Illness, Pain, and Health Care in Early Christianity

Reviewed by: The Silencing of Slaves in Early Jewish and Christian Texts by Ronald Charles Mary Ann Beavis ronald charles, The Silencing of Slaves in Early Jewish and Christian Texts (Routledge Studies in the Early Christian World; London: Routledge, 2020). Pp. xvii + 272. $124. This book sets out to examine a wide range of early Jewish and Christian texts in which enslaved figures are represented and, according to Charles, rendered silent, by their authors, “who had no intrinsic interest in slaves . . . used, abused, and silenced their enslaved characters to articulate their own social, political, and theological visions” (p. 1) The Jewish texts considered all belong to the so-called Pseudepigrapha: Sibylline Oracles, Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Testament of Job, Letter of Aristeas, Jubilees, Joseph and Aseneth, and Wisdom writings that include Ahiqar, 3 Maccabees, Pseudo-Phocylides, and the Sentences of the Syriac Menander. The early Christian writings are both canonical and extra-canonical: 1 Corinthians, Philippians, Philemon, the Gospels, Acts, the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas, Acta Perpetuae, Letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne, and the Acts of Andrew. C. approaches these texts through the lenses of Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s Silencing [End Page 330] the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon, 1995), and Subaltern studies, to “uncover small tales constructed around slaves, or better, to consider how particular narratives could be understood differently if the reader pays attention to enslaved persons in their characterizations in the texts” (p. 12). Not surprisingly in a project that covers so much ground, the results are uneven. In my reading, several “small tales” stand out: the slave woman in the Testament of Job who gives her own loaf of bread to Satan, disguised as a stranger, when Job snubs him (7:5). Admittedly, the woman is rebuked for her kind act, but by Satan, hardly a reliable character. C. pays special attention to the slave characters—an unnamed slave girl and Malchus, the male slave of the high priest named in John 18:10—who figure in the scene of the denial of Peter (Mark 14:66–68; Matt 26:69–71; Luke 22:56; John 18:15–26), meticulously detailing the unique features of each narrative. C. highlights both the devalued figure of Rhoda (Acts 12:1–16) and the unnamed fortune-teller of Acts 16:16–18, characters often neglected by interpreters. Although all act/speak truthfully (and, in the case of the slave woman in Testament of Job, righteously), their words are dismissed, like the true words of the women disciples in Luke 24:11. Similarly, the slave Felicitas is sidelined by the freeborn Perpetua in the Passion, and both women are silenced in the Acts. In the Acts of Andrew, the body of the slave woman Euclia is used, abused, and discarded to preserve the chastity of her Christian mistress Maximilla: “The body of the elite woman is protected, while the body of the slave is exploited” (p. 196). Several of C.’s interpretive moves are less compelling. Some of the references to slaves in the pseudepigraphal writings he includes are slight or nonexplicit, as with the figure of Hermon in 3 Maccabees 5, who “is not explicitly called one [a slave] in the text” (p. 47). The observation that “he is an administrative person, who is in danger of being killed because of the king’s caprice” (p. 47), suffices to explain his vulnerability. C. adopts the traditional, but highly contested, hypothesis that Onesimus (Phlm 10) was a runaway slave, although why a fugitive slave would seek refuge by visiting a Roman prisoner is not explained. C. assumes that Epaphroditus (Phil 2:19, 25; 4:18) was a freedman (and thus outside the scope of the study), although he could just as likely have been enslaved or freeborn. To be sure, Eusebius’s construction of Blandina as a Christ figure whose death has cosmic significance (p. 182) subordinates her to a “highly theologized salvation history” (p. 183), but this is no different from his portrayal of other martyrs, enslaved or free. Charles’s study features a conclusion that thoroughly summarizes his analysis, chapter by chapter, seemingly in response to the critiques of...

