“We Are a Royal and Priestly Race” : Ethnic Reasoning in Jerome’s Views on Asceticism and the Church
(2025) In Journal of Early Christian Studies 33(2). p.191-219- Abstract
Scholarship in the last decades has increasingly paid attention to the rhetoric of race and peoplehood in early Christian literature. It has been shown how the construction of Christian identity took place through ethnic reasoning, with writers using metaphors of parenthood, kinship, homeland and descent to express what it meant to be a Christian. These studies have typically focused on pre-Constantinian Christianity and the construction of Christian identity in relation to Jews and “pagans” and, to some extent, Christian “heretics.” The present article emerges from the question of whether this racial rhetoric lost its appeal once Christianity became the religion of the empire, and the Christian people became all the more equivalent... (More)
Scholarship in the last decades has increasingly paid attention to the rhetoric of race and peoplehood in early Christian literature. It has been shown how the construction of Christian identity took place through ethnic reasoning, with writers using metaphors of parenthood, kinship, homeland and descent to express what it meant to be a Christian. These studies have typically focused on pre-Constantinian Christianity and the construction of Christian identity in relation to Jews and “pagans” and, to some extent, Christian “heretics.” The present article emerges from the question of whether this racial rhetoric lost its appeal once Christianity became the religion of the empire, and the Christian people became all the more equivalent with the Roman people. It is argued that Christian ethnic reasoning continued to be employed, but that it was reinterpreted and adapted to new conditions and agendas. This is shown by an analysis of the racial rhetoric found in the writings of Jerome of Stridon. The analysis demonstrates that Jerome made use of well-known metaphors for claiming Christian peoplehood: This concerns, on the one hand, organic metaphors of descent, birth, father- and motherhood, and, on the other hand, societal metaphors of homeland and citizenship. It is argued that Jerome systematically reinterpreted these metaphors in order to support his ascetic ideology, using them to describe the conditions of ascetic Christians only, rather than all Christians. According to this understanding, the ascetics are the ones who are born again in Christ, who are His brothers and sisters, and who together with the angels are citizens of heaven. Jerome’s main concern was not to mark Christians as different from non-Christians, but to create and maintain inner-Christian difference, by presenting the ascetics as pure members of the Christian race.
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- author
- Pålsson, Katarina LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2025-06
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- Journal of Early Christian Studies
- volume
- 33
- issue
- 2
- pages
- 29 pages
- publisher
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:105008534730
- ISSN
- 1067-6341
- DOI
- 10.1353/earl.2025.a962350
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- additional info
- Publisher Copyright: © 2025 Johns Hopkins University Press.
- id
- 2ea0f0d6-52c6-4847-8757-3557277d128a
- date added to LUP
- 2025-12-17 09:01:26
- date last changed
- 2025-12-17 09:02:30
@article{2ea0f0d6-52c6-4847-8757-3557277d128a,
abstract = {{<p>Scholarship in the last decades has increasingly paid attention to the rhetoric of race and peoplehood in early Christian literature. It has been shown how the construction of Christian identity took place through ethnic reasoning, with writers using metaphors of parenthood, kinship, homeland and descent to express what it meant to be a Christian. These studies have typically focused on pre-Constantinian Christianity and the construction of Christian identity in relation to Jews and “pagans” and, to some extent, Christian “heretics.” The present article emerges from the question of whether this racial rhetoric lost its appeal once Christianity became the religion of the empire, and the Christian people became all the more equivalent with the Roman people. It is argued that Christian ethnic reasoning continued to be employed, but that it was reinterpreted and adapted to new conditions and agendas. This is shown by an analysis of the racial rhetoric found in the writings of Jerome of Stridon. The analysis demonstrates that Jerome made use of well-known metaphors for claiming Christian peoplehood: This concerns, on the one hand, organic metaphors of descent, birth, father- and motherhood, and, on the other hand, societal metaphors of homeland and citizenship. It is argued that Jerome systematically reinterpreted these metaphors in order to support his ascetic ideology, using them to describe the conditions of ascetic Christians only, rather than all Christians. According to this understanding, the ascetics are the ones who are born again in Christ, who are His brothers and sisters, and who together with the angels are citizens of heaven. Jerome’s main concern was not to mark Christians as different from non-Christians, but to create and maintain inner-Christian difference, by presenting the ascetics as pure members of the Christian race.</p>}},
author = {{Pålsson, Katarina}},
issn = {{1067-6341}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{2}},
pages = {{191--219}},
publisher = {{Johns Hopkins University Press}},
series = {{Journal of Early Christian Studies}},
title = {{“We Are a Royal and Priestly Race” : Ethnic Reasoning in Jerome’s Views on Asceticism and the Church}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/earl.2025.a962350}},
doi = {{10.1353/earl.2025.a962350}},
volume = {{33}},
year = {{2025}},
}