At the Temple Gates: The Religion of Freelance Experts in the Roman Empire

by Heidi Wendt

Overview

In his sixth satire, Juvenal speculates about how Roman wives busy themselves while their husbands are away, namely, by entertaining a revolving door of exotic visitors who include a eunuch of the eastern goddess Bellona, an impersonator of Egyptian Anubis, a Judean priestess, and Chaldean astrologers. From these self-proclaimed religious specialists women solicit services ranging from dream interpretation to the coercion of lovers. Juvenal's catalogue suggests the popularity of such "freelance" experts at the turn of the second century and their familiarity to his audience, whom he could expect to get the joke.

Heidi Wendt investigates the backdrop of this enthusiasm for the religion of freelance experts by examining their rise during the first two centuries of the Roman Empire. Unlike civic priests and temple personnel, freelance experts had to generate their own authority and legitimacy, often through demonstrations of skill and learning in the streets, in marketplaces, and at the temple gates, among other locations in the Roman world. Wendt argues that these professionals participated in a highly competitive form of religious activity that intersected with multiple areas of specialty, particularly philosophy and medicine. Over the course of the imperial period freelance experts grew increasingly influential, more diverse with respect to their skills and methods, and more assorted in the ethnic coding of their practices. Wendt argues that this context engendered many of the innovative forms of religion that flourished in the second and third centuries, including phenomena linked with Persian Mithras, the Egyptian gods, and the Judean Christ.

The evidence for freelance experts in religion is abundant, but scholars of ancient Mediterranean religion have only recently begun to appreciate their impact on the empire's changing religious landscape. At the Temple Gates integrates studies of Judaism, Christianity, mystery cults, astrology, magic, and philosophy to paint a colorful portrait of religious expertise in early Rome.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190267148
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	09/19/2016
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Heidi Wendt is Assistant Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. She has written articles in the Journal of Roman Studies, the Journal of Biblical Literature, and the Journal of Ancient Judaism and teaches courses on Judeans and Christians in the Roman Empire, and the Greco-Roman context of New Testament literature.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction: Freelance Experts in the Academic Study of Religion
2. Chapter One: The Religion of Freelance Experts in the Roman Empire
3. Chapter Two: Ethnically Coded Experts and Forms of Religion
4. Chapter Three: Rethinking "Magic," "Religion," and "Philosophy"
5. Chapter Four: Paul, A Rare Witness to the Religion of Freelance Experts
6. Chapter Five: Christian Rivals within the Framework of Freelance Expertise
7. Conclusion: Freelance Experts in the "Religious Marketplace"

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Wendt has produced an erudite, groundbreaking book that is sure to have an impact on how scholars study the dissemination of religious practices in the Roman world... Highly recommended for those working on ancient Mediterranean religion, ancient philosophy, and early 'Christian' identity." —Richard S. Ascough, Religious Studies Review

"At the Temple Gates leaves behind hackneyed theological assumptions in favor of sociological theorizing, and will undoubtedly stimulate vigorous and much needed discussion about the nature of religious activity in antiquity."—Sarah E. Rollens, Marginalia

"Wendt has produced a valuable and well-written monograph, which explicates an important dimension - or cluster of dimensions - of ancient Mediterranean life. What emerges from her synthetic study is a compelling portrait of a complex and competitive world of ancient religious experts, imbued with 'exotic' associations, and operating outside or on the margins of established institutions...Wendt ought to be congratulated for providing a viable alternative to the 'religions' model that has for too long dominated scholarship of the early Roman Empire."—Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"A comprehensive and remarkable study of the ecosystem of religious beliefs during the first two centuries of the Roman Empire, At the Temple Gates is a must read for anyone interested in the end of Antiquity and the beginning of Christianity, as well as for scholars working on the exchanges and influences among various institutions or groups."—Reading Religion

"At the Temple Gates has the potential to transform the way scholars think about religion in the Roman world. By identifying the practices of freelance religious specialists, Wendt challenges the basic categories that scholars rely on in their work on Roman-period religion, such as Judaism, Christianity, magic, and philosophy, and shows that ancient people would have understood these specialists as engaged in the same sort of practices: promoting and selling ideas and services related to the gods, often in competition with others doing the same thing. She argues that this is how Paul himself would have been seen. If this is true, it completely changes the perception of Paul as unique—the first Christian writer and founder of communities—and places him instead as a Judean religious expert, a player in a competitive marketplace of religious claims and ideas." —Caroline Johnson Hodge, author of If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study of Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul

"At the Temple Gates is a splendid book. Heidi Wendt invites us to look beyond the temples and institutions of ancient religion to the messy urban landscape of freelance experts. As Wendt shows in wonderful detail, these experts peddled their skills and exotic knowledge just outside, and in supplement to, publicly sanctioned cults. This earned them the disapproval of cultural elites in antiquity and later. Wendt now restores them to the center of attention." —Clifford Ando, David B. and Clara E. Stern Professor of Classics, History and Law, University of Chicago; Research Fellow, Department of Biblical and Ancient Studies, University of South Africa

"In this rich and stimulating book, Heidi Wendt discusses status and activities of the many freelance or 'self-legitimized' specialists of religion that are attested in the early Roman Empire. In this important contribution to the ways we have been studying imperial religions and cultures, the author takes the proposition seriously that, underlying the many obvious differences stressed by ancient observers and modern scholars, the Empire had a fundamental religious and cultural unity. Her courageous study shows how much there is to gain from this approach." —Fritz Graf, author of Roman Festivals in the Greek East

From the Publisher