{"id":115,"date":"2012-04-26T00:03:28","date_gmt":"2012-04-26T00:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/?p=115"},"modified":"2016-03-30T15:28:55","modified_gmt":"2016-03-30T15:28:55","slug":"george-hinge-and-jens-a-krasilnikoff-eds-alexandria-a-cultural-and-religious-melting-pot-aarhus-aarhus-university-press-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/07-1\/review-essay\/george-hinge-and-jens-a-krasilnikoff-eds-alexandria-a-cultural-and-religious-melting-pot-aarhus-aarhus-university-press-2009\/","title":{"rendered":"George Hinge and Jens A. Krasilnikoff (eds.), Alexandria: A Cultural and Religious Melting Pot (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2009)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\t
\n\n\t\t<\/i><\/span> <\/a>\n\n\t<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n

The account of the city\u2019s founding continues in Arrian\u2019s Anabasis of Alexander<\/em> (3.I.5-2.2),<\/a>[2]<\/sup><\/a> where Alexander, who travelled to Kanobos and sailed around Lake Mareotis to select an appropriate site, decided to locate his city. Once he had planned out the city, determining the location of the Agora and establishing the sanctuaries and temples for the various deities ? both \u201cGreek gods and Egyptian Isis\u201d ? Alexander sacrificed to the gods and when he received favorable signs, he laid out the city walls; however, since he had nothing with which to mark out the parameter of the city, he used meal that his soldiers carried with them. While there is disagreement about the precise date of the founding of Alexandria, some have suggested that this event may have occurred in 332 or 331 BCE. Shortly after founding the city, Alexander left the actual building and administration of the city to others and, moving his campaign further east, was never to return to his city. Certainly, current scholarship is critical of the foundation stories surrounding the origins of Alexandria; many of the authors in this collection of essays, Alexandria: A Cultural and Religious Melting Pot<\/em>, emphasize persistent difficulties with sources and the tendency for various ancient authors to mythologize the founding of the city. According to Krasilnikoff, however, \u201cthe first citizens of Alexandria were also soldiers in Alexander\u2019s and Ptolemy\u2019s armies\u201d (\u201cAlexandria as Place<\/em>,\u201d 21). Hence, it is not surprising that Greek and Egyptian cultural forms and content should be intertwined in Alexandria. Citing Heracleides, Plutarch notes that Homer, who \u201cwas no idle or useless companion\u201d accompanied Alexander on his campaign (\u201cAlexandria as Place<\/em>,\u201d 21).<\/p>\n

Indeed, the ancient city was a center of scholarship and intellectual activity with the Alexandrian Library and the Museum, and much of the early Homeric scholarship was done in Alexandria; even the form of the Iliad<\/em> and the Odyssey<\/em> as we have received these works each having twenty-four books was first codified by scholars working in these institutions. To be sure, other groups also helped write the history of the city. Jews were apparently among the earliest inhabitants of the city. Philo the Jewish thinker, known for his skeptical epistemology, worked there. As Per Bilde argues in his paper, \u201cPhilo as a Polemist and a Political Apologist: An Investigation of his Two Historical Treatises Against Flaccus<\/em> and The Embassy to Gaius<\/em>,\u201d while he has not been recognized as such, Philo was also a polemist and a political apologist for the significant Jewish population of the city, and, according to Josephus, led the delegation to Gaius to plead for the Jews. Moreover, Alexandria belonged to the Roman Empire and under the influence of Clement and Origen it was a significant center, along with Antioch and Rome, in the development of early Christianity.<\/p>\n

