Tuesday 5 July 2011

Moshe Blidstein - Purity opposed: Christian identity formation in third century polemics against death defilement


It has long been recognized that Early Christianity created a revolution in ancient conceptions of death defilement. While Pagan and Jewish cultures of the period generally prohibited contact between the dead and the sacred, in Christianity the cult of the saints was based upon intense contact between the dead, the sacred and the living. Analyses of this clash have usually focused upon Christian-Pagan disputes concerning the cult of the saints in the late fourth and fifth centuries, represented by figures such as Julian, John Chrysostom and Jerome. However, questions of death defilement also featured in a much wider Jewish-Christian polemic on the meaning of purity and impurity, as demonstrated by a reading of sources from the third century, a period in which the cult of the saints was not yet central. This polemic, found throughout the early contra Judaeos literature, was motivated by concerns of constructing Christian identity opposed to Jewish identity through the creation of a Christian alternative to Jewish purity laws and food prohibitions. In a reading of the portions of the Didascalia Apostolorum discussing impurity and through a comparison with a later expansion of the text included in the Apostolic Constitutions, I demonstrate how the disputes with Judaism on death defilement provided a foundation for the future development of the cult of the saints. 

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