Priests and Prophets among Pagans, Jews and Christians
edited by B. Dignas, R. Parker and G.G. Stroumsa
The emperor Julian pointed out that the duties of priesthood were better understood among ‘the impious Galileans’ (i.e. Christians) than among his pagan contemporaries. Like the emperor, the essays in this volume look in both directions. Its pages are populated by very diverse figures: Plutach, Aelius Aristides, Alexander of Abonouteichos, Daniel the Stylite, Gregory of Nazianzus, Shenoute of Atripe, Mani, Muhammad, and a host of anonymous Greek and Roman priests, prophets, and diviners. The priests of second temple Judaism are considered too. Both in the Greco-Roman and the early Christian worlds the neat division between priests and prophets proves hard to sustain. But in terms of fame and influence a strong contrast emerges between Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian prophets; this is why it is only among Jews and Christians that ‘false prophets’ are feared. Two recurrent preoccupations are the relation of priests and prophets to secular power, and the priest/prophet not as reality but as idea, an imagined figure. Leading scholars of the religions of antiquity come together in this wide-ranging and innovative volume.
- Edited by B Dignas
- Edited by R Parker
- Edited by GG Stroumsa
Other Titles in this Series
Similar Books
A Companion to Christianity and Sport in Europe and North America (19th-21st centuries)
Volume 1: Western and Eastern Europe
A Connecting Polemic in the Medieval Mediterranean
The Correspondence of Leo III and ʿUmar II
Volume 6
Ars Prophetica
Theology in the Poetry of Twentieth-Century Hebrew Poets Avraham Halfi, Shin Shalom, Amir Gilboa, and T. Carmi
As Messianism Turns to Heresy
The Regenstein Chair Lectures On Lurianic Kabbalah and Shabbatai Tzevi at Hebrew Union College - Cincinnati
Contesting Labeled Identities
The Sociology of Gentilics in Biblical and Northwest Semitic Literature
Creating the Woman in Antiquity
Proceedings of the 16th Melammu Workshop, Innsbruck, 2–3 June 2022
Volume 13
Cultic Kisses
Fruitful Encounters Between Deities and Humans. Festschrift for Angelika Berlejung on the Occasion of Her 65th Birthday
De/colonizing Theologies
Glocal Histories, Contemporary Challenges, Theoretical Reflections
Volume 4
Drunk the Potion, No Whit Charmed
The Doctrine of Pure and Perfect Souls from Iamblichus to Damascius
Epigraphic “Shades” from Hellenistic Thrace
Contextualizing Inscriptions in Greek from Thracian Tombs
Epiphanies of the Divine in the Septuagint and the New Testament
Fifth International Symposium of the Corpus Judaeo-Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti (CJHNT), 14-17 May 2015, Nottingham
