“Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’”
(Acts 17:22–23)
The first Christian communities struck root in a world dense with ritualized honor of the divine, just as Athens was thick with “objects of worship.” But most of the marks of that honor have become foreign and even invisible to modern readers of the New Testament, to a degree that would have puzzled early Christians like the apostle Paul, pictured in this excerpt from Acts appealing to the Athenians’ practices. This chapter aims to recapture these traditional ways of honoring the divine, which were woven into the fabric of ancient lives, and then to articulate briefly how Jewish and Christian ways of honoring God in the first century can be situated in that tradition.
Reciprocity and honor
From an ancient person’s point of view, humans fell near the bottom of a very unequal pecking order. Greeks told stories of Olympian gods, demigods, and half-human heroes. Romans repeated many of the same stories, associating the planets with celestial beings of great power, and speaking of lesser powers (like the genius) much closer to home. Judeans in the Roman period spoke of angelic beings who carried messages and commands to and from a supremely powerful God. In all these systems, humans were often subject—even prey—to vastly more powerful sentient beings.
Most of us, then as now, concern ourselves at some level with the question of who can help us achieve our goals, and who can hinder us. This is especially true when it comes to high-status and powerful people. We tend to avoid high-status people who can do us the most harm, but if we have to interact with them, we treat them with delicacy, taking pains to stay on their good side. Sometimes, though, powerful people are on our side, or at least can help us if we manage to cultivate their favor, communicate our needs, and give them some kind of compensating return. In very rare instances, a bond of affection might form, but typically the further apart the social statuses, the less likely affection will be a defining trait of the relationship. Admiration is a more typical emotional bond, but more common than both is a certain kind of fear or respect.
From these obvious social facts, we can gain insight into ancient practices that honor the divine, those powerful beings almost all ancient peoples acknowledged to exist and to wield significant, often unpredictable, influence on human affairs. There are two concepts in play here: one is the idea that certain kinds of actions can give honor to sentient beings, and the other is the exchange system that makes honor worth giving at all.
Take the exchange system first. Scholars of the period informed by the social sciences have identified a distinctive form of exchange called “general reciprocity,” and it was pervasive in the social institutions of our period. General reciprocity is exchange between unequal or “asymmetrical” parties, for example between teachers and students, patrons and clients, the rich and the poor. Here the recipient of favors “cannot repay like with like” but instead “offers homage and loyalty or political support or information,” giving “allegiance” or “discipleship” to the benefactor (Stegemann and Stegemann 1999, 36). Then as now, a powerful benefactor could give exactly what was needed to a needy supplicant, who would never be able to pay back the gift except by publicly honoring the benefactor for his or her generosity.
By analogy, divine beings were patrons with large numbers of human “clients,” sometimes whole cities and regions of them, all dependent on the divine being’s good favor. Honors given to such beings “were not a way of buying the gods, but of creating goodwill from which humans might hope to benefit in the future” (Price 1999, 39). Human clients asked the gods, who tended to be seen as more generous than powerful humans, for “daily needs—food, protection, comfort, strength, assistance—in addition to those things which only the gods could deliver—great crops, health, and most frequently, salvation” (Crook 2004, 76; see also Scheid 2003, 147–58).
This kind of exchange works best where the lower-status person holds some desirable “good” he or she can bestow on the higher-status person, and especially where the exchange preserves the dignity of both parties. A gift that degrades the giver or the recipient does not come off in the same way as one that benefits both and preserves the dignity of both, even if that dignity is unequal. Respect or honor was, it turns out, just such a good that even the most powerful beings were thought to desire it.
Seen in this light, honoring the divine was a very reasonable course of action, even if the divine being in question might not be paying much attention to a particular gift of honor. In the ancient cultures that surrounded the Mediterranean Sea, “what is fatal is if a god is overlooked” (Burkert 1985, 216), much as if you or I were to slight a powerful person by ignoring them at a public gathering. The risks of neglect loom larger than the costs of respect. One can even see this idea of respectful attentiveness and its opposite, neglect, at work in Paul’s well-known critique of Gentile religious culture in Romans 1:18–25, where he accuses Gentiles of dishonoring God through their misguided temple rites: “though they knew God, they did not honor him as God, or give thanks to him” (1:21). Their neglect provokes divine punishment (1:18, 26–32).
This brings us to our other embedded concept: the kinds of actions that gave honor to divine beings. Many of these actions and gestures seem strange or bewildering to observers some two millennia after the fact, and none more so than sacrificial ritual, or “cultic” practice. Yet sacrifices lie close to the surface in ancient accounts set in Rome, Athens, Ephesus, Jerusalem, and Alexandria—virtually every region of the known world, the oikoumene. To take two regional examples, we find public displays of piety like Solomon dedicating a new temple by sacrificing “so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted” (1 Kings 8:5), or Chryses reminding Apollo of the many times he built shrines and burned “fat thigh-pieces of bulls or goats” (Homer Il. I, 40–45). This kind of often extravagant, conspicuous practice sits side-by-side in these texts with much humbler offerings. Mary and Joseph offer two pigeons in Jerusalem (Luke 2:22–24), or Telemakos pours a libation and invokes Poseidon as he joins a feast (Homer Od. III, 60–65), to fulfill what Homer calls “the appointed offering” or what Luke calls “what is stated in the law.”
