Ethiopian demons: Male sexuality, the black-skinned other, and the monastic self

Journal of the History of Sexuality

Volumn 10, Issue 3-4, 2001, Pages 501-535

  Brakke, David ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0035565341     PISSN: 10434070     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/sex.2001.0049     Document Type: Article

References (192)

1. Athanasius Vita Antonii 6. Full citations for this and the other stories mentioned in these first two paragraphs will be provided below when they are discussed in detail. Translations from ancient sources are my own unless a modern translation is cited. I have used the following bibliographic abbreviations: N - Apophthegmata patrum published by Nau in Revue de l'orient chrétien PG - Patrologia Graeca PL - Patrologia Latina SC - Sources chrétiennes This essay benefited from the questions and comments of an audience gathered by the Medieval Studies Institute of Indiana University in September 2000. A thoughtful and congenial group of colleagues read and discussed both postcolonial theory and this essay: Quinton Dixie, Bert Harrill, Michael Satlow, Mary Jo Weaver, and Steven Weitzman. Dyan Elliott, Charles Stewart, and this journal's anonymous reader generously provided detailed written responses. Daniel Boyarin and Elizabeth Castelli (as well as Virginia Burrus) intervened with support at a crucial moment. The research for this essay was supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies, neither of which is responsible for the opinions expressed here. I am grateful to all of these people and institutions.
2. Gregorio Penco, "Sopravvivenze della demonologia antica nel monachesimo medievale," Studia Monastica 13 (1971): 31-36.
3. Even Abba Moses loses his blackness, becoming "a very old elder with a long black robe" instead of "big and black" (Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert [New York, 1960], 36; cf Apophthegmata patrum Moses 8 [PG 65:285]).
4. Frank Snowden's relentlessly positive spin on even the most abusive stories about Abba Moses (Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience [Cambridge, MA, 1970], 209-11) inevitably failed to persuade most readers. Philip Mayerson provided a useful corrective to Snowden's optimism, concluding that references to black demons and tauntings of Moses "must surely indicate a sentiment among some unlettered and theologically uninformed monks that black was not always beautiful" ("Anti-Black Sentiment in the Vitae Patrum," Harvard Theological Review 71 [1978]: 304-11, at 305). Although this conclusion rightly points to social level as a complicating factor in the analysis of ancient attitudes toward marginalized persons, it assumes too quickly that the "fathers" who abused Moses or told stories of black demons were illiterate or uneducated, an assumption that more recent scholarship has undermined. It also ignores that, for example, one of Moses' persecutors is an archbishop and that all of these stories now come to us as literature, often written by extremely well educated men (e.g., John Cassian). Peter Frost used monastic literature as part of a wider study of "attitudes toward blacks" among the early Christians: he also points to antiquity's "more rigid class structure" but unfortunately gives slavery a prominent place in his analysis, which has more to do with the modern American experience of a race-based slave system than with the Greco-Roman reality ("Attitudes Toward Blacks in the Early Christian Era," Second Century 8 [1991]: 1-11). The studies of Lellia Cracco Ruggini claimed that a more negative view of the Ethiopian arose in Egypt in the third and fourth centuries in response to increased raids by sub-Saharan tribes (a hypothesis to which I shall return): "Leggenda e realtà degli Etiopi nella cultura tardoimperiale," in IV Congresso internazionale di Studi etiopici (Roma, 10-15 aprile 1972), Problemi attuali di scienza e di cultura, 2 vols. (Rome, 1974), 1:141-93; "Il negro buono e il negro malvagio nel mondo classico," in Conoscenze etniche e rapporti di convivenza nell'antichità, ed. M. Sordi, Contributi dell'Istituto di storia antica 6 (Milan, 1979), 108-35; "Intolerance: Equal and Less Equal in the Roman World," Classical Philology 82 (1987): 187-205. In her presentation of the sources concerning Abba Moses, Kathleen O'Brien Wicker suggested that the "dualistic theology" enacted by the ascetic "intensified" the "attitudes about color discrimination" in Egypt ("Ethiopian Moses [Collected Sources]," in Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook, ed. Vincent L. Wimbush [Minneapolis, 1990], 329-48, at 334).
5. Frank Snowden's relentlessly positive spin on even the most abusive stories about Abba Moses (Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience [Cambridge, MA, 1970], 209-11) inevitably failed to persuade most readers. Philip Mayerson provided a useful corrective to Snowden's optimism, concluding that references to black demons and tauntings of Moses "must surely indicate a sentiment among some unlettered and theologically uninformed monks that black was not always beautiful" ("Anti-Black Sentiment in the Vitae Patrum," Harvard Theological Review 71 [1978]: 304-11, at 305). Although this conclusion rightly points to social level as a complicating factor in the analysis of ancient attitudes toward marginalized persons, it assumes too quickly that the "fathers" who abused Moses or told stories of black demons were illiterate or uneducated, an assumption that more recent scholarship has undermined. It also ignores that, for example, one of Moses' persecutors is an archbishop and that all of these stories now come to us as literature, often written by extremely well educated men (e.g., John Cassian). Peter Frost used monastic literature as part of a wider study of "attitudes toward blacks" among the early Christians: he also points to antiquity's "more rigid class structure" but unfortunately gives slavery a prominent place in his analysis, which has more to do with the modern American experience of a race-based slave system than with the Greco-Roman reality ("Attitudes Toward Blacks in the Early Christian Era," Second Century 8 [1991]: 1-11). The studies of Lellia Cracco Ruggini claimed that a more negative view of the Ethiopian arose in Egypt in the third and fourth centuries in response to increased raids by sub-Saharan tribes (a hypothesis to which I shall return): "Leggenda e realtà degli Etiopi nella cultura tardoimperiale," in IV Congresso internazionale di Studi etiopici (Roma, 10-15 aprile 1972), Problemi attuali di scienza e di cultura, 2 vols. (Rome, 1974), 1:141-93; "Il negro buono e il negro malvagio nel mondo classico," in Conoscenze etniche e rapporti di convivenza nell'antichità, ed. M. Sordi, Contributi dell'Istituto di storia antica 6 (Milan, 1979), 108-35; "Intolerance: Equal and Less Equal in the Roman World," Classical Philology 82 (1987): 187-205. In her presentation of the sources concerning Abba Moses, Kathleen O'Brien Wicker suggested that the "dualistic theology" enacted by the ascetic "intensified" the "attitudes about color discrimination" in Egypt ("Ethiopian Moses [Collected Sources]," in Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook, ed. Vincent L. Wimbush [Minneapolis, 1990], 329-48, at 334).
