Lucian of Samosata emerges as a complex character through his writings, showcasing a deliberate engagement with ambiguity and boundary transgressions. From his caustic and comedic attitude towards Olympian deities to later categorisations as an enemy of Christianity in the tenth-century Suda lexicon, Lucian remains elusive in his spiritual allegiances as well. Similarly, the diverse reception of his theocentric writings prompts a valid inquiry into the best approach to understanding his work. Situating Lucian within the context of the Greco-Roman author’s perceptions of the divine and scholarly inquiries into Greco-Roman religion, this chapter considers his stance regarding religion in general and Christianity in particular. The chapter suggests viewing Lucian as a social anthropologist studying human perceptions of the divine. By delving into the socio-pragmatics of religious practices, Lucian verbalises long-standing debates, shedding light on the realities of belief and disbelief in the contemporary pagan and Christian divine systems.

Livy not Polybius is the main source for Roman religion; Carthaginian is less easily grasped. Literary traditions represented Hannibal as an impious perjuror, whereas Scipio enjoyed divine help (Neptune) and privileged access (Jupiter). Neither picture is true. Both made youthful vows, Hannibal never to befriend Rome, Scipio (after Cannae) to continue the fight. Neither was regularly accompanied by seers on campaign; Hannibal was his own diviner and personally executed one violent animal sacrifice. He buried defeated enemy commanders respectfully, unlike Nero after Metaurus. Scipio, unlike Hannibal, took impious advantage of a truce. Hannibal was a priest only in the sense that ancient generals conducted campaign rituals. Scipio had been a Salian priest of Mars for many years (special dress, ceremonies, obligations). There was a Hannibalic legend (advice or warnings in dreams from Jupiter and Juno) as well as the famous Scipionic legend (supernatural snake-birth and Neptune’s help at New Carthage).

It is striking that Christians were so successful. They had internal dissension; lacked relics; had no common temple; came from less educated classes and the periphery of the empire; Jews and pagans harassed, even persecuted them. Because they did not offer sacrifices, excluding them from offices and festivals, and were unable to maintain certain family traditions they appeared antisocial. Yet Christ-followers succeeded in winning over non-Jews as well. The persecutions welded Christians together, and martyrs served as role models, even to those who had manifested weakness. In areas such as sexual morality, Christians sought to demonstrate that they were superior to contemporaries of other faiths. They also formed transregional networks. The opportunity to gain prestige in Christian communities also attracted people. Various forms of authority competed with each other, especially the charismatic and spiritual authority of those who excelled in ascetic practices. That in the end monarchical bishops were to become the decisive figures in Christianity was by no means clear from the beginning. That Roman emperors would support Christianity was an unlikely development that changed Christianity significantly. But the tradition of a defiant piety that defined the beginnings was not lost, so that Christianity continued to renew itself.

Very few Christians rejected the Roman Empire in principle; rather, many saw it as a prerequisite for their mission because of the peace that the Empire created. Nevertheless, conflicts arose: Few understood why Christians, who worshipped only one God, did not want to sacrifice. In the eyes of contemporaries, this could provoke the gods and endanger social peace, and was a reason for persecution in many places. Many Christians made sacrifices under pressure, but some also became martyrs who gained great prestige. Meanwhile, some Christians entered the service of the state and held public office or became soldiers. They often made compromises that strict Christians criticised. Some seemingly enjoyed the glamour of public duties. That Christians would dominate the empire was by no means a foregone conclusion even at the end of the third century, at the time of Constantine the Great.

This chapter explores the religious practice of characters in the five ‘ideal’ Greek novels, arguing that despite these works’ overall presentation of a world that is in many ways ‘realistic’, their representation of religion diverges from ‘reality’. At one end of the spectrum the behaviour of the rustic couple Daphnis and Chloe is almost hyper-religious, and it is only in Longus’ novel that we find a full range of traditional religious practices, including vows and libations. In the other four many features correspond to behaviour in the ‘real’ world – prayers, offerings, sacrifices, feasts and festivals: but libations are sometimes not poured when they might be expected; rituals associated with marriage or burial are omitted or played down; and, most strikingly, the practice of making a vow to a god at critical moments to secure help or rescue, a practice documented in the ‘real’ world by epigraphy and literature from the archaic period down to at least the third century AD, is wholly absent. Possible reasons for this absence are briefly discussed: is it simply a generally soft-focus and elliptical account of religious behaviour, or is it the avoidance of a device which, if deployed, would risk short-circuiting characters’ tension-creating peril in cliff-hanging situations?

The texts and images in this chapter illustrate events involving the Roman imperial court that can be regarded as rituals. These included regular occurrences that took place on a daily or near-daily basis, such as the salutatio, dinners, and religious sacrifices. They also included special occasions like festivals, diplomatic receptions, lavish banquets, and the acclamation of a new emperor. Some of these events occurred in court spaces, and involved a wide cross-section of the court community. These ceremonies functioned as displays of consensus among members of the court community, as their actions demonstrated shared values and expectations. Others did not consistently take place in court spaces, but merit inclusion here because they involved key members of the court community. The sources show how the rules and expectations of these rituals were subject to modification both by emperors and courtiers, who experimented with new types of address, greeting, and physical contact.

