Christianizing Egypt: Syncretism and Local Worlds in Late Antiquity by David Frankfurter (review)

• Autores: Ann Marie Yasin
• Localización: Journal of early Christian studies: Journal of the North American Patristic Society, ISSN 1067-6341, Nº. 3, 2019, págs. 498-500
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Though a superficial look at the table of contents would appear to map out a social topography of apparently discrete "spheres," productive overlaps and interrelations within and between the social contexts identified by the chapter titles abound: the domestic concerns, for example, identified by emphasis on health, family, and ancestors, are also found in interactions with holy men and actions at saints' shrines; individual classes of objects are likewise seen to operate within multiple worlds (e.g., the female figurines discussed in relation to household concerns in Chapter Two are examined as part of the process of commodification and meaning-making created by craft workshops in Chapter Five). [...]Frankfurter's book presents a forceful argument for a revision of our approaches to the mechanisms of Christianization, destabilizing what we mean when we speak of a Christianized community or landscape. What emerges is far from a kind of institutionally orchestrated wave of conversion sweeping across the land, but rather an amalgam of intersecting social spheres in which individuals, both lay and monastic, "actively sought to make sense of Christianity in [each social world's] own terms, idioms, and spaces" (184).