Staging the Sacred: Performance in

Late Ancient Liturgical Poetry Laura S.

Lieber
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Staging the Sacred
 Staging the Sacred
Theatricality and Performance in Late
Ancient Liturgical Poetry

L AU R A S . L I E B E R
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lieber, Laura S, author.
Title: Staging the sacred : Theatricality and performance in late ancient
liturgical poetry / Laura S. Lieber.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, [2023] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022060577 (print) | LCCN 2022060578 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190065478 | ISBN 9780190065461 (hardback) |
ISBN 9780190065492 | ISBN 9780190065485 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Religious poetry—History and criticism. |
Catholic Church—Hymns—History and criticism. | Theater—History—To 500.
Classification: LCC PN1077.L L53 2023 (print) | LCC PN1077.L (ebook) |
DDC 809.1/9382—dc23/eng/20230111
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022060577
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022060578

DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780190065461.001.0001

Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

 For Liz
Past Perfect

and for Scott

Past Imperfect & Future Most Vivid
 Contents

Acknowledgments  ix
Abbreviations  xv

Prologue: Choosing a Script and Learning Lines  1

1 Setting the Stage: Community Theater and the
Translation of Tales  23
2 Take Your Places: Authors, Actors, and Audiences  99
3 Imagine, If You Will: Ekphrasis and the Senses in
the Sanctuary  162
Appendix: Ekphrasis in the Progymnasmata  224
4 Method Acting: Ethopoeia and the Creation of Character  230
5 Sounds, Sightlines, and Senses: Bodies and
Nonverbal Literacy  289
6 The Stage is a World, the Body an Instrument: Hymns
in Sacred Space  346
Epilogue: Curtain Call: Afterlives of Liturgical Theater  384

Index  397
 Acknowledgments

This monograph took shape, by fits and starts, over the course of ten years—​a
tumultuous decade by any measure, and one only made not only bearable but
fruitful thanks to the friendship, encouragement, collegiality, and support of
people too numerous to catalog. Nevertheless, I hope the gratitude expressed
here conveys some sense—​however inadequate and incomplete—​of all the
debts I owe.
This project would not exist without the opportunity afforded me by two
dear colleagues: Ophir Münz-​Manor and Ra’anan Boustan. At their invita-
tion, I presented at the Society for Biblical Literature International Meeting
in 2012 on the topic of performance in late antique Jewish literature. What
seemed initially an impossible subject to research—​one that by its very na-
ture defied the kinds of sources upon which I relied—​soon proved itself a
rich vein of inquiry. Following that initial, hesitant exploration—​conceived
of more as a lark than a serious line of study—​I realized that these questions
opened up a new approach to the study of piyyutim, and one which lever-
aged my work in translation quite elegantly (particularly as I realized how
my need to gloss written translations could be understood as analogous to
the decisions made in live performance). My fellow students of hymnog-
raphy, including Georgia Frank, Derek Krueger, Susan Ashbrook Harvey,
Michael Swartz, and Michael Rand (gone too soon) fostered occasions where
I could continue to develop and expand this nascent project. The enthusiasm
and support of these friends has been invaluable, and their insights texture
every page of this volume. Indeed, the scope of this volume—​its ambitions
to address Christian as well as Jewish and Samaritan poetry—​reflects their
influence and my desire to integrate the study of Hebrew and Aramaic hym-
nody into the rich and vibrant scholarly conversations concerning Greek and
Syriac textual traditions into which these colleagues so generously invited
me. Similarly, my colleagues in the field of Targum Studies, especially Willem
Smelik, Eveline van Staalduine-​Sulman, and Margaretha Folmer, along with
the collaborative network of the Medieval Hebrew Poetry Consortium, es-
pecially Elisabeth Hollender and Tova Beeri, and my colleagues at the
University of Regensburg (including Tobias Nicklas, Harald Buchinger,
x Acknowledgments

and Stephanie Hallinger) have all shaped my work by offering me a sense

of having an intellectual home and welcoming me to share my speculative
projects at every stage and in any number of venues.
Indeed, the scope of this volume echoes the hospitality of friends and
colleagues who work in early Christianity, particularly those whom I came
to know through my affiliation with the Elizabeth A. Clark Center for Late
Ancient Studies at Duke. I am indebted to all those who, as faculty, guests,
and students, have made the Center such a remarkable hub of intellectual joy.
The Center is in many ways my academic home, and its denizens my dearest
collaborators: Annabel Wharton, Tolly Boatwright, James Rives, Clare
Woods, Cassandra Casias, Luk Van Rompay, and Jenny Knust have offered
a generous welcome to the study of late antique Judaism and modeled ways
in which comparative work and projects that strive for synthesis can, and
should, be done. I am also grateful to all the graduate students from and with
whom I learned so much, including Julie Lillis, Taylor Ross, Erin Galgay-​
Walsh, Nate Tilley, Jillian Marcantonio, and Nick Wagner; and those alumni
of the Center—​the innumerable “children of Liz”—​among whom I consider
myself lucky beyond words to have nosed my way into “stepchild” status.
In addition to the community of support just outside my door, this project
benefited tremendously from gatherings of scholars in less proximate
places. I am particularly grateful to Rod Werline, who routinely gathered
an international group of scholars working in liturgy on the idyllic campus
of Barton College. I am grateful to Rod for all his hospitality, and to Rick
Sarason, Anathea Portier-​Young, Daniel Falk, Angela Harkins, and Frances
Flannery for all their feedback on this project at various stages and iterations.
I also owe a debt of gratitude to Jörg Rüpke and Claudia Bergmann at the
Max-​Weber-​Kolleg who hosted me for a summer research fellowship at the
Research Centre “Dynamics of Jewish Ritual Practices in Pluralistic Contexts
from Antiquity to the Present” at Universität Erfurt in 2019. Their gift to me
of time, collegiality, and a magical setting proved instrumental in seeing this
project to completion.
I also recognize that I am profoundly lucky to be part of an inspiring in-
tellectual community, one that encourages ambition and innovation. I will
always be grateful to my colleagues here at Duke, including Eric and Carol
Meyers, whose decades of energy and effort made Duke such a remarkable
place in which to pursue my particular field of study; I hope to be half as
productive before retirement as Eric and Carol are today. I am also deeply
thankful for the privilege of working with Ellen Davis, from whom I learn
 Acknowledgments xi

so much even as we teach together, and with Abdullah Antepli, who makes
our campus so much richer through his genial presence and incisive wit. My
colleagues in religious studies, including Marc Brettler, Richard Jaffe, Mark
Goodacre, David Morgan, Larissa Carniero, Mark Chaves, Mona Hassan,
and Anna Sun, have fostered a community of collaboration and collegiality;
I particularly wish to single out Leela Prasad, with whom I discussed “per-
formance” in our very first meeting; please, Leela, always save me a seat in
department meetings.
Duke has fostered a distinctly vibrant research space in the humanities, and
this project has benefited tremendously from friendships in multiple other
departments, including Classical Studies, Romance Languages, German
Studies, Asian and Middle East Studies, and Slavic and East European
Studies. Kata Gellen, Stefani Engelstein, Saskia Ziolkowski, Beth Holmgren,
Shai Ginsburg, Ellen McLarney, William Johnson, Lauren Ginsberg, Erika
Weiberg, Josh Sosin, Alicia Jiménez, Micaela Janan, and Kate Morgan all
make my home institution a place where work can be truly a joy. I am also
grateful to the many administrators at Duke whose support for my research
enabled me to devote significant time and energy to this project, including
Valerie Ashby, Gennifer Weisenfeld, and Sally Kornbluth, as well as Laurie
Patton (who now leads my dear friends at Middlebury College) and Kevin
Moore, whose sage council on navigating daily life at Duke was unerring,
deadpan, and humane.
I could not have written this book—​or taught classes, or raised children,
or found the energy to get out of bed in the morning—​without the encour-
agement and support of too many friends to name. Maria Doerfler has been a
second sister to me, as has Ellen Haskell; my cousin, Andrea Lieber, quite truly
is the big sister I never had but always wanted; and Debbie Green remains my
better half. Clare Rothschild and Meira Kensky kept me laughing, and laugh-​
crying, during some impossible days (and years), while Beth Posner kept me
from sinking into myself. Meghan Pollard’s friendship has been a blessing—​a
mom friendship that flourishes alongside the lifelong bond our little guys
share. And Serena: a debt impossible to articulate, let alone repay; a gift of
friendship and loyalty, laughter and ferocity, for which I am grateful not just
every day, but every hour.
As much as I owe to the communities of friends, colleagues, and
collaborators who sustain me and nurture my work, I am also deeply in-
debted to my many teachers and mentors. I would not be here today without
the example of my beloved Doktorvater, Michael Fishbane, both as a teacher
xii Acknowledgments

and a scholar—​the model against whom I will always measure myself at

every step, secure in knowing that he is not similarly measuring me. Nor
could I have completed this project without the exacting training I received
from Stephen Kaufman, whose student I am always so proud to be; it would
be poorer had I not had a brief conversation with Steven Fine on Samaritan
piyyutim that turned into a subsequent book on the topic, and a component
of this project. When I read poetry, I also always wish myself in the com-
pany of Susan Einbinder, who never lost sight of the real human beings im-
plicit in textual traditions, and who taught me to appreciate the poetry of “my
people”—​Ashkenazi Jews—​even when its aesthetics were not my own.
In the course of working on this project, I rediscovered my love of Roman
theater and ancient popular culture, a topic in which I first seriously dabbled
as an undergraduate student of David Fredrick at the University of Arkansas,
with whom I read Plautus and Terence (and Anne Carson), and learned of
the cultural context of ancient novels and their readers. Indeed, I can trace
this project back even further, to my formative first year seminar on Roman
comedy at Grinnell College with Dennis Hughes, who tasked our class
with defending or refuting the hypothesis that the film Risky Business was a
retelling of Plautus’ Mostellaria. I cannot remember what I argued then, but
I know what I would argue now.
This project has also benefited from what I learned from teachers, formal
and informal, who welcomed me in more recent years: I am deeply honored
by the collegial friendships of Paul Flesher, Wout van Bekkum, Joseph
Yahalom, and Ruth Langer, who invited me as a very shy junior scholar
into their circle and have allowed me to stay, now as a still shy, but some-
what older, scholar. And perhaps most profoundly, this project owes a debt to
Peter Cole, who helped me recognize that translation—​a pragmatic necessity
I approached with great reticence—​was itself a mode of performance, an in-
sight that stands at the core of this project, in my mind. I regret that I cannot
share this volume with teachers who left this world before it could see the
light of day: Menachem Brinker, Tikva Frymer-​Kensky, and Joel Kraemer.
Their fingerprints are upon every page, because they formed me into the
scholar I am, and in their teaching offered me master classes in a form of
performance essential to this volume. I also wish I could share this book with
Kalman Bland, whose advice to let my next project find me, and to ignore
the gremlins of imposterism, gave me the courage to wait until I knew this
project was all I hoped it could be. Each one of these teachers opened doors
 Acknowledgments xiii

and taught me to ask hard questions of myself and my material. The quality
of the answers I attempt is, of course, not their responsibility, but mine alone.
Of course, my first teachers were my parents, Mike and Eileen Lieber, and
I remain eternally grateful for the gift of being born into a family where eye-​
watering laughter was valued alongside grades, high culture alongside the
deliciously middlebrow, and books being the one thing we could always talk
an adult into buying. The cluttered, intellectual, chaotic noise of Lieber-​dom
did not become complete until the arrival of my sister Debbie (whose online
chat is my writing-​day companion), and it has felt incomplete since the loss
of our brother, Ken (whom I miss every day). Now with a family of my own,
I can say that children have encouraged me to think about play, playfulness,
and performance in whole new ways, and every page of this book was written
or revised amid the joyful chaos of raising Julian and Daniel, each a dramatic
actor in his own way. Yet if I have succeeded as a scholar or a mother, it was
due in large part to the daily support and guidance of Judy Mehl—​the nanny
who became Nana to my boys, and who was unflappable while I (how else
to say?) flapped—​and Joyous Wells, whose flexibility and generosity enabled
us to weather over a year of remote schooling. It is also a gift to parent “my”
boys with their father, Norman Weiner, and his parents, siblings, aunts,
uncles, and cousins. Families are who we make them, and I am grateful for
all of mine.
Finally, while this book (and its author) owes debts beyond reckoning to
those listed here and those whose absence I will only realize too late, I ded-
icate this work to two figures to whom I owe particular thanks. The first is
Elizabeth Clark: this project, in its scale and ambition (if not its execution),
reflects a vision for the study of late antiquity and for being a scholar that
I gained from the gift of being in Liz’s company from my arrival at Duke in
2008 until her death in 2021. I wish she had lived to see the publication of
this book, so much a testimony to the intellectual and collegial atmosphere
she fostered at Duke and in her home. Her memory is an enduring blessing,
and a North Star guiding me. As much as Liz inspires me from the past, I am
grateful to my partner, Scott Strain, for all that we were (and weren’t) in our
youth, all we are in the present, and all that the future holds.
 Abbreviations

CAL Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon (online resource): cal.huc.edu

CIG Corpus inscriptionum graecarum. 4 vols. Berlin 1828–​1877
DJBA Michael Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of
the Talmudic and Geonic Periods (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University
Press, 2002)
DJPA Michael Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of
the Byzantine Period, 2nd ed. (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University
Press, 2002)
DSA Avraham Tal, A Dictionary of Samaritan Aramaic, 2 vol.
(Leiden: Brill, 2000)
H-​R The Mekhilta, ed. Shaul Horovitz and Israel Avraham Rabin
(Jerusalem: Bamberger and Ṿahrman, 1960)
JPA Jewish Palestinian Aramaic (dialect of Aramaic language)
JPA Poem # Text from: Shirat Bene Ma’arava (Jewish Palestinian Aramaic Poetry
from Late Antiquity), ed. Joseph Yahalom and Michael Sokoloff
(Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1999
LCL Loeb Classical Library
LOT Ze’ev Ben-​Hayyim, The Literary and Oral Tradition of Hebrew and
Aramaic amongst the Samaritans, 3 vol. (Jerusalem: The Academy of
the Hebrew Language, 1957–​1977)
LSJ Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, Henry Stuart Jones,
and Roderick McKenzie, A Greek-​English Lexicon, 9th ed.
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1996)
Ma’agarim Historical Dictionary of the Hebrew Language (online
resource): https://​maaga​rim.heb​rew-​acad​emy.org.il/​Pages/​
PMain.aspx
O P. Maas and C. A. Trypanis, Sancii Romani Melodi Cantica: Cantica
Genuina (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963)
PG Patrologia Graeca
PL Patrologia Latina
T-​A Midrash Bereshit Rabbah, ed. Julius Theodor and Chanoch Albeck,
3 vols. (Jerusalem: Wahrmann Books, 1965)
 Prologue
Choosing a Script and Learning Lines

But in an orator we must demand the subtlety of the logician,

the mind of the philosopher, a diction almost poetic, a lawyer’s memory,
the voice of a tragedian, and bearing like that of the consummate actor.
Accordingly, no rarer thing than a finished orator
can be discovered among the sons of men . . .
—​Cicero, De Oratore 1.128

In the summer of 2015, archaeologist Jodi Magness and her team uncovered
a number of remarkable mosaics adorning the floor of the fifth-​century ce
synagogue at Huqoq, in the lower Galilee. Among the many images clustered
in one panel were figures identified as winged putti (cupids) and what appear
to be theatrical masks, both elements of iconography associated with the cult
of Bacchus, patron of wine and theater.1 Putti and masks were common dec-
orative motifs in the ancient world, and yet previously unattested—​and to
a modern mind, wholly unexpected and even jarringly incongruous—​in a
synagogue.2 What could theatrical imagery, especially elements associated

1 This portion of the dig has not yet been formally published but is discussed in an official press

release of the University of North Carolina: https://​coll​ege.unc.edu/​2015/​07/​2015-​mosa​ics-​find/​

(accessed June 10, 2022). This article describes a scene that has strong links to theater and perfor-
mance: “New digging reveals that the inscription is in the center of a large square panel with human
figures, animals and mythological creatures arranged symmetrically around it, Magness said. These
include winged putti (cupids) holding roundels (circular discs) with theater masks, muscular male
figures wearing trousers who support a garland, a rooster, and male and female faces in a wreath
encircling the inscription. Putti and masks are associated with Dionysos (Bacchus), who was the
Greco-​Roman god of wine and theater performances, she said.”
2 It bears remembering that the identification of images is hardly a simple matter, let alone

understanding the significance such visuals may or may not have had for the community. See
Steven Fine’s analysis of the interpretation of symbols in Art and Judaism in the Greco-​Roman
World: Toward a New Jewish Archaeology, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010),
esp. pp. 198–​207.

