Benjamin Sippel gives a working paper on 'The many religious identities of Aurelios Ammon'

Did Egyptian priests cite Stoic ideas in private letters? How did they appear in public when offduty? Plenty of research has been done on identification-patterns regarding Greek, Roman, and Christian cults, but there is not much known on identification-strategies of Egyptian priests in both, the public and private sphere. Yet they are interesting targets of observation, because they were distinguished from other parts of society in many ways. The archive of Aurelios Ammon offers a suitable case-study to investigate patterns of religious identification: As he belonged to a family of high-ranking Egyptian priests, he was involved in diverse encounters with Greek, Roman, and Egyptian elites. In every situation, he adapted certain patterns of self-identification according to context. Ammon will be observed in three different situations: (1) As a young man, he wrote a letter to his mother, thereby referring, among other things, to Stoic theology. (2) Years later, he prepared a couple of drafts for a petition addressed to the Prefect of Egypt. Therein he referred to Neoplatonic thinking, but also to “Agathos Daimon”, which was a common translation for Shai. (3) At another occasion, he approached a Roman official in order to complain about certain issues. While facing the Roman, he was dressed in his priestly robe. Socio-linguistic examination of all three scenes will explain why Ammon opted in each situation for one specific way of religious identification.