6. Frank Snowden's relentlessly positive spin on even the most abusive stories about Abba Moses (Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience [Cambridge, MA, 1970], 209-11) inevitably failed to persuade most readers. Philip Mayerson provided a useful corrective to Snowden's optimism, concluding that references to black demons and tauntings of Moses "must surely indicate a sentiment among some unlettered and theologically uninformed monks that black was not always beautiful" ("Anti-Black Sentiment in the Vitae Patrum," Harvard Theological Review 71 [1978]: 304-11, at 305). Although this conclusion rightly points to social level as a complicating factor in the analysis of ancient attitudes toward marginalized persons, it assumes too quickly that the "fathers" who abused Moses or told stories of black demons were illiterate or uneducated, an assumption that more recent scholarship has undermined. It also ignores that, for example, one of Moses' persecutors is an archbishop and that all of these stories now come to us as literature, often written by extremely well educated men (e.g., John Cassian). Peter Frost used monastic literature as part of a wider study of "attitudes toward blacks" among the early Christians: he also points to antiquity's "more rigid class structure" but unfortunately gives slavery a prominent place in his analysis, which has more to do with the modern American experience of a race-based slave system than with the Greco-Roman reality ("Attitudes Toward Blacks in the Early Christian Era," Second Century 8 [1991]: 1-11). The studies of Lellia Cracco Ruggini claimed that a more negative view of the Ethiopian arose in Egypt in the third and fourth centuries in response to increased raids by sub-Saharan tribes (a hypothesis to which I shall return): "Leggenda e realtà degli Etiopi nella cultura tardoimperiale," in IV Congresso internazionale di Studi etiopici (Roma, 10-15 aprile 1972), Problemi attuali di scienza e di cultura, 2 vols. (Rome, 1974), 1:141-93; "Il negro buono e il negro malvagio nel mondo classico," in Conoscenze etniche e rapporti di convivenza nell'antichità, ed. M. Sordi, Contributi dell'Istituto di storia antica 6 (Milan, 1979), 108-35; "Intolerance: Equal and Less Equal in the Roman World," Classical Philology 82 (1987): 187-205. In her presentation of the sources concerning Abba Moses, Kathleen O'Brien Wicker suggested that the "dualistic theology" enacted by the ascetic "intensified" the "attitudes about color discrimination" in Egypt ("Ethiopian Moses [Collected Sources]," in Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook, ed. Vincent L. Wimbush [Minneapolis, 1990], 329-48, at 334).
7. Frank Snowden's relentlessly positive spin on even the most abusive stories about Abba Moses (Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience [Cambridge, MA, 1970], 209-11) inevitably failed to persuade most readers. Philip Mayerson provided a useful corrective to Snowden's optimism, concluding that references to black demons and tauntings of Moses "must surely indicate a sentiment among some unlettered and theologically uninformed monks that black was not always beautiful" ("Anti-Black Sentiment in the Vitae Patrum," Harvard Theological Review 71 [1978]: 304-11, at 305). Although this conclusion rightly points to social level as a complicating factor in the analysis of ancient attitudes toward marginalized persons, it assumes too quickly that the "fathers" who abused Moses or told stories of black demons were illiterate or uneducated, an assumption that more recent scholarship has undermined. It also ignores that, for example, one of Moses' persecutors is an archbishop and that all of these stories now come to us as literature, often written by extremely well educated men (e.g., John Cassian). Peter Frost used monastic literature as part of a wider study of "attitudes toward blacks" among the early Christians: he also points to antiquity's "more rigid class structure" but unfortunately gives slavery a prominent place in his analysis, which has more to do with the modern American experience of a race-based slave system than with the Greco-Roman reality ("Attitudes Toward Blacks in the Early Christian Era," Second Century 8 [1991]: 1-11). The studies of Lellia Cracco Ruggini claimed that a more negative view of the Ethiopian arose in Egypt in the third and fourth centuries in response to increased raids by sub-Saharan tribes (a hypothesis to which I shall return): "Leggenda e realtà degli Etiopi nella cultura tardoimperiale," in IV Congresso internazionale di Studi etiopici (Roma, 10-15 aprile 1972), Problemi attuali di scienza e di cultura, 2 vols. (Rome, 1974), 1:141-93; "Il negro buono e il negro malvagio nel mondo classico," in Conoscenze etniche e rapporti di convivenza nell'antichità, ed. M. Sordi, Contributi dell'Istituto di storia antica 6 (Milan, 1979), 108-35; "Intolerance: Equal and Less Equal in the Roman World," Classical Philology 82 (1987): 187-205. In her presentation of the sources concerning Abba Moses, Kathleen O'Brien Wicker suggested that the "dualistic theology" enacted by the ascetic "intensified" the "attitudes about color discrimination" in Egypt ("Ethiopian Moses [Collected Sources]," in Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook, ed. Vincent L. Wimbush [Minneapolis, 1990], 329-48, at 334).
8. Frank Snowden's relentlessly positive spin on even the most abusive stories about Abba Moses (Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience [Cambridge, MA, 1970], 209-11) inevitably failed to persuade most readers. Philip Mayerson provided a useful corrective to Snowden's optimism, concluding that references to black demons and tauntings of Moses "must surely indicate a sentiment among some unlettered and theologically uninformed monks that black was not always beautiful" ("Anti-Black Sentiment in the Vitae Patrum," Harvard Theological Review 71 [1978]: 304-11, at 305). Although this conclusion rightly points to social level as a complicating factor in the analysis of ancient attitudes toward marginalized persons, it assumes too quickly that the "fathers" who abused Moses or told stories of black demons were illiterate or uneducated, an assumption that more recent scholarship has undermined. It also ignores that, for example, one of Moses' persecutors is an archbishop and that all of these stories now come to us as literature, often written by extremely well educated men (e.g., John Cassian). Peter Frost used monastic literature as part of a wider study of "attitudes toward blacks" among the early Christians: he also points to antiquity's "more rigid class structure" but unfortunately gives slavery a prominent place in his analysis, which has more to do with the modern American experience of a race-based slave system than with the Greco-Roman reality ("Attitudes Toward Blacks in the Early Christian Era," Second Century 8 [1991]: 1-11). The studies of Lellia Cracco Ruggini claimed that a more negative view of the Ethiopian arose in Egypt in the third and fourth centuries in response to increased raids by sub-Saharan tribes (a hypothesis to which I shall return): "Leggenda e realtà degli Etiopi nella cultura tardoimperiale," in IV Congresso internazionale di Studi etiopici (Roma, 10-15 aprile 1972), Problemi attuali di scienza e di cultura, 2 vols. (Rome, 1974), 1:141-93; "Il negro buono e il negro malvagio nel mondo classico," in Conoscenze etniche e rapporti di convivenza nell'antichità, ed. M. Sordi, Contributi dell'Istituto di storia antica 6 (Milan, 1979), 108-35; "Intolerance: Equal and Less Equal in the Roman World," Classical Philology 82 (1987): 187-205. In her presentation of the sources concerning Abba Moses, Kathleen O'Brien Wicker suggested that the "dualistic theology" enacted by the ascetic "intensified" the "attitudes about color discrimination" in Egypt ("Ethiopian Moses [Collected Sources]," in Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook, ed. Vincent L. Wimbush [Minneapolis, 1990], 329-48, at 334).
