EARLY CHRISTIANITY

AND ITS LITERATURE

Negotiating
the Disabled Body
Representations of Disability
in Early Christian Texts

Anna Rebecca Solevåg

Negotiating the Disabled Body
Early Christianity and its literature

David G. Horrell, General Editor

Editorial Board:
Amy-Jill Levine
Dale B. Martin
Laura S. Nasrallah
Anders Runesson
Matthew Thiessen

Number 23
Negotiating the Disabled Body

Representations of Disability
in Early Christian Texts

Anna Rebecca Solevåg

Atlanta

Copyright © 2018 by Anna Rebecca Solevåg

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Solevåg, Anna Rebecca, 1973– author.

Title: Negotiating the disabled body : representations of disability in early Christian texts
/ by Anna Rebecca Solevåg.
Description: Atlanta : SBL Press, [2018] | Series: Early Christianity and its literature ;
number 23 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018033041 (print) | LCCN 2018044032 (ebook) | ISBN 9780884143260
(ebk.) | ISBN 9780884143253 | ISBN 9780884143253 (hbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN
9781628372212 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: People with disabilities—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Christian
literature, Early—History and criticism. | Bible. New Testament—Criticism, interpre-
tation, etc. | People with disabilities in the Bible.
Classification: LCC BT732.7 (ebook) | LCC BT732.7 .S647 2018 (print) | DDC
261.8/32409—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018033041

Printed on acid-free paper.

 In memoriam
William Quinton Matheson (1926–2013)
Rachel Sarah Beckett (1954–2016)
 Contents

Acknowledgments.............................................................................................ix
Abbreviations.....................................................................................................xi

1..Introduction: Disability and Early Christian Literature........................1

1.1. Bodies and Representations 1
1.2. Disability as an Analytical Category 4
1.3. The Cultural Model: Historicizing Disability 6
1.4. Labeling Difference: Taxonomies of Disability 12
1.5. In Search of Healing: Ancient Health Care Systems 16
1.6. Disability and Kyriarchy: Intersecting Power Structures 18
1.7. Physiognomy: Reading the Body to Reveal the Soul 22
1.8. Reading Early Christian Texts with a Disability
Studies Lens 24

2. Healings as Narrative Prosthesis in Mark.................................................29

2.1. Introduction: Narrative Prosthesis 29
2.2. “Take Your Mat and Go to Your Home”:
The Man with the Four Helpers (Mark 2:1–12) 33
2.3. A Demon-Possessed Girl and Her Persuasive Mother
(Mark 7:24–30) 41
2.4. Conclusion: Mark’s Literary Dependency on Disability 49

3. John and the Symbolic Significance of Disability....................................53

3.1. Introduction: Illness as Metaphor 53
3.2. The Royal Official’s Son (John 4:46–54) 56
3.3. The Human Being at the Bethesda Pool (John 5:1–15) 59
3.4. The Man Born Blind (John 9:1–41) 64
3.5. Conclusion: Johannine Paradoxes 73
viii Contents

4. Disabling Women in the Acts of Peter......................................................75

4.1. Introduction: Disability and the Male Gaze 75
4.2. Peter’s Daughter 78
4.3. Rufina 84
4.4. The Blind Widows 87
4.5. The Female Demon 89
4.6. Conclusion: Spectacles of Female Disablement 91

5. The Rhetoric of Madness and Demon Possession...................................95

5.1. Introduction: Stigma and the Normate 95
5.2. “Possessed by Beelzebul”: Accusations against Jesus 102
5.3. Rhetoric, Weakness, and Cognitive Dis/abilities in
the Corinthian Correspondence 107
5.4. Conclusion: Stigmatic Accusations 115

6. Judas the Monster: Policing the Borders of the Human........................117

6.1. Introduction: Monster Theory 117
6.2. Disability and Physiognomic Reasoning in
Papias’s Fragment 120
6.3. Body and Land as Topographies of Evil 127
6.4. Conclusion: The Monster as Border Police 130

7. Eunuchs in/and the Kingdom of God.....................................................133

7.1. Introduction: Crip Theory 133
7.2. Becoming a Eunuch for the Kingdom of Heaven
(Matt 19:12) 141
7.3. The Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8:26–40) 144
7.4. Conclusion: Cripping the Eunuch—Cripping Christ 151

8. Conclusion: Polyphonic Voices................................................................153

8.1. Introduction 153
8.2. The Familiar and the Strange 154
8.3. Potential for Future Research 158

Bibliography....................................................................................................161
Ancient Sources Index...................................................................................181
Modern Authors Index..................................................................................189
 Acknowledgments

This research project started six years ago, when I received a postdoc-
toral research grant from the Norwegian Research Council (NFR). I want
to thank NFR for the generous funding and the School of Mission and
Theology (now VID Specialized University) for hosting me as a postdoc.
VID proved to be a wonderful work environment that I am now happy
to call my academic home. During the project I was also able to spend a
semester at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. I am grate-
ful to Marion Grau (Church Divinity School of the Pacific) and Annette
Weissenrieder (San Francisco Theological Seminary) for inviting me and
hosting me while there.
What would academia be without scholar friends with whom to dis-
cuss ideas and who are willing to read half-baked texts? Marianne Bjelland
Kartzow, Marion Grau, and Tina Dykesteen Nilsen are sisters in spirit
whose input I value deeply, and I am thankful for deep conversations,
constructive critique, and solid support. I received valuable comments on
chapter drafts from Thomas Arentzen, Zoro Dube, Inger Marie Lid, Mari-
anne Bjelland Kartzow, Christina Petterson, Rikard Roitto, Katy Valentine,
Peggy Vernieu, and Annette Weissenrieder. Thanks, guys, and remem-
ber I owe you one! I also want to thank Hugo Lundhaug for help with the
Coptic text of the Berlin Codex and Tina Dykesteen Nilsen for help with
Hebrew transliteration. Finally, I want to thank the librarians at VID for
their patience and professionalism: Nina, Dina, and Solveig, you rock!
Luckily, life is more than scholarship. I am so blessed to have a hus-
band whose love lifts me and whose practical skills make my life much
less complicated. Thank you, Vidar, for your support and faith in me. I am
also grateful to my children, Torbjørn and Silje, and my daughter-in-law,
Henriette, for cheering me on. This book is dedicated to the memory of
my father, William Quinton Matheson, and my sister, Rachel Sarah Beck-
ett, who passed away over the past few years. Both are dearly loved and
deeply missed.

-ix-
 Abbreviations

Primary Sources

Act Pet. Coptic Act of Peter, Berlin Codex

Act. Verc. Actus Vercellences
Acts Pet. Acts of Peter
Ant. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities
Aph. Hippocrates, Aphorisms
1 Apol. Justin Martyr, First Apology
Art. Plutarch, Artaxerxes
Carm. Catullus, Carmina
Caus. mor. Hippocrates, De causis morborum
Chaer. Chariton, De Chaerea et Callirhoe
Claud. Suetonius, Claudius
Curios. Plutarch, De curiositate
De laude Plutarch, De laude ipsius
Descr. Pausanias, Descriptions of Greece
Dig. Ulpian, Digest
Dom. Suetonius, Domitianus
Ep. Horace, Epistles
Epid. Hippocrates, Epidemics
Eth. nic. Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics
Flat. Hippocrates, De flatibus
Frag. Aristophanes, Fragments
Frag. Papias, Fragments
Gen. an. Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals
Gos. Thom. Gospel of Thomas
Gyn. Soranus, Gynecology
Hist. Polybius, Historiae; Tacitus, Historiae
Hist. eccl. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History
Hist. Aug. Historia Augusta

-xi-
xii Abbreviations

Loc. aff. Galen, On the Affected Parts

LXX Septuagint
Mart. Pet. Martyrdom of Peter
Mart. Pol. Martyrdom of Polycarp
Metam. Apuleius, The Golden Ass
Meth. med. Galen, De methodo medendi
Mor. Plutarch, Moralia
Morb. sacr. Hippocrates, The Sacred Disease
Mul. Hippocrates, Female Diseases
Noct. att. Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights
Od. Horace, Odes
Op. Hesiod, Works and Days
Per. Plutarch, Pericles
Philops. Lucian, Philopseudes
Pol. Aristotle, Politics
Progn. Hippocrates, Prognostic
r. reign
Res. Pseudo-Justin, De resurrectione
Sev. Historia Augusta, Severus Alexander
Sign. diut. Aretaeus, On the Causes and Symptoms of Chronic Dis-
ease
Superst. Plutarch, De superstitione
Syr. d. Lucian, The Goddess of Syria
T. Sol. Testament of Solomon
Urb. cond. Livy, Ab urbe condita
Usu part. Galen, On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body
Vesp. Suetonius, Vespasianus

Secondary Sources

AB Anchor Bible
AHB Ancient History Bulletin
AHR American Historical Review
AJHR Australian Journal of Human Rights
ALH American Literary History
ANF Roberts, Alexander, and James Donaldson, eds. The Ante-
Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers
Down to A.D. 325. 10 vols. 1885–1887. Christian Classics
Ethereal Library, https://www.ccel.org/fathers.html.
 Abbreviations xiii

ANRW Temporini, Hildegard, and Wolfgang Haase, eds. Auf-

stieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und
Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung. Part 2,
Principat. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1972–.
BCT Bible and Critical Theory
BDAG Danker, Frederick W., Walter Bauer, William F. Arndt,
and F. Wilbur Gingrich. Greek-English Lexicon of the New
Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3rd. ed.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
BibInt Biblical Interpretation
BibRef Biblical Refigurations
BINS Biblical Interpretation Series
BRP Brill Research Perspectives in Biblical Interpretation
BSac Bibliotheca Sacra
BW Bible and Women
BZNW Beihefte zur Zeithschrift für die neutestamentliche Wis-
senschaft
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
CTSWWS Critical Texts in Social Work and the Welfare State
CW Classical World
DSQ Disability Studies Quarterly
ExpTim Expository Times
FCNTECW A Feminist Companion to the New Testament and Early
Christian Writings
FR Feminist Review
Gen. an. Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals
GLQ GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies
JAAR Journal of the American Academy of Religion
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JDR Journal of Disability and Religion
JECS Journal of Early Christian Studies
JFSR Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion
JLA Journal of Late Antiquity
JRDH Journal of Religion, Disability, and Health
JRS Journal of Roman Studies
JSNTSup Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement
Series
LCL Loeb Classical Library
LHBOTS The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies
xiv Abbreviations

LNTS The Library of New Testament Studies

LSJ Liddell, Henry George, Robert Scott, Henry Stuart Jones.
A Greek-English Lexicon. 9th ed. with revised supple-
ment. Oxford: Clarendon, 1996.
Neot Neotestamentica
NRSV New Revised Standard Version
NTS New Testament Studies
PNA Patristica Nordica Annuaria
PRSt Perspectives in Religious Studies
R&T Religion and Theology
RA Rewriting Antiquity
Scr Scriptura
SemeiaSt Semeia Studies
Signs Signs: Journal of Women in Society and Culture
SJDR Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research
SNTSMS Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series
SP Sacra Pagina
WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testa-
ment
 1
Introduction:
Disability and Early Christian Literature

1.1. Bodies and Representations

In ancient Mediterranean cities, statues of gods and rulers would make

clear what the ideal body looked like: athletic, able-bodied, symmetrically
beautiful with Greco-Roman features, and forever young. Rather than the
notion of “normal” that we have in the modern world, it was this golden
standard, this idea of perfection that was impressed on the inhabitants of
the Roman Empire. Most individual bodies moving through the streets
of an ancient city would fall short of this ideal, but some would do so
more conspicuously than others. Such bodies, or rather representations of
bodies, singled out in texts as different are the focus of this study.
What representations of disability do we find in early Christian litera-
ture? What are the meanings ascribed to nonnormative bodies? Can we
hear subversive voices? In this book, early Christian textual representa-
tions of bodies that are marked as nonnormative or deviant are explored
through the lens of disability studies. I suggest that insights from this
interdisciplinary field can be helpful for understanding more fully how
the disabled body is negotiated in early Christian texts. The case stud-
ies presented will reveal a variety of understandings, attitudes, medical
frameworks, and taxonomies. These texts are examples of early Christian
struggles to come to terms with issues relating to body and dis/ability.
My interest in this line of inquiry grows out of previous studies on
issues of embodiment and power relations in early Christianity.1 In the

1. See, e.g., Anna Rebecca Solevåg, Birthing Salvation: Gender and Class in Early
Christian Childbearing Discourse, BINS (Leiden: Brill, 2013); Solevåg, “Prayer in Acts
and the Pastoral Epistles: Intersections of Gender and Class,” in Early Christian Prayer

-1-
2 Negotiating the Disabled Body

same way as the introduction of gender as an analytical category opened

up a whole plethora of historical studies, disability as an analytical tool
can contribute to insights about cultural categories, ideas of otherness, and
social groups’ access to or lack of power.2 Disability historian Catherine
J. Kudlick draws on Joan W. Scott’s argument for gender as a category of
historical analysis when she argues for disability as an equally meaningful
lens for historians: “Disability should sit squarely at the center of historical
inquiry, both as a subject worth studying in its own right and as one that
will provide scholars with a new analytic tool for exploring power itself.”3
The disabled bodies we meet in early Christian texts are representa-
tions.4 They are literary constructions partaking in discourse, in which
negotiation and efforts toward meaning-making are always at play. Rose-
marie Garland-Thomson has pointed out that representations of disabil-
ity do cultural work: “Disability is a representation, a cultural interpreta-
tion of physical transformation or configuration, and a comparison of
bodies that structures social relations and institutions.”5 The discourse on

and Identity Formation, ed. Reidar Hvalvik and Karl Olav Sandnes (Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2014); Solevåg, “Salvation as Slavery, Marriage and Birth: Does the Metaphor
Matter?,” in Bodies, Borders, Believers: Ancient Texts and Present Conversations; Essays
in Honor of Turid Karlsen Seim on Her Seventieth Birthday, ed. Anne Hege Grung,
Marianne Bjelland Kartzow, and Anna Rebecca Solevåg (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2015);
Solevåg, “Listening for the Voices of Two Disabled Girls in Early Christian Literature,”
in Children and Everyday Life in the Roman World, ed. Christian Laes and Ville Vuo-
lanto (London: Routledge, 2017): 287–99; Solevåg, “Hysterical Women? Gender and
Disability in Early Christian Narrative,” in Disability in Antiquity, ed. Christian Laes,
RA (London: Routledge, 2017).
2. Joan W. Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” AHR 91.5
(1986): 77–97.
3. Catherine J. Kudlick, “Disability History: Why We Need Another ‘Other,’ ”
AHR 108 (2003): 765.
4. Drawing on insights from Michel Foucault and the linguistic turn in histori-
ography, scholars of early Christianity have studied the discursive constructions and
negotiations around power and gender. See, e.g., Elizabeth A. Clark, History, Theory,
Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004);
Caroline Vander Stichele and Todd C. Penner, Contextualizing Gender in Early Chris-
tian Discourse: Thinking beyond Thecla (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2009); Jorunn Økland,
Women in Their Place: Paul and the Corinthian Discourse of Gender and Sanctuary
Space, JSNTSup 269 (London: T&T Clark, 2004); Judith Perkins, The Suffering Self: Pain
and Narrative Representation in the Early Christian Era (London: Routledge, 1995).
5. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disabil-
ity in American Culture and Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 6.
 1. Introduction: Disability and Early Christian Literature 3

disability is not isolated but is part of other discourses about embodiment

in early Christianity, as will be developed later in this chapter. Discourses
on health care and medicine are one such overlap. Another concerns
ideas about beauty and perceived correlations between looks and moral-
ity, which in turn is connected to discourses on gender, class, and race.
Yet another revolves around themes of sexual renunciation and other
ascetic practices meant to discipline the body. Disability is thus a lens
that can be used to reveal ideas about embodiment in early Christian dis-
course more widely understood. I employ an intersectional perspective,
drawing on the cross-disciplinary confluence of theoretical frameworks
from feminist and gender, queer, race, class, and postcolonial studies. The
central notion of intersectionality is that mutually reinforcing vectors of
power and oppression, such as race, gender, class, and sexuality, must be
taken into account in order to understand the complexity of hierarchical
relations.6 Every person belongs to more than one category, and various
oppressive mechanisms can work together to create new hierarchies and
systems of discrimination.7
If representations of disability are cultural interpretations, can we
detect any patterns in the meaning-making efforts around nonnorma-
tive bodies? According to David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder, “Dis-
ability inaugurates the act of interpretation.”8 Efforts to narrate disability
are attempts to bring the body’s unruliness under control. Mitchell and
Snyder have introduced the term narrative prosthesis to refer to “both the
prevalence of disability representations and the myriad meanings ascribed
to it.”9 In early Christian discourse, such efforts toward interpretation of
unruly and extraordinary bodies appear in a multitude of ways, from heal-
ing narratives to stories about disabling, from theologizing to using dis-
ability as invective. Early Christian texts show a fascinating variety in how
they negotiate disability. It is the multiple, polyphonous, contradicting
ways in which this happens that I present in this work.

6. Jennifer C. Nash, “Re-thinking Intersectionality,” FR 89 (2008): 2; Paulina de

los Reyes and Diana Mulinari, Intersektionalitet: Kritiska reflektioner över (o)jäm-
likhetens landskap (Stockholm: Liber, 2005), 24–25.
7. Marianne Bjelland Kartzow, Destabilizing the Margins: An Intersectional
Approach to Early Christian Memory (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012), 15.
8. David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the
Dependencies of Discourse (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 6.
9. Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 4.
4 Negotiating the Disabled Body

My primary criterion in the selection of texts has been variation in

several different respects. First, I have chosen texts from a variety of genres
and from works within the New Testament as well as noncanonical litera-
ture. The case studies range from gospel stories and apocryphal narratives
to Pauline letters and patristic expositions. Second, I have looked for inter-
sectional variation. In other words, I have chosen characters and literary
representations that display and negotiate various intersections of gender,
status, ethnicity, age, dis/ability, and so on. The case studies are also chosen
on the basis of a variety of disability categories and will present characters
that are designated with terms such as blind, deaf, mute, lame, demon-pos-
sessed, mad, and eunuch. The last category can be understood as a category
of reproductive disability, as I will argue. Finally, this study introduces
a selection of current disability studies concept and frameworks that I
find useful for an analysis of early Christian disability discourse. I have
selected the concept of narrative prosthesis, the framework of gaze and
stare, stigma theory, monster theory, and crip theory and employ these in
the case studies. In each chapter, I forefront one such concept in order to
explore its analytical potential for early Christian texts.

1.2. Disability as an Analytical Category

Disability studies is a field with intellectual roots in the social sciences,

humanities, and rehabilitation sciences.10 Similar to feminist approaches
and critical race studies, it stands at the intersection of political activism
and academia. Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, people with disabilities
began to organize and collectively protest their confinement in institu-
tions, their poverty, and the discrimination they encountered.11 They chal-
lenged the orthodox view that the causes of the widespread economic and
social deprivation disabled people experienced were located within the
individual and his or her impairment.12 At the core of disability studies is
a critique of the so-called medical model of disability and other “property

10. Gary L. Albrecht, Katherine D. Seelman, and Michael Bury, “Introduction:

The Formation of Disability Studies,” in The Handbook of Disability Studies, ed. Gary
L. Albrecht, Katherine D. Seelman, and Michael Bury (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage,
2001), 2.
11. Colin Barnes, Mike Oliver, and Len Barton, introduction to Disability Studies
Today, ed. Colin Barnes, Mike Oliver and Len Barton (Cambridge: Polity, 2002), 4.
12. Barnes, Oliver and Barton, introduction, 4.
 1. Introduction: Disability and Early Christian Literature 5

definitions” that see disability as inherent in the person with an impair-

ment.13 The medical model is the understanding of disability developed
within modern medicine, and it is pervasive in the Western world. Dis-
course within this model focuses on clinical descriptions of bodies and
body parts; promotes the intervention of professionals focused on cure,
rehabilitation, and adjustment; and is for/on rather than with/by people
with disabilities.14 It is criticized by disability activists and scholars because
it individualizes and pathologizes disability.
As an alternative to the medical model, a social model of disability was
put forth by scholars within the disability movement. This model focuses
on social oppression, cultural discourse, and environmental barriers rather
than biological deficit and claims that it is the constrictions and inadequa-
cies of society that disables the individual.15 Within this paradigm, there is
a strict differentiation between impairment and disability. While impair-
ment is “the functional limitation within the individual caused by physi-
cal, mental or sensory impairment,” disability is “the loss or limitation of
opportunities to take part in the normal life of the community on an equal
level with others due to physical or social barriers.”16 The model draws on
a Marxist understanding of the connection between oppression and eco-
nomic relations in a capitalistic society, arguing that industrialization and
capitalism caused the segregation of the disabled into institutions.17
While the social model grew out of a British context, disability activists
in North America drew on identity as their conceptual framework, argu-
ing for a minority model clearly influenced by the civil rights movement.
It was argued that people with disabilities constitute a minority position
in society, like people of color, that has been denied civil rights, equal
access, and protection.18 Disability was redefined as a social and political
category that marked identity and common experience. By identifying as
“people with disabilities” or “disabled people,” disability was reclaimed by

13. Gareth Williams, “Theorizing Disability,” in Albrecht, Seelman, and Bury,

Handbook of Disability Studies, 124–25.
14. Dan Goodley, Disability Studies: An Interdisciplinary Introduction (Los Ange-
les: Sage, 2011), 7.
15. Tom Shakespeare, “The Social Model of Disability,” in The Disability Studies
Reader, ed. Lennard J. Davis (New York: Routledge, 2006), 197.
16. Disabled People’s International 1982, cited in Goodley, Disability Studies, 8.
17. Michael Oliver, The Politics of Disablement, CTSWWS (Basingstoke: Macmil-
lan, 1990), 25–42.
18. Goodley, Disability Studies, 12–14.
6 Negotiating the Disabled Body

the community “to identify us as a constituency, to serve our needs for

unity and identity, and to function as a basis for political activism.”19
Within the Nordic countries, disability theorizing has been shaped
by the context of strong welfare states, expanded disability services, and
the principle of “normalization,” that is, community participation. The
Nordic relational model argues that disability is a person-environment
mismatch, that disability is situational or contextual, and that disability
is relative.20 While the social model is a strong version of the environ-
mental turn in disability studies, holding that disability is solely caused
by society’s failure to adapt, the Nordic approach is more relational and
relative and does not rule out the individual body and functional limita-
tions from the discussion.21 For example, Inger Marie Lid draws on this
relational understanding to reflect on disability as an unsurprising aspect
of the human condition. She tries to bridge a rigid binary understanding
of disabled/nondisabled and dispense with a functionalist view of “nor-
mality.” If variation in functional ability is an element of human diversity,
and if vulnerability is the common ground, mutual dependence should
define human relationships.22

1.3. The Cultural Model: Historicizing Disability

In the following I present the cultural model, which is the model I rely
on in this book. The social model’s dependency on binaries—medical
versus social, impairment versus disability—has been heavily critiqued.23
Disability scholars drawing on a Foucauldian, postmodern framework
argue for a less rigid distinction between impairment and disability. They
have pointed to the social construction of both concepts, dismantling
the binary in a similar fashion to Judith Butler’s critique of the distinc-
tion between sex and gender.24 Michel Foucault’s understanding of the

19. Simi Linton, Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity (New York: New
York University Press, 1998), 12.
20. Goodley, Disability Studies, 15–16.
21. Jan Tøssebro, “Introduction to the Special Issue of SJDR: Understanding Dis-
ability,” SJDR 6.1 (2004): 4–5.
22. Inger Marie Lid, “Disability as a Human Condition Discussed in a Theological
Perspective,” Diaconia 3 (2012).
23. Helen Meekosha and Russell Shuttleworth, “What’s So ‘Critical’ about Critical
Disability Studies?,” AJHR 15 (2009): 50.
24. Shelley Tremain, “Foucault, Governmentality and Critical Disability Theory,”
 1. Introduction: Disability and Early Christian Literature 7

connection between power and knowledge has provided the framework

to analyze problematic aspects of institutionalization and other practices
of care that “reveal technologies and procedures that classify, normalise,
manage and control.”25 In particular, the notion of biopower is helpful.
Foucault understood biopower as a technology of power that has struc-
tured modern society into a normalizing society through regulatory and
corrective mechanism. The practices of biopower objectivize people and
have “caused the contemporary disabled subject to emerge into discourse
and social existence.”26
The suggestion that the modern subject emerges through particular
discourses and institutions contributes to an understanding of disability
as a changing historical phenomenon. Thomson ventures that the modern
disabled figure is a culturally and historically specific social construction,
framed by ideologies of liberal individualism and the moral imperative of
work.27 She argues that disability is not a “self-evident physical condition”
or just a personal misfortune. Rather, it is “the attribution of corporeal
deviance—not so much a property of bodies as a product of cultural rules
about what bodies should be or do.”28 The understanding that disability
is a “product of cultural rules” is often referred to as the cultural model.
This set of perspectives has become formative for a humanities approach
to disability studies. Thomson has also introduced the term normate to
describe the veiled subject position from which the disabled as a figure of
otherness is constructed. The normate is constituted by defining the devi-
ant others who make up the normate’s boundaries: “Normate, then, is the
constructed identity of those who, by way of the bodily configurations and
cultural capital they assume, can step into a position of authority and wield
the power it grants them.”29
However, the poststructuralist framework has its limits. For disability
theorists, the absence of a palpable, material body is a core concern. As

in Foucault and the Government of Disability, Corporealities (Ann Arbor: University

of Michigan Press, 2005), 9–11. For Butler’s critique of the sex/gender binary, see
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York:
Routledge, 1990).
25. Meekosha and Shuttleworth, “What’s So ‘Critical,’ ” 57.
26. Tremain, “Foucault, Governmentality and Critical Disability Theory,” 5–6.
27. Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies, 39–41.
28. Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies, 6.
29. Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies, 8.
8 Negotiating the Disabled Body

Bill Hughes maintains, “In Foucault’s work, the body is a target (of power),
an effect, a text upon which to write. This poststructuralist approach to
the body tends to transform it into a supracarnal substance. The body is
constituted as passive, without agency, the plaything of discourse and text,
a surface ripe for inscription.”30 If the body is just a text, what about the
experience of physical pain? Tobin Siebers claims that constructionist body
theory upholds models that represent pain as either regulatory or resistant
and downplays its physicality. Such notions are unrealistic and “contrib-
ute to an ideology of ability that marginalizes people with disabilities.”31
He proposes a theory of “complex embodiment” that adjusts social con-
structionism by focusing on the realism of bodies: “A theory that describes
reality as a mediation, no less real for being such, between representation
and its social objects.”32 Another critical voice is Lennard J. Davis, who
dismisses both the notion of identity, prevalent in the minority model,
and the social constructionism of Foucault-inspired disability theory. In
an era he views as “dismodern” rather than postmodern, he finds that the
experience of the limitations of the body is common ground and argues
for “a commonality of bodies within the notion of difference.… We are all
nonstandard.”33 Both Siebers and Davis point to weaknesses with the dis-
cursive approach that are important to keep in mind and that I will revisit
in the chapters to come when I reflect on lived experience of disability in
antiquity in relation to the sources.
Scholars working with disability historically find the cultural model
useful because it focuses on the historical variations in understandings of
disability and the layers of meaning residing in culture.34 The social model,

30. Bill Hughes, “What Can a Foucauldian Analysis Contribute to Disability

Studies?,” in Foucault and the Government of Disability, ed. Shelley Tremain, Corpore-
alities (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005), 85.
31. Tobin Siebers, “Disability in Theory: From Social Constructionism to the
New Realism of the Body,” ALH 13 (2001): 743–46.
32. Tobin Siebers, Disability Theory (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
2008), 30.
33. Lennard J. Davis, Bending over Backwards: Disability, Dismodernism, and
Other Difficult Positions (New York: New York University Press, 2002), 31–32.
34. For disability historians drawing on the cultural model, see, e.g., Joshua R.
Eyler, “Introduction: Breaking Boundaries, Building Bridges,” in Disability in the
Middle Ages: Reconsiderations and Reverberations, ed. Joshua R. Eyler (Farnham: Ash-
gate, 2010), 5–6; David M. Turner, Disability in Eighteenth-Century England: Imagin-
ing Physical Impairment (Hoboken: Taylor & Francis, 2012), 1–2; Julia Watts Belser,
 1. Introduction: Disability and Early Christian Literature 9

at least in its early conception, lacked a nuanced reflection on how disabil-

ity operates in other eras, as the focus was on the cultural production of
disability within the rise of capitalism. It has been suggested that a moral
model or religious model preceded the medical model and dominated
in the eras before modernity and industrialization.35 This is a simplified
understanding that has been nuanced by historical studies of disability.
Studies of medieval history have shown that the link between sin and ill-
ness is not the only lens through which medieval societies viewed disabili-
ty.36 Irina Metzler argues that medieval texts display ambiguity concerning
the connection between physical impairment and spiritual sin and that a
singular “moral model” cannot be imposed on the sources. Alongside the
notion of impairment as the result of sin, there was a competing notion of
impairment as something requiring physical healing.37 As the case studies
in this book will show, the perspective that “disability is a defect caused by
moral lapse or sins” is evident in some of the texts but appears alongside
other understandings.38
Disability history has developed into a prolific subdiscipline in which
insights from disability theory are deployed, developed, and refined
through the study of impairment and disability in various historical eras.39
Kudlick has argued that using disability as an analytical category is cru-
cial for understanding “how Western cultures determine hierarchies and
maintain social order.”40 As an approach to historical texts, disability stud-
ies offers a lens to ask new questions. How is disability represented in the

Rabbinic Tales of Destruction: Gender, Sex and Disability in the Ruins of Jerusalem
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), xxvii–xxix.
35. Oliver, Politics of Disablement, 25–29; Goodley, Disability Studies, 5–7.
36. Eyler, “Introduction,” 3. For studies on disability in the Middle Ages, see, e.g.,
Irina Metzler, A Social History of Disability in the Middle Ages: Cultural Considerations
of Physical Impairment (New York: Routledge, 2013); Irina Metzler, ed., Disability in
Medieval Europe: Thinking about Physical Impairment during the High Middle Ages,
c. 1100–1400 (London: Routledge, 2006); Tory Vandeventer Pearman, Women and
Disability in Medieval Literature (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Sebastian
Barsch, Anne Klein, and Pieter Verstraete, eds., The Imperfect Historian: Disability
Histories in Europe (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2013); Eyler, Disability in the Middle Ages.
37. Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe, 186–87.
38. Quote from Goodley, Disability Studies, 7.
39. Cf., e.g., The Disability History Association, which has a website and an online
review journal, H-Disability Reviews, www.dishist.org.
40. Kudlick, “Disability History,” 3.
10 Negotiating the Disabled Body

text? What categories of disability do we find? What kinds of stigmas are

attached to certain categories? What kinds of attitudes do we find toward
people with different kinds of impairments? What are the motives and fac-
tors of integration or exclusion? How is disability utilized for a variety of
social ends? How do religious texts, ideas, rituals, and conventions partake
in a society’s discourse on disability? What is disability’s relationship to
other identity categories, such as race, class, and gender?
The term disability is a modern category, and thus theoretical reflec-
tion is called for if we want to use it for other eras. David Turner argues
that terms like disabled and people with disabilities can be used by disability
historians in an open-ended way about people who “potentially may have
faced restrictions on their ability to carry out everyday activities through
injury, disease, congenital malformation, aging or chronic illness, or whose
appearance made them liable to be characterized by contemporary cul-
tural ideas associated with non-standard bodies.”41 It is in this open-ended
manner I use disability-related terms in reference to ancient texts.

1.3.1. Disability in the Ancient Mediterranean World

It is only in the last two decades that insights from disability studies have
been employed in biblical and early Christian studies.42 Some monograph-
length studies have emerged on the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament
but not on other early Christian texts, as far as I am aware.43 Studies from

41. Turner, Disability in Eighteenth-Century England, 11.

42. For edited works on the Bible, see Sarah J. Melcher, Mikeal C. Parsons, and
Amos Yong, eds., The Bible and Disability: A Commentary (Waco, TX: Baylor Uni-
versity Press, 2017); Candida R. Moss and Jeremy Schipper, Disability Studies and
Biblical Literature (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); Hector Avalos, Sarah J.
Melcher, and Jeremy Schipper, This Abled Body: Rethinking Disabilities in Biblical
Studies, SemeiaSt 55 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007). See also Joel S.
Baden and Candida R. Moss, Reconceiving Infertility: Biblical Perspectives on Procre-
ation and Childlessness (Princeton: Princeton Universitety Press, 2015). For edited
works on early Christianity, see the articles in the special issue on religion, medicine,
disability, and health in JLA 8 (2015) and the section on the late ancient world in
Laes, Disability in Antiquity.
43. On the Hebrew Bible, see Rebecca Raphael, Biblical Corpora: Representations
of Disability in Hebrew Biblical Literature, LHBOTS (London: Continuum, 2009);
Jeremy Schipper, Disability and Isaiah’s Suffering Servant, ed. James Crossley and Fran-
cesca Stavrakopoulou, BibRef (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Schipper, Dis-
 1. Introduction: Disability and Early Christian Literature 11

a disability perspective on Greek, Roman, Hellenistic, and ancient Jewish

cultures are valuable resources in order to contextualize biblical and early
Christian discourses on disability.44 I draw on insights from this expand-
ing field of historical research for methodological insights as well as for
the identification and analysis of source material. In a survey essay on reli-
gion, medicine, disability, and health in late antiquity, Heidi Marx-Wolf
and Kristi Upson-Saia lay out some guidelines for the field that I also find
important. First, they point to the danger of imposing modern medical
vocabulary and taxonomies. Rather than engaging in retrospective diag-
nosis, we should continue to refine our understanding of the ancient
sources’ own classificatory schemes. Second, it is important not to impose
modern boundaries between religion, medicine, philosophy, biology,
and so on but instead acknowledge the overlap that existed in antiquity.
Finally, they warn against scholarship that is singularly attentive to repre-
sentational and rhetorical aspects of disability and health and hence disre-
gards “the real, lived experience of the sick and impaired.”45 There are very

ability Studies and the Hebrew Bible: Figuring Mephibosheth in the David Story (New
York: T&T Clark, 2006); Saul M. Olyan, Disability in the Hebrew Bible: Interpreting
Mental and Physical Differences (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008). On
the New Testament, see Louise J. Lawrence, Bible and Bedlam: Madness, Sanism, and
New Testament Interpretation, LNTS (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018); Louise
J. Lawrence, Sense and Stigma in the Gospels: Depictions of Sensory-Disabled Char-
acters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Louise A. Gosbell, “ ‘The Poor, the
Crippled, the Blind, and the Lame’: Physical and Sensory Disability in the Gospels of
the New Testament” (Ph.D. diss., Macquarie University, 2015). Gosbell’s dissertation
was subsequently published as a monograph, “The Poor, the Crippled, the Blind, and
the Lame”: Physical and Sensory Disability in the Gospels of the New Testament (Tübin-
gen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018).
44. See, e.g., Henri-Jacques Stiker, A History of Disability (Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press, 1999); Robert Garland, The Eye of the Beholder: Deformity and Dis-
ability in the Graeco-Roman World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995); Martha
L. Rose, The Staff of Oedipus: Transforming Disability in Ancient Greece (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 2003); Christian Laes, Chris F. Goodey, and Martha
Lynn Rose, eds., Disabilities in Roman Antiquity: Disparate Bodies a Capite ad Calcem
(Leiden: Brill, 2013); Laes, Disability in Antiquity; Heidi Marx-Wolf and Kristi Upson-
Saia, “The State of the Question: Religion, Medicine, Disability and Health in Late
Antiquity,” JLA 8 (2015): 306–21; Judith Z. Abrams, Judaism and Disability: Portrayals
in Ancient Texts from the Tanach through the Bavli (Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet Uni-
versity Press, 1998); Belser, Rabbinic Tales of Destruction.
45. Marx-Wolf and Upson-Saia, “State of the Question,” 266–72, quote at 270.
12 Negotiating the Disabled Body

few sources from antiquity that recount first-person experiences of people

with disabilities.46 Yet the various representations may also prompt our
imagination to ponder these multifaceted experiences.47 On an individ-
ual level, people with disabilities may have ascribed different meanings to
their bodies and their lives than what prevailed in the cultural discourse.
The lack of sources can serve as an inspiration to explore creative ways in
which to engage with plausible experiences of people with disabilities. This
does not necessarily involve any historical reconstruction or claims about
a reality behind the text, but it can involve pointing to plausible scenarios
as well as discursive openings in the narratives themselves.
In the following I briefly sketch the discursive field of disability and
its overlap with other ancient discourses. First, I present some of the
terms and categories connected to impairment and disability that occur
in ancient sources. An important task for a disability studies approach to
ancient texts is, in my view, to determine the degree of overlap, as well
as difference, between ancient and modern categories.48 Second, I look at
ancient Mediterranean ideas about health and medicine and introduce the
medical anthropological model of health care systems as a helpful frame-
work for understanding ancient discourses on disability and illness. Third,
I discuss how discourses on disability overlapped with other discourses
on the body. Using insights from intersectionality, I introduce the notion
of kyriarchy, coined by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, which I find useful
for understanding the complex power structures of the ancient Mediter-
ranean. Finally, the ancient pseudoscience of physiognomy is presented.
Physiognomy was a popular method of “reading” bodies and attributing
deviance. In several of the case studies in this book, physiognomic reason-
ing is embedded in the textual representation of disability.

1.4. Labeling Difference: Taxonomies of Disability

As noted above, disability is a modern category. There is no term for dis-

abled in Greek, Latin, or Hebrew. There are, however, other types of cate-
gorizations, and this section tries to delineate some ancient Mediterranean

46. Christian Laes, “Introduction: Disabilities in the Ancient World: Past, Present
and Future,” in Laes, Disability in Antiquity, 3.
47. Lawrence, Sense and Stigma in the Gospels, 2. See also Marx-Wolf and Upson-
Saia, “State of the Question,” 270–72.
48. Olyan, Disability in the Hebrew Bible, 12–13.
 1. Introduction: Disability and Early Christian Literature 13

taxonomies of disability. The Greek and Latin vocabularies of disability

are quite vague and general. The terminology of disability did not belong
to the domain of medicine, as the Hippocratic doctors treated curable
diseases, not permanent conditions.49 Martha L. Rose observes that the
Greeks did not have a category of physical disability “in which people were
a priori banned from carrying out certain roles and compartmentalized
into certain others.”50 She maintains that it is a modern assumption to con-
clude from the classical Greek ideal of the perfect body that all disabled
people who deviated from this norm were uniformly reviled.
Nicolas Vlahogiannis takes a somewhat different stance, arguing that
able-bodiedness should be the primary point of reference for disability in
antiquity because the ideal of the perfect body loomed large in ancient dis-
course. This notion is reflected in language, with word pairs that empha-
size “the constraints imposed by the physical state” both in Greek (δυνατός/
ἀδύνατος) and Latin (firmus/infirmus).51 Vlahogiannis thus gives a broad
definition of disability in antiquity that incorporates “appearance and
socially ascribed abnormalities, such as polydactylism, left-handedness,
old age, obesity, impotence, and even those who are socially ill-positioned,
such as beggars, the poor, the homeless, the ugly and the diseased.”52
Within this broad category, disabled persons were sometimes considered
according to their appearance, other times according to their social situ-
ation, and other times again with a view to their particular impairments.53
In other words, disability overlaps with deformity in the ancient context, as
physical abnormalities and bodily malfunction are not always kept apart.54
Christian Laes has pointed out that infirmity may be a more appropriate
term than disability for premodern society, arguing that “infirmity was a
highly fluid, differentiating category, often used ad hoc and mostly defined
in the context of a person’s social role.”55

49. Rose, Staff of Oedipus, 11.

50. Rose, Staff of Oedipus, 2.
51. Nicholas Vlahogiannis, “Disabling Bodies,” in Changing Bodies, Changing
Meanings: Studies on the Human Body in Antiquity, ed. Dominic Montserrat (London:
Routledge, 1998), 16.
52. Vlahogiannis, “Disabling Bodies,” 17.
53. Evelyne Samama, “The Greek Vocabulary of Disabilities,” in Laes, Disability
in Antiquity, 121–38.
54. Garland, Eye of the Beholder, 5; Nicole Kelley, “Deformity and Disability in
Greece and Rome,” in Avalos, Melcher, and Schipper, This Abled Body, 34–35.
55. Laes, “Introduction,” 4.
14 Negotiating the Disabled Body

The notion of an overarching category of infirmity or disability may

also be found in the Bible. According to Rebecca Raphael, the categories
of blind, deaf, and lame are often grouped in the Hebrew Bible, constitut-
ing a “trilogy of disability.”56 This trilogy turns up in legal material, narra-
tive, prophecy, and poetry and shows that an abstract concept of disability
underlies the Hebrew texts:

The grouping of “blind and deaf ” and “blind and lame,” but never “deaf
and lame” [is] evidence of higher-level concepts. Blindness and deafness
are both sensory impairments, and blindness and lameness both affect
mobility; deafness and lameness do not share the same kind of obvi-
ous common feature. In short, the linguistic and textual evidence does
support the existence of abstractions that grouped various impairments
together, even though a single term does not exist.57

In the New Testament, there is a similar grouping of disability categories

that point to the existence of a higher-level concept of infirmity or dis-
ability. In the gospels, references to Jesus’s healing activities list different
impairments, including deafness, muteness, blindness, lameness, leprosy,
demon possession, and different forms of weaknesses and illnesses (see,
e.g., Matt 4:23–24; 15:30; Luke 7:21–22). Matthew presents the following
list of infirmities: “Great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame
[χωλούς], the maimed [κυλλούς], the blind [τυφλούς], the mute [κωφούς],
and many others (Matt 15:30).”58 John uses the term ἀσθενέω as an over-
arching term for various disabilities when he describes the group gathered
by the Bethesda pool: “In these lay many invalids [ἀσθενούντων]—blind,
lame, and paralyzed” (John 5:3). This term can also refer to sickness,
which shows that notions of illness and disability sometimes overlapped.59
Likewise, the term ἀσθένεια denotes disease and sickness as well as want
of strength.60
Lame, blind, and deaf, as well as some of the other categories of physi-
cal disability mentioned above, seem, on a surface level, similar to catego-
ries we operate with in the modern world. However, the meanings ascribed
to them are in fact quite distinct and alien from a modern perspective, as

56. Raphael, Biblical Corpora, 13–14.

57. Raphael, Biblical Corpora, 14–15.
58. Unless noted, quotations from the Bible are from NRSV.
59. BDAG, s.v. “ἀσθενέω”: “be sick”; LSJ, s.v. “ἀσθενέω”: “to be week, feebly, sickly.”
60. BDAG and LSJ, s.v. “ἀσθένεια.”
 1. Introduction: Disability and Early Christian Literature 15

I will elaborate in the case studies. One example is the term κωφός, which
can refer to being mute, deaf, or both.61 Muteness and deafness were often
understood in terms of mental incapacity or demon possession.62 Laes has
argued that in an oral culture like the ancient Mediterranean, speech and
hearing were closely connected to each other and were extremely impor-
tant for taking part in society.63
Demon possession is a less obvious category of disability from a
modern perspective.64 Most people in the ancient world believed that
the gods could cause disability and illness, either directly through divine
intervention or by the more specialized means of possession.65 Δαιμόνιον is
the Greek term for an inferior divine being, and the polytheistic religions
of the era held that gods, lesser gods, and spirits could possess a person
for good or for evil.66 Nevertheless, exorcism was not a culturally sanc-
tioned form of healing, and demon possession was often discredited as
superstition (Lucian, Philops. 8–16; Plutarch, Superst. 7 [168c]).67 Demon
possession occurs frequently in Jewish and early Christian sources. These
religious traditions had a dualistic world view and connected demon pos-
session with Satan and evil forces (see, e.g., Mark 3:22–27).68
Infertility or barrenness should be understood as a category of dis-
ability in the ancient Mediterranean.69 Infertility was a condition that car-

61. BDAG and LSJ, s.v. “κωφός.”

62. Rose, Staff of Oedipus, 72, 76–77.
63. Christian Laes, “Silent History? Speech Impairment in Roman Antiquity,” in
Laes, Goodey, and Rose, Disabilities in Roman Antiquity, 153–55.
64. For studies on demon possession in early Christianity, see, e.g., Lawrence,
Bible and Bedlam; Gregory A. Smith, “How Thin Is a Demon?,” JECS 16 (2008); David
Brakke, Demons and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006); Dale B. Martin, Inventing Superstition:
From the Hippocratics to the Christians (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004);
Eric Sorensen, Possession and Exorcism in the New Testament and Early Christianity
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002); Jonathan Z. Smith, “Towards Interpreting Demonic
Powers in Hellenistic and Roman Antiquity,” ANRW 16.1:425–39.
65. Hector Avalos, Health Care and the Rise of Christianity (Peabody, MA: Hen-
drickson, 1999), 62–63.
66. Sorensen, Possession and Exorcism, 75–91; Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian
Body (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 153–55.
67. Sorensen, Possession and Exorcism, 6–7.
68. Sorensen, Possession and Exorcism, 118–19.
69. Martha L. Edwards, “The Cultural Context of Deformity in the Greek World:
16 Negotiating the Disabled Body

ried notable stigma in Israelite culture.70 Raphael observes that female

infertility is a prominent disability motif in Genesis.71 The motif also
occurs in other parts of the Hebrew Bible, and it is women, not men, who
are labeled as barren in unfruitful marriages.72 The eunuch, however, is
the male equivalent to the barren woman.73 Greco-Roman childbearing
discourse also emphasized women’s role as childbearers. The institution of
marriage was for the procreation of children, and medical writings con-
sidered the female body primarily in terms of reproductive capacity.74 In
this context, too, infertile women and eunuchs were juxtaposed (Aulus
Gellius, Noct. att. 4.2.6–11). In the New Testament as well, infertility sur-
faces as a primarily female disability (e.g., Mark 5:25–29; Luke 1:7).75 The
cultural expectation that women would reproduce was severed in the
early Christian ascetic tradition, where imminent eschatological expecta-
tion overshadowed the pressure to procreate.76

1.5. In Search of Healing: Ancient Health Care Systems

References to impairments and people with disabilities can be found in a

variety of written sources from antiquity, and often healing and treatment
are not concerns in the texts. Nevertheless, ancient medical writings and
ancient ideas about health and healthcare are one aspect of ancient disabil-
ity discourse that is reflected in the material I will present and deserves a
brief introduction here.77 The ancient art of medicine developed in Greece
during the classical era. The treatment of illness was professionalized, and

Let There Be a Law That No Deformed Child Shall Be Reared,” AHB 10.3–4 (1996): 91;
Schipper, Disability and Isaiah’s Suffering Servant, 21.
70. Baden and Moss, Reconceiving Infertility, 39–41.
71. Raphael, Biblical Corpora, 58, 81.
72. Baden and Moss, Reconceiving Infertility, 27–35.
73. Baden and Moss, Reconceiving Infertility, 135–36.
74. Solevåg, Birthing Salvation, 43–76.
75. I have suggested that in early Christian texts a “female dyad of disability,”
encompassing reproductive disabilities and madness/demon possession, compli-
ments the biblical trilogy of disability observed by Raphael. Solevåg, “Hysterical
Women?,” 323.
76. Baden and Moss, Reconceiving Infertility, 206–8; Solevåg, Birthing Salvation,
168–85.
77. For an introduction to Classical medicine, see Vivian Nutton, Ancient Medi-
cine (London: Routledge, 2004).
 1. Introduction: Disability and Early Christian Literature 17

in addition to seeing patients, doctors tried to systematize and share their

knowledge through writing.78 The Hippocratic collection of medical trea-
tises consists of about sixty or so preserved works that date, mostly, to the
fifth and fourth centuries BCE.79 Aristotle, too, wrote on medicine and
shows familiarity with Hippocratic writings.80 In the Roman Empire in
the first century, there was an established guild of professional—mostly
Greek—doctors trained in the Hippocratic tradition. Medical treatises
and tracts from this time period include the medical writings of Aretaeus
(first century CE), the gynecological treatise by Soranus (first to second
century CE), the Latin encyclopedic compilation on the art of medicine
by Celsus (second century CE), and the vast oeuvre of Galen (ca. 129–216
CE), the most famous doctor of his time. The medical writers tried to sys-
tematize knowledge about the body and its functions and dysfunctions,
out of which they could deduce a prognosis and give advice on treatment.
But the medical writers were also interested in the cause of illness and
disease. They specifically argued against popular belief in the gods as the
progenitors of illness and developed elaborate theories about how illness
was caused either by imbalances originating within the body or by exter-
nal factors such as nutrition, exercise, or climate.81
Most people were not familiar with the medical writers’ theories,
and it was common to attribute illness to divine intervention or ideas
about pollution, such as demon possession. It is thus possible to delineate
between two quite distinct ways of understanding both cause and cure
for various illnesses in the ancient Mediterranean. In one paradigm, the
cause of illness is ascribed to divine intervention, based in an etiology
of invasion, and in the other, it is ascribed to natural causes, based in
a system of balance both within the body and with its immediate sur-
roundings.82 This difference in understandings of health and illness may
be conceptualized using the framework of health care system from medi-
cal anthropology.83 Scholars who have applied this framework to early

78. Philip J. van der Eijk, Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity: Doctors
and Philosophers on Nature, Soul, Health and Disease (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2005), 32.
79. Nutton, Ancient Medicine, 60.
80. Van der Eijk, Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity, 14.
81. Nutton, Ancient Medicine, 70–71.
82. Martin, Corinthian Body, 146–59.
83. See Arthur Kleinman, Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture: An
18 Negotiating the Disabled Body

Christianity differentiate between a popular health care sector, a profes-

sional sector, and a folk sector that often blend into the two others.84 In
my opinion, the boundaries between folk and popular are not very clear
in antiquity, but I find a clear difference between the folk/popular sectors,
on the one side, and the professional sector, on the other. The profes-
sional sector is represented by the Hippocratic doctors with their theories
and writings. Over against this professionalized knowledge there were
the popular beliefs and ideas about illness as invasion. Within this folk/
popular sector of ancient health care, there were healers and exorcists. As
noted above, many people in the ancient world believed not only that the
gods could cause illness but also that they could heal. Asclepius came to
be seen as the healing god par excellence. In the Asclepian cult, healing
came about through incubation in the temple, where the devotee would
spend the night and receive visions from the god as a sign of healing.85
In daily life, however, these sectors were not separate but intersected.
Depending on a person’s level of education and social setting, they could
be acquainted with the scholarly idea of the physical causes of illness, or
they could be more familiar with various etiologies of divine interven-
tion in illness, demon possession among them. A person with an illness
or disability might seek healing within the family framework; from folk
healers; at an Asclepian temple or some other sanctuary; or, if they had the
access and economy to do so, from a professional doctor.86 This overlap of
ideas and notions can also be seen in the New Testament, for example, in
the woman with the flow of blood who came to Jesus, a folk healer, after
unsuccessful treatment by professional doctors (Mark 5:26).

