Conceptualizing Angeloi in the Roman Empire. by Rangar Cline. (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 172.) Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011

Numen 60 (2013) 135–154 brill.com/nu

Ancient Angels: Conceptualizing Angeloi in the Roman Empire. By Rangar Cline. (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 172.) Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011. xviii + 181 pp. ISBN 978–9004194533 (hbk.)

The theme of the book is veneration of angels in religions in late antiquity (ca. 150–ca. 450 c.e.). Rangar Cline consults a wealth of archaeological and lit- erary evidence and shows that there was a shared terminology for angels in the Roman Empire, which implies that the term angelos was used across religions. Angeloi designate intermediate beings, beings that were believed to exist between gods and humans. Traditionally, they were thought to be present at springs, wells, and fountains, and they could be contacted by means of rituals, amulets, and invocations. The veneration of these beings took diffferent forms in diffferent regions and cultural contexts. The book has a preface, six chapters, and a conclusion, and includes pic- tures. In chapter one (“Introduction: The Words of Angels”), Cline defĳines angels and gives a survey of the pagan-Christian discourse on them by means of the writings of Origen of Alexandria and Augustine of Hippo. Cline suggests that “the prominence of angeli in early Christianity is due to the success of early Christian authorities in defĳining a system of orthodox Christian beliefs about, and attitudes towards, angeli that were distinct from non-Christian, and other Christian, beliefs about such beings” (p. 2). In addition to the term angelos, Cline also presents a critical discussion of the use of the terms “Hellenism,” “monotheism,” and “polytheism.” Cline’s study of angels builds on Glenn Bow- ersock’s approach to Hellenism and Greek language in late antiquity: Bower- sock saw Hellenism as a possibility to give local expressions a more eloquent and cosmopolitan form. Cline sees his study of the veneration of angels as evidence for Bowersock’s approach. Chapter two (“Angels of the Aether”) takes its point of departure from the use of angels in the oracular response from Apollo at Claros found in a Greek inscription from the ancient city of Oenoanda in Turkey (ca. 200 c.e.), a state- ment which is also preserved in two additional sources. The oracle says that the All-Seeing Aether is the true god and the Olympian deities are his angeloi. According to Cline, the inscription suggests that the veneration of angels was part of popular cults in Roman Anatolia. In chapter three (“Angels of a Pagan God”), Cline looks at dedications to angels in several pagan religious contexts — the Aegean, Anatolia, Syria, Egypt, and Arabia. He shows that local traditions about divine angeloi are expressed

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341257 140 Book Reviews / Numen 60 (2013) 135–154 in Greek language, with a common terminology, and by means of similar ideas. Diffferently from earlier studies, Cline does not focus on origins, but on the specifĳic character and religious ideas that were conveyed in distinct cults and religious traditions in the form of pagan angeloi. The theme of chapter four (“Angels of the Grave”) is Christian, Jewish, and pagan inscriptions about angels who act as guardians of the living, protectors of tombs, and escorts of the dead. The source material is made up of grave inscriptions from diffferent parts of the Roman Empire — from two Aegean islands, Eumenia in Asia Minor, Thessaly, and Rome. Cline shows that the belief in guardian angels was rather democratic and not restricted to illustrious people. Chapter fĳive (“Angels of the Spring: Variations on Local Angelos Veneration and Christian Reaction”) connects angels to specifĳic places and substantiates that they were strongly associated with specifĳic sites. Common to the sites that are examined in this chapter, which are Mamre in southern Judea, Corinth in Greece, the Bethesda Pool in Jerusalem, and Chonae in Colossae, is their con- nection to springs and wells. At some of these places, pagans, Jews, and Chris- tians invoked and venerated angeloi together. In this chapter Cline also presents Christian discussions and condemnations of certain varieties of venerations of angels. Chapter six (“Angels of a Christian God: Christian Angelos Veneration in Late Roman Anatolia”) examines the prohibitions which were made at the Synod of Laodicea (ca. 360 c.e.), against some types of angel worship. Cline’s point is that the Church did not prohibit all forms of angel worship, but only those forms that were felt to threaten ecclesiastical authority. The cult of the Archangel Michael in Anatolia is an example of how the veneration of angels was used to support the church, because this veneration was not allowed to give prominence to Michael at God’s expense. According to Christian theology, the source of the power of angels did not rest in these beings per se, but in their ability to communicate with God: Michael does not heal by his own power; God heals — by means of Michael. Among the merits of this book is that it shows by means of examples and by using various types of sources how a common terminology and shared ideas worked in diffferent cultural contexts in the Roman Empire. This was Cline’s main ambition for this book and he has managed very well to live up to it. In line with his focus, Cline not only convincingly shows how Christians used angels to communicate their religious ideas to non-Christians, but also that while a shared terminology made this communication easier, Christian theolo- gians were busy elaborating what were acceptable and what were unaccept- able forms of veneration of angels: the processes of Christianization, not least