9. Frank Snowden's relentlessly positive spin on even the most abusive stories about Abba Moses (Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience [Cambridge, MA, 1970], 209-11) inevitably failed to persuade most readers. Philip Mayerson provided a useful corrective to Snowden's optimism, concluding that references to black demons and tauntings of Moses "must surely indicate a sentiment among some unlettered and theologically uninformed monks that black was not always beautiful" ("Anti-Black Sentiment in the Vitae Patrum," Harvard Theological Review 71 [1978]: 304-11, at 305). Although this conclusion rightly points to social level as a complicating factor in the analysis of ancient attitudes toward marginalized persons, it assumes too quickly that the "fathers" who abused Moses or told stories of black demons were illiterate or uneducated, an assumption that more recent scholarship has undermined. It also ignores that, for example, one of Moses' persecutors is an archbishop and that all of these stories now come to us as literature, often written by extremely well educated men (e.g., John Cassian). Peter Frost used monastic literature as part of a wider study of "attitudes toward blacks" among the early Christians: he also points to antiquity's "more rigid class structure" but unfortunately gives slavery a prominent place in his analysis, which has more to do with the modern American experience of a race-based slave system than with the Greco-Roman reality ("Attitudes Toward Blacks in the Early Christian Era," Second Century 8 [1991]: 1-11). The studies of Lellia Cracco Ruggini claimed that a more negative view of the Ethiopian arose in Egypt in the third and fourth centuries in response to increased raids by sub-Saharan tribes (a hypothesis to which I shall return): "Leggenda e realtà degli Etiopi nella cultura tardoimperiale," in IV Congresso internazionale di Studi etiopici (Roma, 10-15 aprile 1972), Problemi attuali di scienza e di cultura, 2 vols. (Rome, 1974), 1:141-93; "Il negro buono e il negro malvagio nel mondo classico," in Conoscenze etniche e rapporti di convivenza nell'antichità, ed. M. Sordi, Contributi dell'Istituto di storia antica 6 (Milan, 1979), 108-35; "Intolerance: Equal and Less Equal in the Roman World," Classical Philology 82 (1987): 187-205. In her presentation of the sources concerning Abba Moses, Kathleen O'Brien Wicker suggested that the "dualistic theology" enacted by the ascetic "intensified" the "attitudes about color discrimination" in Egypt ("Ethiopian Moses [Collected Sources]," in Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook, ed. Vincent L. Wimbush [Minneapolis, 1990], 329-48, at 334).
10. Frank Snowden's relentlessly positive spin on even the most abusive stories about Abba Moses (Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience [Cambridge, MA, 1970], 209-11) inevitably failed to persuade most readers. Philip Mayerson provided a useful corrective to Snowden's optimism, concluding that references to black demons and tauntings of Moses "must surely indicate a sentiment among some unlettered and theologically uninformed monks that black was not always beautiful" ("Anti-Black Sentiment in the Vitae Patrum," Harvard Theological Review 71 [1978]: 304-11, at 305). Although this conclusion rightly points to social level as a complicating factor in the analysis of ancient attitudes toward marginalized persons, it assumes too quickly that the "fathers" who abused Moses or told stories of black demons were illiterate or uneducated, an assumption that more recent scholarship has undermined. It also ignores that, for example, one of Moses' persecutors is an archbishop and that all of these stories now come to us as literature, often written by extremely well educated men (e.g., John Cassian). Peter Frost used monastic literature as part of a wider study of "attitudes toward blacks" among the early Christians: he also points to antiquity's "more rigid class structure" but unfortunately gives slavery a prominent place in his analysis, which has more to do with the modern American experience of a race-based slave system than with the Greco-Roman reality ("Attitudes Toward Blacks in the Early Christian Era," Second Century 8 [1991]: 1-11). The studies of Lellia Cracco Ruggini claimed that a more negative view of the Ethiopian arose in Egypt in the third and fourth centuries in response to increased raids by sub-Saharan tribes (a hypothesis to which I shall return): "Leggenda e realtà degli Etiopi nella cultura tardoimperiale," in IV Congresso internazionale di Studi etiopici (Roma, 10-15 aprile 1972), Problemi attuali di scienza e di cultura, 2 vols. (Rome, 1974), 1:141-93; "Il negro buono e il negro malvagio nel mondo classico," in Conoscenze etniche e rapporti di convivenza nell'antichità, ed. M. Sordi, Contributi dell'Istituto di storia antica 6 (Milan, 1979), 108-35; "Intolerance: Equal and Less Equal in the Roman World," Classical Philology 82 (1987): 187-205. In her presentation of the sources concerning Abba Moses, Kathleen O'Brien Wicker suggested that the "dualistic theology" enacted by the ascetic "intensified" the "attitudes about color discrimination" in Egypt ("Ethiopian Moses [Collected Sources]," in Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook, ed. Vincent L. Wimbush [Minneapolis, 1990], 329-48, at 334).
11. Lloyd Thompson, Romans and Blacks, Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture 2 (Norman, OK, 1989).
12. One early and successful exception: P. Basilius Steidle, "Der 'schwarze kleine Knabe' in der alten Möncherzählung," Benediktinische Monatschrift 34 (1958): 339-50.
13. Vincent Wimbush, "Ascetic Behavior and Color-ful Language: Stories about Ethiopian Moses," Semeia 58 (1992): 81-92.
14. Gay Byron, "Piety, Politics, and Ideology: The Use of Ethiopians in Late Antique Monastic Literature" (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Boston, November 1999). See also her Blackened by Their Sins: Early Christian Ethno-Political Rhetorics about Egyptians, Ethiopians, Blacks, and Blackness (London, forthcoming).
15. See Boniface Ramsey, ed. and trans., John Cassian: The Conferences, Ancient Christian Writers 57 (New York, 1997), 73.
16. Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London, 1994), 67, emphasis in original.
17. Ibid., 70-71.
18. Nicholas Thomas, Colonialism's Culture: Anthropology, Travel, and Government (Princeton, 1994), 39-59.
19. Robert Young, White Mythologies: Writing History and the West (London, 1990), 145.
20. Julia Kristeva, Strangers to Ourselves, trans. Leon S. Roudiez (New York, 1991), 184, emphasis in original; cf. G. R. Dunstan and R. F. Hobson, "A Note on an Early Ingredient of Racial Prejudice in Western Europe," Race 6 (1965): 334-39; Dyan Elliott, Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1999), 7-9.
