The Gendered Body in Verse: Jacob of Serugh and Romanos Melodos on the Woman with a Flow of Blood

Erin Walsh

doi:10.1515/jbr-2022-0002

Article

The Gendered Body in Verse: Jacob of Serugh and Romanos Melodos on the Woman with a Flow of Blood

Erin Walsh

Published/Copyright: April 27, 2022

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From the journal Journal of the Bible and its Reception Volume 9 Issue 1

Abstract

This article examines the reception history of the story of the woman with a flow of blood as recounted in Mark 5:25–34, Matthew 9:20–22, and Luke 8:43–48 within the writings of two late antique poets: Jacob of Serugh (ca. 451–521 CE) and Romanos Melodos (b. ca. 485 CE). In their poetic compositions, Jacob and Romanos retell and interpret biblical stories employing narrative expansions and the attribution of imagined speech. The Syriac poet, Jacob of Serugh, wrote in the form of narrative poems, or mēmrē, while Romanos perfected the form of the Greek kontakion. Like prose homilies, these poems reached Christians from across the social spectrum, providing spiritual instruction and delighting audiences. Previous reception histories of this biblical narrative have largely overlooked late antique and early Byzantine poetry performed within the liturgical space. In addition to filling this lacuna in scholarship, this article also highlights how these understudied poems contribute to our understanding of early Christian discourses of (im)purity. Romanos emphasizes the symbolic value of the gendered body, blending the imagery of stain, impurity, and sin. In contrast, Jacob’s lexical choices and poetic style underscore the woman’s physical and emotional strife. Through speech and the description of the woman’s bodily state, both poets provide dramatic depictions of the woman’s encounter with Jesus that enrich our understanding of how late antique Christians interpreted this biblical story.

Keywords: late antiquity, women and gender, Syriac Studies, embodiment, Hymnography, Byzantine Studies

Corresponding author: Erin Walsh, The Divinity School, The University of Chicago, 1025 E 58th Street, Swift Hall 226, Chicago, 60637, USA, E-mail: egwalsh@uchicago.edu

This article develops my doctoral research, as found in Erin Galgay Walsh, “Sanctifying boldness: New Testament women in Narsai, Jacob of Serugh, and Romanos Melodos,” PhD diss., (Duke University, 2019), 55–110. I would like to thank the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) and De Gruyter for this award. I am grateful for the care and attention the selection committee (Amy Easton-Flake, Emerson Powery, Joy Schroeder, and Jay Twomey) have paid to my research. It was a privilege to have Mary Rose D’Angelo and Elizabeth Struthers Malbon respond to my paper at the annual meeting, and their feedback has greatly enriched this article. I would also like to thank the Christianity in Antiquity group of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for responding to the dissertation chapter this article summarizes. Among the many interlocutors who have shaped this project, I am especially thankful to Christos Simelidis for his steadfast support and insights about the intricacies of Romanos’ poetry.

Article note: SBL-De Gruyter Prize for Biblical Studies and Reception History. This article has been awarded the SBL-De Gruyter Prize for 2020 in the category of Textual Culture and Reception of the Bible. The prize recognizes excellence in the field of reception history, which aims to shed light on the broader horizon of the use and influence of the Bible in a wide variety of academic fields, historical periods, and cultural settings. The Prize Committee and the Editors of JBR offer their congratulations on this achievement.

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Published Online: 2022-04-27

Published in Print: 2022-05-25

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/jbr-2022-0002

Keywords for this article

late antiquity, women and gender, Syriac Studies, embodiment, Hymnography, Byzantine Studies