The Sex Lives of Saints

An Erotics of Ancient Hagiography

By Virginia Burrus

2003

First Published

3.89

Average Rating

224

Number of Pages

6H50M

Audio Length

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' 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' reading, promisingly mobile, diverse, and open-ended.

Avg Rating

3.89

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

36%

4 STARS

33%

3 STARS

18%

2 STARS

10%

1 STARS

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Author

Virginia Burrus

Author · 3 books

A native of Texas, Virginia Burrus received her B.A. (1981) in Classical Civilization from Yale College, and her M.A. (1984) and Ph.D. (1991) in History of Christianity from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. Currently the the Bishop W. Earl Ledden Professor of Religion at Syracuse University, she had previously taught in Drew University's Theological School and Graduate Division of Religion. Dr. Burrus' teaching and research interests in the field of ancient Christianity include: gender, sexuality, and the body; martyrdom and asceticism; ancient novels and hagiography; constructions of orthodoxy and heresy; histories of theology and historical theologies. She is past President of the North American Patristics Society, Associate Editor of the Journal of Early Christian Studies, and co-editor of the University of Pennsylvania Press series "Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion."