This article analyzes how space and place affect the constructions of sexuality, gender, and urbanity in Philoâs Vita Contemplativa and the histories of rural queer Jewish wo/men. Extending the work of David Runia, who calls Philo an âambivalent homo urbanus,â I show how Philoâs ambivalence stems from discomfort with the âurban homosâ who perpetuate a cityâs vice. Philo emphasizes a form of metronormativity in his portrayal of an urban sexual immoderation that is rooted in racialized, Roman depictions of cities and their sexuality. Philoâs cure is embodied in the Therapeutic rejection of the city and all sexual praxis. Despite Philoâs intentions, urban queerness cannot infect the Therapeuts because they may already have been embodying queerness in the wild. By placing the Therapeuts alongside evidence of other subcultures of queerness and gender egalitarianism in Roman Egypt, the article concludes by re-centering the rural, queer Jewish wo/men found in the Vita Contemplativa.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
Beavis, Mary Ann. âPhiloâs Therapeutai: Philosopherâs Dream or Utopian Construction?â Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 14 (2004): 30â42.
Boehringer, Sandra. LâHomosexualité féminine dans lâAntiquité Grecque et Romaine. Paris: Belles Lettres, 2007.
Brooten, Bernadette J. âInscriptional Evidence for Women as Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue.â Pages 1â10 in Society of Biblical Literature 1981 Seminar Papers. Edited by Kent Harold Richards. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1982.
Brooten, Bernadette J. Women as Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue: Inscriptional Evidence and Background Issues. Brown Judaic Studies. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1982.
Brooten, Bernadette J. Love Between Women: Early Christian Reponses to Female Homoeroticism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Buell, Denise Kimber. Why This New Race?: Ethnic Reasoning in Early Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
Cato and Varro. On Agriculture. Translated by W.D. Hooper and H.B. Ash. LCL. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1934.
Chasin, CJ DeLuzio. âReconsidering Asexuality and Its Radical Potential.â Feminist Studies 39 (2013): 405â26.
Cohen, Cathy J. âPunks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?â GLQ 3 (1997): 437â65.
Cohn, Leopold and Siegfried Reiter. Philonis Alexandrini Opera Quae Supersunt. Vol. 6. Edited by Leopold Cohn and Paul Wendland. Berlin: Reimer, 1915. Reprinted De Gruyter, 1962.
DâAngelo, Mary Rose. âWomen Partners in the New Testament.â Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 6 (1990): 65â86.
duBois, Paige. Slaves and Other Objects. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Duggan, Lisa. The Twilight of Equality: Neo-Liberalism, Cultural Politics and the Attack on Democracy. Boston: Beacon, 2003.
Emens, Elizabeth F. âCompulsory Sexuality,â Stanford Law Review 66 (2014): 303â86.
Engberg-Pederson, Troels. âPhiloâs De Vita Contemplativa as a Philosopherâs Dream.â Journal for the Study of Judaism 30 (1999): 40â64.
Fredrick, David. âMapping Penetrability in Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome.â Pages 236â64 in The Roman Gaze: Vision, Power, and the Body. Edited by David Fredrick. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2002.
Foucault, Michel. The Uses of Pleasure: The History of Sexuality, vol. 2New York: Vintage Books/Random House, 1985. Reprinted 1990.
Gaca, Kathy L. The Making of Fornication: Eros, Ethics and Political Reform in Greek Philosophy and Early Christianity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.
Gelder, Ken. âIntroduction: The Field of Subcultural Studies.â Pages 1â15 in The Subcultures Reader, 2nd edition. Edited by Ken Gelder. London: Routledge, 2005.
Glancy, Jennifer A. Slavery in Early Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Gupta, Kristina. âCompulsory Sexuality: Evaluating an Emerging Concept.â Signs 41 (2015): 131â54.
Halberstam, Jack. In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. Sexual Cultures. New York: New York University Press, 2005.
Hay, David M. âThings Philo Said and Did Not Say About the Therapeutae.â Pages 673â83 in Society of Biblical Literature 1992 Seminar Papers. Edited by Eugene H. Lovering, Jr. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992.
Hoke, James N. âBe Even Better Subjects, Worthy of Rehabilitation: Homonationalism and 1Thessalonians 4â5.â Pages 83â114 in Bodies on the Verge: Queering Pauline Epistles. Edited by Joseph A. Marchal. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2019.
Hoke, Jimmy. Feminism, Queerness, Affect, and Romans: Under God? Atlanta: SBL Press, 2021.
Hubbard, Thomas K. and Maria Doerfler. âFrom Ascesis to Sexual Renunciation.â Pages 164â83 in A Companion to Greek and Roman Sexualities. Edited by Thomas K. Hubbard. Chichester, UK: Wiley Blackwell, 2014.
Isaac, Benjamin. The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004.
It Gets Better Project. âIt Gets Better: Dan and Terry.â September 21, 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IcVyvg2Qlo. Accessed on March 19, 2025.
