Divine Intervention: Invocations of Deities in Personal Correspondence from Graeco-Roman Egypt.
Researchers have already acknowledged the tendency among Graeco-Roman Egyptians to appeal in their personal correspondence to the gods of the locality from which they were writing, rather than to those of their hometown. Many studies that address this phenomenon have focused on Hellenistic and Roman...
| Publicado en: | Classical World Vol. 106; no. 4; pp. 1 - 21 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Johns Hopkins University Press
Summer2013
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=155773851&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 155773851 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00098418 2TD jtl: Classical World issn: 00098418 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Summer2013 vid: 106 iid: 4 pid: 226 pub: Johns Hopkins University Press artinfo: ui: 155773851 10.1353/clw.2013.0082 ppf: 1 ppct: 20 formats: tig: atl: Divine Intervention: Invocations of Deities in Personal Correspondence from Graeco-Roman Egypt. aug: au: Matsumoto, Mallory su: Egyptians Religious behaviors Letter writing Ostraka Gods sug: subj: Egyptians Religious behaviors Letter writing Ostraka Gods ab: Researchers have already acknowledged the tendency among Graeco-Roman Egyptians to appeal in their personal correspondence to the gods of the locality from which they were writing, rather than to those of their hometown. Many studies that address this phenomenon have focused on Hellenistic and Roman influence on the indigenous religious tradition and seek a better understanding of the patterns of religious behavior that characterized the civilization of Graeco-Roman Egypt as a whole. Relatively little research, however, has addressed the significance of these expressions of religiosity in illuminating religious self-identification of the authors. Based on the appeals made to specific gods in 113 private letters composed on papyri and ostraca between the third century B.C. and the mid-fourth century A.D. , I suggest that personal loyalty to a particular deity was not an essential part of an individual's self-identification, but rather a fluid condition that changed with location and circumstance. Thus, rather than indicating a personal relationship with a certain deity, these invocations often instead allude to the author's affiliation with the broader religious tradition of which that god was a member, an association that did in fact contribute to the writer's process of self-identification. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2013 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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