HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies ISSN: (Online) 2072-8050, (Print) 0259-9422 Page 1 of 8 Original Research You are not a man, none of you are men! Early Christian masculinity and Lucian’s the Passing of Peregrinus Author: Much recent work on the masculinities enacted by early Christians has focused upon Christian 1,2 Eric Stewart texts and claims about their heroes and practices among elite Christians. Lucian’s Passing of Affiliations: Peregrinus offers another avenue for thinking about early Christian masculinity. Lucian denies 1Department of Religion, Peregrinus’ claim to masculinity on the basis of his over-concern for honour, especially from Augustana College, Rock the masses, his inability to control his appetites regarding food and sex, his being a parricide, Island, United States 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 2Department of New in the Christian movement, which he suggests is populated mostly by gullible women and Testament and Related Literature, Faculty of children, and further ‘unmans’ Peregrinus by linking him to a community of easily duped Theology and Religion, people whose praise is not worthy of a philosopher. By presenting this Christian community University of Pretoria, as a group that not only accepts Peregrinus as a member but also quickly establishes him as Pretoria, South Africa their leader, almost at par with Jesus himself, according to Lucian’s account, these early Research Project Registration: Christians show their lack of self-control by being deceived by a charlatan. Early Christian Project Leader: E. van Eck writers who claimed that their heroes were manly, even more manly than the Greek or Roman Project Number: 2400030 heroes, were writing in part to rebut the types of claims made by writers like Lucian. Description: Keywords: Lucian; Peregrinus; Early Christianity; Masculinity; Honour. Prof Stewart is partcipating in the research project ‘Hermeneutics and Exegesis’ It is my great privilege to contribute to this special issue of Hervormde Teologiese Studies (HTS) directed by Prof. Dr Ernest celebrating the 75th anniversary of the journal issued by the Faculty of Theology at the University van Eck, Department of New Testament and Related of Pretoria and to celebrate the contributions of Maake Masango to their mission. The research Literature, Faculty of conducted at the Faculty of Theology, together with the hospitality they have shown in hosting Theology and Religion, international scholars, is a cause for celebration both in South Africa and throughout the world. University of Pretoria. May they continue to provide a model for an engaged scholarship for those in their homeland and Corresponding author: for those around the world. Eric Stewart, [email protected] Introduction Dates: In a now two-decade-old book, Leon J. Podles (1999) argues that the church is being feminised. Received: 10 June 2019 Accepted: 13 Sep. 2019 Published: 24 Oct. 2019 Disparities in church attendance among men and women can be explained based on feminisation. Podles is clear that his book addresses the North American, Western European and Australian How to cite this article: contexts (and most directly Catholicism). In these places, church attendance by men has been on Stewart, E., 2019, ‘You are not a man, none of you are the decline. Women, for a number of reasons according to Podles, are now in control of the men! Early Christian churches (even as most are still led by men). Men’s religion is masculinity (Podles 1999:xii). masculinity and Lucian’s the Moreover, it is non-masculine men who are more likely to attend churches (Podles 1999): Passing of Peregrinus’, HTS Teologiese Studies/ Because Christianity is now seen as a part of the sphere of life proper to women rather than to men, it Theological Studies 75(4), sometimes attracts men whose own masculinity is somewhat doubtful … men who are fearful of making a5609. https://doi.org/ the break with the secure world of childhood dominated by women. (p. xiv) 10.4102/hts.v75i4.5609 Whatever one makes of Podles’ arguments and that there is no room to respond to them with any Copyright: © 2019. The Authors. type of seriousness here, the idea that Christianity represents something feminine is far older than Licensee: AOSIS. This work the 20th century. From the inception of the Jesus movement, followers of Jesus have been derided is licensed under the as unmanly. In fact, the specific combination of children and women as dominant among Christians Creative Commons that Podles claims is a trope at least as old as the 2nd century. These accusations of unmanliness Attribution License. provoked responses by Christians who sought to portray Jesus and his followers as demonstrating masculine virtues or as practising an alternative masculinity sanctioned by a powerful male deity. Read online: Scan this QR code with your Scholars have produced numerous works on masculinity in early Christianity in the last several smart phone or