CLARCH 350 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: False Dilemma
Document Summary
Every aspect of their lives were religious. So the bathhouse can be a religious institution. Rituals involving the statues that were there. Alters there, bust have been sacri cing going on. But might be a false dichotomy, everything in rome was a part of the roman religion. Some may say that this was a religious place because jews abstained. Eliav says that jews didn"t abstain though. There were people other than the rabbis that knew about differences between religious and secular. Romans knew when they were going into a religious place. Temple comes from the word separate which connects to sacred. Divided and separate from reality / the secular world. Even if gods and demons were everywhere, there were still separate, sacred places. Profane comes from the opposite of sacred, not established as sacred place / temple. We never nd the bathhouse associated as a temple, unlike other places (such as caves, rooms in houses, etc. )