Staging the Sacred. Laura S. Lieber, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780190065461.003.0001
2 Prologue

with “pagan” religious practices, have to do with the sacred rites and rituals
of the most quintessentially Jewish of buildings? Or does our surprise at
these figures in such a context reveal more about our own preconceptions
and prejudices about categories of “sacred” and “profane”—​biases rooted in a
deep cultural suspicion of theater as deceptive and its denizens as licentious?
Could it be that putti and theater masks would seem conventional, unre-
markable if aesthetically pleasing decorations to the Jews whose bodies and
voices filled this space in antiquity? Perhaps theater and related spectacles
were so ubiquitous that imagery from that milieu had become commonplace,
simply part of a larger culture that could be incorporated into synagogue
decorations, an indication—​whether intentional or unconscious—​that the
Jews were thoroughly at home in and at ease with late antique culture, in-
cluding its culture of performance.
The Huqoq mosaics offer a visual suggestion of how theater may have
permeated sacred spaces; likewise, literary works also bear witness to this
synthesis. A liturgical poem by the great hymnographer of Constantinople,
Romanos the Melodist, brings the world of the theater into the Christian
sanctuary, through words rather than images:

It is good to sing psalms and hymns to God,

and to wound the demons with reproaches;
they are our enemies forever.
What do we mean by this “wounding”?
Whenever we make a comedy of [χωμῳδοῦμεν, “we ridicule”]
their fall, rejoicing.
Truly the devil bewails whenever in our assemblies we represent in tragedy
[τραγῳδῶμεν]
the “triumph” of the demons.3

The poet here explicitly evokes the paired icons that even today constitute
a visual shorthand for theater and entertainment—​the twinned masks of
comedy and tragedy, the two major modes of performance—​and he does so

3 Text from P. Maas and C. A. Trypanis, eds., Sancti Romani Melodi Cantica: Cantica Genuina

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), 81 (henceforth “O”); this text is O #11, strophe 2. On the lan-
guage of comedy and tragedy, see Grosdidier de Matons, Romanos Le Melode: Hymnes, 5 vols
(Paris: Cerf, 1967–​1981), 3:57, and the discussion in Derek Krueger, Writing and Holiness: The
Practice of Authorship in the Early Christian East (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
2011), 167–​168.
 Prologue 3

in an explicitly, emphatically religious context. Of the theater-​based imagery

in this poem, Derek Krueger observes:

While the invocation of comedy and tragedy in this stanza are not evidence
of presentation in the form of a play, the language of the theater reveals
an explicit understanding of liturgy as performance, as reenactment with
the power to reproduce the results of the original. By singing the fall of the
devil, the devil falls once again; the service itself parries the enemy.4

Romanos assumes, without preamble or expression of self-​consciousness,

that his listeners are well acquainted with the world of theater: its plots,
conventions, and dynamics; and, furthermore, its power. Song, theater, acting,
performative re-​enactment: the lines distinguishing liturgical performance
from the world of popular (“secular”) entertainment seem blurry indeed.
Images such as the actors’ masks uncovered at Huqoq visually demonstrate
the interpenetration of theatricality and monotheistic religious ritual in late
antiquity, even as liturgical texts articulate the connection or take it for granted.
Indeed, while these two examples are unusually explicit in merging sanctuary
and stage, affinities between various forms of public entertainments and wor-
ship can be easily teased out, in large part because performance as a mode
of engaging in the public realm was, itself, omnipresent. Theater and public
oratory (particularly declamation), in all the diversity of their styles and per-
formative settings, constituted and shaped baseline elements of the common
culture of the ancient world: tragic plots drew on the canon of great litera-
ture, while orators alluded to famous and infamous figures and scenes; ac-
tors and orators attracted celebrity and scandal, both fame and infamy; actors’
techniques informed the most skilled of public orators, the politicians. And
religious performers—​including homilists and hymnographers—​absorbed
both a sense of effective techniques and performative convention. Preachers
and liturgical poets in antiquity were well aware of the commonalities con-
necting their work to other forms of performance, even if they were not uni-
formly at ease with the comparisons. As Basil of Seleucia, writing in the fifth
century, observed in the opening of his homily on Lazarus:

Were someone to say that the Church is a theater (θέατρον) common

to both angels and men, he would not be mistaken. It is a theater in

4 Krueger, Writing and Holiness, 168.

4 Prologue

which Christ is praised both by invisible and visible nature, a theater in

which the Lord’s miracles are woven together for our ears as delightful
hymns . . . 5

In a world saturated with performance, the church—​or, by extension, the

synagogue—​triumphs over theater by excelling at theatrical arts, hymns
among them.
All performances were not equivalent, however, either in the details of de-
livery or (perhaps even more significantly) in their social location and cul-
tural esteem; in particular, the popularity of theater did not signify universal
respectability. Orators, reflecting the biases of cultural elites, expressed am-
bivalence when reminded of how much their profession resembled that of ac-
tors and how greatly their craft benefited from a study of the stage. Religious
authorities, for their part, railed against attendance at popular, public enter-
tainment, seeing its performances as seductive, impious falsehood—​literal
hypocrisy, as the Greek term for actor was hypokrite. Orators and preachers
wished to borrow the effectiveness and popular appeal of theater but to evade
its associated whiff of disrepute. And yet, the sheer popularity of theater
manifests not only in literature but also in infrastructure. The appearance
of theatrical images within a synagogue and mention of them in a Christian
hymn simply underscore the pervasive presence of spectacle in late antiquity
and manifest in visual form the very real synergy among different forms of
performance. In the ancient world, as today, audience appeal was essential;
like actors in the theater and orators at the rostrum, homilists at the pulpit
could only succeed if people came to hear them. And if actors and orators
knew how to attract an audience, hold their attention, and energize their
participation, even as that made them rivals to religious forms of spectacle,
it meant that they had tools worth using. Theater and other forms of per-
formance in late antiquity were ubiquitous, both too commonplace and too
popular, for anyone—​least of all anyone in the business of persuasion—​to ig-
nore. Liturgists and their communities may well have taken the performative
elements of prayer and ritual in their houses of worship for granted, both be-
cause they reflected a way of connecting speakers and audiences that would
have seemed natural and because the absence of such things would have been
conspicuous (and possibly off-​putting). But those same elements of live,

5 Basil of Seleucia, “Homily on Lazarus, 1,” in Mary B. Cunningham, “Basil of Seleucia's Homily on

Lazarus: A New Edition BHG 2225,” Analecta Bollandiana 104 (1986), 178. I am indebted to Georgia
Frank for this reference. See discussion in Chapter 1, (p. 43).
 Prologue 5

in-​the-​moment drama, re-​enactment, and ritual can be among the hardest

for us to recover from the written traces that have survived the centuries and
come to us. This study attempts to recover and reconstruct the atmosphere
that the people of late antiquity did not even necessarily notice, the air they
rarely realized they breathed.
For the purposes of the present study, I define “late antiquity” in the
Levant and Eastern Mediterranean world as the late third through early
seventh centuries ce: a period loosely bounded by Constantine on one
side and the Caliph on the other. Christian emperors in Constantinople
held political authority, but in the far southern and eastern provinces, late
Roman Hellenistic culture continued to provide a common cultural base-
line. Indeed, while phrases such as “the Christianization of the Empire” and
“the period of Muslim rule” suggests epoch-​shifting breaks and clear chron-
ological delineations—​moments with clean and legible “before” and “after”
significance—​from the perspective of daily life lived and popular culture
produced and consumed, the experience would have been largely one of
continuity.6 As such, the approach to the history of this period must be one
that accounts for continuity across religious identities and commonality over
time as well as space.
Theatrical performances and declamation were crucial components of this
late antique culture. Social elites were trained to deliver speeches in com-
petitive settings, and theatrical performances were ubiquitous. Both orators
and actors relied on the classical canon as sources of plots and characters,
whether in detail or as cultural shorthand, but by late antiquity, the
performances were not those of “classical” Greco-​Roman theater; the most
popular theatrical performances were mime and pantomime. In pantomime,
especially, the classical corpus was streamlined, distilled, perhaps distorted
excerpts from the classical canon, while the set pieces associated with mime
constituted a comedic canon of their own. Such performances were, in the
eyes of many of the literati, vulgar and base, or at the very least faint shadows
and pale imitations of the originals. The plays these performances offered
consisted of excerpts from canonical works—​racy, bloody, dramatic, or
funny highlights—​performed by actors (masked or unmasked) and dancers,

6 Among the works addressing the subtleties of such “epochal shifts,” see Michael Penn, Envisioning

Islam: Syriac Christians and the Early Muslim World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2015), a work itself shaped by important re-​examinations of the narrative of “the parting of
the ways” between Judaism and Christianity (e.g., Adam H. Becker and Annette Y. Reed, eds., The
Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages [Tübingen,
Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2003]).
6 Prologue

often with scandalous props and striking physical mannerisms. So distinctive

were the conventions of these performances that mythic scenes in mosaics
can often, upon closer examination, reveal themselves to be images of the
stage. Orators and homilists, for their part, understood and acknowledged
that their audiences knew this informal “canon” as mediated by public per-
formance. Theaters shaped and taught traditions even as those who spoke to
the people about sacred traditions drew upon ideas and techniques learned
in the performative world.
Of course, much of what we know about theater in late antiquity comes
from sources critical of it: professional orators (politicians and lawyers)
and religious authorities. Each party had its own reasons for denigrating
theater. Orators resisted the comparison of their profession to theater, for
what might be described as issues of class distinction: the former possessed
family connections, formal education, aspirations to power, and pretenses
of refinement, all of which the latter was presumed to lack. Actors, speaking
broadly, were dismissed as mastering artificial “techniques” in service of fri-
volity while orators possessed “skill” and “talent,” employed for public good.
And yet, as we will see, famous actors and dancers were lauded for their
gifts, and elite public speakers certainly were keenly aware of how effective
theatrical techniques could enhance their own performance. Not only did
public speakers acknowledge their own appreciation for actors’ methods for
getting and holding attention but they also advised their students to study
the same.
Religious authorities regarded public entertainments (including theater
and games) and their denizens as leading virtuous communities astray, as
luring them away from sacred service to debased entertainment and even
idolatry; at the very least, such spectacles encouraged the pious to associate
with the impious and seduced them to their frivolous and insidious ways. By
late antiquity, opposition to theater, and public entertainments more broadly,
gave prominent authorities in Jewish, Christian, and civic circles a common
antagonist. Entertainers responded in kind, adding elements to their works
that mocked their opponents, thus confirming for the orators, preachers, and
politicians the correctness of their opposition. When political and ecclesial
authority converged, with the promulgation of the Council of Trullo in 691–​
692, conventional theater was (at least in theory) banned.
We may think of theater as a literary form—​we read the plays of Sophocles
and the comedies of Plautus, and we study the writings of Aristotle and Cicero
about theater—​but monumental structures bear witness perhaps even more
 Prologue 7

eloquently, and more evocatively, than texts. In Roman towns, throughout

the Empire, theaters, often still visible today, were ubiquitous, emblems and
necessary elements of culture. These structures—​surprisingly capacious
venues suggestive of significant attendance—​can be found in cities large and
small, no matter what the majority population of the area was. The seating
capacity of these venues bear mute but eloquent witness to the popularity of
these entertainments: they could accommodate significant percentages of an
entire population. Furthermore, beyond the tangible infrastructure of per-
formance, we know that both theater and religious ritual often spilled out
into the streets, in the form of spontaneous or orchestrated processions.7 The
ubiquity of theater means that it shaped—​consciously or unconsciously—​
not only the writings that would become the popular bedrock of the litur-
gical worlds of Judaism, Samaritanism, and Christianity but also the spaces
in which they were performed: theaters, or technologies developed to im-
prove purpose-​built performance sites, influenced the architecture of some
religious spaces.8 If theater was liturgy’s rival, then one way for prayer to suc-
ceed was to borrow a page from the orators and co-​opt theater’s most suc-
cessful strategies and tools.

