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Amulo, the Adulterata and Bodo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 August 2023

JOHN GRANGER COOK
JOHN GRANGER COOK*
Affiliation:
Department of Religion and Philosophy, LaGrange College, 601 Broad Street, LaGrange, Georgia 30240, USA
*
E-mail: jcook@lagrange.edu
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Abstract

Amulo, one of the earliest western witnesses for the Toledot Yeshu, uses ‘adulterata’ to describe the mother of Jesus. Some scholars have claimed that the word ‘adulterata’ implies that she was raped either by force or by deception. Forcible rape is questionable based on a linguistic argument: Latin usage of ‘adultero’, both classical and Christian, normally refers to a woman with the accusative case or the passive voice and distinguishes clearly between adultery and violent rape. It is possible that narratives such as the one about Jesus’ mother played a role in the conversion of the palace deacon Bodo to Judaism.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 75 , Issue 1 , January 2024 , pp. 1 - 14
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2023

The earliest western evidence for the Toledot Yeshu (The life story of Jesus), the famous counter-narrative to the Gospels’ portrayal of Jesus, occurs in the works of two ecclesiastics of Lyons, Agobard (bishop 816–40) and his successor Amulo (bishop 841–52).Footnote 1 Amulo was scandalised by the claim in the Toledot that Jesus’ real father was named Pandera and that his mother was, consequently, an adulteress. The origin of the narrative is presumably the late first or early second century, and the first surviving evidence for the story appears in the mouth of the Jew of Celsus (second century) as reported by Origen.Footnote 2 Amulo's use of ‘adulterata’ for Jesus’ mother, as portrayed in the Toledot, may imply sexual violence, but most probably simply indicates that her pudicitia was defiled by Pandera. A linguistic argument supports this conclusion: the nearly universal usage of the passive of adultero in classical and Christian Latin refers to adultery and not forcible rape. To establish the validity of the argument an extensive analysis of adultero is necessary. This article also explores the relationship between rape and adultery in classical and Christian antiquity. Narratives such as the one about Jesus’ mother may have played a role in the conversion to Judaism of the palace deacon Bodo. There is evidence that Bodo himself engaged in polemic against the incarnation that included derisive references to the body of Jesus’ mother. Such polemic also appears in Jewish anti-Christian texts of the early Middle Ages.

Amulo, in his Liber de perfidia Iudaeorum [Book on the faithlessness of the Jews], composed in two stages between the summer of 845 and February 846, describes the denial of the resurrection of Jesus in the Toledot tradition and continues:

Sed isti nec tantis ac talibus blasphemiis contenti in tam profundam infelicitatis voraginem devoluti sunt, ut persuasum sit eis et studiose apud eos observetur, quod nulla eorum oratio apud Deum possit esse accepta, nisi in ea Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum maledicant, confitentes eum esse impium et filium impii, id est, nescio cuius ethnici, quem nominant Pandera, a quo dicunt matrem Domini adulteratam, et inde eum, in quem nos credimus, natum.

(But not content with so many and such blasphemies, they have fallen into so deep a chasm of wretchedness that they have been persuaded, and the custom is carefully observed among them, that no prayer of theirs to God can be accepted, unless in it they curse our lord Jesus Christ, confessing him to be impious and the son of an impious individual, that is, of some pagan or other, whom they call Pandera, by whom they say the mother of the lord was defiled by adultery [‘adulterated’], and from that origin [they say that] he in whom we believe was born.)Footnote 3

Natalie E. Latteri argues that the passive ‘adulteratam’ implies that his mother was defiled – that is, raped.Footnote 4 William Horbury – holding a more nuanced view – does not believe that ‘adulteratam’ signifies forcible rape, but rather that the term puts the blame implicitly on Pandera. He suggests that Amulo may be aware of a Toledot Yeshu tradition in which Mary was a blameless victim of Pandera's deception – an act which one can describe as ‘adultery due to deception’ and ‘rape by deception’.Footnote 5 Consequently, three views are possible: the term ‘adulteratam’ implies forcible rape, willing adultery or adultery due to deception.

It is possible that ‘adulteratam’ means defiled (by forcible rape), but the passive voice of adultero for women is normal – and in nearly all contexts in classical and Christian literature the passive refers to a woman defiled by adultery. Consequently, nothing can be deduced about the rape of Jesus' mother. Voltaire follows classical usage in his succinct reading of the text's ‘blasphemies’: ‘bastard, impious one, son of Panthera’.Footnote 6 There is apparently only one example in extant Latin texts in which a male is ‘defiled by adultery’ (i.e., the passive voice of adultero used for a male), and in that case the male is married and is hypothetically penetrated by another man. Marcus Cato's words are: ‘In adulterio uxorem tuam si prehendisses, sine iudicio inpune necares; illa te, si adulterares sive tu adulterare‹re›, digito non auderet contingere, neque ius est’ (‘if you should have apprehended your wife in adultery, you may kill her with impunity without a trial; if you should commit adultery or be defiled by adultery, she may not dare to lay a finger on you, nor is it legal’).Footnote 7 Craig A. Williams comments that ‘The references must be, respectively, to those situations in which the husband is the insertive partner and to those in which he is the receptive partner, an interesting glimpse at the complex possibilities of extramarital affairs. But those possibilities existed only for the husband.’Footnote 8

The Oxford Latin dictionary defines the verb as ‘to commit adultery (with)’ or ‘defile by adultery’.Footnote 9 Friedrich Vollmer's analysis of the ‘proper’ sense of the word is more detailed: ‘commit adultery (of the man, rarely of the woman), passim with the accusative of the woman, rarely of the man’.Footnote 10 Rudolf Thurneysen's etymology for the verb is that it appears to derive from ‘ad’ (to) and ‘alter’ (other).Footnote 11 Similarly, Alfred Ernout and Alfred Meillet derive ‘adultero’ from ‘alter’: ‘“to alter, to corrupt” and then especially, “to corrupt a woman”, adulterare matronas, Suet. Aug. 67; and then in absolute use, “to commit adultery”, μοιχεύω (the subject usually being a man)’.Footnote 12

The analysis of Milena Z. Joksimović is similar:

The verb adulterare is used in classical literature (less often) absolutely or (more often) with a direct object in the accusative. When it refers to adultery and has the meaning ‘to seduce, to corrupt’, this verb appears in the active with the subject of the masculine and the object of the feminine; passive forms of this verb are often encountered with the woman as the subject.Footnote 13

A very rare instance, in which a woman is the subject of the active voice of the verb, occurs in a declamation of Calpurnius Flaccus (c. second century): ‘Soror erravit, insaniendum est; mater adulteravit, domo patria carendum est' (his sister went off course [in adultery], he was rendered insane [he killed her], his mother committed adultery [he didn't kill her], and he was deprived of his paternal home).’Footnote 14 Another such usage (with women as subject, active voice) is Osee iv.14 Vulgate: ‘super sponsas vestras cum adulteraverint’ (‘upon your wives when they will have committed adultery’). The third usage occurs in a text from late antiquity based on a treatise of Flavius Caper (second century): ‘adulterina adulterata, at adultera quae adulterat’ (‘adulterous, defiled by adultery, but adulteress, who commits adultery’). Note that adulterata is glossed simply as an adulterous woman (‘adulterina’), and there is no reference to sexual violence.Footnote 15 These three examples are exceedingly unusual.

A declamation of Pseudo Quintilian has the normal accusative with reference to a woman when the verb occurs in the passive voice: ‘rumor erat adulterari pauperis uxorem a divite, conscio viro’ (‘there was a rumour that a woman was defiled by adultery by a rich man, while her husband was an accessory’).Footnote 16 The orator also describes her as an adulteress (adultera).Footnote 17 There are other similar examples of the passive that refer to adulterous women, and in none of them is there any question of sexual violence.Footnote 18 The passive voice is also used, with the woman mentioned in the accusative case, in contexts in which a husband acts as a procurer and consents to the adulterous actions of his wife. Ulpian, in his treatise On adulterers, writes for example about the ‘lenocinium’ (pandering) of a husband:

Quaestum autem ex adulterio uxoris facere videtur, qui quid accepit, ut adulteretur uxor … quaestum enim de adulterio uxoris facere proprie ille existimandus est, qui aliquid accepit, ut uxorem pateretur adulterari meretricio quodam genere.

(A [husband] is seen as having made a profit out of his wife's adultery if he has accepted anything in return for her being defiled by adultery; … for a man is rightly to be regarded as having made a profit out of his wife's adultery if he has accepted anything in return for allowing his wife to be defiled by adultery in the manner of a whore.)Footnote 19

The jurist Scaevola also discussed the problem of husbands who prostituted their wives.Footnote 20 Such behaviour apparently continued well into late Christian antiquity, since Justinian's jurists included it in the Digesta. The use of the passive voice clearly does not indicate any sexual violence.

Classical writers clearly distinguished between rape (‘rapere’) and adultery (‘aduterare’).Footnote 21 Another expression for a raped woman is ‘per vim stupratam’. The anonymous author of De viris illustribus refers to the rape (189 bce) of the Galatian woman Plutarch names ‘Chiomara’:

inter captivos uxor regis Orgiagontis centurioni cuidam in custodiam data; a quo vi stuprata de iniuria tacuit et post impetrata redemptione marito adulterum interficiendum tradidit.

(The wife of king Orgiagons was given into custody among the captives to a certain centurion; having been violated by him by force, she was silent about the outrage, and afterwards, when the ransom had been obtained, she handed him over to her husband for execution as an adulterer.)Footnote 22

The anonymous author charges the centurion with rape and adultery and easily distinguishes the two. The story of the centurion's rape was repeated in various forms in antiquity. In Florus’ version Chiomara herself takes vengeance on the centurion: ‘nam Orgiacontis regis uxor a centurione stuprum passa memorabili exemplo custodiam evasit revolsumque adulteri hostis caput ad maritum reportavit’ (‘for the wife of king Orgiacons who had suffered violation by a centurion evaded custody by a memorable deed and after tearing off the head of the enemy adulterer carried it back to her husband’).Footnote 23 Florus charges the centurion with rape and adultery. Chiomara also has the rapist centurion's head cut off in the accounts of Livy and Valerius Maximus.Footnote 24

A constitution of Justinian of 14 November 528 specifies the death penalty for rapists, including rapists of married women. The text indicates the relationship between rape and adultery in such a case:

Quae multo magis contra eos obtinere sancimus, qui nuptas mulieres ausi sunt rapere, quia duplici crimine tenentur tam adulterii quam rapinae et oportet acerbius adulterii crimen ex hac adiectione puniri.

(We decree that these provisions shall, above all, be applicable to those who have dared to rape married women, because they are convicted for a double crime, that is to say, for adultery as well as rape; and it is necessary for the crime of adultery to be punished with greater severity on account of the other offence being added to it.)Footnote 25

The same constitution provides that the property of a rapist be transferred to ‘the ownership of raped freeborn women’ (‘ad dominium raptarum mulierum liberarum’) and that the rapist be executed.Footnote 26 Patristic writers clearly distinguish adultery from rape, as do the legal texts.Footnote 27

The sole uses of adulterata in any texts that clearly occur in the context of (forcible) rape are the discussions of Augustine and Orosius of Lucretia, her rape by Tarquin and subsequent suicide.Footnote 28 Augustine's intention, in the first book of his De civitate dei, is to defend the pudicitia of Christian women (and men) who were raped during the sack of Rome by Alaric and to argue against the option of suicide.Footnote 29 He is most concerned with whether Lucretia experienced sexual pleasure during the rape and even consented to it:

quid si enim (quod ipsa tantummodo nosse poterat) quamvis iuveni violenter inruenti etiam sua libidine inlecta consensit idque in se puniens ita doluit, ut morte putaret expiandum? … Sed ita haec causa ex utroque latere coartatur, ut, si extenuatur homicidium, adulterium confirmetur; si purgatur adulterium, homicidium cumuletur; nec omnino invenitur exitus, ubi dicitur: ‘si adulterata, cur laudata; si pudica, cur occisa’?

