Chris L De Wet

Biographic Data

ID1482378
NAMEChris L De Wet
GIVEN NAMESChris L
FAMILY NAMEDe Wet
SIGNATUREDE WET C L
AFFILIATIONSRhodes University
ORCID0000-0002-2628-2013
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS60
TOTAL CITATIONS43
AUTHOR COUNT58
EDITOR COUNT2
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1987
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2025
H-INDEX4

  • Christ’s Enslaved Children: Deconstructing the Holy Bondage of Saint Patrick and ʿAḇdā da-Mšiḥā

    Chris L De WetARTICLEReligion and Theology2025

    This article interrogates how early Christian discourse transformed the brutal social reality of child slavery into theological imagination – what I term a doulological framework – by reading slavery as a grammar of Christian selfhood. Focussing on two case studies, Saint Patrick’s Confession and the Syriac History of the “Slave of Christ” (ʿAḇdā da-Mšiḥā) , the study traces the porous boundary between institutional bondage and “divine slavery.” …

  • Revisiting the early Christians on blessedness: In conversation with Willem S. Vorster’s work on the makarisms

    Open AccessChris L De WetARTICLEVerbum et Ecclesia2025

    In this article, I aim to revisit and extend the work of Willem Vorster on blessedness in early Christianity, particularly his analysis of the makarisms in Matthew and Luke. Vorster’s insightful examination of Stoic and early Christian views on blessedness offers a framework for understanding the wisdom and apocalyptic themes within these beatitudes. His focus on the wisdom-oriented, ethical focus in Matthew and the apocalyptic, eschatological vi…

  • John Chrysostom’s Interpretation of the Book of Ruth in His Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew

    Open AccessChris L De WetARTICLEJournal of Early Christian History2024

    This article examines John Chrysostom’s interpretation of Ruth, highlighting how he frames her as a marginal yet important figure within the late antique Christian discourse on gender, power, and ethnicity. While Chrysostom is often labelled a literalist interpreter, his reading of Ruth demonstrates a complex figurative and typological approach that aligns her with the church while associating figures like Tamar and Rahab with the synagogue. This…

  • Demonology and Plague-Discourse as Discursive Intersections in Procopius’s Construction of Justinian in Secret History

    Chris L De WetARTICLEReligion and Theology2024

    This article examines the demonological discourse in Procopius’s Secret History with a focus on internal and inter-textual evidence from Procopius’s corpus, particularly his treatment of demons in relation to the 542 bubonic plague pandemic, as described in the Wars . While previous scholarship by Rubin, Cameron, and Denson has convincingly demonstrated that the depiction of Justinian as a demonic figure draws on broader cultural and literary con…

  • ‘They live as freeborn, and die as slaves’: Junian Latins and filii religiosi in Salvian’s Ad ecclesiam 3

    Open AccessChris L De WetCHAPTERJunian Latinity in the Roman…2023

  • Approaching Old Age in the Discourses of Philoxenus of Mabbug: Some Initial Principles and Presuppositions

    Chris L De WetARTICLEJournal of Early Christian History2023

    This article forms part of a larger project of writing a social history of old age and aging in early Christian thought, a topic currently lacking in scholarship despite the plethora of studies on children, childhood, and education being produced. One early Christian source that has a lot to say about old age is the Discourses of the prolific Syriac author Aksenaya, better known to most as Philoxenus, probably born sometime in the 440s near Beth …

  • Fertility, Slavery, and Biblical Interpretation: John Chrysostom on the Story of Sarah and Hagar

    Open AccessChris L De WetARTICLEBiblical Theology Bulletin…2023

    Fertility is a complex and contentious topic in biblical theology, touching upon social, cultural, and gender identity issues in the ancient world. It intersects with factors like gender, age, disability, and socio-economic status, notably in the context of slavery. Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar’s story, particularly Genesis 16, highlights the link between slavery and fertility. This study examines John Chrysostom’s interpretation of their narrative …

  • Mani and Augustine: Collected Essays on Mani, Manichaeism and Augustine , by Johannes van Oort

