Dressing Judeans and Christians in Antiquity

"’... there is something here for anyone who studies these two ancient traditions and their embeddedness in social and material reality. ... Recommended.’ Choice ’This timely and important contribution to the burgeoning field of early Christian dress studies and the study of ancient clothing asks new and exciting questions of the evidence. These innovative essays on everything from monastic dress, cross-dressing men, clothing and social memory, and the appearance of the apostle Paul, to the cultural discourse of female dress, the hairiness of the hermit, clothing and soteriology, and the symbolism of the pearl demonstrate how fundamental the visual was to the ways in which the early Christians constructed social and religious meaning. This volume provides us with fresh interpretations of appearance, religion, and ancient society, and will be invaluable for scholars of early Christian and Classical literature, as well as those interested in social and religious history and the history of appearance.’ Kelly Olson, University of Western Ontario, Canada ’Dress codes are often more implicit than explicit and are hard to identify and nuance in past societies. This volume explores the language of dress inherent in a range of literary and rhetorical writings among Mediterranean Judean and Christian communities of late antiquity and highlights relationships between the clothed body and the social body, ideas of masculinity and femininity and the worlds of earth and heaven. It offers a new and fascinating dimension to the field of late antique Judaism and Christianity, and to the history of dress.’ Mary Harlow, University of Leicester, UK 'The book as a whole presents an interesting and kaleidoscopic view on a number of aspects of the language of the human body and its adornments in ancient Judean and Christian culture.' Bryn Mawr Classical Review 'Individual chapters may well appeal to particular interest groups but the strength of the volume is in its colle ""the book is an impressive one, demonstrating thoughtful approaches, both grounded in close textual analysis and successfully drawing upon a wide range of social theory that yields new perspectives on the question of what Judean and early Christian dress is for."" - Ellen Swift, University of Kent"