SOURCE: Mushabac, Jane. “Judith and the Theme of Sapientia et Fortitudo.” Massachusetts Studies in English 4, no. 1 (spring 1973): 3-12.

In the following essay, Mushabac discusses the defining traits of heroism as embodied in the eponymous protagonist of Judith.

The Apocryphal Book of Judith is adjudged to have been written during the last two centuries B.C. by a learned Jew¹ considerably influenced by Hellenistic style and motifs.² Since then the story it tells has been the subject for many interpretations and retellings which as we would expect reflect the concerns of the particular age in which they were written. Among religious commentaries and paraphrases beginning with early midrashim and patristic exegesis, Jerome and Ambrose, for instance, interpreted Judith's role tropologically as a type of Christian chastity marrying Christ.³ Similarly, Aelfric, in his paraphrase, made Judith “a pattern of virginity,”⁴ while later the Ancrene Wisse author saw Judith as emblematic...