21. Julia Kristeva, Strangers to Ourselves, trans. Leon S. Roudiez (New York, 1991), 184, emphasis in original; cf. G. R. Dunstan and R. F. Hobson, "A Note on an Early Ingredient of Racial Prejudice in Western Europe," Race 6 (1965): 334-39; Dyan Elliott, Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1999), 7-9.
22. Julia Kristeva, Strangers to Ourselves, trans. Leon S. Roudiez (New York, 1991), 184, emphasis in original; cf. G. R. Dunstan and R. F. Hobson, "A Note on an Early Ingredient of Racial Prejudice in Western Europe," Race 6 (1965): 334-39; Dyan Elliott, Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1999), 7-9.
23. Thomas, 47.
24. Richard Valantasis, "Constructions of Power in Asceticism," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 63 (1995): 775-821.
25. Michel Foucault, "Technologies of the Self," in Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, ed. Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman, and Patrick H. Hutton (Amherst, MA, 1988), 16-49, at 18. See also the essays collected in Michel Foucault, Religion and Culture, ed. Jeremy R. Carrette (New York, 1999). Foucault's work makes an explicit contribution to Valantasis's performance approach to asceticism in "Constructions of Power."
26. Michel Foucault, "Technologies of the Self," in Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, ed. Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman, and Patrick H. Hutton (Amherst, MA, 1988), 16-49, at 18. See also the essays collected in Michel Foucault, Religion and Culture, ed. Jeremy R. Carrette (New York, 1999). Foucault's work makes an explicit contribution to Valantasis's performance approach to asceticism in "Constructions of Power."
27. Elizabeth A. Clark, "Foucault, the Fathers, and Sex," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 56 (1988): 619-41; Kate Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA, 1996), esp. 1-4; Conrad Leyser, "Masculinity in Flux: Nocturnal Emission and the Limits of Celibacy in the Early Middle Ages," in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. D. M. Hadley (London, 1999), 103-20; Virginia Burrus, "Begotten, Not Made": Conceiving Manhood in Late Antiquity (Stanford, 2000), esp. 167-70.
28. Elizabeth A. Clark, "Foucault, the Fathers, and Sex," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 56 (1988): 619-41; Kate Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA, 1996), esp. 1-4; Conrad Leyser, "Masculinity in Flux: Nocturnal Emission and the Limits of Celibacy in the Early Middle Ages," in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. D. M. Hadley (London, 1999), 103-20; Virginia Burrus, "Begotten, Not Made": Conceiving Manhood in Late Antiquity (Stanford, 2000), esp. 167-70.
29. Elizabeth A. Clark, "Foucault, the Fathers, and Sex," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 56 (1988): 619-41; Kate Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA, 1996), esp. 1-4; Conrad Leyser, "Masculinity in Flux: Nocturnal Emission and the Limits of Celibacy in the Early Middle Ages," in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. D. M. Hadley (London, 1999), 103-20; Virginia Burrus, "Begotten, Not Made": Conceiving Manhood in Late Antiquity (Stanford, 2000), esp. 167-70.
30. Elizabeth A. Clark, "Foucault, the Fathers, and Sex," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 56 (1988): 619-41; Kate Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA, 1996), esp. 1-4; Conrad Leyser, "Masculinity in Flux: Nocturnal Emission and the Limits of Celibacy in the Early Middle Ages," in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. D. M. Hadley (London, 1999), 103-20; Virginia Burrus, "Begotten, Not Made": Conceiving Manhood in Late Antiquity (Stanford, 2000), esp. 167-70.
31. For example, Foucault, "Technologies of the Self," 44-45.
32. So in ibid.; see too the reference to "confession to others" as nearly an afterthought in Foucault's analysis of self-examination in John Cassian in his "The Battle for Chastity," in Religion and Culture, 188-97, at 196.
33. So in ibid.; see too the reference to "confession to others" as nearly an afterthought in Foucault's analysis of self-examination in John Cassian in his "The Battle for Chastity," in Religion and Culture, 188-97, at 196.
34. Foucault's comment that "there is very little mention of homosexual relations" in monastic literature is true enough ("Sexuality and Solitude," in Religion and Culture, 182-87, at 187) but ignores more subtle intimations of homoeroticism.
35. For example, see the "four prehomosexual categories of male sex and gender deviance" explored by David Halperin in his "How to Do the History of Male Homosexuality," GLQ6 (2000): 87-123, especially his category of "friendship." See below for the utility of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's notion of the "erotic triangle" (Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire [New York, 1985]) to understanding certain demonic appearances.
36. For example, see the "four prehomosexual categories of male sex and gender deviance" explored by David Halperin in his "How to Do the History of Male Homosexuality," GLQ6 (2000): 87-123, especially his category of "friendship." See below for the utility of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's notion of the "erotic triangle" (Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire [New York, 1985]) to understanding certain demonic appearances.
37. So Clark, "Foucault, the Fathers, and Sex," 636-37. In one of his few more than passing references to Satan or demons, Foucault writes this of Cassian's thought: "Fourth, this reality which is able to hide in my thoughts is a power, a power which is not of another nature than my soul, as is, for instance, the body. The power which hides inside my thoughts, this power is of the same nature of my thoughts and of my soul. It is the Devil. It is the presence of someone else in me" ("The Hermeneutics of the Self," in Religion and Culture, 158-81. at 177, n. 44).
38. So Clark, "Foucault, the Fathers, and Sex," 636-37. In one of his few more than passing references to Satan or demons, Foucault writes this of Cassian's thought: "Fourth, this reality which is able to hide in my thoughts is a power, a power which is not of another nature than my soul, as is, for instance, the body. The power which hides inside my thoughts, this power is of the same nature of my thoughts and of my soul. It is the Devil. It is the presence of someone else in me" ("The Hermeneutics of the Self," in Religion and Culture, 158-81. at 177, n. 44).
39. Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York, 1993), 317.
40. Franz Joseph Dölger, Die Sonne der Gerechtigkeit und der Schwarze: Eine religiongeschichtliche Studie zum Taufgelöbnis, 2d ed. (Münster, 1971), 49-83.
41. Epistle of Barnabas 4:10, 20:1; Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 9:8.
42. Epistle of Barnabas 4:10, 20:1; Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 9:8.
43. Frost, 4-5.
44. Acts of Peter 22.
45. Cf. Robert A. Orsi, "The Religious Boundaries of an In-Between People: Street Feste and the Problem of the Dark-Skinned Other in Italian Harlem, 1920-1990," in Gods of the City: Religion and the American Urban Landscape, ed. Robert A. Orsi, Religion in North America (Bloomington, IN, 1999), 257-88.
46. Jean-Marie Courtès, "The Theme of 'Ethiopia' and 'Ethiopians' in Patristic Literature," in The Image of the Black in Western Art, 3 vols. in 4 (Cambridge, MA, 1979), vol. 2, pt. 1, 9-32.