1.6. Disability and Kyriarchy: Intersecting Power Structures

As noted above, my approach to early Christian texts draws on the theo-

retical framework of intersectionality. Marianne Bjelland Kartzow argues

Exploration of the Borderland between Anthropology, Medicine, and Psychiatry (Berke-

ley: University of California Press, 1980), 50.
84. John J. Pilch, Healing in the New Testament: Insights from Medical and Medi-
terranean Anthropology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000), 62–70; Elaine M. Wainwright,
Women Healing/Healing Women: The Genderization of Healing in Early Christianity,
ed. Philip R. Davies, Bible World (London: Equinox, 2006), 35.
85. Nutton, Ancient Medicine, 104.
86. Avalos, Health Care and the Rise of Christianity, 77–78.
 1. Introduction: Disability and Early Christian Literature 19

that intersectionality should be used “to destabilize ancient and new power
structures and ways of organizing identity.”87 She has also introduced the
helpful notion of “asking the other question” to ancient texts. This means
to examine the intersectional reasoning of the text and to ask about the
categories that are not made explicit: “When class is mentioned, it is rel-
evant to ask about gender; when ethnicity or race is at work, it is relevant
to ask about class.”88 Used in this way, intersectionality can serve as a tool
to unpack the rhetoric of a given text and fill in gaps and silences.89
To determine what it meant to be disabled in antiquity, it is necessary
to ask what other identity categories and power hierarchies intersected
with disability in order to affect a person’s social location. Schüssler Fio-
renza argues that recognizing the role of the kyrios/paterfamilias—the male
householder—is a key to understand the intersecting power structures of
antiquity. Not all men were equal in power, and the prototypical powerful
man was the male head of the household. The Greek oikonomia tradition
defined three main relationships in the household: between husband and
wife, between father and children, and between owner and slaves (Aris-
totle, Pol. 1253b). In view of this, gender, generation, and the distinction
between slave and free were important identity markers in Greco-Roman
society.90 Schüssler Fiorenza’s coinage of the terms kyriarchy/kyriarchal/
kyriocentric “underscores that domination is not simply a matter of patri-
archal, gender-based dualism but of more comprehensive, interlocking,
hierarchically ordered structures of discrimination.”91 The household was
understood as the microcosm of empire, and the emperor was configured
as a paterfamilias for all his subordinates.92 In a multicultural society like
the Roman Empire, ethnic and racial divisions also played a significant
role, as did the differentiation between center and periphery, Rome and

87. Kartzow, Destabilizing the Margins, 16.

88. Marianne Bjelland Kartzow, “ ‘Asking the Other Question’: An Intersectional
Approach to Galatians 3:28 and the Colossian Household Code,” BibInt 18 (2010): 371.
89. Kartzow, Destabilizing the Margins, 19.
90. Solevåg, Birthing Salvation, 49–51.
91. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Rhetoric and Ethic: The Politics of Biblical Studies
(Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1999), ix.
92. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “Introduction: Exploring the Intersections of
Race, Gender, Status, and Ethnicity in Early Christian Studies,” in Prejudice and Chris-
tian Beginnings: Investigating Race, Gender, and Ethnicity in Early Christian Studies,
ed. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and Laura Salah Nasrallah (Minneapolis: Fortress,
2009), 11–12.
20 Negotiating the Disabled Body

the colonies. Romanness and Greekness were considered cultures superior

to the various barbarians on the outside of the empire and to other ethnic
groups within.93 In other words, gender, age, class, citizenship, wealth, and
ethnicity were all relevant factors in evaluating and negotiating a person’s
social location.
Ideas about ability and disability operated within this kyriarchal
matrix. Ancient Greece and Rome were cultures that revered the strong,
unblemished body. In Greece it was the young, male athlete’s body that
was the perceived pinnacle of bodily strength and perfection, whereas in
Rome it was the well-trained, victorious soldier’s. In this idea of bodily
perfection, the young, able-bodied, upper-class male of Roman or Greek
descent was the norm (Aristotle, Pol. 1252–1260). Bodily perfection
was thus entangled with ideas about masculinity. Manliness tied in with
strength, courage, and self-control.94 Proper speech was also an impor-
tant part of male comportment and self-fashioning.95 Just like bodily
perfection was conceived of in terms of masculinity, weakness in body
was gendered female. Women were considered weak because of their sex.
Aristotle states in On the Generation of Animals that women are charac-
terized by inability (ἀδυναμία) as men are characterized by ability (766a;
see also 728a). Galen, too, claims that women are a less developed, some-
what truncated version of humankind, imperfect (ἀτελές) and mutilated
(ἀνάπηρον) in comparison to men (Galen, Usu part. 14.2). Hence, the
category of woman reverberated with the category of sick, as both were
related to weakness (ἀσθένεια).

93. For studies on race and ethnicity, see Denise Kimber Buell, Why This New
Race: Ethnic Reasoning in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press,
2005); Gay L. Byron, Symbolic Blackness and Ethnic Difference in Early Christian Lit-
erature (London: Routledge, 2002). The power relations between center and periphery
are central to postcolonial studies. See, e.g., Stephen D. Moore, Empire and Apocalypse:
Postcolonialism and the New Testament (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2006).
94. For studies on masculinity, see, e.g., Maud W. Gleason, Making Men: Sophists
and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995);
Craig A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiq-
uity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Stephen D. Moore and Janice Capel
Anderson, New Testament Masculinities (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003);
Colleen M. Conway, Behold the Man: Jesus and Greco-Roman Masculinity (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2008); Peter-Ben Smit, “Masculinity and the Bible: Survey,
Models and Perspectives,” BRP 2 (2017): 1–97.
95. Gleason, Making Men, 83.
 1. Introduction: Disability and Early Christian Literature 21

Class and economy were also factors that influenced the construction
of disability as well as the lived experience. People with economic means
were able to negotiate their impairments very differently than less affluent
people. For example, they could rely on slaves for transportation, nursing,
and other menial tasks.96 There is evidence that people with various dis-
abilities were involved in a wide range of economic activities.97 Still, many
disabled were cared for by their family.98 Although some people with dis-
abilities undoubtedly had to rely on begging in order to survive, it is con-
tested how common this was. Although the blind beggar is a literary trope,
it does not mean that it was a common means of survival.99 As Robert
Garland has noted, slaves had a high risk of becoming disabled, either
through hard work and neglect or by being deliberately maimed.100 Physi-
cal disability likely decreased the financial value of slaves and may have
impeded their manumission.101 Sick and disabled slaves who no longer
held economic value were sometimes left in temples or at religious healing
sites (Suetonius, Claud. 25.2). However, there was also a market for slaves
with deformed bodies. During the Roman Empire it became fashionable
among affluent households to display their wealth through a collection
of “human curiosities,” such as hunchbacks, dwarfs and “imbeciles.”102
Plutarch claims that the demand for such slaves was so great that there
was a separate monster market in Rome exclusively offering such human
“goods” (Curios. 10 [520c]).
Yet another intersection is that between race and disability. Histori-
ans, poets, and ethnographers described races distant from the perceived
center of the world as degenerate and monstrous.103 Moreover, the Greek
medical writings were quite preoccupied with geography and its influence

96. Garland, Eye of the Beholder, 30.

97. Rose, Staff of Oedipus, 40–42; Garland, Eye of the Beholder, 32–35.
98. Garland, Eye of the Beholder, 39.
99. Garland assumes so, but Trentin and Rose warn against conflating literary
tropes with the lives of ordinary people. See Garland, Eye of the Beholder, 39; Lisa
Trentin, “Exploring Visual Impairment in Roman Antiquity,” in Laes, Goodey, and
Rose, Disabilities in Roman Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 108–10; Rose, Staff of Oedi-
pus, 90–92.
100. Garland, Eye of the Beholder, 22.
101. Katy Valentine, “Reading the Slave Girl of Acts 16:16–18 in Light of Enslave-
ment and Disability,” BibInt 26 (2018): 356.
102. Garland, Eye of the Beholder, 46–47.
103. Garland, Eye of the Beholder, 159–64.
22 Negotiating the Disabled Body

on health and the body. Landscape and climate were regarded as an exter-
nal influence that could cause disease; hence different ethnic groups were
understood to be prone to different diseases due to their geographical
location. Moreover, the races themselves had certain inherent traits which,
with the exception of the Romans and the Greeks, were pathologized.104
Disability was also connected to age.105 Old age was sometimes
described negatively as a time of bodily deterioration as well as mental
decline.106 Old men were considered to be less masculine, or at least in
danger of becoming effeminate if they retreated from the public (male)
space.107 On the other hand, old age was also associated with wisdom,
virtue, maturity, and reason.108 There are clear gender differences in
descriptions of the elderly and their dis/abilities in early Christian sources.
Whereas older men are often presented as strong and fit despite their age
(e.g., Mart. Pol. 7; 13), and thus natural leaders for the community (e.g.,
1 Tim 5:17; Jas 5:14; 1 Pet 5:5), widows are presented as a quintessentially
needy category of women and often as ailing in body (e.g., Acts 4:1; 1 Tim
5:5; Acts Verc. 21).

1.7. Physiognomy: Reading the Body to Reveal the Soul

The ancient pseudoscience of physiognomy claimed that outward appear-

ance signified inner moral features and that a person’s physical traits could
be deciphered to reveal the corresponding moral qualities. Physiognomic
reasoning overlaps with disability discourse in several of the case stud-
ies in this book.109 Throughout history, people with disabilities have been

104. Nutton, Ancient Medicine, 75–76.

105. Rose, Staff of Oedipus, 23–24.
106. Tim G. Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World: A Cultural and Social History
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), 244–45.
107. Marianne Bjelland Kartzow, Gossip and Gender: Othering of Speech in the
Pastoral Epistles (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009), 185–86.
108. Barclay, John M. G., “There Is Neither Young Nor Old? Early Christianity
and Ancient Ideologies of Age,” NTS 53 (2007): 233. See also Karen King, “Images
of Aging and Immortality in Ancient Christianity,” in Metamorphoses: Resurrection,
Body and Transformative Practices in Early Christianity, ed. Turid Karlsen Seim and
Jorunn Økland (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009).
109. For the use of physiognomy in early Christian texts, see, e.g., Mikeal C. Par-
sons, Body and Character in Luke and Acts: The Subversion of Physiognomy in Early
Christianity (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006); Chad Hartsock, Sight and Blind-
 1. Introduction: Disability and Early Christian Literature 23

particularly vulnerable to physiognomic interpretations. Mitchell and

Snyder have shown how disability has been read physiognomically in nar-
ratives from antiquity until today.110 Disabled bodies exhibit a difference
that make them ripe for interpretation, they argue: “If the ‘external effect’
led directly to a knowledge of the ‘internal faculty,’ then those who inhab-
ited bodies deemed ‘outside the norm’ proved most ripe for a scrutiny of
their moral or intellectual content.”111
The physiognomic handbooks were written to help the would-be
physiognomer decipher the signs of body and face. A handful of these
have been preserved, including the rhetorician Polemon’s Physiognomy
(second century CE) and one attributed to Aristotle.112 Polemon begins
his Physiognomy thus:

Know that the eyes are the gateway to the heart, from which arises the
cares of the soul and appear the secrets of the conscience.… I shall now
describe to you the external form of the eyes, their shapes, indications
and signs, such as will suffice you to practice physiognomy, for they are
among the witnesses that provide the truest information for physiog-
nomy as regards the knowledge you seek about good and bad.113

In minute detail, these handbooks describe different features, such as

narrow or wide foreheads, different eye colors, and shape of the nose, and
explain what the corresponding personality traits are. The handbooks
focus on the eyes and the face, but they also describe signs for the rest of
the body, as well as voice and gait. The physiognomer was also expected to
decipher the connection between certain bodily features and their resem-

ness in Luke-Acts: The Use of Physical Features in Characterization, BINS (Leiden: Brill,
2008); Karl Olav Sandnes, Belly and Body in the Pauline Epistles, SNTSMS 120 (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); J. Albert Harrill, “Invective against Paul
(2 Cor 10:10), the Physiognomics of the Ancient Slave Body, and the Greco-Roman
Rhetoric of Manhood,” in Antiquity and Humanity: Essays on Ancient Religion and
Philosophy, ed. Adela Yarbro Collins and Margaret M. Mitchell (Tübingen: Mohr Sie-
beck, 2001).
110. Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 57–61.
111. Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 59.
112. For texts, translations, and introductory essays, see Simon Swain, ed. Seeing
the Face, Seeing the Soul: Polemon’s Physiognomy from Classical Antiquity to Medieval
Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
113. George Boys-Stones, “Physiognomy and Ancient Psychological Theory,” in
Swain, Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul, 341.
24 Negotiating the Disabled Body

blance to different animals and their innate characteristic.114 Within this

body of literature race and ethnicity were connected with moral qualities,
and the perceived degeneracy of all races other than the Greeks is quite
clear in the racial stereotyping that the physiognomies offer.115
According to Polemon, “fast-moving eyes indicate evil, wicked con-
jecture, and lack of truth”; “if the feet are very fleshy and soft, they indicate
weakness, softness, and laxity”; and “largeness of the stomach and great
fleshiness, especially if it has softness and droop, indicates much move-
ment, drunkenness, and love of sexual intercourse.”116 The taxonomy is
clear: good-looking men are good, but those with nonnormative bodies
betray a deviant soul. Masculinity and male self-presentation are highly
important in the physiognomic writings, as Maud Gleason has demon-
strated. These handbooks were written to help men of the ruling class dif-
ferentiate between the masculine—and hence morally good—man and the
effeminate; they were “a tool for decoding the signs of gender deviance.”117
Gait and voice were particularly important signs to look for in terms of
gender deviance. According to Polemon, “You should learn [the signs of
masculinity and femininity] from the gaze, the movement, and the voice.”118
The handbooks also draw on class and ethnic stereotypes and explain how
to distinguish the capable male not only from the effeminate but also from
the slavish.119

1.8. Reading Early Christian Texts with a Disability Studies Lens

Biblical scholars drawing on disability studies do not follow one particular

methodology. The emphasis varies, from attention to terminology and lit-
erary representation, to critique of normate tendencies in previous schol-
arship, to constructive rereadings in an effort to “reclaim the identity of
those stigmatized as ‘other.’ ”120 The perspectives and concepts I have pre-

114. Robert Hoyland, “A New Edition and Translation of the Leiden Polemon,” in
Swain, Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul, 385.
115. Simon Swain, “Polemon’s Physiognomy,” in Swain, Seeing the Face, Seeing the
Soul, 197.
116. Hoyland, “New Edition and Translation of the Leiden Polemon,” 347, 397, 405.
117. Gleason, Making Men, 58.
118. Hoyland, “New Edition and Translation of the Leiden Polemon,” 393.
119. Harrill, “Invective Against Paul,” 119.
120. See, respectively, Laes, “Introduction,” 8; Raphael, Biblical Corpora, 21–26;
 1. Introduction: Disability and Early Christian Literature 25

sented in this chapter provide some guiding principles in my own analysis

of the texts.
An important contribution of this volume is to bring the analysis
of disability in ancient texts into dialogue with particular concepts and
insights from disability studies. I think concepts such as Mitchell and Sny-
der’s theory of narrative prosthesis, Erving Goffman’s notion of stigma, and
Susan Sontag’s analysis of illness as metaphor can serve as useful lenses
when reading early Christian texts on disability. Putting such modern
frameworks in conversation with ancient texts may also help develop and
fine-tune these interpretive tools.
In an effort to contextualize the text within its ancient location, I pay
attention to the disability terminology in the texts. I examine terms for
disabilities, illnesses, and sometimes healing in order to understand how
people with nonnormative bodies are labeled. I understand these terms
and labels as embedded in discourse and engaged for a variety of pur-
poses. Hence, I also search for hints of taxonomic efforts and ask how
representations of disability function within the literary framework. Is dis-
ability used for a particular literary purpose? Which medical or etiological
frameworks does the text rely on in its presentation of disability?
I also try to probe the lived experience of disability by asking ques-
tions about the social location of characters with disabilities. An impor-
tant aspect of my approach is to bring intersectional perspectives to bear
in studies of illness and disability in early Christian texts. What difference
does it make when we ask questions about gender, sexuality, age, class, eth-
nicity, and so on in conjunction with dis/ability? In some cases, I also take
an interest in the research history of the texts I study. Can we see traces of
a normate biases in previous scholarship?
These guiding principles should not be seen not as steps in a fixed
methodological approach but more as areas of inquiry that may be com-
bined in different ways to provide a meaningful mapping of a text’s negoti-
ation of disability. It is an open-ended approach that explores the multiple
ways in which a disability studies lens may be used.121

Schipper, Disability and Isaiah’s Suffering Servant, 10–12; Lawrence, Sense and Stigma
in the Gospels, 1–2.
121. For a concluding discussion of disability studies approaches to the Bible, see
§8.3.
26 Negotiating the Disabled Body

1.8.1. Outline of the Book

The chapters are organized around particular case studies. In each chapter
I introduce a text or a set of texts together with a particular theoretical
concept from disability studies that I find useful for the analysis. In the first
three chapters I focus on healing narratives, since early Christian stories
about miraculous healing have been important for theological reflection
around disability throughout Christian history.122 In chapter 2 I look at
two healing stories from the Gospel of Mark: the lame man with the four
helpers (2:1–10) and the demon-possessed Syro-Phoenician girl (7:24–30).
I introduce Mitchell and Snyder’s theory of narrative prosthesis as a model
for understanding the literary work of disability in texts and explore the
various designations and meanings of these characters’ disabilities. I show
how a disability studies approach opens up for new questions, digging
deeper into the intersectional aspects of living with various disabilities and
how it may have varied according to age, gender, class, and ethnicity.
The Gospel of John has only three healing stories, which are the focus
of chapter 3. I argue that the royal official’s son (4:46–54), the man by the
Bethesda pool (5:1–15), and the man born blind (9:1–41) represent dif-
ferent categories of illness (fever) and disability (mobility impairment
and blindness) as well as a range of social locations. I draw on Sontag’s
discussion of metaphors of illness as a helpful framework to understand
the highly symbolic, metaphorical use of disability that John represents.
John’s symbolic use of blindness in particular draws on a cultural script
that aligns blindness with ignorance and lack of insight. I show how John
introduces different terms for and ideas about disability and illness than
the Synoptics, and I also show that the use of disability in the narrative is
quite different from Mark’s.
In contrast to John, where only men are healed, women are the pri-
mary characters in the healing narratives in the Acts of Peter. Chapter 4

122. See, e.g., Nancy L. Eiesland, The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theol-
ogy of Disability (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994), 70–75; Jennifer L. Koosed and Darla
Schumm, “Out of the Darkness: Examining the Rhetoric of Blindness in the Gospel
of John,” in Disability in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: Sacred Texts, Historical
Traditions, and Social Analysis, ed. Darla Schumm and Michael Stoltzfus (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); Julia Watts Belser and Melanie S. Morrison, “What No
Longer Serves Us: Resisting Ableism and Anti-Judaism in New Testament Healing
Narratives,” JFSR 27.2 (2011): 153–70.
 1. Introduction: Disability and Early Christian Literature 27

analyzes references to and uses of disability in this second-century apoc-

ryphal work. Acts of Peter is chosen due to its stories of unhealing as well
as healing, and the attention devoted to women and their sexuality within
the context of disability. I look at four instances of un/healing of women:
Peter’s healing and unhealing of his lame daughter (Act Pet.); the dis-
abling punishment of a Christ-believing woman, Rufina, who is caught in
adultery (Act. Verc. 2); the healing of a group of blind widows (Act. Verc.
20–21); and a vision of the dismemberment and killing of a female demon
(Act. Verc. 22). I draw on the concept of “the male gaze,” developed by
feminist classics scholars, and Garland-Thomson’s concept of “staring” in
order to tease out the gendered aspects of disability in the narrative.
In the final three chapters I look at representations of disability in tex-
tual contexts that are not preoccupied with healing. In all these chapters,
the overlap between discourses of disability and masculinity come to the
fore. I argue that the normate male in antiquity is able-bodied and that
disability invective, accusations about a deviant body, was used in ancient
rhetoric. Goffman’s notion of stigma frames chapter 5, which explores
accusations against Jesus that he was demon-possessed (e.g., Mark 3:19–
30; Matt 12:22) and Paul’s efforts to defend himself against accusations
of madness in the Corinthian correspondence (esp. 2 Cor 11). The chap-
ter also discusses the categories of madness and demon possession as two
alternative etiologies that explain deviant behavior, based in different sec-
tors of the ancient health care system.
In chapter 6 I examine the church father Papias’s description of the
death of Judas (Frag. 4.2–3) to show how disability is used as a category of
invective. Papias draws on medical insights as well as physiognomy to car-
icature Judas as disabled and effeminate. He uses the culturally assigned
location of blindness and dropsy—as disabilities and illnesses that reveal
moral character—to construct a deviant body that fits his deviant soul.
Here I introduce monster theory as a useful theoretical framework to
understand the text.
The final analytical chapter (ch. 7) employs Robert McRuer’s crip
theory and cripping as a process of critique to read the eunuch figure
in antiquity. The eunuch category may be understood as a reproductive
disability, and the inclusion of this category thus broadens the variety of
disabilities discussed in this book. The two New Testament passages that
employ the term (Matt 19:12; Acts 8:24–30) are analyzed with a view to
how bodily signs were reinterpreted as part of early Christian discourse
on inclusion and exclusion. In the conclusion (ch. 8), I reflect on the long
28 Negotiating the Disabled Body

lines through history that connect notions about disability from early
Christianity to postmodern culture. I also draw together the various read-
ings and perspectives, pointing to some common themes and suggesting
some potentials for future research.
 2
Healings as Narrative Prosthesis in Mark

2.1. Introduction: Narrative Prosthesis

In this chapter I examine the representations of disability in two healing

stories from Mark: the man with the four helpers (2:1–12) and the Syro-
Phoenician woman’s daughter (7:24–30). First, I discuss the labels that these
disabled characters are given—“paralyzed” and “demon-possessed”—but
also try to determine these narrative characters’ social location through
an intersectional lens. Second, I examine how disability functions in these
narratives, using the concept of narrative prosthesis, which I will intro-
duce below. I suggest that Mark deploys disability in a particular way that
has both likenesses and differences to the way disability functions in other
gospels or early Christian narratives.
Mitchell and Snyder have observed that disability has an unusual liter-
ary history. Whereas racial and sexual minorities have been invisible in
the dominant culture’s literature, disabled peoples’ social invisibility has
occurred despite the pervasive use of disabled characters in literature since
antiquity.1 Why this never-ending fascination with the representation of
disability? Mitchell and Snyder have proposed that “disability has been
used throughout history as a crutch upon which literary narratives lean
for their representational power, disruptive potentiality, and analytical
insight.”2 They call this literary dependency on disability narrative pros-
thesis. According to Mitchell and Snyder, there are two ways in which a
disabled character can serve as a prosthetic for the narrative: first, as a nar-
rative element that somehow resolves the problem of deviance; second, as
a metaphorical device drawing on physiognomic reasoning.

1. Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 6.

2. Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 49.

-29-
30 Negotiating the Disabled Body

In the first trajectory, disability supplies the impetus to tell a story. As

Mitchell and Snyder say, “The very need for a story is called into being
when something has gone amiss with the known world.… Stories com-
pensate for an unknown or unnatural deviance that begs an explanation.”3
In other words, the story reveals a need to resolve or correct the problem
of disability. It is an effort at meaning-making: “Because disability repre-
sents that which goes awry in the normalizing bodily scheme, narratives
sought to unravel the riddle of anomaly’s origins.”4 Such stories follow a
simple narrative structure: first, a deviance is exposed; second, an explana-
tion of origin or consequences is called for; third, the deviance is brought
to the center of the story; and fourth, the story rehabilitates the deviance
in some manner. The repair of deviance can happen in different ways:
through some sort of cure, through rescue from social censure, through
the extermination of the deviant character as a purification of the social
body, or through a revaluation of modes of being.5 The healing stories in
the gospels follow such a prosthetic narrative scheme. For example, the
story of the man born blind (John 9:1–7) starts with the disciples’ ques-
tion: “Rabbi, who sinned?” (John 9:2). The observation of a blind man
requires an explanation and serves as the impetus for the ensuing narra-
tive, which ends with the rehabilitation of the problem of the man’s lack of
sight through a miraculous healing.
In the second trajectory, disability is used to reveal the moral charac-
ter of the person or represent a negative moral trait more generally. Going
back to the ancient pseudoscience of physiognomy, disability has been
interpreted as an external symptom of an inner, moral deviance, according
to Mitchell and Snyder. Disability has thus been used by writers to allow
a metaphorical play between macro- and microregisters of meaning.6 An
example from the gospels is the Q saying about the eye as the lamp of the
body: “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your
whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole
body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how
great is the darkness!” (Matt 6:22–23 // Luke 11:34–36).7 Sight and health
are here metaphorically connected to moral superiority, while a sick eye

3. Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 53.

4. Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 59.
5. Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 53–54.
6. Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 60–62.
7. For a disability perspective reading of this saying, see Candida R. Moss, “Mark
 2. Healings as Narrative Prosthesis in Mark 31

serves as a metaphor for lack of understanding and moral judgment. In the

following chapters I will give examples of such metaphorical and physiog-
nomic uses of disability.
Mitchell and Snyder use the concept to read a number of literary
works from different times and cultures, such as Sophocles’s Oedipus
Rex, Shakespeare’s King Lear, and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. They
argue that all these stories are examples of the same phenomenon: they
are stories that seek to prostheticize—to resolve or correct—a deviance
that seems improper in a social context.8 As noted, the healing stories
in early Christian gospels and acts fit neatly into Mitchell and Snyder’s
description. These narratives follow a particular prostheticizing script
in which the problem of disability is resolved through a miraculous act
of healing. The healing gives credit to God, instigates conversion, and
thus functions as a narrative device that drives the story forward. This
pattern has been observed by biblical scholars drawing on Mitchell and
Snyder’s theory, and it will be part of my argument as well.9 However,
the various prosthetic uses in healing stories and other literary repre-
sentations of disability raise the question of whether or not the term
narrative prosthesis is a sharp enough analytical tool. It seems to me that
most stories that involve disabled characters can be labeled as narra-
tively prosthetic. It is the various ways that this prostheticizing happens
that is interesting and needs to be more closely mapped. In some texts
the metaphorical trajectory is most clearly at play; in other instances it
is the narrative drive that is more apparent. Moreover, the metaphorical
trajectory can project inwardly in a physiognomic move, but it can also
project outwardly, beyond the individual character, as I will show in this
chapter. In subsequent chapters, I will also comment on the fact that the
metaphorical trajectory of narrative prosthesis is not limited to narrative
texts but can be found in rhetorical and argumentative texts as well (see
§5.3 and ch. 6).

and Matthew,” in Melcher, Parsons, and Yong, Bible and Disability, 281–82. On blind-
ness as a metaphor in the gospels, see discussion in ch. 3.
8. Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 53.
9. See, e.g., Raphael, Biblical Corpora, 53–54; Lawrence, Sense and Stigma in the
Gospels, 32–33.
32 Negotiating the Disabled Body

2.1.1. Markan Healings

In Mark, Jesus’s healings are foregrounded and appear early in comparison

to the other canonical gospels. Already in the first chapter, Mark narrates
three explicit healing incidents: the possessed in the synagogue (1:23–
27), Peter’s feverish mother-in-law (1:30–31), and the leper (1:40–44). A
fourth, the healing of the paralytic, follows immediately after (2:1–12).10
The stories are interspersed with comments on how the word about Jesus’s
healing activity spread and people flocked to see him (see 1:28, 32–33, 45;
2:2). Mark also adds two summary statements that emphasize Jesus’s heal-
ing activity (1:34, 39). Luke follows Mark in placing these four healings
at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry but inserts the birth narrative before
them and breaks the sequence of healing stories up by interjecting the call-
ing of the disciples (see Luke 4–5). In the Gospel of Matthew, the first heal-
ing story does not occur until chapter 8, after the Sermon on the Mount.
There is, however, a summary statement about Jesus’s preaching and heal-
ing activity in 4:23–24.
In Mark, Jesus heals the demon-possessed (1:23–26; 5:2–13; 7:25–
30; 9:14–27) alongside other sick and disabled people, such as a leprous
person (1:40–45), two men with some sort of paralysis (2:3–12; 3:1–5), a
terminally ill child (5:23, 35–42), a woman with gynecological problems
(5:25–34), a deaf-mute (7:31–37), and blind people (8:22–25; 10:46–52).
According to Elaine M. Wainwright, Jesus is cast as a folk healer in con-
trast to professional healers by the Markan storyteller.11
The two passages I will analyze are quite different from one another,
in terms of both content and placement within the framework of Mark’s
narrative. The first, the story of the paralyzed man with four helpers (Mark
2:1–12), occurs early in the gospel, as the final healing in the series that
inaugurates Jesus’s ministry. In the second, Jesus heals a Syro-Phoenician
girl who is demon-possessed (7:24–30). The story is one of four healing
stories in Mark concerned with demon possession. This story is the only
healing from a distance in this gospel. Jesus heals both men and women,
girls and boys in Mark, and the two passages I have chosen thus repre-

10. I use Mark as a designation of the anonymous author of the Gospel of Mark.
For more on the authorship of Mark, see Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary,
Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 2–6.
11. Wainwright, Women Healing/Healing Women, 102–4.
 2. Healings as Narrative Prosthesis in Mark 33

sent a variety in terms of disability, age, gender, ethnicity, and perhaps also
class, as I will argue.

2.2. “Take Your Mat and Go to Your Home”:

The Man with the Four Helpers (Mark 2:1–12)

The story about the man with the four helpers occurs in all the Synoptic
Gospels (Mark 2:1–12 // Matt 9:2–8 // Luke 5:17–26). In Mark, the pas-
sage starts with Jesus in a home (ἐν ὄικῳ, 2:1) teaching the word (ὁ λόγος,
2:2).12 Unable to get through the throng of people gathered to see Jesus, a
paralyzed man (παραλυτικός, 2:3) is lowered by four helpers through the
ceiling to get to Jesus. Upon seeing their faith, Jesus forgives the man his
sins (2:5). This action causes grumbling among a group of scribes who are
present because only God can forgive sins. Although they are only think-
ing “in their hearts” that Jesus is blaspheming, Jesus senses this and con-
fronts them with a question: “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your
sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk’?” (2:9).
Jesus then heals the man in order to show that he does indeed have the
authority to forgive sins: “So that you may know that the Son of Man has
authority on earth to forgive sins” (2:10).
The character in the story is called “the paralytic” (ὁ παραλυτικός)
throughout the story and is thus identified by and through his disabil-
ity. This is similar to how other disabled characters are labeled in Mark.
They are usually just referred to as “a leper” (λεπρός, Mark 1:40), “a deaf
(man)” (7:32), or “a blind (man)” and very seldom have a name or a
family connection.13 Within the disability movement, such designations
have been criticized and some disability activists argue for the use of
people-first language.14 Referring to a “person with a disability” rather
than “a disabled person” underscores that disability is one characteristic

12. Presumably in Peter’s home, which seems to be Jesus base at the beginning
of Mark (cf. 1:29), Joel Marcus, Mark 1–8: A New Translation with Introduction and
Commentary, AB 27A (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 2000), 215.
13. The only named individual with a disability is Bartimeus (Mark 10:46–52). It
is perhaps significant that he becomes a follower of Jesus (10:52). It can also be argued
that Peter’s mother-in-law and Jairus’s daughter are named, as they are at least identifi-
able individuals with a family connection. For the difference in labeling between male
and female persons with disabilities in early Christian narrative, see Solevåg, “Hysteri-
cal Women?,” 317.
14. Goodley, Disability Studies, 12–13.
34 Negotiating the Disabled Body

of that individual but not the defining variable.15 A person should not be
reduced to his or her disability, and as part of this case study I make an
effort to flesh out other aspects of this character. Yet strictly adhering to
people-first language is hardly in itself liberating. I refer to the character
in this story and literary figures throughout the book in a variety of ways
in an effort to, in Thomson’s words, reveal “both the cultural work and
the limits of language.”16
It is clear that the term παραλυτικός refers to some kind of mobility
impairment. The man lies on a mat (κράβαττον, 2:9, 11) and is carried
by four helpers (αἰρόμενον ὑπὸ τεσσάρων, 2:3). The word παραλυτικός is an
adjective constructed from the verb παραλύω, which means “to undo, dis-
able, or enfeeble.”17 Within the New Testament, the term occurs only in
Mark and Matthew. In Mark, it is just the man with the four helpers who is
referred to as παραλυτικός. In Matthew it appears in a summary statement
about Jesus’s ministry (4:24), in the parallel version of this story (9:1–8),
and in the story about the centurion with the sick servant (8:6). This adjec-
tive does not occur in the Greek literary corpus outside of early Christian
usage that derives from these Matthean and Markan passages. A more
common term for a person with some sort of bodily paralysis is the per-
fect passive participle of παραλύω, παραλελυμένος. This term occurs in the
Hippocratic collection as well as in Aristotle and Galen.18 Παραλελυμένος
is also the term Luke uses in his version of our story, a fact that has been
used to support the argument that Luke was a doctor.19 That claim remains
uncertain, but it has been shown that the author of Luke is influenced by
medical terminology and had some knowledge of ancient medicine.20
Another common Greek term for a person with a mobility impair-
ment is χωλός. This term designates a spectrum of afflictions, from being
entirely lame to having a limp or other sort of slight mobility challenge.21

15. Linton, Claiming Disability, 13.

16. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, “Feminist Disability Studies,” Signs 30
(2005): 1559.
17. LSJ, s.v. “παραλύω.”
18. See, e.g., Hippocrates, Epid. 1.26; Aristotle, Eth. nic. 1102b; Galen, Caus. mor.
7.30.7–31.
19. Wendy Cotter, The Christ of the Miracle Stories: Portrait through Encounter
(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010), 89.
20. Annette Weissenrieder, Images of Illness in the Gospel of Luke: Insights of
Ancient Medical Texts (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 335, 357.
21. Rose, Staff of Oedipus, 13.
 2. Healings as Narrative Prosthesis in Mark 35

In the New Testament, χωλός occurs frequently (e.g., Matt 11:5; 15:30–31;
Mark 9:45; Luke 7:22; Acts 3:2). This seems to be the term used about con-
genital mobility impairments. For example, there are two healing stories
in Acts in which a man lame from birth is healed by the apostles. Both
these men are designated χωλός (χωλὸς ἐκ κοιλίας μητρὸς, Acts 3:2; 14:8).
Whereas χωλός is a more generic, colloquial term, παραλύω and παράλυσις
are medical terms, frequently used in the medical corpus. The medical
writer Aretaeus has a chapter on παράλυσις in his book On the Causes and
Symptoms of Chronic Disease:

There are six causes of paralytic disorders; for they arise from a wound, a
blow, exposure to cold, indigestion, venery, intoxication. But so likewise
the vehement affections of the soul, such as astonishment, fear, dejection
of spirits, and, in children, frights. Great and unexpected joy has also
occasioned paralysis [παρὲλυσε], as, likewise, unrestrained laughter, even
unto death. These, indeed, are the primary causes; but the ultimate and
vital cause is refrigeration of the innate heat. It suffers from humidity, or
dryness, and is more incurable than the other; but if also in connection
with a wound, and complete cutting asunder of a nerve, it is incurable.
… When the affections are confirmed, they are made manifest by loss of
motion, insensibility of heat and cold; and also of plucking the hair, of
tickling, and of touching. (Sign. diut. 1.7 [Adams])

Aretaeus mentions a variety of causes for paralysis. The Hippocratic para-

digm of imbalance and the influence of the surroundings on a person’s
health can be seen in his mention of sleep, climate, intake of food and
drink, emotional stress, and so on.22
Why has Mark chosen to call this particular man παραλυτικός? What
is different about him, so that the more common χωλός is not used? Per-
haps he has symptoms similar to Aretaeus’s description? The centurion’s
sick servant in Matthew is also labeled παραλυτικός. Whatever has afflicted
the centurion’s slave, it seems to be a recent development and the person
is said to be in great pain: “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed
[παραλυτικός], in terrible distress” (Matt 8:6). Although it is impossible
to say with any certainty, the label given to the man with the four helpers
may point toward an impairment that was recently acquired, painful, and
perhaps more serious than the general designation χωλός would imply.

22. Rose, Staff of Oedipus, 13

36 Negotiating the Disabled Body

The fact that he is carried on a stretcher points in this direction. A person

labeled χωλός might only have a limp and thus have the ability to walk her-
or himself, perhaps with a cane or crutch.

2.2.1. Fleshing Out a Paralytic

In the following I will widen the focus to other aspects of this Markan
character. How could a first-century Greco-Roman writer like Mark imag-
ine the social location and behavior of a person with a mobility impair-
ment, one he decides to designate παραλυτικός? I argue that this character
is portrayed as resourceful in several respects.
First, Mark presents this character as a man with four helpers. Together
with his helpers, he is able to get up on the roof, dismantle it, and be low-
ered into the room where Jesus is. After he is healed, Jesus says “take your
mat and go to your home [εἰς τὸν οἶκόν σου].” In other words, the man has
a house to return to.23 Is he a householder, a master of his own house-
hold? One might get closer to an answer by probing the identity of his four
helpers. These characters are only referred to by their number (αἰρόμενον
ὑπὸ τεσσάρων, Mark 2:3). Joel Marcus refers to these helpers as friends
and incorporates this understanding into his translation: “And a paralytic
was brought to him, carried by four of his friends.” Marcus also seems to
assume that the man is poor, noting the BDAG reference to κράββατος
as “the poor person’s bed.”24 However, κράββατος is a quite general term
denoting a piece of furniture to lie on.25
In antiquity, friendship was a social relation based on equality. In
contrast to familial or patron-client relationships, which were hierar-
chical, indeed kyriarchical, friendship between free men was based on
reciprocity and equality in social position.26 It seems unlikely, therefore,
that friends would carry a fellow free male, as this was typically a task

23. Cf. the man by the Bethesda pool (John 5:1–9), who does not seem to have a
home; see §3.3.
24. Marcus, Mark 1–8, 215–16. The identity of the helpers is vague also in Mat-
thew and Luke’s version, and the same assumption by commentators can be found
here. See, e.g., David F. Watson, “Luke-Acts,” in Melcher, Parsons, Yong, Bible and
Disability, 310.
25. LSJ, s.v. “κράββατος”: “couch, mattress, pallet.” BDAG, s.v. “κράββατος”: “mat-
tress, pallet, the poor man’s bed.”
26. David Konstan, Friendship in the Classical World (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997), 90–92.
 2. Healings as Narrative Prosthesis in Mark 37

for slaves. In Greco-Roman society, wealthy people would rely on their

slaves for their mobility needs whether they were disabled or not. Litters
(lecticae) and sedan chairs (sellae) carried by slaves were a common sight
in ancient cities.27 The wealthiest had particular slaves set aside for the
task of carrying their owners. Called lecticarii, these were often the tall-
est, strongest, and most handsome of their male slaves.28 Litters, cots, and
stretchers were used for transporting the sick and injured as well as people
permanently unable to walk.29 Inscriptional evidence from the Asclepian
cult tells of a suppliant, Epidaurus, who came to the temple on a stretcher
(κλίνη) and of another one, Diaetus, who was carried by his servants to the
temple and was assisted by them while he was there.30 Plutarch mentions
a lame engineer of siege engines, Artemos, who acquired the nickname
Periphoretus because he was carried everywhere on a litter (φορεῖων, Per.
27.3–4). These examples show that a person with a mobility impairment
was not excluded from traveling or holding an occupation as long as they
were affluent or important enough to have slaves to carry them. For some-
one less affluent who had mobility needs, family members might serve
such a function.
It seems plausible that the four helpers in Mark’s story are presented
as slaves or perhaps family members, rather than friends. I argue that the
man in our story is constructed by Mark as a householder affluent enough
to rely on servants for his transportation needs. Although no family is
mentioned, it was quite uncommon for a Jewish man not to be married.
As I have argued above, the term παραλυτικός may signal that the impair-
ment was recently acquired rather than congenital. If the figure Mark con-
structed is an affluent householder, the reader might assume that he has a
wife and children, as well as slaves.

27. The litter, lectica (Greek, φορεῖων or σκιμπόδιον), was carried by up to eight
slaves. See William Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (London:
John Murray, 1914), s.v. “lectica.”
28. Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, s.v. “lectica.”
29. Rose, Staff of Oedipus, 25. See also Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman
Antiquities, s.v. “lectica”: “Shortly after the introduction of these lecticae among the
Romans, and during the latter period of the Republic, they appear to have been very
common, though they were chiefly used in journeys, and in the city of Rome itself
only by ladies and invalids.”
30. Emma J. Edelstein and Ludwig Edelstein, Asclepius: Collection and Interpre-
tation of the Testimonies, 2 vols. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998),
1:236–37.
38 Negotiating the Disabled Body

Second, the plot—dismantling the roof and lowering the man down—
requires courage and self-confidence. But by whom: the man seeking heal-
ing or his helpers? Several commentators seem to assume the latter, imply-
ing that the disabled character is rather passive. Marcus notes that the
paralytic’s “helpless condition is underlined by the fact that he has been
carried on a stretcher by four of his friends.”31 The friends, on the other
hand, are considered creative and courageous: “The boundary is crossed
through a bold move by the paralytic’s friends.”32 Adela Yarbro Collins
likewise assumes that the scheme is implemented on the helpers’ initiative
rather than by the man on the mat: “They take extraordinary means to
overcome the obstacle posed by the crowd blocking their access to Jesus.”33
Even though the man with the four helpers needs assistance to carry the
scheme out, Mark does not indicate whose idea it was to dismantle the
roof. It is possible that Mark intended the reader to understand that the
disabled man himself was the brain behind the scheme and the one who
instructed the four helpers to carry it out. Marcus and Collins fill in gaps
in the story with assumptions about the ingenuity of the friends without
considering the possibility that the man on the mat had a say in the matter.
By rereading this story with an awareness of the assumptions about
people with disabilities as poor and passive, one might discern the con-
tours of a character that seems quite self-confident. He is not afraid to
be at the center of attention but lets his helpers take apart someone else’s
house and takes center stage as he is lowered down in front of Jesus and
the crowds. Contrast this bold-faced action to the behavior of the woman
suffering from hemorrhages, who sneaks up on Jesus from behind,
silently touching the hem of his garment (Mark 5:27). It seems that a cer-
tain social status is reflected in this spectacular performance. In fact, the
paralytic’s behavior is similar to Jairus’s. Both these men confront Jesus
with their petitions in front of a large crowd (Mark 5:21). Jairus is confi-
dent about addressing Jesus because of his status in the community as a
synagogue leader. Similarly, the man with the four helpers seems confi-
dent enough about his standing in the community to face the crowds and
disturb Jesus’s preaching.
Third, the roof scheme shows creativity and ingenuity. Public spaces
have often been designed with a normate bias, thus limiting disabled

31. Marcus, Mark 1–8, 220.

32. Marcus, Mark 1–8, 220.
33. Collins, Mark, 184–85.
 2. Healings as Narrative Prosthesis in Mark 39

people’s access to these spaces.34 People with disabilities thus often need
to think outside the box in order to maneuver the physical world. The
invention and production of prosthetics is one example of this creativity.
Although we know that prosthetics were crafted and used in antiquity,
they are not mentioned at all in the Hippocratic corpus, and very seldom
in the medical literature overall. Rose argues that the reason for this is
that prosthetics were individually crafted items, not medically prescribed
implements.35 Hence, it may well have been the lame man himself that
skillfully crafted his own access to the place he wanted to be.
I suggest, then, that the man we meet in Mark 2:1–11 is presented as
a quite resourceful person. Having a home and (at least) four servants, he
is portrayed as somewhat affluent. We do not know anything about his
family, but the impairment described would not exclude him from having
a wife and children, nor from having a profession. His determination and
audacity in getting to Jesus suggests that he has some respect and author-
ity in the community. Finally, he is resourceful in engineering his own
access to a seemingly inaccessible space. This is perhaps a novel picture
of the man with the four helpers in Mark. I think it is important to read
narratives with disabled characters without making the assumption that
all such characters in the New Testament are presented in the same way—
as belonging to the social category of the destitutely poor.36 As I hope to
show in this book, reading with an intersectional lens reveals a much more
complex picture. The disabled body is negotiated in a number of ways in
early Christian texts.

