Andrew Jacobs: "Bound up for my own good": Force, faith, and conversion in the Doctrina Jacobi Nuper Baptizati

The Doctrina Jacobi Nuper Baptizati purports to be a dialogue among Jews in Carthage forcibly baptized under Heraclius, one of whom (the titular Jacob) has genuinely come to faith in Christ. The paper explores the relationship between force (bias) and faith (pistis) and how conversion is portrayed in the Doctrina. On the one hand, that the forced converts come to true belief might seem to support forcible conversion. On the other hand, the Doctrina keeps the baptized Jews materially and conceptually apart from the other Christians of Carthage. Ultimately, the Doctrina imagines a contingent, not-quite-fully-Christian body of converts held in liminal suspense until the (imminent) apocalyptic hour, who can only come to faith in Christ through imperial force. (The one Jew in the dialogue who is not forcibly baptized, Justus, also notably exits the dialogue confessing belief but still unconverted.) This paper will argue that the Christian author of the Doctrina uses the narrative of forced conversion to leverage a subtle critique of imperial power over orthodoxy, in which the baptized Jews of Carthage become the sad mascots of a failing Empire at the looming end of history.