Table of Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Introduction 1
Chapter One Roman Religion and Sacrificial Practice 18
Why Discourse Matters 19
Roman Religious Discourse ?Order, Power, and Balance 28
Roman Religious Sacrifice 56
Chapter Two The Roman Imperial Cult 63
Religious Change in late Republican Rome 65
The Military Hero as ?god? 73
Hellenistic Ruler Cults 78
Divus Iulius 90
Divus Augustus 99
The Imperial Cult after Augustus 106
Chapter Three The New Testament and the Discourse of Sacrifice 114
Sacrifice in the Letter to the Hebrews 116
Sacrifice in the Letters of Paul 130
Sacrifice in the Synoptic Gospels 141
The ?Lamb of God? in John and the Book of Revelation 154
?Spiritual? Sacrifice in the New Testament 165
Excursus ? Ren¿ Girard and the Non-sacrificial Death of Jesus 170
Chapter Four The Sacrifice of the Martyr 180
The Rhetoric of Martyrdom 183
?Noble Death? and Martyrdom: the Debate 192
The Jewish Notion of ?Noble Death? 207
A Specifically Christian Discourse of Martyrdom 210
The Theologians and the Martyrs? Sacrifice 224
Cyprian of Carthage ? ?The Baptism of Blood, the Crown of
Virtue? 231
Summary and Conclusions 241
Bibliography 260