(What if – but she herself alone could know – she was seduced by her own lust and, though the youth violently attacked her, consented, and in punishing that act of hers was so remorseful that death seemed to be due expiation? … But then the case is reduced to a dilemma: if the murder is less heinous, then let the adultery be confirmed: if the adultery is extenuated, the charge of murder is aggravated; and there is no escape from the dilemma, when you say: ‘If she was defiled by adultery, why has she been praised; if she was chaste, why was she slain?’)Footnote 30

Corinne J. Saunders comments that ‘Augustine is certain that in suicide Lucretia has committed the worst of crimes, murder, and that her innocence is therefore called into question.’Footnote 31 The context, not the use of adulterata, is what alerts the reader that this is a case of rape. Augustine's use of the antonym ‘pudica’ indicates the primary sense of ‘adultero’ (‘cause to be impudica’ – i.e., cause to be sexually impure/unchaste, to corrupt).Footnote 32 Orosius’ use of adulterata in his brief account of Lucretia is the one case in which it clearly refers to rape, but again the context is what makes this clear and not the word alone: ‘Tarquinii Superbi regnum occisi soceri scelere adsumptum, habita in cives crudelitate detentum, flagitio adulteratae Lucretiae amissum’ (‘Tarquinius Superbus obtained the kingdom through the criminal murder of his father-in-law, held onto it through his cruelty towards its citizens, and lost it because of the crime of his defilement of Lucretia by adultery’).Footnote 33 A. T. Fear translates ‘flagitio adulteratae’ as ‘through the shameful rape’ – which loses the sense of Tarquin's violation of Lucretia's marriage. Orosius’ choice to use ‘adulterata’ only without a word expressly indicating sexual violence may signify that he suspected Lucretia of ‘experiencing some form of sexual stimulation’ during the rape – following the suggestion of Augustine.Footnote 34

The passive voice, ‘adulteratam’, in Amulo is normal Latin usage, and does not force the conclusion upon the reader that Jesus’ mother was raped (i.e. during a forced adultery), although it is possible that such was Amulo's meaning. Based on normal usage of ‘adulterata’, it is likelier that Amulo's story resembles that of the text in Bavli Sanhedrin in which Jesus’ mother's lover was named Pandera and that he was aware of Pandera in the Pilate Toledot tradition.Footnote 35 William Horbury notes that Amulo's tradition characterised Pandera as an ethnicus, a description which is not in the Talmudic tradition but is in that of the Toledot Yeshu.Footnote 36 This is the version (if the interpretation of adulterata is correct) that occurs in a recension of the Toledot Yeshu, which does not include the story of Yeshu's birth (and the rape of his mother).Footnote 37 To my knowledge there are no accusations that Jesus’ mother was raped in the texts of the apocryphal New Testament or other ancient Christian literature. Joseph, in the Protoevangelium of James, when he finds out that Mary is six months pregnant, does however wonder who seduced her:

(13:1) ‘‹Who seduced the virgin away from me› and defiled her? Has the story of Adam been repeated in me? For just as … the serpent came and found Eve alone and deceived her and defiled her, so it has also happened to me.’ And Joseph arose from his sackcloth and called her and said, ‘Woman who has been cared for by God, why did you do this? You forgot the lord your God. Why did you humiliate yourself?’Footnote 38

Joseph's attack on Mary indicates that he did not believe she was raped, but that she had been a willing participant in the seduction.

The linguistic usage of ‘adulterata’ almost certainly indicates that Amulo did not envision a case of rape – in the normal sense of the word ‘rape’. Horbury's view that the word may refer to the tradition in the Toledot literature in which Pandera deceived Jesus’ mother is certainly an option. Some manuscripts of that tradition recount a tale in which Pandera deceived Mary into thinking he was her husband.Footnote 39 In particular, fragmentary Judeo-Arabic manuscripts contain a version in which Jesus' mother, without her knowledge, was defiled by adultery. An old manuscript from the Taylor Schechter collection, for example, exculpates Miriam (Mary): ‘and this Miriam is not guilty at all, because she did not know that he was not her husband at that time’.Footnote 40 Miriam Goldstein describes this as ‘rape’ – although the violence of this form of rape is less visible since it is rape by deception.Footnote 41 This Judeo-Arabic version of Jesus’ birth (the so-called Helene tradition) dates to the ninth century according to Goldstein.Footnote 42 Of course, the ultimate origin of the Helene tradition may be far earlier. Rape by deception is a category that is gradually making its way into modern jurisprudence.Footnote 43

The preponderance of evidence is that one should interpret adulterata in Amulo either as a reference to the defilement by (willing) adultery of Jesus' mother or as a reference to the unwilling defilement of his mother by adultery due to the deception of Pandera. It is doubtful that the word refers to a violent incident of rape. The passive form of the verb is simply good classical Latin grammar that a writer uses when referring to a woman.

Amulo was concerned about what he perceived as the influence that Jews had on Christians.Footnote 44 He is relatively silent about the source of his knowledge about Judaism, although he does include this remark: ‘We have been informed by certain individuals, who from their error have come to Christianity.’Footnote 45 For Amulo the conversion of Bodo, the palace deacon (diaconus palatinus), to Judaism was a scandal – an individual who had been persuaded by the impious (Jews) to deny Christ.Footnote 46 The Annales Bertiniani give the most complete account of the conversion in 838 (along with that of his reputed nephew) during a journey on his way to Rome in which he had discussions with Jews. He then sold the Jews to some pagans and reached Saragossa by August 839. The chroniclers were duly impressed by the gravity of this event.Footnote 47 In 840 Bodo (who took the name ‘Eleazar’) engaged in a controversy with Álvaro of Córdoba. The modern editor, Juan Gil, comments: ‘The letters that were exchanged between the two would have been the only preserved controversy that was actually held in the Middle Ages by a Jew and a Christian, if a barbarian hand had not mutilated the folios containing Eleazar's reply.’Footnote 48 Eleazar questioned the physical possibility of the virgin birth but does not mention adultery in the surviving text: ‘How did flesh give birth to flesh, and virginity was not impaired/violated?’Footnote 49 Álvaro continues his attack on Eleazar:

