Subproject 1: Passions and Plots in Emerging Judaisms
(Feldt and Holkenov)
Work package 1 (Feldt): Total Devotion in the Hebrew Bible and 2nd Temple Judaisms
Emotions play an important role in narratives about exemplary devotion in the Hebrew Bible and in 2nd Temple literature (ca. 5th cent. BCE to 2nd cent. CE). The analysis of emotion expressions and story effects (steps a-b) forms the basis for an assessment of step c in the strategy of analysis, and a discussion of the emergence of radical religion in the 2nd Temple era. The selected key texts are: Deut. 1-11, 2 Kings 22-23, Daniel 3 and 6, Maccabees 1-4 (esp. 1 Macc 6, 2 Macc 7 and 14, and 4 Macc 5), and the “Jewish” gospel of Matthew. I analyse emotion expressions (such as ʾhb (“love”), yrʾ (“fear”), et al.) used of an intense, emotional, loyalty-relationship between deity and devotee/s, and story composition effects, arguing that emotional practices play key roles in the Tanakh and 2nd Temple literature about total devotion – contrary to a long-standing, though not uncontested, scholarly consensus (Feldt submitted). The project thus throws new light on decisive processes of religious change in emerging forms of Judaism.
Work package 2 (Holkenov): Total Devotion in Rabbinic Judaism (2nd – 6th cent. CE)
Radical religion in Rabbinic sources have mainly been studied from the perspective of martyrdom, not in the broader terms of total devotion and emotio-narrative practices. Martyrdom is understood as the culmination of of the devotee’s deepest longings, but also to correspond to the command to love Yahweh (Deut 6,5). So, emic devotion ideals also revolve around the love of God and the claim of monotheism and feature prominently in the tradition about Rabbi Hanina and Rabbi Akiva, the story of the seven sons of Miriam bat Tanhum, in the traditions about the bond of suffering and the Binding of Isaac, Lamentations Rabbah, and more. This project maps the relevant Rabbinic sources and traces the reception and transformation of total devotion ideals in close dialogue with SP1. The Rabbinic texts clearly recycle elements of earlier Jewish literature, esp. 2 and 4 Maccabees, but also the command to love and total devotion (Deut. 6,5). The project proceeds in close comparative discussion with SP2, as the time period in which the Rabbinic movement came into its own correlates with the emergence of the new Christian religion.
The dissertation:
In her dissertation, Holkenov examines how the rabbinic text Sifre Deuteronomy interprets the biblical verses Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (the opening of the Shema, a central Jewish declaration of faith), as a way of cultivating total devotion, understood as absolute commitment involving emotional intensity, identity fusion, and readiness for costly sacrifice.
The study demonstrates how different Jewish traditions have emphasized contrasting emotional ideals of total devotion. While priestly circles have tended to highlight fear as the path to obedience and purity, scribal circles have traditionally elevated love as the supreme form of attachment to God.
By analyzing these interpretations within their late antique historical and cultural setting, Holkenov demonstrates how rabbinic discourse sought to merge these strands, appropriating priestly motifs while maintaining a scribal framework that privileged love as the dominant emotional ideal of total devotion.
Subproject 2: Total Devotion: Passions and Plots in Emerging Christianities
(Bremmer, Høgel, Staat)
Work package 1 (Bremmer): Total Devotion in Christian Martyrdom Literature (2-4th cent. CE)
Total devotion was not part of Greco-Roman polytheist religion; Aristotle bluntly states; ‘It would be absurd if someone were to say that he loves Zeus’ (MM. 1208 b 30). The early Christians developed a language of loving God but also of God loving them. From the earliest texts of the Jesus followers onwards, the Christians called themselves ‘slaves of God’ and God Himself their Master. A striking example of this relationship is the narrative of Polycarp (ca. 165 CE), where the old martyr says: ‘I have been his (Christ’s) slave for 86 years’. The relationship assumes mystical contours in the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas (ca. 207) when the latter, in the pains of childbirth and asked how she would endure the terrors of the arena, answers, ‘then there will be another one (viz. Christ) in me who will suffer for me, just as I shall be suffering for Him’. Much of the early Christian literature is doctrinal and apologetic, but in the narratives of the martyrs, we find references to this close devotion of the early Christians to Christ, often depicted in emotionally gripping scenes and clearly serving as narrative models for Christian behaviour. My project will investigate this close, emotional and narrativized relationship between the believers and Christ as examples of total devotion and compare this relationship to the relationships with the gods of their polytheist and Jewish contemporaries, cf. SP1.
Work package 2 (Høgel): Total Devotion in Pillar Saint Hagiography (3rd-5th cent. CE)
Stylites, or pillar saints, stand out in terms of total devotion. Many other saints took refuge in marginal spaces (mountains, graves, deserts), often explicitly aiming not to become too known, but the stylites picked a conspicuous dwelling: the tops of pillars, thus giving total devotion a palpable, spatial aspect. Taking Symeon Stylites (the Elder, ca. 390-459) as a model, pillar saints created a special strand within Christian sainthood – that of the mass performance – and as a direct corollary, this project argues – the standard miracle story used in stylite hagiography is that of mass conversion (e.g., Life by Theodoret 15-16, Syriac Life 77; Georgians, Armenians, Persians, and more in large groups). In pillar saint narratives, total devotion is envisioned as a visible mass phenomenon, and visuality and simultaneity play into the saint’s devotion (cf. Life by Theodoret, 21; mass preachings (25-26). Analysing the use of Hebrew Bible models of devotion (cf. SP1 and SP2-WP 1&3), this project investigates the emotion expressions used and the narrativization of emotions in the relationship between stylite and deity, as well as between the stylite and the crowd. The scripting of total devotion as a mass phenomenon and its visual conspicuousness are important with a view to its role in conversion processes.
Work package 3 (Staat): Total Devotion in Ascetic Hagiography (4-6th cent. CE)
Asceticism is a key form of radical religion in the ancient world. Both ascetic narratives and bodies elicit emotions and emulation, even if stated goals are to overcome certain emotions. Asceticism naturally implies the idea of a scale of devotion involving emotions, and asceticism was a key factor in Christianity from the 4th century. This project investigates the transformation of total devotion plots from the Hebrew Bible and Jewish literature (SP1), as well as Christian martyrdom and stylite literature (SP2, WP1&2), in order to analyse total devotion in ascetic hagiography from the Latin west in the great era of transition after the disintegration of the west-Roman empire. Here, “secret saints” such as Hilarion the Great, Germanus of Auxerre, Honoratus of Arles, and Severinus of Noricum hide in caves, mountains, and deserts to heighten their total devotion; secrecy becomes at once a factor of attraction and fascination and functions to totalize devotion. Taking into account total devotion ideals in authors such as Cassian, Salvian, and Ambrose in which ideal religious devotion is understood as intense and emotional, the project inquires into total devotion and group dynamics in the conversion processes of late antique/early medieval Europe.