Men as Meat
Exploiting Jewish Law in Ælfric’s Translation of Maccabees
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12358196 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mo Pareles (0009-0009-3203-9309, Northwestern University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 185-204 |
| Publication date | 2015-07-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Exemplaria (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1041-2573 • E-ISSN: 1753-3074 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1179/1041257315z.00000000071 |
| OpenAlex | W1569925297 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 21 |
Ælfric’s Old English homiletic-hagiographical translation of Maccabees, “Passio Machabeorum,” manifests the unique problems and opportunities presented by Old Testament food taboos to early medieval English Christianity. Taking up Giorgio Agamben’s observation that the division between human and animal life occurs within the human as a condition of human possibility (an observation he extends analogously to Christians and Jews) and Kenneth R. Stow’s documentation of the association between Jews and dogs as a primary channel of Christian supersession over Judaism, I argue that Ælfric exploits an unlikely similarity between Jewish dietary law and his own program of Christian orthodoxy: the centrality to each system of the classification and separation of orders of being, particularly animal orders. This shared investment provides an irresistible opportunity for Ælfric, in whose hands Jewish food and sacrifice laws first appear as anthropologically curious aspects of the radical difference between Christians and nonbelievers, but quickly become the very index of that difference. Ælfric appropriates Jewish food laws to create interlinked hierarchical distinctions between humans and animals, Christians and non-Christians. Written at the height of the Viking invasions, Ælfric’s homily on Maccabees shores up Christian humanity against its human and animal others in a time of crisis
Art · Christianity · Humanity · Judaism · Literature · Sacrifice · Theology · Classics · Historical, Literary, and Cultural Studies · History · Medieval and Classical Philosophy · Medieval Literature and History · Philosophy · Religious studies · Religious Studies
The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature
Faithful Renderings
The Singular Beast
From Anglo-Saxon to Early Middle English
The Footsteps of Israel
Theology on the Menu
Homo Sacer
Homicidal Pigs and the Antisemitic Imagination
Violence and Ideological Inversion in the Old English Soul's Address to the Body
| Citations per year | 0.4 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2021 - 2023 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |