A collection of articles – The preliminary plan (Maijastina Kahlos)
THE CHRONOLOGICAL AND THEMATIC CONFINES
The Faces of the Other – Religious and Ethnic Otherness in the Late Roman World focuses on the perception of otherness, whether other peoples or religions, in the Greco-Roman world. The planned time span is around 100-400 CE and onwards, that is, the Late Roman Empire as understood broadly. In the case of perception of otherness a longue dureé perspective is most appropriate. Therefore, it is possible to move beyond these chronological limits. The thematic confines are more significant here.
The time span, c. 100-400 CE, has been chosen because significant ideological changes take place during that period. Within this time span it is possible to outline changes and continuities in the long-term thought patterns and attitudes in Roman society. Furthermore, Late Antiquity had a crucial impact on the development of the perceptions and attitudes that have prevailed for centuries and exist even today.
THE THEMES
The purpose of the book is to discuss the conceptions, depictions and attitudes towards the other in Greco-Roman antiquity. These others may be ethnic others such as the Persians and the Germanic peoples or the Huns were to Romans; or religious others such as Jews were Christians, or Christians to Jews, Christians to pagans, or pagans to Christians, or different cults to the ‘mainstream’ Romans, or different Christian sects to each other. At least one of the articles (M. Kahlos, ‘Who is Roman, who is Barbarian?’) will discuss how the ethnic otherness and religious otherness are interconnected in the argumentation and depictions. This article forms a bridge from Part One ‘The religious others’ to Part Two ‘The ethnic others’.
THE RESEARCH ON IMAGES AND ATTITUDES
The Faces of the Other participates in the current discussion of Greek and Roman identities and attitudes to otherness in the Greco-Roman world. We also take part in the scholarly discussion of the research on images, attitudes and conceptions. The focus will be on the people, community or culture that created the image. Thus, the starting point is that the depiction of the other does not reflect reality as much as it reveals a reverse image of the community or culture that created it.
Therefore, one of our basic assumptions is that the image of the other reveals more of the creators of the image than of the object portrayed. Attention is focused on the writers, their audiences and their society as well as the ways in which the writers view otherness and define themselves and their communities through the other. The hypothesis will be tested in the articles of the book that survey different communities and circumstances under the Late Roman Empire.
From the perspective of the research on images and attitudes, it is less important whether an image is ‘true’ or ‘false’. Rather, what is more crucial here is to understand how and why the image is formed, that is, to lay emphasis on the process of image formation. Thus, the purpose of The Faces of the Other is not to search for original and genuine objective descriptions of the other in the sources but rather to expose Greco-Roman ideas and conceptions of reality.
The depictions of the other are seen to function as community building and clarification of boundaries. To put it plainly, to be able to define and understand oneself one has also to define the other. To the others are attributed the qualities that the formers of the image would not see in themselves. The image of the other serves as self-definition. The clarification of boundaries with redefining the self and the other becomes particularly important in times of significant changes, crises and upheavals. It is crucial to discuss in the articles of our book how these changes and crises influence the construction of identities through the images of the other.
THE CONTENTS OUTLINE
The articles are divided into two main sections: Part One ‘The religious others’ and Part Two ‘The ethnic others’:
Introduction: Otherness in the Late Roman Empire
Maijastina Kahlos
PART ONE: THE RELIGION OF OTHERS
Devotees of Cybele as the image of otherness
Marika Rauhala (University of Oulu)Christians as others
Markus Mertaniemi (University of Oulu)What are ‘pagans’ needed for? Fourth- and fifth-century Christian writers meet the other (‘Pagans’ as others)
Maijastina Kahlos (University of Helsinki)Othering in the Pauline Letters as Intrinsic to Identity Formation (Judaising Christians)
Anders Klostergaard Petersen (University of Aarhus)Orthodox Christians and the other in the second and fourth century
Anders-Christian Jacobsen (University of Aarhus)That ill-formed little fox. Irenaeus’s refutation of Valentinians
in Adversus haereses (Creating Orthodoxy and Heresy – Valentinians by Heresiologists)
Päivi Vähäkangas (University of Helsinki)
PART TWO: ‘BARBARIANS’ AS OTHERS
Who is Roman and who is Barbarian? Subversions in the Christian Empire
Maijastina Kahlos (University of Helsinki)The images of the Gauls and the Germans compared
Antti Lampinen (University of Turku)The Huns as others
Päivi Collander (University of Turku)The Persians as others
Markus Mertaniemi (University of Oulu)