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Belief and Cult

Rethinking Roman Religion
  • and
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2022

About this book

A groundbreaking reinterpretation that draws on cognitive theory to show that belief wasn’t absent from—but rather was at the heart of—Roman religion

Belief and Cult argues that belief isn’t uniquely Christian but was central to ancient Roman religion. Drawing on cognitive theory, Jacob Mackey shows that despite having nothing to do with salvation or faith, belief underlay every aspect of Roman religious practices—emotions, individual and collective cult action, ritual norms, social reality, and social power. In doing so, he also offers a thorough argument for the importance of belief to other non-Christian religions.

At the individual level, the book argues, belief played an indispensable role in the genesis of cult action and religious emotion. However, belief also had a collective dimension. The cognitive theory of Shared Intentionality shows how beliefs may be shared among individuals, accounting for the existence of written, unwritten, or even unspoken ritual norms. Shared beliefs permitted the choreography of collective cult action and gave cult acts their social meanings. The book also elucidates the role of shared belief in creating and maintaining Roman social reality. Shared belief allowed the Romans to endow agents, actions, and artifacts with socio-religious status and power. In a deep sense, no man could count as an augur and no act of animal slaughter as a successful offering to the gods, unless Romans collectively shared appropriate beliefs about these things.

Closely examining augury, prayer, the religious enculturation of children, and the Romans’ own theories of cognition and cult, Belief and Cult promises to revolutionize the understanding of Roman religion by demonstrating that none of its features makes sense without Roman belief.

Author / Editor information

Jacob L. Mackey is assistant professor of classics at Occidental College.

Reviews

"Important. . . . Mackey’s Belief and Cult is one of the most significant contributions to our understanding of Roman religion in the last two decades."---Alexander Nice, Religious Studies Review --- "A courageous attempt to challenge a longstanding tradition in the field to de-emphasize belief with a highly theoretical approach that insists on belief’s centrality. . . . Belief and Cult argues constructively for the significant role of belief in human cognition and potential ways to re-introduce the discussion of belief back to the study of Roman religion."---Jerry Kou, Reading Religion --- "A very important book."---Jennifer Larson, History of Religions --- "[It is] difficult to exaggerate the importance of Mackay’sbook as a statement on ancient Roman religion. . . . Essential."---R. E. Winn, Choice --- "A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year"

Topics

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    Frontmatter

    i
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    Brief contents

    vii
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    Detailed Contents

    ix
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    Preface

    xv
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    Acknowledgments

    xix
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    Abbreviations

    xxi
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    Introduction: roman religion, from intuitions to institutions

    1
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  • Part I Theoretical Foundations
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    1 Losing Belief

    25
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    2 Recovering Belief

    59
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    3 Belief and Emotion, Belief and Action

    98
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    4 Shared Belief, Shared Agency, Social Norms

    136
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    5 Shared Belief, Social Ontology, Power

    172
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  • Part II Case Studies
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    6 Belief and Cult: Lucretius’s Roman Theory

    207
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    7 Ad incunabula. Children’s cult as cognitive apprenticeship

    244
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    8 The “Folk Theology” of Roman Prayer: Content, context, and commitment

    291
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    9 Inauguratio: belief, ritual, and religious power

    337
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    Epilog: Comparison, Explanation, and Belief

    371
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    Glossary

    395
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    References

    399
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    Index Locorum

    447
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    General Index

    459
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    A note on the type

    469
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
July 6, 2022
eBook ISBN:
9780691233147
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
View content
https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691233147
eBook ISBN: 9780691233147
Keywords for this book
Intentionality; Cognition; Religion; Speech act; Inference; Livy; Intention; Theology; Roman Religion; Lucretius; Augur; Institution; Dichotomy; Phenomenon; Polytheism; Pietas; Explanation; Intuition; Social reality; Thought; Gustave Flaubert; Language; Ideology; Orthopraxy; Lactantius; Drinking water; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; Result; Religio; L. Frank Baum; Michael Kohlhaas; Elias Khoury; Neglect; Romance novel; Novel; Jane Austen; Truth claim (photography); Madame Bovary; Theory; Eye contact; Tutelary deity; Behavior; Oralism; Irony; Morality; A Handful of Dust; Stendhal; A Latin Dictionary; Metacognition; Philodemus; Gesture; Apotheosis; Sharing; Genre; Dictatorship; Interaction; Arnobius; Intuit; Broca's area; Reason; Figura etymologica; Recapitulation (Castaneda); Egocentrism; De rerum natura; On Religion; Lightness (philosophy); Epicureanism; Hedonism; College of Pontiffs; Cultural Property (Japan)
Audience(s) for this book
For a non-specialist adult audience
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