Johnson, Colin R., Brian J. Gilley, and Mary L. Gray. âIntroduction.â Pages 1â21 in Queering the Countryside: New Frontiers in Queer Rural Studies. Edited by Mary L. Gray, Colin R. Johnson, and Brian J. Gilley. New York: New York University Press, 2016.
Johnson-DeBaufre, Melanie. ââGazing Upon the Invisibleâ: Archaeology, Historiography, and the Elusive Wo/men of 1Thessalonians.â Pages 73â108 in From Roman to Early Christian ThessalonikÄ. Edited by Laura Nasrallah, Charalambos Bakirtzis, and Steven J. Friesen. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010.
Johnson-DeBaufre, Melanie. âDreaming the Common Good/s: The Kin-dom of God as a Space of Utopian Politics.â Pages 103â23 in Common Goods: Economy, Ecology, and Political Theology. Edited by Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre, Catherine Keller, and Elias Ortega-Aponte. New York: Fordham University Press, 2015.
Kamen, Deborah and Sarah Levin-Richardson. âRevisiting Roman Sexuality: Agency and the Conceptualization of Penetrated Males.â Pages 449â60 in Sex in Antiquity: Exploring Gender and Sexuality in the Ancient World. Edited by Mark Masterson, Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz, and James Robson. London: Routledge, 2014.
Klauck, Hans-Josef. âDie Heilige Stadt: Jerusalem bei Philo und Lukas.â Kairos 28 (1986): 129â51.
Knust, Jennifer Wright. Abandoned to Lust: Sexual Slander and Ancient Christianity. GTR. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.
Kotrosits, Maia. âPenetration and Its Discontents: Greco-Roman Sexuality, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, and Theorizing Eros without the Wound.â Journal of the History of Sexuality 27 (2018): 343â66.
Kraemer, Ross Shepherd. âMonastic Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Egypt: Philo on the Therapeutrides.â Signs 14 (1989): 342â70.
Kraemer, Ross Shepherd. Womenâs Religions in the Greco-Roman World: A Sourcebook. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Kraemer, Ross Shepherd. Her Share of the Blessings: Womenâs Religions among Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Roman World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Kraemer, Ross Shepherd. Unreliable Witnesses: Religion, Gender, and History in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Loader, William. Philo, Josephus, and the Testaments on Sexuality: Attitudes towards Sexuality in the Writings of Philo and Josephus and in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2011.
Marchal, Joseph A. âThe Exceptional Proves Who Rules: Imperial Sexual Exceptionalism in and around Paulâs Letters.â Journal of Early Christian History 5 (2015): 87â115.
Marchal, Joseph A. âBottoming Out: Rethinking the Reception of Receptivity.â Pages 209â37 in Bodies on the Verge: Queering Pauline Epistles. Edited by Joseph A. Marchal. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2019.
Marchal, Joseph A. Appalling Bodies: Queer Figures Before and After Paulâs Letters. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.
McDonnell, Myles. Roman Manliness: Virtus and the Roman Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Miller, Sam J. Blackfish City. New York: Ecco, 2018.
Milnor, Kristina. Graffiti and the Literary Landscape in Roman Pompeii. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Muñoz, Jose Esteban. Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. New York: New York University Press, 2009.
Najman, Hindy. âTowards a Study of the Uses of the Concept of Wilderness in Ancient Judaism.â Dead Sea Discoveries 13 (2006): 99â113.
Niehoff, Maren R. Philo on Jewish Identity and Culture. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001.
Niehoff, Maren R. Philo of Alexandria: An Intellectual Biography. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018.
Nyongâo, Tav. âSchool Daze,â Bully Bloggers (blog). 30 September 2010. https://bullybloggers.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/school-daze/. Accessed on March 19, 2025.
Oliver, Jen H. âOscula Iungit Nec Moderata Satis Nec Sic A Virgine Danda: Ovidâs Callisto Episode, Female Homoeroticism, and the Study of Ancient Sexuality.â American Journal of Philology 136 (2015): 281â312.
Parks, Sara. ââThe Brooten Phenomenonâ: Moving Women from the Margins in Second-Temple and New Testament Scholarship.â The Bible and Critical Theory 15 (2019): 46â64.
Philo of Alexandria. Philo. Translated by F.H. Colson. 10 vols. LCL. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929â62.
Pryzbylo, Ela. Asexual Erotics: Intimate Readings of Compulsory Sexuality. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University Press, 2019.
Pryzbylo, Ela and Danielle Cooper. âAsexual Resonances: Tracing a Queerly Asexual Archive.â GLQ 20 (2014): 297â318.
Puar, Jasbir K. Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.
Puar, Jasbir K. The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017.
Rabinowitz, Nancy Sorkin and Lisa Auanger, eds. Among Women: From the Homosocial to the Homoerotic in the Ancient World. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002.
