The Sex Lives of Saints: An Erotics of Ancient Hagiography (Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion) [Hardcover]

Virginia Burrus (Author)

Book Description

Series: Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion | Publication Date: October 2003

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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A dazzling series of readings of early Christian hagiographies that will, by turns, delight, confound, illuminate, and challenge diverse historians, theologians, and theorists."--Church History

"Brilliant and important. . . . From page one she challenges approaches to hagiography that dismiss ascetic desire as the sublimation of sexuality and a pathological hatred of the body."--Theological Studies

"This fine book detects a vibrant eroticism in tales of fourth- and fifth-century saints. Rather than read ancient saints' lives as anti-erotic, or, worse, an-erotic, Burrus reveals a flourishing ars erotica."--Journal of Religion

"Burrus's interweaving of ancient and modern voices is as meditative as it is analytical, but the overall effect is to induce the reader into an alternative view of what constitutes the allure of the saintly life. . . . After The Sex Lives of Saints hagiography will never be the same."--Journal of Early Christian Studies

About the Author

Virginia Burrus is Professor of Early Church History at Drew University and the author of Saving Shame: Martyrs, Saints, and Other Abject Subjects, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press (October 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812237455
• ISBN-13: 978-0812237450
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,777,831 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.