Some of the most elaborate and detailed descriptions of early Christian churches by a Latin writer are given by the nobleman Pontius Meropius Paulinus, who is usually known as Paulinus of Nola, after the city where he became bishop in the latter part of his life. He was born in Bordeaux around 353, of a wealthy family that had extensive properties in Aquitania, Gallia Narbonensis, Latium, and Campania. He received an education appropriate to his noble stature and became the prize student of Ausonius, also a native of Bordeaux, who was the tutor of the (future) emperor Gratian and a celebrated poet at court.

The publication of a revised version of James Skedros's doctoral dissertation on the origin and development of the cult of St. Demetrius at Thessalonica, the alleged site of his martyrdom, during the early and middle Byzantine periods is most welcome in itself, but it also invites renewed attention to an old problem. What was the origin of the cult of St. Demetrius at Thessalonica? It is the purpose ofthis article to offer a fresh solution to this problem.

The origins of the cult of St. Demetrios are indeed obscure. The earliest indisputable evidence for the existence of the cult of St. Demetrios at Thessaloniki is the large five-aisle basilica built in honor of the martyr and located in the center of this important port city. Based upon archaeological and art historical evidence, the basilica can be dated to the last quarter of the fifth century. However, the written tradition of the cult of St. Demetrios, as preserved in various martyrdom accounts (whose dates remain problematic), places the saint's martyrdom at Thessaloniki during the persecution of Diocletian, that is, during the first decade of the fourth century, some one-hundred and seventy five years before the erection of the saint's basilica. To complicate matters even more, in the earliest surviving martyrologies dating from the fourth and fifth centuries, there is no mention of a martyr Demetrios who was martyred or venerated at Thessaloniki. Given such lack of historical evidence, most scholars, including David Woods, whose article appears in the pages of this journal, have argued that St. Demetrios of Thessaloniki is a fictitious saint and that the origin of his veneration at Thessaloniki is not to be found in a historical individual who was martyred under Diocletian at Thessaloniki, but rather must be sought elsewhere.

Good historical fiction reveals not only the realities of a particular epoch, but also its cultural attitudes. An excellent example is Bernard Malamud's The Fixer, which succeeds in disclosing the nature of Russian anti-semitism by artfully weaving together enduring themes of anti-Jewish Christian mythology—the blood libel and accusations of ritual murder—to illustrate the fabric of Jewish life in early modern Russia. Perhaps almost unnoticed in his work, however, are references to the myth of Jewish male menses. Consider the following passages from The Fixer, in which the Jewish defendant, Yakov Bok, is confronted by this bizarre contention:

“You saw the blood?” the Prosecuting Attorney said sarcastically. “Did that have some religious meaning to you as a Jew? Do you know that in the Middle Ages Jewish men were said to menstruate?” Yakov looked at him in surprise and fright. “I don't know anything about that, your honor, although I don't see how it could be.”

One characteristic of Walter Brueggemann's recently published Theology of the Old Testament that distinguishes it from comparable studies is its author's explicit commitment to hermeneutical pluralism. Whereas the classic works of biblical theology located the enterprise within a univocally Christian framework, Brueggemann's massive and learned volume proposes a “contextual shift from hegemonic interpretation … toward a pluralistic interpretive context.” The transition is not an option but a necessity in a postmodern situation marked by “the disestablishment of the triumphalist church in the West” and the loss of “a consensus authority.” “No interpretive institution,” he writes, “ecclesial or academic, can any longer sustain a hegemonic mode of interpretation, so that our capacity for a magisterial or even a broadly based consensus about a pattern of interpretation will be hard to come by.” For Brueggemann, this loss is a gain, since “the [biblical] texts themselves witness to a plurality of testimonies concerning God and Israel's life with God.” The disintegration of consensus goes hand in hand with “the parallel disestablishment of the institutional vehicles of such interpretation” that have repressed awareness of the rich internal diversity of the Old Testament. In the absence of a hegemonic consensus, enforced by repressive and discriminatory institutions, “the testimony of Israel” will be able to recover its character “as a subversive protest and as an alternative act of vision that invites criticism and transformation.” For Brueggemann, the repressiveness and discrimination of the institutions is reflected in the dominance of the white males within them. In a situation of more diversity of race and gender, he repeatedly tells us, valid alternative visions will blossom.