In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James saw conversion as ‘the process, gradual or sudden, by which a self, hitherto divided and consciously wrong, inferior and unhappy, becomes unified and consciously right, superior and happy, in consequence of its firmer hold upon religious realities’.Footnote 1 A. D. Nock's conversion, like James's, was a complete about-turn, a life-changing choice made in response to recognition of the truth. Focusing on antiquity and the rise of Christianity, Nock allowed the conversion to philosophy that was part of the classical tradition: ‘the only context in which we find [conversion] in ancient paganism is that of philosophy, which held a clear concept of two types of life, a higher and a lower, and which exhorted men to turn from the one to the other’. Within paganism, acceptance of new gods in the context of cultural interaction brought about by intermarriage, military service abroad, or slavery was not ‘conversion’ but ‘adhesion’. The new worships were ‘useful supplements’ which ‘did not involve the taking of a new way of life in place of the old’.Footnote 2
Many recent studies have broadened the definition, allowing as ‘conversion’ any change in religious self-identification and/or affiliation. In the context of the Roman Empire, MacMullen took up the issue of the mass conversion of populations. He notes that a group's nominal acceptance of Christianity was enough for the fathers of the early churchFootnote 3 and, citing Geertz, that religious conviction emerges primarily from acts of religious observance.Footnote 4 Sociological studies have resulted in the construction of typologies.Footnote 5 In a volume focusing on contemporary religious pluralism, Flanagan separated the ‘soft’ conversions characteristic of New Age holistic spirituality – ‘tentative, temporary and transient’ – and the ‘hard’ ones characteristic of organized religion;Footnote 6 Pace allows two ‘passive’ conversion types – rational-instrumental (I become converted because it suits my purposes, without allowing myself to become very involved on an emotional plane or in terms of lifestyle) and traditional-conformist (I become converted to conform to the rules of social interplay that the religion of the majority helps to reinforce, since it is seen as a pillar of the established social order) – that would certainly have been rejected by Nock.Footnote 7
In this paper I will take a conservative position and define ‘conversion’ as life-change following apprehension of ‘the truth’. But while life-change can be demonstrated, its motivation is accessible only to the convert; all that can be available to us is a ‘conversion narrative’, a personal, after-the-event account of a ‘journey’ from ignorance or error to life-changing certainty.Footnote 8 This may not objectively be ‘true’. As Fredriksen has noted: ‘The historian works with the available evidence, the conversion narrative; and that narrative can reveal to him only the retrospective moment, and the retrospective self.’Footnote 9 I will argue that, when peculiarities of genre are taken into account, both Dion's and Aristeides’ accounts can legitimately be called ‘conversion narratives’. They can be aligned with their protagonists’ life circumstances in ways that suggest (though they cannot prove) their authors’ good faith at the time of writing, but they are also sophisticated personal appropriations of conversion narratives specific to the circles in which they moved.Footnote 10
Conversion in Antiquity: Accounts and their Presentation
The original ‘conversion’ – the conversion upon which Nock based his definition – was conversion to philosophy, the turning or wheeling around (periagōgē) that takes place when students are shown where to direct their gaze (Pl. Resp. 518d). Plato's philosophical education presents the soul with a truth which it recognises as one imprisoned in a cave does the world on being brought out into the sunlight (Resp. 514a–17c).Footnote 11 In the period of the Second Sophistic, conversion to philosophy was a well-enough known phenomenon to provoke Lucian's ridicule. The imagery of seeing and transformation is present in the Nigrinus – sometimes seen as a compliment to a philosopher friend but more commonly as mockery of its narrator, the convert.Footnote 12 The convert – is he the Lucian (Loukianos) of the prologue to the work himself? – was once a slave but is now free (1); after visiting Rome for medical consultation about his eyes (2), he has had them metaphorically opened by the Platonist philosopher Nigrinos (4). Hermotimos’ conversion to Stoicism and Peregrinos’ to Cynicism are ridiculed. Hermotimos renounced everyday life twenty years ago to devote himself to philosophy (Luc. Hermot. 2); ‘Lykinos’ persuades him of the worthlessness of his quest (Hermot. 83). Peregrinos adopted his philosophical persona for fear of charges of parricide, and because the property he was obliged to relinquish was worth so little anyway (Luc. De mort. Peregr. 14–15).