7 Both Tertullian (De Spec. 7; LCL 250, pp. 248–​250) and The Life of Pelagia describe the processions

associated with spectacles. Tertullian writes, “The pomp (procession) comes first and shows in it-
self to whom it belongs, with the long line of images, the succession of statues, the cars, chariots,
carriages, the thrones, garlands, robes. What sacred rites, what sacrifices, come at the beginning,
in the middle, at the end; what guilds, what priesthoods, what offices are astir—​everybody knows
in that city (i.e., Rome) where the demons sit in conclave (see Rev. 18:2).” The Life of Pelagia offers
an even more detailed description: “Now while we were marveling at his holy teaching, lo, suddenly
there came among us the chief actress of Antioch, the first in the chorus in the theatre, sitting on
a donkey. She was dressed in the height of fantasy, wearing nothing but gold, pearls and precious
stones, even her bare feet were covered with gold and pearls. With her went a great throng of boys
and girls all dressed in cloth of gold with collars of gold on their necks, going before and following
her. So great was her beauty that all the ages of mankind could never come to the end of it. So they
passed through our company, filling all the air with traces of music and the most sweet smell of per-
fume. When the bishops saw her bare-​headed and with all her limbs shamelessly exposed with such
lavish display, there was not one who did not hide his face in his veil or his scapular, averting their
eyes as if from a very great sin” (PL 73, 664b–​665a; translation from Benedicta Ward, “Pelagia, Beauty
Riding By,” in Harlots of the Desert, a Study of Repentance in Early Monastic Sources [Kalamazoo,
MI: Cistercian Publications, Inc., 1986], 67).
8 Epiphanius, the Bishop of Salamis, wrote in the fourth century, “There is also a place of prayer

at Shechem, the town now called Neapolis, about two miles out of town on the plain. It has been
set up theater-​fashion, outdoors in the open air, by the Samaritans who mimic all the customs of
the Jews” (Panarion 80.1.5; Reinhard Pummer, trans., Early Christian Authors on Samaritans and
Samaritanism [Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2002], 132–​133). The steps outside the syna-
gogue at Chorazin (built in the third century ce, destroyed in the fourth, and rebuilt in the sixth) are
themselves suggestive of theater and may indicate an exterior communal space; see Z. Yeivin, The
Synagogue at Korazim; The 1962–​1964, 1980–​1987 Excavations, Israel Antiquities Authority Reports
(Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2000), and discussion in Steven Fine, Art and Judaism in the
Greco-​Roman World: Toward a New Jewish Archaeology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2005), 92. This structure is discussed in Chapter 5.
8 Prologue

If the comparison of hymnody to theater and other forms of entertain-

ment seems jarring—​even today, comparing a religious ritual to a theater
performance can be taken as offensive, indicating superficiality or a lack of
commitment9—​it may be in part because of the success of the anti-​theater
polemic by religious authorities in late antiquity. To be sure, theater, ora-
tory, and liturgical poetry served different purposes and appealed to dis-
tinctive constituencies by means of particular conventions. Differences in
function and setting granted, approaching hymnody—​here understood
as the communal performance of song in religious settings and as part of
statutory liturgies and rituals—​through the lens of engaging performance
helps modern readers recover and appreciate subtle elements of these
works that no doubt contributed to the development and popularity of
these publicly performed and communally engaging works.10 By viewing
hymns, from their composition to their delivery, through the lens of “re-
ligious theater,” I intend to evoke neither the ancient Greek origins of the-
ater in the Dionysian cult nor the medieval productions of religiously
themed mystery plays; rather, I wish to focus on the looser but still useful
idea of “theatricality” as a way of understanding the performer–​audience
dynamic that is so essential to liturgical ritual broadly conceived. Indeed,
the need to capture and hold an audience’s attention, to engage and enter-
tain, creates a common ground among all the diverse modes of performance
considered here: theater, oratory, and hymns. The concept of “theatricality”
also provides a deep contextual basis for discussing religious works that
differ significantly in terms of structure, theological orientation, and even
language. The content of the vessels may differ substantially, but the vessels
themselves—​constructed from societal norms of what constitutes appealing

9 See the discussion, with significant resonances for late antiquity, in Jeanne Halgren Kilde, When

Church Became Theatre: The Transformation of Evangelical Architecture and Worship in Nineteenth-​
Century America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
10 The term “hymn” is used in this volume in a fairly expansive sense, in order to accommo-

date the range of poetic genres in multiple languages; other authors use the term in a more limited
sense, and the challenges of nomenclature reflect larger trends in studies of the history of liturgy
and an increasing appreciation among Christian and Jewish historians for the fluidity of religious
ritual, scripting, setting, and so forth. For an overview of the challenges of nomenclature and life
setting, written with regard to a single poet but easily applicable beyond, see Gerard Rouwhorst,
“The Original Setting of the Madrashe of Ephrem of Nisibis,” in Let Us Be Attentive! Proceedings of the
Seventh International Congress of the Society of Oriental Liturgy (Prešov, Slovakia), 9–​14 July 2018, ed.
Harald Buchinger, Tinatin Chronz, Mary Farag, and Thomas Pott (Münster, Germany: Aschendorff,
2020), 207–​223. Robert Taft notes the popularity of psalmody and singing, observing that “the laity
were more enthusiastic for the psalmody than the clergy” (Through Their Own Eyes: Liturgy as the
Byzantines Saw It [Berkeley, CA: InterOrthodox Press, 2006], 57).
 Prologue 9

entertainment and efficacious ritual—​come from the same workshop and

can bear the weight of significant comparison.11
For the purposes of this study, religious performance—​specifically
hymnody, although homilies, too—​constitutes a third mode of “theat-
rical” public entertainment, alongside oratory and theater. Composers
of homilies and hymns employed techniques held in common with
“civic” orators, and public actors may reflect highly intentional and
conscious compositional and performative decisions by the poets as
skilled, professional artisans in their own right. It is possible that some
of the poets examined in this study possessed formal education in the
techniques of performance and oratory—​schooling in the wisdom of the
progymnasmata, handbooks of oratorical training composed in antiquity
and used long after. But key to my inquiry is the idea that the ubiquity of
performance and its conventions rendered it legible to all, whether for-
mally educated or not.
Indeed, we must recognize that we have no explicit evidence of
hymnographers possessing “professional training”—​that is, education spe-
cifically in the composition and performance of hymns—​and it is possible
that liturgical poets benefited from the hymnographic equivalent of “a good
ear”—​that is, their compositions may reflect less formal and more intuitive
understandings of modes of communication—​one acquired through careful
attention to the exemplars in daily life and an instinct for what was effective
rather than a specific curriculum and exercises practiced in the classroom.
Then as now, ideas about effective ways of speaking can be gleaned informally,
through attentiveness to the kinds of communication in one’s midst and an in-
stinctive understanding of what techniques work. The progymnasmata them-
selves can be understood to emerge from a dynamic between practitioners
and theorists: the handbooks distill insightful observations about effective
rhetorical techniques into discrete, practicable exercises that serve to train
public speakers to impress their audiences. Audiences, in turn, learn from
witnessing these examples (and perhaps practicing themselves, if they re-
ceived some education) how they are best entertained and engaged; simi-
larly, orators studied actors and actors critiqued orators, all as professionals
consciously refining their craft and as practitioners moving between the

11 Wout J. van Bekkum addresses the early stages of Jewish poetic idiom and its social context,

with astute awareness of early Christian parallels, in his short, elegant article, “Qumran Poetry and
Piyyut: Some Observations on Hebrew Poetic Traditions in Biblical and Post-​Biblical Times,” Zutot 2
(2002): 26–​33.
10 Prologue

roles of performer and audience.12 Through these organic “feedback loops”

of practice and experience, aesthetics were continually refined, and a kind
of performative literacy, by which tones, postures, and gestures were under-
stood, was acquired. While less systematic and perhaps more haphazard,
self-​or lesser-​trained writers and speakers could achieve the same insights
and refinements and bring them to bear when they were, themselves, in the
audience. In short, we need not argue that every writer in late antiquity, every
composer of hymns and poems, experienced formal rhetorical schooling in
order to have a broad sense and sound intuition for how to make use of the
techniques codified in the handbooks and conveyed through formal educa-
tion. Informal education was everywhere.
A word on nomenclature is important here: the present study uses the
term “theatrical” to refer to an author’s evident awareness of audience en-
gagement in a public venue. In many cases, the analysis teases apart three
distinct threads integral to performance, examining them individually even
as they entwine with each other: the author, who created the work (who may,
in practical terms, be more than a single individual, particularly if scribes
updated written texts to reflect later conventions); the performer, who
translated the text into a living experience for listeners; and the audience,
who not only witnessed the delivery but explicitly or implicitly offers feed-
back on its success or failure.13 This definition brings the rhetorical worlds
of oratory and declamation into the discussion along with theater proper,
and it encompasses both performative and receptive elements of a work—​
that is, the perspective of both actors and audiences, the persuasiveness of

12 Scholars in the field of Greek tragedy have broken important ground recently in the area of

“choral mediation” in Greek tragedy. See, for example, the essays assembled in Marianne Govers
Hopman and Renaud Gagné, eds., Choral Mediations in Greek Tragedy (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2013); and in Joshua Billings, Felix Budelmann, and Fiona Macintosh, eds.,
Choruses, Ancient and Modern (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). See, too,
Felix Budelmann, The Language of Sophocles: Communality, Communication and Involvement
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), esp. Chapter 5, “The Chorus: Shared Survival”
(195–​272); Simon Goldhill, Sophocles and the Language of Tragedy (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2012), esp. Chapter 7, “Generalizing about the Chorus (166–​200); and Claude Calame, La tragédie
chorale: poésie grecque et rituel musical (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2017).
13 Every author has an audience in mind before he or she begins to write, and every work, when

it is received, can be understood to undergo a kind of performance. What distinguishes “theatri-

cality” from these related ideas is, in particular, the staged nature of the assumed performance—​
the significance of the gaze. On the importance of “the gaze” in religion, David Morgan, The
Sacred Gaze: Religious Visual Culture in Theory and Practice (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2005), esp. pp. 25–​115, is an essential starting point. Also note Shadi Bartsch, Actors in the
Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1994). This definition of “theatrical” distinguishes the theatricality of liturgical and para-​
liturgical works, which were in some sense “staged” from other forms of writing in antiquity.
 Prologue 11

role playing and a common repertoire of characters, the language of the body
and importance of acoustics, and the reciprocity of voice and gaze.14 Viewed
through this lens, the concept of theatricality offers a way of approaching re-
ligious performance with an eye toward successfully engaging the listeners.
Performance constituted a common, “nonpartisan” element of late ancient
culture—​neither high nor low, neither pagan nor Christian nor Jewish.
A consideration of late ancient theatricality in general terms sheds light on
the performative elements of specifically religious poetry and situates them
not only within a specific religious context but more broadly as well. This
study examines religious integration and internalization of widespread late
ancient cultural practices and aesthetics.
The liturgical context of the hymns makes them especially compelling
to examine from the perspective of theatricality. Theatricality, as used here,
refers to the dynamic of self-​consciousness between a performer and his audi-
ence, particularly an author or performer’s awareness of his audience’s gaze.15
In the context of ancient exegesis, it is useful to think of a continuum of
performativity and theatricality: while liturgical poetry may be especially
theatrical, homilies and sermons also display a concern for audience, as do
prose prayers and antiphonal litanies. Every text does.16 Even a text read si-
lently is, implicitly, performed, as readers encountering a written work in
solitude imaginatively and unconsciously make decisions about how they
see and hear voices and actions, becoming audiences to their own intuitive
productions.17
14 Among recent works on the subject of theatricality, see esp. the volume Tracy C. Davis and

Thomas Postlewait, eds., Theatricality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Davis and
Postlewait resist offering any fixed definition of the term—​“the domain of theatricality cannot be
located within any single definition, period or practice” (3)—​but in the introductory chapter (pp. 1–​
39) provide a fine, concise history of various meanings of the term.
15 For an initial consideration of the performative elements of early piyyut, see Laura S. Lieber, “The

Rhetoric of Participation: The Experiential Elements of Early Hebrew Liturgical Poetry,” Journal of
Religion 90.2 (2010): 119–​147. More recently, see Laura S. Lieber, “The Play’s the Thing: The Theatricality
of Jewish Aramaic Poetry from Late Antiquity,” Jewish Quarterly Review 104 (2014): 537–​572.
16 The idea that every text should be read as having an audience applies even if the only audience is

an imagined one—​an ideal reader or listener in the mind of the author. Foundational in this regard is
Wolfgang Iser, The Implied Reader (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974). Also see
Robert deMaria Jr.’s essay, “The Ideal Reader: A Critical Fiction,” PMLA 93.3 (1978): 463–​474, which
offers a useful history and overview of the concept and a presentation of how it manifests in the works
of theorists including Frye, Culler, Fish, and others.
17 Modern readers have likely experienced the phenomenon of seeing a written work adapted

for the screen, and the common response of judging that the adaptation looks or sounds “wrong,”
even in cases where the original work does not indicate appearance or tone with any precision. The
filmmaker or television director’s imagination—​visual, acoustic, and emotional—​has brought the
text to life in a way that does not align with another individual’s unspoken, interior “staging.” See
Timothy L. Hubbard, “Some Anticipatory, Kinesthetic, and Dynamic Aspects of Auditory Imagery,”
in The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Imagination (2 vols.), ed. Mark Grimshaw-​Aagaard, Mads
12 Prologue

Throughout this volume, one particular facet of a common late antique

culture is fundamental: the pervasiveness of performance. The present
study builds upon and expands the recognition that Jews, Christians, and
Samaritans in late antiquity lived alongside and among each other, with
common public spaces and diverse sites of interchange—​a shared civic in-
frastructure.18 Within these shared spaces emerged common aesthetics
and practices, including those of performance. Indeed, so ubiquitous was
performance—​all the world truly was a stage—​that it can be considered a
defining aspect of late antique culture. Reading liturgical works through the
lens of performativity integrates religious experiences into the wider society
and its norms while providing additional data for cultural historians, by
demonstrating that yet another matrix of spaces provided venues for ener-
getic and creative theatricality.
A cultural foundation of performance awareness constitutes a deep sub-
strate of communal assumption and commonality that unifies not only the
literary traditions of late antiquity but also the routine, lived experience of
being Jewish, Samaritan, or Christian in this pivotal time period when all
three traditions were developing striking and enduring new forms of creative
self-​expression. It is at this moment—​specifically, the period beginning in
the fourth century ce—​that we witness the sudden flowering of rich literary
traditions across all three communities: the Hebrew poetry of Yose ben Yose,
the Samaritan Aramaic poetry of Marqa, and the Syriac Aramaic poetry of
Ephrem. And it is, likewise, in late antiquity—​in the sixth century ce—​that
major poets including Romanos, Yannai, Eleazar ha-​Qallir, Narsai,19 and
Jacob of Sarug flourished. By and large, poets have been studied within the
confines of their religious affiliations: Romanos has been studied through the
lens of Ephrem and the Church Fathers, and Yannai in light of Yose ben Yose

