Embodied Images: Christian Destruction and Response in Late Antique Egypt (2009) (original) (raw)
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The topic of violence in Late Antiquity is a heavily debated subject and many scholars have focused on this issue, as evidenced by the many studies published within the last ten years. 1 The perception of Late Antiquity as a period of widespread religious violence is mainly influenced by Christian literary sources, who document accounts of violence against temples, statuary, and people alike. Egypt, in particular, has often been used as an example to demonstrate the destructive nature of religious violence that existed in the ancient world. However, the concept of religious violence is a complicated and nuanced topic. In Egypt, the many accounts by the Christian sources were written with specific intentions and the events documented in the texts were often exaggerated. The objective of this thesis is to provide a study of statue destruction by Christians between the fourth to seventh centuries CE in Egypt, and determine whether these destructions were acts of religious violence or were carried out for another reason in order to provide a more nuanced understanding of violence in Late Antiquity. By juxtaposing accounts from literary sources and archaeological evidence, the study seeks to determine whether the literary sources are accurate in their documentation of widespread statue destruction, or whether the violent discourse present in the literary sources is the result of Christian polemical purposes. Albus Dumbledore once said, "Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure". I would like to take this opportunity to thank the many people who helped me pursue my "adventure" of a Master's degree. I would like to express my gratitude to the staff and faculty of the Classics and Religious Studies Department at the University of Ottawa. In particular, thank you to my supervisor, Dr. Jitse Dijkstra, for his constant guidance and support throughout the past years. To my family, without whom none of this would have been possible. To my mom and dad, thank you for helping me achieve my dream of a higher education and for always being on my side. Thank you for supporting me through Law School, yet never letting me give up on completing my Master's degree. Your unwavering love and support have helped me grow and push myself to become the best possible version of me. To my older brother Matt, thank you for all the late nights spent editing and then re-editing my numerous drafts. Your constant support and encouragement have made this final product possible. To my younger brother Mark, thank you for being there when I needed to vent my frustrations and for always providing me with a laugh. To my dog, Guinness, thank you for vigilantly sitting by my side as I spent my days writing this thesis and for all the puppy hugs and kisses. Finally, thank you to my friend, Nicholas Gill, who took the time to edit my work and patiently listen as I talked about my research.
Christianity and Local Culture in Late Antique Egypt
Antiquité Tardive 24, 2016
Christianisme et culture locale dans l'Égypte tardo-antique Cet article s'attache à montrer que la christianisation de l'Égypte à l'époque tardo-antique représente une rupture fondamentale dans l'histoire culturelle du pays. Les tentatives récentes de trouver les traces de traditions égyptiennes dans la littérature chrétienne, l'art et les documents égyptiens de cette période sont dénués de fondement. Elles empruntent davantage aux présupposés des antiquisants et égyptologues modernes qu'aux véritables sources. L'histoire de l'Égypte de cette époque ne peut se comprendre que comme celle d'une composante d'un ensemble bien plus important, à savoir l'Empire romain tardif. [Trad. de la Rédaction] New meanings for old symbols How Egyptian was Egyptian Christianity in late antiquity? Much modern scholarship suggests that it sixth-century Egyptian such as Dioscorus of Aphrodito the things that many European scholars have written deeply offended and startled. He would have a hard time understanding the lengths to which scholars have gone to dismiss the genuineness of his Christianity and the popular in Christian Egypt because she was the ancient 1 was often depicted breast-feeding the child-god Horus on her lap. Similar representations of Mary breastfeeding the child Jesus have been found in several Egyptian monasteries. Such representations-which should be distinguished from the more common ones of