47. Lucien Regnault, Les Sentences des pères du désert: Nouveau recueil: Apophtegmes inédits ou peu connus. 2d ed. (Solesmes, 1977), 271.
48. John Cassian Conferences 1.21.1 (SC 42:105; Ramsey, 61-62).
49. Cassian Conferences 9.6.1 (SC 54:45-46).
50. Historia Monachorum 29.4 (Eva Schulz-Flügel, ed., Tyrannius Rufinus: Historia Monachorum vive de Vita Sanctorum Patrum [Berlin, 1990], 371-74).
51. Historia Monachorum 29.4 (Eva Schulz-Flügel, ed., Tyrannius Rufinus: Historia Monachorum vive de Vita Sanctorum Patrum [Berlin, 1990], 371-74).
52. Gregory the Great Dialogues 2.4.
53. Steidle, 339-41.
54. Athanasius Vita Antonii 5.3 (SC 400:142-44).
55. Athanasius Vita Antonii 5.5 (SC 400:144).
56. Athanasius Vita Antonii 6.1 (SC 400:146).
57. Athanasius Contra gentes 2-4, 26 (Robert W. Thomson, ed., Athanasius: Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione [Oxford, 1971], 6-12, 68-70);
58. Athanasius Contra gentes 2-4, 26 (Robert W. Thomson, ed., Athanasius: Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione [Oxford, 1971], 6-12, 68-70);
59. Vita Antonii 20.5-7, 45.2 (SC 400:188-90, 256).
60. Athanasius Vita Antonii 6.4 (SC 400:148).
61. Athanasius Vita Antonii 6.1-3 (SC 400:146-48).
62. Christopher A. Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic (Cambridge, MA, 1999), 43-49; Ruth Padel, In and Out of Mind: Greek Images of the Tragic Self (Princeton, 1992), 114-37 .
63. Christopher A. Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic (Cambridge, MA, 1999), 43-49; Ruth Padel, In and Out of Mind: Greek Images of the Tragic Self (Princeton, 1992), 114-37 .
64. Athanasius Vita Antonii 7.1-5 (SC 400:150).
65. Thompson, 88-93.
66. Cracco Ruggini, "Leggenda e realtà degli Etiopi," 173-78; "Il negro buono e il negro malvagio," 120-21.
67. Cracco Ruggini, "Leggenda e realtà degli Etiopi," 173-78; "Il negro buono e il negro malvagio," 120-21.
68. Historia Monachorum 1.2 (André-Jean Festugière, ed., Historia Monachorum in Aegypto: Edition critique du texte grec et traduction annotée, Subsidia Hagiographica 53 [Brussels, 1971], 9-10).
69. Cracco Ruggini, "Leggenda e realtà degli Etiopi," 160-62; "Il negro buono e il negro malvagio," 119-20; "Intolerance," 194-95; Thompson, 96-100.
70. Cracco Ruggini, "Leggenda e realtà degli Etiopi," 160-62; "Il negro buono e il negro malvagio," 119-20; "Intolerance," 194-95; Thompson, 96-100.
71. Cracco Ruggini, "Leggenda e realtà degli Etiopi," 160-62; "Il negro buono e il negro malvagio," 119-20; "Intolerance," 194-95; Thompson, 96-100.
72. Cracco Ruggini, "Leggenda e realtà degli Etiopi," 160-62; "Il negro buono e il negro malvagio," 119-20; "Intolerance," 194-95; Thompson, 96-100.
73. Cracco Ruggini, "Il negro buono e il negro malvagio," 131-33.
74. Thompson, 62-85.
75. Ibid., 105.
76. Ibid., 77.
77. Ibid., 104-9.
78. Ibid., 107-8.
79. Cf. Elliott, 37-40.
80. John Clarke, "Hypersexual Black Men in Augustan Baths: Ideal Somatotypes and Apotropaic Magic," in Sexuality in Ancient Art: Near East, Egypt, Greece, and Italy, ed. Natalie B. Kampen (Cambridge, 1996), 184-98; John Clarke, Looking at Lovemaking: Constructions of Sexuality in Roman Art, 100 B.C.-A.D. 250 (Berkeley, 1998), 119-42.
81. John Clarke, "Hypersexual Black Men in Augustan Baths: Ideal Somatotypes and Apotropaic Magic," in Sexuality in Ancient Art: Near East, Egypt, Greece, and Italy, ed. Natalie B. Kampen (Cambridge, 1996), 184-98; John Clarke, Looking at Lovemaking: Constructions of Sexuality in Roman Art, 100 B.C.-A.D. 250 (Berkeley, 1998), 119-42.
82. Thompson, 108-9.
83. Thomas, 72-77. Thomas stresses how in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the evangelical impulse of Christian missionaries contested the essentializing racism of governmental or corporate colonizers, often by infantilizing natives as pagan "children" that could be made Christian "men" (105-42).
84. Thomas, 72-77. Thomas stresses how in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the evangelical impulse of Christian missionaries contested the essentializing racism of governmental or corporate colonizers, often by infantilizing natives as pagan "children" that could be made Christian "men" (105-42).
85. Thompson, 108-9.
86. Courtès, 22, with references.
87. Didymus the Blind Commentary on Zechariah 3.83 (SC 84:658-60).
88. See SC 83:23-27.
89. Didymus the Blind Commentary on Zechariah 3.190 (SC 84:710).
90. Didymus the Blind Commentary on Zechariah 3.188-89 (SC 84:708-10).
91. Didymus the Blind Commentary on Zechariah 3.194 (SC 84:712).
92. Didymus the Blind Commentary on Zechariah 3.195-97 (SC 84:712-14), cf. 4.312 (SC 85:964).
93. Didymus the Blind Commentary on Zechariah 3.198 (SC 84:714).
94. Burrus, esp. 47-68.
95. Thompson, 108-9.
96. Georgia Frank, The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 30 (Berkeley, 2000), 134-70.
97. Ibid., 161.
98. Apophthegmata patrum Paul the Simple 1 (PG 65:381-84; trans. Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection, rev. ed. [Kalamazoo, MI, 1984], 205-6).
99. Apophthegmata patrum Paul the Simple 1 (PG 65:381-84; trans. Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection, rev. ed. [Kalamazoo, MI, 1984], 205-6).
100. Apophthegmata patrum Cronius 5 (PG 65:249).
101. Lucien Regnault, Les Sentences des pères du désert: Série des anonymes (Solesmes, 1985), 241.
102. Regnault, Sentences des pères du désert: Nouveau recueil, 183-85.
103. N 426 (Regnault, Sentences des pères du désert: Série des anonymes, 141); Apophthegmata patrum (Syriac) 579 (E. A. Wallis Budge, The Paradise or Garden of the Holy Fathers, 2 vols. [London, 1907], 2:130). The story has not been published in the original languages, and thus I work from Regnault's French in comparison with Budge's English.