Reviewed by: Reading Bodies: Physiognomy as a Strategy of Persuasion in Early Christian Discourse by Callie Callon Colleen M. Conway Callie Callon Reading Bodies: Physiognomy as a Strategy of Persuasion in Early Christian Discourse London: T&T Clark, 2019. Pp. 173. $114.00. What might a man's hair or gait convey about his Christian moral character? Quite a bit, if early Christian writers such as Tertullian or Clement of Alexandria are to be believed. In Reading Bodies: Physiognomy as a Strategy of Persuasion in Early Christian Discourse, Callie Callon shows how early Christian writers shared the same "physiognomic consciousness" as their non-Christian contemporaries. Both Christian and non-Christian writers assumed that a person's physical characteristics, when read with skill, revealed the truth about his (or less often her) moral character. Given the work that has already been done on physiognomic texts in the ancient world, this is not an especially groundbreaking conclusion. Nor does Callon present it as such. But she is right in her observation that the use of physiognomic ideas in early Christian rhetoric has been underexamined. For this reason, the book is a valuable contribution in at least two ways. As Callon argues, attending to the function of physiognomic details offers a more nuanced understanding of early Christian rhetoric. And because physiognomic ideas were so closely linked to constructions of gender, the book is also a significant addition to gender critical studies of the early church. [End Page 677] Callon begins with an overview of the widespread use of ancient physiognomy across multiple genres, all of which was put to similar purpose, namely, "to help persuade an audience to either support or disdain the individual being portrayed" (21). Nevertheless, the meanings of physiognomic references were variable both in their application and interpretation. Here Callon also highlights a tension inherent to physiognomic thought. On the one hand, ancient authors refer to physical traits as though they are inherently natural indicators that reveal a man's true character, despite efforts he may make to conceal it. On the other hand, the fact that authors regularly offered instructions on how to walk, talk, or otherwise manipulate the body to achieve a desired physiognomic outcome, suggests that such traits were not natural as much as learned. While Callon suggests several ways by which this and other tensions might be resolved, more to the point is her claim that such logical inconsistencies did not threaten the legitimacy of the physiognomic enterprise in all of its variations. The rest of the book traces the different ways that references to the body functioned in early Christian rhetoric. Perhaps most obviously, a rhetorical focus on bodily defects added to the arsenal of ways writers could denigrate theological opponents. Meanwhile, highlighting positive physical features was useful for supporting claims of Christian moral superiority. As an example, Callon suggests that when the author of the apocryphal Acts of Peter contrasts Simon Magus's "shrill" or "weak and useless" voice with Peter's "strong" and "great" one, he is likely using physiognomic indicators to showcase Simon's effeminacy (47–49). Chapter Two details this and other examples of the use of physiognomy against so-called heretics. Chapter Three shows how writers drew on physiognomy to describe (and construct?) the ideal Christian, thereby solidifying group identity. Here Callon shows us Clement of Alexandria pronouncing on a range of physiognomic topics, including the proper grooming of hair, the necessity of avoiding the effeminate "mincing gait," not to mention tips for how to avoid sweating too much. Notable in this chapter is a section that discusses the somewhat distinctive admonitions to Christian ascetics. Both male and female should be aware of appearances, but in this case, pale faces and unkempt bodies reveal the truth of the ascetic's character and devotion. Chapter Four extends and confirms the work of Stephanie Cobb (Dying to Be Men: Gender in Early Christian Martyr Texts [New York: Columbia University Press, 2008]). Here Callon explores how physical descriptions of martyrs such as Polycarp, the Martyrs of Lyon, and Prudentius affirm their masculinity, while descriptions of their torturers were often rhetorically effeminizing. As Callon puts it, "The tortured Christian can 'win' physiognomically via bodily...

This chapter seeks to answer the question is why certain early Christian writers do not enlist the stereotype of the dangerous female sorceress evident elsewhere, especially given the widespread rhetorical war on “heretical” movements, groups that supposedly favored women’s participation and leadership. Instead early Christian writings depict women consistently as victims of men’s magic rather than as magicians themselves. In an effort to understand this peculiarity of early Christian rhetoric, the chapter first provides a context for it by surveying depictions of magic from a variety of ancient non-Christian sources. Next, it examines depictions of magic from diverse early Christian sources, drawing attention to the pattern of male magician and female victim that emerges throughout. Finally, the chapter considers the ideological function of “magic” in early Christian rhetoric and explores possible reasons why Christian writers gendered magic the way they did.Keywords: early Christian writings; female sorceress; gender; magic