mobile device decades (for descriptions of many of these works and the current state of the field in this area, to read online. Note: HTS 75th Anniversary Maake Masango Dedication. http://www.hts.org.za Open Access Page 2 of 8 Original Research see Stewart 2016b:91–102, 2018:n.p.). One of the points of masculine ideology and enactment as ‘hegemonic’ are contestation in these studies is the extent to which early regularly contested. One of the main questions regarding Christians mimicked or practised the dominant Greek and early Christian masculinity is whether early Christian Roman masculinities. Much of this work has been conducted masculinities are hegemonic, complicit, marginalised or in light of Connell’s notion of hegemonic masculinity. This voluntarily subordinate (Conway 2017:17–27; Wilson notion, first developed by Carrigan, Connell and Lee 2017:28–48). Different groups of Christians positioned (1985:551–604), stresses that masculinities exist in relational themselves differently regarding hegemonic masculinity terms (Connell 2005:67–86). Carrigan et al. (1985) describe a (Stewart 2015:1–9, 2016b:1–7). variety of relational masculinities, including hegemonic, complicit, subordinate and marginalised masculinities, and Cobb (2012:esp. 1–32) uses the Social Identity Theory for others have put these concepts to use for understanding understanding how early Christians framed stories about various early Christian texts (Asikainen 2018:1–18; Stewart martyrs in the light of potential critique from Romans about 2015:1–9, 2016a:1–7). Hegemonic masculinity is the form of the masculinity of Christians. In so doing, she describes a masculinity which is dominant in any given culture at any range of measures that early Christians used to rebut critique given time (Connell & Messerschmidt 2005:830–833; Levy that they were, by their very participation in a movement 2007:832–33). According to Levy (2007:254), hegemonic devoted to a crucified saviour, unmanly. The notion that masculinity can refer to: ‘(1) a position in the system of Jesus himself was perceived as unmanly because of his gender relations; (2) the system itself; and (3) the current crucifixion made his followers, by extension, unmanly in the ideology that serves to reproduce masculine domination’. eyes of hegemonic Greek and Roman ideals in the 1st and In this way, hegemonic masculinity can refer to the male(s) 2nd centuries of the Common Era (Conway 2008:3–14; at the top of the hierarchical system, the patriarchy itself Gleason 2003:325–327). From a Roman point of view, then, that keeps some man or men dominant over most men and early Christians practised a marginalised form of masculinity over women or the particular features of masculinity valued (Asikainen 2018:184–87). For Cobb, however, instead of in a particular culture at a particular time. Most of the accepting the verdict that early Christians were unmanly Western history is marked clearly by patriarchy, but the because they were executed, the martyrdom tales framed particular elements considered ‘manly’ change from time to Christians as enacting a superior masculinity, ‘a masculinity time and from place to place. These elements relegate some that pagans, Jews, and Christian apostates, to differing men to the status of ‘marginalised’ masculinities. degrees, lacked’ (Cobb 2012:6). By depicting their heroes as ‘Marginalization is always relative to the authorization of (Cobb 2012): the hegemonic masculinity of the dominant group’ (Connell 2005:80–81). Connell provides an example of the way that [G]ladiators, athletes, and soldiers … the texts illustrate Christian black masculinities in American culture ‘play symbolic masculinity by the favorable juxtaposition of types of individuals roles for white gender construction’ (Connell 2005:80). who would have been expected to be unmanly (e.g. women, young or old men, slaves) with those at the height of masculinity According to Levy (2007:254), men in subordinated (the governor or pronconsul). (p. 7) positions ‘possess the necessary physical attributes to aspire to hegemony’ but they ‘run the risk of subordination Importantly, the stories of early Christian female martyrs when they do not practise gender consistent with the ‘underscored the superiority of Christian masculinity: even hegemonic system and ideology’. Christian women were manlier than their male persecutors’ (Cobb 2012:126). Most men, including some whose masculinity is subordinated or marginalised, practise complicit masculinity (Levy 2007): Early Christians, however, would not have told these stories These men accept and participate in the system of hegemonic in this way except for the fact that their ability to live up to masculinity so as to (1) enjoy the material, physical and symbolic ideals of masculinity was in question in the Roman world benefits of the subordination of women, (2) through fantasy experience the sense of hegemony and learn to take pleasure in (see, e.g., Origen, Against Celsus 3.55).