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Burrus Virginia. The Sex Lives of Saints An Erotics of Ancient Hagiography
University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2004, 216 pp
Has a repressive morality been the primary contribution of Christianity to the history of sexuality? The ascetic concerns that pervade ancient Christian texts would seem to support such a common assumption. Focusing on hagiographical literature, Virginia Burrus pursues a fresh path of interpretation, arguing that the early accounts of the lives of saints are not antierotic but rather convey a sublimely transgressive "countereroticism" that resists the marital, procreative ethic of sexuality found in other strands of Christian tradition.
Without reducing the erotics of ancient hagiography to a single formula, The Sex Lives of Saints frames the broad historical, theological, and theoretical issues at stake in such a revisionist interpretation of ascetic eroticism, with particular reference to the work of Michel Foucault and Georges Bataille, David Halperin and Geoffrey Harpham, Leo Bersani and Jean Baudrillard. Burrus subsequently proceeds through close, performative readings of the earliest Lives of Saints, mostly dating to the late fourth and early fifth centuries—Jerome's Lives of Paul, Malchus, Hilarion, and Paula; Gregory of Nyssa's Life of Macrina; Augustine's portrait of Monica; Sulpicius Severus's Life of Martin; and the slightly later Lives of so-called harlot saints. Queer, s/m, and postcolonial theories are among the contemporary discourses that prove intriguingly resonant with an ancient art of "saintly" loving that remains, in Burrus's reading, promisingly mobile, diverse, and open-ended.
Contents Chapter 1 - Fancying Hermits: Sublimation and the Arts of Romance "How often, when I was living in the desert, in the vast solitude which gives to hermits a savage dwelling-place, parched by the flames of the sun, how often did I fancy myself among the pleasures of Rome (putavi me Romanis interesse deliciis)]" (Ep. 22.7). Thus begins Jerome's account of his own brief career as a hermit, .
Chapter 2 - Dying for a Life: Martyrdom, Masochism, and Female (Auto)Biography Loosing her tongue, Ambrose's Agnes gives shameless witness to her desire for the executioner's sword: by such violent proxy is she made Christ's bride (Ambrose, On Virgins 2).1 In contrast, Jerome's unnamed youth (subjected to a still stranger persecution) bites his tongue, thereby excising his shameful .
Chapter 3 - Hybrid Desire: Empire, Sadism, and the Soldier Saint Martin of Tours, a Pannonian ex-soldier credited with the militant conversion of Gaul to Christianity, is best known to us from the Life penned by the Aquitanian ascetic Sulpicius Severus. Much admired for its delicate engagement with classical traditions of historiography and biography, Sulpicius's Life of Martin also .
Chapter 4 - Secrets of Seduction: The Lives of Holy Harlots The peculiarly promiscuous Lives of loose women are not easy to tie down to a particular time, place, or even textual version, in large part because their immense popularity led quickly to multiple translations and uncertain attributions of authorship. Thus, although the Syriac tale of Mary, part of a longer .
Notes Bibliography Index Acknowledgments
I am deeply grateful to Dean Maxine Beach, my colleagues in the Theological School and Caspersen School of Graduate Studies of Drew University, and the Association of Theological Schools Lilly Theological Research Grant: their combined assistance enabled me to take a break from teaching and committee duties .