Alexandria: A Cultural and Religious Melting Pot<\/em> is the ninth volume in the Aarhus Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity (ASMA) series published approximately once a year by The Centre for the Study of Antiquity, University of Aarhus, Denmark. Edited by George Hinge and Jens A. Krasilnikoff, the eight papers in this volume were selected from among those presented by a number of scholars from different countries, including Denmark, Sweden, and the United States, at the May 2004 seminar on Alexandria hosted by the Centre; other papers were also included later. The eight papers in this volume are divided into two sections, entitled: \u201cPart I. Alexandria from Greece and Egypt\u201d and \u201cPart II. Rome, Judaism and Christianity.\u201d Each paper in this text is well-researched and is followed by a rich bibliography. While the authors are critical of the mythological accounts of the founding of Alexandria, the ancient sources are not simply rejected out of hand; rather, despite the problematic character of ancient sources, these sources along with their scholarly interpretations are examined carefully and critically with an eye to understanding the city the cultural and religious diversity of its people. The authors represented in Alexandria<\/em> are also aware of and discuss the tendency of some sources to distort their facts in their enthusiasm for a particular historical point of view or outcome. While one must use the available sources, we must keep in mind that religious conflicts, for example, between Pagans and Christians tend to be written by the victors. One advantage that the scholars writing for this publication have had, however, is the enormous growth in the scholarship of Egypt and north Africa during the last thirty years and the increase in the availability of the number of papyri manuscripts and other relevant evidence from these regions. Another theme common to the papers in this collection is the view that cultures are extremely complex, living organisms and not \u2018static things\u2019. Thus, in his essay, \u201cAlexandrian Judaism: Rethinking a Problematic Cultural Category,\u201d Anders Klostergaard Petersen, citing Martjin van Beck, objects to \u201ca static model\u201d of culture \u2013 one that<\/p>\n

\u2026 gives a distorted picture of the cultural and social reality of human beings, past and present. Culture \u2013 and religion as well as part of the cultural construction \u2013 should rather be seen as ways of interpreting the world. Culture represents what one does and not what one is. Martjin van Beck has poignantly emphasized this point. He underlines to what a great extent the talk about cultures is itself part of the cultural construction: \u201cThe point is not to deny that common features exist in particular fields but to document that the extrapolation from specific similarities and differences to homoginised, cultural and even civilizing units is a creative process and not just a mapping of already existing facts\u201d (Petersen, 123).<\/span><\/a>[3]<\/span><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Indeed, reminding us of Alfred Korzybski\u2019s observation \u201cthat the map is not the territory,\u201d Peterson writes, \u201cCultures are by their very nature \u2018messy\u2019 or hybrid affairs\u201d (124 and 125).<\/a>[4]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

The four papers of the first part take up in various ways \u201cthe relationship between Ptolemaic Alexandria and its Greek past\u201d (Hinge and Krasilnikoff, \u201cIntroduction,\u201d 10). Jens A. Krasilnikoff launches the volume with his paper, \u201cAlexandria as Place<\/em>: Tempo-Spatial Traits of Royal Ideology in Early Ptolemaic Egypt.\u201d Specifically, Krasilnikoff is interested in the way that Egypt as space is transformed into Alexandria as place. Borrowing from the work of humanistic geographers like Yi-Fu Tuan, Peter J. Taylor, and Jonathan M. Hall, he examines this problem by considering the concepts of \u201cspace,\u201d \u201cplace,\u201d and \u201cidentity.\u201d Citing Tuan\u2019s Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience<\/em>, Krasilnikoff observes that the concepts of \u2018space\u2019 and \u2018place\u2019 are \u201cinterdependent\u201d (Krasilnikoff, 23).<\/p>\n

\u2026 the meaning of space often merges with that of place. \u201cSpace\u201d is more abstract than \u201cplace\u201d. What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value \u2026 The ideas \u201cspace\u201d and \u201cplace\u201d require each other for definition. From the security and stability of place we are aware of the openness, freedom, and threat of space, and vice versa. Furthermore, if we think of space as that which allows movement, then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place (23).<\/a><\/span>[5]<\/span><\/sub><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Interdependence of space and place and the relationship between these two concepts \u201cdetermine the formation of different kinds of identity\u201d; hence, we can distinguish \u201cidentity of place<\/em>\u201d which \u201cincludes the identity markers that constitute a particular place<\/em>,\u201d and \u201cplace identity<\/em>\u201d which \u201cinvolves those qualities of a place<\/em> that helps generate identities of individuals or groups.\u201d Krasilnikoff, uses these concepts to explore the meaning of \u201cplace<\/em> within the Egyptian context of the Ptolemaic period\u201d; indeed, he wants to understand how \u201cthe Greek concept of the \u2018city-state culture\u2019 and society developed in this distinct framework\u201d that is Alexandria (38). For Kasilnikoff, then, Alexandria is to be understood in the Greek polis tradition because of its founding and the heroic character of its founder; this view was reinforced by the Ptolemaic rulers who claimed to be direct descendents of Alexander and by ancient authors who apparently borrowed their conceptions of the founding from other founding myths. At the same time, examining the earliest history of the city leads Krasilnikoff to conclude that Alexandria \u201cdiffered fundamentally from the majority of classical and Hellenistic cities\u201d (Hinge and Krasilnikoff, \u201cIntroduction,\u201d 10).<\/p>\n

