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"This broad yet scrupulous study invites a fundamental rethinking of the history of Christianity in the Sasanian Empire. Rejecting the conventional historiographical framework that focuses on Christian narratives of Zoroastrian persecution, A State of Mixture demonstrates, with cogency and clarity, how thoroughly the Sasanian Empire absorbed the Christian community within its borders. Weaving together a rich array of texts, documents, and archaeology, Payne’s study shows how the Christian elites of the Sasanian world created local histories, law, and martyr legends consistent with their own values."—Joel Walker, Associate Professor and Jon Bridgman Endowed Professor of History at the University of Washington
"Sasanian history and the place of Christians within pre-Islamic Iran is opaque to most scholars and when narrated often done so with banal statements about intolerance and persecution. Richard Payne integrates archaeological and linguistically complex sources to tell a compelling story about violence, ritual, class, ideology, and social life. More broadly, this is a book about how subjects negotiate their positions within empires and how imperial ideology is compatible with religious difference."—Adam H. Becker, Associate Professor of Classics and Religious Studies at New York University
List of contents
A Note on Names, Translations, and Transliterations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Myth of Zoroastrian Intolerance: Violence and the Terms of Christian Inclusion
2. Belonging to a Land: Christians and Zoroastrians in the Iranian Highlands
3. Christian Law Making and Iranian Political Practice: The Reforms of Mar Aba
4. Creating a Christian Aristocracy: Hagiography and Empire in Northern Mesopotamia
5. The Christian Symbolics of Power in a Zoroastrian Empire
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Richard E. Payne is Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Ancient Near Eastern History at the University of Chicago.
Summary
Placing the social history of East Syrian Christians at the center of the Iranian imperial story, this book explains the endurance of a culturally diverse empire across four centuries.
Additional text
"Situating itself mostly on Christian sources in Syriac and Arabic from the Sasanid and Islamic periods, but including discussion of seals, bullae, and other artifacts, this text utilizes all three means in its attempt to depict the political culture of the Sasanid period."
