Hybridity as Subversion of Orthodoxy? Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity

Abstract

Hybridity inflects Jewish and Christian identity in precisely the places where ‘‘purity’’ is most forcefully inscribed. In the formative texts of both traditions, heresy is pushed ‘‘outside’’ via its syncretistic representation, even as the other religion is brought ‘‘inside’’ through its close identification with heresy. Athanasius of Alexandria’s 4th-century construction of doctrinal orthodoxy in opposition to the ‘‘Judaizing’’ heresy of Arius here serves as a case study of the imperializing hybrid identity inscribed by Christian heresiology. Talmudic tales of contested martyrdom in turn offer examples of the Jewish representation of heresy as a problem of ‘‘Christianizing’’ practice that produces the Rabbi as a resistant hybrid subject. Bringing the discursive analysis of ancient texts into dialogue with present contexts, the authors acknowledge both the promise of a ‘‘Third Space’’ of hybridity opening onto inter-religious negotiation and the menace potentially conveyed by such hyphenated identities as the ‘‘Judeo-Christian’’.

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