Slandering the Jew: Sexuality and Difference in Early Christian Texts

Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion

by Susanna Drake

As Christian leaders in the first through fifth centuries embraced ascetic interpretations of the Bible and practices of sexual renunciation, sexual slander—such as the accusations Paul leveled against wayward Gentiles in the New Testament—played a pivotal role in the formation of early Christian identity. In particular, the imagined construct of the lascivious, literal-minded Jew served as a convenient foil to the chaste Christian ideal. Susanna Drake examines representations of Jewish sexuality in early Christian writings that use accusations of carnality, fleshliness, bestiality, and licentiousness as strategies to differentiate the "spiritual" Christian from the "carnal" Jew. Church fathers such as Justin Martyr, Hippolytus of Rome, Origen of Alexandria, and John Chrysostom portrayed Jewish men variously as dangerously hypersexual, at times literally seducing virtuous Christians into heresy, or as weak and effeminate, unable to control bodily impulses or govern their wives.

As Drake shows, these carnal caricatures served not only to emphasize religious difference between Christians and Jews but also to justify increased legal constraints and violent acts against Jews as the interests of Christian leaders began to dovetail with the interests of the empire. Placing Christian representations of Jews at the root of the destruction of synagogues and mobbing of Jewish communities in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, Slandering the Jew casts new light on the intersections of sexuality, violence, representation, and religious identity.

184 pages, Hardcover

First published July 8, 2013

Reviews

[Dan Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am entirely grateful to Susanna Drake for this volume and all her work which it represents. Previously, I was generally and peripherally aware of discussion in some academic literature pertaining to the fluidity of identity between Christian and Jewish communities in the time of Chrysostom. But Drake's book hyper-sharpened the lens for me. In addition to the main text, I also appreciated Drake's thorough section of notes. I am from a blue collar background. In regard to Drake's work, I sense a well built edifice. The Greek word tekton comes to mind.

In my own reflection (which I take full responsibility for), I cannot help but ruminate upon the manner in which present Christian Nationalism not only mirrors the hate-culture of the patristic era but appears also to be a direct descendant of it.