Walther-​Hansen, and Martin Knakkergaard (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2019),
149–​173. In the same volume, also note the essay by Marco Pellitteri, “The Aural Dimension in
Comic Art,” 511–​548.
18 Raimo Hakola provides an excellent survey of recent treatments of this topic, from both literary

and material perspectives, in “Galilean Jews and Christians in Context: Spaces Shared and Contested
in the Eastern Galilee in Late Antiquity,” in Spaces in Late Antiquity: Cultural, Theological and
Archaeological Perspectives, ed. Juliette Day, Maijastina Kahlos, Raimo Hakola, and Ulla Tervahauta
(London: Taylor and Francis, 2016), 141–​165.
19 Narsai, a figure increasingly understood as important but whose works (primarily metrical

homilies [memre]) remain understudied, compared with Ephrem and Jacob of Sarug. See, however,
the recent volume Aaron M. Butts, Kristian S. Heal, and Robert A. Kitchen, eds., Narsai: Rethinking
His Work and His World (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2020). For those who wish to explore
his works in translation, see R. H. Connolly, The Liturgical Homilies of Narsai (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1909).
 Prologue 13

and rabbinic writings. Rarely have these poets been studied as culturally spe-
cific instantiations of a widespread hymnographic phenomenon that crosses
confessional and linguistic boundaries.20 And yet, the endeavor to link the
poets and their writing to each other in a deeply comparative way—​to dis-
cern points of contact, connection, influence, or inspiration—​must be done
cautiously, and with awareness of the cultural dynamism that works such as
these texts manifest. Any attempt to pull out distinct threads of influence that
yoke one poet or type of poetry to another suggests that one could unravel
the poems back to a point, or points, of origin. To presume “an origin” would,
however, obscure or even suppress the breathtaking complexity of each body
of writing as approached within its own tradition, on the one hand, and
deny the importance of the shared cultural background common to all these
bodies of writing, on the other. Rather than looking to establish a common
vorlage or prototype of hymn—​thereby implicitly crediting a single poet, tra-
dition, location, or community with ownership of the entire enterprise—​this
project seeks to understand the common soil from which these distinctive
blooms emerged, into a riotous garden filled with wildflowers of song.
Poets writing within Jewish, Christian, and Samaritan traditions produced
remarkable bodies of poetry in a range of languages, including Hebrew,
Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, Samaritan Aramaic, Syriac, and Greek. The
forms of composition ranged from the simple alphabetical acrostic to ex-
tended verse homilies to symphonic, multi-​movement cycles. They wrote
for major holidays and weekly Sabbaths, on the lectionary and on thematic
topics. We know less than we would like of how these works were performed
in the churches of late antiquity, and even less of Jewish and Samaritan
synagogues, but we have no doubt that they were tremendously popular
across the board. This project seeks to explore from a broad cultural perspec-
tive what techniques the poets used, or could have used, to help popularize
and publicize their compositions.
The expansive scope of this volume speaks to the ubiquity of per-
formance in late antiquity. In this volume, I draw liturgical poetry by

20 Previous generations of scholars often sought to discern directions of influence, either arguing

that Jews adopted the aesthetic conventions of the majority Christian population, or that Christians
borrowed from Jewish models. See the discussion in Hayyim (Jefim) Schirmann, “Hebrew Liturgical
Poetry and Christian Hymnology,” Jewish Quarterly Review 44.2 (1953): 123–​161. A recent excep-
tion would be Ophir Münz-​Manor, “Liturgical Poetry in the Late Antique Near East: A Comparative
Approach,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 1.3 (2010): 336–​361. Also note the discussion of compara-
tive work in the important review essay by Wout J. van Bekkum, “The Hebrew Liturgical Poetry of
Byzantine Palestine: Recent Research and New Perspectives,” Prooftexts 28.2 (2008): 232–​246.
14 Prologue

poets of the three monotheistic traditions of the late antique Eastern

Mediterranean—​Jews, Christians, and Samaritans, writing in Hebrew,
Greek, Syriac, and Jewish Palestinian Aramaic—​together and analyze
them, at times quite speculatively, through the lens of theatricality and
in terms of audience engagement and participation.21 This study takes
seriously the importance of the performer to the experience and mean-
ingfulness of hymnody. We may identify the performer initially as the
poet who composed the work, even as we recognize that the role would
later be filled by a liturgist or cantor—​meaning that we must be careful
not to conflate author and actor. Indeed, while the liturgical performer
functioned in a fashion akin to other public performers, all of whom
strove to conjure imaginative experiences—​meaningful, entertaining, ed-
ifying, or transformative—​in the minds of their audiences, the interpre-
tation of the religious performer, who generally did not author his words,
may arguably more closely resemble the performance of the actor than the
skilled extemporaneity of the orator, although all forms of performance
no doubt relied on elements of improvisation. Hymnists, like orators and
actors, were keenly attuned to those whose eyes and ears they sought to
attract; similarly, all three kinds of performers addressed crowds accus-
tomed to constituting an audience. Viewing the performed experience of
hymnody through this lens allows us, in turn, to appreciate the task of the
poet-​performer as both a vector for conveyance of sacred tradition and
its values to a congregational audience whose attention he seeks to hold,
views he hopes to shape, and sympathies he strives to elicit.
The concept of theatricality draws our attention to a range of subjects,
from how biblical stories were adapted to the liturgical stage, much in
the way that the classical works of Greco-​Roman antiquity were them-
selves popularized in this late antique period, to the adaptation of physical
techniques and material structures to augment the ability of performers to
engage their audiences. Specific techniques associated with both oratory
and acting in antiquity will offer concrete means for elucidating the affinities
of liturgical presentations and other modes of performance: indications of

21 I would note that despite the breadth of this volume, it nonetheless does not extend into the

realms of Latin poetry or into the hymnic traditions of Manichaeism—​both arenas that promise
to be fruitful areas of further study. With regard to the latter, from an analytical perspective that
suggests the affinities of that poetry for the works studied here, see Jae Hee Han, “Once Again He
Speaks: Performance and the Anthological Habit in the Manichaean Kephalaia,” in the Journal of
Ancient Judaism 14.2 (2021): 435–​470.
 Prologue 15

direct address, for example, and apostrophe, as well as the creation of char-
acter through speech (ethopoeia); and appeals to the audience’s senses, in-
cluding vivid descriptions (ekphrasis), a technique especially popular in
antiquity. A serious consideration of performance also demands that we
make the difficult leap to imagining the world beyond the page. While late
antique hymnody has come down to the present primarily in textual form,
the written word constitutes something quite remote from the actual expe-
rience these scripts reflect. We will thus attempt to consider more specula-
tive but recognizably essential elements of these works’ reception, including
ways in which liturgical poetry could have borrowed from the gestures and
body language of oratory, mime, and pantomime, and how poets may have
used the physical spaces of performance and accelerated changes visible in
the archaeological record.
Given this volume’s emphasis on techniques of delivery and experience,
the narrative, exegetical, and theological content of the poems—​precisely
those places where poets most frequently stress the distinctiveness of their
community, its traditions, and beliefs—​receives less emphasis. The stress
on performance should not be understood as negating or obscuring the
particularity and particularism of these works; indeed, the differences
among poems are often easier to discern than commonalities, whether we
consider the specific liturgy in which a work was embedded, distinctive
motifs and images of significance to a community, or the language of com-
position. It is precisely because the differences—​linguistic, confessional,
and ritual—​among these works are so readily apparent that the deep, struc-
tural, societal commonalities are so easily overlooked. By reading late an-
tique hymnody in the matrix of the wider culture—​by teasing out these
subtle, deep points of contact among varieties of performance—​we not
only appreciate overlooked aspects of these poems, facets that barely leave
traces in the written record, but also begin to understand performance-​
oriented culture itself. While this volume is about hymnody, it is also about
much more than hymns.22

22 Eva von Contzen, writing about Middle English mystery plays, notes, “In the anonymous

Wycliffite Treatise of Miraclis Pleyinge [ca. 1400—​the oldest work of theater criticism in English], the
author admits—​his profound criticism of miracle plays notwithstanding—​that these plays are highly
effective because they are so interactive and immediate; in his terms, they are ‘quick’ in contrast to
‘dead’ books, which can merely be read but lack the experiential dimension of theatre” (“Embodiment
and Joint Attention: An Enactive Reading of the Middle English Cycle Plays,” in Enacting the Bible
in Medieval and Early Modern Drama, ed. Eva von Contzen and Chanita Goodblatt [Manchester,
UK: Manchester University Press, 2020], 43).
16 Prologue

Choreography: Movement through the Volume

Every topic studied in this volume is treated in two parts: the first section
establishes the relevant cultural matrix, as recoverable from literary and
material sources, which shaped particular elements of performance, and
then sketches out the broad context in which a particular aspect of hym-
nody emerged and flourished; the second reads examples of liturgical poetry
through that cultural lens, using specific works to illustrate how liturgical
poetry can be more fully understood when examined as a facet of that larger
societal matrix. Multiple poems from diverse backgrounds provide the case
studies and generally share thematic or exegetical affinities that lend the
analysis additional coherence.
The study of each topic begins with a presentation of classical and late an-
tique materials intended to provide more than casual background; literary
works and material artifacts, read together, serve to establish the significance
and pervasiveness of ideas and practices, or the depth of thought given to im-
plementation of otherwise theoretical elements of performance, pedagogy,
and aesthetics. A grounded cultural reading of religious poetry requires
careful articulation of culture, and so I present the treatments of these
selected phenomena in some depth, in an effort to contextualize not only the
liturgical poems but the broader aspects of their performance—​conceptual,
rhetorical, performative, and experiential—​as well. The treatments do not
constitute complete micro-​histories of oratory and theater in their literary,
material, and monumental manifestations but establish a sufficiently robust
sense of context that enables specific aspects of the religious poems to be
teased out and clearly discerned.
The poems presented in the second part of each topic’s treatment de-
rive from multiple linguistic and religious sources. While they often share
a common theme or biblical passage as an anchor for comparison, they pri-
marily serve to illustrate the diversity of poetic manifestations of broader
aesthetic and performative possibilities. These specific works are chosen
both to demonstrate a range of poetic crystallizations of the broader cul-
tural phenomena with which poets and their congregants would have been
familiar and to display the breadth and diversity of the poetic corpora them-
selves. In almost every case, poems from all the corpora (Jewish, Samaritan,
and Christian) provide examples of phenomena. This survey of hym-
nody highlights specific ways in which poets and their audiences related to
 Prologue 17

communal conventions, but without obscuring the distinctive elements—​

formal, linguistic, and theological—​of each work. In some cases, the poems
present fairly direct “translations” or applications of ideas and concepts
from the worlds of oratory and theater, albeit in distinctly religious or ethnic
settings and languages; in other cases, the connections to general concepts
may be more subtle—​rhetorical techniques that align with what we know
of performance and delivery, but at the level of resonance or affinity. In such
instances, late antique culture may help us understand how a given work
“made sense” in terms of societal proclivities; in some cases, what we can re-
construct of the common culture of the period may simply help us imagine
a range of plausible, but not required, performative techniques. The analysis
articulates deep structural commonalities of the type often obscured by the
overt differences—​chronological, linguistic, contextual, and confessional—​
that often serve to compartmentalize these compositions.
This study does not intend to minimize or diminish the intriguing questions
that emerge from examining these poems against each other, in their own indi-
vidual contexts, nor does it seek to obscure the distinctive elements of the reli-
gious traditions and communities, or the tremendous variety of literary styles in
which they wrote. It does, however, stress positive affinities across genres, lan-
guages, and communities in order to illustrate the arguments in favor of some
kind of broad, common late antique culture in which Christians, Jews, and
Samaritans all lived, largely unselfconsciously; in doing so, this study expands
the way these poems can be understood, and helps modern readers, so far from
the embodied energy of these works as performed, discern subtle but critical
features of these works that may have been at least in part responsible for their
widespread popularity. It does not cast shade on other modes of analysis but
simply highlights a common substrate of concerns and techniques that unifies
the distinctive modes of writing. This holistic approach allows us to appreciate
distinctive elements as tesserae—​sparkling, individual gemstones—​that, when
read together, coalesce into a textured but coherent mosaic of culture.
Given the sweep of this volume and its inclusive ambition, I have limited
the specific bodies of poetry studied to those that are most accessible to the
widest audience, although I have also striven for as much diversity as pos-
sible within those limits. The poems examined here by no means exhaust the
corpora even on a single topic; instead, they illustrate ranges of possibilities
and modalities. By and large, the chosen texts reflect “major” composers or
bodies of work within the traditions, as discerned by prominence in liturgical
18 Prologue

rites and surviving manuscript records.23 The increased availability of litur-

gical poetry in translation has facilitated the integration of poetry into a va-
riety of studies, including comparative analyses that cut across linguistic,
stylistic, and confessional boundaries in order to focus on thematics, aes-
thetics, and—​as in the present study—​performance.
The poets studied in this volume constitute a roster of the most illus-
trious writers in the genre during the pivotal centuries of their emergence
and development. They are, to use Saadia Gaon’s term, “the fathers of litur-
gical poetry” (‫)אבות הפיוט‬, regardless of religious affinity.24 The authors
whose works provide the exemplars in this study include the major poets of
the “early” period (roughly the third–​fourth centuries ce), specifically the
Jewish liturgical poet (‫ )פייטן‬Yose ben Yose; the Samaritan poets Amram
Dare, his son, Marqe, and his grandson, Ninna ben Marqe; and the Christian
hymnist Ephrem the Syrian, who composed both hymns and metrical
homilies. We will also attend to works by poets from the “later” portion of
this formative period (the fifth–​early seventh centuries ce), including the
Jewish poets Yannai and Eleazar ha-​Qallir (also known simply as “Qallir”);
the great poet of Constantinople, Romanos the Melodist; and major Syriac-​
language hymnographers Narsai and Jacob of Sarug.25 Not every work can
be attributed to a named author, of course, and we thus also will examine
anonymous works, including the body of Jewish Aramaic poetry and ancient
poems for Yom Kippur, as well as pseudonymous works, such as Syriac works
on the Binding of Isaac (the Akedah) attributed to Ephrem. The dating of
anonymous works can, of course, be particularly challenging—​and I would
not disagree that the dates ascribed to the Jewish and Samaritan poets are
themselves not fixed with certainty. We can, however, be confident that
these works represent formative voices within their traditions in this pivotal

23 From the perspective of literary history, this decision reflects the influence of these poets within

their respective traditions; from a practical perspective, it enables the study to draw on works avail-
able in English translation and thus lowers the barriers of entry for readers into the body of material
studied here.
24 Saadia ben Joseph ha-​ Gaon, Sefer ha-​Egron, ed. N. Allony (Jerusalem: Ha-​Akademyah ha-​
le'umit ha-​yisra'elit le-​mada'im, 1969), 154. The Egron is Saadia’s rhyming lexicon for use in
composing piyyutim.
25 It bears noting that Jacob of Sarug and Narsai are best known for their memre, metrical

homilies that are far more exegetical than the madrashe for which Ephrem is most famous (although
Ephrem composed memre as well). Memre were likely recited or chanted rather than sung, but as
performatively delivered homilies, composed in isosyllabic couplets, they still shed light on the topic
of this study, although they were possibly less directly participatory than the madrashe, which in-
cluded refrains.
 Prologue 19

period of literary history, and most of them constitute works of enduring sig-
nificance, some down to the present day.
The genres in which these poets wrote differ greatly from each other,
but certain commonalities can be discerned. Yose ben Yose’s poems for the
High Holy Days (the shofar service and the rehearsal of the Temple sacri-
fice known as the Avodah), written in elegant, rhythmic, unrhymed Hebrew,
bear a passing similarity to the memre by Ephrem (and, later, Narsai and
Jacob), written in Syriac, and some of the longer works in Samaritan Aramaic
and Jewish Palestinian Aramaic. At the same time, the brevity of many JPA
poems, Samaritan hymns, and the Syriac genre known as madrashe highlight
ways that shorter compositions, often governed by alphabetical acrostics,
can resemble each other in at least broad compositional ways. The qerovot
of Yannai and Qallir reflect a significantly more complicated aesthetic: units
composed in different forms, often with end rhyme and intricate acrostics;
these works do not resemble Romanos’ kontakia in any direct way, but
they share with the melodist a general increased formal intricacy, one that
makes more demands on the congregation in terms of elaborate refrains and
opportunities to participate.
For all their formal diversity, which spans qualities from prose-​like sim-
plicity and regularity to ornate and intricate rhymes, meter, and acrostics,
these works existed for a practical purpose: to draw congregations into li-
turgical rituals.26 As a consequence, throughout this study, we will attend
to not only those elements of composition that reflect an author’s creativity
and insightfulness but also those techniques that specifically engage the con-
gregation, in both psychologically manifest (intellectual and imaginative)
and physically expressive (vocal and gestural) ways. Individuals in late an-
tiquity possessed what we might term a “participatory,” “performative,” or
even “kinesthetic” kind of literacy—​Jonathan Culler’s idea of competence
will prove useful.27 This deeply ingrained and finely tuned awareness by the

26 This expectation that congregations would participate in hymnic performance is not only re-

flected in the use of elements such as refrain but also explicitly acknowledged in places, notably in
Niceta of Remesiana’s sermon known as De utilitate hymnorum (sometimes called De psalmodiae
bono), in which the author gives advice for how to avoid common pitfalls, such as singing out of
tune, out of sync, or in a rote manner. This text is available in C. H. Turner, “Niceta of Remesiana
II,” Journal of Theological Studies 24 (1923): 225–​252; for an English translation, see “Niceta of
Remesiana: Writings,” in The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, vol. 7, trans. Gerald G. Walsh
(Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1949), 65–​76, and I am grateful to Georgia Frank
for drawing my attention to the work.
27 See Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study of Literature

(London: Routledge, 1975), esp. Chapter 6, “Literary Competence” (131–​152).

