Christemporos: Christ and the Market in Early Christian Texts

Abstract

Abstract Early Christians coined the word christemporos (“Christ-seller”) to mark other early Christians as abusive in their apostolic or Christian labor. This article explores the neologism, first embedding it within the market terminology of contemporaneous epigraphy and emphasizing its similarity to the term sōmatemporos, slave-seller or slave-trader. Second, the term christemporos, because of its frequent connection to the image of “huckstering the word of God” from 2 Cor. 2:17, is analyzed in relation to practices of hospitium. The term christemporos is invective: you would have to be pretty low to sell the anointed one; you would have to be a huckster or peddler, as Paul says, or a betrayer, as Judas was. The term also reflects a larger area of inquiry in antiquity: Is hospitality or the gift possible? The article, in focusing on christemporos, also considers how philological investigation can participate in a transhistorical “wake work,” to cite Christina Sharpe.