2.2.2. Disability and Sin

Since the reader has already encountered several healing stories by the
time she gets to Mark 2:1, the expectation after the paralytic is lowered
through the ceiling is that Jesus will proceed to heal him. He does not. He
forgives the man his sins—to the provocation of the scribes (Mark 2:7).
Why does Jesus forgive the man his sins? Does the Markan Jesus connect

34. Accessibility is one on the guiding principles of the United Nations Conven-
tion on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; see article 9: www.un.org/develop-
ment/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities.html.
35. Rose, Staff of Oedipus, 26.
36. As argued by Staffan Bengtsson, “The Two-Sided Coin: Disability, Normalcy
and Social Categorization in the New Testament,” SJDR 18 (2016): 1–11.
40 Negotiating the Disabled Body

disability and sin? Is the man disabled because he has sinned, according
to this story? The narrator does not make the connection clear. The man
has not asked for forgiveness (note, by the way, that neither has he asked
for healing). Is he perceived as particularly sinful, compared to the other
people gathered, due to his condition? Sin was associated with sickness
in first-century Palestine and could thus be viewed as an obstacle to heal-
ing.37 This sentiment can be seen in John 9:2, when the disciples ask Jesus,
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” If
this is the underlying sentiment in Mark, Jesus first needs to forgive him
his sins in order to be able to heal him. It is possible that Mark leans in this
direction, since only the paralytic is forgiven his sins, not the helpers (5:5).
However, this may also be explained by the fact that the paralytic is a more
central figure in the story.
Alternatively, Mark may not be positing a causal link between Jesus’s
forgiveness of sins and his healing action.38 The fact that the Markan Jesus
gives priority to forgive the man his sins before he heals him may instead
be interpreted as a sign that Jesus is not primarily interested in this person
as a paralytic but sees him, to adopt the language of twentieth-century
disability activism, from a people-first perspective. When Jesus addresses
the man, he calls him “child” (τέκνον, 2:5). Thus, Jesus frames him as first
and foremost a child of God, or perhaps, as Collins suggests, a pupil in a
sage-student relationship.39 As a human being, this person with a mobility
impairment is under the human condition of sin—a condition everyone
needs to repent from (Mark 1:15). When Jesus forgives the man his sins,
the reader may understand this as a sign of the inbreaking of the kingdom
of God: the forgiveness of sins is an act that everyone who encounters
Jesus may seek.
How about the reverse side of the sin/disability connection? Candida
Moss argues that “bodily wholeness and faith in Jesus are intimately con-
nected” in Mark. She posits that according to the Markan Jesus, “your
faith makes you well.”40 A closer look might reveal some nuances to this
picture. Among the fourteen healing stories in Mark, Jesus only remarks
on the faith of two characters that are healed: the woman with the flow of
blood (5:25–34) and the blind Bartimeus (10:46–52). Jesus says to both of

37. Marcus, Mark 1–8, 221.

38. Marcus, Mark 1–8, 221.
39. Collins, Mark, 185.
40. Moss, “Mark and Matthew,” 284.
 2. Healings as Narrative Prosthesis in Mark 41

them: “Your faith has made you well” (ἡ πίστις σου σέσωκέν σε, 5:34; 10:52).
More often, however, it is a helper or family member whose faith is being
tested or commented upon by the narrator (e.g., the four helpers of the
paralyzed man in 2:5, the father Jairus in 5:23, 36, the Syro-Phoenician
mother in 7:29, and the father of the demon-possessed boy in 9:17–24).41
Moss herself suggests that the seeming connection between disability and
sin in Mark is disrupted in the saying on autoamputation in 9:42–48. The
saying “treats disability not as the consequence of sin but as its preventa-
tive” and also “admits that disabled bodies are accepted in the kingdom of
God.”42 These examples show that even within the Gospel of Mark, there
are multiple ways of configuring disability and sin. The various connec-
tions between sin and disability I have traced so far show that the notion of
a premodern moral model that unambiguously connects disability and sin
is too simple (see §1.3). However, the fact that sin becomes a topic in this
passage also underscores Mitchell and Snyder’s point that disabled bodies
provoke efforts at meaning-making and that perceived deviance requires
an explanation. As I will come back to in the conclusion to this chapter,
this healing story serves as a narrative prosthesis, resolving “a deviance
marked as improper to a social context.”43

2.3. A Demon-Possessed Girl and Her Persuasive Mother (Mark 7:24–30)

I now move on to explore another healing narrative in Mark, the story

about the Syro-Phoenician woman and her demon-possessed daughter
(Mark 7:24–30). In this passage a woman approaches Jesus and pleads for
the healing of her little daughter. An unusual characteristic of this healing
narrative is that the person healed, the daughter, is quite peripheral in the
narration.44 The girl is the topic of Jesus and the woman’s conversation, but
Jesus never meets her, and there is no scene in which she is present. She is

41. On the connection between faith and healing, see Anna Rebecca Solevåg,
“ ‘Leap, Ye, Lame for Joy’: The Dynamics of Disability in Conversion,” in The Complex-
ity of Conversion, ed. Valerie Nicolet Anderson and Marianne Bjelland Kartzow (Shef-
field: Sheffield Phoenix, forthcoming).
42. Moss, “Mark and Matthew,” 294.
43. Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 53.
44. Sharon H. Ringe, “A Gentile Woman’s Story, Revisited: Rereading Mark 7.24–
31a,” in A Feminist Companion to Mark, ed. Amy-Jill Levine with Marianne Blicken-
staff (London: Sheffield Academic, 2001), 87.
42 Negotiating the Disabled Body

also very quiet—although the woman speaks, the daughter does not. This
story is the only healing from a distance that occurs in Mark.45
Jesus has just traveled from the Jewish region of Galilee and has
entered “the region of Tyre” (7:24). This was a rural area where both Jews
and Syro-Phoenicians resided, a borderland between the fully Jewish Gali-
lee to the south and the fully Hellenized city of Tyre to the north. Tyre
was a port city and the capital of the Roman province of Syria. In this
borderland space, a woman seeks out Jesus in a private home and throws
herself at his feet. Like the man with the four helpers, she enters a house
and demands Jesus’s attention. Whereas the man with his helpers seems to
rely on spectacle rather than speech, the woman employs both speech and
bodily gestures.46 The man does not seem to humble himself before Jesus,
nor does he explicitly ask—much less plead—for healing. The woman, on
the other hand, throws herself at the feet of Jesus, a typical gesture of kyri-
archal submission, and calls him master (κύριε, 7:28). The woman wants
healing for her daughter, and she begs Jesus for it.
The daughter’s affliction is first called an “unclean spirit” (πνεῦμα
ἀκάθαρτον, 7:25) and is subsequently referred to as “the demon” (τὸ
δαιμόνιον, 7:26, 29, 30). As noted in the introduction, the belief that demon
possession could cause illness and disability was widespread in Jewish as
well as other ancient Mediterranean cultures (see §1.4). The exchange
between the woman and Jesus clearly invokes categories of gender, eth-
nicity, and class.47 The woman is doubly designated as both Greek and
Syro-Phoenician (ἦν Ἑλληνίς Συροφοινίκισσα τῷ γένει, 7:26). This is the
only occurrence in Mark of the label Ἑλληνίς, and it is the first time the
narrator has pointed out the ethnicity of a character. Jesus has traveled
outside of Jewish territory also earlier in Mark. In 5:1–20 he goes to “the
country of the Gerasenes” (5:1), probably the city of Gerasa, one of the

45. As Harrocks has noted, there are similarities, including healing from a dis-
tance, with the officer in Capernaum. This passage occurs in the three other gospels
but not in Mark (Matt 8:5–13 // Luke 7:1–10 // John 4:46–53). See Rebecca Harrocks,
“Jesus’ Gentile Healings: The Absence of Bodily Contact and the Requirement of
Faith,” in The Body in Biblical, Christian, and Jewish Texts, ed. Joan E. Taylor (London:
Bloomsbury, 2015).
46. For the significance of gestures and bodily habitus in this story, see Jennifer A.
Glancy, “Jesus, the Syrophoenician Woman and Other First Century Bodies,” BibInt
18 (2010).
47. Glancy, “Jesus, the Syrophoenician Woman,” 350–51.
 2. Healings as Narrative Prosthesis in Mark 43

Hellenistic Decapolis cities east of Galilee.48 Interestingly, in that story,

too, he interacts with a person possessed by an unclean spirit. Mark pos-
sibly suggests a connection between ethnicity and demon possession, as I
will discuss below.
The ethnic designation as Greek probably signals that the woman
belonged to the culturally privileged class of Greek-speaking city-dwellers
in Tyre.49 Thus, some scholars argue that she is portrayed as being of higher
status, as more affluent and politically connected than Jesus, who is a wan-
dering Jewish preacher whose closest friends are fishermen.50 However, in
a Jewish context, the term Ἑλληνίς, Greek, could also designate religious
status. According to several commentators of this passage, it served a simi-
lar function as the term τὰ ἔθνη, “the nations,” as a religious designation for
gentiles as opposed to Jews.51 As we have no other information about this
family, such as who else it consists of apart from the mother and daugh-
ter, it is difficult to determine exactly what the woman’s social position is
relative to that of Jesus.52 Is she portrayed as rich and well connected, or is
she labeled by Mark as a (religiously) inferior outsider? Sharon H. Ringe
embodies this paradox in her own scholarly development. In an essay from
the 1980s she argued that the woman was a poor widow, while in a recent
essay she vouches for the woman’s affluent status.53
By subjugating herself on the ground and calling him master, the Syro-
Phoenician woman shows Jesus deference in alignment with kyriarchal
codes of behavior, in which women were subordinated to men who were
free and were thus (in contrast to slaves) masters over their own bodies
and often also of their own households. Jennifer A. Glancy has pointed
out that lowering oneself before another person was the most common
visual marker for submission to superior power and authority in Roman
antiquity.54 She regards the encounter between Jesus and the Syro-Phoe-
nician woman as a “corporal performance of social identity.”55 It is one of

48. Collins, Mark, 266–67.

49. Ringe, “Gentile Woman’s Story,” 86.
50. According to Mark, the first four disciples Jesus calls are fishermen: Simon
(Peter), his brother Andrew, and the brothers James and John Zebedee (Mark 1:16–19).
51. Collins, Mark, 364; Marcus, Mark 1–8, 462.
52. For a more thorough discussion on the intersectional dimensions of this
mother-daughter family, see Solevåg, “Listening for the Voices.”
53. Ringe, “Gentile Woman’s Story, Revisited,” 91 n. 25
54. Glancy, “Jesus, the Syrophoenician Woman,” 353.
55. Glancy, “Jesus, the Syrophoenician Woman,” 344.
44 Negotiating the Disabled Body

the basic insights of intersectionality that power and status are not always
clear-cut and that many factors mutually influence each other.56 Identi-
ties are complex, and in encounters between people, identity and status
are negotiated. The woman’s ambivalent position is underscored by her
actions: she falls at his feet, but when Jesus presents her with a riddle, she
is not afraid to talk back (7:27–28). She enters into discussion with him as
if he was her equal, and she wins the argument.

2.3.1. A Distant Daughter

As already noted, the girl is not present at the encounter between Jesus
and the woman, but at home. This recalls the story of Jairus’s daughter
from Mark 5:21–43, where Jairus approaches Jesus in public while the sick
daughter is at home. There are other similarities between these stories as
well. In both, a parent seeks out Jesus and pleas for a child who is ill, throw-
ing her- or himself to the ground in the process. Both girls are referred
to as θυγάτριον, the diminutive of θυγάτηρ, daughter. Jairus’s daughter is
twelve, and we may assume that the Syro-Phoenician girl is no older. She
is later referred to as παιδίον, which means little or young child.57 The term
would not refer to a girl after she had entered puberty and was thus con-
sidered of marriageable age, usually between the age of twelve and four-
teen.58 Notwithstanding these similarities between Jairus’s daughter and
our story, they develop quite differently. Jesus comes home with Jairus, and
the story ends with a very moving scene in which he takes the daughter’s
hand, talks to her, and raises her in the presence of her parents (5:41–42).
In contrast, Jesus seems unwilling to help the Syro-Phoenician girl, and
although he finally heals her, there is no meeting between the two. Glancy
puts the difference succinctly: “Jesus responds positively to one petitioner.
He recoils from the other.”59 The difference between these two encounters
serves as a reminder of the importance of an intersectional perspective
on disability. Not all ill or disabled people in the gospels’ healing stories
are the same. Rebecca Harrocks has observed that Jesus does not touch

56. Kartzow, Destabilizing the Margins, 10.

57. LSJ, s.v. “παιδίον.”
58. Cornelia B. Horn and J. W. Martens, “Let the Little Children Come to Me”:
Childhood and Children in Early Christianity (Washington, DC: Catholic University of
America Press, 2009), 18.
59. Glancy, “Jesus, the Syrophoenician Woman,” 358.
 2. Healings as Narrative Prosthesis in Mark 45

any non-Jews in the healing stories in the Synoptics.60 While healings of

Jews may be with or without touch, there are no healings of non-Jews in
which touch is involved. Thus the distance between healer and healed in
this story may have to do with ethnicity.

2.3.2. Scavenging Dogs or Cute Puppies?

The dog metaphor that Jesus uses has puzzled many readers of this pas-
sage. According to Jesus, there are some, the children, who need to be pri-
oritized when food is limited, and there are others, the dogs, who do not
deserve to be fed (Mark 7:27). The children are usually understood to be a
metaphor for the Jews and the dogs a metaphor of the non-Jewish popula-
tion in the area, the gentiles.61 This is the interpretation Matthew inserts
explicitly into his version of the story, in which Jesus says: “I was sent only
to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (15:24).
The term dog was used metaphorically as a pejorative epithet in
Greco-Roman as well as Jewish culture.62 In antiquity, dogs were bred and
reared for hunting, as guard and shepherd dogs, and as pets.63 Loose dogs
roaming the streets and scavenging the gutters for food must have been
a common sight in ancient cities. Dogs were associated with voracious
appetites, were regarded as scavengers, and were perceived to defile the
sacred, arouse fear, and behave shamelessly. According to Mark D. Nanos,
the sentiment was that dogs would “parade about naked, defecate, conduct
sexual behavior, and generally carry on without regard for human conven-
tions of modesty and prudence.”64 When used about women, the epithet
dog denoted shamelessness and sexual immodesty in particular.65 Accord-
ing to Hesiod’s creation myth, Pandora had a mind like a bitch (κύνεόν τε

60. Harrocks, “Jesus’s Gentile Healings,” 83–84.

61. Collins, Mark, 366; Marcus, Mark 1–8, 464.
62. Mark D. Nanos, “Paul’s Reversal of Jews Calling Gentiles ‘Dogs’ (Phillipians
3:2): 1600 Years of an Ideological Tale Wagging an Exegetical Dog?,” BibInt 17 (2009);
Alan H. Cadwallader, “When a Woman Is a Dog: Ancient and Modern Ethology Meet
the Syrophoenician Women,” BCT 1.4 (2005); Ringe, “Gentile Woman’s Story,” 90.
63. Douglas Brewer, Terence Clark, and Adrian Philipps, Dogs in Antiquity:
Anubis to Cerberus; The Origins of the Domestic Dog (Warminster: Aris and Philipps,
2001), 87–94. For dogs as pets for children, see Keith Bradley, “The Sentimental Edu-
cation of the Roman Child: The Role of Pet Keeping,” Latomus 57 (1998): 523–57.
64. Nanos, “Paul’s Reversal of Jews Calling Gentiles ‘Dogs,’ ” 458–59.
65. LSJ, s.v. “κύων.” See also Cadwallader, “When a Woman Is a Dog,” 35.2.
46 Negotiating the Disabled Body

νόον, Op. 67).66 Aristophanes claimed that both women and dogs were ill-
tempered (γυνή καὶ κύων ἀκράχολος, Frag. 594).
Nevertheless, similarity to dogs could also be used to describe posi-
tive traits, for example, as tenacity and loyalty in people who functioned
as guardians.67 Moreover, dogs were often the pets of children, and affec-
tionate bonds between dogs and children are described in literature and
portrayed in images from antiquity.68 A combination of good and bad
characteristics is apparent in the description of doglike traits in Polemon’s
Physiognomy: “The dog is tame, loyal, patient, ready to help, protective,
desirous, alert to what should be defended, cheating when necessary, cou-
rageous at home and submissive away from home, loathing the stranger,
covetous, miserly, stubborn, prattling, gluttonous, dirty, bad-natured,
lacking in modesty, and mundane.”69
Dogs were associated with doctors in general and Asclepius in partic-
ular.70 In the iconography of the Asclepian cult, the healing god was usu-
ally depicted with snakes, but also with dogs.71 In inscriptions at Asclepian
sanctuaries, dogs are accredited for healing supplicants.72 Ingvild Sælid
Gilhus notes that dogs as well as pigs are associated with demons in the
gospels.73 Revelation draws on the derogatory connotations of κύων: “Out-
side are the dogs and sorcerers [οἱ κύνες καὶ οἱ φάρμακοι] and fornicators
and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices false-
hood” (Rev 22:15). Note that dogs and sorcerers (φάρμακοι) are here men-
tion in the same quotation, perhaps alluding to the link between dogs and
various healing practices.

66. For a discussion of the use of the label “dog” to denote female immodesty, see
Solevåg, Birthing Salvation, 45, 192–94.
67. Nanos, “Paul’s Reversal of Jews Calling Gentiles ‘Dogs,’ ” 457.
68. Bradley, “Sentimental Education of the Roman Child”; Elaine M. Wainwright,
“Of Dogs and Women: Ethology and Gender in Ancient Healing; The Canaanite
Woman’s Story—Matt 15:21–28,” in Miracles Revisited: New Testament Miracle Stories
and Their Concepts of Reality, ed. Stefan Alkier and Annette Weissenrieder (Berlin: de
Gruyter, 2013), 64–65.
69. Swain, Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul, 385.
70. Wainwright, “Of Dogs and Women,” 67.
71. Edelstein and Edelstein, Asclepius, 1:345, 362.
72. Edelstein and Edelstein, Asclepius, 1:233–34. See also Nutton, Ancient Medi-
cine, 110; Ingvild Sælid Gilhus, Animals, Gods and Humans: Changing Attitudes to
Animals in Greek, Roman and Early Christian Ideas (London: Routledge, 2006), 109.
73. Gilhus, Animals, Gods and Humans, 170.
 2. Healings as Narrative Prosthesis in Mark 47

2.3.3. Disability and Ethnicity as Animality

The dog-riddle adds a metaphorical layer of meaning to the conversation.

The encounter is framed not only as one between two individuals but also
as one between two groups. Jesus insinuates that her request is for one
less worthy group, the dogs, to receive priority before a more deserving
group, the children. The healing request has become a discussion about
identity, inclusion, and power. Dong Hyeon Jeong suggests that “colonial
neurosis” lies behind Jesus’s animalizing retort to the woman’s request.74
According to Gerd Theissen, the Syro-Phoenician population, residing in
the cities, was economically better off than the rural Jewish population
of the area. He suggests that the Hellenized city-dwellers may often have
taken bread out of the mouths of the Jews “when they used their financial
means to buy up the grain supply in the countryside.”75 Jesus is insinuat-
ing that the woman and her daughter are dogs and that they are asking for
something that is not theirs. The mother’s answer shifts Jesus’s zero-sum
argument. She accepts the invective, but she also turns it around when
she says that “even the dogs [τὰ κυνάρια] under the table eat the children’s
crumbs” (7:28). Bread, which is the food the dogs and the children are
fighting over in the riddle, was in fact the most common feed for domes-
ticated dogs in antiquity.76
Mark uses the diminutive of κύων, κυνάριον, in this passage. Although
some argue that Mark uses diminutives interchangeably with the regu-
lar form, I suggest that the diminutive serves a purpose in the story.77
Κυνάριον connects with the two other diminutives in the story, θυγάτριον
and παιδίον (perhaps even δαιμόνιον, which grammatically is a diminutive).
All of these diminutives refer to the Syro-Phoenician daughter. Thus, they
seem to denote age as well as size and allow for the reading of κυνάριον as
“puppy.” The woman reduces the harshness of the metaphor by using the

74. Dong Hyeon Jeong, “The Animal Masks of the Syrophoenician Woman and
the Markan Jesus: Reading Mark 7:24–30 through a Postcolonial Animality Lens”
(paper presented at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, Boston, 20
November 2017), 3.
75. Gerd Theissen, The Gospels in Context: Social and Political History in the
Synoptic Tradition (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 79. See also Ringe, “Gentile Woman’s
Story,” 84–86.
76. Brewer, Clark, and Philipps, Dogs in Antiquity, 96.
77. See, e.g., Collins, Mark, 367.
48 Negotiating the Disabled Body

diminutive to alter the metaphorical meaning of the dog image. From the
image of scavenger dogs that need to be kept at bay to protect the children
and their food, she creates another scenario of a well-functioning sym-
biosis between children and dogs or puppies: children eat sloppily, but the
dogs pick up whatever they drop. Or perhaps she even hints at an affec-
tionate relationship, in which children slip the puppies under the table
their leftover food. All these images are within the range of associations
that could be invoked with reference to dogs in antiquity.
Theissen’s suggestion is a feasible historical background for the saying.
The political and economic situation gave way to a sentiment that Syro-
Phoenicians were like dogs who stole bread from the children, the Jews.
However, there may be another aspect to the riddle. I suggest that the
daughter’s illness is part of what gives meaning to the metaphor. The story
about the Syro-Phoenician mother and daughter can be read in light of
Mitchell and Snyder’s theory of narrative prosthesis. Mitchell and Snyder
point to the use of physiognomic reasoning in literature.78 The ancient
notion of physiognomy connected certain bodily features with particular
moral traits using both ethnographic and zoological markers (see §1.7). In
this story the Syro-Phoenician daughter’s disability is used metaphorically,
by combining the terms dog, Syro-Phoenician, and demon-possessed.
As already noted, the daughter has no voice in this story. She never
speaks or makes a sound. In the three other stories about the demon-
possessed in Mark, the demon screams. The possessed man in the temple
screams at Jesus and reveals that he knows who Jesus is (1:26). The Ger-
asene demoniac similarly screams at Jesus with a loud voice (5:6–10).
According to Mark, this man needed to be restrained with chains, as he
was violent and would injure himself (5:4–5). Finally, in 9:14–29, Jesus
heals a boy possessed by a “spirit of muteness” (πνεῦμα ἄλαλον, 9:17).
The exorcism of this boy is quite violent: the boy screams and convulses
and afterward lies lifeless on the ground, seemingly dead (9:26). These
descriptions of the speech patterns and behavior of demon-possessed
people show that a certain kind of erratic and violent behavior could cate-
gorize a person as demon-possessed. The dog metaphor employed in 7:24
reverberates with these characteristics of demon possession. The nonver-
bal orality on either side of the spectrum of socially accepted speech, that
is, either irrational screaming or mute silence; the erratic behavior; and

78. Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 60.

 2. Healings as Narrative Prosthesis in Mark 49

the possible need for chaining all link the demon-possessed with animal
characteristics. As already noted, muteness and deafness were connected
with mental incapacity and demon possession in antiquity (see §1.4).
Both demon possession and madness are illnesses that are used as pejora-
tive tropes in rhetorical discourse, a feature of disability rhetoric that will
be further explored in chapter 5.
In the story about the Syro-Phoenician girl, the disabled girl is used
for her representational value. The textual interest is not in her but in the
social meaning that is ascribed to her body. Both disability and ethnicity
are animalized and used to other the girl and her mother. The daughter’s
doglike demon possession is seen as a characteristic of the mother and
daughter’s ethnic group. Her nonconforming body reveals hidden truths
that point beyond herself. She represents the Syro-Phoenicians, who must
be healed from their insanity and given the life-giving crumbs (or words)
of Jesus. But in pointing beyond herself, the Syro-Phoenician girl also dis-
solves, both as a character and as a subject.

2.4. Conclusion: Mark’s Literary Dependency on Disability

According to Mitchell and Snyder, narrative prosthesis can work either

as a narrative element that resolves the problem of deviance or as a meta-
phorical device, drawing on physiognomic reasoning. The two healing
stories presented follow a prosthetic narrative scheme of naming a devi-
ance, demanding an explanation, homing in on the deviant character, and
finally resolving the problem. In both stories, Jesus’s healing resolves the
problem of a nonnormative body. The second trajectory of Mitchell and
Snyder’s theory, disability as a metaphorical device, operates quite differ-
ently in the two stories. I argued that the discussion on the forgiveness
of sin that follows the healing of the lame man is an example of this: the
efforts at meaning-making and moralizing that disability often provokes
in narrative. The metaphorical move here is from outer to inner, from a
macro- to a microlevel, which may be called a physiognomic move. The
man’s disability provokes a discussion about his sinfulness, although it is
contested exactly what the connection is. In the other story, however, the
metaphorical aspect to the girl’s disability projects beyond the individual
disabled character to represent an entire ethnic group. Here the metaphor-
ical move is from a macro- to a metalevel, which may be called a symbolic
move. These nuances in the literary use of disability are not differentiated
in Mitchell and Snyder’s label narrative prosthesis, although they note these
50 Negotiating the Disabled Body

various uses. The various ways in which metaphorical meaning is ascribed

to disabled characters will be part of the discussion in the following chap-
ters. Mitchell and Snyder developed their theory of narrative prosthesis
particularly for studies of narrative literary works (and also film), but the
multidirectional metaphorical aspect of narrative prosthesis (the physiog-
nomic and the symbolic moves) is not tied to a narrative genre. As I will
discuss in chapters 5 and 6, symbolic as well as physiognomic moves are
deployed in disability discourse also in rhetorical texts.
The use of disability as a narrative element is not only something that
can be recognized in each individual healing narrative in Mark, it is quite
important to the structure of this gospel overall. As noted earlier, the heal-
ing of the paralyzed man is the culmination of a series of healing stories
at the beginning of Mark. Given the way Mark has chosen to construct
his narrative, without any birth or childhood narratives, more hinges on
the healing stories in the beginning of the Gospel for Mark than for the
other gospel writers. Throughout Mark 1 this series of events connected
to healing leads to Jesus’s escalating fame. It is the fame caused by Jesus’s
healing activity that is the reason for the enormous crowd at the beginning
of Mark 2. In the first chapter, the reader hardly hears a word of Jesus’s
preaching, his εὐαγγέλιον (1:1), except its initial proclamation in 1:15:
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent,
and believe in the good news.” Mark does not reveal what Jesus teaches in
the synagogue, only the mode—with authority (ὡς ἐξουσίαν ἔχων, 1:22).
The demon-possessed man disturbs his teaching and the exorcism takes
center stage. When the demon-possessed man starts to scream at Jesus,
Jesus rebukes him (ἐπιτιμάω, 1:25), and everyone agrees that his is a new
teaching with authority (διδαχὴ καινὴ κατ’ ἐξουσίαν, 1:27). Similarly, in the
story about the paralytic, Jesus is in a house preaching the word to the
crowd gathered, but nothing is said about the content of his preaching.
Again, he is interrupted, this time by the man with the four helpers.79 In
fact, when Jesus says to the scribes that the Son of Man has power on
earth to forgive sins (ἐξουσία, 2:10), this is the first preaching we hear that
expands on the content of Jesus’s good news. However, this proclamation
about Jesus’s power resonates with the powerful acts we have already seen
through the four healing miracles. Jesus explicitly points out that this is

79. As Collins also notes (Mark, 184).

 2. Healings as Narrative Prosthesis in Mark 51

the reason he performs the healing of the paralytic: to prove that he has
power, even the godly power to forgive sins.
Several commentators have observed that Mark links Jesus’s author-
ity closely to his healing ability. Mary Ann Tolbert remarks that Jesus’s
ability to heal the paralytic illustrates his authority to forgive sins: “Jesus’s
teaching is identified with his actions; his words and his deeds are one.”80
Similarly, Tat-siong Benny Liew notes how Mark omits the content of
Jesus teaching in favor of healing at the beginning of Mark and argues that
this links Jesus’s authority inseparably to his healing power.81 According
to Liew, it is Jesus’s ability to heal and his command over unclean spirits
that is his authority.82 This may also explain why demon possession is the
most common disability in Mark. No other disability is so clearly con-
nected to power. Theissen takes such observations about the link between
healing and authority in Mark further by showing how fundamental it is
for the structure of the gospel. He argues that the miracle motifs in Mat-
thew and Luke are less important for the structure of the gospels because
these gospel writers have added a biographical arc that carries some of the
weight of the narrative.83 In Matthew and Luke, the birth narratives sup-
port the christological claim, but in Mark the weight rests on the miracle
stories strategically positioned at the beginning of the gospel.
When Mark deploys disabled characters as a narrative prosthesis to
support his christological claim, he not only presents Jesus in a specific
way—as first and foremost a powerful healer—but he also constructs
and presents disabled characters. Often, commentators fail to notice this.
Warren Carter calls this an invisibilizing tendency and argues that con-
temporary interpreters often “screen out” the disabled bodies in the gospel
texts in favor of symbolic and spiritualized readings.84 Without developed
models to analyze the purpose and function of disability, readers tend to
compartmentalize impairment as an isolated and individual condition of

80. Mary Ann Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel: Mark’s World in Literary-Historical Per-
spective (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 136.
81. Tat-siong Benny Liew, Politics of Parousia: Reading Mark Inter(con)textually
(Leiden: Brill, 1999), 105.
82. Liew, Politics of Parousia, 105.
83. Gerd Theissen, The Miracle Stories of the Early Christian Tradition (Edin-
burgh: T&T Clark, 1983), 213, 21–22.
84. Carter, “ ‘Blind, Lame and Paralyzed,’ ” 130.
52 Negotiating the Disabled Body

existence.85 Mitchell and Snyder’s theory is helpful in order to understand

Mark’s deployment of disabled characters as an example of a wider liter-
ary phenomenon: how literary discourse depends on disability as a narra-
tive prosthesis.86 Mark hinges Jesus’s claim to authority almost exclusively
on the healing miracles at the beginning of his gospel. In other words,
Mark is completely dependent on disabled characters to get his overarch-
ing message across. Without any deaf, blind, lame, leprous, and possessed
people to heal, Jesus’s special character, in fact, his divinity, is not revealed
at all. Disability is the crutch the narrative needs in order to show that
God is great.

85. Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 51.

86. Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 51.
 3
John and the Symbolic Significance of Disability

3.1. Introduction: Illness as Metaphor

In this chapter I continue to explore early Christian healing narratives by

turning to the healing stories in the Gospel of John. There are some note-
worthy differences from Mark. First, John has only three healing stories in
his gospel: the healing of the royal official’s son (4:46–54), the man with
a “weakness” (ἀσθενέια) at the Bethesda pool (5:1–15), and the man born
blind (9:1–41). Second, a symbolic level of meaning is always close at hand
in John, and so also in the healing narratives. Finally, I will also argue that
John has a different view on the etiology of illness, drawing more on pro-
fessionalized understandings of medicine.
As discussed in the previous chapter, a central point in Mitchell and
Snyder’s theory of narrative prosthesis is that literary representations of dis-
ability often use disabled bodies to invoke symbolic meanings. Narratives
often posit a physiognomic relationship between the internal and the exter-
nal body in which “either the ‘deviant’ body deforms subjectivity or ‘devi-
ant’ subjectivity violently erupts upon the surface of its bodily container.”1
Sontag has explored the use of metaphors in relation to illness. She
reveals how different illnesses invoke different metaphorical associations
and thus shape cultural discourse. Her arguments complement Mitchell
and Snyder when she she points out how the use of metaphors stigma-
tizes illnesses and those who experience them in particular ways.2 She
has shown how certain illnesses and their metaphors become dominant
at certain points in history and how they change over time. For example,

1. Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 58.

2. Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor and Aids and Its Metaphors (London: Pen-
guin Books, 2002), 91–101.

-53-
54 Negotiating the Disabled Body

literary references to tuberculosis proliferated in the nineteenth and early

twentieth century. The symbolic meanings associated with consumption,
as it was called, invoked innocence, youth, romance, and passion, and
death from tuberculosis was often described as painless and passive.3
Sontag compares the Victorian preoccupation with tuberculosis with the
place cancer held in the second half of the twentieth century, and to some
extent still does. The language used to describe cancer draws on military
metaphors, such as invasion, attack, and siege, as well as the notion of
demonic possession (malignant, benign).4 Moreover, cancer talk also
invokes economic catastrophe with terms like unregulated, abnormal, and
incoherent growth. The tumor is often described as out of control: cancer
cells are “cells that have shed the mechanism which ‘restrain’ growth.”5
Sontag also shows that illness imagery is invoked in political polemic
by equating disease with societal disorder. She warns about the dangers of
such politicized illness discourse, pointing out that the concept of disease
is never innocent: “The use of cancer in political discourse encourages
fatalism and justifies ‘severe’ measures—as well as strongly reinforcing the
widespread notion that disease is necessarily fatal.”6 Sontag detected the
same oscillation between the personal and the societal in the discourse
concerning HIV in the 1980s.7 AIDS was described as a plague invad-
ing both the individual body and global society, and the rhetoric clearly
encompassed racist, xenophobic, and homophobic fears: “AIDS seems to
foster ominous fantasies about a disease that is a marker of both individual
and social vulnerabilities. The virus invades the body; the disease … is
described as invading the whole society.”8
I find Sontag’s perspectives useful for a reading of illness and disability
in the Gospel of John. There are certain similarities between the way John
adds a layer of metaphorical meaning to his healing narratives and the pat-
terns Sontag has detected in modern illness discourse. Sontag’s warning that
illness metaphors are never innocent is useful also for biblical scholarship.
As I will show, modern interpreters of John have had a tendency to buy
into John’s symbolic universe wholesale, without realizing the implications

3. Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, 12–26.

4. Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, esp. 65–70.
5. Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, 64.
6. Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, 84.
7. Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, 130–50.
8. Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, 151.
 3. John and the Symbolic Significance of Disability 55

it may have for understandings of disability and the danger of stigmatizing

people with disabilities in the process.

3.1.1. John and the Symbolic

In the following, I examine each of John’s three healing stories.9 Whereas

the first seems to be about a short-term illness, the two other stories
concern “long-term, non-urgent physical or sensory impairment,” what
might today be called disabilities.10 I choose to include the first for several
reasons. First, the healing of the royal official’s son is interesting because
it is the only one of John’s healings that has a synoptic parallel. Second, it
is included because this story, together with the two other healing stories,
gives an understanding of the terms for and ideas about illness and dis-
ability that occur in the Fourth Gospel. Finally, the three narratives are
connected in John’s literary logic. They constitute three of the seven signs
that John presents in his Book of Signs, which is the first main part of his
gospel.11 John calls Jesus’s miracles σημεῖα, “signs.”12 They signify that Jesus
is sent from the Father, from God. The signs have a dubious status in John,
as simultaneously embellished and diminished: believers are rebuked for
depending on signs (e.g., 4:48; 6:26; 20:29), but at the same time, Jesus’s
signs lead people to believe in him (e.g., 2:11; 4:53; 12:11; 20:30–31) and
confirm his identity (e.g., 7:31; 9:16; 10:41–42).13 In contrast to the Syn-
optics, Jesus does not perform any exorcisms in John. Demon possession
is only mentioned in some instances where Jesus himself is accused of
being possessed (see §5.2). John’s universe is highly dualistic. Throughout
the gospel, polar opposites are presented as value-laden sets of contrasts:
light/darkness, life/death, good/evil, from above/from below, heaven/
earth, spirit/flesh, and so on.14 In this chapter, I look at the vocabulary
that is used for illness, disability, and healing in the three stories in John,

9. I use John as a designation of the anonymous author of the Gospel of John. For
the composition of John, see Paul N. Anderson, The Riddles of the Fourth Gospel: An
Introduction to John (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011), 96–114.
10. Gosbell, “The Poor, the Crippled, the Blind, and the Lame,” 278.
11. Anderson, Riddles of the Fourth Gospel, 9–11.
12. Koosed and Schumm, “Out of the Darkness,” 79.
13. Anderson, Riddles of the Fourth Gospel, 31–32.
14. Anderson, Riddles of the Fourth Gospel, 36–37.
56 Negotiating the Disabled Body

and I explore the symbolic layer of meaning that John incorporates into
the narrative.
John frequently refers to “the Jews” (οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι) as adversaries of Jesus.
This group is hard to distinguish from the Pharisees (see, e.g., John 9:13–
34), as the terms seem to be used interchangeably. The reception history
of this usage has undergirded anti-Semitism. I use quotes (“the Jews”) to
signal that this group is John’s narrative construct.15

3.2. The Royal Official’s Son (John 4:46–54)

This story is quite short, which differentiates it from the healing stories in
John 5 and 9. A royal official (τις βασιλικός, 4:46) approaches Jesus, asking
for healing for his son who is ill (ἠσθένει, 4:46) and at the point of death
(ἤμελλεν γὰρ ἀποθνήσκειν, 4:47). The sick child is not present; the focus of
the story is the dialogue between Jesus and the official, who believes Jesus’s
words when he says “your son will live” (4:50). The man’s faith stands in
contrast to the plural “you” whom Jesus chides for not believing: “Unless
you see signs and wonders you will not believe” (4:48). As the official is
returning to Capernaum, he meets his slaves, who tell him that the child
is well and that the fever left his son at the same hour that Jesus spoke his
words of healing (4:51–53). The narrative is not followed by a discourse,
like in the two other healing stories, but ends with the note that the official
and his whole house came to faith (4:53).
What are the terms that are used for the child’s illness? When first
introduced he is just called “sick” (ἠσθένει, 4:46). The verb ἀσθενέω, “to
be weak,” is a general term often used for illness. As noted in the intro-
duction, weakness and strength are connected with sickness and health
in the Greek medical understanding (see §1.5). However, it gradually
becomes clear that the boy’s illness is quite severe. The boy is described as
“at the point of death” (ἤμελλεν γὰρ ἀποθνήσκειν, 4:47), and he has a fever
(ὁ πυρετός, 4:52). The boy is about to die, and terms drawing on life and
death are repeated throughout the narrative (4:47, 50, 51, 53). There is no
such life-and-death urgency in the two other healing narratives. Hence,
this narrative seems to have some commonalities with the Lazarus story.
Lazarus’s illness is also referred to with ἀσθενέω (11:1, 2, 3, 6), and there

15. For a discussion of John’s use of the term and its convergence with disability,
see Koosed and Schumm, “Out of the Darkness,” 82–85.
 3. John and the Symbolic Significance of Disability 57

is fear of imminent death and fear that the healing may come too late
(11:4).16
This is the only healing story that John shares with the Synoptic Gos-
pels (Matt 8:5–13 // Luke 7:1–10). In Matthew and Luke, it is a Roman cen-
turion who approaches Jesus, and it is his slave who is sick.17 In Matthew
the person is paralyzed (παραλυτικός, 8:6), while in Luke he is “ill and close
to death” (κακῶς ἔχων ἤμελλεν τελευτᾶν, 7:2). The conversation with Jesus
in both these gospels revolves around the command of a legionnaire who
has the authority to give orders (Matt 8:9 // Luke 7:8). Jesus, the legion-
naire believes, has the power to command the illness, just as he himself has
the power to command his soldiers. The notion of commanding reverber-
ates with invasion theories of illness, such as demon possession. It was
common in antiquity to understand illness in terms of invasion (see §1.5).
Demons, and also fevers, were sometimes understood as foreign bodies or
elements entering a person and could thus be expelled by someone more
powerful.18 The references to a legionnaire’s authority (ἐξουσία, Matt 8:9;
Luke 7:8) in the Matthean and Lukan versions are connected to the inva-
sion paradigm. Luke’s version of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law is
another synoptic example of understanding fever as demonic. Here Jesus
“rebukes” the fever (ἐπετίμησεν, Luke 4:39).19 John’s version of this story is
quite different. It is about a caring father who has a child deadly sick with
fever. There is no invasion terminology in John’s account; the fever is not
connected to possession.20
The note about the time that the fever left (4:52) rather resembles Hip-
pocratic ideas about fevers and their relation to the crisis of an illness. In

16. Jacobus Kok understands the raising of Lazarus as a Johannine “healing nar-
rative” (New Perspectives on Healing, Restoration and Reconciliation in John’s Gospel
[Leiden: Brill, 2016], 44).
17. Luke refers to the slave as δοῦλος (Luke 7:2), whereas Matthew uses the term
παῖς (Matt 8:6). There is disagreement in the scholarly literature whether the sick
person in Matthew should be understood as a slave or a child. See, e.g., Ulrich Luz,
who translates ὁ παῖς μου with “my son,” and Elaine M. Wainwright, who refers to
“the centurion’s servant” (Luz, Matthew 8–20: A Commentary, Hermeneia [Minne-
apolis: Fortress, 2001], 8; Wainwright, Women Healing/Healing Women, 144–45). On
the use of child language for slaves, see Jennifer A. Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 24.
18. Martin, Corinthian Body, 153–61.
19. Pilch, Healing in the New Testament, 126.
20. Pilch, Healing in the New Testament, 126; Kok, New Perspectives on Healing, 66.
58 Negotiating the Disabled Body

Hippocratic medicine, fever was understood as a disease in itself, not only

as a symptom.21 There are numerous accounts in the Hippocratic treatise
Epidemics of people suffering from a variety of fevers with different symp-
toms.22 Fever was also seen in relation to the so-called critical days or crisis
of a disease, when the fate of the patient was decided (see, e.g., Epid. 1.3).23
As the Prognostic, another Hippocratic text, explains:

Those sweats are the best in all acute diseases which occur on the critical
days, and completely carry off the fever [τοῦ πυρετοῦ]. Those are favor-
able, too, which taking place over the whole body, show that the man is
bearing the disease better. But those that do not produce this effect are
not beneficial. The worst are cold sweats, confined to the head, face, and
neck; these in an acute fever prognosticate death. (Progn. 6 [Jones])

In terms of the ancient health care systems, it seems that John has a more
learned notion of illness than the Synoptics, in which balance rather than
invasion is the perspective.
What is this man’s social location? In addition to his designation as a
royal official, there are other hints about his high status. He has slaves at
his command who bring the news of the child’s recovery (4:51), and he is
in charge of a household, which comes to faith with him at the end of the
story (4:53). We may assume that such a wealthy and powerful man would
seek the best possible health care for his family. He would have had access
to doctors, and his children would also be cared for by slaves and other
family members when ill. The man’s ethnicity and religious affiliation is
not made explicit. Whereas Matthew and Luke clearly designate him as a
Roman officer (ἑκατόνταρχος, Matt 8:5; Luke 7:8), it is unclear what kind of
“royal official” (βασιλικός, John 4:46) appears in John. He could be a Roman
official, and thus most likely not Jewish, or a Jew in the service of Herod
Antipas.24 Francis J. Moloney argues that he is gentile, since the passage
concludes a section dedicated to Jesus relating to non-Jews (John 4:1–54).25

21. Nutton, Ancient Medicine, 32.

22. See Hippocrates, Epidemics, where most cases include comments on how
fever affected the disease.
23. Nutton, Ancient Medicine, 92.
24. Ernst Haenchen, John 1: A Commentary on the Gospel of John Chapters 1–6,
Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 234.
25. Francis J. Moloney, The Gospel of John, SP 4 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical
Press, 1998), 160–61.
 3. John and the Symbolic Significance of Disability 59

Jesus’s exclamation, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not
believe” (4:48), is not directed toward the official but toward the crowd.
The verb is in the second-person plural, so it targets a plural “you.” The
official is not interested in signs as a persuasion to believe. He already
believes Jesus on his word, before he has seen any miracle.26 No one in
this story has really asked for a sign in order to believe. Jesus’s expression
makes the event into something more than a request for healing between
a petitioner and a healer. Ultimately, the healing takes place for the benefit
of someone else: the reader of the gospel and their faith.27 The story has a
happy ending in that the entire family comes to faith. In the Lazarus story
as well, faith and the confession of faith is a narrative theme.28 The connec-
tion between faith and life is close in the Gospel of John. Faith gives life, as
Jesus proclaims: “Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them
life, so also the Son gives life [ζῳοποιεῖ] to whomever he wishes” (5:21). The
healing story thus undergirds the symbolic theme of life-giving and Jesus
as the life-giver in John.29 This symbolic use of the characters and themes
continues in the two other Johannine healing narratives, to which I now
turn.