And indeed, with a noxious mouth you speak many noxious things: for you pretend that (he was born) through virginal passageways and a polluted channel [i.e., the human body] (and) that he kissed with his own lips the genitals (of his mother); which you, satyr, displayed with a shameless countenance and with impudence, when you, detestable man, commended the receptacles of your mother and the internal cavities of her womb.Footnote 50

Evina Steinová comments that

It is impossible to link derisive remarks made by Eleazar about Jesus and Mary, especially as they survive only in Álvaro's words, with any known written variant of Toledot Yeshu, more so as it is now widely acknowledged that written accounts that are available to us today represent only a small portion of much wider oral-textual tradition.Footnote 51

Since an inquisitorial copyist has severely censored nearly all of Bodo-Eleazar's contributions to the debate, no firm conclusions are possible.Footnote 52

Eleazar's (Bodo's) vituperative argument against the incarnation as mediated through Álvaro is also similar to that which is found in early medieval Jewish anti-Christian polemic.Footnote 53 One of the earliest texts in that tradition that was apparently written in the ninth century, perhaps in Egypt, is a Judeo-Arabic composition entitled The account of the disputation of the priest (Qiṣṣat Mujādalat al-Usquf).Footnote 54 The author, reputed to be a priest who converted to Judaism, makes this objection: ‘You say: I have a God, who dwelt in the innards [of a woman], in the filth of menstrual blood and in the dark confinement of the womb [literally, “the narrowness of the abdomen and darkness”]'.Footnote 55 A Hebrew version of the text, the Book of Nestor the priest (Sefer Nestor Ha-Komer), existed prior to 1170, and its origin may be due to the Jews’ migration from ‘Muslim Spain to Christian countries in the wake of the Almohad persecutions of the twelfth century’ where they did not speak Arabic.Footnote 56 The presumably fictional Nestor (the converted priest) objects: ‘Heaven forbid that one says that God dwelt in the womb in the filth of the stomach, in the oppression of menstrual blood, and in gloom and darkness!’Footnote 57 The unknown authors of the Qiṣṣa and the subsequent Hebrew version do not accuse Mary of adultery. In a reference to the census of Augustus, Mary testifies that she is pregnant by Joseph, and the narrator concludes: ‘So Mary testifies that Joseph is her husband and that she is pregnant by him.’Footnote 58 The Hebrew version has the equivalent narrative.Footnote 59

Around 1170 Joseph Kimḥi composed his Book of the Covenant (Sefer Ha-Berit), a disputation between a Jew and a Christian.Footnote 60 Kimḥi had left Spain due to the Almohad persecutions and had ‘settled in Narbonne’.Footnote 61 After quoting Exodus xxxiii.30, the faithful (maʾamin) Jew poses this objection to the heretic (min):

How shall I believe that this great inaccessible Deus absconditus needlessly entered the womb of a woman, the filthy, foul bowels of a female, compelling the living God to be born of a woman, a child without knowledge or understanding, senseless, unable to distinguish between his right hand and his left, defecating and urinating, suckling his mother's breasts from hunger and thirst, crying when he is thirsty so that his mother will have compassion on him.Footnote 62

These texts are very close to Eleazar's objections to the incarnation, and they do not accuse Mary of adultery. It is, consequently, unknown whether Bodo knew any of the traditions of the Toledot recorded by Amulo, but if he did know such counter-narratives to the Gospels through his discussions with Jews, then perhaps they played some role in his conversion experience.Footnote 63

Footnotes

I owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Robert A. Kaster for his extensive help with this article. I also thank Professor William Horbury and the anonymous reviewer for the Journal for their remarks. Any mistakes are my own.

References

1 For details see Peter Schäfer, ‘Agobard's and Amulo's Toledot Yeshu’, in Peter Schäfer, Michael Meerson and Yaacov Deutsch (eds), Toledot Yeshu (‘The life story of Jesus’) revisited: a Princeton conference, Tübingen 2014, 28–48. On Amulo see also William Horbury, ‘A critical examination of the “Toledoth Yeshu”’, unpubl. PhD diss. Cambridge 1971, 438–66.

2 Origen, Celsum i.32, in Origène, Contre Celse, ed. Marcel Borret, SC cxxxii, Paris 1967, i. 162. For the development of the tradition see Cook, John Granger, ‘The travels of Panthera’, Oriens Christianus civ (2021), 1–22Google Scholar.

3 Amolo von Lyon, Liber de perfidia Iudaeorum 40, ed. and trans. Cornelia Herbers-Rauhut, MGH, Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters xxix, Wiesbaden 2017, 80 (= PL cxvi.169D). See pp. cxvii–cxxi on the date of composition. Herbers-Rauhut's text agrees with that of the first modern editor, Petrus Franciscus Chiffletius, Scriptorum veterum de fide catholica quinque opuscula … iv. Rabani Mauri liber adversus Iudaeos, Dijon 1656, 333. See Schäfer, ‘Agobard's and Amulo's Toledot Yeshu’, 46 (Schafer translates ‘a quo dicunt matrem Domini adulteratam’ as ‘with whom they say the mother of [our] Lord committed adultery’), and Amolo von Lyon, Liber de perfidia Iudaeorum (Herbers-Rauhut edn, 81) (Herbers-Rauhut's translation is ‘Pandera … mit dem, wie sie sagen, die Mutter des Herrn Ehebruch begangen habe’ [‘Pandera … with whom they say the mother of the lord committed adultery’]).

4 Latteri, Natalie E., ‘Infancy stories of Jesus: apocrypha and Toledot Yeshu in medieval Europe’, in Brown, Jeremy P. (ed.), A Sukkah in the shadow of Saint Ignatius: essays on the history of Jewish-Christian relations, San Francisco, Ca 2020, 15–51 at p. 41Google Scholar. Jane Schaberg argues that a story of rape lurks behind the accounts in Matthew and Luke: The illegitimacy of Jesus: a feminist theological interpretation of the infancy narratives, San Francisco, Ca 1987, 1, 73, 146, 195 and passim. For a critical response see Brown, Raymond E., The birth of the messiah: a commentary on the infancy narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, New York 1993, 534–42Google Scholar. Frank Reilly shares Schaberg's view: ‘Jane Schaberg, Raymond E. Brown, and the problem of the illegitimacy of Jesus’, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion xxi (2005), 57–80.

