Competing Identities: The Athlete and the Gladiator in Early Christian Literature

Since earliest Christian martyrologies, there have been abundant uses of the metaphor of analysis of ancient athletics and their socio-religious importance in the era of the early Roman Empire. This book explores these metaphors-agonistic and competitive in their very nature-as rhetoric that fashions a resistant subjectivity that constrasts, contradicts, and even partially creates or demonstrates political and national identity, gender, and ideological strength. As rhetoric that crafts identity, these metaphors also invite inquiry into the construction of modern notions of "subjectivity" and "autobiography." Finally, the study of these metaphors offers opportunity to inquire into the process of scholarly analysis and appropriation of antique texts.

• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1. Three Epiphanies: On Autobiography and Athleticism in the Literature of the Early Roman Empire
  • First Epiphany: Text and Body
  • Second Epiphany: The "I" of the Text
  • Third Epiphany: The Athletic "I"
  • The Plan of this Study
• 2. Paul's Athletic Metaphors for Messianic Proclamation and Identity: Hybridity and the Rhetoric of Endurance
• 3. Contending for the Faith: Combat Spots, Gladiators and Pauline Identity in the Pastoral Epistles
• 4. Running With Endurance: An Autobiographical Reading of Hebrews 12:1-13
  • Stretching
  • Warming Up
  • Striding Out
  • Kicking
  • Lurching to the Finish
  • Toweling Off
• 5. Jesus' Ni/kh: Competition (And Conquest) in the Apocalypse of John
  • Swimming
  • Cycling
  • The Language (of the) Games
  • Performing
• 6. Apeluthesan: Perpetua, Blandina, and the literary description of Martyrdom as Athletic Triumph in Early Christian Proto-Hagiography
  • On Women Gladiators
  • Gladiatorial Gender
  • Sexual Arena
  • Blandina
  • Perpetua
  • On Reading Gladiator-Martyrs
  • Apeluthesan
• 7. Conclusion: Limping Behind Augustine
• Works Cited
• Index of Biblical And Ancient Citations
• Subject and Author Index