A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late AntiquityChristian communities flourished during late antiquity in a Zoroastrian political system, known as the Iranian Empire, that integrated culturally and geographically disparate territories from Arabia to Afghanistan into its institutions and networks. Whereas previous studies have regarded Christians as marginal, insular, and often persecuted participants in this empire, Richard Payne demonstrates their integration into elite networks, adoption of Iranian political practices and imaginaries, and participation in imperial institutions. The rise of Christianity in Iran depended on the Zoroastrian theory and practice of hierarchical, differentiated inclusion, according to which Christians, Jews, and others occupied legitimate places in Iranian political culture in positions subordinate to the imperial religion. Christians, for their part, positioned themselves in a political culture not of their own making, with recourse to their own ideological and institutional resources, ranging from the writing of saints’ lives to the judicial arbitration of bishops. In placing the social history of East Syrian Christians at the center of the Iranian imperial story, A State of Mixture helps explain the endurance of a culturally diverse empire across four centuries. |
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accounts Acta martyrum Adurohrmazd agden Ahreman Anahid ancient apostasy Arbela aristocratic houses Armenian ascetic Avesta Bedjan Beit bishops Bisutun Cambridge canons chapter Christian communities Christians and Zoroastrians Chronicle of Seert Church converts cosmological culture Daryaee Dēnkard East Syrian ecclesiastical leaders episcopal Fiey fire temples Gignoux Gyselen hagiographical Harrassowitz Verlag historiographical History of Karka History of Mar Husraw imperial institutions Iran Iranian court Iranian Empire Iranian political Iranica Jullien Karka d-Beit Slok Khuzestan king of kings Late Antiquity late Sasanian period lineage literary Macuch Mar Aba Mar Qardagh marriage Martyrdom of Pethion martyrs martyrum et sanctorum Mesopotamia Middle Persian mowbed narrative nian Nisibis nobles northern Mesopotamia Ohrmazd patriarch Paul Bedjan Paris Peeters polemics region religion ritual royal ruler Sabrisho saints sassanide scholars Seleucia-Ctesiphon seventh century Shapur Shapur II Simeon sixth century sources Studies texts tion tradition trans University Press Walashfarr Wiesbaden worldly Yasna Yazdgird Zoroastrian Zoroastrian religious Zurwan