Ross S. Kraemer

The Conversion of Women to Ascetic Forms of Christianity

Accounts of the conversion of women to ascetic forms of Christianity abound in a collection of texts known as the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. Extant in numerous languages, including Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, and Arabic, these Acts often seem to be composite works containing diverse legends associated with the apostles of Jesus. Most scholars doubt that the apocryphal Acts reflect the actual histories of the apostles, or that they relate to the actual conversion experiences of historical women or men: Paul of Tarsus may never have converted Thecla of Iconium; nor Andrew, Maximilla of Patrae; nor Thomas, Mygdonia of India. Nonetheless, these Acts are important sources of information about the postapostolic churches in which they circulated. Analogously, the conversion accounts, in my view, illuminate a significant aspect of womens religion in the Greco-Roman world, namely, the appeal of Christian asceticism, which was particularly strong in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire.l

On the Meaning of the Term “Jew” in Greco-Roman Inscriptions

The Greek terms Ἰουδαῖος/Ἰουδαία and their Latin equivalents Iudaeus/Iudaea have rarely posed serious translation problems for scholars. Whether in masculine or feminine form, singular or plural, regardless of declension, these terms have usually been taken as straightforward indicators of Jews, at least when applied to individual persons. Only recently A. T. Kraabel has suggested that these terms, uniformly translated “Jew” or “Jews,” might have other significance, in particular as indicators of geographic origin, that is, “Judaean(s).”

Jewish Women's Resistance to Christianity in the Early Fifth Century: The Account of Severus, Bishop of Minorca

The Letter of Severus of Minorca on the Conversion of the Jews, narrating the conversion of the entire Jewish population of the island in the space of one week in February, 418 C.E. has been taken by some scholars as a reliable account of Jewish womens principled resistance to Christianity, based on the authors representation of women as the last to convert. The author deploys Jewish women and gender relations for various rhetorical purposes that call into question the historicity of these and other details of the Letter. Severus feminizes Jews and presents their gender relations as disordered: only when they become Christians do their gender relations become properly ordered. Womens initial refusal of Christ exemplifies Jewish stubbornness and wifely insubordination. Had the women converted before their husbands, their conversions would not have served the authors argument that Christ makes Jewish women appropriately submissive and accepting of (Christian) male authority. Further, Severuss subsequent re-masculination of Jewish men once they become Christian may relate to various power contests that underlie the text.

Desiring Conversion: Hermas, Thecla, Aseneth (review)

The History of Paul and John combines well-known hagiographic tropes with delightful idiosyncrasies. In the course of only twenty-five pages of text one encounters wandering ascetics, “blessed troglodytes,” marauding Arabs, mountaineers, a dendrite (similar to a stylite, but in this case a saint living in a tree instead of on top of a pillar), plenty of demons, a divinely withered palm tree, and a transvestite nun. Instead of trying to domesticate this text, the editors rightfully keep it weird. Their translation, while rarely stilted, does not try to gloss over textual difficulties or the occasionally disjointed plot. One might be tempted to dismiss such a peculiar tale as an outlier. That, however, was clearly not its reception in antiquity. Paul and John is preserved in one Greek manuscript and at least six extant Syriac manuscripts. The earliest dates to 568/9 c.e., the latest is a mysterious, anonymous twentieth-century typeset. These attest to the story’s widespread, long-lasting popularity and convoluted transmission history. As the introduction and notes point out, Paul and John also exhibits substantial intertextuality. It has a particularly close relationship with the well-known Syriac legend of the Man of God (later the Alexis Legend in more western traditions). As others have noted, Paul and John also presents intriguing parallels with the much later writings of al-Tabari causing the editors to suggest that the tenth-century Muslim historian had access to some version of Paul and John. Like its protagonists, this clearly is a text that got around, crossing multiple linguistic and confessional boundaries. One might occasionally quibble with the translation of a specific phrase or wish that a given topic received a little more coverage in the introduction or notes. But the rarity and triviality of such objections bear witness to the editors’ careful work and the success of their collaboration. From the cover art of a tree (minus the dendrite) to the book’s dedication to the early twentieth-century scholar François Nau (who claimed to have created an edition of this work, but if so, it was never preserved), the editors’ own packing of the work playfully interacts with many of the text’s oddities. The result is a multifaceted book useful not only to Syriac scholars but also to those interested more broadly in late ancient asceticism, early Christian hagiography, and its reception. The richness of the account, as well as its relative brevity, would also make it a fantastic addition to the undergraduate or graduate classroom. It is hard to imagine anything less than a lively discussion of the work’s content. Michael Penn, Mount Holyoke College