Hidden in these simple allusions is a whole set of gestures, implements, personnel, sacred sites, and more that made up the infrastructure of honoring the divine in the ancient world. Remarkably, as we will see, Mediterranean cultures shared many assumptions about how one should show proper respect for divine and semi-divine beings. And most often this respect was offered for one of the two purposes mentioned above: to stay on a dangerous entity’s good side, or to cultivate a potential patron of great power. At some level, these two purposes were the same, even if one was about avoiding pain and the other about gaining a blessing. Either way, ritual participants employed traditional, tried-and-true methods of honoring divine beings in the hopes of satisfying their own felt needs and securing their own safety and prosperity.
Respect and etiquette
Displays of honor are ritualized. We humans make use of ceremonial behavior, postures of deference, rigid or archaic speech-forms and titles, and other ritualizations to display honor. For instance, we might bow our heads or our bodies, or speak with thees and thous in prayer, or clear a path for an important person, smiling in a self-effacing way. In an important sense, honor is as honor is displayed. You have no honor if no one displays honor toward you. And the more you are honored, properly and without parody, the more honored you are.
A pioneer in investigating such ceremonial displays of respect was the sociologist Erving Goffman, who writes:
In all societies, rules of conduct tend to be organized into codes which guarantee that everyone acts appropriately and receives his due. In our society the code which governs substantive rules and substantive expressions comprises our law, morality, and ethics, while the code which governs ceremonial rules and ceremonial expressions is incorporated in what we call etiquette.
(Goffman 1967, 55)
Key for our purposes is etiquette, or ceremonial rules. Such rules, as Goffman points out, are arbitrary, socially defined codes that have “their primary importance—officially anyway—as a conventionalized means of communication by which the individual expresses his character or conveys his appreciation of the other participants in the situation” (Goffman 1967, 54).
Goffman enumerates the range of “sign-vehicles or tokens which carry ceremonial messages”:
•Linguistic (statement of praise or self-deprecation; tones of voice)
•Gestural (physical bearing)
•Spatial (e.g., right versus left)
•Task-embedded (demeanor of the person accepting and performing a task)
•Part of the communication structure (a person getting more attention or speaking more or less than others)
“All of the tokens employed by a given social group for ceremonial purposes may be referred to as its ceremonial idiom” (Goffman 1967, 55–56).
With the help of Goffman’s list, an astute observer can begin to recognize certain ancient Mediterranean ritual activities as ceremonial idioms people displayed in an effort to give divine beings their due. Despite important regional variants, ancient persons recognized similarities in what Goffman calls ceremonial tokens across cultures and regions, even when they looked with suspicion or distaste on some other culture’s peculiarities of custom (see Barton and Boyarin 2016, 128–29). Analytically, these tokens functioned as regionally distinct tools for cultivating good outcomes or diverting bad ones from various classes of divine and quasi-divine beings and forces.
One might consider the ways divine beings and forces were dealt with as an adaptable system of etiquette. In fact, historian John Scheid defines the Latin term religio as “a set of formal, objective rules, bequeathed by tradition,” a “system of ‘etiquette’” that “consists in ‘cultivating’ the correct form of ‘social’ relations with the gods, essentially by celebrating the rituals implied by the links that exist between the gods and men” (Scheid 2003, 22–23). The Latin term pietas, meanwhile, marked “dutiful respect toward members of one’s family, others with whom one shares social relationships, and the norms of society” (Potter 1999, 125). Similarly, the Greek words usually translated “piety” (eusebeia) and “reverence” (sebomai; Foerster 1971, 169–72, 175–85) closely connect to Goffman’s concept of “deference,” or “the appreciation an individual shows of another to that other” (Goffman 1967, 77). This appreciation typically takes the form of both “avoidance rituals” and “presentational rituals” or rituals of approach.
First, avoidance rituals place a sphere of deference around a person of high status. “Where the actor must show circumspection in his approach to the recipient, we speak of nonfamiliarity or respect” (Goffman 1967, 63); and this is a mark of what Goffman calls asymmetrical deference. As such, avoidance rituals are a component of general reciprocity. In the ancient system of divine honors, the worshiper was the actor and the divine being was the recipient. The worshiper showed respect by being on non-familiar or formal terms with the deity (respecting the sphere around that being) and by avoiding too much contact with the deity’s name or possessions. An example in Judaism would be the avoidance of the divine name, including in the gospel of Matthew where the term “kingdom of heaven” often substitutes for “kingdom of God.” Like piety more generally, this kind of avoidance ritual was also common in human interactions, heightened in the asymmetrical interactions of status-conscious Romans.
Alongside these avoidance rituals are presentational rituals in which the actor “concretely depicts his appreciation of the recipient,” for example (in human interactions) by “salutations, invitations, compliments, and minor services” (Goffman 1967, 71–73). Goffman points out that these two kinds of deference (avoidance and approach) are in constant tension, and this seems to be true also when it comes to approaching and avoiding divine beings. Showing deference to divine beings involved observing unusual rituals of approach (including purification rites) and, once in the deity’s presence, participating in unusual ceremonial actions and gestures that showed deference and respect. In some regions, similar (but rarely identical) ritual deference was shown to powerful human rulers.
