OPTING
OUT OF THE ROMAN RITUAL ECONOMY
The
famous Pliny/Trajan correspondence from c. 111 CE serves an important
historical role as a source on early Christianity. Less studied is
the economic stratum that runs beneath the correspondence. Writing
about civil unrest he mediated in Bithynia-Pontus, Pliny details how
local townspeople had composed a anonymous blacklist of suspected
Christians. While Pliny does not approve of such mob action, he takes
the complaints of the locals seriously, and interrogates suspected
Christians, eventually leading some off to execution or further
trials in Rome. The problem for Pliny was not Christianity per
se (he
considered it a 'degenerate sort of superstition'), but loyalty to
the empire and the gods; so his method of interrogation involved
compelling the suspects to sacrifice and venerate images of Trajan
and the gods, and to curse Christ.
Noting
that members of every class and social group belongs to this new
superstition, Pliny assures Trajan that he is actively fixing the
problem by pointing to the rebound of the local economy: “certainly
enough, it happens that the temples, which are now nearly empty, have
begun to be frequented; and the sacred rites, which have not been
performed for a long time, are again being undertaken; and the
sacrificial meat is on sale, a buyer of which until this point was
most hard to find.” Pliny likely received this positive news from
the local magnates and meat mongers. Huge amounts of money went to
the temples from local people: paganism was not just a top-down
apparatus as Stark suggests (Rise 208). It appears that the major
concern of the townspeople was that the Christians had opted out of
the local ritual economy, encouraging people not to visit or donate
to the temples, nor to buy goods for ritual purposes. This refusal to
participate in the ritual economy presented an immediate danger to
the well-being of the town.
A
similar situation is dramatized in the Acts of the Apostles 19:23-41,
where a silversmith, who produces “shrines of Artemis” persuades
his fellow craftsmen to stir up a mob against Paul and company:
“...this Paul has persuaded and won over a sizable crowd, saying
that there are no gods which are made by hands. And not only is there
there danger that this business of ours may come be to exposed, but
also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be reckoned for
nothing, and she may be destined to be deposed from her majesty”
(19:26b-27b). Luke depicts the ritual business in Ephesus to as a
profitable industry (9:24), which has fallen under threat from the
Christian movement that (at this time) has no religious buildings or
salable ritual goods, save perhaps loaves of bread and wine. The
situation Luke constructs is unlikely to have occurred during Paul's
own lifetime, but probably reflects a later period like that found in
the Pliny/Trajan correspondence, where Christian presence in towns
was large enough to undermine the market economy.
ANALYSIS
These
writings represent Christianity as a threat to industry, and
ultimately to the livelihood of the workers and the welfare of the
city. The Roman Empire was a collectivist society of limited goods
where production and sale of goods was vital for most people to live
above subsistence level. In this case, the craftsmen keep producing,
but their products become obsolete, or at least no longer in demand.
We lack archaeological evidence before the year 180, since Christians
lacked distinct art and buildings (Stark 8). Instead, Christians
simply opted out of traditional ritual practices and sought cheaper
ways of worship, I.E. in houses with bread and wine. The Christian
movement interiorized
material ritual activity, thereby threatening the wealth of
industrial workers, and in turn threatening a large sector of the
local economy. Here, as in the Pliny/Trajan correspondence, the
production of goods is inextricably bound up placation of the gods.
The ritual economy was one essential factor of the overall economy of
the empire. In a theological system of reciprocal circulation,
transactions with the gods mattered. So there was a religious element
to it; not just money, but the two were tied together. Roman religion
was based on a reciprocal relationship between the gods and the
citizens. Yet in order to maintain that relationship, a great deal of
human production was needed; then the gods would ensure the health of
the empire.
The
time frame in the Pliny/Trajan correspondence fits neatly with
Friesen's suggestion that the Roman economy peaked in the mid second
century (Economy 62). There
was a middle-class, but the greater majority was close to subsistence
level (Economy 63). Friesen states that “actual
mean non-élite income was between one-fifth and one-half higher than
basic subsistence” (Economy 82). This cuts against Kautsky's
blanket statement that “The
craftsmen in the ancient world, and particularly so in the Roman
world, remained poor devils” (Book II. 10).
By contrast, Stark
depicts many early Christians as coming from privileged groups who
were open to joining novel cults (Rise 39). This image runs counter
to Pliny's description of Christians coming from all
classes, which seems of special interest to him. People did not have
comparable levels of education to the modern west, and the middle
class was small, so there are really only a few similarities that
Stark can draw upon. Stark puts people into distinct groups because
he needs to for his demographics. Stark's theory of history is that
it is repeatable and predictable, and that religion spreads through
social networks. These principles are good for asking questions, but
they amount to bad historiography, leaving his analyses more
explanatory than predictive.
QUESTIONS
FOR REFLECTION
Why
does Pliny initially frame the issue from a religio-political rather
than monetary angle when traditionally, the Roman government had an
interventionist approach to economics?
Stark
suggests that converts do not respond as quickly to doctrine as they
do to praxis (Rise 15), making a further link between class and
praxis, but not belief (Rise 35). Since abstention from “idol meat”
is actually an absence of praxis, does that complicate Stark's
theory?
Historical
precedence for the situation in Bithynia is found in both 1 Cor.
8:1-13 and Rev. 2:18-29, which proffer opposing views on eating “idol
meat.” Though it is difficult to ascertain how these texts guided
the Christians of Bithynia, if at all, it seems that the Johannine
hardline view won out over the Pauline compromise view. Why might the
extreme impetus succeed in this case?
In
light of Stark's analysis of the role of social networks in the rise
of religious movements, to what degree can we say religion is
voluntary?
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