Abstract
Asikainen's book is another contribution to the growing body of literature considering masculinity in early Christianity. This book is an interesting addition for two reasons. First, A. adds to the discussion by considering the tension between two ideal-types of masculinity in the Roman world and how these two types enable us to understand Jesus and other men. Second, the other men and women considered in the book round out a picture of Jesus’ masculinity by comparison with his opponents, his male disciples, and female followers.
The Introduction to the book lays out the theory of Raewyn Connell's hegemonic masculinity. The strength of Connell's theory is its emphasis on masculinities in relation to one another. While one type of masculinity is usually in the hegemonic position at any given time in any given culture, other types of masculinity can be complicit, marginalized, or subordinated to that hegemonic masculinity. More importantly, other ideal masculinities might vie for the hegemonic position. Though A. raises some critical questions regarding Connell's theory, in the main A. is supportive of the theory.
In chapter two, A. demonstrates that being born a male does make one automatically masculine in the Greco-Roman world. A. argues that at least two masculinities were in competition for the hegemonic position in the Roman world: self-assertive masculinities held that dominance over others was ideal, and self-controlled masculinities held being in control of one's self was the quintessence of what it meant to be masculine. For the most part, philosophers adhered to the self-controlled type of masculinity, stressing living in accord with the cardinal virtues. A. explores literary accounts of gladiators and the texts of Second Temple Jews. For example, gladiators are interesting in terms of marginalized masculinities because they are slaves, and thus controlled by others, and yet are sometimes valorized as in control of themselves physically. Philo adopted the idea that living according to the cardinal virtues was masculine, but he argued that Jews lived by them to a greater degree than other peoples. Josephus changes biblical narratives to assert that the heroes of the Jewish scriptures were manly according to the cardinal virtues.
In chapter three, A. compares Jesus to his opponents in the synoptic Gospels. Jesus’ authority over other people, unclean spirits, and nature make him manlier than his opponents. Moreover, there are stock tropes from invective literature used to describe Jesus’ opponents. They lack piety, they comprise an “adulterous” generation, they love money and honor, and they lack self-control.
In chapter four, Jesus’ masculinity is compared to his disciples’ masculinity. Mark's Gospel shows the disciples as oscillating between “living on God's terms and living in human terms” (p. 76). Matthew's Gospel cleans up Mark's description of the fallibility of Mark's followers of Jesus, while Luke presents the disciples as exemplars of masculine behavior. In Matthew especially, Jesus’ followers are encouraged to take on marginal masculinity in the Antitheses and in the private practice of piety. Each of the Gospels largely rejects the self-assertive type of masculinity, though promised rewards for faithfully following Jesus may reflect this type of masculinity. For the most part, Mark and Matthew put Jesus’ followers in marginalized positions, while Luke stresses more fully a self-controlled masculinity.
Chapter five takes up the interactions between Jesus and women. Borrowing Connell's notion of “emphasized femininity,” A. argues that such a femininity highlighted “domestic virtue, chastity, modesty, and marital fidelity” (p. 107). Women could exhibit masculine qualities in certain instances, but too much masculinity could garner a woman a bad reputation. Among the key elements of this chapter, A. notes that the Syrophonecian woman in Mark acts in ways contrary to emphasized femininity by besting Jesus in their verbal exchange. That threatens Jesus’ masculinity. Matthew changes the story to make it less threatening to Jesus’ masculinity, while Luke omits the story entirely. Perhaps the most significant takeaway from this interesting chapter is that the women in Mark's Gospel serve as examples for discipleship for both men and women.
Chapter six takes up the question of Jesus’ emotions. Here again, Mark presents Jesus as emotional in terms of anger and grief, while Matthew sometimes eliminates and sometimes works to mitigate such descriptions and Luke simply eradicates them. This type of curtailing of Jesus’ emotional demonstrations relies on a trope that emotional displays are feminine. Chapter seven discusses the Passion Narratives, and there we see the same pattern of Matthew working to mitigate Jesus’ excessive emotional expressions found in Mark even while keeping some of them (for example, Jesus’ last words on the cross), while Luke presents Jesus in control of his surroundings even on his way to death and showing clemency to the bandit with whom he is crucified and asking for clemency on the part of those crucifying him.
A.'s treatment of Jesus’ masculinity in comparison with other male and female characters in the synoptic Gospels serves usefully to highlight a number of key features of masculinity throughout the synoptics. These comparisons really serve to show how the theory of Connell—that masculinities are relational—works in terms of Greco-Roman ideals of masculinity. In the end, A. sees Mark as advocating a masculinity which is voluntarily marginalized, Matthew advocating for the male disciples to practice a voluntary marginalization (perhaps nowhere more clearly than in Matthew 19:12), and Luke as ultimately advocating a masculinity that is nearly fully complicit with the self-controlled masculine ideal.
This book is written in an engaging style. Advanced undergraduates can easily make sense of it, but seasoned professionals working on masculinity in early Christianity will benefit most from its insights. Two questions remained for me at the end of the book. First, can one really say that there are multiple hegemonic masculinities? Certainly Connell's work admits of a variety of masculinities struggling for hegemonic position at any given time, but hegemony implies that one is in the most authoritative position. As an example, even Luke has the perfectly self-controlled, non-emotional, non-threatening Jesus crucified. One might argue that exiling, killing, or silencing philosophers and prophets in the Greco-Roman world is an indication that the dominating form of masculinity was really hegemonic even as the philosophers argued that another expression of masculinity should be so. Second, what are we to make of stories about Jesus’ return, implied in the passages pertaining to reward for Jesus’ faithful followers? Is it possible to imagine a marginally masculine Jesus who, with God, will avenge his followers? Despite these questions, this book deserves a place in discussions of masculinity in early Christianity.