104. N 426 (Regnault, Sentences des pères du désert: Série des anonymes, 141); Apophthegmata patrum (Syriac) 579 (E. A. Wallis Budge, The Paradise or Garden of the Holy Fathers, 2 vols. [London, 1907], 2:130). The story has not been published in the original languages, and thus I work from Regnault's French in comparison with Budge's English.
105. Cf. Bhabha, 77.
106. Apophthegmata patrum 5.27 (= N 173) (SC 387:262-64). The Syriac is virtually identical, although at the end it has "Now the father knew of a certainty that the young man had been satisfied in his mind on the subject, and he said to his son, 'Hadst thou remained . . .'" (580 [Budge, 2:130-31]). Likewise, the Latin is identical, although it identifies the woman as "foul-smelling and ugly" (Verba seniorum 5.23 [PL 73:879]).
107. See Sedgwick. The "erotic triangle" can be "a sensitive register precisely for delineating relationships of power and meaning, and for making graphically intelligible the play of desire and identification by which individuals negotiate with their societies for empowerment" (27).
108. Apophthegmata patrum 5.30, 32, 42 (SC 387:266, 270, 282).
109. Apophthegmata patrum 5.26 (= N 172) (SC 387:262); N 52 (Revue de l'orient chrétien 12 [1907]: 179); Arsenius 18 (PG 65:92). Of these, the first two associate stench with women; the last, with the pleasures of the world in general.
110. Apophthegmata patrum 5.26 (= N 172) (SC 387:262); N 52 (Revue de l'orient chrétien 12 [1907]: 179); Arsenius 18 (PG 65:92). Of these, the first two associate stench with women; the last, with the pleasures of the world in general.
111. Graham Gould, The Desert Fathers on Monastic Community (Oxford, 1993), 21.
112. Apophthegmata patrum (Ethiopic) 14.27 (Victor Arras, Collectio Monastica [Louvain, 1963], 84-85). I use Arras's Latin translation.
113. Apophthegmata patrum (Ethiopic) 14.27 (Victor Arras, Collectio Monastica [Louvain, 1963], 84-85). I use Arras's Latin translation.
114. Kristeva, 183, emphasis in original.
115. On the danger of a premature "transition from aspirant to abba," see Maud Gleason, "Visiting and News: Gossip and Reputation-Management in the Desert," Journal of Early Christian Studies 6 (1998): 501-21, at 516.
116. Apophthegmata patrum Heraclius 1 (PG 65:185).
117. Compare this famous story: "A brother was attacked by a demon and went to a certain old man, saying, 'Those two brothers are with one another.' The old man learned that he was mocked by a demon, and he sent to summon them. And when it was evening, he placed a mat [psiathion] for the two brothers, and covered them with a single spread, saying, 'The children of God are holy.' And he said to his disciple, 'Shut up this brother in the cell outside, for he has the passion in himself'" (N 181 [Revue de l'orient chrétien 13 (1908): 270-71]).
118. Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity, Lectures on the History of Religions n.s. 13 (New York, 1988), 249.
119. Apophthegmata patrum Arsenius 32 (PG 65:97-100). The tension between solitude and care for others appears to have been especially acute for Arsenius: cf. Arsenius 1, 2, 7, 8, 11-13, etc. (PG 65:88-92).
120. Athanasius Vita Antonii 91 (SC 400:370).
121. For a different interpretation of this story, see Gleason, 518-19.
122. Palladius Historia Lausiaca 23 (Cuthbert Butler, ed., The Lausiac History of Palladius [Cambridge, 1904], 75).
123. Palladius Historia Lausiaca 23 (Cuthbert Butler, ed., The Lausiac History of Palladius [Cambridge, 1904], 75).
124. Palladius Historia Lausiaca 23 (Butler, 75-76).
125. Palladius Historia Lausiaca 23 (Butler, 75-76).
126. Palladius Historia Lausiaca 23 (Butler, 76-77).
127. Palladius Historia Lausiaca 23 (Butler, 76-77).
128. For modern summaries, see Elizabeth A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton, 1992), 75-76; François Refoulé, "Rêves et vie spirituelle d'après Evagre le Pontique," La vie spirituelle 14 (1961): 470-516, at 501-4. The quoted terms that follow are drawn from Evagrius Ponticus Practicus 55-56 (SC 171:628-32); On the Thoughts 4 (SC 438:162-64).
129. For modern summaries, see Elizabeth A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton, 1992), 75-76; François Refoulé, "Rêves et vie spirituelle d'après Evagre le Pontique," La vie spirituelle 14 (1961): 470-516, at 501-4. The quoted terms that follow are drawn from Evagrius Ponticus Practicus 55-56 (SC 171:628-32); On the Thoughts 4 (SC 438:162-64).
130. For modern summaries, see Elizabeth A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton, 1992), 75-76; François Refoulé, "Rêves et vie spirituelle d'après Evagre le Pontique," La vie spirituelle 14 (1961): 470-516, at 501-4. The quoted terms that follow are drawn from Evagrius Ponticus Practicus 55-56 (SC 171:628-32); On the Thoughts 4 (SC 438:162-64).
131. For modern summaries, see Elizabeth A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton, 1992), 75-76; François Refoulé, "Rêves et vie spirituelle d'après Evagre le Pontique," La vie spirituelle 14 (1961): 470-516, at 501-4. The quoted terms that follow are drawn from Evagrius Ponticus Practicus 55-56 (SC 171:628-32); On the Thoughts 4 (SC 438:162-64).
132. Cassian Conferences 2.13.4 (SC 42:126; Ramsey, 95).
133. Cassian Conferences 2.13.4 (SC 42:126; Ramsey, 95).
134. Cassian Conferences 2.13.5-6 (SC 42:126-27; Ramsey, 95-96).
135. Cassian Conferences 2.13.5-6 (SC 42:126-27; Ramsey, 95-96).
136. Cassian Conferences 2.13.7-8 (SC 42:127; Ramsey, 96).
137. Cassian Conferences 2.13.7-8 (SC 42:127; Ramsey, 96).
138. T. G. Rosenmeyer, "Eros-Erotes," Phoenix 5 (1951): 11-22; Padel, 115-20.
139. T. G. Rosenmeyer, "Eros-Erotes," Phoenix 5 (1951): 11-22; Padel, 115-20.
140. Bhabha, 82, emphasis in original.
141. Ibid., 82-83.
142. Frank, 49-61.
143. Historia Monachorum pref. 5 (Festugière, 7).
144. Historia Monachorum 1.2 (Festugière, 9-10). In his revision of this passage, Rufinus enlarges on the savagery of the Ethiopian raiders (Schulz-Flügel, 249).