20 Prologue

audience of their own role to play within any performance can be subtle but
often not difficult to tease out, at least as a possibility. The dynamic between
poet-​cantor and congregation may, in some cases, have also been mediated
by choirs, who would have stood in for or alongside the wider community.
An awareness of and appreciation for the full participatory richness of the
hymnic experience in late antiquity—​intellectual and emotional, but also
spatial and sensory—​permeates the present inquiry, even as we recognize the
challenges in reconstructing such intangible, often somewhat hypothetical,
elements.
The challenge of recovering the rich experience of performance from
the traces they leave behind is hardly unique to late antiquity. Medievalists
face similar obstacles, although they possess additional resources, such as
illuminated prayer books and practical handbooks of liturgical customs that
delineate norms and ideals.28 Speaking of his contemporary reconstructions
of an eighteenth century Italian dance, choreographer Alexei Ratmansky
described his work as “finding the little bits in the dust, and then placing
them together to create a picture,” an effort the New York Times dance critic
Marina Harss observes, “is not a science, after all, but an act of the imagina-
tion.”29 This language evokes the fragmentary composition of a mosaic: small
bits assembled into a new whole, held together in part by the mortar of im-
agination, and at times the wish to see something that, by its very nature,
is ephemeral. Even today, despite remarkable advances in technology, it re-
mains a profoundly different, and vastly richer, experience to attend a perfor-
mance in person. Any recording, audio or visual, cannot help but be a pale
shadow of the transient wonder of being in the same space as performers,
alongside other viewers, in a specific space, where the lights dim, scents waft,
and sounds resound. What this study attempts to do is to recreate some sense
of the possibilities—​to gather and experiment playfully with some of the
little stones we do have from antiquity—​in order to discern what pictures our
imaginations can bring into focus. And this effort matters precisely because
theater and performance were so commonplace in late antiquity.

28 I owe my appreciation for the detailed descriptions of Ashkenazi liturgical customs, which

specify the pauses to be made between stanzas, the volume, tone, rhythm, and the emphasis on cer-
tain words, to discussions by Meyrav Levy, as delineated in her forthcoming dissertation, “Ashkenazi
Mahzorim as Generators of an Affective Experience” (University of Münster, Germany).
29 Marina Harss, “In ‘Harlequinade,’ Gestures Dance, and Dances Tell Stories,” The New York Times

(May 30, 2018); https://​www.nyti​mes.com/​2018/​05/​29/​arts/​dance/​harle​quin​ade-​ale​xei-​ratman​sky-​

ameri​can-​bal​let-​thea​ter.html?searc​hRes​ultP​osit​ion=​1, accessed June 9, 2022.
 Prologue 21

This volume moves from the concrete to the abstract, the relatively certain
to the frankly speculative. It begins by examining the broad cultural context
in which liturgical poetry emerged: a world of theater and oratory, but also
homily, exegesis, and prayer. Once the stage is set and our sense of perfor-
mance space established, we turn to those who bring the liturgical-​poetic
experience to life: the authors who craft the words, and who orchestrate
the experience; the performers who brought them to life; and the congre-
gational audiences who received these words, joined in their performance,
and preserved them as beloved rituals. We then move and consider the most
“external” and among the more recoverable elements of the poems, the way
they engage with the senses. From there, we turn to subtle, but essential,
techniques of character creation, particularly the theatrical use of voice and
speech-​in-​character. And finally, we turn to the least recoverable, but most
tantalizing, aspects of performance, body language and physical staging: not
only vivid imagery and appeals to senses, but also a sense of what could have
been seen and how it might have been heard. Just as the poets invited their
listeners to imagine a world they had never seen, this volume asks its readers
to consider the dynamism of a world now silent but not inaudible, ephemeral
but not beyond our reach.
The mosaics in the synagogue at Huqoq, like Romanos’ references to
comedy and tragedy, indicate with startling directness the affinities con-
necting theater and liturgy. The synagogue masks and Greek poems depict
in explicit if distinctive ways the interpenetration of ritual and rhetoric in
late antiquity, a resonance that lurks surprisingly near the surface of liturgical
poems once we cast light upon the texts from the proper angles. We cannot
recover what inspired the Huqoq artisans to select those images for the syna-
gogue: Were the images in some sense so commonplace as to lack any force-
fulness? Or do they suggest a particularly “entertaining” style of liturgy, a
religious instantiation of an aesthetic of delight?30 Or were some members of
the community affiliated with the theater as professionals? Nor can we state
with confidence whether Romanos attended theater shows or held opinions
about public declaimers of his day. Any hypotheses or explanations we may
proffer—​many of them overlapping, none mutually exclusive—​remind us

30 Of particular importance with regard to the interplay between sacred space and aesthetics is

the recent book by Sean Leatherbury, Inscribing Faith in Late Antiquity: Between Reading and Seeing
(London: Routledge, 2019), and the online resource maintained by the Baron Thyssen Centre for
the Study of Ancient Material Religion, housed in the Department of Classical Studies of the Open
University in Milton Keyes, UK: https://​www.openm​ater​ialr​elig​ion.org/​resour​ces-​1/​2019/​7/​15/​
mosa​ics. The discussions in Chapter 5 will develop these ideas further.
22 Prologue

how then, as now, people imbibe fundamental ideas about what is “normal”
from the cultural ether in which they live and breathe.
In late antiquity, theater was in the air, and performers—​actors and
orators, high class and low, famous and infamous—​were ubiquitous, as were
their audiences. And as a consequence, the techniques of other performers,
particularly techniques affirmed by crowds as effective or appealing, crossed
from the stage and the rostrum into the sanctuary. The implausible claim
would be that liturgy did not reflect the widespread culture of performance
and entertainment, not that it did.
 1
Setting the Stage: Community Theater
and the Translation of Tales

Some dramatists write for the common people, and others for the elites,
but it is not easy to say which of any of them
succeeds in making his work suitable to both classes.
Now, Aristophanes is neither pleasing to the masses
nor tolerable for the thoughtful; rather his poetry is like
a harlot who, passed her prime, takes up the role of a wife . . .
For what reason, in fact, is it truly worthwhile
for an educated man to go to the theater, except to enjoy Menander?
And when else are theaters filled with men of learning,
if a comic character has been brought upon the stage?
—​Plutarch, Moralia: Aristophanes and Menander, §3

While he wintered in Antioch in 363, en route to Persia, the Emperor Julian

composed a remarkably bitter satirical essay called Misopogon (“the beard-​
hater”).1 Although he claims that he has written the work in a spirit of self-​
mockery, the piece in fact blends imperial self-​justification with scathing
critique of his host city. Julian describes the populace of Antioch as frivo-
lous and irreverent, and disappointingly uninterested in his imperial agenda
of classical restoration. While the emperor anticipated returning to the city
after the Persian campaign—​he failed to anticipate his premature death—​the
essay reads like a parting shot, and the city’s reputation as the capital of enter-
tainment presents a primary target for Julian’s dyspeptic critique. Indicative

1 The text was composed in 363, the year of Julian’s death. On this text, see Joshua Hartman,

“Invective Oratory and Julian’s Misopogon,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 57.4 (2017): 1032–​
1057. Hartman offers an important rhetorical analysis of the piece as well as a concise summary
of its major modern treatments. The title “beard-​hater” refers to the Antiochene’s dislike of the
“philosopher’s beard” that Julian wore—​as commemorated by his visage on the coins from his reign—​
in a time when the fashion was clean shaven; throughout the essay, the beard represents Julian’s con-
tempt for what he deems the superficiality of life in Antioch.

Staging the Sacred. Laura S. Lieber, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780190065461.003.0002
24 Staging the Sacred

of the city’s licentious character, Antioch was (in Julian’s telling), “a pros-
perous and gay and crowded city, in which there are dancers and flute players,
and more mimes than ordinary citizens”; a few lines later, he remarks how in
“the market-​places and theaters, the mass of the people [show their pleasure]
by their clapping and shouting.”2 Despite the exaggerations inherent in
such a polemical treatise, the caricature works (or so Julian hoped) because
it is rooted in something plausible. The people of Antioch reciprocated the
emperor’s displeasure and expressed resentment for his judgmental austerity
and his failure to appreciate their city’s charms: “By ignoring the stage and
mimes and dancers,” Julian has the people say, “you have ruined our city, so
that we get no good out of you except your harshness.” Julian harbored no
illusions about their mutual dislike, but while his essay constitutes an ex-
tended scolding of the city, Julian nonetheless sketches a revealing portrait
of Antioch. Julian’s Antioch is vibrant, noisy with performances and filled
with performers; like modern New York or Los Angeles, it is populated by
entertainers hungering for their big break and media critics offering unsolic-
ited opinions. Performance could be spontaneous and unrehearsed; speaking
to the people of Antioch, Julian recounts how “you abused me in the market-​
place, in the presence of the whole populace, and with the help of citizens
who were capable of composing such pleasant witticisms as yours.” Julian’s
antagonists came not from a professional class of performers but from a well-​
trained populace, a public quick to pick up on verbal play at their emperor’s
expense. For all Julian’s expressed displeasure, his invective against Antioch
and its citizens suggests something of daily life in late antiquity. Performers
were everywhere, and every crowd was a nascent audience.
As Julian notes, in a context in which everyone anticipates performance
and any individual has the skill to perform, any location could become the
set of a show. In antiquity, performers found their audiences in any number
of places: theaters and markets, forums and private homes, temporary stages
and purpose-​built structures, and functional clearings and magnificent
edifices, some so thoroughly constructed that they can be visited today. To
this list of “secular” or “civic” public performance places, we should also add
temples, churches, and synagogues. Indeed, sacred spaces and civic spaces
were typically thoroughly entangled: temples were regular features in theaters
and public squares, and much religious ritual took place in public streets and
venues rather than being restricted to consecrated spaces or domiciles. Any

2 Julian, Misopogon §342B–​C (LCL 29, pp. 442–​445).

 Setting the Stage 25

space where people (i.e., an audience, a default community) gathered had the
potential to morph into a site of theatrical performance, whether the per-
former was an actor, orator, poet, or ritual performer; if the occasion were
a sacred liturgy, then the stakes and command for attention could be that
much increased. All any performer needed was something to perform, some-
thing that would appeal to listeners, gaining and holding their attention.
Performers in the ancient world understood what the British stage director
Peter Brook stated with regard to twentieth-​century theater: “I can take any
empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space
whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act
of theatre to be engaged.”3 A performer, through intent and action, can trans-
form any space—​a street, a market square, a subway car, a sidewalk—​into a
stage. And as soon as that transformation occurs, those in the performer’s
vicinity find themselves changed from individuals going about their business
into an audience. This was as true in antiquity as it is today.
All this underscores a key point: potential performance spaces—​and thus
the potential for performance—​could be found anywhere and everywhere.
Most obviously, purpose-​built infrastructure for housing spectacles was
ubiquitous in antiquity.4 In towns throughout the Roman Empire—​from
England, the Balkans, and Spain to North Africa, Egypt, and the Levant—​the
monumental remnants of theaters, amphitheaters, and racetracks constitute
a commonplace. Such structures were not limited to major urban areas but
can be found throughout the Romanized world, key elements of basic civic
infrastructure. Nor did firm boundaries divide civic, religious, and domestic
spaces, whether public or private. Theatrical performances could take place
in private residences as well as in theaters, in marketplaces, town squares,
and the streets; colorful mosaics not only captured the names and images
of champion charioteers and their horses but also brought them into homes
and civic spaces; household items including lamps and combs commemorate
the dances of mimes, while funerary monuments recall the lives of famous
pantomimes.5 Public oratory, likewise, could occur in a range of venues: it

3 Peter Brook, The Empty Space—​ A Book about the Theatre: Deadly, Holy, Rough, Immediate
(1968), 9
4 On spectacle in antiquity, see Christine Kondoleon and Bettina Bergmann, eds., The Art of

Ancient Spectacle (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art; New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1999).
5 The most comprehensive study of the visual representations of performance in antiquity is

