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STK SVENSK TEOLOGISK KVA RTALSKRIFT 2013 ÅRGÅNG 89 DUBBELNUMMER Sensing More in Ancient Religion av Susan Harvey, Providence, RI Ethics and Religion Avant la Lettre. The Perspective from Existential Anthropology av Michael Jackson, Cambridge, MA En annan universalism. Den etiopiske eunucken (Apg 8:26-40) från ett postkolonialt perspektiv av Hans Leander, Uppsala The Silence of the Spirit: A Critique of the Cessationist View of the Canon av Torsten Löfstedt, Växjö Postmodern teologi, kunskap och sanning av Mikael Stenmark, Uppsala Historicism without Relativism? av Marc Boss, Montpellier Ovanliga nattvardsfiranden i Karl XII:s armé av David Gudmundsson, Lund The Pastor’s Communion in Scania in the Seventeenth Century av Johanna Svensson, Lund 3- 4 INNEHÅLL Sensing More in Ancient Religion av professor Susan Harvey, Providence, RI ............................................................................................97 Ethics and Religion Avant la Lettre. The Perspective from Existential Anthropology av professor Michael Jackson, Cambridge, MA ..................................................................................107 En annan universalism. Den etiopiske eunucken (Apg 8:26-40) från ett postkolonialt perspektiv av TD Hans Leander, Uppsala ..............................................................................................................116 The Silence of the Spirit: A Critique of the Cessationist View of the Canon av docent Torsten Löfstedt, Växjö .......................................................................................................126 Postmodern teologi, kunskap och sanning av professor Mikael Stenmark, Uppsala ..............................................................................................139 Historicism without Relativism? Alasdair MacIntyre’s Proposal for the Rescue of Moral Imperativeness av TD Marc Boss, Montpellier ............................................................................................................151 Ovanliga nattvardsfiranden i Karl XII:s armé av doktorand David Gudmundsson, Lund ...........................................................................................162 The Pastor’s Communion in Scania in the Seventeenth Century av doktorand Johanna Svensson, Lund ................................................................................................168 Debatt: Gudsbevisning a priori, nödvändighet och kontingens av docent Jan Löfberg, Lund och FD Martin Lembke, Lund ...............................................................179 In Memoriam: René Kieffer (1930-2013) av professor emeritus Bengt Holmberg, Lund .....................................................................................183 LITTERATUR ............................................................................................................................. 185 Jan Eckerdal, Folkkyrkans kropp. Einar Billings ecklesiologi i postsekulär belysning rec. av TD Mats Aldén, Lund ...............................................................................................................185 Jacques Ehrenfreund & Pierre Gisel (red.), Religieux, société civile, politique rec. av FD Patrik Fridlund, Lund ..........................................................................................................186 Jonas Jonson, Gustaf Aulén – biskop och motståndsman rec. av TD Alexander Maurits, Lund ....................................................................................................186 Lena Sjöstrand, Mer än tecken. Atmosfär, betydelser och liturgiska kroppar rec. av TK Elise Nilsson, Lund .............................................................................................................188 Moshe Halbertal, On Sacrifice rec. av TK Anna Nohlert, Uppsala .......................................................................................................189 Rolf Christoffersson, Med tre röster och tusende bilder. Om den samiska trumman rec. av FD Torjer Olsen, Tromsø ..........................................................................................................190 AVHANDLINGSRESUMÈER ................................................................................................................191 Svensk Teologisk Kvartalskrift. Årg. 89 (2013) Sensing More in Ancient Religion SUSAN HARVEY Susan Ashbrook Harvey is professor of Religious Studies at Brown University, Rhode Island. She specializes in Syriac studies, Christianity in late antiquity, and Christian- ity of the Byzantine and Syriac traditions. She has published widely in academic venues on women in ancient Christianity, monasticism, the cult of saints, hagiog- raphy, hymnography, and religion and the senses. Her latest work includes