Patronage, Loyalty and Conversion in the Ancient Mediterranean. Crook & Antonin, Z. Ph.D. Thesis, University of St. Michael's College (Canada), Canada, 2003. ![Patronage, Loyalty and Conversion in the Ancient Mediterranean [link]](https://bibbase.org/img/filetypes/link.svg "link")
Paper abstract bibtex Twentieth-century studies of conversion tend to presuppose a model of personality that is both Western and modern: individualistic, introspective, and egocentric. This dissertation begins by problematising the sentiment that "We are all the same" by challenging the fundamental tenets of cross-cultural psychology. In short, I show that ancient and modern personality are/were not constructed similarly, and thus an approach to ancient conversion that understands or views it from within a modern psychological framework is ethnocentric. The over-arching goal of this work is to provide an alternative framework for understanding ancient conversion. The recognition that ancient Mediterranean people cast their interactions with their gods in the language of patronage and clientage is the first step in providing this alternative framework. The analysis of narratives describing the relationships between human and divine patrons and clients reveals a consistent set of rhetorical conventions--the call of the patron, the philosopher as patron, prayer, praise and proselytism, patronal synkrisis, and the ca,rij of the patron. These conventions comprise a rhetoric of patronage and benefaction; that they all appear in the conversion narratives of Paul, as well as in those of many other ancient personages, suggests that Paul's conversion narrative is better understood within the domain of ancient divine patronage and benefaction. Conversion, in short, involved a change in the patronal relationship. What was at stake, however, was not merely a change in patron but the expressions of honour and loyalty that were the foundational feature of the patron-client relationship. Loyalty in manumission and in philosophy provides the best example of the interaction between loyalty and patronal change (or conversion). Patronage and loyalty, and thus conversion too, were about relationships and their characteristic behaviours (honour, reciprocity) far more than they were about states of mind or emotional traumas. While loyalty admits to a certain degree of emotion, and is helpful for that reason, it is an action, not a state of mind or an emotion. Recognising the different ways in which personality and identity were constructed in antiquity means we have to reconsider the assumptions of emotional parallelism that characterise many studies of ancient conversion.
@phdthesis{ crook_patronage_2003,
address = {Canada},
type = {{Ph.D.}},
title = {Patronage, Loyalty and Conversion in the Ancient Mediterranean},
copyright = {Copyright {UMI} - Dissertations Publishing 2003},
url = {http://search.proquest.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/pqdtft/docview/305261478/abstract/137B96003B47956FB25/1?accountid=14771},
abstract = {Twentieth-century studies of conversion tend to presuppose a model of personality that is both Western and modern: individualistic, introspective, and egocentric. This dissertation begins by problematising the sentiment that {"We} are all the same" by challenging the fundamental tenets of cross-cultural psychology. In short, I show that ancient and modern personality are/were not constructed similarly, and thus an approach to ancient conversion that understands or views it from within a modern psychological framework is ethnocentric. The over-arching goal of this work is to provide an alternative framework for understanding ancient conversion.
The recognition that ancient Mediterranean people cast their interactions with their gods in the language of patronage and clientage is the first step in providing this alternative framework. The analysis of narratives describing the relationships between human and divine patrons and clients reveals a consistent set of rhetorical conventions--the call of the patron, the philosopher as patron, prayer, praise and proselytism, patronal synkrisis, and the ca,rij of the patron. These conventions comprise a rhetoric of patronage and benefaction; that they all appear in the conversion narratives of Paul, as well as in those of many other ancient personages, suggests that Paul's conversion narrative is better understood within the domain of ancient divine patronage and benefaction. Conversion, in short, involved a change in the patronal relationship.
What was at stake, however, was not merely a change in patron but the expressions of honour and loyalty that were the foundational feature of the patron-client relationship. Loyalty in manumission and in philosophy provides the best example of the interaction between loyalty and patronal change (or conversion). Patronage and loyalty, and thus conversion too, were about relationships and their characteristic behaviours (honour, reciprocity) far more than they were about states of mind or emotional traumas. While loyalty admits to a certain degree of emotion, and is helpful for that reason, it is an action, not a state of mind or an emotion. Recognising the different ways in which personality and identity were constructed in antiquity means we have to reconsider the assumptions of emotional parallelism that characterise many studies of ancient conversion.},
language = {English},
urldate = {2012-07-04},
school = {University of St. Michael's College (Canada)},
author = {Crook, Zeba Antonin},
year = {2003},
keywords = {Ancient, Conversion, Loyalty, Mediterranean, Patronage, Paul, Philosophy, Saint, Saint Paul, religion and theology}
}
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These conventions comprise a rhetoric of patronage and benefaction; that they all appear in the conversion narratives of Paul, as well as in those of many other ancient personages, suggests that Paul's conversion narrative is better understood within the domain of ancient divine patronage and benefaction. Conversion, in short, involved a change in the patronal relationship.\nWhat was at stake, however, was not merely a change in patron but the expressions of honour and loyalty that were the foundational feature of the patron-client relationship. Loyalty in manumission and in philosophy provides the best example of the interaction between loyalty and patronal change (or conversion). Patronage and loyalty, and thus conversion too, were about relationships and their characteristic behaviours (honour, reciprocity) far more than they were about states of mind or emotional traumas. 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