3.3. The Human Being at the Bethesda Pool (John 5:1–15)

John’s second healing story follows immediately after the healing of the
royal official’s son. John 5:1 provides the transition in time and place: “After
this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.”30 The
event takes place at a pool “called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five
porticoes” (5:2). In his description of the place, John creates an image of
a group of people with various disabilities who gather around the pool on
a daily basis: “In these [the porticoes] lay many invalids [ἀσθενούντων]—
blind [τυφλῶν], lame [χωλῶν], paralyzed [ξηρῶν]” (5:4). As noted, ἀσθενέω
is here used as an overarching term for disability (see §1.4). The next
three terms, blind, lame, and paralyzed, seem to be subcategories of this
overarching category. Whereas the term τυφλός, “blind,” usually connotes
total sightlessness, the term χωλός, “lame,” could designate a sliding scale

26. Haenchen, John 1, 234–35.

27. Kok, New Perspectives on Healing, 76.
28. The story ends with Martha’s confession of faith (11:27).
29. Kok, New Perspectives on Healing, 86–87.
30. Koosed and Schumm, “Out of the Darkness,” 82–85.
60 Negotiating the Disabled Body

of mobility impairments, ranging from limping to complete paralysis of

the legs.31 The third category, ξηρός, means “withered, dried out.”32 This
label reflects Hippocratic medical ideas. The four humors were associated
with the four properties of dry, wet, hot, and cold. To be paralyzed could
be understood in terms of the body being dried up and thus unable to
move.33
The man that Jesus singles out to be healed has a “weakness”
(ἀσθένεια, 5:5) that he has had for thirty-eight years. In other words,
he is clearly permanently disabled, but he is not designated according
to any of the three subcategories mentioned. John’s description points
toward some sort of mobility impairment. He is described as lying down
(κατακείμενον, 5:6), he is unable to get to the pool fast enough when the
angels have stirred the water (5:7), and he has a mat to lie on (κράβαττος,
5:8). Jesus asks the man whether he wants to be made well, but the man
does not answer with a clear yes or no, saying only that he is alone: “Sir,
I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and
while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me” (5:7).
Jesus heals the man with a simple statement, “Stand up, take your mat
and walk” (ἔγειρε ἆρον τὸν κράβαττόν σου καὶ περιπάτει, John 5:8). This
healing by word alone is similar to the previous healing story, where the
healing at a distance happens at the same time as Jesus says, “Go, your
son will live” (John 4:50). The man at Bethesda obeys Jesus’s bidding
and picks up his mat and takes off. The fact that he is carrying his mat
on the Sabbath instigates the following sequence of events. First, “the
Jews” accuse him of carrying the mat unlawfully, but the man claims he is
only following the instructions of his healer. However, he does not know
Jesus’s identity when they ask him (5:10–13). Later, they meet again in
the temple and Jesus warns him, “Do not sin anymore so that nothing
worse happens to you” (5:14). Apparently, the man has learned Jesus’s
name at this second meeting and goes to tell “the Jews” (5:15). Jesus fur-
ther provokes “the Jews” by defending his Sabbath healing with an argu-
ment that aligns him with God: “My Father is still working, and I also

31. On τυφλός, see Gosbell, “ ‘Poor, the Crippled, the Blind, and the Lame,’ ”
54–55. LSJ, s.v “χωλός”: “lame in the feet, halting, limping.” See above, §2.2.
32. LSJ, s.v. “ξηρός”: “dry, withered, lean.”
33. Aretaeus, Sign. diut. 1.7. See above, §2.2. This terminology is also used in the
synoptic healing story about the man with a withered hand (Matt 12:10–13 // Mark
3:1–3 // Luke 6:6–10).
 3. John and the Symbolic Significance of Disability 61

am working” (5:17). It is unclear how the reference to sin connects to

the man’s disability. Some interpreters understand the man’s disability to
be a result of sin and thus see Jesus’s refutation of the link in John 9:2 as
applying only to that particular case.34 Louise A. Gosbell argues that the
topic of sin surfaces late in the story and does not seem to be of primary
importance for the gospel writer. Nevertheless, it is interesting that the
topic surfaces.35 As I pointed out in the discussion of Mark 2:1–12, sto-
ries about disability seem to provoke questions about meaning (see §2.2).
Mitchell and Snyder suggest that the search for an explanation is part of
the prosthetic narrative scheme.36
The way John presents the pool and its surroundings resembles
ancient healing sanctuaries.37 Asclepian temples probably included a
spring or pool, since cleansing as well as incubation was part of the ritu-
al.38 Archeological evidence indicates that there was a double pool with
five porticoes at Bethesda.39 The conversation between Jesus and the man
indicates that healing was the purpose for the gathering of disabled people
at this site (5:6–7).40 It is unclear whether the Bethesda sanctuary was
Jewish or pagan in the first century.41 It may be that John is setting up this
sanctuary space in contrast to the Jerusalem temple.42 There are indica-
tions in the Hebrew Bible that the lame, the blind, and those with other
disability categories, such as skin anomalies, were excluded from entrance
to the temple (e.g., Lev 13:45–46; 2 Sam 5:8), but it is unclear whether
such exclusion was ever a historical reality.43 Avalos argues that the temple
did not have a petitionary or therapeutic role in the postexilic period, only

34. Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel according to John (I–XII), AB 29 (New York:
Doubleday, 1966), 208. Haenchen suggests that John has this saying from his source,
and that the rejection of illness as retribution of sin in 9:2 is the evangelist’s own
understanding (John 1, 247).
35. Gosbell, “The Poor, the Crippled, the Blind, and the Lame,” 294–95.
36. Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 53.
37. Gosbell, “The Poor, the Crippled, the Blind, and the Lame,” 285–86.
38. Edelstein and Edelstein, Asclepius, 1:290–91
39. Gosbell, “The Poor, the Crippled, the Blind, and the Lame,” 284.
40. 5:3b–4 is not found in the oldest manuscripts. See Haenchen, John 1, 244–45.
41. After 135 CE, the pool is associated with the healing gods Asclepius and Sera-
pis. See Gosbell, “The Poor, the Crippled, the Blind, and the Lame,” 285–86.
42. Gosbell, “The Poor, the Crippled, the Blind, and the Lame,” 286–87.
43. Schipper, Disability Studies and the Hebrew Bible, 105 n. 10.
62 Negotiating the Disabled Body

a thanksgiving function.44 The pool may have met a need for a healing
sanctuary space that was not covered by the temple.45
The man in this story claims that he has no one to help him (5:7). Why
was he in this place? Was he abandoned as a child and had stayed within
this sanctuary for most of his life? Or perhaps he was a slave left there
by his owners when he was not of use to them any longer, due to his dis-
ability? Or did he manage to get there on a daily basis, staying elsewhere
overnight? John gives no answer to these questions, but his solitude seems
to be what he himself finds to be at the core of his identity. I suggest that
this man is presented as the most destitute of the three people Jesus heals
in John.46 The royal official has, as noted above, multiple resources that he
can use in his quest for healing for his son. The man born blind, as I will
elaborate below, seems to have a family and is also part of a synagogue
community, even though he is a beggar (see §3.4). The man by the pool
says he has no one to help him, and after his healing, he seems to have
nowhere to go. Based on the tradition of abandoning infants and disabled
slaves at healing sites, Gosbell suggests that the man may have spent his
entire thirty-eight years at Bethesda.47 After Jesus’s instruction to take his
mat and walk (περιπάτει, 5:8), the term περιπατέω is repeated several times
(5:9, 11, 12). The immobile man has become itinerant: he encounters Jesus
in the temple after the healing (5:14), and he goes to “the Jews” to tell
them about Jesus’s identity (5:15), indicating that he is walking around
Jerusalem after the healing. Jesus’s instruction to “take your mat and walk”
(ἆρον τὸν κράβαττόν σου καὶ περιπάτει) is similar to how Jesus addresses the
man with the four helpers in Mark.48 Yet the paralytic man is instructed to
take his mat and “go to [his] home [εἰς τὸν οἶκόν σου]” (Mark 2:11). While
the paralytic in Mark 2 has a house to return to, the lame man in John 5
becomes a homeless wanderer.

44. Hector Avalos, Illness and Health Care in the Ancient Near East: The Role of
the Temple in Greece, Mesopotamia, and Israel (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), 357–61.
45. Patricia Bruce, “John 5:1–18 the Healing at the Pool: Some Narrative, Socio-
historical and Ethical Issues,” Neot 39 (2005): 51
46. Gosbell also notes the man’s marginal status (“The Poor, the Crippled, the
Blind, and the Lame,” 298–99).
47. Gosbell, “The Poor, the Crippled, the Blind, and the Lame,” 289.
48. The phrase is identical to the rhetorical question Jesus asks the scribes: “Which
is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take
your mat and walk?’ ” (ἆρον τὸν κράβαττόν σου καὶ περιπάτει; Mark 2:9).
 3. John and the Symbolic Significance of Disability 63

3.3.1. Weakness as Metaphor

Many commentators on this passage seem to be negative toward the man.

The lack of a clearly positive response to Jesus’s question (“do you want to
be made well,” 5:6) is counted against him, as is his perceived lack of grati-
tude after the healing.49 He is blamed for not being eager enough to seek
healing.50 R. Alan Culpepper calls him “dull,” while Raymond E. Brown
labels him an “obtuse and unimaginative paralytic.”51 James M. Howard
elaborates: “One gets the impression that the man was somewhat ‘dull,’ and
then once he had more knowledge, he did nothing good with it. There is
no mention of gratitude or belief on his part (cf. 9:35–38), only persecu-
tion of Jesus as a result of the man’s learning who had healed him (5:16).”
He continues: “He progressed from being needy, to being indifferent, to
denying responsibility for breaking the Sabbath law.”52 It is common to
understand the two healing stories in John 5 and 9 as complementing one
another and to read the two characters in light of one another so that the
“weak” man signifies partial understanding, whereas the blind man repre-
sents faith in Jesus.53
Sontag’s perspectives on the uses of illness imagery may be helpful here.
She holds that the metaphorical association of certain illnesses and dis-
abilities with certain moral qualities or societal fears stigmatizes and adds
unnecessary suffering to those who are ill.54 It seems that the interpreters
have conflated the man’s illness with his personality and understand him
as weak in character as well as in body. It is in particular the man’s reluc-
tance to seek healing that provokes the commentators. Within the disability

49. As Haenchen also notes (John 1, 246).

50. Brown, Gospel according to John (I–XII), 209; Jaime Clark-Soles, “John, First-
Third John, and Revelation,” in Melcher, Parsons, and Yong, Bible and Disability, 340;
Kerry H. Wynn, “Johannine Healings and the Otherness of Disability,” PRSt 34 (2007):
66–67.
51. R. Alan Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 138; Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel according to John
(XIII–XXI), AB 29A (New York: Doubleday, 1970), 377.
52. James M. Howard, “The Significance of Minor Characters in the Gospel of
John,” BSac 163 (2006): 72, 73.
53. See, e.g., Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel, 137–40; Wynn, “Johan-
nine Healings and the Otherness of Disability,” 72; Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John:
A Commentary, 2 vols. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003), 1:639–40.
54. Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, 97–99.
64 Negotiating the Disabled Body

movement, it has been pointed out that people with disabilities are often
more comfortable with their nonnormative bodies and less interested in
cure than able-bodied people tend to assume. It is an ableist assumption,
shaped by the medical model, to think that a person who has an impairment
necessarily wants to be rid of it. Along these lines, sermons on the healing
narratives often present the characters Jesus heals as “symbols of misery.”55
If we look at disability from a social and cultural perspective, rather than
a medical one, the problem is instead the attitudes and assumptions of the
able-bodied individual. I suggest that such an ableist understanding of dis-
ability is part of why many commentators find this character so unlikeable.
Jeffrey L. Staley, who applies a disability optic to this passage, reads the
character quite differently from the mainstream commentators. Contrast-
ing his own interpretation to this tradition of casting the man as dull and
“weak-kneed,” he says, “The sick man … proves to be a daring and risk-tak-
ing individual, one who acts unquestioningly upon a stranger’s Sabbath-
breaking command.”56 Staley sees initiative and daring where others have
seen passivity, ingratitude, and lack of understanding. An observation that
counters the focus on the negative character of the man is that John actu-
ally attributes a variety of labels to him. After initially being designated as
“the weak one” (ὁ ἀσθενῶν, 5:7), he is called “the one who had been made
well” (τῷ τεθεραπευμένῳ, 5:10) and “the healed one” (ὁ ἰαθεὶς, 5:13), and he
is also referred to as ὁ ἄνθροπος, “the human being,” several times (5:5, 7,
15). This variation in terminology is different from the Synoptic Gospels,
where the person with a disability is usually designated according to his or
her disability and simply called “the lame,” “the blind,” or “the demon-pos-
sessed” throughout the story (see §2.2.). The shorter form of the synoptic
healing stories is an obvious reason for this difference. There is simply not
enough space to develop the character beyond his or her impairment in
the Synoptics. John, however, chooses to make space in his narrative to
develop the character and use a variety of designations.

3.4. The Man Born Blind (John 9:1–41)

Jesus’s final healing is of a man who had been blind from birth. The story
is the longest of John’s healing stories and has a complicated sequence of

55. See, e.g., Belser and Morrison, “What No Longer Serves Us,” 157.
56. Jeffrey L. Staley, “Stumbling in the Dark, Reaching for the Light: Reading
Character in John 5 and 9,” Semeia 53 (1991): 60.
 3. John and the Symbolic Significance of Disability 65

scenes involving Jesus, the disciples, the blind man, his neighbors and par-
ents, the Pharisees, and “the Jews.” I will concentrate my observations on
the first scene, leading up to and including the healing (John 9:1–8). The
scene is initiated by a conversation between the disciples and Jesus. The
sight of a blind man causes the disciples to ponder about whose fault it is,
and they ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he
was born blind [τυφλὸς γεννηθῇ]?” (9:2). This healing story, too, follows
a prosthetic narrative scheme. As Mitchell and Snyder state, “A narrative
consolidates the need for its own existence by calling for an explanation of
the deviation’s origin and formative consequences.”57 Jesus’s answer tackles
the question of sin and introduces the Johannine symbolic and dualistic
framework: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind
so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of
him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.
As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (9:3–5). The
correlation between sin and disability is severed by Jesus’s answer. Rather
than pointing to personal or generational guilt, the man was born blind for
revelatory purposes. In these introductory verses, there is also the meta­
phorical aspect of Mitchell and Snyder’s theory of narrative prosthesis.
Blindness and seeing, darkness and light are both presented as dualistic
categories that represent forces of good and evil and align Jesus with the
divine light, which brings revelation.
Some interpreters of this passage attribute the disciples’ question to
a Jewish understanding that disability is a divine punishment for sin.58
Jennifer L. Koosed and Darla Schumm caution against this assumption
and argue that there were different points of view on this in antiquity. In
the Hebrew Bible, the idea that God punishes the children for the sins of
the parents is sometimes stated (Exod 20:5; Num 14:18) and other times
refuted (Jer 31:29–30; Ezek 18:2–4).59 Moreover, the idea that the gods
could punish wrongdoing through inflicting illness and disability was
also held by other peoples and religious systems in the ancient Mediterra-
nean. In a survey article, Nicole Kelley shows that both within Jewish and
Greco-Roman sources, congenital disabilities can be attributed to either

57. Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 53.

58. Brown, Gospel according to John (I–XII), 371; Keener, Gospel of John, 1:777.
59. Koosed and Schumm, “Out of the Darkness,” 83–84.
66 Negotiating the Disabled Body

nondivine or divine causes.60 This variety in understandings underscores

that the notion of a singular premodern moral model, as discussed in the
introduction, is not sufficient to describe ancient understandings of the
causes of disability (see §1.3).
According to Jesus, the reason for this man’s existence and his disabled
embodiment is “so that God’s works might be revealed in him” (John 9:3).
John M. Hull has pointed out that “the man has been born blind in order
to provide a sort of photo opportunity for Jesus.”61 Koosed and Schumm
argue that John operates with different reasons for why people have dis-
abilities, but God is behind all of them. It is never just an ordinary part
of life, never an accident: “And never is the condition seen as a positive
gift of God. Rather the disability is always present for some other reason
or purpose.”62 Carter warns that these layers of symbolic and spiritual-
ized meaning that are added to the disabled character in fact make the
individual invisible. These insights resonate with Sontag’s observation that
metaphorical thinking and the search for meaning behind illness actually
stigmatizes and adds unnecessary suffering.63
The man in this story is first designated as “blind from birth” (τυφλὸν
ἐκ γενετῆς, 9:1). As already noted, blindness was considered a common
disability in antiquity and is a recurring disability in the New Testament
(see §1.4). John uses the expression “from birth” (ἐκ γενετῆς) rather than
“from the mother’s womb” (ἐκ κοιλίας μητρός, Matt 19:12; Luke 1:15; Acts
3:2), which is a more Semitic turn of phrase.64 The terminology of genera-
tion links with John’s incarnational theology. According to Moloney, the
expression “from birth” is theologically significant for John and makes the

60. Nicole Kelley, “The Theological Significance of Physical Deformity in the

Pseudo-Clementine Homilies,” PRSt 34 (2007): 78–80.
61. John M. Hull, In the Beginning There Was Darkness: A Blind Person’s Conversa-
tion with the Bible (London: SCM Press, 2001), 49. John C. Poirier has suggested an
alternative reading of this verse, arguing that the punctuation should be placed differ-
ently. In Poirier’s reading, Jesus does not claim that the man was born blind so that
God’s healing powers may be revealed; rather, “he said that he must work this healing
while it is day, so that others may plainly see it.” See Poirier, “Another Look at the ‘Man
Born Blind’ in John 9,” JRDH 14 (2010): 64 (emphasis original).
62. Koosed and Schumm, “Out of the Darkness,” 80.
63. Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, 93–100.
64. The expression “from my mother’s womb,” mibbeten immi, occurs many times
in the Hebrew Bible; see, e.g., Judg 16:17, Ps 22:11, Job 1:21.
 3. John and the Symbolic Significance of Disability 67

healing a new creation.65 However, the phrase may also reveal some medi-
cal insight. It has been shown that John has some knowledge of ancient
gynecology and theories of conception.66 Turid Karlsen Seim has argued
that John’s genetics eclipses the mother in favor of an omniscient father.67
In doing so, John draws on Aristotle’s theory of epigenesis, in which it is
claimed that only the father contributes with seed: the man provides form,
the woman provides matter. Within this theory the mother contributes to
the growth of the fetus with nutriments from her blood; she is the recep-
tacle and nurturer.68 The theory relies on a hierarchy of bodily fluids in
which semen is understood to be blood perfected through a concoction
that women cannot achieve due to lack of innate heat. The male semen is
infused with spirit, πνεῦμα, and is thus life-giving.69
In contrast to the first two healing stories in John, where Jesus heals
by his word alone, this story relates a rather complicated process involving
mud, spittle, and washing in holy water:

When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud [πηλὸν]
with the saliva [τοῦ πτύσματος] and spread the mud on the man’s eyes,
saying to him, “Go, wash [ὕπαγε νίψαι] in the pool of Siloam” (which
means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see [ἦλθεν
βλέπων]. (John 9:6–7)

Why such an elaborate process when Jesus has shown that he can heal
by words alone? Within ancient folk medicine, it was commonly held
that spittle had healing properties. In Mark, Jesus uses a similar healing

65. Moloney, Gospel of John, 296.

66. See, e.g., Adeline Fehribach, “The ‘Birthing’ Bridegroom: The Portrayal of
Jesus in the Fourth Gospel,” in A Feminist Companion to John, ed. Amy-Jill Levine
with Marianne Blickenstaff, 2 vols. (London: Sheffield Academic, 2003), 2:104–29;
Adele Reinhartz, “ ‘And the Word Was Begotten’: Divine Epigenesis in the Gospel of
John,” Semeia 85 (1999); Deborah Sawyer, “John 19.34: From Crucifixion to Birth, or
Creation?,” in Levine, Feminist Companion to John, 2:130–39.
67. See Turid Karlsen Seim, “Motherhood and the Making of Fathers in Antiq-
uity: Contextualizing Genetics in the Gospel of John,” in Women and Gender in
Ancient Religions: Interdisciplinary Approaches, ed. Stephen P. Ahearne-Kroll, Paul A.
Holloway, and James A. Kelhoffer, WUNT 263 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010); Seim,
“Descent and Divine Paternity in the Gospel of John: Does the Mother Matter?,” NTS
51 (2005).
68. Seim, “Descent and Divine Paternity,” 362.
69. Solevåg, Birthing Salvation, 72.
68 Negotiating the Disabled Body

method, smearing saliva on a deaf and mute man’s tongue (7:32–37) and
a blind man’s eyes (8:22–26). Pliny claims in Natural History that ophthal-
mia may be cured “by using saliva every morning as eye ointment” (28.7
[Jones]). The use of spittle as part of a folk healing ritual may be seen in
Tacitus’s report on how Vespasian healed a blind man in Alexandria:

During the months while Vespasian was waiting at Alexandria…, many

marvels occurred to mark the favour of heaven and a certain partial-
ity of the gods toward him. One of the common people of Alexandria,
well known for his loss of sight, threw himself before Vespasian’s knees,
praying him with groans to cure his blindness…, and he besought the
emperor to deign to moisten his cheeks and his eyes with his spittle.
(Hist. 4.81 [Moore])70

Jesus’s behavior toward the blind man is that of a typical ancient folk heal-
er.71 But to John, Jesus is also something more. The mixing of spittle and
clay is significant, because it reveals Jesus in the role of creator, working
with the same ingredients as when God created Adam (Gen 2:7). Daniel
Frayer-Griggs has argued that there is a creation motif behind John 9:6
by showing that there is an extrabiblical tradition (e.g., in the Dead Sea
Scrolls) according to which both spittle and clay played a role in the cre-
ation of human beings.72 John prefaces the entire narrative with Jesus’s
remark to his disciples that he must “work the works of him who sent
me” (9:4). It is Jesus’s act of working clay on the Sabbath that provokes
the Pharisees (9:15–16), but the act also has christological significance
because it reveals Jesus as equal to the creator in bringing light into the
world (Gen 1:3; John 9:5). The connection is drawn by the healed man
himself in his final confession: “Never since the world began has it been
heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind” (John 9:32).
Finally, the healing also includes washing in the dam of Siloam. The
waters of Siloam played a significant role in the Feast of Tabernacles, when
water was brought from the pool to the altar of the temple. It has also
been argued that the pool was the only miqveh (pool used for ritual cleans-
ing) in Jerusalem with free-flowing—“living”—water.73 Again, John adds a

70. See also Suetonius, Vesp. 7.

71. Pilch, Healing in the New Testament, 134.
72. Daniel Frayer-Griggs, “Spittle, Clay and Creation in John 9:6 and Some Dead
Sea Scrolls,” JBL 132 (2013): 667.
73. Gosbell, “The Poor, the Crippled, the Blind, and the Lame,” 310–11.
 3. John and the Symbolic Significance of Disability 69

symbolic layer of meaning by connecting Jesus, who is the Sent One (9:4;
cf. 3:17, 34; 5:36) and the one who has living water (4:10), with this body
of water, which also means “sent” (9:7).74 The complicated healing process
is thus overlaid with symbolism that constructs Jesus as divine creator and
his healing ritual as more effective and life-giving than the rituals in the
Jerusalem temple. Gosbell suggests that seen together, the healing of the
man at Bethesda and the man born blind hint at a reversal of the exclu-
sionary tradition of 2 Sam 5:8 (“the blind and the lame shall not come into
the house”) through Jesus’s ministry.75

3.4.1. The Social Location of a Blind Beggar

The man is a beggar, doubly designated as such, with both a noun and a
verb (προσαίτης, προσαιτῶν, John 9:8). Although it has been claimed that
this is typical of disabled characters in the New Testament gospels and
Acts, it is only this character and Bartimeus in Mark 10:46 who are desig-
nated as blind beggars in the New Testament.76 Blind beggars were some-
thing of a literary stereotype in antiquity, but this does not mean that it was
common for blind people to beg. Lisa Trentin and Martha L. Rose both
argue that the everyday lives of blind people in antiquity differed from
representations of the blind in literature.77 Many people would lose their
eyesight during the course of their lives, due to disease, injury, punish-
ment, or simply old age. Thus, visual impairment did not ban a person a
priori from their occupation, and most blind people probably lived fairly
ordinary lives.78
The man seems to be part of the community in several ways. His par-
ents appear in the story (9:18–23), so he has a family, although it is unclear
how involved they are in their son’s life. There are neighbors who know
him and people who are familiar with him from his usual begging location
(9:8). He also belongs to a synagogue community (9:22), from which he
is eventually cast out for confessing his faith in Jesus (9:34). This is quite
different from the man at the pool of Bethesda, who claims he has no one
and never interacts with anyone except Jesus and “the Jews.”

74. Moloney, Gospel of John, 292.

75. Gosbell, “The Poor, the Crippled, the Blind, and the Lame,” 318–20.
76. For an example of such a claim, see Bengtsson, “Two-Sided Coin,” 4.
77. Trentin, “Exploring Visual Impairment in Roman Antiquity,” 92.
78. Rose, Staff of Oedipus, 79–80, 90–92.
70 Negotiating the Disabled Body

The man’s parents appear on the scene because “the Jews” bring them
in for questioning about their son’s healing. They answer dismissively
when they are asked about the purported miracle: “We know that this is
our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now
he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He
will speak for himself ” (9:20–21). John ascribes their reluctance to speak
on their son’s behalf to fear of “the Jews” (9:22–23). However, the ability
to speak for oneself was crucial in the oral culture of the Roman Empire
and closely connected to citizenship and participation. Laes has noted that
in Roman civil society the uttering of an oath marked integration as civis,
that is, Roman citizenship.79 Deaf-mute people could not hold office, act
as guardians or judges, or make a legal will due to this emphasis on oral
communication.80 When the blind man’s parents claim that their son can
speak for himself, they are insisting that he is a person who can represent
himself and does not need anyone else to be a juridical go-between. This
legal right was one he would have whether he was blind or seeing. There
are a number of references to hearing, listening, and speaking in this part
of the story (9:29, 30, 31, 32, 37), thus underscoring an ability this man has
had all along.
As with the man at the Bethesda pool, John uses several different des-
ignations to refer to the man Jesus heals from blindness. He is referred
to as a human being (ἄνθρωπος, 9:1, 24, 30), called by various pronouns,
and called by a variety of constructs relating to his new condition: “the
man who had formerly been blind (τόν ποτε τυφλόν, 9:13), “the man who
had received his sight” (τοῦ ἀναβλέψαντος, 9:18). He is also referred to as
a son (9:19–20) and as a beggar. In other words, there are aspects of this
narrative that underscores his status as a human being rather than only
a disabled person. He is not a one-dimensional character but speaks and
acts within a social network of people who relate to him in different roles.
Colleen Grant notes that he appears “not only as a broken figure in need
of compassion and healing but as a person in his own right. We are able to
get to know him as a thoughtful, brave, amusing, but above all, ordinary
person.”81

79. Laes, “Silent History?,” 153.

80. Laes, “Silent History?,” 153.
81. Colleen C. Grant, “Reinterpreting the Healing Narratives,” in Human Dis-
ability and the Service of God. Reassessing Religious Practice, ed. Nancy L. Eiesland and
Don E. Salier (Nashville: Abingdon, 1998), 79.
 3. John and the Symbolic Significance of Disability 71

After the healing there is confusion about the man’s identity. People
who know him do not recognize him after he is healed, and there are some
doubts that he really is the same man (9:8–12). In an effort to try and
establish his identity, the man exclaims “I am he” (ἐγώ ἐιμι, 9:9). Grant
argues that “his disability was never his defining characteristic; he knows
himself to be the same person, blind or sighted.”82 The phrase ἐγώ ἐιμι is a
christologically significant phrase in John’s Gospel.83 This is the only time
that the phrase is not uttered by Jesus. There is thus an interesting overlap
in the identities of Jesus and the man. The confusion around identity is a
characteristic that Jesus and the formerly blind man share. Just like with
Jesus, people are unclear about the identity of the man, and the phrase
ἐγώ ἐιμι functions as a “bold revelation in the face of a skeptical crowd.”84
Another similarity between these two characters is that both are called
human being through the course of the story (Jesus is called ἄνθρωπος in
9:11, 16, 24). Moreover, both men create a schism with respect to their
identity.85 The narrative ends with Jesus questioning the man, “Do you
believe in the Son of Man [τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρῶπου]?” (9:35), and revealing
that the Son of Man is the one speaking to him (9:37). It seems, therefore,
that the character not only serves as narrative prosthesis, used to reveal
Jesus’s close connection to the Father, but in some fashion may also func-
tion as a christological representative.86

3.4.2. Blindness as Metaphor

The symbolic level of blindness is a motif throughout the story. There is

a dualistic contrast between day and night (9:4), light and darkness (9:5),
faith and disbelief (9:18, 25, 31, 36, 38), blindness and seeing (9:39–41).
The healing draws on a metaphorical understanding of blindness and
seeing in which ignorance ties in with the former and insight and true
faith connects with the latter. This use of blindness was a common liter-
ary topos in antiquity. There were several aspects to this topos, sometimes
connecting blind characters to helplessness, sometimes to ignorance,

82. Grant, “Reinterpreting the Healing Narratives,” 81.

83. See, e.g., John 4:26; 6:20, 35; 8:12, 58; 10:7, 11; 18:5.
84. Grant, “Reinterpreting the Healing Narratives,” 81. See also Clark-Soles,
“John,” 348.
85. Moloney, Gospel of John, 297.
86. Moloney, Gospel of John, 297.
72 Negotiating the Disabled Body

and other times to exceptional insight.87 The polar opposites mentioned

recur throughout the Gospel of John.88 Thus, the healing story undergirds
John’s depiction of Jesus as the one who brings light and life, with allu-
sions to the prologue (“the true light, which enlightens everyone,” 1:9)
as well as to the preceding chapter, where Jesus proclaims himself to be
“the light of the world” (ἐγώ εἰμι τὸ φῶς τοῦ κόσμου, 8:12). The passage is
thus also connected to one of the ἐγώ ἐιμι sayings, which Jesus states in
truncated form in the passage: “As long as I am in the world, I am the light
of the world [φῶς εἰμι τοῦ κόσμου]” (9:5). Sontag as well as Mitchell and
Snyder have pointed to the stigmatizing effects of such metaphorical use
of disability. Sontag’s observation that certain illnesses (and disabilities,
I would add) can take on a particular metaphorical meaning in a culture
is helpful in order to understand John’s use of blindness. John draws on
the culturally assigned place of blindness as a metaphor for ignorance as
a key aspect of his dualistic theology. Such metaphors demand that we
read people with disabilities “as symbols of brokenness.”89 Although the
blind person in the story is good, the association with blindness and igno-
rance is “unhelpful to actual blind persons trying to function in normate
society.”90
Commentators seem to take more of a liking to the man born blind
than to the weak man at Bethesda. Brown draws a sharp contrast between
the two characters: “This clever and voluble blind man is quite different
from the obtuse and unimaginative paralytic of ch. v.”91 As noted above,
these two stories are often understood as complementing each other, and
the two characters are read symbolically to signify partial understanding
and faith respectively.92 Colleen Conway has argued against such a sym-
bolic reading of minor characters in John. She claims that the characters
are more complicated and that the typical reading flattens John’s ambigu-
ity: “Minor characters of the Fourth Gospel do more to complicate the

87. Hartsock, Sight and Blindness in Luke-Acts, 65–81.

88. Anderson, Riddles of the Fourth Gospel, 36–37.
89. Grant, “Reinterpreting the Healing Narratives,” 78.
90. Clark-Soles, “John,” 353.
91. Brown, Gospel according to John (I–XII), 377. See also Ernst Haenchen, John
2: A Commentary on the Gospel of John Chapters 7–21, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: For-
tress, 1984, 40).
92. See, e.g., Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel, 137–40; Wynn, “Johan-
nine Healings and the Otherness of Disability,” 72; Keener, Gospel of John, 1:639–40.
 3. John and the Symbolic Significance of Disability 73

clear choice between belief and unbelief than to illustrate it.”93 Conway’s
suggestion that John’s characters may be more ambivalent than straight-
forward is useful, as it complements Sontag’s observations about the way
that metaphor works. Awareness about how disability is used in a narrative
is helpful in order both to reveal biases of earlier interpretations and to
suggest alternative readings.

3.5. Conclusion: Johannine Paradoxes

In conclusion, the Gospel of John presents a number of paradoxes from

a disability perspective. First, there is a paradox when it comes to John’s
place in the ancient health care system. On the one hand, he shows some
knowledge of medical discourse and thus seems to draw on insights from
the professional sector of the ancient health care system. I have noted that
the attention given to fevers (4:52) and the notion of being “dried up” (5:3)
align with Hippocratic ideas. Moreover, I have argued that John draws on
Greek gynecological traditions to construct his incarnational theology,
which may be glimpsed in the expression “blind from birth” (9:1). Hence
John is grounded in a balance etiology rather than an invasion etiology
of illness. On the other hand, there are clear folk traditions at work in the
healing stories. The setting of the healing of the weak man, the pool of
Bethesda, is most likely a healing sanctuary. The elaborate healing process
in John 9 likewise draws on folk traditions of healing, with notions of the
mystical power of mud and of ritual washing. In John’s healing stories,
then, we have medical terminology that shows familiarity with the profes-
sionalized sector, but the spaces where the healings take place are con-
nected to the popular sector.
Another paradox is in the literary representation of the characters. On
the one hand, they are more developed in John and thus contribute to
more complex identities. The characters do not vanish immediately, like
they do in the Synoptics. Both of the longer stories elaborate on what hap-
pens after the healing as well as the interactions and relationships of the
healed person. Moreover, the common humanity between Christ and the
two disabled men is drawn out through the use of the term ἄνθρωπος for
both Jesus and these literary characters. They are not stuck with one dis-

93. Colleen M. Conway, “Speaking through Ambiguity: Minor Characters in the

Fourth Gospel,” BibInt 10 (2002): 325.
74 Negotiating the Disabled Body

ability label but are designated by various terms through the course of the
narrative. On the other hand, the tradition of reading the man at Bethesda
as weak in character and John’s metaphorical use of blindness as aligned
with darkness and misunderstanding are both problematic from a disabil-
ity studies perspective. As Sontag observed, such metaphorical construc-
tions contribute to the stigmatization of people who are ill or disabled.94
Nancy L. Eiesland has pointed out that uncritical use of biblical healing
stories “reinforce negative stereotypes … and mask the lived realities of
people with disabilities.”95
Finally, as noted in the beginning of this chapter, John casts his heal-
ing stories as signs and only narrates three exemplary healings. Of these,
only two concern disabilities. The two disabilities may be significant, as
lame and blind are two typical categories of disability in antiquity. I concur
with Gosbell that the two disabilities are chosen so that they together rep-
resent disability as a category. The two stories thus stand in for “all those
with physical and sensory impairments who are being healed by Jesus.”96 It
should be noted that John does not include any stories about Jesus healing
women, although he includes some significant female characters in the
gospel (4:4–42; 11:1–53; 12:1–11; 20:11–18). Whereas the Synoptics tell of
numerous healings of women, John’s three healing narratives, as well as the
raising of Lazarus (11:1–43), concern the restoration of male characters. In
reducing the miracle stories to only seven, John has chosen these stories
for their representative, signifying value. This reflects an understanding of
gender in which male is more representative than female.97

94. Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, 97.

95. Eiesland, Disabled God, 74.
96. Gosbell, “The Poor, the Crippled, the Blind, and the Lame,” 317.
97. As I argue in Solevåg, “Hysterical Women?,” 323.
 4
Disabling Women in the Acts of Peter

4.1. Introduction: Disability and the Male Gaze

In this chapter, I continue to explore healing narratives as a particular lit-

erary space for representations of disability. From examining New Testa-
ment examples of this genre, I now turn to the apocryphal Acts of Peter.
There are several reasons for the selection of this early Christian text. First,
it complicates the picture when it comes to early Christian healing narra-
tives, as it includes several stories of unhealing, and even apostolic inflic-
tions of disability. Such unhealings also occur in other early Christian texts
(e.g., Acts 5:1–10), but it is a recurring characteristic of the Acts of Peter.
Moreover, disability and illness intersect with gender in a number of inter-
esting ways in this work. I will focus on several stories about the un/heal-
ing of women, namely, Peter’s unnamed daughter, a Christ-believer called
Rufina, a group of blind widows, and a female demon. An intersectional
approach, viewing gender alongside disability, will provide some new
insights into the power relations that operate in the text, I argue.
How a text describes bodies that deviate from the norm can reveal
something about the gaze of that text, that is, the viewpoint from which the
narrator contemplates the world. This concept was introduced to the study
of antiquity from feminist film criticism, which claimed that in modern
movie production “the gaze is male.” Who is the scrutinizing, gazing sub-
ject, and who is the object being looked at in texts from antiquity? Schol-
ars drawing on this theory have convincingly argued that ancient sources

An earlier version of this chapter will appear in a forthcoming anthology and is

reworked here by permission. See Anna Rebecca Solevåg, “Apostolic Power to Para-
lyze: Gender and Disability in the Acts of Peter,” in Marginalised Writings of Early
Christianity: Apocryphal Texts and Writings of Female Authorship, ed. Outi Lehtipuu
and Silke Petersen, BW (Atlanta: SBL Press, forthcoming).

-75-
76 Negotiating the Disabled Body

objectify women in a number of culturally specific ways.1 For example,

female characters in a number of texts appear nude to the reader, are often
mute, are commodified as food, are exposed to the public gaze, and dis-
play fear.2 Whereas female characters are objectified and involuntarily
turned into spectacle in ancient texts, the act of looking in itself often
asserts authority. Looking and eye contact held cultural significance in
the Greco-Roman world, as it manifested and defined status: “Both the
right to look and the right to display oneself are part of a definition of
status in social interaction. Typically, both rights were denied in Greece
to individuals (slaves, boys, women, kinaidoi) defined as inferior to free
men and forfeited by free men of impaired status.”3 While earlier research
was predominantly focused on gendered aspects of the gaze, Sue Blundell
and others argue that looking negotiates a more complicated hierarchy of
status positions, also involving class, sexuality, and dis/ability.
Within disability studies, too, the act of looking and its stigmatizing
and controlling effect has been addressed. Garland-Thomson observes
that gender, race, and ability systems intertwine and mutually constitute
one another as systems of representation that mark subjugated bodies as
other.4 She posits that staring is a form of nonverbal communication that
is used to enforce social hierarchies and regulate access to resources.5 The
male gaze is only one instance of the multiple forms of cultural othering
that can take place through looking as an act of domination: “The kind
of staring that ‘fixes’ a person in gender, race, disability, class, or sexuality
systems is an attempt to control the other.”6 This chapter uses gaze and

1. See, e.g., Amy Richlin, Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 107; Richlin, Arguments with Silence:
Writing the History of Roman Women (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
2014); Sue Blundell et al., “Introduction,” Helios 40 (2013); Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz,
“Women as Subject and Object of the Gaze in Tragedy,” Helios 40 (2013); Marilyn B.
Skinner, Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005).
2. Amy Richlin, introduction to Pornography and Representation in Greece and
Rome, xix.
3. Blundell et al., “Introduction,” 22.
4. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, “Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist
Theory,” in Davis, Disability Studies Reader, 357–59.
5. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Staring: How We Look (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2009), 40.
6. Garland-Thomson, Staring, 42.
 4. Disabling Women in the Acts of Peter 77

staring as key concepts to scrutinize how women characters and their dis-
abilities are presented in the Acts of Peter.

4.1.1. Women in the Acts of Peter

The Acts of Peter is one of the so-called apocryphal acts.7 It is not pre-
served as one coherent whole, and I rely on several different text corpora
in three different languages in this chapter: the Coptic Act of Peter from
the Berlin Codex (Act Pet.), the Latin Actus Vercellenses (Act. Verc.), and
the Greek Martyrdom of Peter (Mart. Pet.).8 It is likely that all these texts
belonged to an original Acts of Peter, but the arguments I make here are
not dependent on the original unity of these texts.9
The Latin Actus Vercellenses contains the longest portion of text. It
starts with Paul’s departure from Rome and Peter’s subsequent arrival in
that city. While the Christ-believers in Rome are without apostolic over-
sight, they are “seduced” by the Jewish sorcerer Simon Magus and leave
their newfound faith. The bulk of the narrative focuses on Peter’s contesta-
tions with Simon Magus, in a series of miracle competitions, in an effort to
win the former believers back. He succeeds, and the tale ends with Peter’s

7. There are five such acts preserved that date from the second and third cen-
turies. See Hans-Josef Klauck, The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles: An Introduction,
trans. Brian McNeil (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008), 3.
8. For Actus Vercellences and the Martyrdom of Peter, see Constantin von Tisch-
endorf, Max Bonnet, and Richard Adelbert Lipsius, Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha,
vol. 1 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1959). The Berlin Codex, also
referred to as Codex Berolinensis or BG, contains four texts: the Gospel of Mary, the
Apocryphon of John, the Wisdom of Jesus Christ, and the Act of Peter. See Douglas
M. Parrott, ed., Nag Hammadi Codices V, 2–5 and VI: With Papyrus Berolinensis 8502
(Leiden: Brill, 1979). For English translations of Actus Vercellences, the Martyrdom of
Peter, and the Acts of Peter, see “The Acts of Peter,” in The Apocryphal New Testament,
ed. John K. Elliott (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), 397–427; Wilhelm Schneemelcher,
“The Acts of Peter,” in New Testament Apocrypha, ed. Wilhelm Schneemelcher and R.
McL. Wilson (Cambridge: James Clarke, 1991), 285–317. All English quotations are
from Elliott.
9. Jan N. Bremmer dates the Acts of Peter to the last two decades of the second
century (“Women, Magic, Place and Date,” in Bremmer, Apocryphal Acts of Peter, 18).
Klauck dates it to ca. 200 CE (Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, 84). As Christine M.
Thomas points out, the transmission of this narrative is fluid and the texts multiform,
and hence the search for an “original text” is futile (The Acts of Peter, Gospel Literature,
and the Ancient Novel: Rewriting the Past [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003], 39).
78 Negotiating the Disabled Body

martyrdom, including the well-known quo vadis scene and the upside-
down crucifixion of Peter. The martyrdom is also preserved in the Greek
Martyrdom of Peter. It is assumed that the Acts of Peter was originally
written in Greek and that Actus Vercellenses is a loose translation of it. It
is likely that the original had more material in the beginning than what
is preserved in the Actus Vercellenses. The story of how Peter heals and
unheals his paralyzed virgin daughter, preserved only in the Coptic Act of
Peter, is considered to be part of this otherwise lost first part.10
In the Acts of Peter, the apostle’s healing activity is an important part
of his ministry. Word and deed go hand in hand, and both are signs of his
power as an apostle and representative of God. In addition to short com-
ments about Peter’s healing ministry (Act Pet. 128:4–7, 10–17; Act. Verc.
29; Mart. Pet. 2), there are several episodes that recount miracles of heal-
ing as well as unhealing. Many of these stories include women, and in the
following, I focus on four stories concerning the (healing and) unhealing
of women.

4.2. Peter’s Daughter

The story about Peter’s daughter is fascinating and troubling from a dis-
ability perspective. At a gathering on the Lord’s Day, Peter, who is known
for curing many sick people, is asked why he has not healed his own daugh-
ter, who is paralyzed and present at the gathering (Act Pet. 128:10–129:8).
“God alone knows why her body is sick,” says Peter, quickly adding that
“God is not unable or powerless” (129:11–15). To prove this point, Peter
proceeds to heal his daughter. He asks her to rise and walk toward him,
and to the amazement of the crowd, she does so. However, Peter addresses
his daughter a second time and says: “Return to your place, sit down there
and be helpless again, for it is good for me and you” (131:2–5). The girl
walks back to her place and becomes paralyzed again. The crowd laments
this turn of events, but Peter assures them again that “this is good for her
and for me” (141:14). The reason she is lame, explains Peter, is that when
she was ten she became so beautiful that she was a stumbling-block to

10. Klauck, Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, 82–83; Thomas, Acts of Peter, 18–20.
Andrea L. Molinari, however, argues that the Coptic Act of Peter is independent of the
Acts of Peter (“I Never Knew the Man”: The Coptic Act of Peter [Papyrus Berolinensis
8502.4], Its Independence from the Apocryphal Acts of Peter, Genre and Legendary Ori-
gins [Leuven: Peeters, 2000], xxxv).
 4. Disabling Women in the Acts of Peter 79

many men. One man in particular, Ptolemy, who had seen her naked when
she was bathing, wanted to take her for his wife, but her mother did not
consent to the marriage offer. Ptolemy “often sent for her, for he could not
wait” (132:18–19), Peter recounts. At this point, there is a lacuna in the
papyrus document, and the next two pages of the manuscript are missing.
Following the lacuna, Peter and his wife find their daughter paralyzed on
the doorstep, left there by Ptolemy. They “found the girl with one side of
her body paralysed [sēq] from head to foot and dried up [essosht]” (135:6–
9). Apparently, she had become paralyzed at some point during the abduc-
tion, and the paralysis seems to be the reason for her safe return to Peter’s
house.11 Somehow, the (divine?) disabling of the girl has made her sexually
inviolable: “We carried her away, praising the Lord that he had kept his
servant from defilement and violation” (135:10–13).
The girl’s disability is described as a paralysis of one side of her body
from head to foot and also as being “dried up” (essosht). As already noted,
paralysis is an illness category that occurs frequently in ancient medi-
cal literature as well as in general discourse (see §2.2). The Greek term
παράλυσις encompasses a broad range of mobility impairments involv-
ing the “disabling of the nerves,” ranging from temporary to permanent
conditions.12 Meghan Henning has argued that ancient humoral theory
is behind the description of Peter’s daughter’s illness, pointing to medical
writers that posit paralysis as the result of a body deficient in natural heat.13
She shows how medical texts draw a connection between cold blood, on
one side, and sexual dysfunction and infertility, on the other, and she
concludes that Ptolemy’s rejection of Peter’s daughter is because her para-
lyzed body was read as infertile: “The author of the Coptic fragment could
expect his readers to infer that Peter’s daughter’s paralysis was evidence
of any number of problems, from preventing reproduction to precluding
sexual activity altogether.”14
I agree with Henning that humoral theory is behind this description.
However, the paradigm of humoral imbalance had two spectrums: hot-
cold and wet-dry. It seems more likely to assume that the girl’s primary
imbalance has to do with humidity, as her condition is explicitly described

11. Klauck, Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, 106.

12. Meghan Henning, “Paralysis and Sexualilty in Medical Literature and the Acts
of Peter,” JLA 8 (2015): 311.
13. Henning, “Paralysis and Sexualilty in Medical Literature,” 311–13.
14. Henning, “Paralysis and Sexualilty in Medical Literature,” 318.
80 Negotiating the Disabled Body

in terms of dryness: she is “paralysed from head to foot and dried up”
(Act Pet. 135:6–9). Paralysis could be conceived of in terms of desiccation,
as noted in discussions above (§2.2 and §3.3). For a woman to be “dried
up” could also signal infertility.15 According to Hippocratic gynecologi-
cal treatises, the womb could dry out if it lacked the irrigation of menses
and male sperm through intercourse. Such desiccation could cause the
womb to dislocate and travel around the body in search of moisture. “The
wandering womb” was a condition with symptoms such as suffocation,
fever, headache, pains, loss of speech, lethargy, and delirium.16 Moss has
argued that the woman with the flow of blood in Mark 5:26–34 can be
understood in light of ancient medical conceptions of women as moist and
leaky. Jesus’s healing causes a transition from “sickly, effeminate leaker to
faith-dried healthy follower.”17 Similarly, Peter’s daughter’s body may have
been read as infertile due to this desiccated state.
In the text, the daughter’s dried up, lame body is not a problem; it is
a solution, a positive state. This bodily state is possibly also understood as
masculinized. The tale of Peter’s daughter fits well with the theme of sexual
renunciation that is typical of the apocryphal acts. Within this tradition,
virginity was regarded as a step in the direction of masculinity and virtus
and as a way to overcome female passion and passivity.18 To renounce
marriage as part of one’s commitment to Christ was conceived of in terms
of a gender transition from female to male. Women ascetics were thought
of as “becoming male” (e.g., Gos. Thom. 114).19 A dry, hardened body
can from this perspective be seen as a masculinized body.20 Moss inter-
prets the woman with the flow of blood (Mark 5:21–43) in this light. The
healing by Jesus is described as a “drying up” (ἐξηράνθη, 5:29), which may
mean that she becomes menopausal as an anticipation of the eschaton.

