“Why Are You Mixing what Cannot be Mixed?” Shared Devotions in the Monotheisms

摘要

This paper focuses on the religious mixture in Mediterranean history. Here people of different religions have long lived intermingled. More generally, as it is widely known since at least Braudel's major work, the history of this region has been characterized by a long-term proliferation of traffic, contacts, and borrowings. To what extent has this close interaction also influenced religious behaviour? By examining several occurrences of religious mixture in this region, the paper will show that syncretism is not necessarily an ephemeral stage preceding the repression or the assimilation of other groups, nor is it confined to some historical situations. A broad perspective illustrates a surprising dissemination and a substantial continuity of these manifestations. Even a rough inventory gives an idea about the variety of common devotions at the same sanctuary, where holy figures often operate as catalysts of mixture. Taken together, these mixed devotional manifestations belie the tightness often attributed to monotheisms in the Mediterranean. In order to better understand these interfaith manifestations we should move away from doctrinal and institutional discontinuity between religions, and concentrate on elements of theological and devotional continuity.