In her paper, \u201cTheatrical Fiction and Visual Bilingualism in the Monumental tombs of Ptolemaic Alexandria,\u201d Marjorie Susan Venit notices that in the very beginning of Alexandria the inhabitants created \u201cmonumental tombs as communal spaces for both burial and veneration of the dead\u201d in the limestone on which the city stands (Venit, 42). These tombs, Venit observes, are \u201cunique\u201d to the city, \u201cand, until their dissemination across the north coast of Egypt and to the eastern Mediterranean, they stand unparalleled as monuments to a complex vision of the afterlife.\u201d Illustrating her paper with five diagrams and eight pictures of the tombs, she notes that elements of two \u201cdisparate\u201d traditions are brought together in the construction of the tombs. First, \u201cEgyptian elements\u201d are incorporated \u201cinto the fabric of an initially and fundamentally Hellenically-inspired monument.\u201d The second element that interests Venit is that the tombs include theater. Hence, the tombs and monuments combine two \u201cculturally distinct architectural traditions and \u2026 two ethnically discrete visual systems as well.\u201d The tombs, according to Venit served as \u201ca purposefully designed space within which, and against which, the human drama of the funerary ritual\u201d was performed. While the dead were entombed in these monuments, the buildings also served a symbolic function making an \u201cexternal reference\u201d that allowed an extremely diverse population to identify themselves as Alexandrians. It is precisely this that makes the Alexandrian tombs unique. \u201cBoth visions,\u201d Venit writes:<\/p>\n

\u2026 bilingualism and theatricality \u2013 incorporate into their fabric the fiction that is the underlying basis of Ptolemaic period Alexandrian tombs, and both fictive situations apart and in concert, establish the mortuary buildings of Ptolemaic Alexandria as bi-cultural monuments that can only have had their genesis in the peculiar construct that was ancient Alexandria. It is this bi-ocular modality that separates characteristics to express the singular eschatological vision that marks the monumental tomb of ancient Alexandria (64).<\/span><\/p>\n

George Hinge takes up the ever-controversial subject of race in his essay, \u201cLanguage and Race: Theocritus and the Koine Identity of Ptolemaic Egypt. \u201d Hinge cites Herodotus\u2019Histories<\/em> to show that \u201cGreek ethnicity\u201d is determined by \u201cfour components: origin, language, cult, and culture\u201d (Hinge, 67). In this passage, Hinge refers to words spoken by the Athenians to a Laconian delegation, arguing for a coalition to fight against the Persians.<\/p>\n

There are many reasons why we should not do this, even if we wanted to: First and foremost, they have burnt and destroyed the statues and temples of our gods, and we are obliged to revenge them as far as possible rather than conclude a treaty with the offenders. <\/span>Furthermore, there is the Hellenicity, consisting in the same blood and the same language, the common shrines of gods and cult and the same way of life, which the Athenians should not betray<\/span><\/span> (Herodotus, <\/span>Histories<\/span><\/em>, 8.144.3; Hinge\u2019s underling).<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, Hinge argues, \u201clanguage is quintessential to Herodotus\u2019 concept of ethnicity\u201d (68). In this Hinge is arguing against Jonathan Hall, who in his Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity<\/em> holds the view \u201cthat language played only a minor role in the formation of ethnic groups\u201d (Hinge and Krasilnikoff, \u201cIntroduction,\u201d 11).[6]<\/a> Hinge argues that while it may have mattered \u201cwhat sort of Greek you are\u201d ? whether one was a Spartan, an Argive, or an Athenian ? in the Greek homeland, once the colonization of the eighth and seventh centuries BCE got underway, \u201ca Greek identity\u201d began to emerge \u201cin opposition to the non-Greek natives in Cyprus, Egypt, Libya, Sicily, Italy or Scythia. The otherness of those \u2018Barbarians\u2019 and the complete unintelligibility of their languages, which were frequently compared to the chirping of birds, made the existence of a specific Hellenic identity obvious\u201d (Hinge, 69). This identity, as Hinge emphasizes, \u201cis not natural per se<\/em>, but a cultural construction\u201d that has its origins in the Mycenaean Age and that leads to \u201cthe creation of a Koine.\u201d That Koine displaced local dialects, Hinge argues, was not just a way to bridge various local languages and dialects, \u201cbut the symptom of a new identity, and not only a symptom, but also a most powerful contribution to that identity\u201d (77). \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

