Search

The chapter investigates the ritual aspect of ancient Eastern Mediterranean divination. Divination is defined as acquisition and transmission of allegedly superhuman knowledge by different means and understood as a cognitive process linking human action with its (presumed) preconditions and its (presumed) effects. The emphasis of the divinatory agency is on the preconditions of the action, not on the effect as in magical agency. Examples from ancient Eastern Mediterranean divinatory practices, especially extispicy and prophecy and the Early Christian lot oracle, are used to demonstrate different facets of the ritual aspect in the acquisition and transmission of allegedly divine knowledge. Divinatory acts are often embedded in a ritual setting, and can sometimes as such be characterized as rituals, sharing important characteristics with the so-called special agent rituals.

This chapter discusses key theoretical approaches to pilgrimage and festivals and surveys the most prominent types in the ancient Mediterranean ritual world. The first section discusses the cross-disciplinary, definitional problems and argues in favour of broad concepts as a sine qua non for cross-cultural discussion and comparison. It outlines key approaches from the 1970s until today, reflects on comparable cultural practices, and suggests directions for theoretical development from the aesthetics of religion, spatiality theory, cognitive theory, and theories of fantastic narratives. The second section surveys key forms of pilgrimage and festivals from the ancient Near East and the Graeco-Roman world, and turns to Hebrew Bible and Jewish forms of pilgrimage and festivals. Finally, the chapter discusses early Christian types of pilgrimage from travel to places associated with the life of Christ, to travel to living saints and ascetics, and to relics, icons and images. For each area, the chapter touches upon categorization and the types of sources available.