Literary accounts of religious conversion are harder to find.Footnote 13 A well-known candidate is Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, in which Lucius – transformed into an ass – regains human form and obtains a new life through the intervention of the goddess Isis. The work is generally seen as an expansion of an earlier ‘ass narrative’, with Apuleius’ most notable additions the references to Isis and Osiris in Book 11.Footnote 14 Nock supposed – on the basis of its realism – that Book 11 was fundamentally autobiographical, and he limited his discussion to it alone.Footnote 15 But the Metamorphoses must be taken as a whole. Winkler believed that it posed an unsolvable riddle designed to suggest the unverifiable nature of religious belief, but Habinek argues convincingly that it is a parody.Footnote 16
Neither the Lucianic accounts nor the Metamorphoses are conversion narratives, though their forms suggest the contemporary existence of such narratives. However, I suggest – and hope to show – that the works in which Dion of Prousa presents himself as a convert to philosophy (Dio Chrys. Or. 13.1–12) and Aelius Aristeides, as a convert to the god Asklepios (HL 1–6) qualify: each is a personal account sufficiently consistent with its author's life circumstances to suggest his good faith.
Neither is ‘autobiography’ in the modern sense of the word. Long after biography was recognized as a genre, literary self-portrayal was unacceptable; it was interpreted as self-praise and so considered intrinsically untrustworthy.Footnote 17 Second Sophistic autobiographical writing was often presented apparently incidentally, in the context of an argument,Footnote 18 and obliquely, posing a riddle.Footnote 19 Dion's self-portrayal establishes his credentials in an oration to the Athenians;Footnote 20 we will examine his riddling in due course. Aristeides’ stream-of-consciousness account is different but probably equally sophisticated. From Hellenistic times, publication of the political and campaign diaries of powerful figures established hypomnemata (diaristic notes or memoranda) as an acceptable autobiographical form,Footnote 21 and it is in this context that we must place the Hieroi logoi. Commencing the work, Aristeides notes that he has often been encouraged by his friends to write about his experience in more depth (HL 1.2, 2.1); some of his notebooks have been lost over the years (HL 2.3), and the contexts of his dreams were never recorded (HL 2.2). Reconstructing his experience, he relies on memory, and links his material thematically rather than chronologically. The first of the Hieroi logoi (five and a fragment of a sixth survive) includes a section (HL 1.4–58) that reads as a series of diary entries for the period January to February 166. Very probably, devotees of Asklepios, like Aristeides, were encouraged to keep such notes, which could have been retained by their cult centre or rewritten and inscribed as testimony of a cure. At HL 2.2, Aristeides claims: ɛὐθὺς ἐξ ἀρχῆς προɛῖπɛν ὁ θɛὸς ἀπογράφɛιν τὰ ὀνɛίρατα⋅ καὶ τοῦτ’ ἦν τῶν ἐπιταγμάτων πρῶτον, ‘right from the beginning the god ordered me to write down my dreams. And this was the first of his injunctions’. Modern commentary stresses both the devotional character of Aristeides’ workFootnote 22 – the published Hieroi logoi are his own equivalent of a dedicatory inscription – and its sophistication.Footnote 23
Dion's and Aristeides’ Accounts in the Context of the Van Gennep/Turner Model
Dion was born in the middle of the first century to a well-to-do family: he was a citizen of Prousa, in Bithynia, through his father, and of neighbouring Apameia through his mother and maternal grandfather (41.6, 44.3–5, 46.2–4). He was a pupil of the famous Stoic, Musonius Rufus and, early in life, he had imperial connections. Perhaps through Musonius, he became friendly with Titus; two short works (Orr. 28, 29) are dedicated to Titus’ favourite, the boxer Melankomas of Karia.Footnote 24 Closeness to another member of the ruling dynasty – probably Titus’ son-in-law Flavius SabinusFootnote 25 – was responsible for Dion's exile, which lasted from about 83 to 96: Domitian banished him as the ‘friend and counsellor’ (φίλον ὄντα καὶ σύμβουλον) of one whom he (Domitian) had put to death (13.1). The exile was of the relatively mild form known as relegatio; Dion was forbidden to enter Italy or his native province, but otherwise was able to travel freely. His property was not confiscated, and he was allowed to speak in public.Footnote 26
In his thirteenth oration, delivered in Athens after the end of his exile, Dion presents himself as one whose life has been shaped by an oracle. As he tells the story, on being exiled, he visited Apollo's temple – we are not told which one – and the god gave him advice which he found ‘strange’ and ‘not easy to understand’:
ἐκέλɛυɛ γάρ μɛ αὐτὸ τοῦτο πράττɛιν ἐν ᾧ ɛἰμι πάσῃ προθυμίᾳ, ὡς καλήν τινα καὶ συμφέρουσαν πρᾶξιν, ἕως ἄν, ἔφη, ἐπὶ τὸ ὕστατον ἀπέλθῃς τῆς γῆς.