15. Weissenrieder, Images of Illness in the Gospel of Luke, 81–84.

16. Nancy Demand, Birth, Death, and Motherhood in Classical Greece (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 55.
17. Candida R. Moss, “The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark
5:25–34,” JBL 129 (2010): 515.
18. Solevåg, Birthing Salvation, 62–64.
19. See, e.g., Kari Vogt, “ ‘Becoming Male’: A Gnostic and Early Christian Meta-
phor,” in The Image of God and Gender Models in Judaeo-Christian Tradition, ed. Kari
Elisabeth Børresen (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995); Elizabeth A. Clark, Reading Renun-
ciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1999).
20. Moss, “Man with the Flow of Power,” 513–14.
 4. Disabling Women in the Acts of Peter 81

Her infertile body is thus a prefiguration of the resurrected body.21 Like

the woman with the flow of blood, she transitions from a moist, female
body to a dried-up, masculinized body.22 The body of Peter’s daughter
may similarly represent an infertile, masculinized body that prefigures the
eschaton. In such a metaphorical use of disability, “lame” and “dried up”
signify a more valuable bodily state than being able-bodied.23
The impairment is only on one side of the body, from head to foot. A
similar description of one-sided paralysis also occurs in the story of Rufina
in Actus Vercellences, and the connection between the two stories will
be discussed below. There are accounts of half-paralysis in Greek medi-
cal literature. Both Aretaeus and Galen attribute such paralysis to some
affection of the spinal cord (Aretaeus, Sign. diut. 1.7; Galen, Loc. aff. 3.14).
This description of the daughter’s condition probably has more to do with
notions of beauty than medicine. Proportionality and symmetry were
important aspects of ancient notions of beauty.24 It is therefore surprising
that the daughter is described as beautiful by Peter’s interlocutors: “Why
have you not helped your virgin daughter, who has grown up beautiful”
(Act Pet. 128:19).25 The narrative here undercuts the conventional associa-
tion of beauty with ability and proportionality.26 The above argued con-
nection between the daughter’s disability and her virginity can explain this
shift in the understanding of beauty.

4.2.1. Disability as a Good—For Whom?

Peter’s claim that the daughter’s situation is good for both her and him-
self reflects Greco-Roman gender values. A young girl was a future bride,
and a young, free woman’s most important asset was her virginity. Peter’s
argument also reveals his position as a householder, a male kyrios, whose
responsibility it was to rule over the household and keep wife, children,

21. Moss, “Mark and Matthew,” 289, 296.

22. Moss, “Man with the Flow of Power,” 515.
23. See Baden and Moss, Reconceiving Infertility, 236; Moss, “Mark and Mat-
thew,” 292.
24. Alexandre Mitchell, “The Hellenistic Turn in Bodily Representations: Venting
Anxiety in Terracotta Figurines,” in Laes, Disability in Antiquity, 183.
25. Baden and Moss note that this description undercuts the conventional asso-
ciation of beauty with able-bodiedness: “Her condition is not metaphorically disfigur-
ing” (Reconceiving Infertility, 195).
26. Baden and Moss, Reconceiving Infertility, 195.
82 Negotiating the Disabled Body

and slaves under control. It was shameful for the whole family if a daugh-
ter was sexually violated, especially for the head of the household, whose
responsibility it was to protect the sexual honor of women in his family.
The daughter’s disability is framed according to this hierarchy of valued
goods. Peter’s story suggests that the daughter became paralyzed as a pro-
tection against rape or forced marriage. Two different “afflictions” are thus
juxtaposed: Which is better, to be lame or to have a violated body? To have
a broken leg or a broken hymen? The daughter’s disability is held up as
the preferred alternative—good both for herself and for her father’s honor.
The Roman tradition of abduction marriages may help surmise what
happens in the lacuna. Abduction marriages were well known in antiq-
uity. Raptus, as it was called, involved the abduction of an unmarried girl
by a man who had not made a formal betrothal agreement with her. The
assumption that the union had been consummated would then force the
consent of the girl’s parents to a marriage between the two.27 The girl would
be considered “damaged goods” and hence unmarriageable to anyone but
the abductor. Hence, the hoped-for end result was that the abductor would
marry his victim. Ptolemy’s scheme bears a resemblance to the typical rap-
tus.28 After his marriage offer is repeatedly turned down, Ptolemy becomes
impatient and abducts the girl, but something happens to her body during
the abduction, and he therefore returns her to her father’s home, paralyzed
but otherwise unharmed. Ptolemy does not complete the raptus scheme of
offering to marry the girl. For some reason, she is no longer of interest to
him, perhaps, as Henning suggests, because a paralyzed woman would be
understood as infertile.29 It is clear from the narrative that marriage is not
an option after the kidnapping, and the daughter remains a virgin in her
father’s house because of this episode (Act Pet. 128:18).
Exactly how paralysis rescued the daughter from violation is unclear
due to the lacuna. There seems to be a logical flaw in the story’s argument.
It seems more likely that paralysis would make the daughter more vul-

27. Judith Evans Grubbs, “Abduction Marriage in Antiquity: A Law of Constan-

tine (CTh. IX. 24. I) and Its Social Context,” JRS 79 (1989): 61.
28. The fate of Verginia, as told by Livy, has clear likenesses to Peter’s daughter. In
a desperate attempt to hinder his daughter from being abducted and raped, the states-
man Verginius killed his own daughter (Livy, Urb. cond. 3.44–48). Molinari also notes
the similarities between these two stories (“I Never Knew the Man,” 128–56).
29. Henning, “Paralysis and Sexualilty in Medical Literature,” 309.
 4. Disabling Women in the Acts of Peter 83

nerable to sexual assault.30 However, the divinely inflicted paralysis func-

tions as an alternative and more honorable explanation for the daughter’s
unmarried state than sexual violation. The inherent logic of the raptus sce-
nario is that the girl does not necessarily have to be raped: her reputation
is ruined simply by the possibility that she is no longer a virgin.31 The nar-
rator glosses over the fact that her reputation is in fact ruined by insisting
on her virginity and by focusing on her disability, which likewise renders
her unmarriageable.
The combination of householder and apostle that we find in the nar-
rative construction of Peter in this story makes him extremely powerful.32
As a child, a female, and a disabled person, Peter’s daughter is multiply
disadvantaged and has no say when her father declares her situation good.
Peter has absolute power over his daughter’s body, and the benefit seems to
be more for the crowd, whose faith is increased, and for Peter, whose honor
is preserved, than for the girl herself.33 The gaze of the reader in this text is
in other words male and clearly kyriarchal. What is presented as beneficial
and good is from the perspective of a male householder. Although the
daughter is at the center of attention, she is not given a name, like her male
suitor is. The reader’s gaze lingers on the body of Peter’s daughter at differ-
ent moments: she is observed bathing by Ptolemy, her beauty is remarked
on by Peter’s interlocutors, and she is gazed at as she silently obeys her
father’s bidding to walk toward him and return to her place. Throughout
the narrative she never utters a word but remains silent. The narrative thus
displays many of the features typical of the ancient male gaze, drawing on
nudity, silence, and public exposure of the female as object.34
In the last section of the Act, Peter narrates what happened to Ptolemy
in the aftermath of the abduction. According to Peter, Ptolemy regretted

30. According to the United Nations (https://www.un.org/development/desa/

disabilities/issues/women-and-girls-with-disabilities.html), women and girls with
disabilities are particularly vulnerable to gender-based violence and sexual abuse
worldwide.
31. Grubbs, “Abduction Marriage in Antiquity,” 62.
32. Cornelia B. Horn, “Suffering Children, Parental Authority and the Quest for
Liberation?: A Tale of Three Girls in the Acts of Paul (and Thecla), the Act(s) of Peter,
the Acts of Nerseus and Achilleus, and the Epistle of Pseudo-Titus,” in A Feminist Com-
panion to the New Testament Apocrypha, ed. Amy-Jill Levine with Maria Mayo Rob-
bins (London: T&T Clark, 2006), 135.
33. Horn, “Suffering Children,” 136.
34. Richlin, “Introduction,” xix.
84 Negotiating the Disabled Body

his actions and was contemplating suicide, but then he had a vision: “He
saw a great light which illuminated the whole house and he heard a voice
saying to him, ‘Ptolemy, God has not given the vessels for corruption and
shame; it is not right for you, as a believer in me, to violate my virgin,
whom you are to know as my sister … go to the house of Peter and you
shall see my glory’ ” (Act Pet. 137:1–9). With the help of his servants, Ptol-
emy is brought to Peter, who heals him, “and he saw with the eyes of his
flesh and with the eyes of his soul” (138:7–10). In a typical metaphorizing
move, Ptolemy is given double visionary ability. He regains his eyesight at
the same time as he metaphorically sees the light and obtains theological
insight. As already noted, this metaphorical use of blindness was a literary
topos in antiquity (see §3.4). Here, like in John 9:1–41, this commonplace
metaphor connected to a disability is used to develop the text’s theology.
Why is Ptolemy granted healing when Peter’s daughter is not? Although
it is unclear whether or not Ptolemy’s blindness is a punishment for sin, it
is somehow an effect of his previous sins. If Peter’s daughter’s beauty was a
temptation to Ptolemy, remaining blind could have been a good solution
to his bodily weakness. However, the problem of Peter’s daughter is bigger
than just Ptolemy. As Peter had been told in a vision at the girl’s birth:
“This daughter will harm many souls, if her body remains well!” (Act Pet.
132:1–4). In this narrative, the woman must carry in her body the problem
of male sexual temptation and aggression. The gaze of the text is not only
male; it is also disabling: she must be inflicted with disability in order to
avoid being a temptation. The narrative turns Peter’s daughter into a lesson
about what is most beneficial for her father and other men in the Christ-
believing community.

4.3. Rufina

The Actus Vercellences begins with the apostle Paul taking leave of the
Roman believers to go as an apostle to Spain. Before he leaves, he shares
the Eucharist with the Romans for the last time. This scene turns into a
confrontation with one of the believers, Rufina:

Among those present was a woman named Rufina, who wished to

receive the eucharist from the hands of Paul. And when she came for-
ward, Paul, filled by the spirit of God, said to her, “Rufina, you do not
approach the altar of God as a believer, since you rise from the side not
of a husband but of an adulterer, and yet you endeavour to receive God’s
 4. Disabling Women in the Acts of Peter 85

eucharist. Behold, Satan will trample down your head and expose you
before the eyes of all who believer in the Lord, so that they may see and
believe and know that they have believed in the living God, the searcher
of hearts.… But if you do not repent while you are still in the body, the
devouring fire and the outer darkness will receive you forever.” And at
once Rufina collapsed, being paralysed on the left side from head to foot
[a sinistra parte a capite usque ad ungues pedum contorminata cecidit].
Nor could she speak any more, for her tongue was tied [nec potestas data
est loquendi: lingua enim eius obligata est]. (Act. Verc. 2)

Two different afflictions befall Rufina: she is paralyzed, and she loses her
voice. First, like Peter’s daughter, Rufina is paralyzed from head to foot. In
fact, the Latin is even more specific: she is paralyzed from head to toenails
(ungues pedum). A comparison of wording is complicated by the fact the
story of Peter’s daughter is in Coptic, but here, too, nails are specifically
mentioned (eib, 134:8).35 In other words, both Peter’s daughter and Rufina
are described as paralyzed on one side of the whole body. Second, Rufina
loses her ability speak. The expression “her tongue was tied” (lingua obli-
gata est) should be seen in light of ancient understanding of muteness as
some sort impediment to the tongue.36
In this passage, there is the same juxtaposition of a powerful, male,
able-bodied apostle and a powerless, disabled woman as in the story of
Peter’s daughter. The gaze of the reader rests on Rufina as she becomes a
spectacle: exposed and punished before the eyes of the Christ-believing
community at Rome. She is silenced and immobilized through divine
interventions, and it is clear that she serves as a lesson for the whole com-
munity. When the other believers see her lying there, “they beat their
breasts, remembering their former sins” (Act. Verc. 2), and Paul takes the
opportunity to give a sermon about repentance and the right way to live
as believers. After the sermon, the text never mentions Rufina again, so
the reader is left to wonder about her fate. Does she repent her sins? Is she
healed? The text provides no answers.
I suggest that the episode with Rufina serves as a preview of what
will become of Simon Magus. The two things that happen to her—she
becomes mute and paralyzed—also befall Simon through his contests

35. Thomas argues that the similarity in wording “from head to (toe)nails” is a
strong argument that both texts belong to the same textual tradition (Acts of Peter, 20).
36. Christian Laes, “Silent Witnesses: Deaf-Mutes in Graeco-Roman Antuquity,”
CW 104 (2011): 471–72; Weissenrieder, Images of Illness, 116.
86 Negotiating the Disabled Body

with Peter. Simon becomes mute in two different episodes. He is ridiculed

and silenced by two messengers sent to him by Peter, a dog and a baby
(Act. Verc. 11; 15). A man with proper control of his body and his speech
should be able to subdue and silence a dog and a child, both of which he is
kyriarchically superior to. But the opposite happens; the dog and the baby
silence the man: “At once he became speechless, and being constrained he
left Rome” (Act. Verc. 15). Simon also becomes paralyzed in the end. In a
final contest with Peter he tries to fly to show his superior magic skills. As
Simon ascends over Rome, Peter prays that he may fall down and “break
his leg in three places” (Mart. Pet. 3), which happens. Simon flees the city
and eventually dies from the injury to his leg: “Following an operation
Simon, the messenger of the devil, ended his life” (Mart. Pet. 3).
Both of these disabilities, muteness and mobility impairment, are used
metaphorically in the narrative. Rufina’s loss of speech is juxtaposed to
Paul’s eloquent talk in the sermon he gives after he exposes her adultery.
Whenever Simon’s speech is referred to, it is ridiculed. His voice is called
shrill (Act. Verc. 4), and the dog calls Simon’s voice “weak and useless”
(Act. Verc. 12). The baby, on the other hand, speaks with a manly voice
(Act. Verc. 15). According to ancient physiognomic treatises, a high-
pitched voice was a sign of cowardice. Flaws in vocal control signaled lack
of sexual self-control, and this was considered a feminine trait.37
When Simon breaks his leg, he is injured on one side of his body, just
like Rufina. Rufina, who is caught in adultery, thus prefigures Simon as a
seducer of the Roman Christ-believers. As a seducer of the faithful, Simon
resembles an adulterous woman. The adulterous woman, often cast as a
foreign seductress, was a common metaphor for idolatry in the Hebrew
Bible that was further developed in early Christianity.38 Simon, I argue,
is cast according to this type. He is called a seducer (seductor, 7), and the
verb seduco is used to describe his actions (Act. Verc. 9, 10).39 By tying
Simon to this literary topos, the text ridicules, disgraces, and effeminizes
him. The accusation that Simon is a seducer of the Christ-believers thus
plays on the same notions that underlie the references to his inadequate
voice: that Simon is an effeminate, weak character. In this interpretation,

37. Gleason, Making Men, 83.

38. See Gail Corrington Streete, The Strange Woman: Power and Sex in the Bible
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997).
39. The Vulgate uses the terms seduco and seductor about Satan, the Antichrist,
and the beast (2 John 1:7; Rev 12:9; 13:14).
 4. Disabling Women in the Acts of Peter 87

Rufina’s disability is not only physiognomic, in that it reveals her inner

moral character; it is also symbolic, in that it represents the fate of heretics.

4.4. The Blind Widows

The metaphorical potential of blindness is also drawn out in an episode

that takes place in the house of Marcellus, where the Roman Christ-believ-
ers gather. First, Peter heals a blind widow, saying, “Come here, mother,
from this day Jesus gives you his right hand; through him we have light
unapproachable which darkness cannot hide. Through me he says to you,
‘Open your eyes, see and walk on your own’ ” (Act. Verc. 20). The woman
is healed, and after the healing, Peter gives a sermon on the transfigura-
tion of Jesus. He tells the believers how he, as an eyewitness, thought that
he had lost his eyesight when he experienced the brightness as Jesus was
transformed. Peter continues to praise Jesus with the following words: “this
Great and Small One, this Beautiful and Ugly one, this young man and old
man, appearing in time, yet utterly invisible in eternity” (Act. Verc. 20).
The healings are used as a starting point to speak metaphorically about
sight and blindness, light and darkness, drawing on the literary topos of
blindness as lack of insight (see §3.4).
After the sermon, Peter is approached by a whole group of widows
who want to be healed. This gives Peter a second opportunity to exploit the
metaphorical level of blindness, and he preaches on the different kinds of
seeing. “See with the mind what you cannot see with the eyes,” he exhorts
them (Act. Verc. 21). Seeing with one’s eyes, Peter argues, is inferior to
seeing with one’s mind. He draws attention to the temporality and futility
of this sensory ability: “These eyes will be closed again, which see noth-
ing else than men and cattle, and dumb animals and stone and wood; but
not all eyes see Jesus Christ” (Act. Verc. 21). Still, he prays for the widows,
“that they may see with their eyes” (Act. Verc. 21). A bright light appears,
which enters into the widows’ eyes and makes them see. The Latin “et fecit
eas uidere” is translated by Elliot as “and they regained their sight.”40 Per-
haps better translated as “he made them see,” it is unclear what kind of
vision the widows gain and whether the healing lasts. I posit that it is only
temporary visionary ability that the widows are granted and that they are
not permanently healed from blindness.

40. “Acts of Peter,” in Elliott, Apocryphal New Testament, 415.

88 Negotiating the Disabled Body

During the appearance of the bright light, the widows have visions.
Each of the widows sees Christ in different forms, it turns out. One sees a
young man, another one sees an old man, and a third sees a boy touching
her eyes. The widows are not reported to see anything other than these
visions. The widows, it seems, have been granted the superior kind of
vision, as they have been given eyes that see Jesus. The widows’ visions
confirm what Peter preached earlier about the multiform appearance of
Christ, and the apostle draws the conclusion that “God is greater than our
thoughts, as we have learned from the old widows, how they saw the Lord
in different forms” (Act. Verc. 21). The “healings” thus do not heal the
widows for their own sake, but they serve as a springboard to empower the
community. By gazing at the widows, the community’s faith is strength-
ened. At the same time, this stare also fixes widows in their role as what
Garland-Thomson calls “starees”—they are drafted “into a story of the
starer’s making…, whether they like it or not.”41
It should be noted that blindness is deployed in the Acts of Peter as a
rhetorical device quite different from muteness. The widows are not sex-
ualized, and their faith is not questioned. Whereas blindness is used to
elucidate a theological point, muteness is used to stress the power game
between Simon and Peter, to ridicule and unman the great apostle’s oppo-
nent. There is also an ethical component to muteness that is lacking with
blindness. Muteness is a bad character trait; it exposes someone as a sinner,
like Rufina, or someone connected to the devil, like Simon. Blindness
does not have this physiognomic connection. It is not morally bad; rather,
it symbolizes insight and wisdom and a connection to the divine. Both
Ptolemy and the widows have visions of Jesus in their blind state. These
usages draw on the culturally assigned places of blindness and muteness
in Greco-Roman society. One aspect of the literary topos of blindness was
that this disability sometimes granted other abilities, such as visionary
gifts or fortunetelling.42 Muteness, on the other hand, together with deaf-
ness, was aligned with mental disability and stupidity.43

41. Garland-Thomson, Staring, 7–8.

42. Hartsock, Sight and Blindness in Luke-Acts, 76–81; Garland, Eye of the
Beholder, 32–34.
43. Rose, Staff of Oedipus, 72, 76–77.
 4. Disabling Women in the Acts of Peter 89

4.5. The Female Demon

In a scene leading up to the final encounter between Peter and Simon, one
of the Roman Christ-believers has a vision. Marcellus, a senator and the
patron of Peter and Roman believers, has a vision that foretells the violent
death of Simon:

In my sleep I saw you [i.e., Peter] sitting in an elevated place and before
you a great multitude and a very ugly woman [mulierem quendam tur-
pissimam] in appearance an Ethiopian, not an Egyptian, but very black
[totam nigram], clad in filthy rags [sordibus, pannis involutam], who
danced with an iron chain about the neck and a chain on her hands and
feet. When you saw her you said to me with a loud voice, “Marcellus, this
dancer is the whole power of Simon and of his god; behead her.” (Act.
Verc. 22)

The female demon is identified as a figuration of Simon. Thus this liter-

ary figure serves a similar function to Rufina, who also prefigures the fate
of Simon. In the vision, Peter tells Marcellus to behead the demon, but
Marcellus hesitates, arguing that he is a senator and has never before killed
anyone, not even a sparrow. So Peter calls out to Christ to implement the
execution: “ ‘Come, our true sword, Jesus Christ, and not only cut off the
head of this demon, but break all her limbs in the presence of all these
whom I have tested in your service.’ And at once a man who looked like
you, Peter, came with a sword in his hand and cut her into pieces” (Act.
Verc. 22).
The demon character, who is mutilated and killed, is described with
ethnic, class, and gender characteristics. According to Greco-Roman kyri-
archal ideals, she is other and inferior to the Christ/Peter figure in every
possible way. Concerning ethnicity, she is identified as an Ethiopian with
black skin. It was common in antiquity to describe demons as black.44
Early Christian writers took over this Greco-Roman trope and often con-
nect blackness in general, and Egyptians and Ethiopians in particular,
with demons and the devil.45 In the Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felici-

44. Bremmer, “Women, Magic, Place and Date,” 8.

45. Byron, Symbolic Blackness and Ethnic Difference, 44–45. Bremmer suggests
that the resemblance shows that Perpetua had read the Acts of Peter. In my opinion,
the resemblance only reflects the common cultural trope of linking demons with Afri-
can ethnicity (“Women, Magic, Place and Date,” 9).
90 Negotiating the Disabled Body

tas, Perpetua has a similar vision of a fight with the devil. In her vision,
Satan is a monstrous Egyptian gladiator. In Actus Vercellences, the female
demon is described as “Ethiopian, not Egyptian,” which underscores not
only that she is black but also that she comes from outside the empire. In
Greco-Roman literature, Ethiopia was constructed as the end of the world
and thus as barbarian and mythic.46
The demon is further described as dirty, scantily clad in filthy rags,
chained, and dancing. The figure is, then, also inferior to Marcellus in
terms of class. In contrast to the Roman senator, who is powerful, free,
and well dressed, this woman is described as a slave figure. To make sure
that slaves did not run away, slaves were sometimes tattooed or branded,
or they were made to wear metal collars or fetters.47 Judith Perkins has
argued that the Acts reveals “a certain sympathy for the sensibilities of
slaves.”48 She points to a scene in which Marcellus’s slaves harass Simon
and another where Peter argues for the manumission of a senator’s slaves
after he has raised the senator from death (Act. Verc. 14; 28). The image of
the dancing Ethiopian, however, is an image of someone altogether other
in race, class, and gender, with no identification or sympathy from the
narrator.49
Why is the demon dancing? I suggest that she is presented as the low-
liest of slaves, the slave prostitute (πόρνη).50 Prostitutes were commonly
associated with dancing and nudity.51 Among the ethnic stereotypes about
Ethiopians and other dark-skinned people was their sexual license, and in
early Christian literature, they were used as symbols of sexual vice.52 The
literary trope of the foreign seductress, already introduced through the
references to Simon as a seducer and his connection to Rufina, is made
even more explicit by tying Simon to this imagery of a foreign slave pros-
titute. The stereotype of the foreign seductress is also found in Roman lit-

46. Byron, Symbolic Blackness and Ethnic Difference, 31–34.

47. Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity, 88–89.
48. Perkins, Suffering Self, 139.
49. Callon argues against Perkins but does not include the demon passage in her
discussion of slaves in the Acts of Peter (“Secondary Characters Furthering Character-
ization: The Depiction of Slaves in the Acts of Peter,” JBL 131 [2012]: 816–17).
50. Avaren Ipsen, Sex Working and the Bible, ed. Philip R. Davies and James G.
Crossley, Bible World (London: Equinox, 2009), 126.
51. Elaine Fantham et al., Women in the Classical World: Image and Text (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 23.
52. Byron, Symbolic Blackness and Ethnic Difference, 35.
 4. Disabling Women in the Acts of Peter 91

erature. Shelley P. Haley argues that the representations of foreign women

by writers like Vergil and Livy reveal the fear among Roman ruling class
men of powerful women and “reinforc[e] the need for patriarchal control
of female sexuality, whether domestic or foreign.”53
The female demon represents Simon “and his god,” which is Satan. The
text uses physiognomic reasoning to express that an ugly exterior reveals
an evil interior. In order to describe the worst evil, Satan, the text conjures
an image of a black, Ethiopian slave prostitute. As Garland-Thomson’s
has observed, gender, race, and ability are often intertwined to form the
subjugated other: “Female, disabled, and dark bodies are supposed to be
dependent, incomplete, vulnerable, and incompetent bodies. Feminin-
ity and race are the performance of disability.”54 The sexual power of the
female demon is so dangerous that it needs to be entirely eradicated. The
demon figure is tortured and disabled when all her limbs are cut off. The
male gaze of the text is yet again directed toward a sexualized and silenced
female body, and as with Peter’s daughter and Rufina, the male gaze is
violent and disabling.

4.6. Conclusion: Spectacles of Female Disablement

In conclusion, I want to make some observations about the disabling

function of the male gaze in the Acts of Peter. First, through the male
gaze, these women are exposed to the reader. No women are permanently
healed. Rather, as their disablement is stared at, the staree, to borrow Gar-
land-Thomson’s term, is somehow healed. It has been noted that in the
healing and unhealing miracles of the Acts of Peter, it is the community,
rather than the individual, that seems to be the main beneficiary. Magda
Misset-van de Weg has argued that phrases such as “God cares for his
people and prepares for each what is good” (139:9–140:4) and “the Lord
always takes care of his own” (Act. Verc. 22) underline this point.55 In the
story about Peter’s daughter, Ptolemy is converted, and after his death

53. Shelley P. Haley, “Be Not Afraid of the Dark: Critical Race Theory and Clas-
sical Studies,” in Schüssler Fiorenza and Nasrallah, Prejudice and Christian Begin-
nings, 34.
54. Garland-Thomson, “Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory,”
358.
55. Magda Misset-van de Weg, “ ‘For the Lord Always Takes Care of His Own’:
The Purpose of the Wondrous Works and Deeds in the Acts of Peter,” in The Apoc-
92 Negotiating the Disabled Body

the daughter inherits his fortune, which Peter bequeaths to the poor
(139:1–17). Thus, the community benefits both spiritually and materially
from the incident. Rufina’s disabling likewise becomes an opportunity for
the community to repent their sins, and finally the visions of the widows
strengthen the believers’ faith. The healing of the blind widows is not
primarily for the benefit of the women themselves but for the community
whose faith is strengthened through their visions of Jesus.
Second, the disabling exposure of the gaze is violent. Todd Penner and
Caroline Vander Stichele observe that in the canonical Acts, violence by
outsiders is represented as unjustified, whereas insider violence is just.56
This pattern of violence is gendered, and in the Lukan Acts, both the per-
petrators and victims of violence are men.57 In the Acts of Peter, there is
also a gendered narrative strategy of violence, but unlike in Acts, women
are the primary victims. Two women, Peter’s daughter and Rufina, suffer
from an apostle’s “just” infliction of disability, and Simon, the third victim,
is feminized through his allegorical connections to Rufina and the female
demon. In these stories of unhealing, the infliction of disability is a recur-
ring form of narrative violence. Like in Acts, outsider violence is unjusti-
fied, but insider violence is just: when Simon injures and kills people, it is
unjustified (Act. Verc. 17; 25), but when Peter does the same, it is accept-
able, even beneficial.
Third, these stories about disablement are closely tied to sexuality.
Rufina is punished for adultery. She brings shame not only upon her-
self but also upon the congregation through her promiscuous behavior.
Peter’s daughter has been paralyzed as an act of God to preserve her from
being violated by Ptolemy and possibly other men, too. The female demon
serves as an allegory of Simon’s seductive powers over the Roman Christ-
believers. The male gaze is seen in the exposure of these sexualized female
bodies as well as in the different valuation of male and female sexual sin
(e.g., Ptolemy’s healing versus Rufina’s unhealing).

ryphal Acts of Peter: Magic, Miracles and Gnosticism, ed. Jan N. Bremmer (Leuven:
Peeters, 1998), 101.
56. Caroline Vander Stichele and Todd C. Penner, “Gendering Violence: Patterns
of Power and Constructs of Masculinity in the Acts of the Apostles,” in A Feminist
Companion to the Acts of the Apostles, ed. Amy-Jill Levine with Marianne Blickenstaff,
FCNTECW (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 198.
57. Stichele and Penner, “Gendering Violence,” 199.
 4. Disabling Women in the Acts of Peter 93

Fourth, these stories function to domesticate women. A primary value

in the narratives is the kyriarchal preservation of the honor of the family.
Through the apostle’s actions of preaching, healing, and unhealing, they
are put in their place and literally immobilized. Sexual modesty is at the
core of Rufina and Peter’s daughter’s stories, but the aspect of voice is also
important. Among these female characters, it is only the widows that
speak. Rufina is even explicitly made mute; thus she cannot talk back or
oppose the apostle’s version of her story. Peter’s daughter says nothing but
obeys her father silently throughout the story. The women all belong to the
semi-private space of the Christian community. They are inside patrons’
houses or attending worship services.
It should be noted that speech, vision, and mobility have very differ-
ent connotations in the Acts of Peter. As noted, muteness is connected to
sin and draws on gendered notions of silence and voice through a physi-
ognomic, moralizing move. The story about the blind widows, however,
primarily draws on the trope of seeing as understanding, recognition, and
faith through a symbolic move. Mobility serves a third function. In each
of the three female characters—the paralyzed adulteress, the lame virgin,
and the mutilated slave prostitute—there is a connection between sexual-
ity and lameness. All three women are paralyzed to reduce their sexual
power. Peter’s daughter is an involuntary seductress. She cannot help it,
but her beauty drives men to extremes, and her disability rescues her from
the consequences—the (revelation of the) loss of her virginity. Rufina is
exposed and humbled before the Christian community after her sexual
transgression, and the dancing Ethiopian is mutilated and killed to subdue
the demonic power of her sexuality. Lameness seems to occupy a gendered
space that has to do with limitation of sexualized power. Women, who
either succumb to such vices or through their beauty awaken lust in men,
may be disabled for the benefit of the community.
 5
The Rhetoric of Madness and Demon Possession

5.1. Introduction: Stigma and the Normate

In the three preceding chapters, I looked at various aspects of early Chris-

tian healing narratives. I now turn to other representations of disability
in early Christian literature, looking at how disability is used rhetorically
and functions as a label in polemical discussions. Ancient rhetoric was
“a man’s world,” in which deportment and proper display of manliness in
speech was important.1 As noted in the introduction, discourses on dis-
ability and masculinity overlapped, as the norms of masculinity entailed a
fully functioning, intact body (see §1.6). This chapter focuses on the inter-
section of disability and masculinity discourses and shows how accusa-
tions about deviant bodies were used as invective in order to vilify oppo-
nents. I will study two cases: accusations against Jesus in the gospels that
he was possessed (Matt 12:22–32; Mark 3:19b–30; Luke 11:14–23; 7:28;
8:48–52; 10:20–21) and Paul’s self-defense against accusations of madness
and bodily weakness in the Corinthian correspondence (e.g., 1 Cor 2:3–5;
2 Cor 5:13; 11:16–30).
In this chapter, I use Erving Goffman’s notion of stigma and the way it
has been developed within disability studies. Stigma is a Greek term that
originates in antiquity, and Goffman uses it in order to look at how physi-
cal marks can be used to socially ostracize. As he notes, in antiquity, slaves
and criminals were physically marked “to expose something unusual and
bad about the moral status of the signifier. The signs were cut or burnt into
the body and advertised that the bearer was … a blemished person.”2 Goff-

1. Gleason, Making Men, 72–73.

2. Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (Har-
mondsworth: Penguin, 1968), 11.

-95-
96 Negotiating the Disabled Body

man uses the term stigma to refer to “an attribute that is deeply discredit-
ing,” and he argues that “the normals” need the stigmatized as a category
against which to define their own normality.3 Goffman notes that physical
deformities are often stigmatized but observes that cultural attributions
of difference also include other aspects, such as race, religion, and nation-
ality.4 The set of norms that modern society has set up has the effect of
disqualifying many people: “There is only one complete unblushing male
in America: a young, married, white, urban, northern, heterosexual, Prot-
estant, father, of college education, fully employed, of good complexion,
weight, and height, and a recent record in sports.”5 Garland-Thomson
argues that the process of stigmatization legitimates the status quo and
naturalizes attributions of inherent inferiority and superiority. Stigma
theory is useful because it resituates the “problem” of disability from the
body of the disabled person to the social framing of that body.6
Lerita M. Coleman Brown argues that stigma is a response to the
dilemma of difference. She notes that it is not only socially constructed
but also quite arbitrary: “The infinite variety of human attributes suggests
that what is undesired or stigmatized is heavily dependent on the social
context and to some extent arbitrarily defined.”7 She also observes that the
stigmatizing process allows some individuals to feel superior to others: “In
order for one person to feel superior, there must be another person who
is perceived to be or who actually feels inferior. Stigmatized people are
needed in order for the many nonstigmatized people to feel good about
themselves.”8 Garland-Thomson also exposes this dependent relationship
between the nonstigmatized and the stigmatized. She argues that the nor-
mate and the disabled figure mutually constitute one another: the cultural
other and the cultural self operate together as opposing twin figures that
legitimate a system of social, economic, and political empowerment jus-
tified by physiological differences.”9 Stigma theory provides a means to
trace the production of cultural others and reveal how particular traits

3. Goffman, Stigma, 13–17.

4. Goffman, Stigma, 14–15.
5. Goffman, Stigma, 153.
6. Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies, 31–32.
7. Lerita M. Coleman Brown, “Stigma: An Enigma Demystified,” in Davis, Dis-
ability Studies Reader, 180.
8. Brown, “Stigma,” 181.
9. Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies, 8.
 5. The Rhetoric of Madness and Demon Possession 97

are deemed not only different but deviant.10 Although the kinds of bodies
that are stigmatized may vary in different cultures and different historical
times, the phenomenon of stigmatization seems to have a place in most
societies.11 Stigma theory is useful because it examines the interrelation-
ships between social identities rather than relying on dichotomies such as
male/female or able-bodied/disabled. Moreover, it resituates the problem
of disability in the social construction of bodies rather than in the indi-
vidual bodies of disabled persons.12 I will use the notion of stigma and
the hegemonic construction of the normate to explore how nonnormative
bodies were stigmatized in ancient rhetoric.

5.1.1. Madness and Demon Possession as Competing Illness Paradigms

Whereas demon possession belonged to the popular health care sector

and was based on an invasion etiology, madness was a more sophisti-
cated label, connected with professional medicine, philosophy, and the
Greek literary tradition.13 From the Hippocratics onward, madness was an
important topic in the medical literature. The medical writers agreed that
the causes of madness were to be found in the body, and they developed
various theories of mental illness based on the humoral theory and the
Hippocratic notion of balance.14 Within this discourse we find a distinct
vocabulary connected to madness, with terms such as παράνοια, ἄγνοια,
μανία, μαίνομαι, ἄφρων, and ἐξίσταμαι.15 Although there were a variety

10. Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies, 31.

11. Brown, “Stigma,” 179–84.
12. Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies, 8, 32.
13. On demon possession, see §1.4. On madness, see the various articles in Wil-
liam V. Harris, Mental Disorders in the Classical World (Leiden: Brill, 2013), e.g., Philip
J. van der Eijk, “Cure and (In)curability of Mental Disorders in Ancient Medical and
Philosophical Thought,” in Harris, Mental Disorders, 311; Chiara Thumiger, “The
Early Greek Medical Vocabulary of Insanity,” in Harris, Medical Disorders, 72. See also
Martin, Corinthian Body, 146–59.
14. Jacques Jouanna, “The Typology and Aetiology of Madness in Ancient Greek
Medical and Philosophical Writing,” in Harris, Mental Disorders, 98–102; Chris F.
Goodey and Martha Lynn Rose, “Mental States, Bodily Dispositions and Table Man-
ners: A Guide to Reading ‘Intellectual’ Disability from Homer to Late Antiquity,” in
Laes, Goodey, and Rose, Disabilities in Roman Antiquity, 17–18; Chiara Thumiger,
“Mental Disability? Galen on Mental Health,” in Laes, Disability in Antiquity, 268.
15. Thumiger, “Early Greek Medical Vocabulary of Insanity.”
98 Negotiating the Disabled Body

of theories, the vocabulary used to define and describe mental illnesses

shows a remarkable coherence throughout antiquity.16
In the Hippocratic treatise The Sacred Disease, the author discusses the
illness that is called sacred (τῆς ἱερῆς νοῦσου, Morb. sacr. 1). This illness is
described with symptoms such as sudden seizures, rigid limbs, and froth-
ing around the mouth, which modern interpreters have often understood
as a description of epilepsy.17 I am wary of such retrospective diagnosis
and more interested in understanding the disease within its own medical
framework.18 The author of The Sacred Disease argues that this illness has
become known as sacred only because people do not understand its causes
and have thus thought it must come from the gods. He calls those who try
to treat the illness by means of purifications and incantations charlatans
and quacks who do so for their personal gain and without any real under-
standing of the illness (Morb. sacr. 2). The writer then goes on to explain
the cause of the illness by way of humoral theory. It is caused by excess
phlegm that blocks the flow of air to the brain (Morb. sacr. 5–10). The ill-
ness has a physical cause and is thus like all other:

This disease styled sacred comes from the same causes as others, from
the things that come and go from the body, from cold, sun, and from the
changing restlessness of winds.… Whoever knows how to cause in men
by regimen moist or dry, hot or cold, he can cure this disease also, if he
distinguish the seasons for useful treatment, without having recourse to
purifications and magic. (Morb. sacr. 21 [Jones])

In this treatise, the writer attacks proponents of an invasion etiology of

illness at the same time as he develops his own views about the physical
causes of illness according to a paradigm of imbalance. Treatment of the

16. According to Joanna, the semiotics of insanity is fairly constant throughout

the period, although the etiology differs among the different writers and develops over
time (“Typology and Aetiology of Madness,” 97, 117–18; see also Thumiger, “Early
Greek Medical Vocabulary of Insanity,” 72).
17. Nicole Kelley, “ ‘The Punishment of the Devil Was Apparent in the Torment of
the Human Body’: Epilepsy in Ancient Christianity,” in Moss and Schipper, Disability
Studies and Biblical Literature.
18. For a discussion of retrospective diagnosis, see Lutz Alexander Graumann,
“Monstrous Births and Retrospective Diagnosis,” in Laes, Goodey, and Rose, Disabili-
ties in Roman Antiquity. See also Marx-Wolf and Upson-Saia, “State of the Question,”
267.
 5. The Rhetoric of Madness and Demon Possession 99

illness depends on restoring the proper balance between moist and dry,
hot and cold in the body of the afflicted person. In the same text, the writer
also comments on madness, which he argues likewise derives from imbal-
ances in the brain:

It is the same thing [the brain] which makes us mad or delirious

[μαινόμεθα καὶ παραφρονέομεν], inspires us with dread or with fear.…
These things that we suffer all come from the brain [τοῦ ἐγκεφάλου],
when it is not healthy, but becomes abnormally hot, cold, moist or dry,
or suffers any other unnatural affection to which it is not accustomed.
Madness comes from its moistness. When the brain is abnormally moist,
of necessity it moves.… But all the time the brain is still the man is intel-
ligent [φρονεῖ]. (Morb. sacr. 17)

The author’s argument is that physiological and external factors, such as

heat, cold, and moisture, each in its own way, can affect a person’s brain,
causing different types of madness.
It is important to note that ancient Mediterranean constructions of
the body, and the mind’s place within it, were significantly different from
the modern understanding. Since Descartes, we have in the Western world
distinguished sharply between body and soul. According to Descartes,
although it is a substance, the soul or the “I” is not corporeal and can have
no participation in the physical, material, or natural realm.19 The premod-
ern understanding is very different. Among the Hippocratic writers, many
do not make a categorical distinction between mind and body. They pres-
ent mental affections as being of a physical nature and having a physical
cause.20 In The Sacred Disease, for example, madness and the so-called
sacred disease are both illnesses caused by different obstructions in flows
of air to the brain. Even those writers who speak about the soul as distinct
from the body, like Plato, still conceive of the soul as something physical.21
To strictly differentiate between physical and mental illness in antiquity is
therefore anachronistic and untrue to the ancient sources.
The above presentation shows that demon possession and madness
may be understood as belonging within competing illness paradigms and
different sectors of the ancient health care system (see §1.5). The terminol-

19. Martin, Corinthian Body, 5.

20. Van der Eijk, Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity, 26–27.
21. Van der Eijk, Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity, 27.
100 Negotiating the Disabled Body

ogy of madness and insanity belongs to the professional health care sector
and its etiology of imbalance, and it is constructed over against folk heal-
ers belonging to an invasion paradigm. This distinction may be helpful in
order to understand the use of demon possession and madness as invec-
tive against Jesus and Paul.

5.1.2. Sanity and the Manly Self-Presentations of Jesus and Paul

“Are you crazy?” “You must be out of your mind!” “Have you gone mad?”
In antiquity, much like today, exclamations such as these were easily tossed
at adversaries. One example of such an accusation comes from Acts.
During Paul’s trial, the Roman governor Festus hears Paul’s defense and
exclaims, “You are out of your mind [μαίνῃ], Paul! Too much learning is
driving you insane [εἰς μανίαν περιτρέπει]!” (Acts 26:24). Paul denies the
accusations and claims that he is speaking the truth. By throwing such
accusations, one did not claim to make any real medical judgment. These
were rhetorical attacks meant to question a person’s behavior or utter-
ances. Nevertheless, the label of madness categorized a person as deviant,
specifically concerning his or her health—it was a label that had to do with
illness and/or disability. Such accusations may be called disability invective
and understood as a rhetorical strategy of drawing attention to someone’s
nonnormative body as part of an attempt to vilify that person.
According to ancient protocols of masculinity, manliness and virtue
were closely tied to the ability to control oneself and one’s own body.22 The
idea that elite males had superior control of their own bodies and minds
justified the kyriarchal structure of society, in which such men ruled over
women, clients, slaves, and children. The ancient medical writers held
some gendered assumptions about madness in alignment with this under-
standing of masculinity. Their writings construct women as closer to the
irrational than men.23 It was their particular sexual organs that rendered
them vulnerable to madness. One such female affliction was “the wander-
ing womb,” which was a condition understood to be caused by the womb
being too dry (see §4.2). Unless the womb was regularly irrigated with
sperm through intercourse and anchored through pregnancy, it might
wander in search of moisture and cause madness and a feeling of suffoca-

22. Smit, “Masculinity and the Bible,” 50–52.

23. Lesley Dean-Jones, Women’s Bodies in Classical Greek Science (Oxford: Clar-
endon, 1994), 115.
 5. The Rhetoric of Madness and Demon Possession 101

tion, ὑστερικός πνίξ.24 Despite the “medical fact” that women were physi-
cally prone to weakness in general and madness in particular, men had to
constantly prove that they were not slipping into effeminacy. Gleason has
shown how proper speech was an important part of male comportment
and self-fashioning. Rhetorical practices were a means by which a man
could display his rational mind. At the same time, rhetoric was an arena in
which an opponent’s speech and bodily appearance could be attacked with
the charge of effeminacy, weakness, and evil.25
In the Synoptics, demon possession is a recurring phenomenon. If
we look more closely at how demon possession manifests itself in the
Synoptics, we see that there is a range of symptoms. While some of the
demon-possessed are silent, even explicitly mute (Mark 9:17; Luke 11:14),
others are loud, either screaming and shouting or even crying out the
truth (Mark 2:23–24; 5:6–10). While some of the demon-possessed are
said to have been afflicted continually for many years (e.g., the Gerasene
demoniac in Mark 5:3–5), others seem to have fits of temporary affliction
(Mark 9:18–22). Sometimes the one afflicted is said to behave wildly and
pose a danger to her- or himself and to others (Mark 5:5; 9:22). In other
stories, demon possession seems to be accompanied by or only manifested
through physical disabilities like deafness and blindness (Matt 12:22; Luke
11:14). Some but not all of these descriptions involve some sort of erratic
or violent behavior and out-of-place speech. This means that to cross the
boundaries of socially accepted behavior could categorize a person as
demon-possessed, but the category is not exhausted by this factor.
In Paul’s letters, on the other hand, there are no references to demon
possession. He speaks about the existence of demons once, in 1 Cor 10:20–
21, but he does not mention the possibility that people can become pos-
sessed by them, nor does he refer to exorcisms. He exhibits, I will argue, a
familiarity with Greek medical ideas and terminology, and in the Corin-
thian correspondence he invokes a number of terms related to madness,
as we shall see. Paul was an educated man, and he took pains to show his
knowledge through his rhetoric and his vocabulary. John seems to occupy
a space between the Synoptics and Paul, drawing on terms relating both
to madness (10:20) and to demon possession (7:20; 8:48–49; 10:20–21). In

24. Dean-Jones, Women’s Bodies in Classical Greek Science, 11. For ancient medi-
cal discussions of the wandering womb, see, e.g., Hippocrates, Mul. 1.2; Epid. 3.253–
78; Soranus, Gyn. 2.26; Galen, Meth. med. 1.15.
25. Gleason, Making Men, 7.
102 Negotiating the Disabled Body

this gospel, Jesus is accused of being demon-possessed but never performs

any exorcisms himself.
Judging from these accusations against Jesus and Paul, demon posses-
sion seems to have been used rhetorically in a similar fashion to madness
accusations: as a label used to vilify a person’s utterances and behavior.
The central notion of demon possession in first-century Palestine was that
a foreign force entered a person’s body and took control of their behavior
as well as their speech.26 Such an invasion would be understood as emas-
culating for a hegemonic male, as the core of one’s masculinity was tied to
self-control. By looking at two key figures in the New Testament, Jesus and
Paul, I try to show how these texts negotiate accusations that are simulta-
neously attacks on a man’s masculinity and his health.

5.2. “Possessed by Beelzebul”: Accusations against Jesus

All the Synoptics have parallel reports that Jesus was accused of being pos-
sessed by Beelzebul, the prince of demons. I quote Mark’s version:

Then he went home; and the crowd came together again, so that they
could not even eat. When his family [οἱ παρ’ αὐτοῦ] heard it, they went
out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind”
[ἔλεγον γὰρ ὅτι ἐξέστη]. And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem
said, “He has Beelzebul [Βεελζεβούλ ἔχει], and by the ruler of the demons
he casts out demons.” And he called them to him, and spoke to them in
parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against
itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself,
that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against
himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one
can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first
tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered. Truly
I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies
they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never
have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”—for they had said, “He
has an unclean spirit [πνεῦμα ἀκάθαρτον].” (3:19b–30)

This incident occurs immediately after the appointment of the apostles.

As noted, Mark foregrounds healing stories at the beginning of his gospel
and puts Jesus’s healing ministry forth as the reason for his large follow-

26. Sorensen, Possession and Exorcism, 118–24.

 5. The Rhetoric of Madness and Demon Possession 103

ing (see §2.4). While some say Jesus is “out of his mind” (3:21), the scribes
claim he has Beelzebul (3:22). The references to Beelzebul as the ruler of
demons suggest that the demonic world was understood as hierarchical.
Both Jewish and other sources from this time period refer to demons as
relatively stronger or weaker than other demons and as holding differ-
ent powers. The term Beelzebul occurs in several writings from Second
Temple Judaism as a demonic name, probably deriving from Baal Zabul.27
In the Testament of Solomon, Beelzebul also appears as the name of the
“ruler of demons” (T. Sol. 2:8; 3:1).28 The ruler of demons was, then, the
most powerful of the demonic world but was less powerful than God, who
belongs to a realm above the demonic.
Matthew relates two instances of accusations against Jesus, both in
close connection with exorcisms performed by Jesus. In the first, Jesus has
just healed “a demoniac who was mute” (ἄνθροπον κωφὸν δαιμονιζόμενον,
9:32). The Pharisees claim that the exorcism is performed because Jesus is
affiliated with demons: “By the ruler of the demons [ἄρχοντι τῶν δαιμονίων],
he casts out the demons” (9:34). In the second pericope, Jesus heals “a
demoniac who was blind and mute” (δαιμονιζόμενος τυφλὸς καὶ κωφός,
12:22). Here, too, it is the Pharisees who claim that Jesus’s power derives
from demonic affiliation: “It is only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons
[Βεελζεβοὺλ ἄρχοντι τῶν δαιμονίων], that this fellow casts out the demons”
(12:24). In the second instance, the accusation elicits a lengthy response
from Jesus in fairly similar wording to Mark (12:25–29).
In Luke’s version, it is someone in the crowd who throws these accusa-
tions at Jesus (11:15). Rather than the crass judgment of blasphemy against
the Holy Spirit as an unforgiveable sin, which is Jesus’s retort in Matthew
and Mark, the Lukan Jesus elaborates on the image of the strong man:

When a strong man, fully armed, guards his castle, his property is safe.
But when one stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he
takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his plunder. Who-
ever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me
scatters. (11:21–23)

In all these versions, it is suggested by the accusers that Jesus himself is

demon-possessed and that it is this possession that gives him the abil-

27. Collins, Mark, 229–31.

28. Collins, Mark, 230–31.
104 Negotiating the Disabled Body

ity to cast out demons. The claim is an attack on Jesus’s authority. He is

given a stigmatizing label that singles him out from the normate group.
Although Jesus does not explicitly deny the charge in any of the versions,
the lengthy response and the strong wording is clearly meant to refute any
such accusations.
In Jesus’s reply in each of these versions, he conjures the image of
the “strong man” (ὁ ἰσχυρός, Matt 12:29; Mark 3:27; Luke 11:21). In Mat-
thew and Mark, the hierarchy of the demonic and heavenly worlds is
described in kyriarchal metaphors, in terms of conflict within a kingdom
or a household. Kingdom and household need one strong ruler in order to
avoid internal conflict and protect the property within (Matt 12:25; Mark
3:24–25). In Luke, however, the notion of a strong householder (11:17) is
combined with images from warfare, with references to fighting, armor,
and spoils of war (11:21–23). Both these sets of metaphors draw on ideas
about masculinity in terms of control and protection of land and prop-
erty. Representations of Jesus as exorcist undergird notions of masculin-
ity by presenting Jesus as powerful, as a householder expelling what does
not belong, and as a military leader defeating defeats his enemy by sheer
physical force.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus is accused of being demon-possessed in
three different episodes (7:20; 8:48–52; 10:20). The accusations arise in
reaction to Jesus’s teaching, not his healing activity. In the first episode, it
is people in the crowd who make the accusation, while in the latter two, it
is “the Jews” who voice the charge (8:48; 10:19–20). These episodes form
part of the recurring Johannine theme of controversy with “the Jews”
who do not accept or understand who Jesus is. In the final instance, “the
Jews” are split concerning Jesus’s enigmatic teaching: “Many of them were
saying, ‘He has a demon [δαιμόνιον ἔχει] and is out of his mind [μαίνεται].
Why listen to him?’ Others were saying, ‘These are not the words of one
who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?’ ” (10:20–21).
Μαίνομαι is one of the terms for madness that we find in the Greek medical
writings.29 In this passage the distinction made above between an invasion
etiology of demon possession and an imbalance etiology of madness is
blurred, and the labels of madness and demon possession are combined.
In the previous chapter, I argued that John, to a larger extent than the
Synoptics, draws on professional medical language and insights. The refer-

29. Thumiger, “Early Greek Medical Vocabulary of Insanity,” 65.

 5. The Rhetoric of Madness and Demon Possession 105

ence to madness here, and the fact that Jesus never performs exorcisms in
John, fits with this observation that John draws primarily on an etiology
of balance.30 At the same time, I also noted that John frames Jesus as a folk
healer and places his healing miracles in spaces connected with folk heal-
ing. The blurring of terminology in John 10:20–21 follows this pattern of
paradoxical overlap between folk and professional sectors in the ancient
health care system. Jesus’s preaching is found to be so strange by some of
the listeners that they explain it in terms of madness and demon posses-
sion, while others dismiss the notion altogether. What is most important
for all the gospel writers, though, is that the charge is refuted. Jesus is nei-
ther mad nor possessed.

5.2.1. Negotiating the Stigmatizing Demon Label

The accusations in the gospels that Jesus was demon-possessed are not
only attacks on Jesus’s masculinity; they are simultaneously disability
invective. It is a rhetorical claim suggesting a nonnormative bodily state
that is stigmatizing in the social environment.
The gospels go to great lengths to show that Jesus is not a weak man,
and they dismiss the notion that he is demon-possessed. In other words,
the main line of defense against accusations of demon possession is to
show that Jesus is manly, that he conforms to protocols of masculinity. In
the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus rejects the notion with imagery suggesting that
he is a strong man who cannot be invaded by demonic forces. In John, the
masculinity of Jesus is closely tied to his relationship to the Father, from
whom comes his power and authority to speak the truth and perform the
signs.31 What I want to focus on in this section is the interesting combina-
tion of both demon possession and madness labels in Mark 3:21–22 and
John 10:20–21. I argue that these passages reflect a discussion about differ-
ent understandings about illness and that the stigmatizing label of demon
possession is negotiated not only through display of hegemonic masculin-
ity but also through a negotiation of illness labels.
In the Markan passage, it is claimed both that “he has gone out of
his mind” (3:21) and that “he has Beelzebul” (3:22). The term used here,
ἐξίστημι, is one that the Greek medical writers use as a terms for madness.32

30. Martin, Corinthian Body, 165.

31. Conway, Behold the Man, 144–45, 50–51.
32. Thumiger, “Early Greek Medical Vocabulary of Insanity,” 77.
106 Negotiating the Disabled Body

As I will come back to below, Paul also uses this term to denote madness
(2 Cor 5:13). Whereas the scribes from Jerusalem offer the explanation of
demon possession for Jesus’s powerful but out-of-place behavior, Jesus’s
family (οἱ παρ’ αὐτοῦ, 3:21) claim that he is out of his mind. According to
Collins, οἱ παρ’ αὐτοῦ denotes someone who is intimately connected, like
family or relatives, and the group mentioned here is further defined in
3:31 as his mother and his brothers.33 It seems, then, that what some saw
as demon possession, which could be cured by exorcism, others may have
ascribed to insanity.
What would be the cure if madness was the diagnosis? The Greek med-
ical paradigm put an emphasis on environmental factors such as weather
(heat, cold, moisture, and dryness), exertion, and diet as the physical causes
of illness. Treatment involved restoring the proper balance in the body by
providing whatever was lacking or reducing whatever was in excess. In the
professional medical literature, diet and rest were important parts of the
doctor’s treatment.34 At the beginning of the passage, Mark indicates that
Jesus went home, but the crowd followed him so that he could not even eat
(3:19b–20). This introduction to the encounter suggests that exertion and
lack of food were things Jesus experienced. When Jesus’s family comes “to
restrain him,” perhaps they want to provide treatment for temporary mad-
ness by giving him food and rest. It should be noted that it is Jesus’s family
that says he is out of his mind, while it is Jesus’s adversaries, the scribes,
who call him possessed. The ascription of madness can be understood as
less stigmatizing because it did not align Jesus with evil forces. In this story
from Mark, the medical categories of madness and demon possession are
used rhetorically to negotiate the understanding of Jesus. In this particular
case, I argue, demon possession works as a negative charge and (tempo-
rary) madness works as a defense on the part of Jesus’s family. Nonetheless,
Jesus does not relent to his family; he shows them away (Mark 3:31–35).
Although the accusations of demon possession receive a strong rhetorical
refutation, his family is also dismissed and replaced with the metaphorical
family of followers in Jesus’s reply: “Whoever does the will of God is my
brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:35).

33. Collins, Mark, 226–27.

34. See, e.g., Hippocrates’s Regimen in Acute Diseases, which is wholly devoted
to the treatment of the patient, primarily in terms of proper administration of food,
drink, and rest.
 5. The Rhetoric of Madness and Demon Possession 107

In John 10:20, it is a group among “the Jews” who claim that Jesus is
both demon-possessed and mad: “He has a demon and is out of his mind.”
In this passage, both madness and possession are grouped together as invec-
tive against Jesus without distinction. As Jesus’s main adversaries, “the Jews”
have no authority in this gospel, so the reader knows the accusations are
not to be trusted. The voice of the implied reader can be heard in the coun-
terargument that concludes the episode: “These are not the words of one
who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?” (10:21). In the
dismissal, both Jesus’s words and his healing activity are counted as signs
of a sound mind rather than madness and possession. Conway has argued
that the Johannine Jesus exhibits masculinity through a strong display of
control, even over his own death.35 To be in control of oneself is not com-
patible with demon possession. Jesus’s eloquent discourses and his power
through signs have established him as a man in control of himself and one
with legitimate power, as the only begotten son of the heavenly Father.36
In summary, all the stories where Jesus is charged with demon pos-
session refute the charges. Matthew and Luke seem concerned only with
demon possession, while in Mark and John both demon possession and
madness appear in the same passage. In Mark, different groups have differ-
ent opinions: while his opponents charge Jesus with demon possessions,
his family claims that he is out of his mind. In John, the two categories
are combined, and Jesus is accused of being both possessed and out of his
mind. While Matthew and Luke negotiate the accusations by reassuring
the readers about Jesus’s masculinity, Mark and John also seem to negoti-
ate the categories of illness. In the next section, I look at the correlation
between madness and demon possession in Paul’s letters to Corinth.

5.3. Rhetoric, Weakness, and Cognitive Dis/abilities

in the Corinthian Correspondence

Paul’s Corinthian correspondence is particularly rife with references to

disability and illness, compared to his other letters.37 My interest here is

35. Colleen M. Conway, “ ‘Behold the Man!’ Masculine Christology and the
Fourth Gospel,” in New Testament Masculinites, ed. Stephen D. Moore and Janice
Capel Anderson, SemeiaSt 45 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 174.
36. Conway, “ ‘Behold the Man!,’ ” 170.
37. For interpretations of the Pauline letters from a disability perspective see, e.g.,
Candida R. Moss, “Christly Possession and Weakened Bodies: Reconsideration of the
108 Negotiating the Disabled Body

in how Paul negotiates accusations of madness and bodily weakness, and

how he uses madness vocabulary strategically in his discourse. I start with
the so-called fool’s speech in 2 Cor 11, as this is the central passage in
which madness vocabulary is invoked. This passage connects with other
passages from 1 and 2 Corinthians that I regard as part of Paul’s rhetorical
“mad talk.” In 2 Corinthians, Paul’s authority as an apostle is an important
theme.38 In chapter 11, Paul is defending himself against certain adversar-
ies at Corinth, the so-called super-apostles (τῶν ὑπερλίαν ἀποστόλων, 11:5).
Paul asks the Corinthians to bear with his madness (ἀφροσύνη, 11:1) as he
embarks upon his defense, and in this section of the letter, he engages a
number of different terms and phrases that have to do with insanity and
lack of mental capacity, such as ἄφρων (11:16 [2x], 19; 12:6, 11), ἀφροσύνη
(11:1, 17, 21), and παραφρονέω (11:23).39 The madness terminology is par-
ticularly dense in his so-called fool’s speech:

I repeat, let no one think that I am a fool [ἄφρονα]; but if you do, then
accept me as a fool [ἄφρονα], so that I too may boast a little. What I am
saying in regard to this boastful confidence, I am saying not with the
Lord’s authority, but as a fool [ἐν ἀφροσύνῃ]; since many boast according
to human standards, I will also boast. For you gladly put up with fools
[τῶν ἀφρόνων], being wise yourselves! For you put up with it when some-
one makes slaves of you, or preys upon you, or takes advantage of you,
or puts on airs, or gives you a slap in the face. To my shame, I must say,
we were too weak [ἠσθενήκαμεν] for that! But whatever anyone dares to
boast of—I am speaking as a fool [ἐν ἀφροσύνῃ]—I also dare to boast of
that. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they

Function of Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh (2 Cor 12:7–10),” JRDH 16 (2012); Adela Yarbro
Collins, “Paul’s Disability: The Thorn in His Flesh,” in Moss and Schipper, Disabil-
ity Studies and Biblical Literature; Martin Albl, “ ‘For Whenever I Am Weak, Then I
Am Strong’: Disability in Paul’s Epistles,” in Avalos, Melcher, and Schipper, This Abled
Body; Arthur J. Dewey and Anna C. Miller, “Paul,” in Melcher, Parsons, and Yong,
Bible and Disability; Amos Yong, The Bible, Disability, and the Church: A New Vision of
the People of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 82–117.
38. Victor Paul Furnish, II Corinthians, AB 32A (Garden City, NY: Double-
day, 1984), 37. The unity of this letter is contested, and it is common to assume that
2 Cor 1–9 was originally a separate letter from 2 Cor 10–13 (Furnish, II Corinthians,
35–41). The arguments I make here are not dependent on any particular composition
hypothesis.
39. LSJ, s.v. “ἄφρων”: “senseless, silly, foolish”; s.v. “ἀφροσύνη”: “folly, thoughtless-
ness”; s.v. “παραφρονέω”: “to be beside oneself, deranged.”
 5. The Rhetoric of Madness and Demon Possession 109

descendants of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ? I am

talking like a madman [παραφρονῶν]—I am a better one: with far greater
labors, far more imprisonments, with countless floggings, and often near
death. (11:16–23)

In this passage, Paul is denying that he is a fool (11:16), but he is also

admitting that he is speaking like a fool (11:21). Moreover, he admits that
he is weak and even boasts of physical beatings (11:23–27). At the end of
this section of the letter, he declares himself the winner of the weakness
contest: “Who is weak and I am not weak [οὐκ ἀσθενῶ]? Who is made to
stumble and I am not indignant? If I must boast, I will boast of the things
that show my weakness [ἀσθενείας μου καυχήσομαι]” (11:29–30).
The terms Paul uses (μωρία, ἐξίστημι, μαίνομαι, ἄφρων, ἀφροσύνη,
παραφροσύνη, and σωφροσύνη) are the same terms that the Greek medical
writers use when writing about madness.40 Paul also invokes such mad-
ness terminology earlier in the letter. In 2 Cor 5:13 Paul says: “For if we
are beside ourselves [ἐξέσταμεν], it is for God; if we are in our right mind
[σωφρονοῦμεν], it is for you.” This exclamation, too, is part of Paul’s effort
to defend himself against accusations from rivals for the leadership of the
Corinthian congregation.41 It seems like he is accused of being mad, or at
least is in disagreement with his opponents about what constitutes mad-
ness and what constitutes sanity. In his response, he allows for the possibil-
ity when he says, “If we are beside ourselves it is for God.” To cross over the
boundaries of acceptable behavior and acquire the label “insane” when it
is for the cause of spreading the gospel is for Paul acceptable. The gospel in
itself has changed the rules, and Christ’s death and resurrection reinterpret
what madness, as well as weakness, means (1 Cor 1:18–2:5).42
Terms relating to madness also appear in 1 Corinthians. Paul opens
the letter with a defense of the gospel as madness or foolishness, μωρία
(1:18, 21, 23; 2:14; 3:19). Paul’s first topic in this letter is an attack on the
divisions in the Christ-believing community in Corinth (1:10). Without
going into a discussion of the nature of the divisions and parties, I just
want to note the language of wisdom versus madness, as well as weak-
ness versus strength. This language is deeply embedded in a discourse
on masculinity, but it also draws on ideas about health and illness. In his

40. Thumiger, “Early Greek Medical Vocabulary of Insanity,” 61.

41. Furnish, II Corinthians, 321.
42. Yong, Bible, Disability, and the Church, 100–103.
110 Negotiating the Disabled Body

argument, Paul clearly aligns with the weak and foolish, attributes that he
connects with the core of his message:

But God chose what is foolish [τὰ μωρὰ] in the world to shame the wise
[τοὺς σοφούς]; God chose what is weak [τὰ ἀσθενῆ] in the world to shame
the strong [τὰ ἰσχυρά]; God chose what is low and despised in the world,
things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one
might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ
Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God [σοφία ἡμῖν ἀπὸ θεοῦ], and
righteousness and sanctification and redemption. (1:27–30)

Mad talk also comes up in an argument about orderly behavior during

worship. In 1 Cor 14, Paul warns the Corinthians about behavior and
speech that may lead to charges of insanity. People may think that the
Christ-believers are mad if they all speak in tongues at the same time: “If,
therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and
outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your
mind [μαίνεσθε]?” (14:23). Glossolalia should be practiced with care to
avoid that people about town accuse the Christ-believers of being crazy.
This reference shows that madness is a label that Paul is not above pinning
on others, and although he tries to subvert its meaning, it is not an entirely
positive designation, even for Paul.
What is Paul being accused of and defending himself against in 2 Cor-
inthians? Is he accused of being foolish and stupid, or of being mentally ill?
We only have Paul’s side of the story. What is important to note is that these
terms do have connotations to medical madness vocabulary, so the frame
of reference can include accusations of insanity, not just foolishness. These
accusations should be seen in light of the broader picture Paul paints of his
adversaries at Corinth. In 2 Cor 10, Paul refers to something his opponents
are saying about him: “For they say, ‘His letters are weighty and strong, but
his bodily presence [ἡ παρουσία τοῦ σώματος] is weak [ἀσθενὴς], and his
speech contemptible [ὁ λόγος ἐξουθενημένος]” (10:10). He may be referring
to the same claim when, a few verses prior, he gives a similar statement
about his appearance: “I myself, Paul, appeal to you by the meekness and
gentleness of Christ—I who am humble when face to face with you, but
bold toward you when I am away!” (10:1). In 1 Corinthians, Paul seems to
be saying something similar about the weakness of his own appearance:

And I came to you in weakness [ἐν ἀσθενείᾳ] and in fear and in much
trembling. My speech [ὁ λόγος μου] and my proclamation [τὸ κήρυγμά
 5. The Rhetoric of Madness and Demon Possession 111

μου] were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration
of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human
wisdom but on the power of God. (2:3–5)

Paul here admits to a bodily presence that is weak and a manner of speech
that does not meet the expectations of eloquent wisdom. He seems to be
admitting to a lack of masculinity. His speech and bodily comportment
do not conform to the expectations of a public speaker and rhetorician.43
These statements about bodily weakness may be understood in con-
nection with what Paul says about his flogged and beaten body (2 Cor
11:23–25) and his “thorn in the flesh” (12:7–10).44 Over and over again he
admits that his body is weak (11:29; 12:9–10). In Galatians as well, Paul
mentions an illness or infirmity:

You know that it was because of a physical infirmity [ἀσθένειαν τῆς

σαρκὸς] that I first announced the gospel to you; though my condition
put you to the test, you did not scorn or despise [ἐξεπτύσατε] me, but
welcomed me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. What has become of
the goodwill you felt? For I testify that, had it been possible, you would
have torn out your eyes and given them to me. (4:13–15)

The term ἀσθενεία could mean simply an illness or a disability, or it could

refer to weakness more generally (see §1.4). The weakness Paul mentions
here is echoed in a remark in the ending of his letter to the Galatians,
where he says that he carries “the marks of Jesus [τὰ στίγματα τοῦ Ίησοῦ]
branded on my body” (6:17). Taken together, these references from Gala-
tians and the Corinthian letters have led some scholars to ask if Paul was
disabled. Amos Yong argues that he is “the first disabled theologian.” He
suggests that he had an eye condition, since the Galatians were willing to
give up their eyes for him (Gal 4:15), and Acts claims that he was tem-
porarily blinded around the time of his conversion (Acts 9:8–18).45 Col-
lins reviews the history of interpretation concerning Paul’s thorn in the
flesh and concludes that the most likely diagnosis is epilepsy. The so-called
sacred disease was often connected to demonic possession, and she reads
the verb ἐκπτύω, to “spit out” (Gal 4:13), in light of an ancient tradition

43. Gleason, Making Men, 103–30.

44. Jennifer A. Glancy, Corporal Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford Univerisy Press,
2010), 24–47.
45. Yong, Bible, Disability, and the Church, 83–85.
112 Negotiating the Disabled Body

that one would spit upon meeting an epileptic person as a charm to ward
off the disease.46
In my opinion, it is impossible—and perhaps not so interesting—to
diagnose Paul by pinpointing a particular disability or illness that he may
have had. I do, however, find it plausible that throughout his life he may
very well have acquired some bodily weaknesses, some sort of disability,
and that his body appeared as nonnormative. The references to a weak
and marked body should not be dismissed as purely figurative speech.47
Martin Albl holds that Paul had a “personal experience of disability” and
that there was a social stigma attached to the appearance of his body.48 In
the Corinthian correspondence, his bodily deviation is used by his oppo-
nents to vilify him, and Paul has to defend himself against accusations that
such bodily signs should be read as demeaning his character. Glancy has
argued that Paul’s beaten body is the corporal problem that the Corinthian
adversaries despise and that Paul needs to reinterpret as a positive corpo-
ral knowledge, one that has branded him as a slave of Christ.49
The many references to madness in the Corinthian correspondence,
and particularly in 2 Cor 11–12, indicate that whatever the accusations
concerning Paul’s weak body were, they are somehow connected with his
manner of speech and concomitant mental illness. J. Albert Harrill argues
that the accusations Paul is referring to in 2 Cor 10:10 are rhetorical invec-
tive that conforms to physiognomic conventions.50 The invective against
Paul uses physiognomic reasoning to claim that Paul’s weak body and
unreasoned speech reveal that he is unmanly and hence morally inferior:
“By questioning the legitimacy of Paul’s body and logos, the rival apostles
tried to get the Corinthians to think of Paul not as an individual but in
terms of his alleged group affiliation with slavish men generally … unfit to
rule either family or community.”51 According to Harrill, Paul’s opponents
argue that his body is “slavish.”52 However, in the kyriarchal framework of
antiquity, the relation between slave and free was only one of many hierar-

46. Collins, “Paul’s Disability,” 172–74.

47. For an overview of the various interpretations, see Furnish, II Corinthians,
547–50.
48. Albl, “Disability in Paul’s Epistles,” 152–53.
49. Glancy, Corporal Knowledge, 45–46.
50. Harrill, “Invective Against Paul,” 190–91.
51. Harrill, “Invective Against Paul,” 209.
52. Harrill, “Invective Against Paul,” 191.
 5. The Rhetoric of Madness and Demon Possession 113

chical relations. The free, able-bodied male was the normate and not only
slaves but women, children, and people with disabilities were conceived of
as relatively weaker, as cultural other. In my opinion, the rhetorical feud
between Paul and his opponents in Corinth is focused on the stigma of
madness and somatic ideas about weak bodies, rather than strictly on the
class-related notion of slavery. However, these ideas interacted and over-
lapped. Kartzow’s insight about “asking the other question” is relevant here.
When accusations about madness and a weak body are invoked, what does
that reveal about gender and class? Within the kyriarchal framework of
ancient Mediterranean society, an accusation about Paul’s mental instabil-
ity would infer both slavishness and effeminacy.

5.3.1. Paul’s Strategic Disabilities

How does Paul defend himself against these accusations of madness and a
weak bodily presence? He not only chooses to boast about his weak body
but also enlists madness as another strategic disability in his counter­attack.
I argue that Paul uses a double strategy of simultaneously admitting and
defending himself against these accusations. On one level, Paul tries to
invert the meaning of madness and weakness by aligning it to Christ and
the gospel. He argues that both weakness and madness connect him deeply
with Christ. His weakness shows that he suffers with Christ (2 Cor 1:4;
12:10) and that he bears Christ’s marks on his body (Gal 6:17). His madness
aligns him with the gospel, which is likewise foolishness (1 Cor 1:18–31).
In his line of defense, Paul uses disabilities strategically to his advantage. He
reinterprets bodily signs of weakness and disability as Christlike and thus
ultimately representing strength.53 In this way he subverts the social stig-
matization of weakness and negates the physiognomic connection between
a weak bodily presence and a morally reprehensible character.54 He claims
that he has the moral authority to be a leader not despite his weak bodily
presence but because of it (2 Cor 11:23, 30; 12:10).
However, Paul does not completely invert the meaning of weak bodies
and mental incapacity. His admissions are only to a certain degree. He is
mad, but just a little bit (2 Cor 11:1, 16). He is weak, but his weakness has
been honorably earned through his work for the gospel (2 Cor 11:24–29).

53. Glancy, Corporal Knowledge, 46–47.

54. Harrill, “Invective Against Paul,” 210–11.
114 Negotiating the Disabled Body

This makes it more acceptable according to protocols of masculinity.55

Paul walks a fine line when he boasts about his weaknesses. Boasting was
considered unmanly, unless one followed the parameters within which
self-praise was justified.56 When Paul is boasting about himself, he follows
the rules Plutarch sets up in the treatise On Praising Oneself Inoffensively
(De laude 1–22 [539b–547f]).57 In this essay, Plutarch discusses the cir-
cumstances in which self-praise is acceptable and shows how it should be
presented to be palatable to the reader. Among these circumstances, he
lists situations in which the speaker needs to defend himself from accusa-
tions, has suffered ill fortune, or is victim of injustice (De laude 4–6 [540c–
541e]). Paul appeals to exactly these circumstances: he refers to his oppo-
nents, who accuse him (2 Cor 10:10–11); he points to the many hardships
he has suffered (11:23–29); and he presents himself as a victim of unjust
treatment (10:1–2; 11:6).
The mode in which self-praise should be carried out is also of impor-
tance to Plutarch. It is commendable to praise others whose merits are
similar to one’s own achievements, to credit chance or God for one’s
achievements, to mix self-praise with confessions of shortcomings, and
to appeal to the hardships endured (De laude 7–13 [541e–544c]). Paul
applies many of these aspects: he extols his triumphs by comparing his
own achievements to that of his opponents (2 Cor 11:21–23), he credits
God (11:31; 12:1, 3, 9), and he mixes self-praise with short-comings (12:7).
Thus, Paul’s fool’s speech negotiates masculinity: he does not unman him-
self through unseemly boasting but keeps within the acceptable frame. As
Arthur J. Dewey and Anna C. Miller have noted, Paul constructs himself as
a servant leader and frames his authority as the community’s founder and
father, both appropriate male roles. He associates his opponents with the
wrong kind of wisdom and appropriates God’s power and divine wisdom
for himself (1 Cor 2:5).58
In summary, 1 and 2 Corinthians reveal an interesting discursive
negotiation between Paul and his opponents in the Corinthian commu-
nity. Paul is accused of being mad and of having a weak bodily presence.
In his defense, Paul uses a strategy of almost, but not quite, admitting to
madness. At the same time as he agrees to bodily weakness and mental

55. Glancy, Corporal Knowledge, 24–37.

56. Gleason, Making Men, 9.
57. See, e.g., Furnish, II Corinthians, 498; Glancy, Corporal Knowledge, 38–39.
58. Dewey and Miller, “Paul,” 395.
 5. The Rhetoric of Madness and Demon Possession 115

incapacity, these afflictions are recast as not emasculating. His weak body
has been won through courage in his servitude to Christ and aligns him
with God’s power and wisdom. Moreover, Paul makes an effort to keep
within the culturally accepted norms of masculinity when he boasts about
his weakness and insanity.

5.4. Conclusion: Stigmatic Accusations

In this chapter, I have argued that both demon possession and mad-
ness were stigmatizing labels that could be used as disability invective
in order to attack an adversary. Masculinity was perceived in terms of
control over one’s own body and mind. An elite male had to constantly
prove his superior intellect through self-comportment. Thus, poise and
speech were important measures of masculinity: the ancient conception
of the normate was an eloquent, self-composed man. Jesus and Paul were
attacked by opponents who tried to stigmatize them by accusing them of
madness and demon possession. Madness and demon possession were
thus disability-related labels that stigmatized men in particular, as they
went against expectations of how a man should behave. It is clear from
the vehement defense that the texts display that these accusations carried
with them stigma.
I have argued that the gospels, on the one side, and Paul’s Corinthian
correspondence, on the other, reveal a difference in the understanding of
illness. Within the popular sector of health care, demon possession was
an important explanatory model based on the invasion paradigm, while
within the professional sector, physical explanations drawing on the Hip-
pocratic paradigm of humoral balance were used. We find traces of both
these discourses in the New Testament. The Synoptic Gospels rely heav-
ily on the popular notion of demon possession. Yet Mark and John show
traces of both discourses, as terms related to madness and terms related to
demon possession surface in the same narratives. When Paul writes about
madness in the abovementioned passages of the Corinthian correspon-
dence, he uses many the same terms that we find in the medical writers;
thus I argue that he draws on an etiology of balance rather than invasion.59
Demon possession does not seem to be part of the picture at all. Paul

59. Martin argues that Paul draws on notions of invasion and pollution (Corin-
thian Body, 173–74).
116 Negotiating the Disabled Body

does not engage with these categories, and his adversaries probably did
not either. He exhibits a familiarity with medical knowledge and medical
terminology. He does not deny that demons exist, but demon possession
does not seem to be part of his understanding of illness and health, as he
chooses to speak in a more educated, sophisticated way, using the medical
vocabulary of madness. As already noted, in daily life these ideas would
cross each other’s paths, as they seem to do in Mark and John.
In the texts I have presented in this chapter, negotiations of stigmatiz-
ing labels have been the focus. Stigma theory reveals that attributions of
difference are socially constructed and quite arbitrary. The rhetorical strat-
egies of the gospel authors and Paul show that such cultural constrictions
can be harsh and devastating but also that negotiation is possible. There
is a possibility to “talk back.” Goffman’s theory of stigma exposed societal
mechanisms of stigmatization but offered little in terms of constructive
critique of categories of deviance.60 Garland-Thomson, however, situates
the cultural self and the cultural other as interdependent and culturally
malleable and thus as dependent on historical conceptions of deviance.61
By exposing the veiled subject position of the normate, as well as the dis-
abled as a figure of otherness, hopefully new and diverse subject positions
may emerge.

60. Goffman, Stigma, 167–74.

61. Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies, 39–40.
 6
Judas the Monster:
Policing the Borders of the Human

6.1. Introduction: Monster Theory

In this chapter, I continue to examine disability in relation to masculinity

and ancient rhetoric. I will look at a particularly harsh example of disabil-
ity invective: the church father Papias’s description of the death of Judas,
the disciple who betrayed Jesus.1 Using the framework of monster theory, I
argue that medical and physiognomic ideas are combined in this text frag-
ment in order to construct a body that is altogether other. Exposed as gro-
tesquely disabled and effeminate, Judas is portrayed in monstrous terms in
order to reveal his depraved soul, and his painful illness and death under-
line the divine punishment for his betrayal.
The monster is a figure in the cultural imagination that can be under-
stood as an embodiment of fears. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen argues that the
monster is “an embodiment of difference, a breaker of category, and a
resistant Other known only through process and movement.”2 Since every
culture has its own anxieties and preoccupations, monsters are culturally
determined. They are constructed over against a community’s definitions

An earlier version of this chapter appeared in Patristica Nordica Annuaria and

is reworked here by permission. See Anna Rebecca Solevåg, “Monsteret Judas: Papias
beskrivelse av Judas’ død,” PNA 31 (2016): 59–68.
1. The fragment (Papias, Frag. 4) is found in a quotation by Appolinaris of Laodi-
cea. See Epistle of Barnabas; Papias and Quadratus;Epistle to Diognetus; The Shepherd
of Hermas, ed. and trans. Bart D. Ehrman, vol. 2 of The Apostolic Fathers, LCL (Cam-
bridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 104–7.
2. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, “Preface: In a Time of Monsters,” in Monster Theory:
Reading Culture, ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1996), x.

-117-
118 Negotiating the Disabled Body

of what is good, acceptable, and natural.3 In other words, looking at a cul-

ture’s monsters can give us insights into its fears and repressions. Mon-
ster theory is a “means of understanding and describing the tools used
to abject, to reject and exclude people.”4 It is a method that reads culture
through the monsters they create.5
Monsters are category defying, according to Catherine Atherton: “As
anomalies by definition, [monsters] are prime bearers of ‘taxonomic per-
versity,’ thronging the spaces between categories.”6 The monstrous creates
a sense of vertigo because it reveals the inadequacies in our systems of cat-
egorization.7 However, at the same time as it disrupts categories, the mon-
ster also defines them; by pointing to the fuzzy borders, it simultaneously
defines the center, what is considered normal. Judith Halberstam argues
that the Gothic novels contributed to the modern production of normativ-
ity in such a way: “Monsters have to be everything the human is not and, in
producing the negative of human, these novels make way for the invention
of human as white, male, middle class, and heterosexual.”8 In this chapter,
I argue that the production of early Christian monsters contributed to the
creation of the normate Christ-believer in a similar fashion.
For the Greeks and the Romans, monsters represented the oppo-
site of the ordered, rational society.9 Both the Greek term τέρας and the
Latin monstrum denote a physically unnatural being, something that is
“not clearly human or animal but rather in-between, a disturbing hybrid
mixture.”10 Greek mythological monsters have certain traits in common:
they are huge, have morphological oddities (usually loathsome), and are

3. Catherine Atherton, introduction to Monsters and Monstrosity in Greek and

Roman Culture, ed. Catherine Atherton (Bari: Levante, 1998), x.
4. Asa Simon Mittman, “Introduction: The Impact of Monsters and Monster
Studies,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous, ed. Asa
Simon Mittman and Peter J. Dendle (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 8.
5. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, “Monster Culture (Seven Theses),” in Cohen, Monster
Theory, 4.
6. Atherton, introduction, xiv.
7. Mittman, “Introduction,” 8.
8. Judith Halberstam, Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995), 22.
9. D. Felton, “Rejecting and Embracing the Monstrous in Ancient Greece and
Rome,” in Mittman and Dendle, Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters, 114.
10. Felton, “Rejecting and Embracing the Monstrous,” 114.
 6. Judas the Monster 119

evil.11 It should also be noted that a large proportion of Greek mytho-

logical monsters are female, revealing men’s fear of women’s destructive
potential and male fantasy of conquering and controlling the female.12
Hydra, Medusa, and the Sphinx are female monsters in Greek mythology
that are less rational and more enigmatic and emotional than the younger
male generation of heroes who overthrow them.13
However, monsters did not only inhabit the mythic world of gods
and heroes. The geographical borders of the inhabited human world were
perceived to be populated by monstrous races. Travel literature and eth-
nographies like Herodotus’s Histories and the Alexander Romance pro-
vided tales of dog-headed and goat-footed races, headless men with eyes
in their breasts, and one-legged as well as one-eyed creatures in the fur-
thest regions of the earth.14 But even closer to home, the monstrous could
be found. In On the Generation of Animals, Aristotle comments on mon-
strous births. Monsters are those who “do not take after a human being at
all in their appearance, but have gone so far that they resemble a monstros-
ity [τέρατι]” (Gen. an. 767b [Peck]). It is hard to ascertain what Aristotle
considers the parameters to be. Rose is cautious and argues that in Clas-
sical Greece not all physical oddities in a newborn were considered mon-
strous. Defined standards of normalcy did not exist, and thus deformed
babies were not necessarily seen as inferior, unattractive, or in need of
medical care. Rather the monstrous would be extreme aberrations such as
the ethnographers’ tales of animal heads on human bodies or humans with
extra heads.15 However, individuals who were considered to be anomalous
could be called monsters, monstra, by the Romans. Such monsters would
include deformed babies, ugly people, and castrated slaves.16 Monsters
were sometimes thought of as omens and could also serve as scapegoats
in times of crisis.17 Monsters were feared, but they also held a titillating

11. Felton, “Rejecting and Embracing the Monstrous,” 114.

12. Felton, “Rejecting and Embracing the Monstrous,” 115.
13. Felton, “Rejecting and Embracing the Monstrous,” 126–28.
14. Felton, “Rejecting and Embracing the Monstrous,” 132–35.
15. Rose, Staff of Oedipus, 7, 36.
16. Bert Gevaert and Christian Laes, “What’s in a Monster? Pliny the Elder, Tera-
tology and Bodily Disability,” in Laes, Goodey, and Rose, Disabilities in Roman Antiq-
uity, 213.
17. Garland, Eye of the Beholder, 23–26. There are some variations in the under-
standing of the monstrous within the ancient Mediterranean according to time and
place. For example, there is a shift in the perception of hermaphrodites, from prodigii
120 Negotiating the Disabled Body

attraction. Plutarch describes the “monster’s market” in Rome, where

deformed slaves could be bought (Curios. 10 [520c]). Such slaves, used as
entertainment at dinner parties and serving as deliciae, pets, were popu-
lar among wealthy Romans and were staples of the imperial household.18
Hunchbacks and dwarfs held a particular attraction, and they were often
portrayed in miniature figurines know as grotesques. These terracotta arti-
facts were understood to have talismanic qualities as averters of evil.19
A physiognomic logic underlies the construction of monstrous fig-
ures in antiquity.20 The repulsive exterior of the monster speaks the hidden
truth about its evil, menacing inside. In relation to disability, monster stud-
ies highlight the visual aspects as well as the moral qualities often ascribed
to nonnormative bodies. It shows how ideas about beauty are intricately
connected with ideas about disability. Moreover, it underscores how non-
normative bodies often evoke anxiety, fear, and repugnance. I will argue
that the depiction of Judas in Papias’s fragment verges on the monstrous,
drawing on insights from monster theory to show how this perspective
may shed some light on the text and its early Christian context.

6.2. Disability and Physiognomic Reasoning in Papias’s Fragment

Papias (ca. 60–130), bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia (Asia Minor), was a

contemporary of Polycarp, and he wrote a five-volume work, now lost, called
Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord.21 His writings have been preserved
only in citations of later church fathers. Papias’s fragments shed light on the
sequence and compilation of the Synoptic Gospels, but they also give some
insight into the polemics and fractions of second-century Christianity.22

(fearful signs) during the Roman Republic to delicii (entertaining curiousites) in the
Roman Empire (Graumann, “Monstrous Births and Retrospective Diagnosis,” 190–
91).
18. Garland, Eye of the Beholder, 45–46. See also Carlin A. Barton, The Sorrows of
the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1993), 107–8.
19. Garland, Eye of the Beholder, 104.
20. Garland, Eye of the Beholder, 87.
21. Ehrman, Epistle of Barnabas, 86–87.
22. For recent studies on Papias, see, e.g., Charles E. Hill, “Papias of Hierapolis,”
ExpTim 117 (2006); Christopher B. Zeichmann, “Papias as Rhetorician: Exphrasis in
the Bishop’s Account of Judas’ Death,” NTS 56 (2010); Jesse E. Robertson, The Death
 6. Judas the Monster 121

A recent study by Jesse E. Robertson compares the early Christian

accounts of Judas’s death in Matt 27:3–5, Acts 1:18–20, and Papias, Frag.
4.2–3. Robertson argues that the death account was a genre used in antiq-
uity to reveal the true character of a person. Ancient authors found appro-
priate justice in the horrid heaths of notorious figures, as their deaths were
considered punitive.23 The focus in this chapter will be on how physiog-
nomic reasoning is intertwined with ideas about illness and disability in
the Papias fragment.24 Underlying both of these discourses—the medi-
cal and the physiognomic—are notions of gender and dis/ability. It is the
combination of effeminate and disabled characteristics that in my opinion
are used to denigrate Judas in the text. In the previous chapter I argued
that Jesus and Paul are defending themselves against disability invective in
the gospels and in 1 and 2 Corinthians, respectively. Such disability invec-
tive only works if the physiognomic link between outside and inside is
part of the basic assumption. But the trajectory from outer appearance to
inner morality can also be reverted. What one presumes about a person’s
inside can also shape the reading of the outside and even construct that
outside in the text. The body of Judas, as described by Papias, is a vilifying
physiognomic construction made to fit the presumed bad moral character
of the person who betrayed Jesus.
The following is Papias’s version of the death of Judas:

Judas was a terrible, walking example of ungodliness [μέγα δὲ ἀσεβείας

ὑπόδειγμα] in this world, his flesh so bloated [πρησθεὶς ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον τὴν
σάρκα] that he was unable to pass [μηδὲ … δύνασθαι διελθεῖν] through
a place where a wagon passes easily, not even his bloated head by itself
[τὸν τῆς κεφαλῆς ὄγκον αὐτοῦ]. For his eyelids, they say, were so swollen
[βλέφαρα τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν αὐτοῦ φασὶ τοσοῦτον ἐξοιδῆσαι] that he could not
see the light [το φῶς μὴ βλέπειν] at all, and his eyes could not be seen, even
by a doctor using an optical instrument, so far had they sunk below the
outer surface [τοσοῦτον βάθος εἶχον ἀπο τῆς ἔξωθεν ἐπιφανείας]. His geni-
tals [τὸ δὲ αἰδοῖον αὐτοῦ] appeared more loathsome and larger [ἀηδέστερον
καὶ μεῖζον] than anyone else’s, and when he relieved himself there passed
through it pus and worms [ἰχῶράς τε καὶ σκύληκας] from every part of his
body, much to his shame. After much agony and punishment, they say, he

of Judas: The Characterization of Judas Iscariot in Three Early Christian Accounts of

His Death, New Testament Monographs (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2012), 117–40.
23. Robertson, Death of Judas, 13, 32.
24. As Robertson also argues (Death of Judas, 127–35).
122 Negotiating the Disabled Body

finally died in his own place, and because of the stench the area is deserted
and uninhabitable even now; in fact, to this day no one can pass that place
unless they hold their nose, so great was the discharge from his body and
so far did it spread over the ground [διὰ τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐπι τῆς γῆς
ἔκρυσις]. (Frag. 4.2–3 [Ehrman])

Judas is described as extremely large, bloated, and swollen. In the descrip-

tion, special attention is given to his eyes, his head, and his genitals, which
are all described as overly large and ugly.25 His intestines are infested with
worms and pus, and he dies a painful and prolonged death. Finally, the
effects that his dead body had on the property are noted. The descrip-
tion of his body follows the tradition of ancient diagnostic handbooks of
starting with the head and working top-down, a capite ad calcem—from
head to foot.26 The introductory statement that Judas was an example of
ungodliness cautions the reader that this death account is an indicator of
the divine judgment of his character.27

6.2.1. Unmanly Obesity

Extreme swelling is the most significant characteristic of Judas’s body.

Papias uses a number of different terms to describe the bloated condition
of various body parts (πίμπρημι, ὄγκος, ἐξοιδέω) and creates the vivid image
of a monstrously huge body that cannot even pass through a gate fit for a
wagon.28 Judas’s size is thus described as a mobility issue: he is not able to
move (μηδὲ … δύνασθαι διελθεῖν, Frag. 4.2). In other words, he is disabled.
The fragment gives the impression that Judas’s mobility is restricted to his
own land, on which he eventually dies from this condition.
Judas’s obesity is not only a question of restricted mobility. Obesity was
considered unmanly in Greco-Roman culture. Self-restraint, σωφροσύνη,

25. Zeichman argues that this is a typical ekphrasis, a rhetorical device known
from the progymnasmata, which systematically elaborates the description of a subject
(“Papias as Rhetorician,” 428).
26. Christian Laes, Chris F. Goodey, and M. Lynn Rose, “Approaching Disabilities
a Capite ad Calcem: Hidden Themes in Roman Antiquity,” in Laes, Goodey, and Rose,
Disabilities in Roman Antiquity, 2.
27. Robertson, Death of Judas, 139.
28. The gate may be a reference to Jesus’s logion about the camel passing through
a needle’s eye (Matt 19:24 // Mark 10:25 // Luke 18:25). If so, his inability to move
through the gate is a metaphor for his inability to enter the kingdom of God.
 6. Judas the Monster 123

was a key masculine virtue, and overindulgence in food and drink, as well
as in sexual activity, was a sign of poor self-restraint. Women, in contrast to
men, were considered to be less capable of controlling their emotions and
urges.29 Signs in a man that he lacked self-control was thus seen as a slip
toward effeminacy. In the physiognomic handbooks, obesity is referred
to as a sign of gluttony, fornication, and excessive drink, but it could also
signal greed and lack of intelligence.30 Polemon asserts that “largeness of
the stomach and great fleshiness, especially if it has softness and droop,
indicates much movement, drunkenness, and love of sexual intercourse.
If it is very fleshy and strong, that indicates wickedness of deeds, malice,
deceit, cunning, and lack of intellect.”31
The references to Judas’s bulk and swollen condition not only draw
on a physiognomic discourse but also link to medical ideas. In ancient
medicine, a swollen body was the typical symptom of dropsy, known in
ancient Greek medical literature as ὕδρωψ. This illness was a condition
in which water was retained in the body, causing extreme swelling and
acute pain and often leading to death.32 Although dropsy is not specifically
mentioned in the text, Papias’s description corresponds to the symptoms
of dropsy as described by the medical writers.33 The terms Papias uses to
describe Judas’s swelling, πρήσθης and ὄγκος, are terms used by the medi-
cal writer Aretaeus when discussing the symptoms of dropsy (Sign. diut.
2.1). Aretaeus describes it in dire terms, as an illness incurable by doctors:
“Dropsy is indeed an affection unseemly to behold and difficult to endure;
for very few escape from it, and they more by fortune and the gods, than
by art; for all the greater ills the gods only can remedy” (Sign. diut. 1.13
[Adams]). Some of the other symptoms mentioned by Papias, such as mis-
shapen genitals; pus; smelly, putrefied excrements; and extreme discharges
from the body, are also mentioned by Aretaeus in his discussions of dropsy
(Sign. diut. 2.1). According to a Hippocratic treatise, dropsy could be
treated by draining the excess liquid through some kind of cut, although
the operation was not always a success: “Whenever cases of empyema or
dropsy are treated by the knife of cautery, if the pus or water flow away all
at once, a fatal result is certain” (Aph. 6.27 [Jones]).

29. Conway, Behold the Man, 22–25, 27–28.

30. Swain, Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul, 404–5.
31. Swain, Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul, 405.
32. See, e.g., Hippocrates, Flat. 12; Epid. 7.20–21; Aretaeus, Sign. diut. 1.13; 2.1.
33. Robertson, Death of Judas, 130.
124 Negotiating the Disabled Body

The physiognomers’ negative attitude toward obesity has a parallel in

the doctors’ understanding of dropsy. Dropsy was not a morally neutral
illness but was considered a result of bad habits. According to Aretaeus,
dropsy is caused by καχεξία, that is, “bad habits of the body,” such as over-
eating and inactivity (Sign. diut. 1.13; 2.1).34 He also notes that intemper-
ance is among the causes of dropsy. Outside of medical literature, dropsy
had become a trope for overindulgence in food and drink and thus an ill-
ness that revealed a person lacking in self-control. Aristotle likens dropsy
to vice in Nicomachean Ethics (1150b), and according to Horace, “By
indulgence the dreadful dropsy grows apace” (Od. 2.2 [Rudd]).35 Chad
Hartsock argues that “the dropsy metaphor” is connected with greed and
love of money in particular in rhetorical writings.36 The vice of greed fits
the gospels’ construction of Judas as driven by money (Matt 26:15; Mark
14:10; Luke 22:4; John 12:4–6) and may also underlie the physiognomic
description here.37 However, the fragment does not have any clear refer-
ences to Judas’s vice as greed. In my opinion, the bloated, dropsical body
represents a more general bad moral character that also includes insinu-
ations of overindulgence in bodily pleasures. The description of Judas as
large and swollen both disables and feminizes the character. The refer-
ences to his inability to move are disabling, whereas the connection to an
illness and bodily shape that suggests lack of self-control is effeminizing.

6.2.2. Invisible Eyes

From the swelling of the entire body and head, Papias moves on to
describe Judas’s eyes. His eyelids are swollen, making Judas unable to see
(μὴ βλέπειν, Frag. 4.2) and making anyone else unable to see his eyes. The
eyes were important in physiognomic literature and were thought to be
particularly revealing of moral character (see §1.7). As the “gateway to
the heart,” the eyes would give the physiognomer “the truest information
… about good and bad.”38 Most of Polemon’s examples concerning eyes

34. LSJ, s.v. “καχεξία.”

35. See also Horace, Ep. 1.2.34: Si noles sanus, curres hydropicus, “If you won’t take
up running in health, you’ll have to do it when dropsical” (trans. Fairclough).
36. Chad Hartsock, “The Healing of the Man with Dropsy (Luke 14:1–6) and the
Lukan Landscape,” BibInt 21 (2013): 342.
37. Robertson, Death of Judas, 130–31.
38. Swain, Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul, 341.
 6. Judas the Monster 125

reveal various negative traits in their owners.39 Swollen eyelids, according

to Polemon, signified love of women and love of sleep: “I will mention to
you something of swollen eyes. If you find that the lower eyelids of this eye
are coarse and thick, judge for them love of women. If the upper ones are
like that, judge for them love of sleep. If this is found in the lower and the
upper together [judge likewise].”40 He also notes that heavy eyelids are a
sure sign of evil: “Know that he is suspected of evil and is contemplating
it, so judge for him treachery and faithlessness.”41 Judas’s swollen eyes are
thus indicative of moral depravity and evil intentions.
The reference to a doctor with an optical instrument draws attention
to the medical aspect of Judas’s condition: that he is in fact blind.42 It shows
that Papias was familiar with doctors and their treatments and instru-
ments, just like the insinuations about dropsy do. However, in the text,
both the condition of dropsy and Judas’s blindness are exploited physio­
gnomically; they are used as a narrative prosthesis to draw out Judas’s
bad moral character. According to Papias, it is literally swollen flesh that
obscures his eyes and makes him unable to see. Papias is here drawing on
the ancient literary topos of blindness as lack of insight.43 As noted, this
topos is found in the Gospel of John and the Acts of Peter (see §3.4, §4.2,
and §4.4). If the eyes are the gateway of the soul, Judas’s soul is completely
and entirely dark. Judas cannot see the light, neither literally nor figura-
tively. In the text, Judas is rhetorically disabled; he is made blind in order
to draw out his lack of insight and his spiritual darkness.

6.2.3. Unsightly Private Parts

From the eyes, Papias moves on to describe Judas’s genitals and his
infested intestines. Just like his body in general, his forehead, his eyes,
and his eyelids, Judas’s genitals are oversized. They are “more loathsome
and larger” (ἀσχημοσύνης ἀηδέστερον καὶ μεῖζον, Frag. 4.2) than anyone
else’s. The physiognomic literature has little to say about genitals, but

39. Hartsock, Sight and Blindness in Luke-Acts, 59.

40. Swain, Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul, 381.
41. Swain, Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul, 345.
42. The instrument referred to, διόπτρα, is not medical but astronomical (LSJ, s.v.
“optical instrument; aperture-sight”). The term occurs mainly in mathematical and
astronomical works, and never in the medical literature of antiquity.
43. Hartsock, Sight and Blindness in Luke-Acts, 65–81.
126 Negotiating the Disabled Body

swollen and distorted genitals are among the symptoms of dropsy (e.g.,
Epid. 7.20). The attention devoted to bowel movements in Papias is also
reminiscent of the medical literature. In many Hippocratic treatises,
stools and urine are described in minute detail, as they were thought
to hold prognostic significance (Hippocrates, Epid. 1.23).44 In one case
from Epidemics, the doctor comments on the stools and urine of suffer-
ers of a summer fever in the region: “For the bowels were in most cases
quite easy, and hurt to no appreciable extent. Urine in most cases of good
colour and clear, but thin, and after a time near the crisis it grew con-
cocted” (Epid. 1.1.3 [Jones]). Such details and interest shows that it was
expected that the medical doctor had intimate access to the body of the
sick person.
The fluids of the body were important in Hippocratic medical theory.
The fluids of Judas’s body are pus and worms rather than the healthy
combination of the four Hippocratic humors, blood, phlegm, black bile,
and yellow bile. This is, of course, not only a symptom of illness but,
again, a metaphor for his rotten soul. If one were to believe ancient writ-
ers, death by worms often afflicted the evil king or emperor. Pausanias
describes a death by dropsy and worms for the terrible ruler Cassander:
“He was filled with dropsy, and from the dropsy came worms [εὐλαί]
while he was yet alive” (Descr. 9.7.2 [Jones]). Josephus recounts the death
of Herod the Great in a similar way, with worms, excruciating pain, and
a bloated body:

But Herod’s illness became more and more acute, for God was inflicting
punishment upon him for his lawless deeds.… He also had a terrible
desire to scratch himself because of this, for it was impossible not to seek
relief. There was an ulceration of the bowels and intestinal pains that
were particularly terrible.… And he suffered similarly from an abdomi-
nal ailment, as well as from gangrene of his privy parts that produces
worms.… Accordingly it was said by the men of God … that all this was
the penalty that God was exacting of the king for his great impiety (Ant.
17.168–171 [Marcus])

Josephus’s description has several resemblances to Papias, such as excruci-

ating pain and worm-infested genitals. The underlying causes also seem to

44. Nutton, Ancient Medicine, 90. For examples, see the descriptions of individual
cases in Epidemics and Prognostics.
 6. Judas the Monster 127

be the same, stemming from lack of self-restraint and general impiety. Rob-
ertson has argued that Papias follows a literary trope for descriptions of the
death of bad rulers, one that indicates that they suffer divine retribution.45

6.3. Body and Land as Topographies of Evil

Voice and gait were among the signs that the physiognomic handbooks
deciphered (see §1.7). Judas never speaks in Papias’s fragment, but his
lack of voice might in itself denote effeminacy. In some of the medical
descriptions of dropsy, loss of voice is among the symptoms (Hippocrates,
Epid. 6.20–21). Judas’s movement is commented upon. Although not gait
per se, aspects of Judas mobility, and lack thereof, runs through the frag-
ment like a red thread: he is a “walking example of ungodliness,” he is
unable to pass through a door, worms and puss pass through his body,
and the discharge from his dead body spreads over the ground. In the ini-
tial designation of Judas as a “walking example of ungodliness” (ἀσεβείας
ὑπόδειγμα … περιπάτησεν, Frag. 4.2), the verb περιπατέω is used. This
term was used to designate walking while teaching and discoursing and
was the trademark of Aristotle’s Peripatetic school of philosophers.46
Judas, in contrast, is an antiphilosopher and an exemplar of ungodliness
rather than of the good life.
Despite his lack of mobility, worms and puss pass through his body,
and after his death, his disintegrating body spreads across his land. Papias
describes his body as a stinking heap of flesh (σάρξ, Frag. 4.3) covering
the ground. The land thus seems to be an extension of his body. It has the
same properties of rot, decay, and stench. Through the lingering smell,
Judas haunts the land where he died. His memory will not go away, as
“even to this day no one can pass by the place without holding his nose”
(Frag. 4.3). Even after his death he polices the borders and serves as a
warning to the living.
The reference to Judas’s land echoes the two New Testament refer-
ences to the death of Judas. Both Matthew and Acts connect the field to
the blood money, the thirty pieces of silver Judas got from the high priests
in order to betray Jesus. According to Matthew, the chief priests buy a
field for the thirty pieces of silver after Judas has committed suicide. It is

45. Robertson, Death of Judas, 135–39.

46. LSJ, s.vv. “περιπατέω,” “περιπατετικός.”
128 Negotiating the Disabled Body

designated as a place to bury foreigners and called the Field of Blood (Matt
27:5–8). According to Acts, Judas himself acquires a field from the money
he received. He dies there, leaving the land desolate: “falling headlong,
he burst open in the middle, and all his bowels gushed out” (Acts 1:18–
20). This connection likely lies behind Papias’s linkage of man and land,
although there is no reference to the field of blood or how it was acquired.
Papias’s version is closer to Acts, where Judas does not commit suicide but
somehow dies on his property, and his body disintegrates there, leaving
the land desolate.47 In fact, the introduction to the fragment asserts that
Judas did not “die by hanging” (Frag. 4.1) and quotes Acts 1:18 as proof.

6.3.1. Judas the Monster

The figure of the monster may prove helpful in understanding the cultural
meaning of Papias’s tale of Judas. The way Judas is described is monstrous
in several respects. First, immense body size is one of the characteristics of
the monsters of ancient Greece. The Titans, the Cyclops, and the Gorgons
are examples of giant monsters from the Greek tradition. Like the classical
monsters of Greek mythology, Judas is huge, ugly, and malign.48 The par-
ticular mention of Judas’s “bloated head” (τὸν τῆς κεφαλῆς ὄγκον) under-
scores this monstrous aspect of his body, as does the comment that he
could not pass through a gate fit for a wagon. Judas’s body is beyond human
scale. Second, monsters were hybrid creatures that exhibited unnatural
physical characteristics. The description of Judas’s misshapen genitals and
the pus and worms that flow from his body are details that enhance the
repugnance and also push Judas beyond what is human. Third, as noted
above, monsters were thought to inhabit desolate, remote spaces. Judas’s
land is constructed in this fragment as just such a remote, monstrous space
in which the stench of his rotting body still haunts.
I argue that the connection between Judas and his land underscores
his monstrous characteristics and, at the same time, also contributes to
his feminization. In the fragment, Judas is said to have died on his land,
which is still “desolate and uninhabited because of the stench” (Frag. 4.3).
In the fragment, Judas never interacts with other human beings, except,
perhaps, for hypothetically being inspected by a doctor with an optical

47. Robertson, Death of Judas, 135.

48. Felton, “Rejecting and Embracing the Monstrous,” 114.
 6. Judas the Monster 129

instrument. He is constricted to the piece of land on which he eventually

dies. In antiquity, free men were associated with the public spaces of the
city, which signaled activity and social and political dominance.49 Male
space within the household was that of the father, son, brother, and hus-
band.50 By disconnecting Judas from these male spaces and relationships
that can define him in a masculine role, Judas is feminized. The space he is
associated with is his land (ἡ γῆ, Frag. 4.3). Earth was conceived of as femi-
nine. Like women, the earth was “fertile soil,” which passively received
and nurtured the male seed.51 In chapter 5, I argued that the depiction of
women in the Acts of Peter has features typical of the ancient male gaze.
Women are exposed as vulnerable, naked, and mute.52 The figure of Judas
has some of the same features as the female objects of the male gaze. He is
voiceless, and his private parts are exposed. However, although his body
is vulnerable, it is not attractive. Judas’s nakedness is repulsive rather than
titillating.
The porousness and disintegration of Judas’s body can be read as an
allegory of borders and containment, inside and outside. Julia Kristeva’s
notion of abjection compliments monster theory, as it explains psycho-
logically the human need to define the intolerable and disgusting as out-
side the self. She defines the abject in similar terms as the monstrous in
monster theory, as having to do with disturbance of taxonomy: “It is thus
not lack of cleanliness or health that causes abjection but what disturbs
identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules.
The in-between, the ambiguous, the composite.”53 The rejection and repul-
sion of everything within that threatens or disturbs order is palpable in the
description of Judas’s death.
Monster theory is helpful in order to understand what lies behind the
grotesque description of Judas’s body. Monsters embody the fears of a cul-
ture and haunt the borders between defined categories. As Cohen notes,
“the monster’s body quite literally incorporates fear, desire, anxiety, and

49. Smit, “Masculinity and the Bible,” 52.

50. Halvor Moxnes, Putting Jesus in His Place: A Radical Vision of Household and
Kingdom (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003), 72–73.
51. Økland, Women in Their Place, 42–43.
52. Richlin, introduction, xix.
53. Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1982), 4.
130 Negotiating the Disabled Body

fantasy.”54 Behind Papias’s construction of Judas lies the question of how

an insider, a disciple, could betray Jesus. The figure of Judas polices the
borders of what it means to be “one of us.” Judas is created as altogether
other, a monster, not one like us. Judas’s monstrous body signals the mag-
nitude of his evildoing. At a time when Christians were persecuted for
their faith, the fear of betrayal from an insider is an important undercur-
rent in the story. The terrible torments he experiences are also a warning
of the terrors awaiting those who are willing to betray their fellow believers
for a handful of silver coins. It is important to note that it is categories of
disability and gender that construct Judas the monster. Through his mon-
strous construction, Papias thus confirms and reappropriates the position
of women and people with disabilities as on the margins of society—and
on the borders of the human.

6.4. Conclusion: The Monster as Border Police

In conclusion, Papias is making use of medical categories as well as draw-

ing on physiognomic tradition in his description of Judas’s body and his
death. The text disables Judas in order to demonstrate his sinfulness. In
reference to both Judas’s size and his eyes, his lack of abilities are pointed
out: “He was unable to pass” (μηδὲ … δύνασθαι διελθεῖν), “He could not
see” (μὴ βλέπειν, Frag. 4.2). Judas’s impairments, which simultaneously
cast him as effeminate, are constructed as bodily signs of a depraved soul.
The combined effect of this description, with its extreme exaggeration and
repetitious insistence, pushes Judas toward the borders of what can be
called human; he is not a man, he is a monster. By creating Judas as other,
Papias tries to come to terms with the anxiety that looms in the knowledge
that an insider was the betrayer of Jesus. Monsters can reveal which cat-
egories and borders a community struggles to uphold.55 In this text, there
is a taxonomic effort to place Judas beyond, to categorize him as deviant
and monstrous. In this need to assert difference, Judas is inscribed with
the alterity of gender deviance and disability.
While most of Papias’s writings have been lost, this text has been pre-
served through its citation by other early Christian writers. Halberstam’s
insight about why Victorians consumed Gothic novels in vast quantities is

54. Cohen, “Monster Culture,” 4.

55. Cohen, “Monster Culture,” 3.
 6. Judas the Monster 131

helpful in order to understand why Christ-believers would read and dis-

tribute at text like this:

Gothic gave readers the thrill of reading about so-called perverse activi-
ties while identifying aberrant sexuality as a condition of otherness and
as an essential trait of foreign bodies. The monster, of course, marks the
distance between the perverse and the supposedly disciplined sexuality
of the reader. Also, the signifiers of “normal” sexuality maintain a kind of
hegemonic power by remaining invisible.56

As a monster, Judas polices the border of Christian identity. The mon-

ster Judas also simultaneously constructs the normate Christ-believer as
everything that Judas is not. This subject position is that of the healthy,
fully masculine man, with self-restraint and insight, situated within the
male space of the Christ-believing community.

56. Halberstam, Skin Shows, 13.

 7
Eunuchs in/and the Kingdom of God

7.1. Introduction: Crip Theory

The term eunuch (εὐνοῦχος) occurs in only two passages in the New Tes-
tament (Matt 19:12; Acts 8:26–40). In this chapter I explore the bodily
signs of the eunuch and their meaning in these passages. How was a
eunuch marked, and what were the social consequences of his bodily
marks? I will argue that the eunuch figure can be understood as a dis-
abled character—a crip figure. Within the disability community, the term
crip represents a reclaiming of the derogatory term cripple. It is used as
an inclusive term that expresses identity within disability culture and
a resistance to regimes of normalcy.1 The usage has similarities to how
the term queer has been reappropriated by the LGBT+ community. Like
queer, crip is not only a defiant term but also one that questions identity
categories and simple binaries, for example, the boundary between able-
bodied and disabled. The term reveals the impossible standard of the
“normal body” and shows how the idea of normal is dependent on its
binary opposite, the abnormal.2 Cripping may be understood as a pro-
cess of critique, disruption, and reimagining that aims to “spin main-

An earlier version of this chapter appeared in Biblical Interpretation and is

reworked here by permission. See Anna Rebecca Solevåg, “No Nuts? No Problem!
Disability, Stigma, and the Baptized Eunuch in Acts 8:26–30,” BibInt 24 (2016): 81–99.
1. Carrie Sandahl, “Queering the Crip or Cripping the Queer? Intersections of
Queer and Crip Identities in Solo Autobiographical Performance,” GLQ 9 (2003):
26–27.
2. Davis, Bending over Backwards, 38–39. See also Sharon L. Snyder and David
T. Mitchell’s video documentary, Vital Signs: Crip Culture Talks Back, www.youtube
.com/watch?v=r5rWHA0KcFc.

-133-
134 Negotiating the Disabled Body

stream representations or practices to reveal able-bodied assumptions

and exclusionary effects.”3
Robert McRuer uses the term crip more specifically for the conver-
gence of queerness and disability. He argues that the cultural constructions
of disability and homosexuality are dependent on one another and rein-
force one another. Despite ideals of tolerance and diversity in postmodern
culture, there is an undergirding idea of normalcy as the preferred state,
according to McRuer. Although able-bodiedness and heterosexuality lack
definitional clarity, the opposites they construct, disability and homosexu-
ality, serve the purpose of being contrasts to the “normal,” which is the
preferred subject position.4
As noted in the introduction, I have selected texts for this study that
represent variety in disability categories and themes (see §§1.1 and 1.8).
The eunuch figure represents what may be called a reproductive disability.5
Like barren women, eunuchs as a category were defined by their inability to
reproduce.6 I first give an overview of the eunuch figure in Greco-Roman
discourse and the Hebrew Bible and then discuss the two New Testament
texts. Drawing on crip perspectives and McRuer’s theory, I suggest that the
eunuch can be understood as a crip figure with the potential to destabilize
established categories.7

7.1.1. The Eunuch Figure in Greco-Roman Discourse

In Hellenistic and Roman culture a eunuch (Greek: εὐνοῦχος, σπάδων;

Latin: eunuchus, spado) was a castrated male or a person born with non-

3. Sandahl, “Queering the Crip or Cripping the Queer?,” 37.

4. Robert McRuer, Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability (New
York: New York University Press, 2006), 7–10.
5. For a comprehensive study of infertility in the Bible informed by disability
studies, see Baden and Moss, Reconceiving Infertility.
6. J. Blake Couey, “Prophets,” in Melcher, Parsons, and Yong, Bible and Dis-
ability, 239.
7. Burke similarly argues for the eunuch’s destabilizing, queering potential but
does not employ the categories of disability and crip in his analysis. See Sean D. Burke,
“Queering Early Christian Discourse,” in Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundar-
ies of Biblical Scholarship, ed. Teresa J. Hornsby and Ken Stone, SemeiaSt 67 (Atlanta:
Society of Biblical Literature, 2011); see also Marianne Bjelland Kartzow and Halvor
Moxnes, “Complex Identities: Ethnicity, Gender and Religion in the Story of the Ethi-
opian Eunuch (Acts 8:26–40),” R&T 17 (2010): 184–204.
 7. Eunuchs in/and the Kingdom of God 135

normative genitalia. Whereas the Hebrew term saris could simply denote
a court official, and is sometimes used about a noncastrated person con-
nected to a ruler’s court, this is not usually the case in Roman and Greek
literature.8 It is possible to distinguish between three main eunuch cat-
egories for the Greco-Roman world: manmade eunuchs (i.e., enslaved
eunuchs), self-made eunuchs and congenitally ascribed eunuchs.
The jurist Ulpian, for example, describes three categories of eunuchs,
although his third category is rather vague: “those who are eunuchs by
nature, those who are made eunuchs, and any other kind of eunuchs”
(Dig. 50.16.128 [Watson]).9
Of all the eunuchs within the Roman Empire, slave eunuchs—persons
who according to Ulpian’s taxonomy had been made eunuchs by others—
were the most common. The tradition of keeping eunuchs as court offi-
cials goes back centuries before the Hellenistic period, to the Assyrian and
Persian Empires.10 Sean D. Burke offers several reasons why ancient rulers
found castrated slaves to be dependable servants.11 First, they could not
establish rival dynasties. They were doubly dependent on their masters, as
they were both removed from their family of origin and physically inca-
pable of establishing a family through procreation. Second, they were gen-
erally despised by other people and thus dependent on their masters for
protection. Finally, as castrated males, they functioned as intermediaries
between male and female spaces. In other words, they served as surrogates
for and extensions of the ruler’s person in spaces he would not or could
not enter. Since eunuchs could not marry and reproduce, the place of the
eunuch was perceived as one outside household and family.12
According to Suetonius (Dom. 7), castration of another person was
forbidden by law during the reign of Domitian (81–96 CE). It continued
to be a subject of legislation in the centuries that followed.13 Yet import
of castrated slaves was legal and became increasingly common in the first

8. On its use for a noncastrated person connected to a ruler’s court, see Sean D.
Burke, Queering the Ethiopian Eunuch: Strategies of Ambiguity in Acts (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2013), 22–26.
9. “Spadonum generalis appellatio est: quo nomine tam hi, qui natura spadones
sunt, item thlibiae thlasiae, sed et si quod aliud spadonum est, continentur.”
10. J. David Hester, “Queers on Account of the Kingdom of Heaven: Rhetorical
Constructions of the Eunuch Body,” Scr 90 (2005): 812.
11. Burke, Queering the Ethiopian Eunuch, 101–2.
12. Moxnes, Putting Jesus in His Place, 78–80.
13. See Ra’anan Abusch, “Circumcision and Castration under Roman Law,” in The
136 Negotiating the Disabled Body

centuries of the common era.14 Moreover, eunuchism was a widespread

practice despite the ban, and eunuch slaves were sought after for their pre-
sumed loyalty but also as luxury articles and sexual partners.15 The medi-
cal procedure to make someone a eunuch could be performed in several
ways: by amputation of the penis (with or without the testicles), by tying
up the scrotum, or by crushing the testicles.16 The latter two procedures
would sterilize the person but leave the appearance of the genitals more
or less indistinguishable from other men’s. These were also the safest and
simplest procedures and hence more common than penis amputation.17 If
castrated before puberty, a eunuch would retain the appearance of sexual
immaturity, lacking masculine secondary sex characteristics such as facial
hair, body hair, and a deep voice.18 Slaves were usually castrated before
puberty, as this would heighten their value on the slave market.19 The pri-
mary purpose of castration was to render the eunuch incapable of procre-
ation, not to make him incapable of engaging in sexual relations.20
Men born with nonnormative genitalia or whose genitals did not
develop at puberty were also categorized as eunuchs (Ulpian’s category
of eunuchs by nature).21 A third category of eunuch, although not spe-
cifically mentioned by Ulpian, was the self-made eunuch. Some men cas-
trated themselves as a religious commitment. In Asia Minor, there were
self-castrated men connected to the fertility cults of Cybele and Dea Syria.
These so-called galli were not priests but itinerant musicians and singers

Covenant of Circumcision: New Perspectives on an Ancient Jewish Rite, ed. Elizabeth

Wyner Mark (Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 2003).
14. Mathew Kuefler, The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity, and
Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001),
62–63.
15. Hester, “Queers on Account of the Kingdom of Heaven,” 5–6. Eunuchism
remained widespread even within the empire, according to Burke (Queering the Ethio-
pian Eunuch, 102–3).
16. Kuefler, Manly Eunuch, 33.
17. Burke, Queering the Ethiopian Eunuch, 97.
18. Kuefler, Manly Eunuch, 34.
19. Abusch, “Circumcision and Castration under Roman Law,” 77.
20. Burke, Queering the Ethiopian Eunuch, 97.
21. Kuefler, Manly Eunuch, 33. Note, however, that intersex individuals suffered a
harsher fate. While the Greeks considered hermaphrodites “an unusual but essentially
routine part of nature,” the Romans considered such births an evil omen and treated
intersex individuals as abhorrent and accursed (Garland, Eye of the Beholder, 3).
 7. Eunuchs in/and the Kingdom of God 137

with special functions at festivals.22 Roman writers such as Lucian, Catul-

lus, and Ovid scorned self-made eunuchs for their uncontrolled religious
fervor. The act was cast as un-Roman, and linked to Eastern, and thus
foreign, religious rites (e.g., Lucian, Syr. d. 51; Catullus, Carm. 63; Ovid,
Fasti 4.183–186, 351–366. Lucian describes the castration ceremony of the
Cybele worshipers thus:

On these days men become galli. While others are piping and perform-
ing the rituals, a madness communicates itself, and many who have
come as spectators behave in the following manner. The young man for
whom this fate lies in store casts aside his garments and comes to the
center with a great cry, seizing up a sword.… Seizing it he castrates him-
self, then runs through the city carrying in his hands the objects he has
excised. He receives female clothing and ornament from whatever house
he throws them into. (Syr. d. 51 [Lightfoot])

The act of castration is depicted as an ecstatic and out-of-control act that

removes the indicators of male status.23 In several respects, eunuchs were
ambiguous figures that challenged the kyriarchal boundaries of society.24
They exposed the potential fluidity of gender categories but also frus-
trated binaries concerning status and ethnicity. A eunuch did not always
have visible bodily features that could single him out as such. He could be
bearded or smooth-skinned; his voice could be deep or it could be high-
pitched, depending on his age at castration. Moreover, the eunuch’s genita-
lia could have a variety of forms, according to the manner of his castration
or his congenital impairment. The eunuch was the quintessential effemi-
nate man.25 A eunuch’s sexuality was also surrounded by uncertainty and
ambiguity: Did he experience desire? Was he able to perform sexually as
a man, that is, could he perform penetrative acts?26 These were questions
that could have different answers.
Eunuchs thus challenged ancient notions of male and female. There
probably existed several competing gender systems in antiquity, including

22. Moxnes, Putting Jesus in His Place, 79.

23. Kartzow, Destabilizing the Margins, 51.
24. For a thorough investigation of the many ambiguities of the eunuch figure, see
Burke, Queering the Ethiopian Eunuch.
25. Hester, “Queers on Account of the Kingdom of Heaven,” 815.
26. All these uncertainties are voiced in Lucian’s The Eunuch; see esp. 10–13 (Kue-
fler, Manly Eunuch, 34–35).
138 Negotiating the Disabled Body

the so-called one-sex model.27 What is common for these ancient gender
systems is that the male was the ideal, the norm, and the female, whether
conceived of as opposite to the male or treacherously similar, fell short of
this ideal.28 In such a phallocentric economy, masculinity was connected to
virtue. As discussed in previous chapters, masculinity tied in with a man’s
ability to penetrate and dominate, and, conversely, to be penetrated (and
beaten) was considered effeminate and slavish.29 Eunuchs, although men,
did not meet this masculine ideal, and the ancients therefore struggled
with how to categorize them. Eunuchs were sometimes described as a third
gender, or something in between male and female.30 In The Eunuch, Lucian
ascribes to one of his characters the opinion that “a eunuch was neither
man nor woman but something composite, hybrid, and monstrous, alien
to human nature” (6 [Harmon]). In other words, the gender of the eunuch
was ambiguous and thus represented the threat of effeminacy.
In Greco-Roman discourse, both slave eunuchs and galli were con-
structed as slavish and foreign.31 There was a literary fascination with the
court eunuch figure serving in the women’s quarters of a foreign royal

27. Thomas Laqueur has argued that the ancients thought of gender as a scale
on which male and female were different versions of the same sex (Making Sex: Body
and Gender from the Greeks to Freud [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992],
3–8). This model has been contested by scholars who instead hold that ancient gender
discourse is occupied with sexual difference and the absolute divide between male and
female. See, e.g., Helen King, Hippocrates’ Woman: Reading the Female Body in Ancient
Greece (London: Routledge, 1998), 11; Kuefler, Manly Eunuch, 19–26.
28. Solevåg, Birthing Salvation, 70–72; Økland, Women in Their Place, 40.
29. See, e.g., Jonathan Walters, “Invading the Roman Body: Manliness and
Impenetrability in Roman Thought,” in Roman Sexualities, ed. Judith P. Hallett and
Marilyn B. Skinner (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997); Glancy, Slavery in
Early Christianity, 25–29; see discussion in §§1.6 and 5.1.
30. According to the anonymous Historia Augusta, Severus (r. 225–235) removed
eunuchs from service at the imperial court except for the care of the women’s baths:
“For he used to say that eunuchs were a third sex of the human race [tertius genus
hominum], one not to be seen or employed by men and scarcely even by women
of noble birth” (Hist. Aug., Sev. 23.7 [Magie]). Eunuchs were constituted as a third
gender during the Byzantine Age (Kathryn M. Ringrose, The Perfect Servant: Eunuchs
and the Social Construction of Gender in Byzantium [Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2003], 4–7). Catullus uses both male and female pronouns in his description
of Attis, the self-castrated Cybele devotee (Carm. 63). Apuleius refers to eunuchs as
“half-men” (semiviri, Metam. 8.28).
31. Burke, Queering the Ethiopian Eunuch, 106.
 7. Eunuchs in/and the Kingdom of God 139

court.32 Slave eunuchs were connected with this “barbarian” tradition,

and, similarly, the self-made eunuchs were presented as followers of for-
eign religious traditions and slaves to their Eastern gods in their uncon-
trolled ecstasy, as noted above. Despite these constructions, which clearly
reveal a eunuch stigma, the class status of eunuchs was ambiguous. Self-
made eunuchs were not necessarily slaves, and slave eunuchs could have
prominent and trusted positions within powerful households.33

7.1.2. The Eunuch in the Hebrew Bible

In Deuteronomy, eunuchs are prohibited from participating in the wor-

shiping assembly: “No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is
cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord” (Deut 23:2). Crushed
testicles and cut-off penises are considered defects.34 Defect (mum) is an
important category of classification in the legal material of the Hebrew
Bible. In Lev 21:17–23, God forbids anyone with a defect to serve as
priests. Among the defects listed are blindness, lameness, skin rashes, and
crushed testicles. According to Leviticus, a eunuch was therefore excluded
from serving as a priest. Leviticus 22:24–25 likewise prohibits the offering
of animals with damaged genitals. Genital impairments caused by castra-
tion are also here categorized as defects. David Tabb Stewart argues that
anxieties about reproduction and concern for proper gender boundaries
lie behind the strong reaction against castration and congenital genital
anomalies in biblical law.35
The socially constructed nature of genital defects comes into sharp
relief when compared to the Hebrew custom of male circumcision. Saul
M. Olyan has noted that circumcision, as an alteration of the body, is
not unlike other imposed alterations, such as castration, which the same
body of texts labels as defects.36 In Roman law, castration and circumci-
sion are in fact compared and at times even identified.37 Circumcision,

32. See, e.g., Polybius, Hist. 22.22; Plutarch, Art. 16.1; Chariton, Chaer. 5.9; Esth
1:10–15; 2:14.
33. Kartzow, Destabilizing the Margins, 48–52.
34. David Tabb Stewart, “Sexual Disabilities in the Hebrew Bible,” in Moss and
Schipper, Disability Studies and Biblical Literature, 73.
35. Stewart, “Sexual Disabilities in the Hebrew Bible,” 78–80.
36. Olyan, Disability in the Hebrew Bible, 36.
37. Abusch, “Circumcision and Castration under Roman Law,” 84–86.
140 Negotiating the Disabled Body

like castration, was viewed in terms of masculinity, and the ideal, male
body had a penis with an intact foreskin.38 In the Hebrew Bible, how-
ever, circumcision is cast as socially and ritually enabling rather than dis-
abling.39 The stories of covenant are sealed by the ritual of circumcision
(e.g., Gen 17:9–14; Exod 12:43–49), and a number of texts speak about
circumcision and uncircumcision metaphorically, associating circumci-
sion with positive, enabling characteristics such as eloquent speech and
the capacity to listen (e.g., Exod 6:12; Deut 10:16; Jer 6:10).40 All these
texts construct the normate male body in the Hebrew Bible as circum-
cised. In the biblical context, circumcision becomes physically norma-
tive, Olyan argues, “as if the foreskin were itself a kind of ‘defect.’ ”41 In
other words, circumcision becomes a sign that socially constructs ability
based on a biological deficit.42
The liturgical exclusion of eunuchs in Deut 23:2–9 is contested within
the Hebrew Bible. Isaiah gives an eschatological promise about the inclu-
sion of eunuchs into the community of worship when he speaks of the
foreigner who will be included into God’s people and the eunuch who will
receive a name in the house of the Lord:

Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say,

“The Lord will surely separate me from his people”;
and do not let the eunuch say, “I am just a dry tree.”
For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths,
who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant,
I will give, in my house and within my walls,
a monument [yād] and a name better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. (Isa 56:3–7)

The eschatological vision of this passage is that eunuchs, excluded from

the assembly of worship according to Deut 23:2–9, will be assured a place

38. Matthew R. Anderson and Karin B. Neutel, “The First Cut Is the Deepest:
Masculinity and Circumcision in the First Century,” in Biblical Masculinities Fore-
grounded, ed. Ovidiu Creanga and Peter-Ben Smit (Sheffield: Sheffield University
Press, 2014), 229–30.
39. Olyan, Disability in the Hebrew Bible, 36; Jeremy Schipper, “Joshua-Second
Kings,” in Melcher, Parsons, and Yong, Bible and Disability, 97.
40. Olyan, Disability in the Hebrew Bible, 37.
41. Olyan, Disability in the Hebrew Bible, 37.
42. Stewart, “Sexual Disabilities in the Hebrew Bible,” 72.
 7. Eunuchs in/and the Kingdom of God 141

in the Lord’s house if they are pious.43 The lament of the eunuch, that he
is a “dried tree,” recalls a common Isaianic comparison between barren
landscapes and disabled bodies, according to J. Blake Couey.44 There is no
direct promise that the eunuch’s reproductive capabilities will be restored,
although there is perhaps a pun on this possibility if yād, which literally
means “hand,” is taken as a euphemism for “penis” (see, e.g., Isa 57:8,
10; Song 5:4). Rather than through children, the eunuch’s name will be
remembered within the sanctuary, Couey argues.45 In other words, the
eunuch experiences a restoration of honor without any change in his body.
He is included without being healed.

7.2. Becoming a Eunuch for the Kingdom of Heaven (Matt 19:12)

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is questioned about a man’s right to divorce

his wife. It is in the context of this discussion that Jesus introduces eunuchs
as a paradigm for the kingdom of heaven:

There are eunuchs who have been so from birth [ἐκ κοιλίας μητρὸς], and
there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others [εὐνουχίσθησαν
ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων], and there are eunuchs who have made themselves
eunuchs [εὐνούχισαν ἑαυτοὺς] for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.
(Matt 19:12)

Jesus’s words about eunuchs in Matt 19:12 testify to the three different
ways of becoming a eunuch mentioned above. The third category, the self-
made eunuchs, may be understood in light of the galli tradition. Like the
galli, the Christ-believer who makes himself a eunuch “for the sake of the
kingdom” does so as part of a religious commitment. Ulrich Luz surmises
that the background of the logion is that hostile opponents may have com-
pared Jesus and his disciples to the galli due to their unmarried, itinerant
lifestyle.46 Halvor Moxnes likewise sees the saying as a response to slander
that tried to frame the Jesus movement’s ascetic way of life as unmanly. He
understands the logion as a “call to leave male space” and “a challenge to

43. Olyan, Disability in the Hebrew Bible, 11.

44. Couey, “Prophets,” 239.
45. Couey, “Prophets,” 239.
46. Luz, Matthew 8–20, 501–2.
142 Negotiating the Disabled Body

the standards of masculinity in antiquity.”47 Moxnes likens this subversive

use of a despised term to designate a positive identity to the modern use of
the term queer. Like eunuch in antiquity, queer defies categorization and is
a protest against categorization, he suggests: “Therefore, ‘queer’ is the most
useful term to apply when we try to make sense of Jesus’s eunuch saying
from a modern perspective.”48
I suggest that the term crip, similarly to queer, shares the subver-
sive and category-defying qualities of the term eunuch. Crip, in McRuer’s
conception, challenges assumptions about normative bodies and nor-
mative sexualities, and the eunuch logion may be understood to do the
same. The logion subverts the attempt to stigmatize by calling on people
to crip themselves: to enter into the despised category and devote them-
selves to a eunuch lifestyle. The logion crips the Jesus movement. Does
it also crip Jesus? Jesus’s appropriation of the term eunuch allows us to
question ancient and modern assumptions about the body of Jesus. What
if Jesus was a eunuch? As Moxnes notes: “Since the masculinity of Jesus
has been taken for granted, it has been impossible even to contemplate
that Jesus might be a eunuch in the physical sense, that is, castrated.”49
Whether Jesus was castrated or not, the eunuch logion encourages the
follower to “perform disability” by making oneself a eunuch and/or live
as a eunuch.50 The logion destabilizes categories of ability and disability
by reinterpreting eunuch as a preferred state, an insider position, rather
than a despised category.
With the reference to the kingdom of heaven, the body of the eunuch
is also connected to the ideal, eschatological body. In the resurrection,
infertility is no longer a disability, since Jesus has dismissed the idea of
marriage in heaven: “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are
given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven” (Matt 22:30; see
§4.2). Statements like these and Jesus’s blessing of barren women (Luke
23:29) underscore the apocalyptic backdrop of the Jesus movement, but
as Moxnes notes, they might also have a prescriptive function: “Such
statements might signal a reversal of status already, here and now.”51 The

47. Moxnes, Putting Jesus in His Place, 73–75, quote on 73.

48. Moxnes, Putting Jesus in His Place, 89–90.
49. Moxnes, Putting Jesus in His Place, 89.
50. Moss, “Mark and Matthew,” 283.
51. Moxnes, Putting Jesus in His Place, 94.
 7. Eunuchs in/and the Kingdom of God 143

eunuch logion crips Jesus and his movement by appropriating the despised
category of eunuch and subverting its meaning.

7.2.1. Castration as an Early Christian Bodily Practice

Jesus’s words about making oneself a eunuch for the kingdom of heaven
were taken literally by some Christ-believers in the first centuries. Justin
Martyr (100–165 CE) describes how a fellow Christian in the city

presented to Felix the governor in Alexandria a petition, craving that

permission might be given to a surgeon to make him an eunuch.…
And when Felix absolutely refused to sign such a permission, the youth
remained single, and was satisfied with his own approving conscience,
and the approval of those who thought as he did. (1 Apol. 29 [Schaff])

According to Eusebius, Origen (ca. 184–253 CE) castrated himself as part

of his commitment to Christ:

At this time while Origen was conducting catechetical instruction at

Alexandria, a deed was done by him which evidenced an immature and
youthful mind, but at the same time gave the highest proof of faith and
continence. For he took the words, “There are eunuchs who have made
themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake,” in too literal and
extreme a sense. And in order to fulfill the Saviour’s word, and at the
same time to take away from the unbelievers all opportunity for scan-
dal,—for, although young, he met for the study of divine things with
women as well as men,—he carried out in action the word of the Saviour.
(Hist. eccl. 6.8.1 [Oulton])

It is unclear how widespread the practice was. Most of the sources on

this practice are critical of it, such as Justin and Eusebius in the quota-
tions above. Moxnes notes that early Christian writers were educated men
who shared Roman masculine ideals, including a critical attitude toward
eunuchs, and that they took pains to distance themselves from the per-
ceived excesses of the Eastern cults and their galli.52 However, the fact that
self-castrated eunuchs were banned from the priesthood at the Council of
Nicea shows that it must have been a palpable problem in many Christian

52. Moxnes, Putting Jesus in His Place, 80.

144 Negotiating the Disabled Body

communities.53 Luz notes that there was a certain reserve in the use of
Matt 19:12 in the ancient church due to the “exaggerated ascetic tenden-
cies” that the text occasioned.54
A spectacular rather than historic tale of Christian self-castration can
be found in the Acts of John. The theme of sexual renunciation frames
many of the episodes in the apocryphal Acts (see §4.2). In one such epi-
sode, a young man kills his father because the father had advised him to
end an adulterous relationship. John raises the slain father from the dead;
the young man repents, converts, and takes action to rid himself of his
uncontrollable lust:

He took the sickle and cut off his genitals. And running into the house
where he kept his adulteress, he flung them at her saying, “On your
account I became a parricide and should also become a murderer both
of you two and myself. Here is the cause of all.” (53 [Elliott])

Interestingly, the tale of self-mutilation from Acts of John is very simi-

lar to Lucian’s description of how the galli castrated themselves, quoted
above. The genitals are cut off with a sharp instrument and then flung into
the house of a woman in both accounts. The text does not clearly con-
demn the young man’s action. Moreover, the apostle John does not heal
the man, even though he performs many miracles in the narrative. The
words by Jesus and the early Christian practice that followed show how
a cultural inscription on the body can serve as a sign of adherence and
ascribe insider status. The use of bodily signs such as circumcision and
castration in defining insider status will be further explored as I look at the
Ethiopian eunuch in Acts.

7.3. The Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8:26–40)

The eunuch in Acts 8 is described initially as “an Ethiopian man, a

eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians” (ἀνὴρ Αἰθίοψ
εὐνοῦχος δυνάστης Κανδάκης βασιλίσσης Αἰθιόπων, Acts 8:27 [my trans.]).
The description in Acts 8:27 employs two different terms to designate the
man—he is a eunuch (εὐνοῦχος) and a court official (δυνάστης). As the

53. Hester, “Queers on Account of the Kingdom of Heaven,” 14; Moxnes, Putting
Jesus in His Place, 81.
54. Luz, Matthew 8–20, 497.
 7. Eunuchs in/and the Kingdom of God 145

story unfolds, however, he is consequently referred to as “the eunuch” (ὁ

εὐνοῦχος, 8:34, 36, 38, 39). Although the text does not describe his bodily
signs, it is clear from this designation that the author of Acts constructs the
figure of a castrated male in this story.55 The character’s status as a eunuch
is his most important—indeed, his identifying—trait.
The dense description of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:27–28 plays
on many of the stereotypical aspects of the eunuch figure. He is cast as the
typical court eunuch, which means that he is a slave who has been made
a eunuch by others. The ambiguities noted about the eunuch figure can
be seen in the Lukan figure.56 As a slave he is a surrogate body, represent-
ing the queen in her absence.57 He is a person completely dependent on
his mistress’s goodwill and deprived of family connections and the abil-
ity to reproduce. His connection to a female owner, and thus to female
space, further reduces his claim to masculinity. Yet he is initially called
man (ἀνήρ). Although he is a slave, the Ethiopian traveler holds a position
high up in the slave hierarchy. He is a court official (δυνάστης) and guard-
ian of Candace’s treasury. When the reader encounters him, he sits in a
carriage and he reads from a scroll, both of which are symbols of power
and status (8:28). He must have been taught to read and has the means to
own a book scroll. Although invisible in the text, the reader can assume
that the eunuch is in command of an entourage, probably consisting of
slaves under his command.58
These ambiguities in gender and class have been noted by many schol-
ars. However, the social location of the eunuch is also connected to a
59

55. As many commentators have concluded; see, e.g., Luke Timothy Johnson,
The Acts of the Apostles, SP 5 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992), 155; Richard
I. Pervo, Acts: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), 224; Scott
Shauf, “Locating the Eunuch: Characterization and Narrative Context in Acts 8:26–
40,” CBQ 71 (2009): 764; Parsons, Body and Character in Luke and Acts, 133.
56. I consider Acts to be written by the same anonymous author as the Gospel of
Luke; see Pervo, Acts, 5, 19.
57. For slaves as surrogate bodies, see Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity, esp.
12–29.
58. Pervo notes that although the chariot must have had a driver, “the narrator
exhibits no interest in this person, an example of Acts’ characteristic social snobbery”
(Acts, 225).
59. See, e.g., Kartzow, Destabilizing the Margins, 46–58; Burke, Queering the Ethi-
opian Eunuch, 15–16. Kartzow describes the Ethiopian eunuch as a “borderline iden-
tity.” Shauf, however, argues that there is no ambiguity: “There is no evidence in the
146 Negotiating the Disabled Body

bodily impairment. Few have considered the eunuch as a character with

a disability. Although it is impossible to map the outline of the Ethiopian
eunuch’s body, the eunuch’s social status has something to do with his
marked body. The eunuch has a bodily inscription, a stigma, “an attribute
that makes him different,” in Goffman’s words.60 His body tells a story
about being inflicted with pain and deformity. Castration is a procedure
meant to disable; it constructs a person with an inability to procreate and
sometimes a reduced ability or inability to perform sexually. The Ethiopian
eunuch can thus be characterized as disabled. It is his crushed genitals,
his broken body, that renders him a “third sex.” It is also his procreative
disability that makes him an entrusted slave in Candace’s administration.
Both power and stigma are ascribed to the eunuch by his castration.
Luke’s desert traveler is reading from Isaiah when the apostle Philip
approaches him. The suffering servant passage is the starting point for the
conversation between the two:

Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,

and like a lamb silent before its shearer,
so he does not open his mouth.
In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.
The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet
say this, about himself or about someone else?” (Acts 8:32–34)

The eunuch is reading about a person being slaughtered and sheared,

about remaining silent when afflicted with pain and about being humili-
ated. Perhaps the eunuch identifies with the suffering servant? Jeremy
Schipper argues that “Acts hints at a connection between the eunuch and
the servant’s respective social experiences of disability.”61 Philip gives a
christological interpretation of the servant’s identity, proclaiming “the
good news about Jesus” to the eunuch (8:35). But this text describes expe-
riences familiar to a eunuch: of being cut and humiliated and of being
excluded from a family. Like the servant, the eunuch is doubly cut off:

text that the eunuch—this eunuch, at least—occupies a despised place in the world”
(“Locating the Eunuch,” 772).
60. Goffman, Stigma, 12.
61. Schipper, Disability and Isaiah’s Suffering Servant, 77.
 7. Eunuchs in/and the Kingdom of God 147

sheared of his genitalia and cut off from the possibility of reproduction.62
As the eunuch reads his own experience into the passage, he underscores
the physical experience of the suffering servant. Schipper has noted the
tendency throughout the interpretive history of this passage of disregard-
ing that Isaiah describes the servant’s disability as a social and political
experience.63 It is this common experience of social and political exclusion
that the eunuch picks up on in his reading.
According to Luke, the eunuch had come to Jerusalem to worship and
was on his way home when he encounters Philip (8:28), but the narrator
is unclear about whether he had accomplished his mission.64 It is uncer-
tain if a eunuch would have been allowed to worship in the temple during
the Second Temple period.65 As noted above, Deut 23:1 excludes eunuchs
from worship in the assembly of the Lord. Sarah J. Melcher argues that
by the first century CE the Pentateuch had reached canonical status and
that Acts 8:26–40 is an attempt to counter the exclusionary ideology of
Deut 23:1–6 and Lev 21:17–23.66 The historical reality may not play such
an important role in Luke’s narrative. Rather, the reference to Jerusalem
serves as a hint to the exclusion of eunuchs in the Mosaic law. This exclu-
sionary practice becomes the backdrop for the inclusion of the Ethiopian
eunuch through the baptism that takes place in the narrative. As Richard
I. Pervo notes, traveling away from the temple and toward the prophets is
for Luke a move in the right direction.67
As noted above, Isa 56:3–7 grants an eschatological opening through
which eunuchs may become part of the worshiping community. These
verses from Isaiah come only a few chapters after the verses the eunuch is
reading. If we imagine that the eunuch continued reading scripture after

62. In the Hebrew of the Isaiah passage, this twofold “cutting” is more obvious, as
the two verbs for cutting that are used have similar sounds, gozezeha (Isa 53:7, from
the verb gazaz, to shear, cut) and nighzar (Isa 53:8, from the verb gazar, “to cut,” “cut
off ”). Luke, of course, relied on LXX in his quotation.
63. Schipper, Disability and Isaiah’s Suffering Servant, 2.
64. Pervo, Acts, 224.
65. See discussions in Olyan, Disability in the Hebrew Bible, 32–33; Saul M. Olyan,
“ ‘Anyone Blind or Lame Shall Not Enter the House’: On the Interpretation of Samuel
5:8b,” CBQ 60 (1998): 218–27. Olyan argues that “a ban on worshipers with at least
some physical defects was in force in Jerusalem at some point in time” (227).
66. Sarah J. Melcher, “A Tale of Two Eunuchs: Isaiah 56:1–8 and Acts 8:26–40,” in
Moss and Schipper, Disability Studies and Biblical Literature, 124.
67. Pervo, Acts, 224.
148 Negotiating the Disabled Body

his baptism, he might have come across these words.68 It may well have
been Luke’s intention that this passage should echo in his story about the
Ethiopian. The eschatological prophecy of Isaiah is, after all, realized in
Acts, when Philip baptizes the eunuch on the Gaza road. Although Isa
56:3–7 is not quoted, it is alluded to, I contend, through a number of
likenesses between the Ethiopian eunuch of Luke and the pious eunuchs
of Isaiah.69 In Isaiah, inclusion is promised to eunuchs who “keep my
sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my cov-
enant” (56:4). The Ethiopian is a foreigner (56:3) as well as a eunuch, and
by reading scripture and going to Jerusalem to worship, he is certainly
among the eunuchs who “keep the sabbath” and “hold fast to the cov-
enant.” He receives “a monument and a name” when he is included into
the Christian believing community through baptism and thus ensures
for himself a blessing “better than sons and daughters” as well as “an
everlasting name” (56:5).70 The story thus reinterprets the eunuch as
someone included rather than excluded. Although his genitals are “cut
off,” he is no longer cut off from the house of God. Through baptism, his
body is transformed. His physical impairment is given a new meaning;
his stigmata no longer signify exclusion. By giving a new meaning to
a nonnormative, stigmatized category, I suggest that the story crips the
eunuch category. In the healing stories of the gospels and Acts, healing
is aligned with conversion and faith. In contrast, the eunuch’s conversion
takes place here without any prevenient healing. It is the interpretation
of the category that has changed, and thus no transformation of the body
is needed.