Reviewed by: In the Eye of the Animal: Zoological Imagination in Ancient Christianity by Patricia Cox Miller Steven D. Smith Patricia Cox Miller. In the Eye of the Animal: Zoological Imagination in Ancient Christianity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. Pp. 271. $79.95. ISBN 978-0-8122-5035-0. Miller's book is a welcome contribution to the growing field of animal studies in antiquity. Over the space of an introduction, five chapters, and a brief afterword, Miller masterfully elucidates a tension in early Christian literature between an anthropocentric rhetoric that disparages non-human animal life and a persistent tendency in these same texts to think about animals "in terms of their emotional, ethical, psychological, and behavioral continuities with human beings" (4). Miller's brilliant close readings of patristic texts are thoroughly informed by a broad range of theoretical insights from leading thinkers in the field of animal studies. Miller appears equally at home with the works of Jean-Christophe Bailly, Jacques Derrida, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty as she is with the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke and Wallace Stevens, all of whom here enter into a rich dialogue with the likes of Origen, Ambrose, Augustine, Basil of Caesarea, and Gregory of Nyssa, among others. The Introduction lays out the problem of the conflicting attitudes towards human-animal relationality in early Christian thought and literature and nicely situates the book's theoretical orientation. Chapter 1, "Animals and Figuration," uses birds as a case study for the various roles (spiritual, ethical, Christological) that animals play in the zoological imagination of early Christian writers. Miller's discussion of the dove is especially interesting, because she shows how Christian writers de-eroticized and spiritualized what was traditionally a symbol of potent sexuality. Chapters 2 and 3 share the title "The Pensivity of Animals," with a focus on "zoomorphism" and "anthropomorphism," respectively. Chapter 4, "Wild Animals," engages with the figuration of animals in the literature of monastic asceticism; Miller's recurring interest in the subversive quality of animal fabulae works well with the book's overall thesis. Chapter 5, "Small Things," employs the insights of "new materialism" to focus on the "vibrant materiality" of worms, mosquitos, flies, and frogs within the early Christian zoological imagination. In the brief afterword, Miller brings together her various readings of the ambiguous attitudes towards non-human animals in patristic literature and synthesizes them under the sign of a Christian kosmos that harmonizes and seeks affinity between its dissimilar parts. The great value of Miller's work is its delineation of how early Christian literature provides evidence of a lively discourse that ran contrary to and even disrupted the conventional anthropocentric view of the kosmos, a view inherited from the Greco-Roman philosophical tradition. The passages that Miller collects and analyzes in this volume illustrate without a doubt that patristic writers celebrated human entanglement with non-human animal life, "even when those relations are paradoxically presented as both positive and negative in the same text" (192). But early Christian writers were not alone in antiquity in presenting such an ambiguous or paradoxical relationship with non-human animal life. Though she deftly traces continuities between the patristic texts and modern ideas about human-animal entanglement, Miller misses an important opportunity to engage more deeply with the inheritance of non-Christian writers from the Roman Imperial period who sometimes shared with their Christian counterparts a sympathetic fascination with the natural world that contrasted sharply with the [End Page 374] conventional disparagement of non-human animals as "irrational creatures" (ἄλογα ζῷα). Miller duly notes parallels and differences between passages from patristic texts and similar passages from non-Christian writers such as Pliny and Aelian. But if, as Miller concludes, early Christianity heralded "a rhetoric of cosmic resemblance, connection, harmony, and affinity that does not debase animals but includes them . . . in the material and spiritual enchainments that are the created order" (194), then the book would have benefitted from a more searching inquiry into how the Christian writers were responding to, modifying, or consonant with their non-Christian counterparts in the creation of this new rhetoric. Finally—and it may seem churlish to note this, but it must be said—a more careful editorial...

registers, and parliamentary statutes.She carefully details the changes to the concepts of sanctuary and benefit of clergy in court practice and statutes, providing qualitative and quantitative analysis for thousands of cases.McGlynn's study will undoubtedly serve as an authoritative source for sanctuary and benefit of clergy in the early Tudor era.Nevertheless, this study is intended for legal historians.The topic is a complex legal subject, which naturally results in an argument that is technical and nuanced.

