Late Antiquity and Modernity

This chapter is the first in this book to have ‘religious violence' in its title. Late antiquity, then, seems to mark the introduction of a new type of violence. Such is the conclusion of a leading scholar of late antique violence, Johannes Hahn, who writes: ‘Religious violence as a phenomenon of public life is indeed peculiar to Late Antiquity'.

Hahn attributes this development to the conversion of Constantine and the Roman Empire to Christianity.^{^[1017]} The flow of recent studies on late antique religious violence and its virtual absence in studies of the classical world seem to confirm that judgement.

Yet, is religious violence really a typically late antique and Christian feature? If that were the case, what are we to do with the anti-Christian measures of the Roman state, for example those of Diocletian? What about the anti-Manichaean decrees of this emperor? What about the desecration of the Jewish temple in 168 bce by the Seleucid King Antiochus IV, and the suppression of the Bacchanalia by the Roman Senate in 186 bce? The list could be many times longer. Maybe there are, after all, more chapters to be written on religious violence in ancient Greece and Rome.

The seemingly obvious nature of the identification of religious violence and late antiquity is reflected in a general lack of definition of what counts as such. Scholars of late antique violence rarely deal with sacralised violence in cult, like sacrifice, which is generally seen to have been marginalised. Blood sacrifice had been abandoned by the three monotheistic religions of late antiquity and within paganism it is thought to have been decisively weakened. If the death of Christ lies at the heart of Christian worship, it was considered to have been a final act and was commemorated in a bloodless fashion, as Christian apologists were proud to point out.

Scholars do not focus on violence tied to religious occasions and festivals. Religious ceremonies could be flashpoints of conflict, but it is hard to discern cyclical, ritual patterns such as those observed for the Middle Ages by David Nirenberg, who linked violence to particular periods of the liturgical year.^{^[1018]} Usually, religious violence is understood as violent actions against religious groups and their members by another religious group. The archetypical events of this type are the destruction of temples and synagogues, and attacks on pagans. These are exemplified in a number of well-known cases, such as the destruction of the Serapeion in Alexandria (391 ce), the attack on the synagogue in Callinicum in Syria (388 ce), and the murder of the philosopher Hypatia (c. 415 ce). The focus, then, is on social conflict between religious groups. The net is sometimes cast wider, situating such violence in the context of imperial measures against non-Christian and heretical groups and set against the background of a narrative that emphasises the violent imposition of Christian orthodoxy on the Roman Empire through the twin efforts of church and state. This narrative has, in fact, deep roots in the intellectual history of the West.

If it is questionable that religious violence is typically late antique, the identification is sustained by the attribution of an intrinsically violent nature to monotheistic religions. These are supposed, theologically, to make a strong distinction between truth and falsity, and thus, in sociological terms, to have a strong in/out dimension.^{^[1019]} The transition from a polytheistic to a monotheistic society must then be inherently violent. Philosophically problematic, such an understanding of religion is historically implausible, as one can find many periods of tolerance in monotheistic religions and of intolerance by polytheistic religions. For late antiquity, this point has been repeatedly made by Harold Drake, who shows that the identification of monotheism with violence and intolerance is an Enlightenment trope that does not suit the evidence.

The flipside of this particular trope is the idea that Greek and Roman polytheism was essentially tolerant and non-violent, a view that, as we have seen, is open to question.^{^[1020]}

Drake rightly points to the historical genesis of the association between monotheism and violence, but the roots of the identification of late antiquity and religious violence go deeper. It started during the Reformation, when Protestants attacked the Catholic Church for having degenerated. In order to do so, they had to construct a historical narrative that identified the moment when the church had lapsed. A widely accepted point in time was the conversion of Constantine, who struck the alliance between state and church. This led to a twofold corruption. On the one hand, one could argue that the church, which previously had had no coercive powers, could now use violence against heretics, pagans and Jews, and started to lobby the state to abandon its previously tolerant attitude towards followers of other religions. On the other, one could blame the state and argue that it started to use the church for its own purposes and turned it into an instrument of oppression. The ‘Constantinian turn' thus became the moment when violence entered the church. Indeed, the idea of a fundamental contrast between pre-Nicene and post-Nicene Christianity is still deeply rooted in scholarship and popular perception.^{^[1021]}

The narrative is further sustained by our modern perception of the role of the state and its relationship to religion. Two salient features of the modern state are relevant in this respect. First, the modern, Western state arrogates to itself a monopoly of violence, seen as the guarantee of a peaceful and stable society. Only the state can legitimately use violence and it therefore seeks to limit the use of coercion by other institutions. Second, religious toleration lies at the heart of the modern state and is seen as a quality that was hard-won against religion and the Catholic Church in particular. Through the emphasis on the state as the primary source of identity, religion appears as particularistic and potentially disruptive of a society built around a core of shared values. From a modern perspective, then, late antiquity cannot but appear as the mirror image of our (ideal) self: a state seemingly abandons its monopoly of violence to a church that brings social disruption. This is reflected in the tone of explicit condemnation in which much scholarship on the topic is couched.^{^[1022]}

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Source: Fagan Garrett G., Fibiger Linda, Hudson Mark, Trundle Matthew (eds.). The Cambridge World History of Violence. Volume 1: The Prehistoric and Ancient Worlds. Cambridge University Press,2020. — 756 p.. 2020

Late Antiquity and Modernity

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