Prayers and petitions for justice. Despair and the ‘crossing of boundaries’ between religion and law

Abstract

Both Demotic, Greek and Coptic prayers for justice on papyrus and contemporary petitions to civil authorities demonstrate that people displayed and used despair in their narrative and persuasion strategies in order to achieve justice. These overlaps and the expression of despair demonstrate the similarities between the two genres and the similarities in the social and cultural circumstances that produced these texts. They also pinpoint the interdependence of religion and law on a daily basis and for a variety of people.