Читать книгу A Companion to the Hellenistic and Roman Near East онлайн

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The final item is a Syriac treatise from one of the many manuscripts procured by the British Museum from the Monastery of the Syrians in the Nitrian Desert (Wadi El Natrun) in the middle years of the nineteenth century. In the manuscript it is headed “An Oration of Meliton the Philosopher,” and it claims to have been delivered in person, viva voce, to “Antoninus Caesar.” Belonging among the many apologies, some addressed specifically to emperors, in which Christian authors set out to defend their faith in the second and third centuries CE, it is, in practice, not an exposition of Christian dogma, but an attack on pagan idolatry. It is of interest to us because of a short section in which the author cites a series of examples of idolatrous cults which supposedly originated in the worship of statues. Not only is Near Eastern material, from Phoenicia, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia, remarkably prominent in this section, but it is rich, detailed, and highly idiosyncratic. So it is of some importance, as a first step, to determine the author of the treatise and his context. This, alas, is easier said than done.