In her \u201cHomeric Scholarship in Alexandria,\u201d Minna Skaffie Jensen describes the Alexandrian Museum and the research conducted by the scholars working there especially the work done on Homer. According to Jensen, Demetrius of Phalerum, an Athenian scholar and one of Aristotle\u2019s students was responsible for organizing the Alexandrian Library; not surprisingly, it was modeled on Aristotle\u2019s library in the Lyceum. While he was active in politics and even ruled Athens for the Macedonians (317-7 BCE); he also continued to work with the Library and is credited with having had Aesop\u2019s fables written down. Jensen engages a number of scholars\u2019 interpretations of the origins of the Homeric texts, including, Martin West, Antonio Rengakos, Gregory Nagy, Stephanie West, and others. She concludes her brief history of the Library and Museum and of the Homeric scholarship that took place there lamenting that, despite the problems, the view \u201cwe get in the sources does not confirm the picture of the Library as an important participant in the great interaction of cultures and religions. On the contrary, the philologists of the Library appear to have been concerned with Greek literature and nothing else\u201d (Jensen, 89). Apparently Egyptian texts were left to the priests. While the subtitle of this collection of essays is, \u201cA Cultural and Religious Melting Pot,\u201d and while there is evidence in other fields for a melting pot, with regard to the Library perhaps it was not quite so. \u201cThe Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt,\u201d Jensen writes,<\/p>\n

\u2026 achieved nothing more important than the superb intellectual milieu established at the Museum. Whatever their intentions, the results of their generous support of learning are remarkable. To them we owe infinite gratitude for the fact that ancient Greek texts have reached us in such quantity and quality Scientific and scholarly method was developed to a previously unknown level. Poetry flourished. And just as Alexandrian poets become the stimulating ideal for Roman poets from Ennius onwards; the Ptolemies offered themselves as worthy models for the patronage of the artists practiced in Augustan Rome (91-92).<\/span><\/p>\n

The first two of the four essays constituting \u201cPart II. Rome, Judaism and Christianity,\u201d are devoted to Judaism. In the first piece, \u201cPhilo as a Polemist and a Political Apologist: An Investigation of his Two Historical Treatises Against Flaccus<\/em> and The Embassy to Gaius<\/em>,\u201d Per Bilde considers two texts by Philo, an extremely influential Jew from one of the most important and prosperous Alexandrian families to show that although Philo is usually known for his work in theology, epistemology, and metaphysics, he also played an significant role as a politician, a polemist, and a political apologist, especially between 38 and 41 CE \u2013 \u201ca period of great importance in the history of the Jewish people in the ancient world\u201d (Hinge and Krasinikoff, \u201cIntroduction, 13). In his essay, Bilde reconstructs the historical and political events in the year 38 CE, the year of what has become known as \u201cthe first pogrom\u201d against the Jewish people. Then, he analyzes Philo\u2019s two historical treatises Against Flaccus<\/em> and The Embassy to Gaius<\/em>. Finally, Bilde examines \u201cthe literary genre and the aim, dating and intended readers\u201d of these two works and considers whether Philo\u2019s writings \u201ccould be perceived as a threat to Rome\u201d (Bilde, \u201cPhilo as a Polemist and a Political Apologist,\u201d 98).<\/p>\n