A final concept worth noting is that deference rituals, of both kinds, carry an important social dimension. A person who commits to carry them out “becomes to himself and others the sort of person who follows this particular rule” (Goffman 1967, 50). Adjectives like “pious” (Greek, Latin), “righteous” (Hebrew Bible, New Testament), “religious” and “god-fearing” (USA) are awarded to individuals by others in this social sense.
Although most human societies are strongly concerned about honor and status generally, the ceremonial idiom for honoring divine beings usually differs from that used for lesser beings, such as parents, judges, kings, and strangers. To take an obvious example, when the Israelites handed down the commandment to “honor your father and mother” (Exod 20:12), they did not expect that honor to take the same form as the exclusive honor intended for the One God: “The LORD your God you shall fear; him you shall serve, and by his name alone you shall swear” (Deut 6:13). The word worship often signals this distinction in English (see Exod 20:5), but Hebrew (e.g., fear, serve, prostrate), Greek (e.g., eusebeia, sebomai), and Latin (pietas, religio) had not developed exclusive jargon for divine honors. Terms like service, reverence, and piety imply ritualized behavior that is recognized within a particular culture as performing honor to a social superior. Honor given to a divine being can be distinct in degree (one gives much more of the usual kinds of honor to the divine) or in kind (one gives a different kind of honor to the divine). In fact, in the cultures that were clustered around the Mediterranean Sea in the first centuries, divine beings were honored beyond humans of even the highest order both in degree and kind.
Public honors
Toward the close of the first century bce, Antiochus I boasted of his piety in an inscription at his tomb:
Adequate property in land and an inalienable income therefrom have I set aside for the ample provision of sacrifices; an unceasing cultus and chosen priests arrayed in such vestments as are proper to the race of the Persians have I inaugurated, and I have dedicated the whole array and cultus in a manner worthy of my fortune and the majesty of the gods. I have decreed the appropriate laws to govern the sacred observances thus established for everlasting, so that all the inhabitants of my realm may offer both the ancient sacrifices, required by age-old common custom, and also new festivals in honor of the gods and in my honor. … Because of the multitude of offerings and the magnificence of the celebration I have consecrated two additional days, and each of them indeed as an annual festival.
(Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae, 383; translated in Grant 1953, 22)
Antiochus closed the inscription with a warning about neglect of the shrine and of the festivals he had enacted.
The inscription gives us a glimpse of the infrastructure of honoring the divine. Additional elements of that infrastructure come to light in other inscriptions, archaeological finds, and literary publications from the ancient period. Taken together, these examples of public honor fall into Goffman’s category of presentational rituals and are well attested:
•the dedication of a temple site and construction (or repair) of facilities there; a temple site might be chosen for a variety of reasons, including a perceived divine manifestation (Burkert 1985, 84–87; Price 1999, 47–54; Scheid 2003, 60–73);
•decoration and care for images of the deity housed in the temple (Burkert 1985, 88–92, 228; Price 1999, 56–57; Scheid 2003, 181–82);
•the sacrifices performed at the temple site, which involved keeping track of the kinds of offerings (types of produce or animals) the deity prefers, appropriate gestures and behaviors during the ritual, the proper handling of blood and innards, and disposal of a carcass (see further below);
•festivals held at or near the shrine in honor of the deity (these often included a procession with the sacred image; recitation or enactment of important myths connected to the shrine or deity; and sometimes games or contests in honor of the gods) (Burkert 1985, 99–107; Parke 1977; Price 1999, 25–46; Scheid 2003, 48–59; Bernstein 2007, 222–34);1
•votive offerings, that is, dedication of items to the deity that were then placed within that divine being’s shrine (Burkert 1985, 68–70; Price 1999, 58–63);
•maintenance of the priests and temple attendants (Burkert 1985, 96–98; Price 1999, 63–73; Scheid 2003, 132–45; Horster 2007, 331–1);
•purity rules: purification of persons and objects, and barring certain types of animals and persons from the sanctuary (Nihan and Frevel 2012).
Most of these items were essential to the existence of a temple or were tied up with its existence, even if some were more practical than others. All of them, together, cost meaningful resources in time and money. As the Antiochus inscription above attests, much of that support was underwritten from a public treasury.
For all these reasons, it is probably best to view the items above as ancient persons did: public, official systems for honoring the gods, both to cultivate their favor for a particular place and to avert their wrath from that place. Not coincidentally, Roman-era cities were often known for their particular temples and cults, such as Artemis in Ephesus or Asclepius in Epidaurus—or the Judean temple in Jerusalem. Like tourist sites today, these famous temples brought fame and revenue to the hosting cities (see Acts 19:21–41).
At the same time, smaller, less costly shrines and cults were common in most regions of the Greco–Roman world as well. Also, most cities permitted more private and esoteric honor of divine beings, with gods and goddesses often imported from various parts of the world. Even so, where there were temples, most of the features listed above are also attested. Whether sponsored by the city magistrates or not, whether funded by private or public funds, temples and shrines were systems for honoring the divine.
In Goffman’s terms, these temple sites can be seen as acknowledged or approved locations where a divine being can safely be approached. In that sense, the sites inherently imply corresponding avoidance rituals. An explicit example is the concept of sacrilege, or inappropriate handling of things that belong to a divine being. Stealing votive offerings and treasures from a temple or desecrating a divine image are classic examples of behaviors that violated the divine sphere (Price 1999, 58–60, 136; Potter 1999, 125–28). Paul also evidently viewed robbing temples as a violation of piety (Rom 2:22). Notably, temples were often enclosed in a bordering wall or temenos, which must be crossed (as noted above) with care and in a purified state. These features imply the avoidance pole of deference, even though by their nature temples were sites approved for presentational rituals.
