Heresy and Identity in Late Antiquity (review)

These days no one talks about heresy as heresy anymore. Instead we talk about "heresy" and usually pair it with some other qualifier like "rhetoric," "representation," or "construction." Additionally, recent approaches to "heresy" and "orthodoxy" in antiquity have turned to theorists in other discipline—including sociology, anthropology, and literary criticism—for fresh interpretive insights. For this volume, the result of a 2005 Princeton University colloquium entitled "Making Selves and Marking Others: Heresy and Self-Definition in Late Antiquity," the ongoing discussion/debate about "heresy" is explored through the lens of identity-formation. To that end, the editors assembled a fine group of contributors who explored "the varied ways in which different late antique groups and communities defined their own socio-political borders and secured in-group identities by means of discourses about 'heresy' and 'heretics'" (2). In the helpful introductory chapter, the editors frame the essays that follow by providing a broad survey of the modern study of "heresy" and "heresiology," as well as religious "identity" and its formation, and they also discuss important examples of how scholars have connected heretical discourse with Jewish and Christian self-definition. They situate their volume as a continuation of such studies.

The volume offers sixteen studies organized into loose groupings outlined by the editors in the introduction. The first cluster of papers considers the problematic applications of labels and names. Karen King examines Irenaeus and the Secret Revelation of John as two seemingly opposing texts which share points of convergence that shed light on broader competing discourses on the body, justice, and governance. William Arnal's intelligent article examines the "heresy" of Paul through the lens of the sociological doxa-theory of Pierre Bourdieu. He argues that Paul's inversions of ethnic and political identity among his followers stood in opposition to the unstated norms of these identities established by the Roman state and thereby rendered him and his followers as "heretics." Averil Cameron shifts the discussion to the construction of "orthodoxy," and she briefly examines in particular its violent nature, not only in the physical sense, but also violence against pluralism, speech, writing, and other forms of expression.

The second group of papers examines the christianizing of the Roman Empire. Caroline Humfress explores the criminalization of heresy in the post-Constantinian empire, in particular the social and economic consequences of "heresy," legislation as a means of marginalization, and the various loopholes and problems that emerged as a result of the rhetorical nature of anti-heretical laws. Richard Lim explores how the label "Manichaen" was largely a polemical construct of the "orthodox" and not a self-designation on the part of these "heretics," who tended to identify themselves instead as Pauline Christians.

The third cluster of papers focuses on what the editors describe as the relationship between identity and the "intimate enemy." Philippa Townsend argues that the term Christianoi originally referred to early Gentile (likely Pauline) followers of Jesus, but was later appropriated by writers such as Ignatius to define the Christian community in opposition to Judaism. Elaine Pagels offers a fascinating study of the composite Leviathan/Satan figure in Revelation in part as a representation of the "intimate enemies" within the Christian community.

The fourth group of papers considers discourses of heresy as they relate to the category of "Jewish Christianity." Annette Reed's excellent article "rereads" the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, an arguably "Jewish-Christian" novel, as a heresiology which actually served as a polemic against Hellenism as a "heresy." She argues that the narrative itself may have had roots in rabbinic disputations with minim but was redeployed by particular Christians who were interested in articulating their understanding of "orthodoxy."

The final group of papers centers on the construction of the "other" in rabbinic literature. Gregg Gardner examines the status of astrologers as deviants of Babylonian rabbinic Judaism and how astrology itself became a marker of cultural and religious separation. Israel Yuval compares Jewish and Christian liturgical prayers and observes...