As Bilde explains, Judaism had flourished in Alexandria for many years and \u201ccontinued to thrive well over the first year of Caligula\u2019s rule (37-38 CE)\u201d (Hinge and Krasilnikoff, \u201cIntroduction,\u201d 13). Aulus Avilius Flaccus was a Roman prefect in Alexandria and Egypt (32-38 CE). While \u201cthe living conditions for the Jewish people,\u201d according to Bilde, were generally not bad \u201cin the Roman empire from Caesar (died 44 BCE) and Augustus (31BCE-14 CE) until the summer of 38,\u201d for reasons that are not evident, Flaccus \u201cseems to have cancelled the Jewish population\u2019s established right to live in Alexandria according to the customs of their fathers and under some kind of internal self-government \u2026\u201d (Bilde, 99). When King Agrippa I, also known as Herod Agrippa, (37\/41-44) who had recently been crowned King of Palestine stopped in Alexandria en route<\/em> from Rome to his homeland, his visit set off riots against the Jewish people. Non-Jewish residents of the city also tried to set up statues of the emperor in synagogues. Instead of trying to stop the riots, Flaccus, and here Bilde follows Philo\u2019s account, sided with the \u201c\u2018Greeks\u2019 and issued a decree \u2026 denouncing the Jews as \u2018foreigners and newcomers\u2019 \u2026 in Alexandria\u201d (100). Subsequently, Jews were driven out of four of the five parts of the city and ghettoized into the remaining fifth part. Jews were the subject of violent attacks, some were flogged publically, some were killed, and some were forced to violate religiously sanctioned dietary prohibitions by eating pork. Although Bilde cautions: \u201cwhen reconstructing historical circumstances in Antiquity, from using terms related to the European persecutions of Jews in the Middle Ages and in recent times\u201d (101), he also claims that \u201cthis violent persecution of Jews seems to be something new in Antiquity\u201d (100). Eventually, Flaccus was arrested by the Emperor, returned to Rome, where after his property was confiscated, he was sent into exile and eventually put to death by the emperor. According to Bilde, then, Philo\u2019s Against Flaccus<\/em> is begins with a glowing report of Flaccus\u2019 first six years in office only to explain Flaccus\u2019 fall from office; indeed, it is a cautionary tale that proclaims the power of the god of the Jews and explains that those who violate the Jewish people will face a fate similar to Flaccus\u2019. On the one hand, Bilde interprets the texts as being written for the Jewish people in a \u201ctraditional and effective Jewish literary form or genere, religious apologetics,\u201d which was later adopted by Christians; Philo\u2019s apologetic texts were meant \u201cto comfort and edify Jewish readers\u201d and should be compared to the Book of Esther <\/em>of the books of the Macabees (109). On the other hand, however, Bilde suggests, is that Philo wrote in \u201cthis form or genere \u201cfor Roman readers, primarily the new Roman emperor, Claudius, the new imperial prefect in Egypt, Pollio, and other leading Roman circles \u2026\u201d as if to warn them against actions that might harm the Jewish people and blaspheme their god.<\/p>\n

In his paper, \u201cAlexandrian Judaism: Rethinking a Problematic Cultural Category,\u201d Anders Klostergaard Petersen takes a quite different approach from Bilde\u2019s, for he is not interested in well-known writers like Philo nor is he interested in \u201cthe empirical subject matter of Alexandrian Jewry\u201d (Petersen, 116); rather, Petersen\u2019s paper is much more ambitious and is focused on the theoretical problem of how to reconstruct past cultures. Petersen begins by briefly sketching out the history of Jewish people in Alexandria. Then, he examines \u201cAlexandrian Judaism with close attention to a number of theoretical problems that are infrequently mentioned in the predominant strands of scholarship.\u201d Finally, Petersen concludes by offering \u201ca theoretically viable way of reconstructing ancient cultures in a manner that is simultaneously theoretically adequate to the acknowledgement of the confined nature of the sources, and to current insights within the fields of cultural anthropology and sociology of how to speak and to conceive of culture.\u201d Petersen is critical of approaches to culture that assume one individual, such as Philo, Aristeas, or Artapanus, can speak for or represent a particular culture or subculture. While contemporary scholarship seems to understand this, Petersen maintains that even though many contemporary scholars acknowledge this problem, they proceed to deal with their sources without considering the consequences of taking \u201cone trajectory of thought\u201d as the embodiment of an entire cultural entity. Indeed, \u201cthe banalities of culture and the platitudes of human beings,\u201d Petersen writes, \u201care seldom handed down\u201d (118). On the other hand, he does not argue that scholars should ignore available sources; rather, the solution is to keep \u201cthe constrained nature of the majority of the extant sources\u201d and to reflect on the \u201cwide strands of scholarship, current as well as classical, on Alexandrian Judaism\u201d (119). Petersen is also critical of those who understand Philo in terms of a preconceived dualism of Hellenism and Judaism. This dualistic view, Petersen argues is \u201ctheoretically flawed\u201d for several reasons (124).<\/p>\n

