Religious Competition in the Third Century CE : Jews, Christians, and the Greco-Roman World

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
I: Assessing Religious Competition in the Third Century :
Methods and Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Daniel C. Ullucci
What Did He Say?
The Ideas of Religious Experts and the 99 % . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Heidi Marx-Wolf
Pythagoras the Theurgist
Porphyry and Iamblichus on the Role of Ritual in the Philosophical
Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Arthur P. Urbano
Narratives of Decline and Renewal in the Writing of Philosophical
History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Steven J. Larson
The Trouble with Religious Tolerance in Roman Antiquity . . . . . . . 50
Kevin M. McGinnis
Sanctifying Interpretation
The Christian Interpreter as Priest in Origen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Andrew B. McGowan
Rehashing the Leftovers of Idols
Cyprian and Early Christian Constructions of Sacrifice . . . . . . . . . 69
II: Ritual Space and Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Gregg E. Gardner
Competitive Giving in the Third Century CE
Early Rabbinic Approaches to Greco-Roman Civic Benefaction . . . . 81
Nathaniel P. DesRosiers
Oath and Anti-Oath
Alternating Forms of Community Building in the Third Century . . . . 93
Jordan D. Rosenblum and Daniel C. Ullucci
Qualifying Rabbinic Ritual Agents
Cognitive Science and the Early Rabbinic Kitchen . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Lily C. Vuong
The Temple Persists
Collective Memories of the Jewish Temple in Christian Narrative
Imagination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Jacob A. Latham
Battling Bishops, the Roman Aristocracy, and the Contestation of Civic
Space in Late Antique Rome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
III: Modes of Competition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Karen B. Stern
Inscription as Religious Competition in Third-Century Syria . . . . . . 141
Gil P. Klein
Spatial Struggle
Intercity Relations and the Topography of Intra-Rabbinic Competition 153
Ari Finkelstein
The Use of Jews in Julian’s Program
“Dying for the Law” in the Letter to Theodorus – A Case Study . . . . 168
Todd S. Berzon
Heresiology as Ethnography
Theorising Christian Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Todd C. Krulak
The Damascian Dichotomy
Contention and Concord in the History of Late Platonism . . . . . . . 192
Ross S. Kraemer
Gendering (the) Competition
Religious Competition in the Third Century : Jews, Christians, and the
Greco-Roman World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
List of Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Collected Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252