145. Historia Monachorum 8.4 (Festugière, 48).
146. Historia Monachorum 8.34-35 (Festugière, 60-61).
147. Historia Monachorum 8.3-4 (Festugière, 47-48).
148. Bhabha, 86, emphasis in original.
149. Ibid., 87.
150. Ibid., 86.
151. Ibid., 88-89.
152. Judith Perkins, "An Ancient 'Passing' Novel: Heliodorus' Aithiopika," Arethusa 32 (1999): 197-214.
153. Wimbush, 86-87.
154. Palladius Historia Lausiaca 19 ( Butler, 58; Wicker, 335).
155. Palladius Historia Lausiaca 19 ( Butler, 60; Wicker, 336-37, alt.).
156. Apophthegmata patrum (Ethiopic) 14.26 ( Arras, 84).
157. Apophthegmata patrum Moses 1, 2, 5, 13 (PG 65:281-88).
158. Wimbush, 86.
159. Kristeva, 188.
160. Apophthegmata patrum Moses 4 (PG 65:284).
161. Cracco Ruggini, "Il negro buono e il negro malvagio," 108-13.
162. On subordinates' "artful manipulation of deference and flattery to achieve" their "own ends," see James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, 1990), 33-36. The theories of Scott and Bhabha, both of which I invoke here, are not equivalent, for "whereas Scott argues for an emergence of intentional, albeit coded resistance, Bhabha's writings point to a more indirect and unintentional assertion of difference'" (Corinne G. Dempsey, Kerala Christian Sainthood: Collisions of Culture and Worldview in South India [New York, 2001], 37). Neither theory alone, my argument suggests, is adequate to the rich ambiguities of these Moses stories (cf. Dempsey, 37-38).
163. On subordinates' "artful manipulation of deference and flattery to achieve" their "own ends," see James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, 1990), 33-36. The theories of Scott and Bhabha, both of which I invoke here, are not equivalent, for "whereas Scott argues for an emergence of intentional, albeit coded resistance, Bhabha's writings point to a more indirect and unintentional assertion of difference'" (Corinne G. Dempsey, Kerala Christian Sainthood: Collisions of Culture and Worldview in South India [New York, 2001], 37). Neither theory alone, my argument suggests, is adequate to the rich ambiguities of these Moses stories (cf. Dempsey, 37-38).
164. Richard King, Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India, and "The Mystic East" (London, 1999), 204.
165. The quoted phrase is from Jason BeDuhn, The Manichaean Body: In Discipline and Ritual (Baltimore, 2000), 67, who makes this point regarding Manichaean subjects and Foucaultian analysis.
166. The archbishop's desire to learn what Moses says in private indicates that he suspects the existence of precisely what Scott calls the "hidden transcript": "discourse that takes place 'offstage,' beyond direct observation by powerholders" (4).
167. Apophthegmata patrum Moses 4 (PG 65:284).
168. Cf. Cracco Ruggini, "Il negro buono e il negro malvagio," 116-17; Gleason, 520-21.
169. Cf. Cracco Ruggini, "Il negro buono e il negro malvagio," 116-17; Gleason, 520-21.
170. Apophthegmata patrum Moses 3 (PG 65:284).
171. Palladius Historia Lausiaca 19 ( Butler, 59; Wicker, 336).
172. Robert T. Meyer, ed. and trans., Palladius: The Lausiac History, Ancient Christian Writers 34 (New York, 1964), 184, n. 183.
173. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffen, Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies (London, 1998), 118.
174. Bhabha, 81, 107.
175. Kristeva, 191.
176. "Abba Poemen said about Abba John the Dwarf that he exhorted God and the passions were removed from him. And in this way he became untroubled. When he visited a certain old man, he announced to him, 'I see myself at rest and having no combat.' And the old man said to him, 'Go and ask God that combat might come to you. For it is through the combats that the soul makes progress.' When the combat came, he no longer prayed that the combat be removed from him, but he said, 'Give to me, Lord, endurance in the combats'" (Apophthegmata patrum 7.12 [SC 387:342]). Cf. Antony 5; Evagrius 5 (PG 65:77, 176); Apophthegmata patrum 7.25, 29 (SC 387:356, 358); N 210 (Revue de l'orient chrétien 13 [1908]: 280). "This built-in limit to the perfectability of the self gives asceticism a certain irreducibility, for it is both dynamic and static; the ascetic is constantly progressing, but never arrives" (Geoffrey Galt Harpham, The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism [Chicago, 1987], 43). Cf. David Brakke, "The Problematization of Nocturnal Emissions in Early Christian Syria, Egypt, and Gaul," Journal of Early Christian Studies 3 (1995): 419-60, at 450-51.
177. "Abba Poemen said about Abba John the Dwarf that he exhorted God and the passions were removed from him. And in this way he became untroubled. When he visited a certain old man, he announced to him, 'I see myself at rest and having no combat.' And the old man said to him, 'Go and ask God that combat might come to you. For it is through the combats that the soul makes progress.' When the combat came, he no longer prayed that the combat be removed from him, but he said, 'Give to me, Lord, endurance in the combats'" (Apophthegmata patrum 7.12 [SC 387:342]). Cf. Antony 5; Evagrius 5 (PG 65:77, 176); Apophthegmata patrum 7.25, 29 (SC 387:356, 358); N 210 (Revue de l'orient chrétien 13 [1908]: 280). "This built-in limit to the perfectability of the self gives asceticism a certain irreducibility, for it is both dynamic and static; the ascetic is constantly progressing, but never arrives" (Geoffrey Galt Harpham, The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism [Chicago, 1987], 43). Cf. David Brakke, "The Problematization of Nocturnal Emissions in Early Christian Syria, Egypt, and Gaul," Journal of Early Christian Studies 3 (1995): 419-60, at 450-51.
178. "Abba Poemen said about Abba John the Dwarf that he exhorted God and the passions were removed from him. And in this way he became untroubled. When he visited a certain old man, he announced to him, 'I see myself at rest and having no combat.' And the old man said to him, 'Go and ask God that combat might come to you. For it is through the combats that the soul makes progress.' When the combat came, he no longer prayed that the combat be removed from him, but he said, 'Give to me, Lord, endurance in the combats'" (Apophthegmata patrum 7.12 [SC 387:342]). Cf. Antony 5; Evagrius 5 (PG 65:77, 176); Apophthegmata patrum 7.25, 29 (SC 387:356, 358); N 210 (Revue de l'orient chrétien 13 [1908]: 280). "This built-in limit to the perfectability of the self gives asceticism a certain irreducibility, for it is both dynamic and static; the ascetic is constantly progressing, but never arrives" (Geoffrey Galt Harpham, The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism [Chicago, 1987], 43). Cf. David Brakke, "The Problematization of Nocturnal Emissions in Early Christian Syria, Egypt, and Gaul," Journal of Early Christian Studies 3 (1995): 419-60, at 450-51.
