Ascetic Cohabitation And Authoritative Scriptures In The Epistula Titi Discipuli Pauli Debra Jean Bucher by Debra Jean Bucher instant download after payment.

The Epistula Titi discipuli Pauli is a Latin text dating to the late fourth or early fifth century extant in one late eighth-century manuscript. The writer claims that the audience of vowed ascetics are involved in a "false marriage:" the men have taken in unrelated women, instead of their natural sisters or young men, as servants. Scholars have traditionally called this "practice" cohabitation, or syneisaktism. This dissertation explores the role of cohabitation in the Epistle, its relationship to other forms of cohabitation between ascetic men and women throughout late antiquity, and the continual re-use of scriptural sources throughout late antiquity and the early medieval period by marking the changes in the form that texts and the discourse regarding ascetic practices take. By observing the scriptural citations within their new form—the Epistle of Titus—I discover how they are pressed into the service of the Epistle's ascetic message. Scriptural sources work together to present a text focused on the elimination of desire through solitary asceticism. I also compare the use of cohabition in the Epistle with other late antique Christian texts and mark the variety of ascetic discourse. I argue that cohabitation is used in the Epistle to construct a relationship at odds with the ideal relationship of spiritual marriage. By noting difference, I compare the relationships described in the Epistle with those in other ascetic literature. This approach provides complexity to our understanding of cohabitation in late antique Christianity. When viewed within the context of the Würzburg Mp.th.f.28 codex— a volume that was designed for mid-eighth century efforts at reforming the Christian church—I maintain that the Epistle of Titus' meaning (and audience) changes from vowed ascetics to an audience comprised of clerics. Within this context, the Epistle of Titus becomes part of the textual support that the compiler(s) use in the codex in order to promote celibacy among clerics. The meaning of the Epistle of Titus, a text constructed out of sources, eventually changed in light of its new context.