The inherent tension between approach and avoidance is illustrated in the humorous, exaggerated account of the so-called superstitious man by the ancient Greek philosopher Theophrastus. In this sketch, Theophrastus describes a person always on the lookout for signs of divine wrath, and taking pains to avoid that wrath. His acts of honor include hand-washing, shrine-building, anointing sacred stones with oil, kneeling before sacred objects, performing rites to avert divine wrath or to purify a place touched by a divine being, avoiding contact with the dead or with a woman in childbirth, offering sacrifices, decorating his house in honor of a god, paying respect to a god or goddess who has visited his dreams, and washing in the sea (Char. 16).
All of these behaviors utilized the ceremonial idiom of divine honor. The man was superstitious, then, not because he participated in that ceremonial idiom, but because he did so excessively and in response to an unhealthy fretfulness. He was guilty, in Plutarch’s words, of “the celebration of immoderate and overwrought, needless ceremonies” (Alex. 2.5–6; as cited in Barton and Boyarin 2016, 127). The Latin term superstitio carried much the same sense (see Barton and Boyarin 2016, 33–37). In Goffman’s terms, the man’s behavior imposes on a divine being, like a socially awkward person who, in trying to be scrupulously polite, breaks all kinds of rules in the process of welcoming and honoring a high-status person who otherwise would hardly notice him. Such behavior actually detracts from the high-status person’s honor. Overly punctilious behavior “involves the gods in even the smallest matter” (Livy 27.23.2; as cited in Barton and Boyarin 2016, 36).
This breach of etiquette was all the more unacceptable because this tension had already been negotiated. In Greek legal inscriptions, often posted at the entrance to a sanctuary, “a person is told just how—in what physical respects—he must be pure in order to approach a given deity so as to offer sacrifice.” As to the purification, “it is a matter of a person’s fitness while worshipping” (Robertson 2012, 195)—that is, etiquette. Comparable rules, again, are found across the region, and their purpose may have been, in part, to define as clearly as possible when and how to approach a divine being without infringing on his or her sacred person.
Despite his awkwardness, the superstitious man does help us notice some less obvious symptoms of divine honor, such as the inner attitude of fear or reverence toward divine things (see Barton and Boyarin 2016, 15–38); the importance of smaller shrines on thoroughfares, at entrances, or on high places; and the handling of divine names, which includes honorific titles and secret names, as well as naming months after divine beings (Burkert 1985, 226; Graf 1997, 192).
The domestic sphere
Once we collect to one side the temple-related ways of honoring the divine, other practices emerge into view:
•prayers, invocations, words of praise directed to the divine being in one’s home, place of work, or en route to some place;
•offerings presented to divine beings in the home or fields;
•decoration and honor of images in the home or at a crossroads;
•obedience (in one’s daily life) to laws divine beings set down.
Beginning with the last item, we can surmise that temple worship, that is, official honor given to the gods, was more or less interwoven with the everyday world and with domestic life. Each element in this list derived from, paired with, or influenced that official system of honors.2 The average inhabitant of an ancient Mediterranean city must have spent significant time honoring divine beings in their home and outside the official spheres of public temples. Yet a recognizable ceremonial idiom is evident there too.
Consider these examples from Roman domestic religion (Orr 1986, 1560–71):
•A housewife decorates the household hearth with garlands during a religious festival.
•A household’s daughters tend the house’s fire and offer sacrifices at the hearth to the goddess responsible for that fire.
•Inside their house, the family worships the deities responsible for their food stores.
•At the winter solstice, at a crossroads, certain families and family members make offerings of grain and produce to divine beings whose power is available to the family for various purposes. Wooden images of these beings in the home are decorated with spring flowers. In some houses, paintings depicting these divine beings decorate the walls.
•Someone inscribes a prayer to the household gods on the wall of their kitchen.
•An annual feast of a household god is celebrated with wine and honey cakes eaten by the participants, and the sacrifice of a pig.
These examples clearly connect to the kinds of honor shown to divine beings in the public spaces of the ancient world. The same ceremonial idiom is discernible in each. The concept of general reciprocity holds here as well. Domestic rituals of honor were “primarily a quest for the special protection of particular deities … The domestic cult demonstrated the reliance of the family for its maintenance and continuity on powerful groups of deities” (Orr 1986, 1559).
Some accounts of ancient religion have pitted the official, public sphere against the domestic sphere, and both again have been contrasted to elective cults and mysteries. In fact, official, public temples and rites coexisted for centuries with both the mysteries and domestic ritual, and proved very difficult to stamp out long after the rise of Christianity (Burkert 1985, 246). Ancient persons evidently believed in “giving to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to the gods what belong to the gods.” And while they may have sought help from a domestic deity and solace from an exotic Egyptian goddess, these activities need hardly turn them away from giving due honors to the official, recognized deities that maintained the social order of the cities in which they lived (Price 1999, 108–25). In such a delicate matter as respect, it pays to spread your attentions to every powerful person in the room.