179. "Abba Poemen said about Abba John the Dwarf that he exhorted God and the passions were removed from him. And in this way he became untroubled. When he visited a certain old man, he announced to him, 'I see myself at rest and having no combat.' And the old man said to him, 'Go and ask God that combat might come to you. For it is through the combats that the soul makes progress.' When the combat came, he no longer prayed that the combat be removed from him, but he said, 'Give to me, Lord, endurance in the combats'" (Apophthegmata
180. "Abba Poemen said about Abba John the Dwarf that he exhorted God and the passions were removed from him. And in this way he became untroubled. When he visited a certain old man, he announced to him, 'I see myself at rest and having no combat.' And the old man said to him, 'Go and ask God that combat might come to you. For it is through the combats that the soul makes progress.' When the combat came, he no longer prayed that the combat be removed from him, but he said, 'Give to me, Lord, endurance in the combats'" (Apophthegmata patrum 7.12 [SC 387:342]). Cf. Antony 5; Evagrius 5 (PG 65:77, 176); Apophthegmata patrum 7.25, 29 (SC 387:356, 358); N 210 (Revue de l'orient chrétien 13 [1908]: 280). "This built-in limit to the perfectability of the self gives asceticism a certain irreducibility, for it is both dynamic and static; the ascetic is constantly progressing, but never arrives" (Geoffrey Galt Harpham, The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism [Chicago, 1987], 43). Cf. David Brakke, "The Problematization of Nocturnal Emissions in Early Christian Syria, Egypt, and Gaul," Journal of Early Christian Studies 3 (1995): 419-60, at 450-51.
181. Charles Stewart, Demons and the Devil: Moral Imagination in Modern Greek Culture, Princeton Modern Greek Studies (Princeton, 1991), 170-71, 249.
182. Sarah les Johnston, Restless Dead: Encounters Between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece (Berkeley, 1999), 171.
183. Wimbush, 90.
184. Historical studies: James A. Francis, Subversive Virtue: Asceticism and Authority in the Second-Century Pagan World (University Park, PA, 1995); Cooper, 45-67. Performance artists: Patricia Cox Miller, "Desert Asceticism and 'The Body from Nowhere,'" Journal of Early Christian Studies 2 (1994): 137-53. Performances: Valantasis, "Constructions of Power," 797; cf. Valantasis, "A Theory of the Social Function of Asceticism," in Asceticism, ed. Vincent L. Wimbush and Richard Valantasis (New York, 1995), 544-52, at 548.
185. Historical studies: James A. Francis, Subversive Virtue: Asceticism and Authority in the Second-Century Pagan World (University Park, PA, 1995); Cooper, 45-67. Performance artists: Patricia Cox Miller, "Desert Asceticism and 'The Body from Nowhere,'" Journal of Early Christian Studies 2 (1994): 137-53. Performances: Valantasis, "Constructions of Power," 797; cf. Valantasis, "A Theory of the Social Function of Asceticism," in Asceticism, ed. Vincent L. Wimbush and Richard Valantasis (New York, 1995), 544-52, at 548.
186. Historical studies: James A. Francis, Subversive Virtue: Asceticism and Authority in the Second-Century Pagan World (University Park, PA, 1995); Cooper, 45-67. Performance artists: Patricia Cox Miller, "Desert Asceticism and 'The Body from Nowhere,'" Journal of Early Christian Studies 2 (1994): 137-53. Performances: Valantasis, "Constructions of Power," 797; cf. Valantasis, "A Theory of the Social Function of Asceticism," in Asceticism, ed. Vincent L. Wimbush and Richard Valantasis (New York, 1995), 544-52, at 548.
187. Historical studies: James A. Francis, Subversive Virtue: Asceticism and Authority in the Second-Century Pagan World (University Park, PA, 1995); Cooper, 45-67. Performance artists: Patricia Cox Miller, "Desert Asceticism and 'The Body from Nowhere,'" Journal of Early Christian Studies 2 (1994): 137-53. Performances: Valantasis, "Constructions of Power," 797; cf. Valantasis, "A Theory of the Social Function of Asceticism," in Asceticism, ed. Vincent L. Wimbush and Richard Valantasis (New York, 1995), 544-52, at 548.
188. Historical studies: James A. Francis, Subversive Virtue: Asceticism and Authority in the Second-Century Pagan World (University Park, PA, 1995); Cooper, 45-67. Performance artists: Patricia Cox Miller, "Desert Asceticism and 'The Body from Nowhere,'" Journal of Early Christian Studies 2 (1994): 137-53. Performances: Valantasis, "Constructions of Power," 797; cf. Valantasis, "A Theory of the Social Function of Asceticism," in Asceticism, ed. Vincent L. Wimbush and Richard Valantasis (New York, 1995), 544-52, at 548.
189. Valantasis, "Constructions of Power," 813, emphasis added. I doubt that, if pressed, Valantasis would hold to this language: "It is not necessary that the alternative culture formed through asceticism oppose the dominant culture. The counter-cultural orientation need not indicate hostility or mutual exclusion. Cultures may coinhere, and an ascetic may participate in a number of different cultures simultaneously" ("Theory of the Social Function," 549). My own formulation would be that cultures always coinhere, and an ascetic always participates in a number of different cultures simultaneously (cf. Kathryn Tanner, Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology [Minneapolis, 1997], 53-56).
190. Valantasis, "Constructions of Power," 813, emphasis added. I doubt that, if pressed, Valantasis would hold to this language: "It is not necessary that the alternative culture formed through asceticism oppose the dominant culture. The counter-cultural orientation need not indicate hostility or mutual exclusion. Cultures may coinhere, and an ascetic may participate in a number of different cultures simultaneously" ("Theory of the Social Function," 549). My own formulation would be that cultures always coinhere, and an ascetic always participates in a number of different cultures simultaneously (cf. Kathryn Tanner, Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology [Minneapolis, 1997], 53-56).
191. Valantasis, "Constructions of Power," 813, emphasis added. I doubt that, if pressed, Valantasis would hold to this language: "It is not necessary that the alternative culture formed through asceticism oppose the dominant culture. The counter-cultural orientation need not indicate hostility or mutual exclusion. Cultures may coinhere, and an ascetic may participate in a number of different cultures simultaneously" ("Theory of the Social Function," 549). My own formulation would be that cultures always coinhere, and an ascetic always participates in a number of different cultures simultaneously (cf. Kathryn Tanner, Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology [Minneapolis, 1997], 53-56).
192. "Asceticism neither simply condemns culture nor simply endorses it; it does both. Asceticism, we could say, raises the issue of culture by structuring an opposition between culture and its opposite" (Harpham, xii, emphasis in original).