Physiognomy as a Strategy of Persuasion in Early Christian Discourse by Callie Callon A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department for the Study of Religion University of Toronto © by Callie Callon 2015 Physiognomy as a Strategy of Persuasion in Early Christian Discourse Callie Callon Doctor of Philosophy Department for the Study of Religion University of Toronto 2015 Abstract Ancient physiognomic thought held that the body and soul were intrinsically related, and that observation of a subject's physical appearance provided insight into his or her character. Beyond being a diagnostic tool, however, physiognomy was also used as a strategy of persuasion to bolster or malign an individual's character to an author or speaker's audience, and appears in a host of different ancient genres. However, with a few notable exceptions, the important role that physiognomic thought played in early Christian texts and discourse has not received the scholarly attention it warrants. The following addresses some of the different ways in which physiognomy was employed as a form of rhetoric by early Christians. It was utilized as a means of undermining or discrediting theological opponents or "heretics" on the one hand, but as a strategy for positive self-representation among their own detractors on the other. Some early Christians also used physiognomy to reinforce their understanding of Paul as a philosopher: the description of Paul's physical appearance in the Acts of Paul and Thecla is best understood as designed to evoke the image of the prototypical ancient philosopher in general, and Socrates in particular. Here the importance placed on "looking the part" of a given type of person in antiquity underlies this presentation. Related to this, this dissertation also addresses the phenomenon that arises when the opposite is the case, namely the conception of Jesus as being physically unattractive based on a literal interpretation of the suffering servant imagery in Isaiah. ii This dissertation demonstrates that physiognomic thought held important persuasive traction for early Christian authors negotiating boundaries and ideologies of group self-identity. iii Table of Contents Introduction vi Chapter One Overview of Ancient Physiognomy and the State of the Question 1 Chapter Two The Physiognomy of a Heretic: Physiognomic Polemic as a component of Persuasion in demarcating "Insiders" and "Outsiders" 40 Chapter Three What do you do with an Ugly Saviour?: The Negative Descriptions of the Physical Appearance of Jesus and their Respective Roles in the Rhetoric of Persuasion 89 Chapter Four The Unibrow That Never Was and the Not-So-Many Faces of Paul: A Proposal to Give Paul's Appearance in the Acts of Paul and Thecla a Make-Over 118 Chapter Five The Physiognomy of the (Ideal) Early Christian 141 Conclusions 183 Appendix 1 188 iv List of Figures (in Appendix 1) Figure 1: The Apostle Paul in the Catacomb of St. Thecla, Rome. Figure 2: Socrates (Roman Copy from the Third century BCE). v Introduction In contemporary society persons are discouraged from drawing inferences from appearance: "never judge a book by its cover" is an often spouted piece of advice when it comes to judging a person's character by way of his or her physique, ethnicity, or bodily comportment. Despite the fact that many of us nonetheless do so — at least on some intuitive level, even if it is not by deliberate and conscious analysis — it is still for the most part a condemned practice. This would have struck persons in antiquity as decidedly odd, if not to say a rather foolish missed opportunity. Rather, intuitive assessment of character predicated on physical appearance was developed into a widely accepted system of thought, and one that was by no means shunned but instead held cultural traction. In antiquity the body mattered as a means of indicating and assessing a person's character — it was deemed an infallible guide to discerning flaws and moral shortcomings that the subject would prefer to keep concealed, as well as to vindicate or prove moral superiority in one's self or those who one wished to praise. Given that this system of thought had such broad traction — even if specific physical attributes had a varying valence of meaning dependent on a given context — it is little wonder that it was also employed in discourses of persuasion. Although it was ultimately a subjective enterprise, many authors employed this system of thought to provide physical 'proof' of an author or orator's claims about a person's (or persons') character. In turn, capitalizing on a person's physical appearance for rhetorical purposes was considered fair game, and a rather popular one at that. It allowed for the physical to participate in the realm of the rhetorical, and the two mutually reinforced each other. vi While this agonistic and rhetorical component of physiognomic thought has been discussed among classical scholars of antiquity, very little attention has been paid to how early Christian