RJHR 2:2 (2009) - André Leonardo Chevitarese e Gabriele Cornelli 1 Religious Syncretism in Mediterranean Hellenistic Culture Dr. Gabriele Cornelli Brasília University http://lattes.cnpq.br/4547907128459717 Dr. André Leonardo Chevitarese Federal University of Rio de Janeiro http://lattes.cnpq.br/8607821911525405 RESUMO O presente artigo aborda a questão metodológica da construção do discurso historiográfico sobre o sincretismo religioso, partindo da análise de importantes mediadores deste discurso no interior da literatura brasileira sobre o tema: entre eles, Werner Jaeger, Arnaldo Momigliano, Marshal Sahlins, Carlo Ginzburg. Em oposição às leituras culturalistas, conclui-se que o historiador brasileiro, leitor tanto dos clássicos da historiografia moderna e como das sugestões que advém dos estudos antropológicos contemporâneos sobre as formas do sincretismo pode chegar a uma compreensão mais processual e plural dos processos sincréticos do mundo helenística, como acontecem de maneira especial no interior do imaginário cultural-religioso: isto é, como uma forma de re-interpretação dos elementos culturais adquiridos no processo de troca, resultando numa metodologia do trabalho histórico mais ampla e numa imagem mais aberta da grande praça que foi o helenismo. I. The general public, or scholars, in particular, interested in research that investigates the various opportunities of contact between Jews, Christians and Polytheists in the ancient Mediterranean have a substantial array of specific works to choose from. However, two titles still remain as fundamental starting points in the study of this theme, though each one is characterized by a different approach: 1 st .Werner Jeager, “Early Christianity and Greek Paideia ”, originally published in English, in 1961. This volume does not contain an index, since it is a collection of lectures the author delivered at the time of his retirement from Harvard. Right from the start, Jeager (1991:13) makes it clear that his objective is a historical analysis of Christianity and its relation with Greek culture, demonstrating that the former is completely encompassed by the latter. Although Jaeger (1991:17-18) identifies Christianity as a Jewish movement, he points out that its rapid dissemination was due, since its first generation, to two central aspects: (1) Jews were Hellenized in the time of Paul, not only in the Jewish Diaspora, but also, to a considerable degree, in Palestine; and (2) it was precisely this Hellenized fraction of the Jewish people that the first Christian missionaries set their sights on. It is in this sense that the author believes that it is