I CONSTRUCTING CHRISTIAN IDENTITIES, ONE CANAANITE WOMAN at a TIME: STUDIES in the RECEPTION of MATTHEW 15:21-28 by Nancy Klanch
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CONSTRUCTING CHRISTIAN IDENTITIES, ONE CANAANITE WOMAN AT A TIME: STUDIES IN THE RECEPTION OF MATTHEW 15:21-28 by Nancy Klancher B.A., English Literature, Boston University, 1982 M.A., Medieval Literature, Boston University, 1986 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2012 i UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH THE DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Nancy Klancher It was defended on March 16, 2012 and approved by Jerome Creach, Professor of Old Testament, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Kathryn Flannery, Professor of English and Women’s Studies, English Department, University of Pittsburgh Adam Shear, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and History, Religious Studies Department, University of Pittsburgh Dissertation Advisor: Dale C. Allison, Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Early Christianity, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary ii Copyright © by Nancy Klancher 2012 iii CONSTRUCTING CHRISTIAN IDENTITIES, ONE CANAANITE WOMAN AT A TIME: STUDIES IN THE RECEPTION OF MATTHEW 15:21-28 Nancy Klancher, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2012 This dissertation is a cross-cultural, cross-temporal reception history that identifies, compiles, and analyzes approximately fifty interpretations of a provocative New Testament passage, Matthew 15:21-28. It explores how these exegetical texts, ranging from the 2nd to the 21st centuries, construct a wide range of Christian identities and ideals and how those ideals function within their own historical cultures and discourses and in relation to preceding interpretations. This reception history combines historical contextualization and close readings of texts. It relies on theoretical premises from the history of reading, reception theory, and feminist analyses of subject- or identity-formation. It examines multiple encounters with one biblical text and the accumulation of traditions and topoi that built up as a result of those encounters over time. These theoretical frames raise critical questions about exegetical depictions of religious identities, most importantly in this study, about the formative function of exegetical texts and the importance of aesthetic experience, not as pure perception or abstracted pleasure, but as engagement with tradition, historical understanding, and the transformation of reader and text. Thus, in this study interpretations and receptions of the Canaanite woman are understood as historical technologies of the Christian self. Two interpretive strategies repeatedly surface; they persist, even as their content morphs to fit the questions and concerns of their historically-bound iterations. Over time, the figure of the Canaanite woman is repeatedly used within texts ranging iv from anti-heretical polemic to devotional literature as either 1) the occasion for anathema or 2) universal exemplum. The dissertation argues that there is a disciplinary power in such exegetical strategies, one consciously leveraged to ensure solidarity, unity of belief, conformity of practice, and maintenance of institutional hierarchies. Such historical uses of biblical interpretation and the dynamics of their reception are the focus of the dissertation. It concludes with a discussion of current scholarship on Matt 15:21-28 and considers the implications of the dissertation—both its method and its findings—for the current practice of reception history. v TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 A GENEALOGY FOR RECEPTION HISTORY ............................................ 4 1.1.1 Bedrock Concerns: Exegetical Credibility, Context, Function, and Reader. .......................................................................................................................... 5 1.1.2 More Recent Developments Within Reception Studies.............................. 12 1.1.3 The Old and the New ..................................................................................... 13 1.1.4 Then and Now ................................................................................................ 29 1.1.5 THEORY OF RECEPTION IN THIS RECEPTION HISTORY ............ 35 1.2 TECHNOLOGIES OF THE CHRISTIAN SELF: ANATHEMA, EXEMPLUM, AND IDENTITY ....................................................................................... 45 1.3 ORGANIZATION OF READINGS ................................................................ 50 1.4 NOTE ON TRANSLATIONS .......................................................................... 