Katherine M. D. Dunbabin, Theater and Spectacle in the Art of the Roman Empire (Ithaca, NY, and
London: Cornell University Press, 2016). Of particular note are the images from Noheda villa (in
Turkey) that Dunbabin uses throughout the volume. Dunbabin notes that in the eastern region of
26 Staging the Sacred

could enliven an intimate gathering of educated and wealthy elites, draw a

diverse crowd on the steps of a temple, or engage a transient audience from
an elevated platform. Declamation could be forensic in service of a client,
or staged for its own sake in the context of an oratorical competition. In
both cases, speech resulted in “winners” and “losers.” Like theater and ora-
tory, religious rituals emerged from and built upon the substrate of public
display, with processions and conflicts spilling from sanctuaries into the
streets and drawing the public into sacred spaces. The ubiquity of purpose-​
built structures, constituting visible traces of a performance-​ saturated
culture, merely hints at the far vaster range of spaces and occasions when
performances took place.
Space constitutes the exoskeleton of performance, the structure that
supports human bodies as instruments of storytelling, exhortation, and
persuasion. Just as performance spaces (purpose-​built or improvised) were
ubiquitous, diffuse repertoires of narrative traditions and performative
practices provided a ready repository of plots, characters, and tropes, all
translated into dynamic, ever-​changing contexts and conventions. These fa-
miliar narratives were, in turn, animated by performers and audiences who
shared an understanding of how to respond to their prompts, how to bring
them to life, and respond to their actions, even as each performer inflected
his telling with distinctive shades and nuances, meanings and mannerisms.6
If we are able to understand this vibrant and lively aspect of late antique so-
ciety, we will be able to appreciate how a societal milieu saturated with theater

the empire, domestic depictions of spectacle shift from images of theater in the second and third
centuries ce to circus races (including images accompanied by acclamations of victory) and myth-
ological motifs that blend games and narrative (236–​239). For a thorough study of visual art in reli-
gious contexts in late antiquity, Sean Leatherbury, Inscribing Faith in Late Antiquity: Between Reading
and Seeing (Abingdon: Routledge, 2020), offers a sophisticated and detailed analysis.
6 Writing of Greek antiquity but in a way that applies far more broadly, Sarah Iles Johnston observes

that “Greek audiences almost always consumed mythic narratives in an episodic way. . . . Most Greek
listeners brought to these experiences a knowledge of the gods’ and heroes’ larger histories . . . the
episodes that audiences heard were not so much out of order as they were focused on a discrete,
gleaming moment in a larger divine or heroic career” (“How Myth and Other Stories Help to Create
and Sustain Beliefs,” in Narrating Religion, ed. S. I. Johnston [New York: Wiley, 2017], 149). A useful
work on the relationship between antiquity and its past is Tim Whitmarsh, Beyond the Second
Sophistic: Adventures in Greek Postclassicism (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 2020). While Whitmarsh focuses on the reception of Greek culture in the wake of the Second
Sophistic, his insights can easily be extended to a variety of other contexts and textual corpora. The
work of Gregory Nagy also proves useful here; see his volume Pindar’s Homer: The Lyric Possession
of an Epic Past (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), and also, Nagy, Poetry as
Performance: Homer and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
 Setting the Stage 27

and spectacle colored religious oratory, rhetoric, and ritual, and even scrip-
tural interpretation.
In this chapter, we will begin with an examination of the everyday pres-
ence of world of theater and theatricality in late antiquity, including its phys-
ical infrastructure, its productions, its entanglement with officialdom, and
its material traces. Once a sense of the ubiquity and diversity of performa-
tive modes of display is established, we will then turn our attention to how
traces of such practices can be discerned within the specific contexts of the
three religious traditions under scrutiny in this study, in the writings of Jews,
Samaritans, and Christians. The material world of performance in late an-
tiquity constitutes a key part of the backdrop against which we must see the
emergence of liturgical poetry across religious traditions; it shaped not only
what was performed but also how it was seen, heard, and engaged. At the
same time, each tradition came to modes of performance bearing its own dis-
tinctive literary traditions: stories, themes, motifs, and tradition of exegesis
that emerged within religious communities at this time and often permeated
beyond the bounds of any one tradition. These tradition-​specific elements
help us to discern and understand novel narrative and dramatic elements
of hymns, and to understand why the shared affinity for theater may at first
be difficult to discern. Scholarly efforts to trace and record literary connec-
tivity within and among literary works constitutes the bulk of footnotes in
printed editions of antique hymns. Researchers have painstakingly traced
vast networks of allusions, quotations, and echoes, both aesthetic and utili-
tarian, among these liturgical poems and the larger body of sacred texts and
traditions coalescing in late antiquity, and thus they articulated the affinities
between hymns and scriptural readings, homilies, exegetical writings, and
other literatures. Such analysis reveals how poetry is grounded in specific re-
ligious traditions and communities and suggests influences across traditions,
as well; but the focus is largely concrete—​words, phrases, specific motifs—​
and literary. The ability of liturgical compositions to generate so much data
simply in the course of articulating their content had a consequence of
diverting attention from more amorphous concerns, including the dynamic
energy of how they were actually experienced, and how those experiences
may have reflected common aspects of culture, despite significant and mean-
ingful differences among communities.
These two elements of performance—​space and content, or more pre-
cisely, venue and canon—​must be approached together in order to under-
stand how and why hymnody emerged when it did and how it acquired
28 Staging the Sacred

the forms it took. Performance, including both declamation and theatrical

shows, constituted a prominent feature of late antique culture; audiences, as
part of this culture, understood the conventions of delivery—​including their
own role—​and were familiar with the contours of the stories that structured
any given piece. Modern scholars need to recover an awareness of phys-
ical staging possibilities and, even when little can be reconstructed, remain
attuned to its significance in order to understand how audiences responded
to performers, and how performers interacted with audiences. An aware-
ness of the physical aspects of staging and delivery complements literary
analysis, which often focuses on what was performed. Both the concrete (lit-
erary and structural) and the dynamic (active, embodied) aspects of perfor-
mance are crucial to the phenomenon, but the ephemeral, kinetic, sensory
elements—​precisely because they leave so few traces behind—​are far harder
to reconstruct.
Finally, the ways in which actors and orators adapted and deployed motifs
from classical dramas and comedies offers a new way of understanding how li-
turgical poets related to their own “antiquities”: scriptural materials and exeget-
ical traditions. If we view liturgical poetry as a form of late antique theater, we
can see how canons of sacred scripture and interpretation could easily play the
role in religious services played by classical works of Greek and Roman theater
in late antique stagecraft. Religious performance, including liturgical poetry—​
the new form of expression that appeared suddenly the third century ce across
religious traditions—​was one facet of the dynamic world of theatrical, perfor-
mative creativity in late antiquity.

A Heritage of Theater

A love of spectacle and creativity in its execution long predates late antiq-
uity. The Hellenistic origins of drama and theater are consummately enter-
taining but also religious, as they emerged out of religious rituals of Athens
in the fifth century bce.7 But the appetite for entertainment was both du-
rable and omnivorous, so while Greek theater—​its conventions and plots—​
persisted, it thrived alongside and in various ways blended with other styles

7 For a recent, thorough, and multivalent account of the history of Greek theater, see the essays

collected in Eric Csapo and Margaret C. Miller, eds., The Origins of Theater in Ancient Greece and
Beyond: From Ritual to Drama (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
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 Serapis identified with, i. 56;
distinguished by Greeks from Apollo, ii. 240;
on Mithraic monuments, ii. 244;
with Mithras at banquet, ii. 247;
invoked in Mithraic liturgy, ii. 266
Hellas, i. 24, 44
Hellespont, the, limit of Persian Empire, i. 1
Hemerobaptists, the, a pre-Christian sect, ii. 6 n. 4;
called Mandaites or Disciples of St John, ii. 305;
their history and tenets, ibid.
Henosis or Oneness, member of Valentinian Decad, ii. 101
Hera, her contempt for man in Homer, i. 57;
her jealousy cause of Diaspasm ap. Orphics, i. 125;
on Mithraic monuments, ii. 238.
See Juno
Heracleon, the Valentinian, quoted by Origen, ii. 95 n. 2;
most distinguished of Valentinus’ successors, ii. 119;
his Commentaries on the Gospels not secret, ii. 131
Heracleopolis or Ahnas el-Medineh, mentioned in Magic Papyrus, i.
98, 109
Heracles, becomes immortal because of divine birth, i. 18; ii. 16;
rams sacrificed to, i. 95;
story of, in Herodotus used by Justinus, ii. 81;
on Mithraic monuments, ii. 238;
his compulsion of Hades, ii. 239 n. 7.
See Hercules
Heraclitus of Ephesus, identifies Dionysos with Hades, i. 47;
probably unknown to Hippolytus’ Naassene, ii. 83
Heraclius, the Emperor, his overthrow of Persia, ii. 227
Herat, a foundation of Alexander, i. 5
Herculaneum, scenes of Alexandrian worship in frescoes found at, i.
66 n. 3, 67-69, 73, 87
Hercules, classical type of, on Indian coins, i. 17 n. 2
Hermas’ Pastor, Trinitarian views of, i. 89 n. 2
Hermes, the god, worship of, perhaps brought into Greece from
Egypt, i. 17;
Greek analogue of Anubis, i. 35;
as psychopomp in Mysteries of Eleusis, i. 41;
image of, used in magic, i. 98;
hymn to, in Magic Papyrus, i. 98, 99;
appears in Mysteries of Samothrace, i. 136 n. 2;
Terms of, in Athenian streets, i. 139 n. 2;
St Paul hailed as, in Phrygia, i. 191 n. 3; ii. 42;
leader of souls in Homer, ii. 54;
on Mithraic monuments, ii. 258
Hermopolis, ogdoad of four syzygies of gods under early Pharaohs
at, i. 197; ii. 175, 176
Hero of Alexandria, invents first steam-engine, i. 45
Herod the Great, rebuilds and restores Samaria, i. 177
Herodotus, quoted, i. 16, 43, 48, 60, 81, 123, 136; ii. 176, 233 n. 1,
234, 239, 320 n. 1
Hesiod, scholiast on, quoted, i. 40 n. 1;
popular theology given in, i. 124;
calls God and Goddess of Eleusis Zeus Chthonios and Demeter, i.
126;
his successive ages of the world, i. 186
Hierapolis, called Ophiorhyma in Acta Philippi, ii. 50.
See Atargatis
Hiero II, King of Syracuse, introduces Alexandrian gods into Sicily, i.
53
Hild, M. J. A., quoted, i. 134 n. 2, 149 n. 1
Hilleh, magic bowls of Jews found at, ii. 32, 33
Hinduism, i. li
Hippa, Orphic hymn to, i. 138 n. 2
Hipparchus, studies at Museum, i. 45;
makes systematic astrology possible, i. 117
Hippolytus, bishop of Porta Romana, discovery of his
Philosophumena, i. lix; ii. 11;
Salmon’s theory about, i. lxi n. 1; ii. 11, 12;
tricks of magicians described by, i. 99, 100;
condemns astrology and astronomy alike, i. 112 n. 2;
his “hymn of Great Mysteries,” i. 137 n. 1, 139 n. 1; ii. 54 n. 6;
thinks system of Sethiani derived from Orphics, i. 175;
his account of Simon Magus’ doctrines inconsistent, i. 193;
doctrines of heresiarchs described by, ii. 11, 12;
exaggerates diversity of Gnostic teaching, ii. 14;
attributes Ophite doctrines to discourses of St James to Mariamne,
ii. 26;
contemporary of Origen circa 200 A.D., ii 26 n. 3;
identifies Ophiomorphus with great god of Greek Mysteries, ii. 50;
his Ophite psalm, ii. 61, 62, 68 n. 2;
his later Ophite sacraments, ii. 63;
says Naassenes have priests, ii. 66;
attributes Gospel of Egyptians to Naassenes, ii. 79;
gives most space to Valentinus’ doctrine, ii. 95;
his views on Trinity polytheistic, ii. 123 n. 1;
accuses heresiarchs of magical imposture, ii. 128;
writes 50 years after Valentinus’ death, ii. 131 n. 2;
quoted, i. lix, lxi n. 1, 68 n. 3, 73, 99, 100 n. 4, 107 n. 1, 109, 110,
112 n. 2, 137 n. 1, 139 n. 1, 175, 179, 187, 191, 193, 194, 196,
198; ii. 9, 11, 12, 14, 16, 26, 27, 40, 41 n. 1, 46, 49, 50, 53, 54,
56, 57, 58, 61, 62, 63, 65, 66 n. 1, 73 n. 2, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79,
81, 89 nn. 3, 4, 90, 91, 94 nn. 1-3, 95, 97, 98, 99, 101, 103 n. 5,
104, 105, 106 nn. 1, 2, 107, 108 n. 1, 109, 110 n. 1, 113 n. 2,
114 nn. 2, 3, 115 n. 2, 116 n. 2, 118 n. 5, 119, 123, 124 n. 3,
128, 131, 144 n. 8, 147 n. 4, 148 n. 1, 159 n. 3, 160 n. 1, 207,
208 n. 2, 215 n. 2, 219 n. 1, 220
Hittites, the, Mithras worshipped by, 1272 B.C., i. lxii;
mentioned in Sargon’s omen-tablets, i. 114;
 Mithras linked with Varuna among, ii. 248
Hogarth, D. G., quoted, i. 14, 18 n. 4, 27; ii. 29
Homer, reading-book of Asiatics post Alexander, i. 8 n. 1;
gods of, worshipped by Graeco-Indian kings, i. 17;
their indifference to mortals, i. 57;
shows forth Christian doctrine of Father and Son, i. 47 n. 3;
purificatory rites unknown to, i. 121;
the popular theology of, i. 124;
the father of gods and men in, i. 185;
claimed as divinely inspired, ii. 15;
writings of, used by Ophites, ii. 54;
quoted, i. 57 nn. 1, 2, 59, 95, 96 n. 1;
ii. 15 n. 4, 16 n. 1
Homeric Hymns, publicly recited and perhaps displaced by Orphic, i.
135;
quoted, i. 16 n. 5, 40 n. 2, 59, 124 n. 3
Homoousios, word first used by Gnostics, ii. 23 n. 1, 91 n. 2
Honour, King of, in neo-Manichaeism, ii. 325
Horace, perhaps known to Basilides, ii. 91 n. 5;
quoted, i. 108; ii. 225, 228
Horaios, ruler of planetary sphere in Diagram, ii. 69, 70;
address to, ii. 74.
See Oreus
Hormisdas or Ormuz, the Shah, ii. 281
Horus, the god, king of Egypt incarnation of, i. 18, 19, 51;
in Alexandrian legend of Isis and Osiris, i. 34, 35;
originally totem of royal tribe, i. 36, 37, 45;
analogue of Iacchos, i. 43, 189 n. 5;
identified with Apollo, i. 48;
child form of, in Alexandrian religion, i. 50;
Ptolemies raise temples to Egyptian form of, i. 52;
Athenian dandies swear by, i. 54;
Egyptian sun-god, i. 63;
 in Alexandrian religion, Osiris reborn, i. 70 n. 3; ii. 39, 63;
festival of birth of, i. 71;
a triune god, i. 88, 189 n. 5;
symbolizes perceptible world image of ideal, i. 198
Horus, the Limit of the Pleroma, a Valentinian Aeon, ii. 105 n. 2;
in system of Pistis Sophia, ii. 140 n. 2.
See Stauros
Horus-Râ, the god, composite deity who replaces Horus in Middle
Empire, i. 63 n. 3
Housesteads (Northumberland), Mithraic monuments at, ii. 242
Huesemigadôn, name of Pluto in Magic Papyri, i. 99, 100
Hummâma, name of Manichaean Satan, ii. 287 n. 4
Huxley, the late Prof., his controversy about Genesis, i. liii
Huysmans, J. K., revives patristic stories of profanation of Eucharist,
i. 198
Hyades, in Chaldaean astrology, i. 113
Hymn of the Soul, said to be Manichaean, ii. 331
Hymns, sung by Athenians to Demetrius Poliorcetes, i. 19;
Greek confraternities compose, i. 21 n. 1;
to Iacchos sung by procession of initiates, i. 39;
used in Alexandrian worship, i. 66, 72, 75;
to Hermes and other gods in Magic Papyri, i. 99;
to Attis and others, i. 137 n. 1; ii. 54;
the collection of Orphic, i. 141;
to Eros sung by Lycomidae in Mysteries, i. 141 n. 2; ii. 210 n. 1;
of Synesius, quoted, ii. 37 n. 1;
Ophites’, addressed to First Man, ii. 61;
Bardesanes’, used in Catholic Church, ii. 120;
the penitential, of Pistis Sophia, ii. 156;
sung by legionaries to both Christ and Mithras, ii. 261;
used by Manichaeans, ii. 331
Hypsistos or the Highest, name of Yahweh in Asia Minor (Cumont),
ii. 31, 85 n. 3;
applied by Valentinus to Demiurge, ii. 116 n. 2
Hyrcanus, John, high-priest of Jews, invades Samaria and destroys
it, i. 177

Iaccheion, the, at Athens, starting-point of procession to Eleusis, i.