Dio Chrys. Or. 13.9For he urged me to do this very thing in which I was engaged with all earnestness, as a good and profitable activity, ‘until you come’, he said, ‘to the utmost part of the earth’.
Taking the advice of the oracle, Dion claims, he dressed himself in poor clothing and began to wander randomly (13.10).
Did Dion in fact seek out an oracle? In the context of the oration as a whole, and as we shall see, I suggest that the reference to Apollo is an encrypted reference to the oracle that set Sokrates on the experiential journey that made him a philosopher (Pl. Ap. 21a–23b). Dion expects an educated audience to appreciate the fact; his ‘oracle’ was his recognition of the pathway that the philosophy to which he had committed himself now demanded of him. The command to ‘do this very thing in which I was engaged’ is a giveaway. Dion retained the identity conferred by exile throughout his life.Footnote 27 In orations delivered after his return from exile, he describes himself as a wanderer.Footnote 28 In an oration written in 102 or later, he mentions the epithet planētos (47.8) in a way that suggests that it was applied to him as an insultFootnote 29 – an insult probably echoing a regular self-description.
Aelius Aristeides was born in Mysia in November 117, probably in the area which later became the city of Hadrianoi after a visit by the emperor Hadrian. However, he saw himself primarily as a citizen of Smyrna (HL 4.73). His father was an important figure in his own locality (possibly the regional priest of Zeus) and he had his son well-educated.Footnote 30 Hopes of a rhetorical career collapsed when the young man became ill on a first trip to Rome (HL 2.60–8).
It was on his return to Smyrna in 144 that the revelation of Asklepios that was to be central to Aristeides’ life and self-understanding took place.
ἐδόκɛι δὴ χρῆναι τοῖς ὕδασι χρήσασθαι τοῖς θɛρμοῖς, ɛἴ τι δυναίμην γɛνέσθαι ῥᾴων, ἢ τὸν ἀέρα μᾶλλόν πως ἀνασχέσθαι⋅ καὶ γὰρ ἦν ἤδη χɛιμῶνος ὥρα, ἀπέχɛι δὲ τῆς πόλɛως οὐ πολύ. ἐνταῦθα πρῶτον ὁ Σωτὴρ χρηματίζɛιν ἤρξατο.
Aristid. HL 2.7It seemed to be necessary to use the warm waters if ever I were to become in any way more comfortable or rather somehow put up with the atmosphere. For it was already winter time, and the place is not very far from the city. Here first the Saviour began to offer me his advice.
Aristeides details the experience, which seems to have been a spontaneous dream.
ἀνυπόδητόν τɛ γὰρ προɛλθɛῖν ἐπέταξɛν καὶ ἐβόων δὴ ἐν τῷ ὀνɛίρατι ὡς ἂν ὕπαρ τɛ καὶ ἐπ’ ὀνɛίρατι τɛτɛλɛσμένῳ· μέγας ὁ Ἀσκληπιός· τɛτέλɛσται τὸ πρόσταγμα. ταῦθ’ ἅμα προϊὼν ἐδόκουν βοᾶν.
Aristid. HL 2.7He ordered me to go out barefoot, and I was shouting in the dream as in a waking state and after fulfilling [the order of] the dream: ‘Great is Asklepios! The order is fulfilled’. While I was going forward, I seemed to shout these things.Footnote 31
After this there followed a journey to Pergamon in the summer of 145 (HL 2.7). Aristeides lived as an incubant at the Asklepieion there for a period that he referred to later as the Kathedra (HL 2.70, 3.44).
