An tu mei similem putas esse aut tui deum?
“Do you really believe that god resembles me, or yourself?”
Cicero, De natura deorum 1.84
As a “Corrupting Sea”, the ancient Mediterranean is a fascinating space where localism and multiculturalism coexisted. This constant conjunction between unity and plurality is expressed at different levels in religious practices: one god, multiple names and multiple contexts; one space and multiple gods, agents, and cultures; one cult and multiple interactions, figures, traces; one agent and multiple cultural affiliations, etc. Complexity is everywhere, forcing us to rethink the tools, concepts and methods we use to decode the relational networks that give meaning to what we broadly and imprecisely call “religion”. The most recent research has shown that the polytheistic religions of Antiquity were fundamentally based on systems of communication. The gods were conceived as divine powers capable of acting in the world, in the destiny of men and in their environment, but for this to happen, people had to summon the gods, mobilise and activate them, and engage in various forms of interaction with them. The most common are sacrifices and offerings since they are intended to trigger a process of exchange of gifts and benefits. The asymmetric communication with divine entities is however always uncertain; the choice of “correct” words, names, animals or moments is of fundamental importance for the success of the interaction. Plato’s Cratylus is precisely a treaty treatise περὶ ὀνομάτων ὀρθότητος, “On the correctness of names”, in which Socrates underlines the human fundamental ignorance of divine names and admits that, in the end, only the nomoi, and therefore the proper conduct of rituals, allow the right names to emerge.
This is why an exploration of “possible worlds” (see Giuseppina Marano’s essay), and thus of the multiple strategies for translating, adapting, transforming, and even making invisible divine names in multicultural contexts, is the best strategy for penetrating the logic of cultic multilingualism. The volume edited by Lorena Pérez Yarza, Javier Herrera Rando, and Sofia Bianchi Mancini, offers a wide range of analyses covering a variety of contexts, in the West and the East, in the Latin, Greek and even Semitic worlds, with a focus on the Roman period. The selected case studies show, on the one hand, the strength of traditions, customs and a certain structural framework that organises the world of the gods and, to a certain extent, limits the onomastic choices made by the agents, but they also reveal, on the other hand, the crucial importance of contextual data. In a way, all deities are Augenblicksgötter, “gods of the instant”, constructed hic et nunc, in the communication established purposedly by the agent(s). As Jörg Rüpke states, deities do not possess inherent names; they do not have a stable, transcultural divine “essence”.
Romans were well aware of this, as this passage from Cicero’s De natura deorum proves:
On your principle it will be legitimate to assert that Jupiter always wears a beard and Apollo never, and that Minerva has grey eyes and Neptune blue. Yes, and at Athens there is a much-praised statue of Vulcan made by Alcamenes, a standing figure, draped, which displays a slight lameness, though not enough to be unsightly. We shall therefore deem god to be lame, since tradition represents Vulcan so. Tell me now, do we also make out the gods to have the same names as those by which they are known to us? But in the first place the gods have as many names as mankind has languages. You are Velleius wherever you travel, but Vulcan has a different name in Italy, in Africa and in Spain. Again, the total number of names even in our pontifical books is not great, but there are gods innumerable. Are they without names? You Epicureans at all events are forced to say so, since what is the point of more names when they are all exactly alike? How delightful it would be, Velleius, if when you did not know a thing you would admit your ignorance, instead of uttering this drivel, which must make even your own gorge rise with disgust! Do you really believe that god resembles me, or yourself? Of course you do not. (Cic. Nat. D. 1.83-84).
Interpretatio is thus a complex operation that reformulates a divine name and adapts it to a different context of use. This process is based on the hypothetical social and individual knowledge people had of the deity’s profile, his/her methods and areas of action, his/her relation to space and places, and his/her figurative representations. It is thus an act of discerning across cultures, but the texture of specific acts of discernment often remains to be elucidated. Moreover, when Judaism and Christianity became “world religions”, the question of multiculturalism and multilingualism arose in different terms, at least in part, since they remained locally rooted cults. As affirmed by Jan Assmann, whereas polytheism is a sort of “cosmotheism”, with different cultures mutually (more or less) transparent and compatible, monotheism tends to block the intercultural translatability, as a religious commonality. Said thatThat said, “translating” a divine name is never an innocuous practice: the god’s name is integrated within a wholly different cultural and linguistic landscape and connected to a new network of conceptual references and practical habits. In addition, as Cicero rightly said, coping with the gods is always risky and unpredictable because their power always exceeds their names. Through different designations, in Latin and Greek, or Greek and Aramaic, Punic and Latin, etc., people hoped to capture their multifarious and multifaceted profile, but all names were conjectures and approximations. “Dressed, he remains naked”, recalls Ephrem the Syrian, who compares divine names to imperfect ornaments. Although they are much more than “ornaments”, we must always bear in mind that names reflect a twofold human movement towards the divine: approaching it, trying to know it, even taming it, but also keeping it at a distance and emphasising its otherness. All these issues are present in this volume, and are greatly enlightened by the brilliant contributions that it contains. The focus on bilingualism or multilingualism in the epigraphic evidence makes it particularly stimulating.
Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, corinne.bonnet@sns.it.
