ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter we analysed archetypes of the correct modus vivendi for true believers represented by the figure of Judith in the Jewish Apocrypha and by the female followers of Jesus in the Christian canonical Gospels. The extensive period in which these texts are set is a time in history that saw the rise and intensification of political power on a scale hitherto unknown. For the Graeco-Roman world it was the time of ascendancy for the superpowers. We have seen how this can translate on the religious plane into radical expectations for a deity's adherents. But what happens to a deity caught within the arena of the superpowers? These all-powerful human agencies have visible powers that have only been imagined in the apocalyptic nightmares of prophets, and their empires' boundaries extend beyond the known world of most citizens. Such power raises the emperors themselves beyond human categories, and their apotheosis seems a somewhat natural development. For a deity to be deemed active and effective within these arenas of the ancient world, affirmation can only be supplied by acts of faith from its adherents, and the greater the challenge then the more extreme these acts become. Martyrdom can be understood within such a context. The greater the success of the ancient empires in political, cultural and social terms, then the more dire are the implications for the status of the deity and the demands on the faithful. This is the backcloth against which we should understand the nature of belief and practice encapsulated in the sacred texts that survive from those times, and, in particular, understand the canonical texts that provide the foundation for Christian belief.