First, even the most vehement Jewish antagonist of Greek thinking is culturally as well as socially inevitably enmeshed in what he opposes \u2026. Secondly, the use of a notion like \u201cHellenism\u201d is always contextually bound. It relates to particular traits only within the other culture. It is never a comprehensive term that refers to the entire plethora of phenomena of the \u201cother culture. \u201cJerusalem\u201d and \u201cAthens\u201d are unfailingly entities that are rhetorically used in particular contexts to refer to specific phenomena. Thirdly, the abstract taxonomic play with terms like Judaism and Hellenism in modern scholarly discourse is very far from their use in antiquity. That \u2026 does not invalidate contemporary use, but it certainly should put some restraints on the manner in which they are used (125).<\/span><\/p>\n

One must remember that a thinker like Philo is a Jew, but also an Alexandrian; even Philo himself is not a simple unity; \u201cPhilo\u2019s writings should be interpreted as the creations of a composite being who under particular circumstances and with particular aims and situations in mind attempts to conquer the cultural battlefield of his time\u201d (139). Still, this does not mean that we should speak of \u201cAlexandrian Judaisms or Jewries\u201d instead of \u201cAlexandrian Jewry \/ Judaism\u201d (Petersen, 128). While this may have \u201cheuristic value,\u201d it is \u201cmisleading\u201d because it indicates the inability \u201cto distinguish a concept and a phenomenon.\u201d Alexandrian Judaism may only be a construct of contemporary scholarship. On the other hand, Petersen suggests, following Benedict Anderson, that although \u201cAlexandrian Judaism was hardly a community characterized by \u2018the primordial village of face-to-face contact,\u2019\u201d it could still be understood as \u201c\u2018imagined community\u2019\u201d because \u201cits members constituted a conscious community\u201d that \u201cshared the common frame of reference of being Jews of Alexandria.\u201d In end, Petersen concludes, \u201chowever perplexed we may be as a result of engagement with cultural \u2018messiness,\u2019 the great intellectual challenge for future studies not only on past Alexandrian Jewry, but on ancient cultural entities in general, will be to take the \u2018messiness\u2019 of human cultural and social affairs profoundly seriously\u201d (140).<\/p>\n

In \u201cFrom School to Patriarchate: Aspects on the Christianisation of Alexandria,\u201d Samuel Rubenson is not concerned with religion or theology; rather, he focuses on \u201cthe transformation of the classical heritage into an early medieval Christian culture\u201d and the important role that Alexandria played in that transformation (144). Indeed, Rubenson argues that this transformation must be understood \u201cfrom a social point of view\u201d (145). The importance of Alexandria to the development of Christianity with development of Christian theology and the revision of classical philosophy is unequaled until \u201cthe emperor and the bishops of Rome and Constantinople \u2026 ended the ecclesiastical power by means of the council of Chalcedon in 451.\u201d Origen of Alexandria was important for his work in \u201cChristian hermeneutics and Bible interpretation\u201d; indeed, according to Rubenson, he was the most important Christian teacher of this period. Athanasius of Alexandria is acknowledged for his interpretation of the divine as trinity and his efforts to define church dogma. Cyril of Alexandria addressed himself to the problem of how Jesus as Christ could be both man and god. The work of later Christian thinkers, such as Augustine, the Cappadocians, Maximus the Confessor, and John of Damascus are certainly based on Origen, Athanasius, and Cyril. Rubenson concludes that our understanding of early Christianity in Alexandria, then, is based on the work of Christian teachers and philosophers, who instituted a tradition of Christian schools during the second century, and who were recognized for their work both in Alexandria and in the larger emerging Christian community. Schisms and a break between the church and the school were caused by \u201cthe severe and prolonged persecutions of the Christian leadership of Alexandria in 303-11\u201d (156). Emperor Constantine\u2019s recognition of the bishop of Alexandria elevated the importance of the bishops and gave them increased responsibilities. The bishops, who attempted to unify the church and unite the Christian community in the face of the pagan traditions that were embraced by parts of the Alexandrian elites, were resisted by intellectuals living independently on the edge of the desert south of the city. Uniting with local authorities, the bishops received the support of the emperor to unite Christians against their Christian opponents and critics and the remaining pagans.<\/p>\n

