Front cover image for Abandoned to lust : sexual slander and ancient Christianity

Abandoned to lust : sexual slander and ancient Christianity

"Through careful, innovative readings, Jennifer Knust explores the writings of Paul, Justin Martyr, Irenacus of Lyons, and other early Christian authors who argued that Christ alone made self-mastery possible. Rejection of Christ led to both immoral sexual behavior and, ultimately, alienation and punishment from God. Knust considers how Christian writers participated in a long tradition of rhetorical invective, a rhetoric that was often employed to defend status and difference. Christians borrowed, deployed, and reconfigured classical rhetorical techniques, turning them against their rulers to undercut their moral and political authority. Knust also examines the use of accusations of licentiousness in conflicts between rival groups of Christians. Portraying rival sects as depraved allowed accusers to claim their own group as representative of "true Christianity.""--Jacket
Print Book, English, ©2006
Columbia University Press, New York, ©2006
History
xviii. 279 pages ; 24 cm.
9780231136624, 9780231510042, 0231136625, 0231510047
60605289
Introduction: Who's on top? : sex talk, power, and resistance
Sexual slander and ancient invective
Paul, the slaves of desire, the the saints of God
Sexual vice and Christian Apologia
The false teachers of the end time
Illicit sex, wicked desire, and the demonized heretic
Based on the author's thesis (doctoral)--Columbia University, 2001