Michael L. Satlow, "An Enchanted World: The Shared Religious Landscape of Late Antiquity" (Princeton UP, 2026)

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Apr 13, 2026

Michael L. Satlow, professor of Judaic and Religious Studies at Brown, studies lived religion in late antiquity. He describes a world alive with divine agents, protective amulets, and practical ritual specialists. He traces shared sacred spaces, contested holy objects, and how everyday people navigated spirits and heavenly intermediaries in daily life.

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ANECDOTE

Pandemic Leave Let The Book Finally Congeal

Satlow spent years shifting from social history of sexuality to a broader study of lived religion, pausing to write a related book on textuality.
He used COVID leave to finish the project after earlier stalling because the topic is entangled with every aspect of daily life.

INSIGHT

Voluntary Associations Created Flexible Belonging

Voluntary associations functioned like social clubs that could center identity without legal enforcement.
Satlow shows synagogues, guilds, and clubs served mutual aid, banquets, and devotion, creating flexible communal belonging.

INSIGHT

Heaven Was Imagined As A Bureaucracy Of Intermediaries

People imagined heaven as a busy bureaucracy with intermediary beings to approach for specific needs.
Jews and others routinely turned to angels and intermediate spirits as accessible agents for healing, protection, and knowledge.

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In Late Antiquity (ca. 200–600 CE), the world was alive with unseen forces—divine agents who influenced every aspect of daily life. For most ordinary people, religion was not found in temples, synagogues, and churches, but in lived experience as they interacted with the supernatural in a world of uncertainty and danger. In An Enchanted World, Michael Satlow uncovers a shared spiritual landscape that stretched beyond the confines of Judaism, Christianity, and the pantheon of Greek and Roman deities. From healing rituals to protective amulets, spiritual practices were a matter of necessity, transcending religious labels. To get by in the world required being on good terms with the right supernatural beings and being able to ward off the bad ones.
Rejecting traditional narratives that focus on institutional religion and theological divisions, Satlow presents a compelling case for viewing the period through the lens of “lived religion.” This was not a religion of abstractions formulated by rabbis and priests, but an enchanted world populated by divine beings who had as much—if not more—agency as any person. Drawing on archaeological evidence, historical documents, and a rich trove of magical texts, Satlow vividly reconstructs how ordinary people lived in a world that crackled with the energy of the supernatural. His account reimagines the spiritual history of Late Antiquity, centering shared human fears and aspirations and challenging preconceived notions about religious boundaries. With An Enchanted World, Satlow offers a fresh perspective on a transformative period—one that has much to teach us even today about the role that spirituality can play in the secular world.

New Books in Late Anqituiy is Presented by Ancient Jew Review

Michael Satlow is professor of Judaic Studies and Religious Studies at Brown University

Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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