To investigate Dion's and Aristeides’ cases, I will turn first to a well-known initiation-based life-change model. The Latin limen or threshold pertains primarily to the doorway of a house, but it can be used metaphorically: a liminal experience is a turning point in a life, and a liminal period, a hiatus between social roles and identities. ‘Liminality’ in this sense first became important in the anthropological work of Arnold van Gennep; comparing the rites of passage (and, in particular, initiation rituals) practised in a spectrum of pre-modern societies, he ascribed to any transition three distinct phases: a metaphorical death in which the initiand is forced to break with previous practices and routines; a liminal period proper; and reincorporation of the initiand into society as a completely new being.Footnote 32 Van Gennep's conception of liminality was taken up, and its applications expanded, by Victor Turner in the 1960s and 1970s. Focusing initially on traditional societies, Turner posited extended, socially-prescribed liminal periods as the structures that effect psychological and social transitions in individuals’ lives. Those who undertake rites of passage – and in the process relinquish, or are expelled from, pre-existing social positions – live for a period in egalitarian communitas, open to new ideas and the self-reassessment that a loss of accustomed status entails.Footnote 33 Van Gennep's model has since been applied in other situations involving an apparently socially undifferentiated – but also socially prescribed and organized – ‘liminal period’, most notably, pilgrimage in Christian societies and theōria in the ancient Greek world.Footnote 34
It is very relevant to Dion's and Aristeides’ cases. I suggest that each presents in his narrative two key turning points. There is, first, a recognition (or even a revelation) of the right path. Dion realizes the nature of the commitment which the philosophy that he has accepted now demands of him. Aristeides experiences the directing presence of Asklepios. Then comes a limited commitment – a commitment to abandon a present lifestyle and community and to live out – at least for a period – the life prescribed. Dion dresses himself in rags and continues to ‘do what he has been doing’ as he wanders to the limits of the known world. Aristeides takes up the life of an incubant at Pergamon. This is the liminal period – the period between identities. It is a period of immersive testing, both of oneself and of the world-view tentatively adopted.
In its course, Dion finds that he is a philosopher. In his thirteenth oration, the experience is set out in a way meant to call to mind the experience of the archetypal philosopher Sokrates, whose career was provoked by an oracle to his friend and follower Chairephon (Pl. Ap. 21a). Dion notes:
πολλοὶ γὰρ ἠρώτων προσιόντɛς ὅ, τι μοι φαίνοιτο ἀγαθὸν ἢ κακόν⋅ ὥστɛ ἠναγκαζόμην φροντίζɛιν ὑπὲρ τούτων, ἵνα ἔχοιμι ἀποκρίνɛσθαι τοῖς ἐρωτῶσιν.
Dio Chrys. Or. 13.12For many, coming up to me, kept asking what my opinion was about good and evil. Consequently, I was forced to think about these things, in order to be able to reply to the questioners.
He knows the principles of philosophy, but it is only because of his response to the god's answer that he is forced into the deeper contemplation that will make him wise. Again:
οἱ δὲ ἐντυγχάνοντɛς ἄνθρωποι ὁρῶντɛς οἱ μὲν ἀλήτην, οἱ δὲ πτωχὸν ἐκάλουν, οἱ δέ τινɛς καὶ φιλόσοφον. ἐντɛῦθɛν ἐμοὶ συνέβη κατ’ ὀλίγον τɛ καὶ οὐ βουλɛυσάμɛνον αὐτὸν οὐδὲ ἐφ’ ἑαυτῷ μέγα φρονήσαντα τούτου τοῦ ὀνόματος τυχɛῖν.
Dio Chrys. Or. 13.11Some people, meeting and looking at me, called me a vagabond and others, a beggar, but certain others again, a philosopher. Thus it happened that I acquired this title, gradually and not because I planned it or because of my own thinking a lot of it.
Dion expects his audience to associate his experience with Sokrates’ in this ostensibly autobiographical account.Footnote 35
Over an extended period of time, Asklepios makes Aristeides the orator he had always hoped that he could be.
καθημένῳ δέ μοι ἤδη ἐν Πɛργάμῳ κατὰ τὴν κλῆσίν τɛ καὶ ἱκɛτɛίαν γίγνɛται παρὰ τοῦ θɛοῦ πρόσταγμα καὶ παράκλησις, μὴ προλιπɛῖν τοὺς λόγους. ὅ τι μὲν δὴ πρῶτον τῶν ὀνɛιράτων ἀφίκɛτο, ἢ πῶς ἕκαστον ἔχον τοῖς ἅπασιν, ἀμήχανον ɛἰπɛῖν ὑπὸ πλήθους ἐτῶν. ἦν δ’ οὖν ἐκɛῖνά τɛ τῶν παρακλητικῶν, σοὶ πρέπουσι λόγοι σὺν Σωκράτɛι καὶ Δημοσθένɛι καὶ Θουκυδίδῃ κατὰ πρώτας ɛὐθὺς γɛνόμɛνα.
