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Der makedonische Knig und die gyptischen Priester: Studien zur Geschichte des ptolemaiischen gypten (review)

Richard A. Billows

American Journal of Philology, Volume 118, Number 2 (Whole Number 470), Summer 1997, pp. 343-345 (Article) Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: 10.1353/ajp.1997.0024

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WERNER HUSS. Der makedonische Knig und die gyptischen Priester: Studien zur Geschichte des ptolemaiischen gypten. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1994. 238 pp. Paper, DM 80. (Historia Einzelschriften, 85) The aim of this monograph is to elucidate the interactions of Staat and Kirche (authors quotes) in Egypt under the Ptolemaic rule. In placing these terms always between quotation marks the author clearly seeks to create a little distance between his usage and the standard modern connotations, which immediately poses the question of just how appropriate it is to attempt to understand and discuss the ancient institutions and structures of Ptolemaic Egypt in this way. The present reviewer is very willing to allow Huss the term Staat, and indeed so far as I am concerned the quotation marks around this term could be dispensed with. The situation, however, is rather different with respect to the term Kirche. Even when used circumspectly with scholarly caveat regarding meaning (see the authors Einfhrung, n. 5), the term Kirche seems to me to import with it a set of institutional and theological suppositions that are entirely out of place when discussing the preChristian religion of Egypt. Simply as a way of thinking and talking about Egyptian religion, the notion of Kirche inevitably leads one to see this religion in a certain waywith a rather unied and uniform institutional framework and hierarchy, and a set of accepted beliefs and dogmaswhich I doubt is the right way to see it. One could argue, indeed, that one should speak rather of Egyptian religions, given the lack of theological or even mythological coherence between the various cults of the great temples in different regions of Egypt. And one could further note that each of these great temples had its own structure and hierarchy, and that they were related to each other by no set and uniformly accepted hierarchy, but rather competed for prestige and standing while each assiduously building its own power and wealth. To be fair, Huss is not at all unaware of these facts, and despite the shaky theoretical ground on which he stands, his monograph does have much good to offer. It is divided into two parts: Part I discusses the dealings of the state towards the Kirche, outlining the ways in which the Ptolemies attempted to win accep-

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tance of, or even outright cooperation with, their rule on the part of the Egyptian temples and priests; part II discusses the stance of the Kirche towards the Ptolemaic rule, and is itself subdivided into two parts, dealing with forms of cooperation and forms of opposition respectively. The treatment is extraordinarily thorough with respect to its presentation of source material and secondary literatureat times indeed too thorough. It is not unusual to nd pages in which the footnotes take up considerably more space than the text. The most extreme case, note 163 on 5860, takes up almost a full two pages of space for a list of abbreviated references to secondary works discussing the early Sarapis cult. Even in a monograph devoted to the cult of Sarapis, which this is not, such a footnote would seem irksomely long and detailed, and this is only the most egregious case. The author would do well to observe the common practice of providing references only to the most important and the most recent secondary literature, trusting to the ability of interested readers to do further followup research for themselves. That said, this monograph is a mine of information, and I heartily commend Huss for his excellent bibliography and four indices (person, subject, place, and source). Part I of the monograph shows very clearly the lengths to which the Ptolemies went to placate and win acceptance of the Egyptian priests, illustrating thereby without question the very powerful and important role the priests had in Egyptian society. Huss documents a whole range of nancial, political, and social privileges and concessions granted to numerous temples and priests by the Ptolemies, making it clear that all of the Ptolemies followed this politics of appeasement to a greater or lesser degree, and that virtually all of the temples benetted from this policy (see the impressive tabulation of Ptolemaic building activity at temples in 2639). All of this is the subject of sections 1 to 9 of part I (1455). It greatly outweighs the negative side presented in sections 1113, where Huss collects evidence of Ptolemaic limitation and control of priestly inuence and activity (section 10 deals with ofcial propaganda aimed at the priests). These sections (5668) do show that the Ptolemies attempted to control and limit priestly activities in some ways and at some times. However, the evidence is relatively slight, and in fact pages 5868 are concerned with the establishment of the Sarapis cult, concerning which Huss concludesrightly in my viewthat it was not an attempt to undermine in any way the traditional authority of the priests among the indigenous population, being rather aimed at the Greek speaking immigrant population. Part II begins with a full discussion of the ways in which the priests cooperatedpassively and/or activelywith the Ptolemaic regime (69128). Again the documentation is full, and students of the Ptolemaic regime will be particularly interested by the prosopography of priests holding ofcial posts and/or titles presented by Huss at 7390, arranged by locality, by time period, by priestly title, and by ofcial rank. As Huss concludes, it is clear that, even though only a minority of known priests are also known to have held ofcial posts

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and/or titles, nevertheless there was no great reluctance on the part of priests to collaborate openly and actively with the regime. It is also clear, however, that the main role of the priests in support of the government lay in the less concrete elds of organizing progovernment festivals and displays intended to guide popular opinion. To this reviewer, the most interesting part of the monograph is the last part, that dealing with the various overt and covert, subtle and forthright forms of opposition to Ptolemaic rule emanating from priestly circles. It is true that, perhaps bound by the connes of the monographic format he has chosen, Huss lists and describes these forms of opposition, rather than subjecting them to a thorough and probing analysis. The list is, however, quite an impressive one, ranging from the relatively harmless leaving out of honoric titulature and so forth when mentioning the Ptolemaic king in documents, through more active behavior such as promoting Egyptian patriotic tales like the Nectanebo legend, to outright denunciations of the regime of the foreigners such as those found in the Lamb Prophecy and the Oracle of the Potter, and ultimately to physical acts of disloyalty (see 17980 for the latter). All of this forms, it seems to me, a rich eld to be exploited by exponents of socalled subaltern history and opposition history, a eld into which Huss himself barely enters, contenting himself with the unsurprising and rather disappointing conclusions that the Ptolemaic regime sought by every available means to coopt the priests as supporters of their rule, that the priests were by and large willing to support the regime in return for tangible benets, but that there was nevertheless some opposition to the Ptolemies from priestly circles deriving mostly from resentment of foreign domination. Again, to be fair, Huss aims at no more, expressing in his preface doubts as to the feasibility of grand analysis and synthesis based on lacunose evidence (9), and in his introduction (12) describing his work as a sketch (Skizze) intended to give the reader only a provisional orientation (vorlugen Orientierung). It is a pity that he takes such a restricted view of what can be made of and done with the ancient evidence, admittedly inadequate as it is, and that in his analysis he has aimed no higher. He clearly has the requisite learning to have produced a very much richer treatment of this topic. Even as it is, he has provided a rich vein of research data for other students of Ptolemaic Egyptian religion, institutions, and society to mine. RICHARD A. BILLOWS
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK

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