Religious competence and individuality

Three studies in the Roman Empire

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4373274
AutoresR Gordon (0000-0002-3129-0309, University of Erfurt, autor de correspondencia), Richard L Gordon (0000-0002-2170-8193)
Año2015
Volumen45
Número3
Páginas367-385
Fecha de publicación2015-07-03
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaReligion (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0048-721X • E-ISSN: 1096-1151
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0048721x.2015.1024036
OpenAlexW1606651725
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas5
Referencias citadas43

The theme of individuality and individualisation in religious contexts in the fairly remote past is perhaps best viewed as a heuristic device whose main value, at least in the context of Graeco-Roman history, is to question the excessive dominance of a model of religious action as essentially collective, which is perhaps proximately Durkheimian but in the Classical field goes back ultimately to early scholarship on ancient Judaism. Terminology is a basic problem in this context. Religious individuality can be defined as the construction of personal religious achievement or the practice of mastery defined by sui generis rules. In the case of the Roman Empire, five types of such achievement have been suggested: pragmatic; moral; competitive; representative; or exemplary/ reflexive. All these distinguishable types of individuality are linked, at least indirectly, to the complex and highly differentiated social, political, economic and moral structures of the Empire. Specifically religious individuation emerges only with the development of religion as a distinctive field of (social) action and thus the possibility of specifically religious distinction. If sustained over the long term, any such achievement is to be seen as individualisation under ancient conditions. This article briefly explores three types of religious distinction based on a conviction and lived practice of such individualised competence: the figure of the Weberian mystagogue in his Mediterranean forms; the figure of the practitioner skilled in Graeco-Egyptian ‘magic’; and the idealised figure of Pythagoras as projected by Iamblichus’ On the Pythagorean life (c.300 CE)

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Empire · Epistemology · Political science · Politics · Roman Empire · Scholarship · Sociology · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classics · History · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions