Jewish Women's Resistance to Christianity in the Early Fifth Century: The Account of Severus, Bishop of Minorca

The Letter of Severus of Minorca on the Conversion of the Jews, narrating the conversion of the entire Jewish population of the island in the space of one week in February, 418 C.E. has been taken by some scholars as a reliable account of Jewish women's principled resistance to Christianity, based on the author's representation of women as the last to convert. The author deploys Jewish women and gender relations for various rhetorical purposes that call into question the historicity of these and other details of the Letter. Severus feminizes Jews and presents their gender relations as disordered: only when they become Christians do their gender relations become properly ordered. Women's initial refusal of Christ exemplifies Jewish stubbornness and wifely insubordination. Had the women converted before their husbands, their conversions would not have served the author's argument that Christ makes Jewish women appropriately submissive and accepting of (Christian) male authority. Further, Severus's subsequent re-masculination of Jewish men once they become Christian may relate to various power contests that underlie the text.