5 William Horbury informed me that this is his position (personal communication). For his views in his dissertation see ‘Critical examination’, 459, 461–2.

6 Voltaire, Questions sur l'encyclopédie par des amateurs … huitième partie, [Neuchâtel] 1772, 240.

7 Aulus Gellius, Noctes atticae x.23.5 = Cato, Orationum frag. 222, in Oratorum Romanorum fragmenta, ed. Enrica Malcovati, Turin 1976, i. 90 = frag. 201 in M. Porci Catonis orationum reliquiae: introduzione testo critico e commento fililogico, ed. Maria Teresa Sblendorio Cugisi, Turin 1982, 120. On such provisions in the lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis see Santalucia, Bernardo, Diritto e processo penale nell'antica Roma, 2nd edn, Milan 1998, 201–4Google Scholar.

8 Craig A. Williams, Roman homosexuality: ideologies of masculinity in classical antiquity, 2nd edn, Oxford 1999, 55 (Williams translates the passive as ‘if it were to be committed on you’).

9 Cf. P. G. W. Glare (ed.), Oxford Latin dictionary, Oxford 1997, s.v. Cp. ‘cum qua [sc. Pompeia] deinde divortium fecit adulteratam opinatus a Publio Clodio’ (‘then he divorced her, believing that she had been defiled by adultery by Publius Clodius’): Suetonius, Divus Iulius vi.2. Robert Kaster suggests that ‘probably the safest general understanding of the sense is “to cause to be impure”, where “impure” in the “proper” meaning of the verb would correspond to impudica (rarely impudicus); and it is my sense that only context could make plain the intentions or agency of the parties involved, to distinguish “rape” from “adultery”. In the case of Amulo's letter the context is not much help’ (communication of 31 August 2021). For uses of impudicam facere see Plautus, Amphitruo 834, and Seneca, Phaedra 735. I thank Professor Kaster for these references.

10 Vollmer, Friedrich, ‘adultero’: Thesaurus linguae latinae, Leipzig 1900, iGoogle Scholar. 883.58–884.65 at 883.63–4.

11 Thurneysen apud Vollmer, ‘adultero’, ibid. 883.58–9.

12 Ernout, Alfred and Meillet, Alfred, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latin, 4th edn corrected and augmented by Jacques André, Paris 2001, 22Google Scholar. Michiel de Vaan derives ‘adulter’ from ‘*ad-alteros’: Etymological dictionary of Latin and the other Italic languages, Leiden 2008, 34.

13 Milena Z. Joksimović, ‘Terminologija preljube u Vulgati i njen društveni, istorijski i kulturni kontekst’ [The terminology of adultery in the Vulgate and its social, historical, and cultural context], unpubl. PhD diss. Belgrade, 2015, 161. I thank Dr Joksimović for correcting the AI translation of her Serbian text, available online at <https://nardus.mpn.gov.rs/handle/123456789/6090>.

14 Calpurnius Flaccus, Declamationes 31. See Sussman, Lewis A., The Declamations of Calpurnius Flaccus: text, translation and commentary, London 1994, 70–1Google Scholar.

15 [Flavius Caper], De verbiis dubiis: grammatici latini, ed. Heinrich Keil, Leipzig 1880, vii. 107. In the apparatus Keil has, along with textual variations, ‘fortasse adulterina quae adulterata sunt, at adultera quae adulterat’.

16 [Quintilianus], Declamationes minora 325 proem.

17 Ibid. 325.1. According to the Library of Latin Texts database there are about seventy-five occurrences of ‘adultera’ in classical texts before Tertullian. There are about 1,400 usages in the period from Tertullian to 1500 in the same database: <https://www.brepols.net/series/llt-o>.

18 ‘ergo tibi, soror … adulterandum est’ (‘then, sister … is it necessary that you be defiled by adultery?’): Seneca, Controversiae vii.6.2 (the gerundive, technically a passive). See Suetonius, Divus Iulius vi. 2 and ‘his diebus, quibus ille natus est, mathematici accepta genitura eius exclamaverunt et ipsum filium imperatoris esse et imperatorem, <quasi> mater eius adulterata esset, quod fama retinebat’ (‘during the days in which he was born, the astrologers, when his horoscope had been cast, proclaimed that he was both the son of an emperor and would be an emperor, as if his mother had been defiled by adultery, as the public opinion was maintaining’): Scriptores historiae augustae Diodumenus v.1. Cf. also quia fecit eam adulterari: Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum, Homilia xii ad Matthaeum v.32 (PG lvi.697). See Dekkers, E., Clavis patrum latinorum, Steenbrugis 1951, § 707Google Scholar, and Geerard, M., Clavis patrum graecorum, Turnhout 1974, iiGoogle Scholar. § 4569. For most of these examples see Joksimović, ‘Terminologija’, 161–2.

19 Ulpian, De adulteriis liber iv apud Digesta xlviii.5.30(29).4; trans. slightly modified from The Digest of Justinian, ed. Alan Watson, Philadelphia, Pa 1985, iv. 326–7; cf. Tracy, Valerie E., ‘The Leno-Maritus’, Classical Journal lxxii (1976), 62–4Google Scholar.

20 ‘Cum mulier viri lenocinio adulterata fuerit’ (‘when a woman has been defiled by adultery by her pander-husband’): Scaevola, liber xix quaestionum apud Digesta xxiv.3.47.

21 rapere: Seneca, Controversiae vii.6.proem; adulterandum est: vii.6.2; adulteri, raptores: Seneca, De beneficiis 1.10.4; adulter et raptor: [Quintilianus], Declamationes maiores xvii. 9; raptor, adulter: Quintilianus, Institutiones vii.4.27.

22 De viris illustribus lv. 2, in Sexti Aurelii Victoris liber de caesaribus, ed. F. Pichlmayr, Leipzig 1911, 55; cf. Plutarch, Mulierum virtutes 22, 258E (in whose version Chiomara has the centurion's head cut off and throws it at the feet of her husband). On the various accounts see Moore, Clifford H., ‘The Oxyrhynchus epitome of Livy in relation to Obsequens and Cassiodorus’, American Journal of Philology xxv (1904), 241–55Google Scholar, esp. pp. 243, 249–52, and Kowalewski, Barbara, Frauengestalten im Geschichtswerk des T. Livius, Munich–Leipzig 2002, 188–9Google Scholar.

23 Florus, Epitome i.27 (olim ii.11).6.

24 ‘violatae per vim pudicitiae’ (‘her pudicitia was violated by force’): Livy, Ab urbe condita xxxviii.24.2–10; ‘capta centurionem, qui ei vim intulerat, occidit’ (‘the captive woman killed the centurion who had inflicted force on her’): Livy, Periochae 38; ‘vim passa erat’ (‘she had suffered force’): P.Oxy 668.i, lines 14–17, an epitome of Livy; ‘stuprum pati coacta’ (‘forced to suffer violation’): Valerius Maximus vi.1.ext.2.

25 Codex ix.13.1.1a, in Corpus iuris civilis, ed. Paul Krueger, 12th edn, Berlin 1959, ii. 378. Translation of Samuel P. Scott, modified, available on the Droit romain database, <https://droitromain.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/>, last accessed 9 December 2022.

26 Codex ix.13.1.1f (Krueger edn, ii. 378).

27 ‘non adulterare, non rapere’: Jerome, Commentarii in epistulam ad Galatas i, Galatians ii. 16a, in S. Hieronymi presbyteri opera. pars i, opera exegetica viii: commentarii in epistulam Pauli apostoli ad Galatas, ed. G. Raspanti, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina lxxA, Turnhout 2006, 60; ‘rapere, adulterare’: Isidore, Etymologiae vi.19; ‘adulterorum itemque raptorum’: Codex Theodosianus xi.36.7.

28 Among the many sources see Ian Donaldson, The rapes of Lucretia: a myth and its transformations, Oxford 1982, 21–39 (on Augustine and his influence on subsequent writers).

29 See Tornau, Christian, ‘Augustins Plädoyer für die Keuschheit der Vergewaltigten: die argumentative Struktur von ciu. 1’, in his Zwischen Rhetorik und Philosophie: Augustins Argumentationstechnik in De civitate dei und ihr bildungsgeschichtlicher Hintergrund, Berlin 2006, 156–203Google Scholar. On Lucretia see pp. 182–4, 189–94.

30 Augustine, Civitate i.19, in Sancti Aurelii Augustini episcopi de civitate dei, ed. B. Dombart, A. Kalb and J. Divjak, 5th edn, Stuttgart 1993, i. 32 lines 22–5; i. 33 lines 3–7; trans. slightly modified of Augustine, The city of God against the pagans, ed. and trans. George McCracken, Cambridge, Ma 1957, i. 87–9. He is far more willing to defend the pudicitia of raped Christians and argues that perhaps sexual violence does not occur without some pleasure on the part of the victim, ‘quod fieri fortasse sine carnis aliqua voluptate non potuit': De civitate dei i.16 (Dombart, Kalb and Divjak edn, 28 lines 16–17): a horrific statement; see Tornau, ‘Augustin's Plädoyer’, 189.

31 Saunders, Corinne J., ‘Classical paradigms of rape in the Middle Ages: Chaucer's Lucretia and Philomela’, in Deacy, Susan and Pierce, Karen F. (eds), Rape in antiquity: sexual violence in the Greek and Roman worlds, London 1997, 243–66 at p. 250Google Scholar.

32 I thank Robert Kaster (communication of 31 August 2021) for pointing this out.

33 Orosius, Historiae ii.4.12, translation modified of Orosius, Seven books of history against the pagans, trans. A. T. Fear, Liverpool 2010, 79–80.

34 I take this point from a comment of Robert Kaster (communication of 4 September 2020). On the warm relationship between Orosius and Augustine see Frend, W. H. C., ‘Orosius’, in A. D. Fitzgerald (ed.), Augustine through the ages: an encyclopedia, Grand Rapids, Mi 1999, 615–17Google Scholar.

35 bavli Sanhedrin 67a: ‘And so they did to be Stada in Lod. And they suspended him on the eve of the Passover. Ben Stada, was he ben Pandera? Rab Hisda said, “the husband was Stada, the lover was Pandera”. Was not the husband Papos ben Yehuda? Rather say, “his mother was Stada”. His mother was Miriam who let women's hair grow long [or ‘braided women's hair’]. As they say in Pumbeditha, “this one turned away [seṭ'at daʾ] from her husband”.’ The translation is a revision of that of Peter Schäfer, Jesus in the Talmud, Princeton 2007, 16. For the original text, see the edition of Adin Steinsalz at <https://www.sefaria.org/Sanhedrin.67a?lang=bi> and Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Codices Hebraici 95 (Paris 1342), fo. 347r, which is available at <https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb00003409?page=,1>.

36 Horbury, ‘Critical examination’, 459, 462. On Amulo's knowledge of the Toledot see Amolo, Liber (Herbers-Rauhut edn), pp. xcv–xcvii.

37 See New York Jewish Theological Seminary, ms 8998, fo. 1r, lines 13–16 (a text which assumes Miriam was already engaged). For the translation and text see Michael Meerson and Peter Schäfer (eds), Toledot Yeshu: the life story of Jesus: two volumes and a database, Tübingen 2014, i. 138 (trans.); ii. 60 (text), cf. i. 48 (the manuscript is dated ‘not later than the fifteenth century’). The manuscript is a literal translation of an earlier Aramaic manuscript: CUL, ms T.-S. Misc. 298.56. See Meerson and Schäfer, Toledot Yeshu, i. 25, 28; ii. 58–60 (where both manuscripts are in parallel). On the illegitimacy of Jesus (and Miriam's engagement) see ms 8998, cf. Michael Meerson, ‘Illegitimate Jesus: family matters with “Toledot Yeshu”’, in D. M. Schaps, U. Yiftach and D. Dueck (eds), When West met East: the encounter of Greece and Rome with the Jews, Egyptians and others: studies presented to Ranon Katzoff in honor of his 75th birthday, Trieste 2016, 91–114 at p. 105 (‘the son of a single mother would not have been a bastard’).

38 ‘<Τίς ᾐχμαλώτευσε τὴν παρθένον ἀπ’ ἐμοῦ> καὶ ἐμίανεν αὐτήν; Μήτι ἐν ἐμοὶ ἀνεκεφαλαιώθη <ἡ> ἱστορία <τοῦ Ἀδάμ>; Ὥσπερ γὰρ … ἦλθεν ὁ ὄφις καὶ εὗρεν τὴν Εὔαν μόνην καὶ ἐξηπάτησεν αὐτὴν καὶ ἐμίανεν αὐτήν, οὕτως κἀμοὶ συνέβη.’ (2) Καὶ [καὶ] ἀνέστη Ἰωσὴφ ἀπὸ τοῦ σάκκου καὶ ἐκάλεσεν αὐτὴν καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῇ⋅ ‘Μεμελημένη Θεῷ, τί τοῦτο ἐποίησας; Ἐπελάθου Κυρίου τοῦ Θεοῦ σου; Τί ἐταπείνωσας τὴν ψυχήν σου;’: Protoevangelium James xiii.1–2, in La Forme la plus ancienne du protévangile de Jacques, ed. É. de Strycker, Brussels 1961, 124. For a similar use of αἰχμαλωτεύω see Palladius, Historia lausiaca lxxix.3.

39 Cf. Meerson and Schäfer, Toledot Yeshu, i. 48–9. They refer to such a narrative in St Petersburg, RNL EVR 1.274 (Byzantine, 1536), fo. 21v, lines 6, 12. For the translation see Meerson and Schäfer, Toledot Yeshu, i. 155; text ii. 72.

40 ומרים הד̇ה מא ילזמהא שי לאנהא מא ערפת אנא ליס זוג̇הא פי ד̇לך אלוקת: CUL, ms T-S NS 298.57, fo. 1v. Text and translation of Goldstein, Miriam, ‘A polemical tale and its function in the Jewish communities of the Mediterranean and the Near East: Toledot Yeshu in Judeo-Arabic’, Intellectual History of the Islamicate World vii (2019), 192–227Google Scholar at pp. 201–2 (who has ‘that Mary’). There is a reproduction of the recto page on p. 227 and the full text and translation is at pp. 220–1. Goldstein dates the manuscript (pp. 193–4) to the eleventh century.

41 Goldstein, ‘A polemical tale’, 212.

42 Eadem, ‘Jesus in Arabic, Jesus in Judeo-Arabic: the origins of the Helene version of the Jewish “life of Jesus” (Toledot Yeshu)’, Jewish Quarterly Review cxi (2021), 83–104, esp. p. 93.

43 See Rubenfeld, Jeb, ‘The riddle of rape-by-deception and the myth of sexual autonomy’, Yale Law Journal cxxii (2013), 1372–443Google Scholar, and Ribson, Matthew, ‘Deceptive sexual relations: a theory of criminal liability’, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies xl (2020), 82–109Google Scholar.

44 See Amulo, Liber i (Herbers-Rauhut edn, 2 = PL cxvi.141A) on the dangers of association with Jews.

45 ‘Proditum est nobis a quibusdam, qui ex eorum errore ad Christianitatem veniunt': ibid. xlii (Herbers-Rauhut edn, 84 = PL cxvi.170D). See Aurast, Anna, ‘What did Christian authors know about Jews and Judaism? Some remarks based on early medieval evidence’, Millenium: Jahrbuch zu Kultur und Geschichte des ersten Jahrtausends nach Chr. x (2013), 331–47Google Scholar at pp. 339–46.

46 ‘persuasus sit ab impiis Christum Dei Filium negare’: Amulo, Liber xlii (Herbers-Rauhut edn, 84–6 = PL cxvi.171B–C). See Heil, Johannes, ‘Agobard, Amolo, das Kirchengut und die Juden von Lyon’, Francia: Forschungen zur westeuropäischen Geschichte xxv (1998), 39–76Google Scholar at pp. 65–76; Hans-Werner Goetz, Die Wahrnehmung anderer Religionen und christlich-abendländisches Selbstverständnis im frühen und hohen Mittelalter (5.–12 Jahrhundert), Berlin 2013, i. 484–6; Schäfer, ‘Agobard's and Amulo's Toledot’, 43–4; Anna Beth Langenwalter, ‘Agobard of Lyon: an exploration of Carolingian-Jewish relations’, unpubl. PhD diss. Toronto 2009, 37–8 (Bodo and his letters); and Riess, Frank, ‘From Aachen to Al-Andalus: the journey of Deacon Bodo (823–76)’, Early Medieval Europe xiii (2005), 131–57Google Scholar at pp. 140–1 n. 13 (about sixty lines of Bodo's are extant in Álvaro's Epistole xiv–xx).

47 Annales Bertiniani, anno 839, in Annales de Saint-Bertin, ed. Félix Grat, Jeanne Vielliard and Suzanne Clémencet, Paris 1964, 27–8. Cp. ‘Puato diaconus palatii lapsus est in iudaismo’: Annales Augienses, s.a. 838, ed. G. H. Pertz, MGH, SS, i, Hannover 1826, 68, and ‘Puato diaconus de palatio lapsus est in iudaismum’ (Bodo the deacon of the palace lapsed into Judaism): Annalium Alamannicorum Continuatio Augiensis, s.a. 838 (ibid. 49). The editor notes in the apparatus that the date in the Continuatio for 838 (‘inter octavam et n. h. in v. a. domini’) is wrongly taken from the entry for 840, where it is absent in the manuscript, but it is present in the entry for 840 in the following source (Annales Weingartenses [ibid. 65]) where it refers to an eclipse on 5 May between 8 and 9 am, on the vigil of the Lord's ascension. Cf. ‘Puato diaconus palatii lapsus est in iudaismum’: Annales Weingartenses, s.a. 838 (ibid. 65) and Eclipsis solis 3. Non. Maias inter octavam et novam horam in vigilia ascensionis Domini: Annales Weingartenses, s.a. 840 (ibid. 65). On the chronology and sources see Riess, ‘From Aachen’, 133–40. He misreads the date (5 May; 137) in the Continuatio (ibid. Pertz edn, 49) as that of Bodo's conversion. Cp. Annales Einsidlenses, s.a. 838, ed. G. H. Pertz (MGH, SS iii, 1839), 139; Herman of Reichenhau, Chronicon, s.a. 838, ed. G. H. Pertz (MGH, SS v, 1843) 103; and Marianus Scotus, Chronicon, s.a. 860 (ibid. 550). For some of these references see Goetz, Wahrnehmung, 439.

