Conversion in Late Antiquity: Christianity, Islam, and Beyond by Schwartz Daniel L. McLynn Neil Papaconstantinou Arietta & Neil McLynn & Daniel L. Schwartz

Author:Schwartz, Daniel L.,McLynn, Neil,Papaconstantinou, Arietta & Neil McLynn & Daniel L. Schwartz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2015-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

Mentalities of Conversion and Convergence – the Example of Mamre

Perhaps somewhat eccentrically, I will start with Mamre, a shared holy place in rural Palestine that offers an example neither of a rural converter, nor of clear-cut conversion, nor even of a monastery. Instead, it gives us a glimpse of some of the different ways both observers and participants (all are potential converts, after all) understood a holy place where peoples of different backgrounds and religious traditions converged. Mamre is thus a good example of the convergence of polytheists, Jews and Christians, and thanks to Constantine an example of one type of conversion. But I also consider it because of at least two ancient authors’ ecumenical attitudes to the place, which provide important background to the ecumenical flexibility and tenacity of Christian ascetic and monastic traditions in the Mountain Arena both before and after the coming of Islam.

The oak of Mamre stood next to a well on the stony Judean plateau. The cult site was a classic haram, a sanctuary where pilgrims converged at a source of water and shade in an ungenerous landscape. The well and tree had, according to tradition, attracted the patriarch Abraham and his household.

Sozomen, the mid fifth-century church historian and native of the Gaza area, was most probably an eye-witness to the festivities still held at Mamre in his day:

‘Here’, he says, ‘the inhabitants of the country and of the regions around Palestine, the Phoenicians and the Arabians, assemble annually during the summer season to keep a brilliant feast; and many others, both buyers and sellers, gather on account of the fair. Indeed this feast is zealously attended by everyone: by the Jews, because they boast of the patriarch Abraham; by the polytheists, because of the visit of the angels; and by Christians too, because it was on that occasion that there appeared to the godly man He who at a later time manifested himself openly through the Virgin for the salvation of mankind. They honoured this place with religious veneration – some praying to the God of all; some calling upon the angels, pouring out wine, offering incense, or an ox, he-goat, or a cock…’10

Sozomen’s account reveals how the story of Abraham’s encounter at Mamre gave rise to a variety of complementary interpretations and cult behaviours: reverence for Yahweh, for his accompanying angels, for the Son of God and by extension the Trinity. The maintenance of separate theological interpretations within the same holy space also applied to ritual, as each practised according to his own religious habit, amidst joyous intermingling. Eusebius, writing just over one hundred years earlier, had expressed an attitude which helps to explain how it was possible for some at least to accommodate the presence of such a range of worshippers. He explains that they ‘revere the place because of those who appeared by the Terebinth which is still there, including, even if they are unaware of it, the Lord’.11 To my mind, the phrase ‘even if they are unaware of it’,

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