Sacrificial ritual
A conspicuous ritualized display of divine honors, especially in the public sphere, almost always involved the slaughter of an animal. Next to the building and maintenance of temples, sacrificial ritual stands out noticeably in the ancient records, and also has proven most puzzling to modern scholars. Modern theories abound regarding where this practice originated, but people alive in the first centuries largely took it for granted, not inquiring into its origins but restricting their curiosity to how best to use this ritual to aid their own personal, familial, civic, or imperial ends. Scholars, especially in the twentieth century, found blood sacrifice troubling, which spurred them to offer a range of exotic theories, usually centered on violence (Burkert, Girard, and Smith 1988). Ancient persons, however, regarded ritual sacrifice as almost commonplace, not exotic or notably violent. For instance, a careful study of Greek vase paintings found that ancient Greeks were far more preoccupied with who was present at the sacrifice (human or divine) and how pleased the divine being was by the gift; the actual killing of the animal was rarely depicted (Van Straten 1995,186–92). This observation holds true also for biblical accounts of sacrifice, where procedural details are seldom given. For instance, Abel’s offering, or Noah’s, is simply said to please the Lord (Gen 4:4, 8:20–21; Heb 11:4; cf. Luke 2:22–24).
As a deference ritual of approach, a sacrifice (Greek thysia) was often a way of slaughtering meat for human consumption that at the same time acknowledged and paid honor to a divine being. Weighed against the risks of neglecting a powerful divine patron, the costs of the ritual component were relatively small: festive, ceremonial behavior, and a small portion (usually inedible) burned up on the altar. This same general principle holds for the libation (pouring out a small amount of wine) and the domestic pinch of bread at the hearth: a gesture of respect that costs little but could have large ramifications if neglected. The traditional Judean form of this everyday respect, a prayer of thanksgiving prior to eating, cost even less (Philo Spec. 2, 175).
Sacrificial ritual, then, was firmly embedded in the ancient ceremonial idiom for honoring the divine. Fortunately, enough about this practice has peeked through the written and archaeological record for us to recapture its contours. F. T. Van Straten, for instance, has recreated the “typical” Greek sacrificial process, based on ancient vase paintings (1995, 161–92): Assistants would lead the animal to the altar and bring along a special basket and a vessel of water. The basket had a unique shape and contained vital ritual objects: grains of barley, a band or ribbon for decorating the animal’s head, a knife, and sometimes sacrificial cakes. Altars came in two distinct shapes: circular altars set directly on the ground, and rectangular altars set on a base. What accounts for this difference has so far evaded scholars (Van Straten 1995, 166–67). The officiant would wash his hands and then take the grains of barley from the basket. Next an assistant or the officiant took the knife from the basket and killed the animal, which was then cut into portions by an assistant. He would bring the god’s portion of meat to the officiant, who laid them on the altar. An assistant also prepared non-meat offerings (cakes, incense, etc.) and brought them to the altar in the basket. Meanwhile, an assistant skewered the innards on spits and roasted them over the altar fire. Finally, an assistant poured wine from a wine ladle into a cup held by the officiant. He would pour out the wine as a libation and say a prayer. The remainder of the animal would then typically be cut up for roasting and boiling, so the meat could be eaten by the human participants.
This sketch from Greek sources connects to ritual practices known from our other sources for sacrifices in the Mediterranean: purification with water prior to beginning the ritual, offerings of slaughtered animals (sheep, pigs, and cattle) as well as grain-based offerings (cakes), burning up part of the animal (typically not the choice cuts) as the god’s portion, wine offerings, prayer, and meal celebration (Scheid 2007, 263–69; Leviticus; Josephus Ant. 3.9–11). Of course, there were differences between regions, and even within a single area there was variation keyed to particular occasions and settings and deities. Such differences are important: there was no one way to offer a sacrifice, and in ritual performance (as in deference more generally) small variations often carry outsized significance. However, like regional dialects, these differences were significant partly because they communicated in a shared language. When Judeans and Romans restricted who could conduct a rite, this heightened the honor or importance attached to that role: from head of a household or community, to dedicated ritual specialist, to hereditary ritual specialist. Variations like these, understood within the encompassing idiom, were often vitally important for local practice of the ritual and thus our interpretation of that ritual in a particular instance.
Sacrificial ritual belonged among the presentational rites of deference, rather than avoidance rites. This helps explain certain features of sacrifices and especially those rules stating when the deity wanted an offering, what that offering should be, what state of purity the person approaching should have, and the location where the offering should be made. All these stipulations governed the actor’s approach to the divine recipient, ensuring that the sphere of honor around the deity was not violated. Meanwhile, as a presentational rite, sacrifices were almost always accompanied by honorific prayers that made clear the bond between the actor and the recipient, often to the point of flattery. Implied or stated in the flattering praise was a request for assistance, as in this example from Anatolia:
You, O Sun-Goddess of Arinna, are an honored goddess. To you, my goddess, there are revered temples in Hatti, but in no other land are there any such for you. Only in Hatti they provide for pure and holy festivals and rituals for you, but in no other land do they provide any such for you. Lofty temples adorned with silver and gold you have only in Hatti, and in no other land is there anything for you.
(Keilschrifteurkunden aus Boghazköi 24.3+, as cited in Hutter 2012, 164)3
Such prayers obviously aimed to cultivate the divine being’s special favor for the human parties in the exchange, in this case the whole land of Hatti, where temples and sacrifices and other honorific rites were performed for that divine being in exchange for particular assistance or blessings in general. A remarkably similar logic holds in some biblical texts (1 Kings 8:27–53; Psalm 48).