    Chris L De WetARTICLEReligion and Theology2023

  • Reading John of Ephesus via Procopius of Caesarea: Revisiting the Comparison of Their Accounts of the Justinianic Plague

    Chris L De WetARTICLEReligion and Theology2023

    The purpose of this article is to revisit the comparison between the accounts of the Justinianic plague of 541–750 CE , the first recorded pandemic of bubonic plague, by John of Ephesus and Procopius of Caesarea, as done by the scholar of Byzantine history, Anthony Kaldellis, in a 2007 publication. In the article, I critique some of Kaldellis’s main points of comparison, and then by approaching plague as a discourse (in the Foucaultian sense), I …

  • Revisiting John Chrysostom’s Interpretation of the Relationship between Abram and Lot and Their Separation in LXX Genesis 12–13

    Open AccessChris L De WetARTICLEJournal for Semitics2023

    This article revisits and examines more closely John Chrysostom’s (ca. 349–407 CE) characterisation of Lot—specifically his relationship with Abram and their separation in LXX Gen 12–13—as an exemplar to think about early Christian social relations. This study forms part of a larger project investigating Chrysostom’s use of Old Testament exemplars in his preaching and moral instruction. It is shown that the formulation of early Christian social i…

  • Michael George Whisson (1937-2022)

    Robin Palmer, Chris L De Wet et al.ARTICLEAnthropology Southern Africa2023References: 1

    and Chris de Wet, who was

  • Late Antique Studies and the New Polyphony for Slave Studies

    Open AccessChris L De WetCHAPTERSlavery in the Late Antique…2022

    For the past few decades, studies on slavery in late antiquity have been primarily concerned with the question of whether slavery was, in fact, present during the period, or whether late antique slavery slowly declined and transformed into so-called medieval serfdom. For many years the latter proposition enjoyed favour among historians. Now, the picture is quite different. The majority of recent studies on late antique slavery confirm that slaver…

  • Contextualising Pain and Remedy in Early Judaism and Christianity: A Response

    Chris L De WetARTICLEJournal of Early Christian History2022

    This response engages with several essays in a special issue of Journal of Early Christian History on the theme of contextualising pain and remedy in early Judaism and Christianity. The response brings the ancient case studies into a brief dialogue with a modern anthropological study on paediatric pain by Mara Buchbinder. In so doing, the study shows how ancient readings and analyses of pain may benefit and benefit from similar modern exploration…

  • Plague as Discourse in John of Ephesus's Account of the Justinianic Plague (ca. 542–544 CE)

    Chris L De WetARTICLEEarly Christianity2022

    rt dabei totalisierend und universal, alterisierend und pro-imperial, und »funktioniert« daher auch als ein Machtdiskurs

  • Prayer and gender in John Chrysostom’s homilies On Hannah

    Open AccessChris L De WetARTICLEActa Theologica2022

  • Canon, sex and gender in Theodoret of Cyrus’s exposition of LXX Ruth

    Open AccessChris L De WetARTICLEHTS Teologiese Studies /…2022

    The purpose of this article is to examine Theodoret of Cyrus’s (ca. 393–ca. 457 CE) exposition of LXX Ruth, as found in his Questions on the Octateuch. At the centre of this analysis lies the question of what an early Christian author like Theodoret, who lives in a context where asceticism and sexual renunciation were quite popular (i.e. Christian Syria), does with a complicated text like Ruth, which contains so many explicit nuances about sex, p…

  • Manichaeology, Early Christianity, and Religious Identity: A Response and Reflection

    Chris L De WetARTICLEReligion and Theology2022

    This article serves as a response to Johannes van Oort’s creative and erudite analysis of the status quaestionis and constitution of Manichaean studies, most aptly termed, “Manichaeology”. What I aim to achieve with this short study is a reflection and some suggestions on how the study of Manichaeology, in relation to early Christian studies, can assist us in better conceptualizing how we might understand religious identity in Late Antiquity. Sev…

