platonic and educational, depending on the personal orientations of the scholars and the cultural trends of their age. The controversy about Antinous began immediately: the establishment of his cult after his death was mocked by contemporaries as an exaggeration and inappropriate mourning. Soon after it was fuel for Christian critics about the arbitrary nature of pagan deities. However, in Hadrian’s lifetime the cult became an established sect of the Imperial Religion, spreading throughout the Eastern provinces.  Why did this cult function successfully in the East, while being scorned in the West?  My paper will explore the reasons for the different response. I will argue that the pederastic relationship had been a long established tradition within the East but mocked as inappropriate in the West, at least in a public setting. In Greek culture there were numerous cases of such relationships in myth. The contemporaries who criticized the relationship of Hadrian and Antinous, and especially his cult, were reacting against a trend of Hellenization of Roman culture. This had been a debated issue since the Roman conquest of the East, and many times before, the champions of Roman tradition had depicted the spread of Greek ways as the triumph of moral corruption.

scholarly journals ‘De God van de vrede’ in het Nieuwe Testament

2015 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Van Houwelingen
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Near East ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Apostle Paul ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The World ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Roman Culture

‘The God of peace’ in the New Testament. Why does the New Testament use the expression ‘the God of peace’ and what is the meaning of this phrase? In the Old Testament, the God of Israel is often connected with peace, but he is never called ‘the God of peace’. Not until the Hellenistic period is this expression sporadically found in Judaism (once in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and once in Philo). As for the biblical Umwelt, the gods of the ancient Near East were not very peace-loving, and in the perception of Greco-Roman culture the god of war, Arès/Mars, as one of the twelve Olympians was much more prominent than Eirènè/Pax. However, the expression ‘the God of peace’ is found several times in the Corpus Paulinum and once in the letter to the Hebrews. This article investigates all New Testament texts that have this formula, suggesting that the apostle Paul could be responsible for the wording. In conclusion, Paul states that the God of Israel desires to establish a definitive peace in his creation through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ and by finally defeating all powers of evil. This apostolic message further indicates that Christians are supposed to be bearers of peace, promoting a peaceful atmosphere in their environment and in the world.

The Pagan God, Popular Religion in the Greco-Roman near East

1979 ◽  
Vol 99 (1) ◽  
pp. 117
Author(s):  
John H. Marks ◽  
Javier Teixidor
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Popular Religion ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Roman Near East

scholarly journals Cultural identity in the Roman Near East: An historiographical exercise

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Michael Desmond Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Near East ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Cultural Imperialism ◽  
Alternative Framework ◽  
Provincial City ◽  
Roman Culture ◽  
Court Life ◽  
The One ◽  
Roman Near East

<p>The central premise of this thesis is that the concepts of hellenisation and romanisation are no longer useful as interpretive models of the Graeco-Roman Near East. Through most of the twentieth century they did good service generating research questions and providing innovative explanations of both existing and new data. On the one hand the notion of hellenisation focused attention on the historical importance of cultural change in the Hellenistic period, while the concept of romanisation focused scholarly attention on life in the provinces rather than on the court life of the imperial city and highlighted the importance of epigraphy and archaeology as against the philological study of literary texts. But the underlying assumptions of both concepts — the superiority of Graeco-Roman culture, the 'civilising' role of the intrusive powers, the passivity of the indigenous peoples of the region, the notion that Greek, Roman and Semitic cultures are bounded entities — are now dated.  In the first part of the thesis I deconstruct the concepts of hellenisation and romanisation in detail and then develop an alternative framework which is avowedly postmodern and interdisciplinary, eschews eurocentrism, and uses postcolonial concepts as well as insights from modern social theory.  In the second part of the thesis I use the alternative framework to review the evidence relating to the provincial city of Gerasa in the Roman province of Arabia. Looked at through this alternative prism it has been possible to offer some different readings of the evidence not apparent in earlier interpretations. In particular, in using the concepts of resistant strategy and cultural imperialism to discuss the emergence of the Antonine period city plan, I challenge the traditional view of Hadrian's urbanisation policy.</p>

scholarly journals Cultural identity in the Roman Near East: An historiographical exercise

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Michael Desmond Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Near East ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Cultural Imperialism ◽  
Alternative Framework ◽  
Provincial City ◽  
Roman Culture ◽  
Court Life ◽  
The One ◽  
Roman Near East

<p>The central premise of this thesis is that the concepts of hellenisation and romanisation are no longer useful as interpretive models of the Graeco-Roman Near East. Through most of the twentieth century they did good service generating research questions and providing innovative explanations of both existing and new data. On the one hand the notion of hellenisation focused attention on the historical importance of cultural change in the Hellenistic period, while the concept of romanisation focused scholarly attention on life in the provinces rather than on the court life of the imperial city and highlighted the importance of epigraphy and archaeology as against the philological study of literary texts. But the underlying assumptions of both concepts — the superiority of Graeco-Roman culture, the 'civilising' role of the intrusive powers, the passivity of the indigenous peoples of the region, the notion that Greek, Roman and Semitic cultures are bounded entities — are now dated.  In the first part of the thesis I deconstruct the concepts of hellenisation and romanisation in detail and then develop an alternative framework which is avowedly postmodern and interdisciplinary, eschews eurocentrism, and uses postcolonial concepts as well as insights from modern social theory.  In the second part of the thesis I use the alternative framework to review the evidence relating to the provincial city of Gerasa in the Roman province of Arabia. Looked at through this alternative prism it has been possible to offer some different readings of the evidence not apparent in earlier interpretations. In particular, in using the concepts of resistant strategy and cultural imperialism to discuss the emergence of the Antonine period city plan, I challenge the traditional view of Hadrian's urbanisation policy.</p>

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