While scholars have focused on sacrifice, it was in fact only one ritual component of a much larger system of honoring the divine. This overarching ceremonial idiom was widespread in the Mediterranean world, though it varied regionally and even between deities and occasions, often for strategic reasons. Further, this ceremonial idiom, which centered on the temple in public and the household in the domestic sphere, made good sense in light of two basic concepts: general reciprocity (asymmetrical exchange) and the sociological notion of deference that governed (and still governs) social interactions also among human beings.
In other words, sacrificial rituals and temple rites more generally, far from being bizarre, were about as reasonable as any ceremonial behavior ever is.
Honors less divine
Although a ceremonial idiom for divine honor was broadly shared in the first few centuries, it is important to stress that small modifications within rituals have an outsized importance for participants in those rituals. Just as a small shift in vocal inflection might distinguish respect from sarcasm, or a bow might signal dependence or parody it, ritual performers involved in deference displays toward the divine would be attuned to variations both subtle and obvious. To illustrate this sensitivity, we can look first at the distinction between typical divine honors and those given to the emperor. In fact, a common misconception is that the Roman emperors were “worshiped” as gods, as divine beings. The reality was far more subtle.
Consider the second-century Roman writer Suetonius and his criticism of Julius Caesar. Caesar, he claims, “allowed honors to be bestowed on him which were too great for mortal man.” The honors included provision for carrying his image among those of the gods: “temples, altars, and statues beside those of the Gods; a special priest, … and the calling of one of the months by his name” (Suet. Jul. 76; Gavorse 1959, 41–42). The author of Luke–Acts voices a similar criticism of Herod, who
put on his royal robes, took his seat on the platform, and delivered a public address to [the people]. The people kept shouting, “The voice of a god, and not of a mortal!” And immediately, because he had not given the glory [honor] to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.
(Acts 12:21–23)
Neither Caesar nor Herod instigated these divine honors, and yet both are strongly criticized because they did not refuse them. The response of Suetonius and Luke is not unlike the outrage one feels toward a serious act of pollution, such as incest or eating a domestic pet. A deep cultural code has been offended. That code was embodied, in this instance, in acts and words of honor reserved for divine beings.
To avoid provoking this outrage, imperial honors made use of the subtleties of ritual display. For instance, a living emperor was not worshipped directly; instead, libations were poured to his genius. After death, an emperor could be deified but was not thought to wield supernatural powers like Jupiter; one did not ask the deified, deceased emperor for the usual divine favors of success or assistance. Sacrifices were made in the abstract, as marks of respect and to curry favor, to Rome and Augustus (now deified). “The whole Roman system turned on loyalty and under the principate the object of loyalty had become personalized in the emperor” (Liebeschuetz 1979, 77).
All of this made good sense within the pecking order: “Under the empire the peace of the Roman world and the well-being of the city of Rome was thought to depend … very largely on the actions of the emperor,” so that “the gods’ protection and support” must flow through him to everyone below (Liebeschuetz 1979, 64–65). The tangible ritual acts offered for the emperor’s well-being and to honor his genius can be understood in this light. Wine and incense were part of a recognized Roman ritual vocabulary of divine honor when making requests or offering thanks; sacrifices followed by a procession, games, and a banquet also displayed and enacted public honors for divine beings, and drew the populace into participation. These were the sorts of divine honors on offer during the emperor’s birthday and similar occasions (Liebeschuetz 1979, 80–82), and they fell an important hair’s breadth short of outright worship of a living emperor.
Just as in other deference displays, then, the line between imperial honors and the ceremonial idiom of divine honors was negotiated and performed in moments of interaction, through subtle variation. Insisting on and recognizing such a distinction in turn allowed the early emperors to maintain that they were upholding traditional ritual, so important to the social order, even while they accepted signs of loyalty that reoriented the empire toward new imperial political power and status (Scheid 2003, 159–65).
Regional variation
Small distinctions in ritual, then, are tremendously important. An interpretation of a particular display of honor should take regional and context-specific variations into account. For example, unlike Judean festivals (Passover, Sukkot), Greeks and Romans honored the gods through public games at their festivals. These games included athletic competitions, music, drama, and oratory displays. The introduction of similar games in Jerusalem came off, to some, as a sacrilege there, rather than an appropriate divine honor (2 Macc 4:12–17). It disrespected the sphere of honor around the God of Israel (YHWH or Yahweh), disregarding his wishes, just as offering the wrong animal was seen as a “desolating sacrilege” (1 Macc 1:47, 54).
Other regional variations are equally important. Roman sacrificial practice, for instance, famously emphasized precise performance of the rites (Liebeschuetz 1979, 61; Orlin 2007, 58), whereas Greek and Judean practices were apparently less constrained by such rules, so that a Roman’s scruples might seem excessive to them—superstitious even. This is only one instance of many differences between Greek and Roman ways of honoring the divine (Price 1999, 148–58). In Egypt, meanwhile, purity practices for priests were relatively stringent; for example, the absence of hair on the body was uniquely important. But even here, the reason for purity was as expected: to avoid making the god angry “against his place,” which would negatively impact Egypt, whereas keeping the god happy (claims one ancient text) “puts this country into its correct state” (Quack 2012, 120–22).
