Sage, Saint & Sophist: Holy Men & Their Associates in the Early Roman Empire

by Graham Anderson

Holy men, both pagan & Christian are persistent & puzzling figures in the religious life of the Roman Empire. In this first historical study of Holy Men for more than half a century, Dr Anderson applies techniques of literary analysis to throw light on the lifestyles & behavior of these figures, from Jesus Christ to Peregrinus Proteus to dio Chrysostom, stressing their individuality as much as their common features.
Sage, Saint & Sophist examines the variety of services, real or imaginary, that these colorful figures had to offer & how they maintained their credibility to become the objects of successful religious cults.

Genres: History, Christianity

302 pages, Hardcover

First published April 15, 1994

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an amusing, but unsatisfying, contribution to the sociology of religion, written by a scholar primarily known for his work on Lucian. Like Lucian, he treats his subject, "holy men and their associates in the early Roman Empire," satirically. This is "sociology" written by a literary man, impressionism more than science.

Anderson's work presupposes a great deal of prior knowledge as regards rabbinic Judaism, early church history and classical philosophy and religion. Without such a background, however, the work can still be read with enjoyment. His concern is with the social roles and functions of holy men in general rather than with their individual peculiarities. His method is to take an aspect of their lives such as patronage or travel, then, with commentary, to relate a series of instances relevant to the theme from the available sources. The non-specialist can simply go for the ride, taking Anderson's generalizations on faith. The specialist will probably be disappointed, though interested by the effort.

The canvas is broad. The chief individuals covered range from the first to the fourth centuries, from Mesopotamia to Spain, Africa to Europe--basically, the entire Mediterranean world. Holy men were an itinerant lot, often travelling the length and breadth of the Empire and sometimes, for the exotic touch, beyond. This cosmopolitanism was reflected ideologically as well. Numerous holy men confound our modern categories: pagans becoming Christians, then pagan again and vice versa; Christians being mixed up with Jews; Neopythagorean, Cynic and Platonic tendencies informing the more philosophically inclined.

Although not a biographical study, Anderson does make substantial reference to twenty-some figures, giving roughly equal space to those identified with both pagan and Judeo-Christian traditions. Thus, as regards the first century, he treats of John the Baptist, Jesus, Saul, "Barnabas", Simon "Peter", Yohanan ben Zakkai and Josephus in the Judeo-Christian tradition and of Apollonius of Tyana and Simon Magus in the pagan. In the second century he treats of Marcion of Pontus and Montanus in the Christian tradition and of Plutarch, Polemo, Peregrinus, Secundus, Theagenes, Alexander of Abonouteichos, Apuleius, Aristides, Demonax and Julianus the Younger in the pagan. In the third and early fourth centuries he treats of Gregory Thaumaturgus, Mani and Antony the Hermit in the Christian and of Plotinus and Porphyry in the pagan. All are considered by the same standard. There is no preference given those hallowed by still-living faiths. Jesus and Apollonius are both magicians, both necromancers, both prophets, both medicine men.

Christians will be offended. So, if they existed, would be pagans. For what Anderson assumes, despite a couple of disclaimers during his concluding remarks, is that holy men were businessmen, their achievements being predicated upon successful organization, patronage, marketing and public relations. With few exceptions, they were a politically conservative lot.

On the one hand, this approach is salutary. Holy men are men, after all, and not unlike ourselves or their current parallels. Authenticating and selling Joseph Smith is plausibly comparable to the apostolic marketing of Jesus. Billy Graham is not only a preacher, but his ministry is a corporation which will likely continue after his death. On the other hand, this approach is simplifying to the extreme. Every authenticating miracle is presupposed to be a fraud. Much space is occupied by explaining them away. The miracle of Cana?--slowly dissolving paste was known to perform such transformations. Resurrection?--common as comas, easy to fake, standard stuff. Oracles?--ventriloquism, speaking tubes. Holy men were largely cheats, liars, opportunists; their exponents, self-servingly credulous.

One wonders what such a shallow rationalism offers modern students of religion. While it may be advisable to bring the Christ down to the level of an Apollonius, making him an object for study as well as faith, this leveling perspective, begun by Jewish and pagan critics ab initio, has become academically unremarkable. He contributes little by making the ancient, the extraordinary, fit the Procrustean bed of our preconceptions, our world-view. It is more interesting, more mind-expanding, to learn to appreciate them on their own terms.

Are all theophanies false tales or symptoms of psychopathology, experiences to be avoided by all ethical and sane individuals? Are all miracles, the very sense of the miraculous, trickery? Is there nothing to bilocation, thought transference, precognition, clairvoyance, telekinesis? Is there no sense in which the office of holiness might not be a worthy life goal?

To his credit Anderson does show appreciation for at least one class of these phenomena, namely medical miracles. To the ancients, cures were cures and the healer deserved credit and gained authority by effecting them. The difference between the modern and the ancient practitioner was, in large part, a matter of the sociology of knowledge. While today the discoverer of an allotropic agent publishes, the ancients, lacking patents and copyrights, protected their livelihoods by maintaining secrecy. Science today is a public endeavor. Science then was arcane, the hidden knowledge maintained by an individual, a family or a guild. If a holy man's secret was exposed, it would be no less miraculous unless or until it became an easily accessible commonplace. In a sense, matters are no less miraculous today outside those gnostic elites, the modern guilds, who maintain such practices on a vastly broader scale. Modern science has many parallels to ancient religion.

To take just one topic, visionary states, a great deal of evidence and relevant research exists that allows us to appreciate their authenticity. Each of us spends a good deal of our lives in other worlds inhabited by ghosts and spirits. We call it dreaming. Some few of us, with some social sanction if not general assent, take dreaming seriously and study dreams therapeutically for what amounts to their soteriological significance. Many have travelled to other worlds by more extraordinary means, be they natural biological conditions (fever, meditation) or artificial (psychotropics, neurosurgery). There is no question that people can and do have experiences like those of the ancients. What differs is not so much the phenomenology of altered states of consciousness as their frequency and interpretation. Much the same might be said of those phenomena studied today as "extrasensory perception."

Otherwise, the book is flawed by several, more trivial, sins of omission. The index is incomplete. Hallucinogens, mentioned several times in the text and commonly employed by the ancients, are not listed. Similarly, figures mentioned in the text such as Francis the Hermit and Bar Jesus are excluded. Additionally, given the wide range of characters, places and dates discussed, appendices giving brief biographies, genealogies and chronologies would be helpful. So would an index of classical sources and at least one map. Without them the general reader is left with confusing impressions, cowed by dimly apprehended detail.

Despite being too haphazard, too anecdotal to constitute good sociological study and too complicated, too obscure to ever be popular, "Sage, Saint and Sophist" offers an entertaining, sometimes perspicacious, take on the business of religion as it was practiced in the classical world.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hoping for a bit more information about itinerant preachers in the first century, I picked up this book. Some information on this subject appeared here, but overall I was disappointed with regard to that. Anderson focuses more on the way in which holy men lived than on the ways in which they spread their message to people who otherwise would not have known of them (today we have TV preachers, but just how did people in the first century pass along their message?). Granted, there is much on spreading the message, but more in terms of how such men were perceived when they made predictions and how they taught disciples than on the situations, the streets, the academies, in which they would have spoken.