ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the use of incense in the Judeo-Christian tradition of worship. It explores some of the debate over incense which sprang up in the middle of the seventeenth century. The chapter examines some of the ways writers use and make reference to incense from the late sixteenth century to the 1670s and suggest that incense can be read as a marker or indicator of a community. Like any such marker, however, the precise community it seems intended to refer to, and perhaps to create, varies over time, and depends on the politics of the writer. Incense has a long history of use in the Middle East and the Mediterranean area, which affected the Judeo-Christian tradition. However, the examination of his references to incense shows that he is prepared to invoke the cultural memory of the use of incense in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and to allow its use to those who wish to employ it in their worship.