Variations in Judean ritual practice fell on this same spectrum, sometimes toward the center of typical (e.g., using priests, altars, purifications) and sometimes further out toward the edge of unusual or even unique. Ancient Greek and Roman authors recognized Judean sacrificial ritual as belonging to the same general ceremonial idiom, however unusual some of the particulars. Consider these biblical examples: Jacob anointing a sacred stone with oil to pay his respects after a dream visitation (Gen 28:18–22), the Israelites building God an elaborate shrine as an assured point of access (Exod 25–27, 35–40; 1 Kings 6), sacrifices prescribed for various offenses against God or the divine law (Lev 4–7), purification rules (Lev 12–15; Num 19), and special rules to set priestly officials apart (Num 8). The Israelites also knew a sacred calendar (Exod 23:10–18; Lev 23, 25; Num 28–29), and permanently barred certain classes of persons from their shrine (Lev 21:16–23). Most, if not all, of this ceremonial idiom was still intact during the lifetime of Jesus and his first followers (e.g., Mark 1:44; John 2:6, 13, 10:22–23; Acts 3:1).
Unusually, though, most Judeans only offered sacrifices at a single temple in Jerusalem.4 Just as notably, Judeans did not sacrifice pigs, which were a favorite of some Greek and Roman deities. Apparently, water purification took on special significance among Judeans, even among those who did not have access to the temple. The resulting picture is one of a high degree of overlap with other Mediterranean cultures in the abstract, especially in the temple rites in Jerusalem, alongside a fair amount of variation in the particulars, especially for a Judean living any distance from Jerusalem.
In addition to these variations of practice, we should consider whether Judeans conceived of their ritual activity differently than other Mediterranean peoples. The point is disputed, especially when it comes to sacrificial practice and the notion of reciprocity. Was the Judean God appeased by pious acts? Was his favor cultivated by prayers, a temple, sacrifices, and flattering titles? Could he be obligated, even shamed, into helping his clients? Even the biblical texts seem divided on the point (1 Kings 8:28–53; Isa 1:10–17). One scholar argues that in Israel “Sacrifice was always seen to have an exchange value” (Finlan 2016, 23, 26; italics original). For him, “Sacrifices … are grammatically and practically linked to social acts of exchange, payment, and tribute” (Finlan 2016, 28). Others disagree. A complicating factor in this case is the root metaphor of “covenant,” which entails a different exchange model than general reciprocity, although both clearly involve asymmetrical relationships. Even here, though, some would contend that reciprocity had made inroads as Judeans became Hellenized (Crook 2004, 79–88), to the extent that the apostle Paul considered his work of spreading the gospel an act of exchange with his powerful patron, God (Crook 2004, 113).
Whatever the case, similar questions about the reciprocity model could be raised about Egyptian, Babylonian, and Anatolian ritual practices, especially if we extend the analysis backward in time. What is clear in these cases, however, is that deference was shown to divine beings in each region, both through avoidance rituals and through positive acts of public and private honor. Apparently—and not surprisingly—different cultures interpreted the shared ceremonial idiom in different ways. Just as they adapted this idiom to particular divine beings at local sites, they also interpreted the idiom in ways that suited their own cultural forms—officiousness, friendship, tribute, and so on. In the Hellenistic and Roman worlds, general reciprocity became the dominant framework for interpreting this ceremonial idiom. But how far its influence reached into the regions the Greeks and Romans conquered is a point that deserves ongoing consideration.
The loss of the Jerusalem temple
A final dimension of displaying honor in Erving Goffman’s analysis is that rules and acts of deference can go awry, intentionally or not. For instance, a person might misclassify the status of another party or may take liberties that the recipient finds offensive. In fact, honor is prone to all the usual manipulations and misfires of behavior: ironic displays, understated displays, embarrassing display by the wrong party or because of a misunderstanding, and a full menu of slights, flattery, and general neglect (Goffman 1967, 85-90).
Colonized Judeans exploited this dimension of deference in 66 ce: they declared their revolt from Rome by ceasing sacrifices for the welfare of Caesar. Political solidarity and rebellion were (and still are) marked ritually. This was not simply a symbolic gesture. In the ancient context, offering sacrifices for the well-being of Caesar was a show of honor, the highest honor Judeans were permitted (by divine law) to offer Caesar. Honor, as we have seen, is enacted in both small gestures and larger ones, by speech and by attention paid to particular shrines and particular ritual activities. Neglect is its opposite; intentional neglect is its extreme opposite. In fact, it is open dishonor.
Biblical scholars are well aware that the Judean revolt marked a turning point for both Jewish and Christian history. It falls directly between the apostle Paul’s last days and the writing of virtually every other New Testament text, including the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life. The crucial moment of the war, the one that changed the tides for both religious traditions, was the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and its temple in 70 ce. This was a defeat that could have spelled the end of honor offered to the God of Israel. In the aftermath of the temple’s loss, it might not have been immediately clear how and whether that God could be honored—or even if he deserved such honor. Many Judeans had believed sacrifices could only be offered at that temple. For them, with that site gone, the primary means of honoring the Judean God had suddenly been severed.
