People of the Book – Susanna
Catholic Bibles, unlike those of the communities stemming from Luther, Calvin and the other Reformers in the west, include certain books called deuterocanonical texts – such as Tobit, Judith and Baruch – which are not recognized as inspired by most Protestants and Jews. The debate arises out of the issue of whether or not the texts can be traced to ancient Hebrew sources, and if that is or is not a crucial factor in the decision to include it in the canon.
In some cases, the sections in question are particular stories within books which both share. So all three traditions accept parts of the Book of Daniel, but the story of Susanna and the elders is only considered divinely inspired by those accepting the deuterocanonical or apocryphal writings (basically Catholics and Orthodox Christians). For that reason, it is a tale often overlooked in the wider Christian imagination (except by Renaissance artists who often took up the theme as an excuse to paint scantily clad women). Yet, it includes all of the drama, tragedy and pathos of a fascinating and penetrating epic of lust and betrayal, as timely and intriguing as any reality television show.
Susanna was a beautiful and devoted ancient heroine, the wife of Joakim. She decides to bathe in her husband’s orchard and sends her handmaidens away to fetch her a few amenities. While alone, two lecherous judges corner her and provide her with a terrible ultimatum. She is either to give in to their lustful demands or the pair of socially-respectable figures will falsely claim that they came upon her with another man, after she had sent her companions away, to have an extramarital tryst, a crime for which she would be executed under the law of the day (yet another patriarchal and oppressive structural reality that is in itself an unsettling element of the account).
Susanna refuses their advances and the judges follow through with their villainous agenda.
Susanna prays for deliverance from the situation and thankfully the prophet Daniel comes to her rescue. He physically separates the judges and asks what kind of tree they found the cheating couple beneath. (The other members of the court evidently could’ve learned a lot about interrogation techniques from contemporary crime dramas, for this seems a rather basic and not very groundbreaking step to most of us). Regardless, when their stories don’t match, the evildoers are hoisted with their own petard and themselves put to death for perjury.
Scripture scholar Daniel J. Harrington says the following: “The great turning point in the story comes with God’s response to Susanna’s protestation of innocence: ‘The Lord heard her cry’ (v. 44). And Daniel emerges as the human instrument by which Susanna’s innocence is proven and she is delivered from death and restored to her family. The message of the Susanna story is that God will vindicate the innocent sufferer. The episode illustrates the power of trust in God and of prayer in the midst of suffering, as well as God’s use of the human wisdom displayed by Daniel” (Invitation to the Apocrypha, 116).
Susanna did not treat her sexuality and relationship with her husband casually, for as it has been written “wherever a man lies with a woman, there, whether they like it or not, a transcendental relationship is set up between them which must be eternally enjoyed or eternally endured.” But the criminals here were not interested in any semblance of a loving and healthy sexual relationship.
Yet, figures in our tradition such as Susanna and Maria Goretti who are the potential victims of sexual violence, cannot be read in a spiritually idealized state. As an abuse survivor named Analeigh has written, it is unthinkably wrong to claim those who have been through such crimes “are damaged goods, … are somehow a problem. Why else … would women who died rather than be raped appear to be more valued spiritually than women who survived rape or abuse, and lived to fight and advocate passionately for the healing and restoration of the women and girls who would follow after them?”
Susanna and heroic women like her need to be prayerfully encountered not as role models of undefiled physical purity, but as innocent sufferers with almost unimaginable faith in God in the most dire and traumatic moments of life.
Michael M. Canaris of Collingswood is an administrator at Fairfield University’s Center for Faith and Public Life and is on the faculty for the Department of Philosophy, Theology, and Religious Studies at Sacred Heart University.
at the bottom and then tap “Add to Home Screen”