In most modern interpretations of Paul's writings and early Christian history, ethnicity is implicitly or explicitly defined as natural, inherent, immutable, or otherwise given. Paul's letters are often read to support the view that the identities of Christ-believers, in contrast to other Jews, transcend fixed, bodily characteristics we associate with ethnicity and race. After all, Paul's writings include such powerful passages as Gal 3:28: There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, male and female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus. This verse is frequently invoked to support reconstructions of an inclusive and egalitarian impulse in the Jesus movement. For example, Rosemary Radford Ruether echoes Gal 3:28 when she writes that class, ethnicity, and gender are . . . specifically singled out as the divisions overcome by redemption in Christ.1 Our goal is to challenge the conceptualizations of race and ethnicity in such interpretations of Paul and early Christianity. This task arises out of our own interest in the politics and ethics of interpretation, specifically from the view that all reading is ideological.2 As scholars culturally marked as white and Christian, we feel an obligation to struggle against both racist and anti-Jewish interpretive frameworks that have served to mask and sustain white Christian privilege.3 This twofold ethical commitment leads us to favor a view of race and ethnicity that is widespread today but not typically used to interpret Paul's writings or early Christian self-definition.4 Specifically, instead of presuming that ethnicity and race are fixed aspects of identity, we approach these concepts as dynamic social constructs.5 We see them as characterized by an interaction of appeals to fluidity and fixity that serve particular political and ideological interests. Using this dynamic approach allows us to transform the ways we have been trained to think about race and ethnicity and their saliency for interpreting Paul. Our proposed model encourages a rethinking of traditional interpretations in which the understanding of ethnicity or race as given operates as a foil for a non-ethnic, all-inclusive Christianity. In this binary understanding, earliest Christianity is conceived of as a universal, voluntary movement that specifically rejected the significance of ethnoracial identification for membership and thereby broke from its Jewish roots.6 Since the universalizing image of Christianity is emphatically portrayed as voluntary or achieved, the implied or explicit contrast is a form of community that is involuntary and particularboth features frequently attributed to ethnicity and race. This understanding of early Christianity has had paradoxical effects.7 On the positive side, if Paul is interpreted as having defined religiosity as distinct from ethnoracial identifications, then Christian practices and structures that contribute to racist and ethnocentric oppression can be viewed as contravening universalitic and egalitarian ideals inherent in earliest Christianity. This kind of universal and inclusive vision of early Christianity has enabled antiracist reforms and has been central to the biblical interpretations of many ethnic and racial minorities.8 When ethnoracial differences are understood as natural and are used to explain and justify social inequalities, then it can be liberative to argue that some of Paul's teachings-and subsequent Christian interpretations of them-offer an alternative vision for human community, in which such differences are transcended, made irrelevant, or obliterated. On the negative side, however, this understanding of Christianity can have both racist and anti-Jewish effects. The view of early Christian universalism as non-ethnic can lead us to ignore the racism of our own interpretive frameworks and overlook how early Christian discourse relies on ancient modes of othering. Gay Byron's recent study demonstrates the polemical use of color symbolism in early Christian writings, including polemics that uncomfortably anticipate modern forms of racism. …

This chapter, dedicated to a scholar who wrote on use of the Old Testament in the New, reexamines the historical relationship between the public reading of authoritative texts in the gatherings of the earliest church and early Judaism. It commences with a review the evidence about the reading of Scripture in the Church until about 400, concentrating on the Christians' use of OT writings. The chapter lists passages in early Christian writings that mention Scripture readings either from both the OT and the NT, or from the OT alone. The collects as many references as possible to the reading or possible reading of the OT in the gatherings of the early Church and Christian assemblies. This survey shows that in the Christian gathering the Law was not read until well into the third century, beginning with Origen and that Christians probably began to read OT prophets in late first century. Keywords:Christian assemblies; early Judaism; Old Testament; OT writings; scripture readings

Since early-Christian times, a specific iconography was developed around the story of the woman with the Haemorrhage (Mark 5 : 24b-34parr). The textual and visual tradition of the so-called Haemorrhoïssa is related in a specific way to Christ's healing miracles and the blood taboo concerning women, releasing an intense energy with regard to touching, the gaze and sacred space. In fact, the medieval reception of the story became an important catalyst for uterine taboos, menstruations and magic. ©Taylor & Francis.