Please note that this essay, originally published in The Archaeology of Violence: Interdisciplinary Approaches (IEMA Proceedings 2), ed. S. Ralph (Albany 2013) 241-65, was republished with minor corrigenda and addenda in Chaos e Kosmos XIV (2013) 1-29, now uploaded here. Christian iconoclasm has long been a subject of great interest and scholarly discussion. The term “Christian iconoclasm” has generally been used to characterize Christian destruction of Christian sacred images as a result of the so-called “iconoclastic debate,” a euphemism for the “iconomachy” that raged during the eighth and ninth centuries. This “battle over images” was fought by iconophiles, who wanted to keep images of the Christian god and their saints as part of the Church’s tradition, and the iconoclasts, who felt that such sacred images were in violation of the biblical ban on images stated in the Ten Commandments. The iconomachy that ensued resulted in much violence and bloodshed, nearly tearing apart the Eastern Orthodox Church in the process. A great deal of scholarship has likewise been focused on the Christian iconoclasm that recurred periodically in the modern era, beginning with the Protestant reformation. However, remarkably little attention has been focused on the considerable amount of Christian destruction and desecration of images of classical antiquity that took place in Late Antique times, roughly from the fourth to at least the sixth century. Although Christian violence against images of the gods and the polytheists who worshiped or revered them is recorded in various passages in the histories and hagiographies of the Late Antique period, there has been no comprehensive study of this phenomenon, especially from an archaeological point of view. In both scholarship and popular culture, Christianity has generally been seen a positive force that was responsible for the preservation of the literature, art, and architecture of the classical past. Rarely acknowledged is the vast amount of literary and visual material that Christians destroyed and desecrated. In fact, some scholars have even interpreted the Christianization of the Roman Empire as a largely peaceful process. But even though the written and archaeological record tells a very different story, the material evidence for Christian destruction and desecration has often been overlooked or unrecognized even by archaeologists. This paper focuses on the question of the nature of the evidence for Christian violence against images of classical antiquity in the late antique period, as well as some of the attendant problems in detecting and making sense of this phenomenon. Based on our evidence for all forms of Christian destruction, the question that ultimately needs to be addressed is whether or to what extent the Christianization of the Roman Empire was a change for the better or worse from what had gone before.
Religion, 2017
The ancient Egyptian god Osiris was represented in iconic forms in temple reliefs and statues, in semi-iconic form in the so-called corn-Osiris or Osiris-bed, and in aniconic form as the Djed-pillar. All three variations in iconicity are ritual representations of the god and somehow claim his real presence: the temple reliefs by (textually transmitted) conventions, the corn-Osiris by the real, sprouting corn that fills the Osiris outline or form, and the Djed-pillar by the very universality and immense potential of denoting without (yet) depicting or narrating. The synchronous occurrence of these degrees of iconicity illustrates aniconism as a rhetorical option, a matter of ritual design, not a cognitive or theological stage in the evolution of mankind. KEYWORDS Aniconism; Djed-pillar; Books of the Netherworld; Egyptian Book of the Dead; Osiris-bed; real presence; ritual representation of gods In his important and seminal book, Der Eine und die Vielen, or Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt, as the English translation has it, Hornung (1971, 125, 1983, 135) begins a chapter on images of gods with a reference to what he calls 'the systematic theology of the New Kingdom' as expressed in the famous hymn to Amun in a Leiden papyrus. According to this 'systematic theology', the god (Amun) is in the sky and his body in the Netherworld, while on earth images bear witness to his presence. In a book about conceptions of god, theology is indeed an obvious and relevant perspective on the religious function of images, but certainly not the only perspective. On the very same page, Hornung points out that also the images on earth, notably those used in temple ritual, may assume the rank of 'bodies' of the gods, in which the gods themselves may be present. The shift of perspectivefrom theology to the ritual use of imagesmay perhaps pass unnoticed, but it is both necessary and recommendable; we must also adopt a ritual perspective, if we want to understand iconic and aniconic representations of gods as means to secure their ritual presence. The modern idea of the image as information and eo ipso also possibly misinformation goes back at least, as Vernant (1979) has shown, to Plato. Before Plato's critique and the new realism in Greek art, images were thought of in terms of representation only, not mimesis or imitation of reality. Early art was often designed for use in a ritual context, and its purpose was, according to Vernant (1983), 'la présentification de l'invisible', to make for the presence of invisible beings. The idea of non-imitative art as denoting