Extract

This excellent volume is the second to emerge from a research project, directed by Stephen Mitchell at Exeter University, on the intellectual background to pagan monotheism. It addresses two broad questions. How should we define ‘pagan monotheism’, and how useful is the concept for illuminating religious developments in the first four centuries ad? And can we classify significant aspects of pagan cultic activity during this period as monotheistic?

Peter Van Nuffelen begins with a theoretical investigation of the definition of monotheism and its applicability to Greco-Roman religions. (It is ironic, he observes, that classicists are becoming seriously interested in monotheism just as biblical scholars and theologians are questioning the aptness of the term for Judaism and Christianity.) He sketches the complexity of monotheism as a concept and considers how best to investigate it in the classical world; one of his conclusions is that to study monotheism adequately classics must finally close the rift it has created between the study of ritual and theology. Drawing on theoretical discussions in modern history, theology, and philosophy, this is the kind of informed discussion which is rare in classics and proportionately welcome.

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