Reviewed by: Philo of Alexandria and the Construction of Jewishness in Early Christian Writings by Jennifer Otto Todd Berzon Jennifer Otto Philo of Alexandria and the Construction of Jewishness in Early Christian Writings Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018 Pp. 256. $84.50. Jennifer Otto's detailed yet eminently readable monograph sees in Philo of Alexandria a hermeneutic of collective identity for three early Christian writers, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Eusebius of Caesarea. Philo's own identity, as a Jewish biblical interpreter and Platonic thinker, afforded these authors the conceptual space in which to elaborate the contours of Christianness vis-a-vis a proximate Jewishness (the author generally avoids the terms Christianity and Judaism because, she says, they anachronistically connote the category of religion). Otto further contends that Philo was harnessed by Christians not simply to elaborate the differences between Jewishness and Christianness, but also "to establish Christianity as a virtuous way of life, parallel to the pursuits of the philosophical schools" (2). Otto's book thus concerns itself with the circumstances in which early Christians invoked Philo as an interpreter who could link facets of Christianness, Jewishness, and (pagan) philosophy and yet simultaneously differentiate them. The Introduction situates Philo's Christian reception in relation to a number of highly contentious issues in the study of early Christian representations of Jewishness. Otto conceptualizes Philo as a lens for revisiting questions about the parting of the ways, the differences in Christian usages of the terms Ioudaioi, Hebraioi, and Israel, the relationship between ancient notions of ethnicity and way of life, and the idea of Christianity as a philosophy. Otto's survey of the relevant scholarly literature is helpful and clear, though the various sub-sections of the Introduction have a disjunctive flow. It is only in the ensuing chapters that the relationship between these questions becomes slightly clearer. In Chapter One, Otto elaborates how Clement likely came to possess Philonic texts. Her aim is to rebut the dominant scholarly theories which argue that Clement's source must have been either a Jewish teacher in Alexandria or a school tradition with Jewish roots. But if, as Otto insists, the Alexandrian Jewish community was virtually decimated after the Trajanic revolt of 115–117, Clement would have needed an alternative source. Otto thus proposes that Clement came into contact with Philo's works through the vibrant (non-Jewish) philosophical networks in Alexandria. Because the philosophical schools of Alexandria were open to consulting outside works, Philo's writings were almost certainly part of the city's broader philosophical exchanges. While Otto is correct that the consensus theory about Clement's acquisition of Philo (via some sort of connection to Jews) necessitates a fair amount of speculation, her alternative suggestion is no less speculative. There is simply no direct evidence to support her claim, and it is not clear how it materially affects her analysis in subsequent chapters. Chapters Two, Three, and Four examine how Clement, Origen, and Eusebius describe Philo's exegetical skills and ethnic identity. Chapter Two investigates Clement's four overt references to Philo. In two of those cases, Clement calls Philo "the Pythagorean" even where he is also called an expert interpreter of the [End Page 342] Mosaic law and/or historian of the Jewish people. Why, Otto asks, would Clement describe Philo this way? Her answer is that the ascription "Pythagorean" worked to present Philo as a barbarian sage who blended the wisdom of Hebraism and Hellenism. Philo's exegetical skills "can thus be wielded by Clement both against Christians who protest the validity of Greek education and against philosophers who denigrate the teachings of the ekkelsia as a novelty" (89). Chapter Three focuses on Origen, who drew upon Philo's biblical allegorizing to bolster Christian efforts to uncover the veiled intent of scripture. For that reason, Origen often (and anonymously) refers to Philo as a predecessor, literally as "one of those who came before us." But in calling Philo his predecessor, Origen is not rendering him into a proto-Christian; rather, in Otto's estimation, the term "signals Origen's awareness of Philo as an interpreter of old who . . . correctly perceived the hermeneutical depths of the narratives recorded in Israel...

Book Review| October 01 2004 The Message and the Kingdom: How Jesus and Paul Ignited a Revolution and Transformed the Ancient World The Message and the Kingdom: How Jesus and Paul Ignited a Revolution and Transformed the Ancient World, Richard A. Horsley Neil Asher Silberman. Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of Biblical Literature (2004) 123 (3): 564–568. https://doi.org/10.2307/3268058 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte; The Message and the Kingdom: How Jesus and Paul Ignited a Revolution and Transformed the Ancient World. Journal of Biblical Literature 1 January 2004; 123 (3): 564–568. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/3268058 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveSBL PressJournal of Biblical Literature Search Advanced Search Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: Book Reviews You do not currently have access to this content.

Positive psychology offers two visions for human life: a hedonic path that focuses on the seeking of pleasure and happiness, and a eudaimonic journey that involves the development of virtues conducive to a good life. Early Christian thought offers a sophisticated critique of the strengths and weaknesses of these visions because it responded to similar ideas that were present in classical philosophical systems like Stoicism. Early Christian writers rejected hedonic understandings of human flourishing (as did most people in the classical period) and approved of a focus on virtue as necessary to a good life. They also would join with positive psychologists and criticize a narrowly medical model view of mental health. However, there are also important differences between early Christian thought and eudaimonic positive psychology. Early Christian authors had a different understanding of virtue as holistic and relational, in contrast to the more fragmented and individualistic picture of virtue and health found in most positive psychology research. These Christian writers also had a different view of suffering as having positive potential or a ‘medicinal’ quality, while positive psychology writers generally see suffering as something undesirable that needs to be eliminated. Overall, some aspects of positive psychology are not incompatible with the vision of life, struggle, and helping that was developed by early Christian writers. However, the differences are probably more notable than the similarities.