39
Iacchos, the god, leader of procession to Eleusis, i. 39;
his identity with Dionysos, i. 39 n. 2, 40 n. 4, 130, 145;
son of Zeus and Demeter, i. 40;
analogy of his birth with that of Horus, i. 43, 125;
Orphics identify him with Hades, Zeus Chthonios and Zagreus, i.
130;
and with Eubuleus, Cybele, Aphrodite and Isis, i. 137 n. 1, 143;
and with Sabazius, i. 138 n. 2;
the father, son, and spouse of Persephone, i. 189 n. 5
Ialdabaoth or Jaldabaoth, the Ophite Demiurge and a “fourth
number,” i. 100 n. 4; ii. 46, 47, 70 n. 2, 71 n. 1;
his name, variants, attributes, and places, ii. 46, 69;
the god of the Jews, ii. 47;
ruler of planetary spheres ap. Ophites, ii. 48, 64;
father of Ophiomorphus, ii. 49;
creator and tempter of man, ii. 51, 52;
his commands disobeyed by protoplasts, ii. 52;
lawgiver of Jews, ii. 53;
souls of “animal” men pass through his realms between
incarnations, ii. 57;
his attempts to prolong his rule defeated by Sophia, ii. 58, 59;
birth of Jesus arranged without knowledge of, ii. 59;
contrives death of Jesus, ii. 60;
his seven heavens called the holy hebdomad (Irenaeus), ii. 64;
fragments of light pass into the terrestrial world without knowledge
of, ibid.;
creator of world of form, ii. 64 n. 3;
 name taken from magic ap. Origen, ii. 69;
his seven worlds copied by Ophiomorphus as in Ophite Diagram,
ii. 70;
address to, ii. 72;
uncertain place of, ii, 74 n. 3, 75 n. 1;
inspires Hexateuch, Amos and Habakkuk ap. Ophites, ii. 81 n. 2;
corresponds to the Great Archon of Basilides, ii. 94;
and to Valentinus’ Demiurge, ii. 107 n. 2;
in Pistis Sophia degraded into evil power sent into Chaos, ii. 155,
158;
in Bruce Papyrus a chief of Third Aeon, ii. 155 n. 3;
in Texts of Saviour a torturer in hell, ibid. and 186;
Adamas helps him to torment Pistis Sophia, ii. 156;
his light deceives her, ii. 162;
his place given to Pistis Sophia, ii. 162 n. 3;
various spellings of name of, in Texts of Saviour, ii. 183 n. 2.
See Habakkuk, Irenaeus
Ialdazao, either a variant of name of Ialdabaoth or El Shaddai, ii. 46
n. 3
Iamblichus, the neo-Platonist, says Egyptian magicians threaten
their gods, i. 104
Iaô, in Magic Papyri, corruption of name Jehovah, i. 105, 106;
ruler of planetary sphere in Diagram, ii. 47, 69;
a Hebrew name of God (Origen), ii. 69, 71 n. 1;
name of Dionysos in late classical writers, ii. 71 n. 1;
address to, ii. 72;
connection with moon, ii. 72 n. 3, 74 n. 2;
used as acrostic in Texts of Saviour, ii. 180 n. 4
Iao, the Good, in Pistis Sophia, the Little, supplies power for soul of
St John Baptist, ii. 138, 149;
the Great, a ruler of the Middle and colleague of Virgin of Light, ii.
150;
his connection with moon, ii. 150 n. 5
Iapetus, brother of Saturn, identified by Christian writer with Japhet,
i. lx
India, Alexander’s exploits in, i. 5, 13;
sorcerers in modern, i. 92, 99 n. 1;
Ophites spread to, ii. 76;
Mithraic monuments in, ii. 230;
Mithras worshipped in Vedic, ibid.;
Manes said to have preached in, ii. 281;
Manes says Buddha sent to, ii. 307;
becomes acquainted with Buddhism in, ii. 313
Ineffable One, the, of the Pistis Sophia contains the First Mystery, ii.
139;
his “receptacles” issue from his last limb, ii. 139 n. 2, 144 n. 3;
lesser powers make up his name, ii. 140;
Great Light his Legate, ii. 141;
the Bythos of the Ophites and Valentinus, ii. 144, 158;
First Mystery proceeds from last limb of, ii. 145;
the footless God of Truth, ii. 145 n. 2;
his heaven, ii. 146;
perfect initiates will eventually become members of, ii. 164, 170;
the Mystery or Sacrament of, ii. 166;
its saving grace, 164 n. 6, 167, 169, 170, 171;
confined to Pneumatics only, ii. 173;
an Egyptian conception, ii. 175;
fragmentary attempt to describe members of, ii. 180.
See Name
Ionia, philosophic teaching in, tends to theocrasia, i. 15;
probable source of Orphic legends, i. 124;
tradition of, that water origin of all things, ii. 36;
dualism of, probably derived from Persia, ii. 290 n. 2
Irenaeus, Saint, bishop of Lyons, his Trinitarian views unorthodox, i.
89 n. 1;
explains number of beast as Nero Caesar, i. 169 n. 3;
his garbled account of Simon’s teaching, i. 187-191, 193;
makes Menander immediate successor of Simon, i. 199;
his account of Marcus the magician, i. 202; ii. 9 n. 1, 129, 183 n. 1;
makes Nicolaitans of Apocalypse Gnostics, ii. 1;
his work against heresies, ii. 10;
 exaggerates diversity of Gnostics, ii. 14;
authority for Docetism of Basilides, Saturnius and Valentinus, ii.
17;
his mistake regarding “Colarbasus,” ii. 20 n. 1;
his account of Ophite doctrines, ii. 26 n. 5, 40, 42, 43, 46-51, 53;
identifies Sethians with Ophites, ii. 27 n. 1, 76;
calls highest heaven of Ophites the true Church, ii. 43;
sole authority for Jaldabaoth’s boasting, ii. 51;
his interpolations in primitive Ophite doctrine, ii. 53, 57, 58, 60 n. 1,
61 n. 1;
says Jesus lived on earth for 20 years after Resurrection, ii. 61 n.
1;
makes Ophites source of most later heresies, ii. 76;
authority for division of Ophites as to character of serpent, ii. 78;
Ophites of, ascribe Old Testament to planetary powers, ii. 81 n. 2;
notes connection of heresiarchs with each other, ii. 89;
writes to refute Valentinians, ii. 95;
his mockery of Valentinus’ system of Aeons, ii. 99;
his account of Valentinian doctrines, ii. 107-112, 117, 119, 126;
writes after death of Valentinus, ii. 131;
with Tatian, first to quote from St John’s Gospel by name, ii. 178 n.
1;
says Valentinians will not call Jesus Lord, ii. 180 n. 3, 189;
says Marcion disciple of Simon Magus, ii. 207;
his account of Tatian’s doctrines, ii. 220;
quoted, i. 176 n. 1, 178 n. 4, 187, 190, 191, 198, 199; ii. 1 n. 4, 8
n. 3, 9 n. 1, 15 n. 2, 17, 18 n. 1, 20 n. 1, 27 n. 1, 38 n. 1, n. 2, 42
n. 5, 43 n. 1, 44, 45 n. 1, 46 nn. 1, 2, 47 nn. 2, 3, 48, 49 n. 1, 50
n. 2, 51, 52 nn. 1, 3; 53 n. 1, 58 nn. 1, 2, 59, 60, 61, 64 n. 2, 78,
81 n. 2, 89 n. 3, 90, 92 n. 3, 93 n. 1, 94 n. 1, 96, 98 nn. 3-5, 99,
107 n. 4, 108 n. 1, 109 n. 1, 110 nn. 1, 2; 111 n. 1, 112 nn. 2, 3,
116 n. 1, 117 n. 2, 118, 119 nn. 1, 3, 120, 121, 126, 127 n. 4,
128, 138 n. 1, 140 n. 1, 144 n. 1, 152 n. 1, 159 n. 3, 166 n. 2,
173 n. 3, 179 n. 7, 180 n. 3, 183 n. 1, 189 n. 1, 207, 214 n. 3,
220
Isaac, God of, invoked by magicians, ii. 34
Isaiah, the Prophet, hostility to Gentiles in post-Exilic passages of, i.
165, 167 n. 4
Isaiah, Ascension, of Sammael name of Satan in, ii. 75 n. 1
vestures used for heavenly nature in, ii. 136 n. 1;
its date, ii. 154 n. 4;
ecpyrosis in, ii. 163 n. 3;
souls passing from one heaven to another must give password, ii.
177 n. 2;
quoted, ii. 154 n. 4, 163 n. 3
Ishtar, the goddess, legend of her Descent into Hell, i. 100;
analogies of her lover Tammuz with Orphic Dionysos, i. 122 n. 3;
name of Atargatis derived from (Garstang), ii. 31 n. 1, 45 n. 1;
personification of Earth, ibid.;
identified with Ophite Sophia, ibid.;
and with Manichaean Mother of Life, ii. 300 n. 1.
See Cybele
Isidore, son of Basilides, his doctrine derived from Matthias the
Apostle (Hippolytus), ii. 90
Isis, the goddess, worship of the Greek, an ethical religion, i. xlix n.
1;
her wanderings in search of the murdered Osiris, i. 34;
Nephthys, twin sister and reflection of, i. 35;
in early Pharaonic Egypt only a magician, i. 38;
in Phrygia and Syria, mother of all living, ibid.;
analogy of her wanderings with those of Demeter, i. 40, 43;
in Pharaonic Egypt wears cow’s head, i. 45;
the Greek, identified with Demeter, i. 48;
her breast-knot and sistrum, i. 49;
Isis suckling Horus, i. 50;
Marcus Volusius disguised as priest of, i. 53;
oaths by, fashionable in Athens temp. Menander, i. 54;
her names and titles in address to Lucius, i. 56;
the haven of peace and altar of pity, i. 57; ii. 158;
initiation into Mysteries of, i. 61-63;
her child the Sun, i. 63; ii. 245;
 Osiris sometimes called her son, i. 63;
both mother and father of other gods, i. 65, 143;
statue of, dressed like Catholic Madonna, i. 66;
silent adoration of image of, i. 67;
frescoes of scenes in worship of, i. 67-69;
her connection with moon, i. 68 n. 3;
her seeking for Osiris acted publicly, i. 70;
the festival of the ship of, i. 71-74;
the great earth-goddess, i. 73, 126; ii. 45 n. 1, 300 n. 1;
“one, who art all things,” i. 75;
seven temples of, in Rome, i. 79;
statue of, in lararium of Alexander Severus, i. 82;
her last Roman worshippers, i. 83;
emblems of virility used in worship of, i. 83;
conversion of worshippers of, to Christianity, i. 84;
entry of features of ritual of, into Catholic Church, i. 84, 85, 87;
tonsure of priests, etc., derived from, i. 84;
Trinitarian doctrine of, i. 88;
Horus at once son and spouse of, i. 189 n. 5; ii. 39;
Simon Magus may derive some of his doctrines from religion of, i.
198;
Phrygian Mother of Gods identified with, ii. 31;
Egyptian legend of Ra and, i. 38 n. 2;
analogy of, with Ophite Sophia, ii. 45 n. 1.
See Menander, Menuthis
Isium of Pompeii built 150 B.C., i. 53
Isopsephism. See Berossos, Iao, Number (of Beast)
Israel, to enslave Gentiles, i. 165, 166, 167 n. 4;
her monotheism, i. 184
Issus, the battle of, i. 7
Italy, break-up of Pythagorean school in, i. 122
Izates, King of Adiabene, his Jewish proclivities, ii. 278 n. 1
Izeds, the, or Yazatas of the Avesta, Mithras made chief of, in
Sassanian reform, ii. 232, 270 n. 3
Jabezebuth, name of Beelzebuth in Magic Papyri, ii. 108 n. 1
Jabraôth, ruler of the obedient Aeons in Pistis Sophia and Bruce
Papyrus, ii. 152 n. 1, 182
Jackson, Prof. A. V. Williams, authority for late date of Avesta, i. lxii
Jacob, Apocrypha attributed to sons of, i. 163;
contrasted with Esau, i. 164 n. 2;
the seed of, oppressed, i. 166;
god of, invoked by magicians, ii. 34
Jaldabaoth. See Ialdabaoth
Jaluha, “receiver” of Sabaoth Adamas in Texts of Saviour, ii. 187
James, “the brother of the Lord,” said to transmit Ophite doctrines to
Mariamne, ii. 26
Janet, M. Pierre, quoted, i. 110
Japan, instance of Oriental nation Europeanized, i. 8
Japhet, the Patriarch, confused with Iapetus, i. lx
Jason of Tralles, acts Euripides’ Bacchus to Parthian audience temp.
Crassus, i. 8 n. 1
Jehovah, seven vowels cover name of, i. 103 n. 2;
name used in Magic Papyrus, i. 106; ii. 34;
Iao perhaps represents, ii. 71 n. 1.
See Tetragrammaton, Yahweh of Israel
Jéquier, M. Gustave, quoted, i. lxi n. 3
Jeremiah, the Prophet, says Jerusalem worships stars, i. 186 n. 2;
says Jews sacrifice to Mother of Gods, ii. 32;
quoted, ii. 32 n. 2
Jeremias, Dr Alfred, his astral theory, i. 115 n. 1
Jerome, St, Indiculus de Heresibus attributed to, ii. 25
Jerusalem, Ptolemy Soter captures, i. 151;
in Enochian literature repels final assault of Gentiles, i. 161;
prophecy that Gentiles shall rebuild, i. 165;
 rivalry between temple of, and Mt Gerizim, i. 177;
destruction of same temp. Titus, ii. 4;
idolatry in, ii. 32;
heaven of Ophite Sophia called the Heavenly, ii. 108 n. 3, 109,
114, 124;
angel spouses of human souls citizens of (Valentinus), ii. 110 n. 1
Jesuits. See Loyola, Ignatius
Jesus, said to have been Essene (Jülicher), i. 156;
acrostic name of, i. 169 n. 1;
Alpha and Omega name of, i. 171 n. 1;
Simon Magus appears to suffer in likeness of, i. 192; ii. 16;
Apocryphal sayings of, in Gospel of Egyptians, etc., i. 196 n. 2; ii.
219;
His unfulfilled promise of Second Advent, ii. 3;
analogy of His Passion and that of Osiris, ii. 6;
tradition of revelations by, after Resurrection, ii. 13, 90 n. 3;
historicity of, never doubted by Gnostics, ii. 15;
Gnostics’ difficulties as to Passion of, ii. 16;
Docetic view as to body of, ii. 17;
Unitarian views of, among modern Nonconformists, ii. 20;
called the Angel of the Great Council, ii. 43 n. 2;
tradition as to prolonged earthly life of, ii. 61 n. 1;
Sethians of Hippolytus do not mention, ii. 76;
Gospel of Nicodemus describes visit to Hades of, ii. 90.
See Christ
Jesus, the Ophite, birth of, from Virgin Mary arranged by Sophia, ii.
53, 59, 60;
salvation only attainable through, ii. 56;
body of, contains parts from all three worlds, ii. 59;
Christos and Sophia descend into, ii. 60;
teaches on earth for 18 months after Resurrection, ibid.;
in Naassene psalm, brings mysteries to earth, ii. 62, 63, 65;
abandons earthly body at Ascension, ii. 65;
the True Gate, ii. 73 n. 3;
identified with great god of Greek Mysteries, ii. 82
Jesus, the Valentinian, the Joint Fruit of Pleroma and Great High
Priest, ii. 106, 159;
spouse of Sophia Without, ii. 106, 113, 114;
matter made through, ii. 107;
transforms passions of Sophia Without, ibid.;
a third deity sent for salvation of psychics, ii. 113-115;
Valentinians disagree as to body of, ii. 115 n. 2, 116, 119;
earthly actions of, mere symbols, ii. 124;
never called Lord, ii. 136 n. 2, 180 n. 3;
name of, includes Pleroma, ii. 166 n. 2
Jesus, the, of the Pistis Sophia, finds rulers of stars devouring their
own matter, i. 196 n. 1; ii. 154;
one with his disciples, ii. 80, 164;
teaches on earth for 11 years after Crucifixion, ii. 135;
his ascent into firmament and return, ii. 136;
describes births of Himself, St John Baptist, and Apostles, ii. 137-
139;
address of powers to, ii. 139-143;
the First Mystery, ii. 144, 159, 161, 171;
other powers His members, ii. 145;
rule of, during Millennium, ii. 146, 164, 171;
body of, comes from Barbelo, ii. 151;
shortens times for elect’s sake, ii. 155;
defeats Pistis Sophia’s enemies and takes her from Chaos, ii. 156;
words of, recorded by Philip, Thomas, and Matthew, ii. 157;
brings mysteries to earth for man’s salvation, ii. 158;
all worlds made through, ii. 161, 162;
the victim in the Eucharist, ii. 171, 172
Jesus, the, of the Texts of the Saviour, called Aberamenthô, i. 102 n.
1;
repeats words of Basilides, ii. 92 n. 3, 189;
his magical invocation of his father, ii. 180;
shows Middle Way and its tortures, ii. 182;
celebrates thaumaturgic sacrament, ii. 183;
merely a mystagogue, ii. 198;
appeals to fears and cupidity of disciples, ibid.
Jesus, the, of the Bruce Papyrus, celebrates thaumaturgic
sacraments, ii. 193;
teaches on earth for 12 years after Crucifixion, ibid.;
merely a mystagogue, ii. 198
Jesus, the, of Marcion, son of Supreme Being, but not of Mary, ii.
208, 210;
Paul only real apostle of, 209, 211;
slain with connivance of Demiurge, ii. 210;
Docetic view as to body of, ii. 211;
Marcionites differ as to body of, ii. 219;
and as to His nature, ii. 220
Jesus, the, of Manichaeism, Saviour sent to Adam, ii. 303;
maker of Great Wheel, ii. 306;
sent for man’s salvation and relief of Omophorus, ibid.;
the Tree of Knowledge in Paradise, ii. 307;
messenger of God like Zoroaster, Buddha, and Mani, ii. 316;
Docetic view as to body of, ii. 318;
J. Patibilis is the soul diffused through nature, ii. 318;
perhaps equated with Virgin of Light in neo-Manichaeism, ii. 323 n.
4, 330;
rôle in same of him and of the Burkhans or Buddhas, ii. 330;
Son of First Man, ii. 339 n. 3
Jeû, in Pistis Sophia, the First Man and arranger of the Cosmos i. lxi;
takes power from the last Purastates, ii. 146 n. 3, 164;
the overseer of the Light, ii. 147;
Father of Sabaoth the Good, ii. 149;
in Texts of Saviour, binds rebellious aeons in sphere, ii. 152 n. 1;
transfers repentant aeons to places between the Middle and Left,
ii. 182;
binds power from Pistis Sophia in planet Venus, ii. 186;
in Bruce Papyrus appears with Melchisidek and other powers, ibid.
186;
he and his followers arranged in similar order to higher powers, ii.
191 n. 2;
called the Great Man, King of the Aeon, ii. 193
Jeu, the Books of, written by Enoch in Paradise, ii. 147 n. 5;
seals and defences for inferior initiates said to be described in, ii.
165;
mysteries of the Light described in, ii. 173;
Schmidt’s theory that these are included in Bruce Papyrus, ii. 190;
this theory refuted, ii. 190-194
Jevons, Dr F. B., his Hartford Lecture quoted, i. liv
Jews, the, their division into three sects, i. lv, 151;
their sacred books translated into Greek, post Alexander, i. 9;
their resistance to Antiochus Epiphanes, i. 51;
their pronounced monotheism, i. 89, 149;
the magicians of the poorer classes in Rome, i. 108;
their Sabbath influenced by astrological ideas, i. 117;
only clergy, paupers and fanatics among, return from Captivity, i.
149 n. 2, 172;
their critical position post Alexander, i. 150;
conquered by Ptolemy Soter, go over later to Antiochus the Great,
i. 151;
Old Testament made familiar to, by Septuagint, i. 157;
their belief in power of name, i. 158; ii. 33;
Messianic hopes of, and their result, i. 159-163;
Apocrypha inspired by same, i. 163-167;
fanaticism of Palestinian, i. 172;
Jews of Dispersion inclined to compromise with Hellenism, i. 173;
secret Hellenizing among, i. 175; ii. 32;
their hatred of Samaritans, i. 177;
astrolatry of, before Captivity, i. 186 n. 2;
Simon Magus’ doctrines appeal to, i. 202;
first Christians regarded as, ii. 4;
unpopularity of, leads to Christian separation from, ii. 5;
their influence on Gnosticism doubtful, ii. 9;
accused by Church of filthy rites, ii. 18;
privileges of, under Diadochi, ii. 28;
their influence on Anatolian religion, ii. 31;
Oriental, given to magic, ii. 33;
Anatolian, bring method of exegesis from Babylon, ii. 34, 35;
 Egyptian, give male and female assessor to Yahweh, ii. 43 n. 2;
unpopularity of, in Rome, temp. Hadrian, ii. 203, 204;
Marcion’s dislike of, ii. 210, 211;
Hemerobaptists’ dislike of, ii. 305;
Manes’ dislike of, ii. 315.
See Cabala, Demiurge, Jaldabaoth, Yahweh of Israel
Job, all apocrypha of, said to be Essene (Kohler), ii. 153 n. 4, 163
Joel, the Prophet, shows hatred of Jews for Gentiles, i. 167 n. 4
John Baptist, St, said to be Essene, i. 156;
Simon Magus follower of (Clementines), i. 179; ii. 6 n. 4;
birth of, ap. Ophites, ii. 53;
ap. Pistis Sophia, ii. 137:
body of, contains soul of Elijah (P.S.), ii. 137, 149, 150.
See Elizabeth, Hemerobaptists
John the Divine, St, Cerinthus, traditional opponent of, ii. 9 n. 1;
pre-eminent place of, in next world, ii. 164;
speaks of repentant aeons (P.S.), ii. 182 n. 2.
See Apocalypse, Gospel, the Fourth, Millennium
Jôk, Supreme Being of the Shilluks, ii. 39 n. 5
Josephus, quoted, i. lv n. 2, 151, 152 n. 2, 153, 154, 155, 163 n. 1,
168 n. 2, 170, 177; ii. 4 n. 3, 5 n. 3, 28, 85 n. 3, 278 n. 1, 315 n. 1
Jovian, the Emperor, not a persecutor, ii. 270
Judaism, never a rival of Christianity, i. lv;
not a world-religion, i. lvi;
entry of astrological ideas into, i. 117;
Samaritans retain little of, i. 177;
resemblance between it and Zoroastrianism (Cheyne), i. 181 n. 1;
attempts to reconcile it with Hellenic culture, i. 200;
Gentiles ignore Christianity while still a branch of, ii. 21;
Saturninus’ hatred of, ii. 89;
approach of Mithraism to, ii. 277
Judas Iscariot, in Pistis Sophia apparently receives super-excellent
soul, ii. 137 n. 1.
 See Matthias
Julian, the Emperor, thinks Alexandrians worship Serapis in his time,
i. 82 n. 2, 83;
notes hatred of Christian sects for each other, ii. 11;
authority for religion of Mithras, ii. 236;
his eclecticism, ii. 269;
Mithraism revives temporarily under, ii. 271;
favours Manichaeism, ii. 356
Juno, the goddess, identified with Isis, i. 56;
on Mithraic monuments, ii. 238.
See Hera
Jupiter, the god, image of Simon Magus worshipped as, i. 198;
Varuna his prototype, ii. 231;
identified with Ormuzd, ii. 237;
on Mithraic monument presides over assembly of gods, ii. 238;
invoked as superior of Mithras, ibid.;
Jupiter Optimus Maximus not called Ormuzd, ii. 239;
but probably his Roman equivalent, ii. 240, 248, 277
Jupiter, the planet, god of good winds to Babylonians, i. 113;
its place in astrology, i. 116, 118 n. 1;
one of Ophites’ seven heavens, ii. 48, 73 n. 1;
ruler of lesser astral powers in Texts of Saviour, ii. 182
Justin Martyr, celebration of Eucharist simple, temp., i. 87 n. 1;
finds hidden meanings in Pentateuch and name of Christ, i. 170 n.
5;
makes Simon the heresiarch Simon Magus of Acts, i. 179 n. 5;
says Simon tells followers he will never die, i. 192 n. 2;
authority for Menander’s succession to Simon Magus, i. 199 n. 7;
Tatian a disciple of, ii. 8 n. 3, 220;
his dictum on Real Presence, ii. 172;
his date, ibid.;
his Apologies, ii. 203, 204 n. 1;
thinks his contemporary Marcion most formidable enemy of
Church, ii. 205, 216 n. 3;
 says devils set on Mithraists to imitate Church’s sacraments, ii.
247;
quoted, i. 170 n. 5, 192 n. 2, ii. 18 n. 2, 122 n. 1, 205, 216 n. 3,
247
Justinian I, the Emperor, makes laws against Ophites, ii. 77;
and against Manichaeans, ii. 356
Justinus the heresiarch, teaches system resembling Ophites’, ii. 77;
his symbolical use of story from Herodotus, ii. 81
Juvenal, satirizes Alexandrian religion, i. 20, 54;
describes finding of Osiris, i. 70.