In \u201cReligious Conflict in Late Antique Alexandria: Christian Responses to \u2018Pagan\u2019 Statues in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries CE,\u201d Troels Myrup Kristensen begins where Rubenson ends with the conflict between the Christian bishops and the continued pagan tradition of parts of the Alexandrian elite. Noting the complicated religious, social, and political tensions that were part of the Mediterranean world of the fourth and fifth centuries, Kristensen contextualizes his discussion of the conflict between Christians and pagans by tracing Christian opposition to pagan statuary to \u201cthe Judaic tradition and the Mosaic prohibition against idolatry\u201d (160). While wooden statues were burned, stone statues were either defaced or \u201creinterpreted\u201d by adding crosses or other Christian symbols to the statues by Christians (161). At the same time, Kristensen emphasizes that these views were not held by all Christians and that some pagan statues survived in Christian households. Illustrating his paper with three photographs, one diagram, and one map, Kristensen discusses the destruction of the Serapeum and its statuary in 392 CE which along with \u201cthe murder of the philosopher Hypatia\u201d are \u201camong the best known cases of religious violence in Late Antiquity\u201d (162). Christian destruction of pagan statuary is one of the reasons that pagan statuary was cached and pagan practices were driven underground. Kristensen concludes by noting that the violence brought on by the religious and social transformation in Alexandria in Late Antiquity was rampant; indeed, it can be understood \u201cas the result of the \u2018brutalisation of local politics\u2019 or \u2018progressive Christianisation\u2019\u201d (172). While there is much literary evidence for the Christian destruction of statuary, actual evidence is much more difficult to obtain. One of the problems is that most of the surviving accounts of this period of Alexandrian history are from Christian sources. \u201cThe bias of the Christian literature concerning the \u2018end\u2019 of pagan cult at Alexandria makes it difficult to accept them at face value.\u201d Archaeological evidence is also problematic because interpretation and documentation are difficult. Still, Kristensen argues, we can rough out Christian reactions to paganism and pagan statuary.<\/p>\n

Hinge and Krasilnikoff are to be commended for bringing together the papers in this volume; indeed, Alexandria A Cultural and Religious Melting Pot<\/em> is an interdisciplinary text that may be recommended to both the scholar and the general reader interested in culture, religion, and ancient communities. Although Alexandria<\/em> will certainly interest classicists, cultural anthropologists, and classical archeologists, scholars working in other disciplines such as art history, philosophy, and cultural studies will also find this text exciting for its fresh look at the ancient city of Alexandria that exemplifies the social, economic, and political complexities of a diverse population living in the same community. The various reflections on culture and religion are obvious strengths of this text. However, the discussions of the problems involved in the study of ancient cultures, and their reflections on how scholars might approach ancient cultures are important n\/pot only for those studying ancient cultures, but also raise questions that should be considered by anyone thinking and writing about culture.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>[1]<\/a> Krasilnikoff cites Pseud-Callesthene I:30, trans. E. H. Haight (New York: Longmans, Green, and Company, 1955).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[2]<\/a> Krasilnikoff cites M. M. Austin, The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest: A Selection of Ancient Sources in Translation<\/em> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), no. 7.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[3]<\/a> Petersen translates and cites M. van Beck, \u201cIdentiteternes m\u00f8de, civilisationernes sammenst\u00f8d,\u201d Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift <\/em>40, 1-11.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[4]<\/a> Petersen refers to Alfred Korzybski\u2019s \u201cA Non-Aristotelian System and its Necessity for Rigour in Mathematics and Physics,\u201d presented before the American Mathematical Society at the December 28, 1931meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and reprinted in Science and Sanity<\/em>, 1933, p. 747\u201361.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

<\/a>[5]<\/a> Krasinikoff quotes Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience<\/em> (Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1977), 6.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[6]<\/a> See Jonathan Hall, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity<\/em> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Canopus region of Egypt on the Mediterranean coast was already inhabited and a port prior to Alexander\u2019s founding of his city. Pseudo-Callisthenes reports that Alexander awaited \u201can oracle from the god as to where he should found a city bearing his name\u201d (Krasilnikoff, \u201cAlexandria as Place<\/em>,\u201d 26).<\/a>[1]<\/sup><\/a> According to this account, Alexander was visited in his sleep by the god who spoke thus to him: \u201cKing, to you I speak. the god of the ram\u2019s horn. \/ If you wish forever to flourish in youth eternal, \/ Build an illustrious city above the island of Proteus\/ Where once Aion Plutonius first took his throne as ruler\u2026 (Krasilnikoff, \u201cAlexandria as Place<\/em>,\u201d 26-27).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":267,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[352,353,251,354,112,355,356,265],"coauthors":[1162],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review-essay","tag-alexandria","tag-christianity","tag-classics","tag-egypt","tag-greece","tag-judaism","tag-religion","tag-rome"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/267"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1188,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions\/1188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}