Slandering the Jew: Sexuality and Difference in Early Christian Texts

185 Pages·2013·1.024 MB·English

by  Susanna Drake

Slandering the Jew
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Divinations: ReReaDing Late ancient ReLigion
series editors: Daniel Boyarin, virginia Burrus, Derek Krueger
a complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.
Slandering the Jew
sexuality and Difference in early christian texts
susanna Drake
university of pennsylvania press
philadelphia
21849 21849
copyright © 2013 University of Pennsylvania Press

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of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced
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publisher.

Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
www.upenn.edu/pennpress

Printed in the United states of america on acid-free paper
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Library of congress cataloging-in-Publication Data
Drake, susanna.
slandering the Jew : sexuality and difference in early christian
texts / susanna Drake. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (Divinations : rereading late ancient religion)
includes bibliographical references and index.
isBn 978-0-8122-4520-2 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. sex—Religious aspects—christianity—History of doctrines—
early church, ca. 30–600. 2. christianity and other religions—
Judaism—History—early church, ca. 30–600. 3. Judaism—
Relations—christianity—History—talmudic period, 10–425.
4. church history—Primitive and early church, ca. 30–600. i. title.
ii. series: Divinations.
BR195.s48D73 2013
261.2'609015—dc23
2012047257
To Richard Drake
and to the memory of
Julia Angevine Drake
Thomas Strickler
and Mildred Martin Strickler
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Contents
introduction 1
1. The Making of carnal israel: Paul, Barnabas, Justin 19
2. origen Reads Jewishness 38
3. sexual/textual corruption: early christian interpretations of susanna
and the elders 59
4. “ a synagogue of Malakoi and Pornai”: John chrysostom’s Sermons
against the Jews 78
conclusion 99
List of abbreviations 107
notes 111
Bibliography 141
index 165
acknowledgments 175
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Introduction
Antioch, 386 ce
In his first sermon against the Jews, delivered in Antioch in the autumn of 386
ce, John Chrysostom told a story of an abduction in which a “defiling and
unfeeling man” forced a Christian woman, “elegant and free, well-b ehaved
and faithful,” to enter a synagogue. The woman resisted her attacker. She
pleaded with Chrysostom to help her. Heroically, the newly ordained priest
came to her rescue: “I was fired with jealousy,” Chrysostom said, “and burning
with anger, I rose up, I refused to let her be dragged into that transgression, I
snatched her from the hands of her abductor! I asked him if he was a Chris-
tian, and he said he was. . . . I told him he was no better than an ass if he, who
said that he worshiped Christ, would drag someone off to the dens of the Jews
who had crucified him.”1 This licentious abductor claimed to be a Christian,
but, in Chrysostom’s eyes, he was tainted with the stain of Jewishness. The
abductor believed that an oath sworn in the synagogue was more powerful
than one sworn in the church. It was precisely this sort of dangerous religious
hybrid— this impure “half Christian”2— that Chrysostom railed against in his
sermons Adversus Iudaeos. The sexualized depiction of the heretical Christian-
Jew as a male predator who preyed upon pure Christian women was not lost
on Chrysostom’s audience.3
In Adversus Iudaeos, John Chrysostom frequently depicted Jews and so-
called Judaizers as lascivious wolves in pursuit of innocent Christian sheep,
and he asserted that he himself was the good shepherd who protected the
sheep from their Jewish predators.4 His self- presentation as a stalwart guard-
ian of Christian women went hand in hand with the gendered and sexualized
portrayal of his religious opponents. Delivered at a time when the church in
Antioch was more imperial than imperiled, his first sermon against the Jews
made use of this narrative of violent abduction and aggression to map differ-
ences between “true” Christians and their heretical Others, Jews and Juda-
izers especially. Chrysostom’s portrait of a heretical Judaizer luring a pure(ly)
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