Aristid. HL 4.14–15To me now staying in Pergamon in accordance with the summons and [my] supplication, there came from the god a command and summons not to abandon oratory. Which of the dreams actually came first or how each contributed to the whole, [it is] impossible to say due to the sheer number of years. But those of a hortatory kind, ‘your words resemble those of Sokrates and Demosthenes and Thoukydides’, occurred on the first [nights], straightaway.
The god provided him in dreams with style beyond his models.
καὶ μὴν τό γɛ πλɛῖστον καὶ πλɛίστου ἄξιον τῆς ἀσκήσɛως ἡ τῶν ἐνυπνίων ἦν ἔφοδος καὶ ὁμιλία. πολλὰ μὲν γὰρ ἤκουσα νικῶντα καθαρότητι καὶ λαμπρῶς ἐπέκɛινα τῶν παραδɛιγμάτων, πολλὰ δ’ αὐτὸς λέγɛιν ἐδόκουν κρɛίττω τῆς συνηθɛίας καὶ ἃ οὐδɛπώποτɛ ἐνɛθυμήθην⋅
Aristid. HL 4.25And in fact the greatest and most valuable part of the training was the access and instruction provided by dreams. For I heard many things brilliantly excelling in purity that of my models, and many things I myself seemed to say [in dreams] in a better way than usual, and which I had never considered.
In a much later speech at Kyzikos, Aristeides notes that: ὁ γὰρ Ἀσκληπιὸς κɛλɛύɛι λέγɛιν … οὔτɛ γὰρ πρόσθɛν ἔγνων ὅ τι χρὴ λέγɛιν, πρὶν ἔδɛι λέγɛιν ἤδη (Or. 27.2–3), ‘Asklepios orders me to speak … for I did not know beforehand what it was necessary to say until the time when I needed to speak’. Elsewhere (HL 4.25), he refers to speeches – Hyper tou dromou (In defence of running), Athena, and Dionysos – directly inspired by dreams.Footnote 36 Speeches about the gods are most necessary and just, and Aristeides’ oratory concerning them originates from the god [Asklepios] himself (κατ’ αὐτοὺς τοὺς λόγους παρ’ αὐτοῦ τοῦ θɛοῦ γɛνόμɛνον, Or. 42.3). Indeed, Aristeides’ illness was divine good fortune, because his improvement as an orator was brought about by his association with the god:
καὶ δὴ Παρδαλᾶς ποτɛ ἐκɛῖνος, ὃν ἐγὼ φαίην ἂν ἄκρον τῶν ἐφ’ ἡμῶν Ἑλλήνων γɛνέσθαι γνῶναι λόγους, ἐτόλμησɛν ɛἰπɛῖν πρὸς ἐμὲ καὶ διισχυρίσασθαι, ἦ μὴν νομίζɛιν τύχῃ τινὶ θɛίᾳ συμβῆναί μοι τὴν νόσον, ὅπως τῷ θɛῷ συγγɛνόμɛνος ἐπιδοίην ταύτην τὴν ἐπίδοσιν.
Aristid. HL 4.27And indeed once Pardalas, that famous man who, I would say, was the best of the Greeks in our day in his knowledge of oratory, dared to say to me and insist that in truth he thought my illness came about with a certain divine good fortune, in order that, associating with the god, I might make this improvement.Footnote 37
The final stage in the van Gennep/Turner model is the initiand's reincorporation into society as a completely new being. In traditional societies, rites of passage follow a strictly prescribed sequence and reintegration into society at the end of the process is straightforward. Dion's and Aristeides’ liminal periods, as presented in their accounts, had no structured ends; for each of the two men, ending liminality was a matter of personal decision. The details are as follows.
Dion
Dion presents himself travelling further, and perhaps for a longer period, than the exile imposed upon him demanded. At 19.1, he notes his refusal to remain near the boundary that he was forbidden to cross as would one crushed by exile and longing to be restored.
In the riddling tradition noted above, in different orations he obfuscates his itinerary, at once displaying knowledge of remote places and peoples and representing his interaction with them in tropes suggestive of fiction or of Platonic myth. The historicity of a visit to Euboia described in Or. 7 has long been a matter of debate;Footnote 38 whether Dion visited Euboia or not, his account of an encounter with a huntsman there is undoubtedly intended to evoke a well-known image of the rural wise.Footnote 39 The same can be said of his account of a meeting with a prophetess in the western Peloponnese (1.52); Dion stresses its mythic nature with an introduction echoing Plato's introduction of Diotima in the Symposium.Footnote 40 In Or. 36 – within a framework suggesting that the whole account is a Platonic myth – Dion presents himself as a wanderer recognized in Olbia as one who has learned from both West (Greeks) and East (Persian Magi).Footnote 41
In his Olympicus, Dion presents himself at the end of a long journey to the Getai, a people of modern Romania in conflict with Rome; he wanders among Roman and Getic hosts ἐπιθυμῶν ἰδɛῖν ἄνδρας ἀγωνιζομένους ὑπὲρ ἀρχῆς καὶ δυνάμɛως, τοὺς δὲ ὑπὲρ ἐλɛυθɛρίας τɛ καὶ πατρίδος (Or. 12.20), ‘desiring to see men contending for rule and power, and others for freedom and homeland’.Footnote 42 In the context of this visit to the Getai, we can perhaps deduce a claim by Dion to have continued his travels after the formal termination of his exile. At 36.1, he seems to suggest that he reached Olbia only in the summer after his exile (μɛτὰ τὴν φυγήν) – that is, after Domitian's assassination and Nerva's recall of exiles (Plin. Ep. 1.5.10, 9.13.5, Cass. Dio 68.1.2) – on his way to Skythia and the land of the Getai.Footnote 43
With his exile (and possibly further, chosen, travel) over, Dion returned to society and the political role that a Stoic commitment demanded. Before he could reach Rome, where he intended to see Nerva, the new emperor had died (January 98; Or. 45.2). Dion probably then searched out Trajan on the Rhine or the Danube; something like this must have been the case because eventually he reached Prousa with ‘a letter from the emperor’ (40.5). Later, in answer to an invitation from the emperor (44.12), he led a delegation from Prousa (40.13–15) which won substantial concessions for the city (45.3–4).Footnote 44 In his subsequent life, he remained dedicated to enhancing his family's position in his community, and his community's in the Roman world.Footnote 45
Aristeides
For most of those who sought the god's help at the Asklepieion, the period there would have terminated with a prescription for ongoing treatment or a cure. Aristeides’ period of residence ended neither with physical healing nor the disillusion that would have brought about a complete break with the cult, but rather with Aristeides’ new persona firmly in place.
We see Aristeides’ growing confidence in the god's care for him, and his own ability to interpret and carry out the divine commands, in incidents coinciding with the end of the period.Footnote 46 In Spring 147, in the face of particularly serious ill-health, he consults the visiting doctor Satyros, one of Galen's teachersFootnote 47 and obviously an eminent figure (σοφιστής, ὡς ἐλέγɛτο, οὐ τῶν ἀγɛννῶν, HL 3.8). This perhaps suggests a lingering lack of confidence in the god; certainly it suggests a lack of confidence in the doctors who were his regular interpreters. Satyros prescribes cessation of bloodletting, and a drug. Aristeides is unwilling to abandon the bloodletting that the god has unquestionably ordained but, on a divinely prescribed journey to the warm springs at Lebedos (HL 3.7), he is prepared to test the effects of the drug. The result is disastrous and the god indicates that Aristeides has phthoēn, probably tuberculosis (HL 3.11). Aristeides now turns to Apollo at Kolophon. An oracle affirms that Asklepios will heal him, and a dream follows, indicating that salvation comes from the gods (HL 3.12–13). Very probably the oracle was a standard one designed to send the recipient to Pergamon. In Aristeides’ case, it has the opposite import. The god, rather than any doctor, is to be trusted; Aristeides – who recovers (HL 3.14) – is wholly convinced of the god's ongoing care. Aristeides is able to demonstrate his mature confidence in Asklepios shortly afterwards. Probably before returning to Pergamon from Lebedos, he spends a period of at least four months in Smyrna, his home city. There, doctors – divided among themselves – advise a range of treatments for a tumour which the god instructs him to leave untouched (HL 1.61–3). Aristeides refuses, on his own authority, to be deflected from rigorous adherence to the divine instructions, and he is justified when the god provides a complete cure (HL 1.64–8).
In later periods, we see Aristeides comfortable in his role as interpreter of medical advice offered him. In the period of his extant dream diary (HL 1.4–58; January-February 166), his then doctor knows better than to contravene a divine command (HL 1.57). At HL 5.49–50, Aristeides has the confidence to amend Hippokrates’ prescription.