writers also engaged in this form of rhetorical persuasion. The following argues that many of these authors were not terribly different from their non-Christian contemporaries in utilizing physiognomic thought and tropes in discourses that sought to persuade an audience of both positive virtues of themselves and other members of their communities to demonstrate moral superiority, as well as to prove to an audience that their negative opinions of their opponents were accurate assessments, where the moral shortcomings of their opponents were proved by their physical appearance. While discourses of persuasion and cultivation of identity and group identity among early Christian authors has been addressed by scholars generally, this particular component of rhetorical strategy has not received the attention it warrants. Examination of this often overlooked aspect of early Christian discourse provides fresh insight into their rhetorical strategy, and additionally demonstrates that despite our anachronistic division between the "body" and "soul" and a tendency to assume the latter was of sole concern to many of these authors, for many early Christians the former was considered to be some degree an means of discerning — and indeed "proving" — the condition of latter. Such an examination is important because it sheds light on a component of discourse that was widely employed in a variety of different situations that required additional elements of persuasion. This in turn allows for an appreciation of this so far rather neglected form of rhetorical polemic and praise among early Christian communities and authors. So far, examinations of the rhetorical discourse in early Christian self-definition have only addressed vii part of the picture regarding persuasive tactics. The present work fills in these gaps and shows that there was a visual element that played a role in this discourse. This work investigates how some early Christian authors utilized physiognomic thought as rhetorical strategy: as a means of denigrating their theological opponents and forging group boundaries as pertained to heretics, as a means to portray Paul as the proto-typical philosopher, and as a strategy for self-representation to demonstrate their moral superiority to Greco-Roman outsiders. The work also addresses the rather curious tension between the importance of "looking the part" for a figure thought to be divine or divinely favoured, and the conception of Jesus as physically unattractive. What follows seeks to establish physiognomic consciousness as an important component of early Christian rhetoric, particularly as employed for the purpose of persuasion. The authors that I address can be shown to have operated with this physiognomic consciousness, and the work examines how this influenced their rhetorical strategies. viii Chapter One: Overview of Ancient Physiognomy and the State of the Question In 76 BCE Marcus Tullius Cicero undertook the defence of Quintus Roscius Gallus. Roscius was a Roman actor being sued on the contention that he had swindled the litigator C. Fannius Chaerea out of a substantial amount of money. In order to convince his audience that Roscius' character would not lend itself to such deceit but that Chaerea's certainly would, Cicero invites the jury to consult the latter's physical appearance on display before them. Cicero queries: Doesn't that head and those eyebrows so closely shaved seem to reek of evil intent and scream out sharp practice? If a person's silent face allows any conjecture, doesn't Chaerea's whole body, from the tips of his toes to the top of his head, seem to unite in showing him made of cheating and trickery? His eyes, brows, forehead, in sum, the whole face, which is the speech of the unspoken mind, has 1 brought people to commit crimes of deception. While in a modern courtroom an appeal to the physical character traits of persons involved in a case would likely be laughed out of court, this excerpt from Cicero's defence speech clearly illustrates the persuasive power that physiognomy — the perceived correlation between physical appearance and moral character — held in the ancient world. Unlike idealized modern commonplaces which discourage persons from making these sorts of inferences (to resist judging a book by its cover, regardless of how often this might happen in actual practice), in antiquity forging these connections was not only commonly accepted practice, but deemed an accurate diagnostic tool for discerning a individual's "true" character or moral disposition.2 By extension, 1Rosc. com. 7.20 (Freese, LCL). This passage is also cited by Tamsyn S. Barton, Power and Knowledge: Astrology, Physiognomics, and Medicine Under the Roman Empire (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995), 112-13. 2 Mladen Popović briefly discusses the similarities and differences between ancient physiognomy and contemporary tendencies to form an opinion of a given individual based on his or her appearance, dress and mannerisms.