Karossa, alleged name of Manes’ mother, ii. 279

Kashgar, limit of Persian Empire, i. 1;
Bar Khôni’s bishopric, ii. 321
Kenyon, Sir Frederic, gives story of Ptolemy son of Glaucias, i. 79,
80;
doubts identification of Serapis and Esculapius, i. 87 n. 2;
thinks relative age of Peshitto version still undecided, ii. 84 n. 2;
quoted, i. 56 n. 2, 80 n. 1, 87 n. 2, 93 n. 3, 98 n. 1, 142 n. 1, 169 n.
2; ii. 34 n. 3, 84 nn. 2, 3
Kerasmos, the, or Confusion, in Pistis Sophia name given to mixture
of Light and Matter, ii. 147, 164, 174, 292 n. 2.
See Jeû
Kern, Prof. Otto, quoted, i. 141 n. 4
Kesbeêl, the “number” of, i. 169
Kessler, Dr Konrad, thinks Mughtasilah a source of Manes’ doctrine,
ii. 305;
his Mani quoted, ii. 280, 281 nn. 1, 3, 6, 282 n. 1, 285 n. 2, 286 nn.
3, 5, 288 n. 2, 289 n. 2, 290 n. 3, 291 n. 1, 292 n. 1, 294 n. 1,
295 nn. 1, 2, 296 n. 1, 299 nn. 2, 3, 302 n. 1, 304 n. 1, 305 n. 2,
310 n. 1, 312 n. 2, 313 n. 1, 314 n. 2, 316 n. 1, 322 n. 1, 350 nn.
4, 5, 6
Khasekhmui, King of Egypt, makes peace between factions of Horus
and Set, i. 36
Khent-Amentit, the god, absorbed in Osiris, i. 33
Khepera, the god, mankind comes from tears of, i. 126 n. 3
Khojend, probable site of Alexandria eschata, i. 5 n. 3
Khonsu, the god, story of the Possessed Princess and, i. 10
Khorassan, Alexander’s fame preserved in, in XVIIth cent., i. 14 n. 2
Khormizta or Khormuzta. See Ormuzd
Khrostag and Padvaktag, ii. 354, 355.
See Appellant and Respondent
Khshathra Vairya or Right Law, the Amshaspand, i. 181 n. 1;
set over metals, ii. 301
Khuastuanift, the, confession-prayer of Manichaeans, ii. 288 n. 3;
its discovery, ii. 334;
quoted with commentary, 335-346
Khumbaba, King of Elam, his name perhaps reappears in
Manichaeism, ii. 287 n. 4.
See Hummama
King, C. W., thinks strings of vowels in Magic Papyri cover name of
Jehovah, i. 103 n. 2;
his translation of names of Simon’s “Roots,” i. 180 n. 4
Kios in Bithynia, inscription identifying Serapis and Zeus, i. 55 n. 3
Kohler, Dr, his views on Essene literature, i. 153 n. 4;
sees Cabala in Philo, i. 157
Koran, the, plenary inspiration of, i. liii;
connection of, with teaching of Simon Magus, i. 201
Kronos, the god, in Homeric myths successor of Uranos, i. 46;
called in Orphic hymns Son of Earth and Heaven, i. 132 n. 1;
age of, in Orphic myths, i. 186
Krotzenburg, Mithraic monuments at, ii. 245 n. 4