Aristeides may have had more than one reason for terminating the period in Pergamon. Issues concerning his claim to the possession of his property at Laneion (HL 4.105–8) could have been a factor. Certainly, his departure from the Asklepieion followed the success of the public performances of his works (HL 4.43–5) that established him as a ‘glorious charioteer of everlasting tales’ (HL 4.45); he could at last be confident of the god's gift to him of the oratorical ability to which he had always aspired. However, mature confidence in his own capacity to interpret, and carry out, divine commands in the face of new, serious, and protracted illnesses must have been central to his decision.
Aristeides’ experience at Pergamon left him with an unassailable sense of his own ability and calling as an orator. In later years, journeys to places where he can triumphantly display his superiority are prescribed by the god.Footnote 48 His sense of vocation is strong enough for him to refuse local office, including the priesthood of Asklepios (HL 4.100–2).
The Hieroi logoi suggest that Aristeides’ life was turned around by his association with Asklepios; Asklepios was more than a ‘useful supplement’ (to use Nock's terminology) to a pre-existing pantheon. However, Shumate rejects Aristeides as a ‘convert’ because ‘[i]n spite of his developing relationship with the god, there is a continuity between Aristides’ former life and his current one’, no ‘fundamental shift in world view’.Footnote 49 I suggest that pagan religious understanding of the period allowed a ‘fundamental shift’ to devotion to a single god at both personal/emotional and theoretical levels.
At the personal level, Aristeides’ position can be identified as henotheism. Heis ho theos was a common acclamation expressing personal devotion to one god (‘there is no other god like this god’) rather than a monotheistic theology (‘there is no other god except this god’).Footnote 50 At HL 4.50 Aristeides records his own utterance of the ‘heis’ before a statue of Asklepios. Intellectually, Aristeides lived in a polytheistic world that was trending towards a monotheism in which traditional gods, the objects of personal devotion, could be understood as aspects of a divine whole.Footnote 51 Most relevantly to Aristeides, worship of a Zeus Asklepios was established in Pergamon with the consecration of a temple established under the patronage of L. Cuspius Pactumeius Rufinus, consul ordinarius in 142, who is mentioned in this context by both Aristeides (HL 4.28) and Galen (De anat. admin. II 224–5 K).Footnote 52 In the context of the temple, Aristeides refers to ‘his teacher's’ (i.e. Asklepios’) revelation that he possesses the powers usually attributed to Zeus (Or. 42.4). Elsewhere, Aristeides sees Asklepios of Pergamon as the Platonic soul of the universe (Pl. Ti. 34b). In one of his dreams, his friend, the Platonist Pyrallianos is
ἀνασχὼν τὴν χɛῖρα δɛίκνυσί μοι τόπον τινὰ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, καὶ ἅμα δɛικνὺς ἔφη⋅ Οὗτος δή σοί ἐστιν ὃν καλɛῖ Πλάτων τοῦ παντὸς ψυχήν. ἀναβλέπω τɛ δὴ καὶ ὁρῶ Ἀσκληπιὸν τὸν ἐν Πɛργάμῳ ἐνιδρυμένον ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ …
Aristid. HL 4.56holding up his hand, showing me a place in the sky. And at the same time as showing it, he said, ‘This indeed is, as far as you are concerned, what Plato calls the soul of everything’. I look up and now I see Asklepios, the one established at Pergamon, in the sky …
The passage indicates Aristeides’ invention, or acceptance, of a theology which culminated in the fully fledged Neoplatonic picture of Zeus as creator but beyond the world, and all lesser gods, emanations of Zeus; here, Asklepios is the one who takes on the supreme role in this world.Footnote 53 Such a theology is consistent with maintaining the separate identities and hierarchical positions of Zeus and Asklepios; it does not simply identify them. Ludwig Edelstein probably rightly attributes it to the cult of Zeus Asklepios at Pergamon rather than to Aristeides himself.Footnote 54
Dion's and Aristeides’ Accounts in the Context of Rambo's Process Model of Conversion
As we have seen, Dion and Aristeides have each provided us with an autobiographical account setting out the critical experience that, he claims, established his present, mature identity.Footnote 55 Significantly, in each case the experience is a process. It is a process that conforms in its essential aspects to the van Gennep/Turner life-change model; we can conclude by investigating its alignment with Lewis Rambo's process model of conversion.
