From Idols to Icons: The Emergence of Christian Devotional Images in Late Antiquity by Robin Jensen (review)

Abstract

of Abba Moses the Ethiopian (184–85) to the reportedly lavish treatment of the Nubian king in Constantinople (174–75). Indeed, some of the concluding phrases in this chapter are particularly hard-hitting in light of the priorities I believe animate the study: “The image of the Ethiopian eunuch requires that we confront the fact that, despite having inherited a long history of racial invective, the Byzantines repeatedly turned racist stereotypes on their heads” or “The Byzantines were not white” (203). While Chapters One, Two, and Four offer compelling and methodologically innovative readings of relatively well-known materials, the book’s most lasting intervention will likely prove to be Chapters Three and Five. In my estimation, these two chapters are the most important contribution to the intersectional treatment of Roman transgender, nonbinary, and racialized identities so far penned by any scholar. Luis Josué Salés, Scripps College