The Power of Sacrifice: Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict. By George Heyman. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2007. xxv + 256 pp. $69.95 cloth.

摘要

Early Christian martyrdom is a crowded field, so that it is a challenge toncontribute a new perspective, especially in a synthetic study such as this.nHeyman’s project is to explain why early Christians chose to die rather thannparticipate in standard Roman religious life, and his particular angle is thenoverlapping rhetoric of sacrifice, which he approaches through discoursentheory. The first chapter presents an overview of Roman religion withnparticular reference to its traditions of sacrifice, though also with informationnon the priestly colleges in order to establish the interconnections of religionnand power. Chapter 2 proceeds to consider the impact on religion of thenpolitical transition from republic to principate to urge the centrality in the newnorder of the sacrificial cult associated with the emperor. Chapter 3 turns to thenChristian angle and reviews how Christ’s problematic death as a commonncriminal was presented as a self-sacrifice for humanity that fulfilled importantnOld Testament predictions. Finally, in chapter 4 we reach the central topic ofnmartyrdom where the rhetoric of martyrdom is investigated from differentnperspectives—classical, Jewish, and Christian—to demonstrate how Christiansnfrom the mid-second century on used the powerful rhetoric of their bodilyndestruction to confront the apparently superior might of Rome.