Song and Memory: Biblical Women in Syriac Tradition (2010) and Scenting Salvation: An- cient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination (2006). Prof. Harvey is currently working on a new book tentatively titled Teaching Women: Biblical Women and Women’s Choirs in Syriac Tradition. In this essay I offer reflections on the importance I. Religion in a Sensing Body 1 of the bodily senses for ancient Christianity. My broad frame will be the Roman Empire in Genesis 18: 1-15 tells of the famed encounter late antiquity, roughly the third through the sixth between the patriarch Abraham and his Lord, centuries CE, the period when Christianity who appeared to him at the oaks of Mamre in the emerged fully as a religion in its own right. My form of three (unnamed) men. Abraham offered hope is to suggest fresh appreciation for the role his visitors generous hospitality, while in the tent of embodiment in Christian tradition by drawing his wife Sarah prepared cakes and also laughed, attention to those qualities that sensory aware- for the Visitors announced that in a year’s time ness added to the Christian’s bodily practice of the elderly couple would have a son. The sancti- religion during this formative era. ty of the encounter, the memory of the place, and I will focus on three “scenes”: first, the fifth the prophetic quality of the Visitor(s)’ an- nouncement have rendered Mamre a holy site, century Christian historian Sozomen on the na- 2 ture of ancient religion and its practices; second, venerated for millennia even to the present day. religious sound as intrinsic to the practice of In early Christian times, that veneration took hymn singing and also as a source of religious the form of an annual festival at Mamre com- knowledge. Finally, Romanos the Melodist, the memorating the event of Abraham and his Visi- sixth century Greek hymn writer, will help us tors. The church historian Sozomen described consider religious knowledge in its most basic the renowned celebration in the fifth century, about one hundred years after a particular series cosmological formulation. 3 of events he recounted. Sozomen reported that this festival attracted a huge crowd of pilgrims each year, from various religions: Jews, because they claimed their descent from Abraham; Pa- gans, because they understood the three visitors to be heavenly beings – a divine appearance like 1 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Center for Theology and Religious Studies at Lund 2 The site remains a place of pilgrimage, under the University, May 28, 2013, on the occasion of receiv- auspices of Russian Orthodox since 1868. ing an honorary doctorate. I am deeply grateful to 3 Sozomen, HE, 2.4. Text edited by J. Bidez with Dean Fredrik Lindström, Professor Samuel Rubenson, translation by A.-J. Festugière, Sozomène, Histoire and indeed all the Faculty for their extraordinary hos- ecclésiastique: Livres I – II, SC 306 (Paris: Cerf, pitality and kindness. 1983), 245-9. 98 Susan Harvey those from their own myths; and Christians, be- Sozomen’s account provides a fine picture of cause they understood the divine visitors in Trin- religion in the ancient Mediterranean world.6 itarian terms, or to have been the divine Son Moreover, it is a picture that vividly demon- with two angels. Sozomen went on to describe strates the centrality of the senses for ancient re- the events like this: ligion. In the course of his passage, he refers to a sacred story and a sacred place; to pilgrimage, This [brilliant] feast is diligently frequented by all prayers, altars, votive offerings, processions, nations…. This place was moreover honored fit- sacrifices, incense, lights (candles/ lamps), wine, tingly [prosphoros] with religious exercises. Here special foods, and special attire. The “brilliant” some prayed to the God of all; some called upon festival Sozomen describes (lampran panagyrin) the angels, poured out wine, burnt incense, or of- 4 was surely a densely textured sensory celebra- fered an ox, or he-goat, a sheep, or a cock. tion, for sights, sounds, tastes, fragrances and textures in riotous abundance would necessarily Sozomen continued his account with a descrip- have attended the ritual actions he mentions. tion of the religious practices the different pil- But what significance did these bodily experi- grims engaged: “beautiful” [kalon] votive offer- ences carry for the ancient worshipper? ings, fashioned over the course of the In his account, Sozomen adds further qualities intervening year (perhaps at some expense, and to the sensory aspects he mentions, beyond sim- with considerable effort), and offered on behalf ple description. He includes a strong element of of families; processions in which the worship- religious critique, describing and also assessing pers wore fine garments;