The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings provides the definitive anthology of early Christian texts, from ca. 100 CE to ca. 650 CE. Its volumes reflect the cultural, intellectual, and linguistic diversity of early Christianity, and are organized thematically on the topics of God, Practice, Christ, and Community. The series expands the pool of source material to include not only Greek and Latin writings, but also Syriac and Coptic texts. Additionally, the series rejects a theologically normative view by juxtaposing texts that were important in antiquity but later deemed 'heretical' with orthodox texts. The translations are accompanied by introductions, notes, suggestions for further reading, and scriptural indices. The fifth and final volume focuses on the theme of community within early Christian writings-how Christians joined the community, how they managed the community, how they conceptualized the community, and how they policed the community. It will be an invaluable resource for students and academic researchers in early Christian studies, history of Christianity, theology and religious studies, and late antique Roman history.

The author of this review is an historian of religion. He has studied ancient Christianity (and has a degree in theology), but has always done so within the context of the ancient Mediterranean world. Contextualizing 'religions' in their political, social, cultural, and ethnic settings in all their diversity and their dynamics and their homogeneities is an approach that has proved to be not merely fruitful, but in fact essential. Intensive interaction across ethnic and religious divides is evident everywhere. It is manifested in social contacts and elite formation, in philosophical thinking and in juridical procedure, in architectural style and in economic exchanges. Consider for a moment the many examples provided by ancient Palestine.1 The same is true for many other cities, regions, and provinces of the Roman Empire.2 From a different perspective, this emphasis on context and cultural exchange represents a return to directions taken by the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule at the beginning of the twentieth century. Today, however, our interest is no longer concentrated on genetic explanations, nor on Hellenistic philosophy and Iranian dualism. Writing histories of early Christianity that pay proper attention to context has not proved easy. Ten years ago, the titles of a Franco-German co-operative multi-volume Histoire du christianisme des origines a nos jours and the German version's subtitle Religion, Politik, Kultur indicated an interest in going beyond accounts of Christianity that treat it in isolation.3 But the results remained limited. More than 2,000 pages in two volumes were dedicated to the period up to A.D. 450. The second volume (dealing with the period from A.D. 250 onwards) concentrated on the organization and spread of Christianity and its development of a new social ethos, while the first dedicated one chapter to the 'separation' of Jews and Christians between A.D. 30 and 135 and another long one to 'Early Christians and Greek culture'. However, the perspective was always from the (often very diverse) Christian groups onto the surrounding religious and intellectual cultures, and the analysis employed metaphors of adaptation, conquest, and integration of elements of pagan culture. Of course (and rightly), Hellenistic Judaism was taken as a starting point: but it was treated too much as a world apart.

Book Review| April 01 2000 Love between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism Love between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism, Bernadette J. Brooten. Elizabeth A. Castelli Elizabeth A. Castelli Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of Biblical Literature (2000) 119 (1): 127–129. https://doi.org/10.2307/3267982 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Elizabeth A. Castelli; Love between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism. Journal of Biblical Literature 1 January 2000; 119 (1): 127–129. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/3267982 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveSBL PressJournal of Biblical Literature Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

This work provides a reassessment of the emergence and nature of Christian sexual morality, the dominant moral paradigm in Western society since late antiquity. While many scholars, including Michel Foucault, have found the basis of early Christian sexual restrictions in Greek ethics and political philosophy, the author of this book demonstrates that it is misguided to regard Greek ethics and political theory—with their proposed reforms of eroticism, the family, and civic order—as the foundation of Christian sexual austerity. Rather, she shows that early Christian goals to eradicate fornication were derived from the sexual rules and poetic norms of the Septuagint, or Greek Bible, and that early Christian writers adapted these rules and norms in ways which reveal insights into the distinctive and largely non-philosophical character of Christian sexual morality. Writing with a command of both Greek philosophy and early Christian writings, the author investigates Plato, the Stoics, the Pythagoreans, Philo of Alexandria, the apostle Paul, and the patristic Christians Clement of Alexandria, Tatian, and Epiphanes, elucidating their ideas on sexual reform. Early Christian writers, she demonstrates, transformed all that they borrowed from Greek ethics and political philosophy to launch innovative programs against fornication that were inimical to Greek cultural mores, popular and philosophical alike. The Septuagint's mandate to worship the Lord alone among all gods led to a Christian program to revolutionize Gentile sexual practices.