Fortunately for those involved, the earlier crisis of the Babylonian exile had left certain coping devices in place. Ritually, honor could still be rendered in prayer. But prayer was, in that ceremonial idiom, an anemic substitute for the more complex, costly ritual system that involved the temple and its maintenance. Prayer was spoken but not otherwise embodied; it was “bloodless” and essentially free of expense. Family and communal meals, with their humble rites of thanksgiving, had also given a measure of honor to God. Unlike all other people’s domestic rites, these would now have no corresponding public honors, even in a far-off homeland. Some of the Lord’s festivals could be celebrated away from the temple, but they too now lacked the central sacrificial ritual, its temple, and its priests. Fasting and feasting could go on in a crippled, reduced form. And, finally, there were simply communal gatherings at which one read, recited, sang, and talked. Such activities, no matter how cherished, hardly measured up to the costlier and more public honors bestowed on the gods and goddesses elsewhere in the region.
In this crisis, those who still sought the favor of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob carved out alternate systems of honor. Scripture and its interpretation became a centerpiece for many. Meals rose in prominence, especially for Christ-followers; giving alms became a kind of rite honoring God, especially for Judeans. Sabbath observance, and Torah observance more generally, increasingly marked Judean identity in contrast to important branches of the Jesus movement (see the gospels). Meanwhile, Judeans and Christ-followers largely embraced a key ideal that predated the temple’s destruction: exclusive honor to the One God. Conceptions of this God would be debated in the decades to come, gradually diverging as Judean and Christ-following communities came to define themselves as distinct. But for both, refusing to honor another god or gods would continue as an important, if ironic, way to honor God.
The difficulties for early Christians in redefining honor outside of the ceremonial idiom can be glimpsed already in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Acknowledging that there is really only one God “for us,” Paul also notes that “there are many gods and many lords,” and that an early Christian might honor such a being by eating food that has been dedicated to one of these gods—that is, by participating (however indirectly) in giving deference to another divine being before eating (1 Cor 8:1–13). For Paul, this could amount to eating at “the table of demons” and must be avoided (1 Cor 10:19–21). His solution pays attention to the human–divine interaction but not the social ramifications of that interaction: the implicit claim that the one performing deference to the gods was, thereby, a pious and respectable member of the larger society. This antisocial piety later proved a thorny issue for early Christians (see Tertullian Idol.), straining against the social pressure to give “honor to whom honor is due” (Rom 13:7).
A generation later, Gentile Christians, lacking any official warrant for abstaining from public and domestic rites, came to be labeled atheists, persons who honored no gods. Some Romans apparently found them rude and distasteful—understandably, perhaps, given the circumstances. Early Christian intellectuals pushed back, sometimes criticizing all sacrificial ritual, even the now-defunct Judean system. One Christian writer objects to Judeans “who imagine that they are … honoring [God] with these tokens of respect,” namely sacrificial offerings (Diogn. 3.5; Holmes 2006, 295). But when he does this, he knows he is fighting against almost everyone (Diogn. 2–3). Another Christian writer similarly complains that the Judeans “almost like the heathen, consecrated him by means of the temple” (Barn. 16.2; Holmes 2006, 194). All these complaints come late, after the temple has been razed. They critique, not Judean practice of their day, but the ceremonial idiom of their Gentile neighbors—in fact, of the known world.
Looking back post-70, certain teachings of Jesus would stand out as guidance for approaching and honoring God: the Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:9–13; Luke 11:2–4; Did. 8), Jesus’ teachings about proper prayer etiquette more generally (Matt 6:5–8; Luke 11:5–10, 17:7–10), his encouragements to ask freely and persistently (Matt 7:7–11; Luke 11:11–13, 12:32, 18:1–8), and the growing tradition of set prayers and other ritual elements for the all-important meal gathering (1 Cor 11:2–34; Did. 9–10, 14). Such traditions would emerge as reliable, approved attitudes and etiquette for approaching the divine Father without infringing his dignity. They offer the beginnings of an alternate ceremonial idiom, built up without a temple or sacrifices.
It was a breathtaking achievement, and so successful that after two millennia scholars have come to view the ancient ways of honoring the divine as strange, even bewildering. Yet with a little effort, readers today can recognize that ancient displays of honor, however arbitrary or strange, made intuitive sense to ancient Mediterranean persons, just as bowing, handshaking, averting one’s eyes, or applauding make sense to us. If ancient displays like sacrifice and festivals were extravagant, that is a mark of the high regard in which performers held their divine beings.
The absence of temples and altars did not remove the need among Christians to show deference to the divine. That circumstance simply called for a radical revisioning of the ceremonial idiom for honoring God: how God’s sacred dignity could be preserved through ritual and gesture, word and tone; and how and when God could best be approached for those very real needs humans continued to experience.
Notes
1Festivals have much wider social functions than honor of divine beings; see esp. Handelman 1990; Burkert 1985, 225–46.
2Orr notes many clear connections and cross-fertilizations between the household and imperial, civic spheres. One example is a household shrine in the shape of a miniature temple (1986, 1584–85), but these connections extend to names and concepts as well as rites (1986, 1560–75). The influence could be argued in either direction, perhaps, but ancient Romans likely viewed them as intimately connected without worrying much about which came first.
3For a Greek example, compare Graf 1997, 189–90 (=Papyri Graecae Magicae IV.2785).
4Sacrifices to the Lord were also offered at a temple in Leontopolis in Egypt, but with far less popularity than the favored site of Jerusalem (see Barclay 1996, 418–21).
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