7.3.1. Constructing Another Other

From a disability perspective, the story of the Ethiopian eunuch is inter-

esting because it disrupts the above-noted connection between healing
and faith and shows that there is a diversity of disability representations
within New Testament texts. But each story also has multiple layers of

68. Pervo, Acts, 222; Mona West, “The Story of the Ethiopian Eunuch,” in The
Queer Bible Commentary, ed. Deryn Guest et al. (London: SCM, 2006), 573–74.
69. See also Melcher, “Tale of Two Eunuchs,” 126.
70. The everlasting name is, in fact, doubly secured, both through the promise
of redemption and salvation that lies in baptism (see Acts 2:38–40) and through his
remembrance in the text of Acts.
 7. Eunuchs in/and the Kingdom of God 149

meaning. I will now consider the function of the Ethiopian eunuch within
the larger literary context of Acts. The eunuch disappears as abruptly as he
appeared from the pages of Acts. After his baptism, “he went on his way
rejoicing [χαίρων]” (Acts 8:37). What is the purpose of this story? How
does it function in the literary structure of Acts? I argue that the passage
is significant in Luke’s project of drawing new boundaries, of defining
new in-groups and out-groups. The baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch is
an important step in Luke’s universalizing project, in which the meeting
in Jerusalem (Acts 15:1–35) is the pivotal point.71 What is particularly
interesting for my concerns here is the reinterpretation of bodily signs
that accompanies this project. Castration is not the only genital alteration
that is resignified in the book of Acts. Luke also gives new meaning to
another practice, namely, circumcision (see Acts 10:45; 11:2–3, 15:1–29).
The story about Cornelius serves as a prooftext showing that God has
opened up the community of worship also for the uncircumcised. This
story concludes with the Holy Spirit descending on everyone who heard
Peter preach, and Peter asking rhetorically, “Can anyone withhold the
water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as
we have?” (Acts 10:45–47). Peter’s question here echoes the eunuch’s in
Acts 8:36: “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” The question is,
in both instances, about the limits of inclusion: Who can be included into
the people of God through baptism? Eunuchs? Yes! Uncircumcised gen-
tiles? Yes! The meeting in Jerusalem seals the deal when it is decided that
no one uncircumcised needs to become circumcised after his conversion
(Acts 15:29–21).
As noted above, these two imposed alterations of the male genitalia,
circumcision and castration, are constructed within the Hebrew Bible
as more or less opposites. In Acts, however, both these bodily signs are
given new meaning. The stories about the Ethiopian eunuch and Corne-
lius reflect early Christian negotiation over and reinterpretations of the
meaning of such bodily signs as circumcision and castration. Rather than
important signifiers that include or exclude, circumcision and castration
are seemingly rendered irrelevant. According to Acts, the Christ-believers
adopted an inclusive practice whereby these bodily signs were eclipsed by
the symbolic act of baptism. Acts 8:26–40 is the story of the obliteration of

71. I concur with Schauf that “Luke’s description of the eunuch, as well as other
details in the story, functions specifically to make the story fit in the broader scheme of
the expansion of the Christian mission in Acts” (“Locating the Eunuch,” 763).
150 Negotiating the Disabled Body

castration as a sign of religious exclusion, just as the stories about Corne-

lius and the Jerusalem meeting are about the obliteration of uncircumci-
sion as sign of religious exclusion.
This reinterpretation of bodily signs is not, however, driven by a genu-
ine concern for eunuchs but by an identity conflict within Judaism that is
under negotiation in Acts. The passage constructs the Ethiopian eunuch as
an alien other, different from us in race, class, gender, and physical/sexual
ability, for a specific purpose.72 The Ethiopian eunuch is a literary figure
created to serve as an example of inclusive Christ-believing practices in
contrast to traditional Jewish practices and to show that it is in the Christ-
believing community that the biblical prophecies have their fulfillment.
The story of the Ethiopian eunuch exhibits, according to Pervo, “Lukan
theology in a nutshell.”73 The outsider is included, but in the process, cir-
cumcised Jews become the new other.74
In Acts 8:26–40, the eunuch’s disability is overcome through baptism.
In terms of Mitchell and Snyder’s theory of narrative prosthesis, the solu-
tion to the problem of deviance is not through cure but through rescue
from social censure and revaluation of modes of being.75 Although he
is not healed, his physical impairment is dispensed with as a problem
of access to the divine. The passage functions in the larger narrative
structure of Acts as a bridge, a prosthesis, to prop up the message of the
ever widening circle of the power of the Holy Spirit from Jerusalem to
Rome. As the story ends, the Ethiopian travels happily off and is never
seen again (8:39). He has served his purpose and is of no further use for
Luke. The question is whether the story really challenges the category of
eunuch. There is no “serious contemplation of the difference that disabil-
ity makes as a socially negotiated identity.”76 Rather, the text contributes
to a cementing of the category of eunuch and to the continued stigma-
tization of eunuchs. The aftermath of Matt 19:12 in the early Christian

72. Parsons, however, praises Luke’s “subversive reading” (Body and Character in
Luke and Acts, 131). See also Yong, who follows Parsons’s interpretation (Bible, Dis-
ability, and the Church, 68–69).
73. Pervo, Acts, 219.
74. Mitzi J. Smith argues that the Jews are one of the groups that identity is con-
structed over against in Acts (Smith, The Literary Construction of the Other in the Acts
of the Apostles: Charismatics, the Jews, and Women [Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2011]).
75. Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 53–54.
76. Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 10.
 7. Eunuchs in/and the Kingdom of God 151

practice of castration shows, however, that Luke’s interpretation was not

universal. Other Christ-believers wanted signs and chose castration as a
new signifier of insider status.

7.4. Conclusion: Cripping the Eunuch—Cripping Christ

This chapter has looked at the ancient eunuch figure as a category of repro-
ductive disability. I have analyzed the two New Testament occurrences of
the term εὐνοῦχος in Matt 19:12 and Acts 8:26–40 and shown how this
ambiguous category challenged kyriarchal notions of gender, sexuality,
class, and ethnicity. I argued that the notion of crip identity and cripping
as a process of critique, disruption, and reimagination reverberates with
the ancient eunuch category. The eunuch logion in Matthew subverts the
designation of eunuch as a despised category by appropriating the term as
a signifier of insider status and aligning the body of the eunuch with the
eschatological bodies of the kingdom of heaven. The story of the Ethio-
pian eunuch, although I have argued that it was not written out of concern
for eunuchs, destabilizes the connection between conversion and healing,
and reveals the cultural and arbitrary nature of stigmatizing categories.
The Ethiopian eunuch is included into the Christ-believing community
through a resignification of the social category, rather than an alteration
of his body.
The two eunuch passages in the New Testament may also destabilize a
normate understanding of Jesus. The experiences of the suffering servant
in Isa 53 (Acts 8:32–33) reverberates with the experiences of a eunuch as
well as the experiences of Jesus’s suffering. Crucifixion was a painful and
degrading form of capital punishment. In 1 Pet 2:22–24, drawing on the
same passage from Isaiah as Acts 8:32–33, Jesus is also presented as a bodily
crushed, suffering servant who defies codes of masculinity by not assert-
ing his rights or talking back.77 The experiences of Jesus and of the Ethio-
pian eunuch clearly overlap: Jesus may be read as a eunuch with a broken
body, excluded from his family, silent as he was being cut. Matthew 19:12,
moreover, singles out eunuchs as special representatives of the kingdom
of heaven and thus aligns eunuchs with Christ in a special way. In these
passages, Christ emerges as a crip figure, as one who defies both norms of

77. For a discussion of the likeness between Christ and slaves in this passage, see
Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity, 148–51.
152 Negotiating the Disabled Body

masculinity and norms of ability.78 By embracing the term eunuch, and by

succumbing to passive suffering and inflictions of violence, Christ is crip.
The two New Testament eunuch passages thus have the potential to locate
the queer, broken, disabled body at the center of Christianity, as aligned
with the crip body of Christ.

78. McRuer, Crip Theory, 2.

 8
Conclusion: Polyphonic Voices

8.1. Introduction

In this book I have looked at a variety of representations of disability in

early Christian texts. When I selected the case studies, diversity was my
main criterion. Thus, the preceding chapters discuss different disabilities,
a variation of genres, characters from diverse social locations, and mul-
tiple theoretical concepts. Nevertheless, there are some recurring motifs
and themes across these representations that I want to point out. First, I
want to stress that the intersectional variation that can be seen in the texts
is an important insight in itself. This study shows that the understanding
and conceptualization of disability is intricately connected with gender,
class, ethnicity, age, and other social factors. Both the lived experience of
disability and its representation in the texts vary. For example, the man at
the Bethesda pool (John 5:1–15) says he has no one to help him and seems
to be quite destitute, while the man with the four helpers (Mark 2:1–12) is
probably a householder carried by slaves. Several of the case studies show
that disability is used as one among several markers of otherness (e.g.,
Judas in Papias’s fragment, the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26–40, and the
female demon in the Acts of Peter).
Second, the textual representations of disability in this study reveal
something about the negotiation of difference: deviating bodies serve a
social function; they are used to think with; at the same time as they are
seen as problematic, a problem that requires a solution. All the case studies
I have presented have one or more aspects of what Mitchell and Snyder
call narrative prosthesis. Thus, Mitchell and Snyder’s theory is useful in
order to reveal the cultural work that disability does. I have argued that it
might be helpful to differentiate more clearly between the narrative and
the metaphorical uses that Mitchell and Snyder include in their descrip-

-153-
154 Negotiating the Disabled Body

tion of narrative prosthesis (see §2.1 and §2.4). I have used the phrase
prosthetic narrative scheme to describe the typical narrative features of the
concept. Even within this storytelling aspect of narrative prosthesis, there
is variation in how narrative prosthesis is used as a storytelling device in
these case studies: as an impetus, whereby the story expresses a need to
explain a nonnormative body (e.g., Peter’s daughter in the Acts of Peter),
or as a crutch, whereby disability is needed to prop up and magnify the
protagonist (e.g., in the Markan healing stories). When it comes to the
metaphorical aspect of narrative prosthesis, I find it helpful to distinguish
between a physiognomic move, from outer appearance to inner morality,
and a symbolic move, in which disability or a disabled character becomes
representative of a group or a wider category. The description of Judas by
Papias (ugly appearance reveals evil soul) is an example of the physiog-
nomic move, while the Syro-Phoenician daughter in Mark (girl’s illness
represents the animality of her ethnic group) is an example of the sym-
bolic move. This aspect of narrative prosthesis is not restricted to narrative
genres but is used as a stigmatizing disability invective across genres, as I
have argued in chapters 5 and 6.
This study has also shown that the various metaphorical uses of dis-
ability categories rely on cultural tropes that connect certain disabilities to
particular vices or weaknesses. I have used Sontag’s insights about illness
and metaphor to tease out the metaphorical uses of blindness as lack of
insight (e.g., John 9:1–41, the Acts of Peter, Papias, Fragments), demon
possession as animality and racial otherness (Mark 7:24–40), dropsy as
bad moral character (Papias, Fragments), and the combination of mute-
ness and lameness as sign of sexual sin or temptation (the Acts of Peter).

8.2. The Familiar and the Strange

To a modern reader, the early Christian representations of disability I have

presented are sometimes quite strange but sometimes also surprisingly
familiar. In 2015, Microsoft had a Super Bowl commercial that featured
Braylon, a boy with leg prostheses that incorporate Microsoft technology.
According to Microsoft’s own presentation, Braylon “lives his life without
limits and inspires others to do the same.”1 There are two features of this
ad that I find to have echoes of early Christian texts.

1. Microsoft, “Braylon O’Neill: Making Strides,” https://www.microsoft.com/

en-us/empowering/?story=braylon.
 8. Conclusion 155

First, this ad resembles the New Testament genre of healing narratives.

As I have argued, the healing stories follow a prosthetic narrative scheme:
A character is identified and named according to his or her disability. Jesus
or a Christian apostle, martyr, or saint enters the scene, and healing is
sought or at least expected by the surrounding crowd. After overcoming
some sort of obstacle, the character with the disability is healed and dis-
appears from the story; she or he is dispensable. Several of the healing
stories in the gospels involve characters with some sort of mobility impair-
ment. “Stand up and walk” is Jesus’s characteristic pronouncement (e.g.,
Matt 9:5; Mark 2:11; John 5:8; Acts 3:6), and the healed character does so,
becoming a spectacle before the crowd.
The Microsoft ad follows the plot of such early Christian healing nar-
ratives. The story about Braylon is a healing story in which Microsoft has
taken the place of Jesus and miraculous deeds are traded for technology.
The bulk of the commercial features Braylon doing sports activities with
the help of his prostheses. All we really know about him is that now he
can “stand up and walk,” thanks to Microsoft. The ad depends on the same
trope as the New Testament healing stories: a disabled character is used
to reveal the protagonist as good and powerful. Although Braylon is the
cinematic focus of the commercial, he disappears toward the end, as a clip
of Braylon zooms out and turns out to be only a pixel in one of the panes
of Microsoft’s window logo. Microsoft is the real hero of the story, just like
Jesus is in the gospels. I have argued that the healing narratives support
the writers’ claims about Jesus’s divinity and the divinely sanctioned power
of the apostle. The disabled characters function as narrative prostheses to
prop up the divine healer’s authority and power and support the narrative’s
truth claims.2 Likewise, Microsoft depends upon Braylon’s disability to
communicate the message that it is a company that does good and makes
the world a better place. But, like a prosthesis, Braylon, too, is dispensable
in the end. The message is not about Braylon but about Microsoft “empow-
ering us all.”3
The second echo of early Christian thought is the notion of a “life
without limits.” The ad takes for granted that a life without limits is
something everybody wants and also something that should be within
reach. The idea of and drive toward living lives without limits are deeply

2. Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 49.

3. Microsoft, “Braylon O’Neill.”
156 Negotiating the Disabled Body

engrained in contemporary culture. Narratives of progress and develop-

ment have been pervasive since the Enlightenment, and with the bio-
technology available today, the drive toward perfecting our bodies and
deselecting the nonnormative is stronger than ever. There is a strong
current in contemporary discourse that a life with disability is a life that
no one wants. Disability, Alison Kafer argues, “plays a huge, but seem-
ingly uncontested, role in how contemporary Americans envision the
future. Utopian visions are founded on the elimination of disability, while
dystopic, negative visions of the future are based on its proliferation.”4
Kafer unveils and challenges these ableist notions of the future and their
increasingly eugenicist drive.
However, notions about a limitless future of bodily perfection can also
be found in early Christianity. One of the core beliefs of early Christianity
was the belief in the resurrection of the body.5 Christ’s resurrection after
three days in the grave was seen as a sign that all believers would rise at
the end of time and live forever in heaven. In contrast to contemporane-
ous Greek and Roman thought, most Christians were clear that the body
would rise, in contrast to ideas about the immortality of the soul.6 Hence,
early Christian thinkers debated what this resurrection body would look
like.7 Most early Christian thinkers, however, were in agreement that the
resurrection body would be free of blemishes and impairments.8 Oppo-
nents attacked early Christian belief in the resurrection body by pointing
to the issue of disability. If there is a bodily resurrection, what about those
who died with a disability? Would they rise again as lame, deaf, or blind?
In a pseudepigraphical treatise from the second century, a Christian writer
tries to answer these questions:

Well, they say, if then the flesh rise, it must rise the same as it falls; so
that if it die with one eye, it must rise one-eyed; if lame, lame; if defec-
tive in any part of the body, in this part the man must rise deficient. How

4. Alison Kafer, Feminist, Queer, Crip (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), 2.

5. See, e.g., Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western
Christianity, 200–1336 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995).
6. Candida R. Moss, “Heavenly Healing: Eschatological Cleansing and the Resur-
rection of the Dead in the Early Church,” JAAR 79 (2011): 996–1001.
7. Kristi Upson-Saia, “Resurrecting Deformity: Augustine on Wounded and
Scarred Bodies in the Heavenly Realm,” in Schumm and Stoltzfus, Disability in Juda-
ism, Christianity, and Islam, 95–99.
8. Moss, “Heavenly Healing”; Upson-Saia, “Resurrecting Deformity.”
 8. Conclusion 157

truly blinded are they in the eyes of their hearts! For they have not seen
on the earth blind men seeing again, and the lame walking by His [i.e.,
Jesus’s] word.… For if on earth He healed the sicknesses of the flesh, and
made the body whole, much more will He do this in the resurrection, so
that the flesh shall rise perfect and entire. (Pseudo-Justin, Res. 4 [ANF
1:295])

When Pseudo-Justin argues for the resurrection of perfected bodies, he

draws on the gospels’ healing narratives as his prooftexts. Jesus’s abil-
ity to heal in his lifetime on earth parallels his power to raise perfected
bodies into the afterlife. This shows how closely linked the idea of able-
bodiedness and resurrection as “life without limits” are in early Christian
thinking. There are echoes of these narrative tropes and motifs about the
eradication of disability and a future without limits in the Microsoft com-
mercial, and such ideas have been deeply influential in the formation of
Western culture.9
Although pervasive in the reception history, these texts and tropes are
not the only voices on disability in early Christianity. As I have argued in
this book, the discourse on disability is much more polyphonic. Pseudo-
Justin’s insistence on the erasure of disability in the resurrection is chal-
lenged by the gospels’ stories about Jesus’s own resurrection body. Accord-
ing to the Gospel of Luke (24:39–40), as well as John (20:25–27), Jesus’s
risen body still has the marks of his crucifixion: a pierced abdomen and
nail marks in his hands and feet. Jesus’s resurrection body is not a perfectly
able body but one bearing the marks of lived life as the primary signs of
his identity and thus the proof of continuity. Moreover, as I have argued,
Paul boasts of his nonnormative body (2 Cor 11–12). His much debated
“thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor 12:7) should not be dismissed as a metaphor
for temptation but understood as some sort of disability. I find it plausible
that Paul had a somatic and social experience of difference that shaped his
theological reflection.10
The Acts of Peter also challenges the typical healing narrative. In the
Acts of Peter, there is a space for disability as something good, and there is
an acceptance that healing does not always occur. Peter’s daughter is better
off as she is, and the widows have other abilities due to their visual impair-
ment. It is seen as good for the believing community to have impaired

9. Eiesland, Disabled God, 70–75.

10. See also Yong, Bible, Disability, and the Church, 88–89.
158 Negotiating the Disabled Body

members because they perform important functions. Although I hardly

endorse the theology of this text (as I have noted, there are many challeng-
ing aspects from a feminist point of view), I think it is important to take
note of the diversity in voices and perspectives that the early Christian
texts offer.

8.3. Potential for Future Research

What is the potential of a disability perspective for biblical and early Chris-
tian scholarship? Polyphony may be a key word here, too. The research
that has come out of this perspective so far has gone in several directions.
Hector Avalos tried to schematize the earliest contributions (1990s–2007)
and argued that there were three emerging approaches within biblical dis-
ability studies: a redemptionist approach, a rejectionist approach, and a
historicist approach.11 According to Avalos, in the redemptionist trajec-
tory, the scholar seeks to redeem the biblical text by recontextualizing it
for modern application; the rejectionist argues that the Bible has negative
portrayals of disability that should be rejected in modern society; and a
historicist approach is restricted to a historical examination of disabilities
in the Bible.
These different trajectories are still identifiable trends within biblical
disability studies, but in my opinion there is more of a continuum among
them than Avalos allows for. My own approach in this book cannot be
neatly placed within one of these trajectories. My research has a strong
historicist component. I discuss disability terminology concepts and try to
place them within their ancient literary and cultural framework. But I also
go beyond the historicist examination of disability. I have critiqued the
problematic aspects of connecting disability to sin (e.g., Mark 2:1–12; John
5:1–15) and its reception history, which has been very negative to people
with disabilities.12 I have also pointed to the symbolic and physiognomic
uses of disability that stereotype people with disabilities and use them as
a means to a theological end (e.g., Mark 7:24–30; John 9:1–41). With the
editors of This Abled Body, I insist that “the Bible has negative portrayals
of disability that should be rejected in modern society,” which would place

11. Hector Avalos, “Redemptionism, Rejectionism, and Historicism as Emerging

Approaches in Disability Studies,” PRSt 34 (2007): 91–100.
12. Eiesland, Disabled God.
 8. Conclusion 159

me in Avalos’s rejectionist trajectory.13 However, I have also made some

potentially redemptionist points. I have suggested that the eunuch pas-
sages (Matt 19:12; Acts 8:26–40) can crip our conception of Jesus and that
Paul’s theology of weakness and madness has the potential to destigmatize
differently abled bodies.
Hence, I find that all of these approaches to the Bible and disability
have merit and that there is potential for exciting research in the years to
come. From a historical perspective, there is a lot we still do not know
about how people with various disabilities were treated in antiquity,
how illnesses were conceptualized, and in what ways social and religious
stigma were ascribed to various disabilities. Thus, a historical approach
will in itself give new and useful knowledge about the biblical and ancient
worlds. Such insights about representations of disability and the lives of
people with disabilities in the Bible also contribute to the wider field of
disability history.
I also think it is important to critique, along rejectionist lines, prob-
lematic aspects of disability that we find in the Bible. The Bible still has
authority for Jews and Christians, and the problematic sides of its repre-
sentations of disability and their ensuing theologies need to be exposed.
For example, it is challenging for the ordinary Bible reader who has a
modern understanding of medicine to make sense of the gospels’ texts
about demon possession and exorcism, as well as the stories about Jesus’s
miraculous healings. People with disabilities have critiqued Christian
practices that use these biblical narratives to stigmatize and to one-sidedly
focus on healing.14 This is also a reason to look at early Christian texts
across the divide between canonical and noncanonical. Noncanonical
texts might reveal aspects of early Christian thinking that the canonical
literature does not and underscore the diversity and polyphony of early
Christian voices.
Nevertheless, I think there are aspects and traditions from the Bible
that can be used in a constructive way in order to more fully include people
with a variety of disabilities in religious communities and society. There is

13. Hector Avalos, Sarah J. Melcher, and Jeremy Schipper, introduction to This
Abled Body, 6.
14. See, e.g., Julia Watts Belser, “Violence, Disability, and the Politics of Healing:
The Inaugural Nancy Eiesland Endowment Lecture,” JDR 19 (2015): 177–97; Belser
and Morrison, “What No Longer Serves Us”; Moss, “Heavenly Healing”; Upson-Saia,
“Resurrecting Deformity.”
160 Negotiating the Disabled Body

a need to develop a better disability theology, and biblical disability studies

can also be a part of that conversation. But cross-disciplinarity should not
stop there. Biblical scholarship using a disability perspective is also part of
a wider scholarly conversation within disability studies. As I have tried to
show in this book, I think biblical scholarship can contribute to a better
understanding of the cultural negotiation of disability, both through his-
tory and today.
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 Ancient Sources Index

Hebrew Bible/Old Testament 2:14 139

Genesis Job
1:3 68 1:21 66
2:7 68
17:9–14 140 Psalms
22:11 66
Exodus
6:12 140 Song
12:43–49 140 5:4 141
20:5 65
Isaiah
Leviticus 53 151
13:45–46 61 53:7 147
21:17–23 139, 147 53:8 147
22:24–25 139 56:3 148
56:3–7 147, 148
Numbers 56:4 148
14:18 65 56:5 148
57:8 141
Deuteronomy 57:10 141
10:16 140
23:1 147 Jeremiah
23:1–6 147 6:10 140
23:2 139 31:29–30 65
23:2–9 140
Ezekiel
Judges 18:2–4 65
16:17 66
Pseudepigrapha
2 Samuel
5:8 61, 69 Testament of Solomon
2:8 103
Esther 3:1 103
1:10–15 139

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182 Negotiating the Disabled Body

Ancient Jewish Writers 1:28 32

1:30–31 32
Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 1:32–33 32
17.168–171 126 1:34 32
1:39 32
New Testament 1:40–44 32
1:40–45 32
Matthew 1:45 32
4:23–24 14 2 50, 62
6:22–23 30 2:1 39
8:5 58 2:1–10 26
8:5–13 42, 57 2:1–11 39
8:6 35, 57 2:1–12 29, 32, 33, 61, 153, 158
8:9 57 2:2 32
9:2–8 33 2:3 34, 36
9:5 155 2:3–12 32
9:32 103 2:5 33, 40, 41
9:34 103 2:7 39
11:5 35 2:9 33, 34, 62
12:10–13 60 2:10 33, 50
12:22 27, 101, 103 2:11 34, 62, 155
12:22–32 95 2:23–24 101
12:24 103 3:1–3 60
12:25 104 3:1–5 32
12:25–29 103 3:19–30 27
12:29 104 3:19b–20 106
15:30 14 3:19b–30 95, 102
15:30–31 35 3:21 103, 105, 106
19:12 27, 66, 133, 141, 144, 150, 151, 3:21–22 105
159 3:22 103, 105
19:24 122 3:22–27 15
22:30 142 3:24–25 104
26:15 124 3:27 104
27:3–5 121 3:31 106
27:5–8 128 3:31–35 106
3:35 106
Mark 4:23–24 32
1:1 50 4:24 34
1:15 40, 50 5:1 42
1:22 50 5:1–20 42
1:23–26 32 5:2–13 32
1:23–27 32 5:3–5 101
1:25 50 5:4–5 48
1:26 48 5:5 40, 101
1:27 50 5:6–10 48, 101
 Ancient Sources Index 183

5:21 38 Luke
5:21–43 44, 80 1:7 16
5:23 32, 41 1:15 66
5:25–29 16 4–5 32
5:25–34 32, 40 4:39 57
5:26 18 5:17–26 33
5:26–34 80 6:6–10 60
5:27 38 7:1–10 42, 57
5:29 80 7:2 57
5:34 41 7:8 57, 58
5:35–42 32 7:21–22 14
5:36 41 7:22 35
5:41–42 44 7:28 95
7:24 42, 48 8:48–52 95
7:24–30 26, 29, 32, 41, 158 10:20–21 95
7:24–40 154 11:14 101
7:25 42 11:14–23 95
7:25–30 32 11:15 103
7:26 42 11:17 104
7:27 45 11:21 104
7:27–28 44 11:21–23 103, 104
7:28 42, 47 11:34–36 30
7:29 41, 42 18:25 122
7:30 42 22:4 124
7:31–37 32 23:29 142
7:32 33 24:39–40 157
8:6 34
8:22–25 32 John
9:1–8 34 1:9 72
9:14–27 32 2:11 55
9:14–29 48 3:17 69
9:17 48, 101 3:34 69
9:17–24 41 4:1–54 58
9:18–22 101 4:4–42 74
9:22 101 4:26 71
9:26 48 4:46 56, 58
9:42–48 41 4:46–53 42
9:45 35 4:46–54 26, 53, 56
10:25 122 4:47 56
10:46 69 4:48 55, 56, 59
10:46–52 32, 40 4:50 56, 60
10:52 41 4:51 56, 58
14:10 124 4:51–53 56
15:24 45 4:52 56, 57, 73
4:53 55, 56, 58
184 Negotiating the Disabled Body

John (cont.) 9:5 68, 71, 72

5 56, 62, 63 9:6 68
5:1 59 9:6–7 67
5:1–9 36 9:7 69
5:1–15 26, 53, 59, 153, 158 9:8 69
5:2 59 9:8–12 71
5:3 14, 73 9:9 71
5:4 59 9:11 71
5:5 60, 64 9:13 70
5:6 60, 63 9:13–34 56
5:6–7 61 9:15–16 68
5:7 60, 62, 64 9:16 55, 71
5:8 60, 62, 155 9:18 70, 71
5:9 62 9:18–23 69
5:10–13 60 9:19–20 70
5:11 62 9:20–21 70
5:12 62 9:22 69
5:13 64 9:22–23 70
5:14 60, 62 9:24 70, 71
5:15 60, 62, 64 9:25 71
5:16 63 9:29 70
5:17 61 9:30 70
5:21 59 9:31 70, 71
5:36 69 9:32 68, 70
6:20 71 9:34 69
6:26 55 9:35 71
6:35 71 9:35–38 63
7:20 101, 104 9:36 71
7:31 55 9:37 70, 71
7:32–37 68 9:38 71
8:12 71, 72 9:39–41 71
8:22–26 68 10:7 71
8:48 104 10:11 71
8:48–49 101 10:19–20 104
8:48–52 104 10:20 101, 104, 107
8:58 71 10:20–21 101, 104, 105
9 56, 63 10:21 107
9:1 66, 70, 73 10:41–42 55
9:1–7 30 11:1 56
9:1–8 65 11:1–43 74
9:1–41 26, 53, 64, 84, 154, 158 11:1–53 74
9:2 30, 40, 61, 65 11:2 56
9:3 66 11:3 56
9:3–5 65 11:6 56
9:4 68, 69, 71 12:1–11 74
 Ancient Sources Index 185

12:4–6 124 1:23 109

12:11 55 1:27–30 110
18:5 71 2:3–5 95, 111
20:11–18 74 2:5 114
20:25–27 157 2:14 109
20:29 55 3:19 109
20:30–31 55 10:20–21 101
14 110
Acts 14:23 110
1:18 128
1:18–20 121, 128 2 Corinthians
2:38–40 148 1–9 108
3:2 35, 66 1:4 113
3:6 155 5:13 95, 106, 109
4:1 22 10 110
5:1–10 75 10–13 108
8:24–30 27 10:1 110
8:26–40 133, 144, 147, 149, 150, 10:1–2 114
151, 153, 159 10:10 110, 112
8:27–28 145 10:10–11 114
8:28 145, 147 11 27, 108
8:32–33 151 11–12 112, 157
8:32–34 146 11:1 108, 113
8:34 145 11:5 108
8:35 146 11:6 114
8:36 145, 149 11:16 108, 109, 113
8:37 149 11:16–23 109
8:38 145 11:16–30 95
8:39 145, 150 11:17 108
9:8–18 111 11:19 108
10:45 149 11:21 108, 109
10:45–47 149 11:21–23 114
11:2–3 149 11:23 108, 113
14:8 35 11:23–25 111
15:1–29 149 11:23–27 109
15:1–35 149 11:23–29 114
15:29–21 149 11:24–29 113
26:24 100 11:29 111
11:29–30 109
1 Corinthians 11:30 113
1:10 109 11:31 114
1:18 109 12:1 114
1:18–31 113 12:3 114
1:18–2:5 109 12:6 108
1:21 109 12:7 114, 157
186 Negotiating the Disabled Body

2 Corinthians (cont.) 12 86
12:7–10 111 14 90
12:9 114 15 86
12:9–10 111 17 92
12:10 113 20 87
12:11 108 20–21 27
21 22, 87, 88
Galatians 22 27, 89, 91
4:13 111 25 92
4:13–15 111 28 90
4:15 111 29 78
6:17 111, 113
Coptic Act of Peter 90, 91, 93
1 Timothy 128:4–7 78
5:5 22 128:10–17 78
5:17 22 128:10–129:8 78
128:18 82
James 128:19 81
5:14 22 129:11–15 78
131:2–5 78
1 Peter 132:1–4 84
2:22–24 151 132:18–19 79
5:5 22 134:8 85
135:6–9 79, 80
2 John 135:10–13 79
1:7 86 137:1–9 84
138:7–10 84
Revelation 139:1–17 92
12:9 86 139:9–140:4 91
13:14 86 141:14 78
22:15 46
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History
Early Christian Writings 6.8.1 143

Acts of John Gospel of Thomas

53 144 114 80

Acts of Peter 90, 91, 93 Justin Martyr, First Apology

29 143
Actus Vercellences
2 27, 85 Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas 89
4 86
9 86 Martyrdom of Peter
10 86 2 78
11 86 3 86
 Ancient Sources Index 187

Martyrdom of Polycarp Chariton, De Chaerea et Callirhoe

7 22 5.9 139
13 22
Galen, De causis morborum
Papias, Fragments 7.30.7–31 34
4 117
4.1 128 Galen, On the Affected Parts
4.2 122, 124, 125, 127, 130 3.14 81
4.2–3 27, 121, 122
4.3 127, 128, 129 Galen, De methodo medendi
1.15 101
Pseudo-Justin, De resurrectione
4 157 Galen, On the Usefulness of the Parts of
the Body
Greco-Roman Literature 14.2 20

Apuleius, The Golden Ass Hesiod, Works and Days

8.28 138 67 46

Aretaeus, On the Causes and Symptoms Hippocrates, Aphorisms

of Chronic Disease 6.27 123
1.7 35, 60, 81
1.13 123, 124 Hippocrates, De flatibus
2.1 123, 124 12 123

Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics Hippocrates, Epidemics

1102b 34 1.1.3 126
1150b 124 1.3 58
1.23 126
Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals 1.26 34
728a 20 3.253–278 101
766a 20 6.20–21 127
767b 119 7.20 126
7.20–21 123
Aristotle, Politics
1252–1260 20 Hippocrates, Female Diseases
1253b 19 1.2 101

Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights Hippocrates, Prognostic

4.2.6–11 16 6 58

Catullus, Carmina Hippocrates, Regimen in Acute

63 137, 138 Diseases 106
188 Negotiating the Disabled Body

Hippocrates, The Sacred Disease 4–6 (540c–541e) 114

2 98 7–13 (541e–544c) 114
5–10 98
17 99 Plutarch, Pericles
21 98 27.3–4 37

Historia Augusta, Severus Plutarch, De superstitione

23.7 138 7 (168c) 15

Horace, Epistles Polemon, Physiognomy 23

1.2.34 124
Polybius, Historiae
Horace, Odes 22.22 139
2.2 124
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex 31
Livy, Ab urbe condita
3.44–48 82 Soranus, Gynecology
2.26 101
Lucian, Eunuch
6 138 Suetonius, Claudius
25.2 21
Lucian, Philopseudes
8–16 15 Suetonius, Domitianus
7 135
Lucian, The Goddess of Syria
51 137 Tacitus, Historiae
4.81 68
Ovid, Fasti
4.183–186 137 Ulpian, Digest
4.351–366 137 50.16.128 135

Pausanias, Descriptions of Greece

9.7.2 126

Pliny, Naturalis historia

28.7 68

Plutarch, Artaxerxes
16.1 139

Plutarch, De curiositate
10 (520c) 21, 120

Plutarch, De laude
1–22 (539b–547f) 114
 Modern Authors Index

Abrams, Judith Z. 11 Byron, Gay L. 20, 89, 90

Abusch, Ra’anan 135, 136, 139 Cadwallader, Alan H. 45
Albl, Martin 108, 112 Callon, Callie 90
Albrecht, Gary L. 4, 5 Carter, Warren 51, 66
Anderson, Janice Capel 20, 107 Clark, Elizabeth A. 2, 80
Anderson, Matthew R. 140 Clark, Terence 45, 47,
Anderson, Paul N. 55, 72 Clark-Soles, Jaime 63, 71, 72
Atherton, Catherine 118 Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome 117, 118, 129, 130
Avalos, Hector 10, 13, 15, 18, 61, 62, Collins, Adela Yarbro 23, 32, 38, 40, 43,
108, 158, 159 45, 47, 50, 103, 106, 108, 111, 112
Baden, Joel S. 10, 16, 81, 134 Conway, Colleen M. 20, 72, 73, 105,
Barclay, John M. G. 22 107, 123
Barnes, Colin 4 Cotter, Wendy 34
Barsch, Sebastian 9 Couey, J. Blake 134, 141
Barton, Len 4 Culpepper, R. Alan 63, 72
Barton, Carlin A. 120 Davis, Lennard J. 5, 8, 76, 96, 133
Belser, Julia Watts 8, 11, 26, 64, 159 Dean-Jones, Lesley 100, 101
Bengtsson 39, 69 Demand, Nancy 80
Bengtsson, Staffan 76 Dewey, Arthur J. 108, 114
Blundell, Sue 76 Edelstein, Emma J. 37, 46, 61
Bonnet, Max 77 Edelstein, Ludwig 37, 46, 61
Boys-Stones, George 23 Edwards, Martha L. 15
Bradley, Keith 45, 46 Eiesland, Nancy L. 26, 70, 74, 157, 158,
Brakke, David 15 159
Bremmer, Jan N. 77, 89, 92 Eijk, Philip J. van der 17, 97, 99
Brewer, Douglas 45, 47 Elliott, John K. 77, 87, 144
Brown, Lerita M. Coleman 96, 97 Eyler, Joshua R. 8, 9
Brown, Raymond E. 61, 63, 65, 72 Fantham, Elaine 90
Bruce, Patricia 62 Fehribach, Adeline 67
Buell, Denise Kimber 20 Felton, D. 118, 119, 128
Burke, Sean D. 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, Frayer-Griggs, Daniel 68
145 Furnish, Victor Paul 108, 109, 112, 114
Bury, Michael 4, 5 Garland, Robert 119, 120
Butler, Judith 6, 7 Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie 2, 27
Bynum, Caroline Walker 156 Gevaert, Bert 119

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190 Negotiating the Disabled Body

Gilhus, Ingvild Sælid 46 Koosed, Jennifer L. 26, 55, 56, 59, 65, 66
Glancy, Jennifer A. 42, 43, 44, 57, 90, Kristeva, Julia 129
111, 112, 113, 114, 138, 145, 151 Kudlick, Catherine J. 2, 9
Gleason, Maud W. 20, 24, 86, 95, 101, Kuefler, Mathew 136, 137, 138
111, 114 Laes, Christian 2, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 21,
Goffman, Erving 25, 27, 95, 96, 116, 146 24, 70, 81, 85, 97, 98, 119, 122
Goodey, Chris F. 11, 15, 21, 97, 98, 119, Laqueur, Thomas 138
122 Lawrence, Louise J. 11, 12, 15, 25, 31
Goodley, Dan 5, 6, 9, 33 Lid, Inger Marie 6
Gosbell, Louise 11, 55, 60, 61, 62, 68, Liew, Tat-siong Benny 51
69, 74 Linton, Simi 6, 34
Grant, Colleen C. 70, 71, 72 Lipsius, Richard Adelbert 77
Graumann, Lutz Alexander 98, 120 Luz, Ulrich 57, 141, 144
Grubbs, Judith Evans 82, 83 Marcus, Joel 33, 36, 38, 40, 43, 45, 126
Haenchen, Ernst 58, 59, 61, 63, 72 Martens, J. W. 44
Halberstam, Judith 118, 130, 131 Martin, Dale B. 15, 17, 57, 97, 99, 105,
Haley, Shelley P. 91 108, 112, 115
Harrill, J. Albert 23, 24, 112, 113 Marx-Wolf, Heidi 11, 12, 98
Harris, William V. 97 McRuer, Robert 27, 134, 142, 152
Harrocks, Rebecca 42, 44, 45 Meekosha, Helen 6, 7
Hartsock, Chad 22, 72, 88, 124, 125 Melcher, Sarah J. 10, 13, 31, 36, 63, 108,
Henning, Meghan 79, 82 134, 140, 147, 148, 159
Hester, J. David 135, 136, 137, 144 Metzler, Irina 9
Hill, Charles E. 120 Miller, Anna C. 108, 114
Horn, Cornelia B. 44, 83 Misset-van de Weg, Magda 91
Howard, James M. 63 Mitchell, Alexandre 81
Hoyland, Robert 24 Mitchell, David T. 3, 23, 25, 26,
Hughes, Bill 8 29, 30, 31, 41, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 61, 65,
Hull, John M. 66 72, 133, 150, 153, 155
Ipsen, Avaren 90 Mittman, Asa Simon 118
Jeong, Dong Hyeon 47 Molinari, Andrea L. 78, 82
Johnson, Luke Timothy 145 Moloney, Francis J. 58, 66, 67, 69, 71
Jouanna, Jacques 97 Moore, Stephen D. 20, 68, 107
Kafer, Alison 156 Morrison, Melanie S. 26, 64, 159
Kartzow, Marianne Bjelland 2, 3, 18, Moss, Candida R. 10, 16, 30, 40,
19, 22, 41, 44, 113, 134, 137, 139, 145 41, 80, 81, 98, 107, 108, 134, 139, 142,
Keener, Craig S. 63, 65, 72 147, 156, 159
Kelley, Nicole 13, 65, 66, 98 Moxnes, Halvor 129, 134, 135, 137, 141,
King, Helen 138 142, 143, 144
King, Karen 22 Mulinari, Diana 3
Klauck, Hans-Josef 77, 78, 79 Nanos, Mark D. 45, 46
Klein, Anne 9 Nash, Jennifer C. 3
Kleinman, Arthur 17 Neutel, Karin B. 140
Kok, Jacobus 57, 59 Nutton, Vivian 16, 17, 18, 22, 46, 58, 126
Konstan, David 36 Økland, Jorunn 2, 22, 129, 138
 Modern Authors Index 191

Oliver, Michael 4, 5, 9 Smith, William 37

Olyan, Saul M. 11, 12, 139, 140, 141, 147 Snyder, Sharon L. 3, 23, 25, 26,
Parkin, Tim G. 22 29, 30, 31, 41, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 61, 65,
Parrott, Douglas M. 77 72, 133, 150, 153, 155
Parsons, Mikeal C. 10, 22, 31, 36, 63, Solevåg, Anna Rebecca 1, 2, 16, 19, 33,
108, 134, 140, 145, 150 41, 43, 46, 67, 74, 75, 80, 117, 133, 138
Pearman, Tory Vandeventer 9 Sontag, Susan 25, 26, 53, 54, 63, 66, 72,
Penner, Todd C. 2, 92 73, 74, 154
Perkins, Judith 2, 90 Sorensen, Eric 15
Pervo, Richard I. 145, 147, 148, 150 Staley, Jeffrey L. 64
Philipps, Adrian 45, 47 Stewart, David Tabb 139, 140
Pilch, John J. 18, 57, 68 Stiker, Henri-Jacques 11
Poirier, John C. 66 Streete, Gail Corrington 86
Rabinowitz, Nancy Sorkin 76 Swain, Simon 23, 24, 46, 123, 124, 125
Raphael, Rebecca 10, 14, 16, 24, 31 Theissen, Gerd 47, 48, 51
Reinhartz, Adele 67 Thomas, Christine M. 77, 78, 85, 138
Reyes, Paulina de los 3 Thomson, Rosemarie Garland 2, 7, 27,
Richlin, Amy 76, 83, 129 34, 76, 88, 91, 96, 97, 116
Ringe, Sharon H. 41, 43, 45, 47 Thumiger, Chiara 97, 98, 104, 105, 109
Ringrose, Kathryn M. 138 Tischendorf, Constantin von 77
Robertson, Jesse E. 120, 121, 122, 123, Tolbert, Mary Ann 51
124, 127, 128 Tøssebro, Jan 6
Rose, Martha L. 11, 13, 15, 21, 22, 34, Tremain, Shelley 6, 7, 8
35, 37, 39, 69, 88, 97, 98, 119, 122 Trentin, Lisa 21, 69
Samama, Evelyne 13 Turner, David M. 8, 10
Sandahl, Carrie 133, 134 Upson-Saia, Kristi 11, 12, 98, 156, 159
Sandnes, Karl Olav 2, 23 Valentine, Katy 21
Sawyer, Deborah 67 Vander Stichele, Caroline 2, 92
Schipper, Jeremy 10, 13, 16, 25, 61, 98, Verstraete, Pieter 9
108, 139, 140, 146, 147, 159 Vlahogiannis, Nicholas 13
Schneemelcher, Wilhelm 77 Vogt, Kari 80
Schumm, Darla 26, 55, 56, 59, 65, 66 Wainwright, Elaine M. 18, 32, 46, 57
Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth 12, 19, 91 Walters, Jonathan 138
Scott, Joan W. 2 Watson, David F. 36, 135
Seelman, Katherine D. 4, 5 Weissenrieder, Annette ix, 34, 80, 85
Seim, Turid Karlsen 2, 22, 67 West, Mona 148
Shakespeare, Tom 5, 31 Williams, Craig A. 20
Shauf, Scot 145 Williams, Gareth 5
Shuttleworth, Russell 6, 7 Wynn, Kerry H. 63, 72
Siebers, Tobin 8 Yong, Amos 10, 31, 36, 63, 108, 109, 111,
Skinner, Marilyn B. 76, 138 134, 140, 150, 157
Smit, Peter-Ben 20, 100, 129, 140 Zeichmann, Christopher B. 120
Smith, Gregory A. 15
Smith, Jonathan Z. 15
Smith, Mitzi J. 150