Richlin, Amy. âNot Before Homosexuality: The Materiality of the Cinaedus and the Roman Law against Love between Men.â Journal of the History of Sexuality 3 (1993): 523â73.
Runia, David T. âThe Ideal and the Reality of the City in the Thought of Philo of Alexandria.â Journal of the History of Ideas 61 (2000): 361â79.
Schäfer, Peter. Judeophobia: Attitudes towards the Jews in the Ancient World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. Rhetoric and Ethic: The Politics of Biblical Interpretation. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999.
Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. Wisdom Ways: Introducing Feminist Biblical Interpretation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001.
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Tendencies. Durham: Duke University Press, 1993.
Sly, Dorothy. Philoâs Alexandria. London: Routledge, 1996.
Snorton, C. Riley. Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017.
Swancutt, Diana M. ââThe Disease of Effeminationâ: The Charge of Effeminacy and the Verdict of God (Romans 1:18â2:16).â Pages 193â233 in New Testament Masculinities. Edited by Stephen D. Moore and Janice Capel Anderson. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2003.
Szesnat, Holger. âMostly Aged Virgins: Philo and the Presence of the Therapeutrides at Lake Mareotis.â Neotestamentica 32 (1998): 191â201.
Szesnat, Holger. ââPretty Boysâ in Philoâs De Vita Contemplativa.â Pages 87â107 in The Studia Philonica Annual: Studies in Hellenistic Judaism, vol. 10. Edited by David T. Runia. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998.
Szesnat, Holger. âPhilo and Female Homoeroticism: Philoâs Use of gunandros and Recent Work on tribades.â Journal for the Study of Judaism 30 (1999): 140â47.
Taylor, Joan E. Jewish Women Philosophers of First-Century Alexandria: Philoâs Therapeuts Reconsidered. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Taylor, Joan E. âThe Women Priests of Philoâs De Vita Contemplativa: Reconstructing the Therapeutae.â Pages 102â22 in On the Cutting Edge: The Study of Women in Biblical Worlds. Essays in Honor of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. Edited by Jane Schaberg, Alice Bach, and Esther Fuchs. London: Continuum, 2004.
Taylor, Joan E. âReal Women and Literary Airbrushing: The Women âTherapeutaeâ of Philoâs De Vita Contemplativa and the Identity of the Group.â Pages 205â24 in Early Jewish Writings. Edited by Eileen Schuller and Marie-Theres Wacker. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017.
Taylor, Joan E. and David M. Hay. Philo of Alexandria On the Contemplative Life: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Leiden: Brill, 2021.
Trayn, Dee. âThe Back Door Boys âI Want It That Way.ââ October 23, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNBaUEM8P84. Accessed on April 1, 2025.
Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew. Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.
Weisser, Sharon. âPhiloâs Therapeutae and Essenes: A Precedent for the Exceptional Condemnation of Slavery in Gregory of Nyssa?â Pages 289â310 in The Quest for a Common Humanity: Human Dignity and Otherness in the Religious Traditions of the Mediterranean. Edited by Katell Berthelot and Matthias Morgenstern. Leiden: Brill, 2011.
Weston, Kath. âGet Thee to a Big City: Sexual Imaginary and the Great Gay Migration.â GLQ 2 (1995): 253â277.
Williams, Craig A. Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity. Revised and expanded 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. First published 1998.
| å ¨é¨æé´ | è¿å»ä¸å¹´ | è¿å»30天 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| æè¦æµè§æ¬¡æ° | 455 | 168 | 29 |
| å ¨ææµè§æ¬¡æ° | 22 | 8 | 2 |
| PDFä¸è½½æ¬¡æ° | 39 | 18 | 5 |
This article analyzes how space and place affect the constructions of sexuality, gender, and urbanity in Philoâs Vita Contemplativa and the histories of rural queer Jewish wo/men. Extending the work of David Runia, who calls Philo an âambivalent homo urbanus,â I show how Philoâs ambivalence stems from discomfort with the âurban homosâ who perpetuate a cityâs vice. Philo emphasizes a form of metronormativity in his portrayal of an urban sexual immoderation that is rooted in racialized, Roman depictions of cities and their sexuality. Philoâs cure is embodied in the Therapeutic rejection of the city and all sexual praxis. Despite Philoâs intentions, urban queerness cannot infect the Therapeuts because they may already have been embodying queerness in the wild. By placing the Therapeuts alongside evidence of other subcultures of queerness and gender egalitarianism in Roman Egypt, the article concludes by re-centering the rural, queer Jewish wo/men found in the Vita Contemplativa.
| å ¨é¨æé´ | è¿å»ä¸å¹´ | è¿å»30天 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| æè¦æµè§æ¬¡æ° | 455 | 168 | 29 |
| å ¨ææµè§æ¬¡æ° | 22 | 8 | 2 |
| PDFä¸è½½æ¬¡æ° | 39 | 18 | 5 |