56 2.0 RAPITUR CHRISTUS: BECOMING CHRISTIANS ............................................. 57 2.1 AN APOCRYPHAL TRADITION AND A JEWISH-CHRISTIAN CANAANITE WOMAN .................................................................................................... 57 2.2 EARLY POLEMICAL INTERPRETATION: TERTULLIAN AND CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY ............................................................................................ 62 vi 2.3 EARLY CHRISTIAN COMMENTARY: EXEGESIS AS CATECHESIS AND PARANESIS .............................................................................................................. 70 2.3.1 Origen: In Matthaeum .................................................................................. 71 2.3.2 Hilary of Poitier: In Matthaeum ................................................................... 76 2.3.3 Hilary of Poitier: Tractatus Mysteriorum ................................................... 81 2.3.4 Ephrem of Nisibis: Commentary on the Gospel ......................................... 83 2.3.5 Didymus the Blind: In Zacharium ................................................................ 92 2.3.6 Jerome: Commentarium in Matthaeum...................................................... 96 2.3.7 Quodvultdeus: Liber promissionum et praedictorum Dei ........................ 98 2.3.8 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 104 2.4 SERMONS AND HOMILIES: TEXTUAL COMMUNITIES AND THE CALL TO LIVED NARRATIVE ................................................................................... 105 2.4.1 Ambrose: Easter Sermon and Sermon on Dives and Lazarus ................ 106 2.4.2 Augustine: Sermon 77 and Sermon 121 .................................................... 113 2.4.3 John Chrysostom: Homily 52...................................................................... 121 2.5 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 128 3.0 NECESSARY OTHERS IN MATTHEW 15:21-28: RACE, CLASS, AND GENDER ................................................................................................................................... 130 3.1 THE RACIAL-ETHNIC OTHER: ADVERSUS JUDAEOS ....................... 130 3.1.1 Ishodad of Merv: Commentary on Matthew ............................................ 131 3.1.2 Theophylact: Exposition of the Gospel of Matthew ................................. 131 3.1.3 Chrysostom: Adversus Judaeos and Homiliae in Matthaeum ................ 132 3.1.4 Epiphanius Scholasticus, Interpretatio Evangeliorum ............................ 133 vii 3.1.5 John Hutton: The Proposal of Jesus .......................................................... 134 3.1.6 Hugh Martin: Jesus and the Gentile Dogs ................................................ 136 3.2 THE FEMALE OTHER: MULIERES HOMINES NON ESSE ................. 144 3.2.1 Gil Vicente: Auto da Cananeia ................................................................... 145 3.2.2 Anon: Mulieries homines non esse; Simon Gedik: Defensus sexus mulieribus; Arcangela Tarabotti: Che le donne siano della spezie degli uomini ………………………………………………………………………………154 3.2.3 William Jay: Lectures on Female Scripture Characters ......................... 172 3.2.4 John Pilch: Jesus in His Middle-Eastern Context .................................... 181 3.2.5 Clay Nelson: messiahs are from mars; syrophoenician women are from venus…… .................................................................................................................. 184 3.2.6 Anon: Encuentros con Jesus ....................................................................... 186 3.2.7 Loren Rossen: The Shameless Hussy of Mk 7:24-30/Mt 15:21-28 .......... 187 3.2.8 Steven Kurtz: Notes on This Week’s Lectionary Text ............................. 188 3.3 THE IMPOVERISHED OTHER: MASTERS, MEN, AND MOTHERS .. 189 3.3.1 H. H. Carlisle: The Cry of the Children .................................................... 189 3.4 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 194 4.0 TRANSFORMING SELVES: REVERSAL, ΜΕΤΑΝΟΙΑ, AND SPIRITUAL ASCENT. ................................................................................................................................... 195 4.1 THE SOUL ENCOUNTERS THE DIVINE ................................................. 196 4.1.1 Anon: Two Anomoean Homilies ................................................................ 197 4.1.2 Jerome: Vita Hilarionis ............................................................................... 203 4.2 HUMAN FAITH, ASCETICAL STRIVING, AND DIVINE GRACE ...... 210 viii 4.2.1 Plumbing the Canaanite Heart. John Cassian: Conlationes patrum in scetica eremo ............................................................................................................