In a well-received study aspiring to inclusiveness, Rambo proposed that ‘conversion’ involves seven distinct stages.Footnote 56 We begin with context. Crisis may be a major force for change or simply the catalytic incident that crystallizes a person's situation; it stimulates an active search for solutions, quest. Encounter brings together those who are in crisis and those offering a new orientation. (Rambo notes that potential converts are usually active agents skilful in seeking out what they want and rejecting what they do not.) The interaction that follows culminates in commitment, the ritual of incorporation that makes the convert a full member of the new community; often central to this stage is the convert's reconstruction of his or her biographical narrative. Consequences can be a radically transformed life, a sense of mission and purpose, and sometimes, ultimately, disillusion.Footnote 57 Rambo notes another possible sequence that can make the convert a less active agent: context; encounter; crisis; quest; interaction; commitment; consequences. This sequence allows an encounter to trigger an intellectual or (as in the case of St Paul) mystical experience that is itself that person's crisis; ‘quest’ is then replaced by a response accepting or repudiating the presented option. Interaction is always with ideas as well as people, and it can involve experimentation.Footnote 58
Turning to our two cases, in each, the protagonist's ‘context’ includes at least some knowledge of the beliefs that will become central in later life. Dion was a pupil of Musonius. Aristeides was certainly not a devotee of Asklepios – early works were dedicated to Apollo (HL 4.31–6) – but the god's role as healer was widely known. In each case, we have ‘crisis’ (Dion's exile, Aristeides’ illness), and in each case, we have ‘quest’, a period of uncertainty that culminates in a revelatory conviction of the right way to move ahead. Aristeides visits the warm springs, where his prior knowledge of Asklepios as a healing god and – possibly – a local cult presence may have precipitated his visionary experience. Dion's recognition of the right way forward was presumably not of the same visionary kind as Aristeides’, though, significantly, he presents it as a divine communication, an oracle of Apollo.
Rambo's ‘encounter’ is with a cult. In each of our two cases, the relevant ‘cult’ was already present, part of the protagonist's ‘context’. In Aristeides’ case, it is possible that an initial encounter with the god at the warm springs led to interaction with local devotees; if this were the case, the period between that first encounter and the beginning of the Kathedra can be seen as a preliminary part of Rambo's ‘interaction’.
In each of our two cases, we have identified the ‘separation’ (metaphorical death) and ‘liminal period’ of the van Gennep/Turner model, the latter a period of testing, of oneself, and of the god or of the way of life prescribed. Dion presents himself as, in this period, a solitary wanderer; Aristeides enters the Asklepieion at Pergamon as an incubant. Rambo's corresponding period is one of ‘interaction’ with the cult. We must address here an apparently important discrepancy between Turner's model and Rambo's. Turner's liminal period is one of openness to otherness. Individuals from different social and sometimes regional backgrounds (e.g. Christian pilgrims, Greek theōroi; see note above) are thrust together and cannot be expected to remain unchanged. Rambo's ‘interaction’ is characterized as ‘encapsulation’ in which (to a greater or lesser degree) the potential convert is isolated physically (e.g. in monasteries or mission compounds), socially (e.g. by a full program of activities or unusual costume) or ideologically (by means of training to recognize ‘enemy’ ideology).Footnote 59 I suspect that we have here the two ends of a spectrum. Dion's exile as he reports it involved separation from his previous life and interaction with different and remote peoples: he encountered, he suggests, the Persian Magoi (36.39) and a rural Greek prophetess in the western Peloponnese (1.52–8) and visited the Getai of modern Romania. Nevertheless it is certainly possible that (although he never mentions it) he remained in touch with his Roman Stoic contacts. His narrative, emphasizing the solitariness of his journey, can be related to his self-association with Sokrates. Unlike Sokrates’, Dion's addressees are culturally rather than socially ‘other’; along with the Sokrates story, Dion has appropriated well-known narratives stressing the superiority of the remote wise. Differently, Aristeides enters a cult world. However, it is a cult world in no way isolated from external influences. Asklepieia are frequently mentioned in the literary sources for their vigorous and varied intellectual life.Footnote 60 Sophisticated theological discussion seems to have been part of the agenda at Pergamon,Footnote 61 and cult association with the medical profession added another range of ideas.Footnote 62 Aristeides’ Asklepios-oriented narrative is a personal variant of the Asklepios-oriented notes and inscribed testimonies prescribed in the Asklepieion.
Dion and Aristeides had in common their single-minded focus, their self-encapsulation. Though exposed to outside influences, each was committed to testing his revelation to the end. Unlike the liminal periods in ritual situations,Footnote 63 theirs had no predetermined ends: their options were perpetual liminality, abandonment of the project, or positive terminations of their own choice. In each of our two cases, the outcome was the last – a lasting, self-proclaimed sense of identity corresponding to Rambo's ‘commitment’.