48 Scriptores Muzarabici Saeculi VIII–XI, ed. Juan Gil (Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis lxv a), Turnhout 2020, 394 (where I have made use of AI for the base of the Spanish translation). See Garza, Raúl Pozas and García, Abdón Moreno, ‘Una controversia judeo-cristiana del siglo ix: Paulo Álvaro de Córdoba’, Helmántica lii (2001), 75–99Google Scholar.

49 ‘Quomodo caro carnem genuit et violata non extitit’: Eleazar apud Álvaro, Epistola 18.11 (Gil edn, 563–4). For comments on the passage see Marcilino Menéndez y Pelayo, Historia de los heterodoxos españoles, I: España romana y visigoda, Madrid 1965, 495, and Blumenkranz, Bernhard, Juifs et chrétiens dans le monde occidental, 430–1096, Paris 1960, 257Google Scholar.

50 ‘Et quoniam ore pestifero multa pestifera dicis, dum per virginalia claustra pollutumque meatum propriis laviis obsculasse genitalia adstruis, que inverecunda fronte procax sati‹r›us protulisti, dum matris tue receptacula et sinos internos vulbe, execrabilis, adprobasti’: Álvaro, Epistola 18.11 (Gil edn, 564). [S]atirus and execrabilis (ms C execrabilem) are corrections in ms N (an apograph of a planned edition of ms C). See the translation in Epistolario de Álvaro de Córdoba, trans. Gonzalo del Cerro Calderón and José Palacios Royán, Córdoba 1997, 156. Eleazar (Álvaro, Epistola 16.3 [Gil edn, 539–41]) apparently argued that alma in Isaiah vii.14 meant ‘adulescentulam vel iubenculam’ (young woman or young girl) and not ‘virgo’ (virgin).

51 Evina Steinová, ‘The correspondence of Bodo-Eleazar with Pablo Alvaro: a rare sample of Judeo-Christian dispute from the 9th century’, Canonicity and Authority (2010), 1–37 at p. 18.

52 On the ‘anonymous inquisitor [called superstitiosus by the copyist of N]’ and his mutilation of ms C see Scriptores Muzarabici Saeculi VIII–XI (Gil edn), 394–5.

53 For a compact summary of Jewish anti-Christian polemical texts (which he numbers in the hundreds) see Philippe Bobichon, ‘La Littérature de controverse entre Christianisme et Judaïsme (iie–xvie siècles): description du corpus et réflexions méthodologiques’, Revue d'histoire eccléstiaque cvii (2012), 5–48. See also Samuel Krauss, The Jewish-Christian controversy: from the earliest times to 1789, I: History, ed. and rev. William Horbury, Tübingen 1996.

54 Daniel J. Lasker and Sarah Stroumsa, The polemic of Nestor the priest: Qiṣṣat Mujādalat al-Usquf and Sefer Nestor Ha-Komer: introduction, annotated translations and commentary, Jerusalem 1996, i. 19 (date of composition and provenance), cf. i. 25–6 on the different redactions of the Qiṣṣa. See also Bobichon, ‘La Littérature’, 7, 42, and Krauss and Horbury, Controversy, 236–8.

55 תקול אן לי אלאה סכן פי אלאחשא ופי וסך̇ אלחיצ̇̈ה וצ̇יק אלבטן ואלט̇למה̇: Qiṣṣa 5: Lasker and Stroumsa, Polemic, i. 53 (trans.); ii. 28 (text).

56 Lasker and Stroumsa, Polemic, i. 27–8.

57 וחלילה לומר כי האלהים שכן ברחם בטינוף הבטן ובעוצר הנידות והאופל והחושך: Sefer 5: Lasker and Stroumsa, Polemic, i. 98 (trans.); ii. 95 (text). See Krauss and Horbury, Controversy, 237.

58 פאד̇א מרים תשהד אן יוסף זוג̇הא ואן מנה חבלת: Qiṣṣa 77: Lasker and Stroumsa, Polemic, i. 67 (trans.); ii. 52 (text.) Cp. Qiṣṣa 80 (Lasker and Stroumsa, Polemic, i. 68 [trans.]; ii. 53 [text]).

59 Sefer 77: Lasker and Stroumsa, Polemic, i. 114 (trans.); ii. 102 (text). Cp. Sefer 80 (Lasker and Stroumsa, Polemic, i. 114 (trans.); ii. 103 (text)).

60 Lasker and Stroumsa, Polemic, i. 28.

61 The book of the covenant of Joseph Kimḥi, trans Frank Talmage, Toronto 1972, 9; cf. Krauss and Horbury, Controversy, 91, 222.

62 ואיך אאמין באל הגדול נעלם ונכסה שנכנס בבטן אישה במעי נקובה מטונפים מוסרחים בלא צורך בהכרח ובאלוהים חיים שיהיה ילוד אישה ילד בלי דעה והשכל ופתי לא ידע בין ימינו לשמאלו עושה צואה ומשתין ויונק משדי אמו מרעב וצמא ובוכה בעת צימאונו ואמו חומלת עליו: F. Talmage, The Book of the covenant and other writings, Jerusalem 1974 [Hebrew], 29 (text); 36 (trans.). For Jewish polemic of this period against the incarnation see Lasker, Daniel J., Jewish philosophical polemics against Christianity in the Middle Ages, New York 1977, 107Google Scholar.

63 On the Toledot's role in ‘Carolingian conversions to Judaism’ see William Horbury, ‘The Strasburg text of the Toledot’, in Schäfer, Meerson and Deutsch, Toledot Yeshu … revisited, 49–60, esp. p. 58, with ref. to Blumenkranz, Juifs et chrétiens, 169–71, 258.