The chapters in this book are all readings, or interpretations, of key characters and episodes in the Divine Comedy where it can be shown that what is at stake is a kind of faith. What has been argued is that reading itself is an act of faith, a willingness to trust not only in the individual human author or narrator, but in the larger story in which all truthful, good faith narratives somehow fit. A different faith, like a superseded hypothesis in science, is another way of approaching a single truth and it can be read, charitably, as such.

This chapter analyzes Paul’s understanding of the atoning nature of Christ’s death and resurrection. Since Paul regularly uses imagery from Israel’s sacrificial cult to interpret the meaning of Jesus’ death, this chapter delves into recent work on the logic of Israel’s cult so as to understand what a first-century Jew would mean to say if they compared the events of Golgotha with the rite of Yom Kippur. The chapter contrasts Luther’s and Calvin’s understanding of the cross, which paint Paul’s account on a canvas of a generic, universal struggle with the powers of sin, guilt, and evil, with an argument in which Paul interprets the difference the cross makes as addressing a specific historical situation in the life of Israel and its relationship to Israel’s God.

This chapter focuses on the Little Panathenaia, the version held in three years out of four, and an occasion neglected by the existing scholarship. It asks what we know about the so-called ‘annual’ celebration and how it created identities. The limited evidence shows that it was a much less complex occasion than the Great Panathenaia and it was focused on the procession and sacrifices to Athena in her sanctuary on the Akropolis. It also included a pannychis or all-night revel. The Little Panathenaia received additional elaboration in the late second century BC, when a peplos began to be offered to the goddess, while, in at least the later fifth and fourth centuries BC, a very limited set of competitions open only to Athenians was included. The identities created at the Little Panathenaia focused on Athenians and sub-groups of the city, rather than on displaying the city to external, non-Athenian visitors.

This chapter is the first of four chapters focused on the penteteric or Great Panathenaia, which took place every four years. It looks at how individuals participated in the procession, which conveyed the sacrificial animals, the peplos and other offerings to the Akropolis, and the sacrifices to Athena. The procession and attendant rituals included a multitude of different roles for various individuals and groups: Athenians, both male and female, were certainly represented, but so were other inhabitants, the metics and their daughters and delegations from the colonies and, in the later fifth century BC, the allies. Together, they made up the community of ‘all the Athenians’, who were celebrating the goddess and her deed against the Giants. These rituals repeated the festival’s stories and themes, which unified the rituals and linked them to the games.

This chapter focuses on the identities created for other residents (Athenian women and girls, male metics and their daughters and Athenian boys, beardless youths and ephebes) and non-residents (especially colonies and allies). In comparison to those of the male Athenians, the identities of other residents and non-residents of the city were not nearly as complex, in part because these other groups had limited opportunities for participation in the celebration. While the identities of Athenian boys, beardless youths and ephebes focused on their position as citizens-to-be or as the newest citizens who were prepared to fight for the city, the identities for the other groups focused on their service to the goddess. The participation of both non-residents and residents also marked them as members of the community of “all the Athenians” and allowed them to create identities as members of this group. International visitors had a significant role to play as excluded non-members who contrasted with members of the community. Thus, how one took part in the Great Panathenaia was instrumental in determining what it meant to be a member of “all the Athenians” who were celebrating the Great Panathenaia.

This chapter is the first of two chapters examining the identities created at the Great Panathenaia. It asks what identities were created for Athenian men. For these men, the processes were particularly complex, and they had to take part in a variety of different aspects of the festival. The more often a man participated, the more complex his identities became. A man could also have further identities as a member of specific subgroups of Athenian men: as a member of the cavalry, as benefactor of the city, as a member of a genos, a (Kleisthenic) deme and a (Kleisthenic) tribe. Different aspects of a man’s overall identity would have been salient at different moments in the festival and depended on how exactly any individual man participated. Especially in the games during the classical and Hellenistic periods, the definition of what it meant to be an Athenian male mapped quite closely on to a very political and Aristotelian understanding of citizenship. Consequently, the identities of Athenian men were particularly sensitive to political change in the city, and they quickly reflected developments in other areas of the city’s life.

This chapter deals with women’s roles in the religious life of their cities, both as cult officials and as devotees. Apart from the Vestals, Roman cities had priestesses of a few, mostly female, deities, such as Ceres, Venus, Tellus and Juno, but also Isis, Cybele and Bona Dea. Priestesses of the imperial cult are amply attested accross the Roman West (but not in Rome) serving both the living and the deified empresses. They were mostly fromwealthy families of the local elite. Apart from priesthoods, a wide range of lesser religious functions were open to women of lower rank, most of them paid. For the performance of religious ceremonies, we find female musicians, dancers, basket-bearers and sacrificial attendants, as well as magistrae and ministrae, female temple-wardens and keepers of sacrificial animals. The last part of the chapter offers a sample of their dedications to male and female deities, both Roman and local, thus giving an impression of their religious allegiancies and their participation in rituals.

Chapter 4 examines the Jerusalem Temple as an economic organization whose membership consisted of priestly elites. By appealing to other temples of the Roman East as comparanda, it demonstrates that elite temple functionaries simultaneously sustained their ancestral religious traditions and facilitated economic integration. As overseers of worship, Judaean elites had access to sacred land and sacred money and received other offerings. In particular, Judaean priestly elites were the beneficiaries of the Hasmonean institutions of tithes and temple taxes. Such exactions were authorized through scriptural interpretation, but were also typical at Graeco-Roman temples more broadly. To many Judaeans, however, they appeared distinctly exploitative once priestly elites became incomparably wealthy and powerful in the Early Roman period.