You are not a man, none of you are men! Early Christian masculinity and Lucian’s the Passing of Peregrinus

HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies

 
 
Field Value
 
Title You are not a man, none of you are men! Early Christian masculinity and Lucian’s the Passing of Peregrinus
 
Creator Stewart, Eric
 
Subject — Lucian; Peregrinus; Early Christianity; Masculinity; Honour
Description Much recent work on the masculinities enacted by early Christians has focused upon Christian texts and claims about their heroes and practices among elite Christians. Lucian’s Passing of Peregrinus offers another avenue for thinking about early Christian masculinity. Lucian denies Peregrinus’ claim to masculinity on the basis of his over-concern for honour, especially from the masses, his inability to control his appetites regarding food and sex, his being a parricide, his enacting ‘strange’ ascetic practices and his lack of courage in the face of death. By tying Peregrinus to a Christian community in Judea, Lucian both demonstrates the lack of manliness in the Christian movement, which he suggests is populated mostly by gullible women and children, and further ‘unmans’ Peregrinus by linking him to a community of easily duped people whose praise is not worthy of a philosopher. By presenting this Christian community as a group that not only accepts Peregrinus as a member but also quickly establishes him as their leader, almost at par with Jesus himself, according to Lucian’s account, these early Christians show their lack of self-control by being deceived by a charlatan. Early Christian writers who claimed that their heroes were manly, even more manly than the Greek or Roman heroes, were writing in part to rebut the types of claims made by writers like Lucian.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2019-10-24
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/hts.v75i4.5609
 
Source HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies; Vol 75, No 4 (2019); 8 pages 2072-8050 0259-9422
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5609/13503 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5609/13502 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5609/13504 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5609/13501
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2019 Eric Stewart https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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