  • Slavery in the Late Antique World, 150 – 700 CE

    Open AccessChris L De Wet, Maijastina Kahlos et al.BOOKSlavery in the Late Antique…2022

    Slavery in the Late Antique World, 150 – 700 CE investigates the ideological, moral, cultural, and symbolic aspects of slavery, as well the living conditions of slaves in the Mediterranean basin and Europe during a period of profound transformation. It focuses on socially marginal areas and individuals on an unprecedented scale. Written by an international team of scholars, the volume establishes that late ancient slavery is a complex and polymor…

  • Soldiery and masculinity in John Chrysostom’s homilies On David and Saul

    Chris L De WetARTICLEJournal of Early Christian History2021

    The purpose of this study is to examine the role and place of soldiery and physical violence in Chrysostom’s understanding of the formation of Christian masculinity. The study specifically relies on the image of David as constructed in Chrysostom’s homilies On David and Saul (CPG 4412). These homilies were possibly preached at the beginning of AD 387, during Lent, following the riots in Antioch and the destruction of the images and statues of the…

  • Pseudo-John Chrysostom’s Homily On Susanna (CPG 4567) (Daniel 13 LXX): Masculinity, psychic typology and the construction of early Christian salvation history

    Open AccessChris L De WetARTICLEHTS Teologiese Studies /…2021

    This article investigates a short Greek Christian homily, from the 4th century CE, by an anonymous Cappadocian preacher on the narrative of Susanna in Dan 13 LXX. The homily is simply titled, On Susanna (CPG 4567), and has been erroneously transmitted as a work of John Chrysostom. The purpose of this article is to examine more closely the construction of Susanna in the homily, with specific reference to the use of masculinity, psychic typology an…

  • Nemesius of Emesa on Desire, Pleasure, and Sex: A Case of the Medical Making of an Early Christian Sexual Culture

    Chris L De WetARTICLEReligion and Theology2021

    This article investigates the views of Nemesius, the bishop of Emesa in Roman Syria at the end of the fourth century CE , on desire, pleasure, and sex, mainly from his work, De natura hominis , asking specifically how Nemesius’s account represents what we might term the “medical making” of an early Christian sexual culture. Nat. hom . was most likely composed at the end of the fourth century CE , and represents the first full and formal Christian…

  • Transforming Settlement in Southern Africa

    Chris L De Wet, Chris De Wet et al.BOOKTransforming Settlement in…2020

  • The Discipline of Domination: Asceticism, Violence and Monastic Curses in Theodoret’s Historia Religiosa

    Open AccessChris L De WetCHAPTERReligious Violence in the Ancient…2020

    The concept of asceticism is notoriously difficult to define, and we still cannot say that there is one ‘accepted’ definition. What we have are varying representations and propositions from ancient authors of the ascetic project, each with different emphases and goals in mind. 1 Rather than straightjacketing an ancient author or literary work within a preconceived notion of asceticism, it should rather be asked how the author understands and util…

  • Twilights of Greek and Roman Religions— An Introduction

    Chris L De WetARTICLEJournal of Early Christian History2020

    This introduction sets the scene for the “Twilights of Greek and Roman Religions” special issue of Journal of Early Christian History. “‘Twilights’ is a good way to put the question, since twilight is that time between day and night, it is not quite dark but also no longer fully light. ‘Twilights’ suggest the in-between, the both-and. And this is what the essays collected in this special issue described, the both-and of Greek and Roman religions …

  • Angels in John Chrysostom’s Anthropology: Asceticism, Angelomorphism, and Human Bodily Composition in Flux

    Chris L De WetARTICLEJournal of Early Christian History2020

    The purpose of this article is to investigate the role of angels in John Chrysostom’s (c. 349–407 CE) anthropology. The article provides a short overview of Chrysostom’s thought regarding angels more generally. The focus here is especially on the origins, nature, and function of angels. Thereafter, the focus moves to Chrysostom’s “thinking with angels” in his anthropology. This section extrapolates the differences and similarities between humans …