Stanley J. Seeger Visiting Fellowship in Research, Program in Hellenic Studies, Princeton University

Basic data for this project

Description

Destruction of temples and the conversion of places of worship into Christian churches constitute central symbols of the transformation of the religious landscape, the social-political system and the public perception in Late Antiquity. Pagan sanctuaries represented not only the religious center of a community (i.e., persons bound by the same faith, a city, an ethnic group etc.) and thereby embodied a system of religious symbols; but through their rituals and theological ideas they also mirrored the complex social, political and economic structures of their communities. Temples also serve as means of preservation and change of social and/or political identity, and any debate over places of worship implies various and usually harsh conflicts, as transformation of them fundamentally concerns the public sphere, the political and social order, and local and regional identities. Discussing destructions of temples in the Imperium Romanum of the fourth to sixth centuries therefore also allows an analysis of the Christianization of society on a local level: from the perspective of sanctuaries and their fate in various contexts, the social and political significance and contemporary perception. The importance of temples and the destructions of them will be discussed not only on a local level, but also for the process of Christianization on regional and on the imperial level. It will be presented as a phenomenon of radical religious and cultural change from the perspective of pagans and Christians alike. Scholars have already noted the heuristic value of analyzing the destruction and decline of temples for local and regional processes of religious and socio-political transformation. Especially Trombley (1993/94) discussed these processes exploring a wide range of material. Under which circumstances did violence by Christians against sanctuaries become possible, and what were the motives? What were the consequences when religious groups lost their place of worship? How did they cope with the social and political consequences and the processes of transformation which the destructions had brought about, and what were their strategies in doing so? These questions can be analyzed through case studies (especially through the well-known cases of Alexandria, Gaza etc.) which involve the role of the imperial as well as ecclesiastical administration (see also Hahn 2004). They bring forth not only the local but also the regional and imperial context. A study, however, that analyzes (beyond the case study horizon) systematically the transformations of places of worship – including the attacks on Christian and Jewish sacred space – is still missing. A social-historical or religious-historical project discussing destruction of temples is limited by its sources. As the interest of contemporary authors – and that means predominantly Christian authors – was not due to coincidental attention, but occurred in the context of religious conflict between competing religious groups, the destruction of places of worship was to be understood under a teleological, heilsgeschichtliche perspective which regarded the destruction as revenge against pagans and and their idols as well as against any pagan remnants. To conceive events and motifs under a Christian and thereby ultimately triumphant perception – essentially the implicit adoption of late antique Christian perspectives – still dominates even the most recent scholarship (partially also Gaddis 2005). Contemporaries understood very well the symbolic dimension of destroying a sanctuary, or of its occupation by an opposing religious group. Therefore, the appropriation of the religious space of “the others” was not just a staging of power and “orthodoxy” ex eventu. This quality of meaningfulness, however, becomes also a handicap for historians, since the destruction of temples was not merely a historical phenomenon but also a complex literary construction. Different perceptions and strategies manifested themselves in texts – both among contemporaries and in the subsequent identity-forming commemoration. Therefore, it becomes highly hypothetical to reconstruct the broad significance of the destruction of sanctuaries. Any such destruction, it may be said, formed a complex phenomenon consisting of the meaning (and importance) of the monument, the actual contemporary events, but also the subsequent commemoration and literary discourse. The perceptions, interests and forms of expressions of very different protagonists – Christians, pagans and finally the emperor with the imperial institutions – met on all these levels. Only by considering these complex contextual and literary patterns can one adequately approach the phenomenon of temple destruction in Late Antiquity and its literary setting/shaping. Only by uncovering and analyzing the contemporary and posterior discourse of perception can the presentation, commemoration and interpretation of religious violence in the context of temple destruction be understood. So, by widening our perspective it will be possible to achieve a total picture of the conflict concerning pagan sanctuaries and its historical meaning for processes of of religious and socio-political transformation in the later Roman empire. The eminent semantic character of violence against places of worship and cult objects in the context of our most important tradition, that is, church history and hagiography, can be illustrated by two examples. The church historian Rufinus perceives the violent destruction of paganism as the paramount characteristic of his time. He illustrates this phenomenon exclusively with the example of Egypt, and he presents the great Serapeum of Alexandria as the place for the ultimate battle of the Christian-pagan conflict. By emphasizing the bloody incidents he raised the events around the destruction of the great statue of Sarapis in 392 CE into a historical-theological and hagiographical sphere (Hahn 2004, 2006). The young ascetic Rabbula, later bishop of Edessa, on the other hand, is said to have travelled with his companion (who became later bishop as well) to Baalbek in order to suffer a martyr’s death at the hand of pagans. He attacked the temple of Zeus Heliopolitanus (for which its destruction is noted repeatedly in Christian tradition!) and was almost killed for doing so – which his hagiographer regards as an omen for his later unwavering stance towards “heretics,” Jews and pagans (whose places of worship in Edessa Rabbula is said to have destroyed or occupied). The starting point for my research project will be the (mainly already collected) literary tradition, but at the same time all the available archeological evidence will be included (Bayliss 2004 etc.). All genres of late antique texts concerning conflicts around places of worship will be consulted and analyzed according to their patterns of presentation: legislation, church histories, chronicles, hagiography, acts of councils as well as sermons, orations and letters. Thereby it will be possible to understand the meaning of destroying temples within the genres as well as a tropology of writing about violence against cults and their groups. Mainly due to the kinds of source material available my project focuses on the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. As the project explicitly discusses local and regional constellations, it would be problematic to intertwine eastern and western contexts. Nevertheless comparisons will be pointed out and investigated where appropriate (North Africa for example). A project that studies the destruction of temples as outlined here intends in a way to reconstruct the grammar of the discourse on pagan sanctuaries and their destruction. However, to analyze the semantics and functionality of destroying sanctuaries in the texts that have come down to us also means investigating the concrete historical consequences of the discourse, its significance as argument in the religious and political dispute and its historical reality. Insofar as the project focuses again on the incident of destruction, it analyzes the dynamics and consequences of local conflicts and thereby tries to get a grip on the role of the imperial center in these disputes and the repercussions of religious violence on the self-identity of the late antique state. In a synoptic overview an overall picture of destroying temples in Late Antiquity will be outlined.