Introduction

The present volume stems from “Women in the Religious and Intellectual Activity of the Ancient Mediterranean World: An Interdisciplinary and In­ternational Conference in Honor of Adela Yarbro Collins,” held March 15­17, 2009 at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio and The Ohio State University.

The study of women in the ancient world has made tremendous strides in recent decades. What was at first groundbreaking work in the (male- dominated) world of scholarship has now become integral to a proper un­derstanding of the social, political, economic, religious, and family life of ancient cultures. The study of women in the ancient world was initiated by feminist scholars; now it is embraced by scholars from a wide variety of methodological and hermeneutical perspectives. Thanks to much fine work in this area, we now understand much more thoroughly than in previous generations past the roles that gender constructions, more generally, and women, in particular, played in ancient religion. Earlier scholars passed over these issues for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was a bi­ased view of the (un)importance of women in ancient (and modern) cul­tures. Taken as a whole, the present collection of essays makes a sig­nificant contribution to both expanding and focusing the scholarly commu­nity’s understanding of not only ancient women’s religious lives but also ancient religion as a whole.

The book falls into three major sections: Part I: Narrative; Part II: Ritu­al; Part III: Logos.

Part I, “Narrative,” includes a collection of essays on various narratives that may or may not have women as their central focus but in some way concern issues of gender and women. Loveday Alexander and Patricia D. Ahearne-Kroll look at ancient Greek novels. Alexander’s essay, “The Vir­gin and the Goddess: Women and Religion in the Greek Romance,” exam­ines Chariton’s Chareas and Callirhoe, offering a wide-ranging treatment of the ways that women and religion feature in Greek romances. After plumbing the depths of likely the earliest of the Greek and Roman novels, Alexander studies Luke-Acts, highlighting avenues for further inquiry into early Christian writings in parallel with ancient romances (for example, the way festivals and religious sites offer places of significant encounter be­tween men and women, as well as opportunities for Luke’s redefinition of sacred space to include domestic space and the space around the person of Jesus). Patricia Ahearne-Kroll’s essay, “The Portrayal of Aseneth in Jo­seph and Aseneth: Women’s Religious Experience in Antiquity and the Limitations of Ancient Narratives,” also utilizes Chariton to examine the characterization tendencies of this genre. In particular, Ahearne-Kroll stud­ies the characterization of the main protagonist, Aseneth, arguing that be­cause Aseneth is an elite Egyptian convert to Judaism, she does not reflect “real” ancient Jewish women. Aseneth functions similarly to the way that Callirhoe functions in Chariton’s aforementioned novel, and the way that characters, in general, function in ancient fiction, namely to communicate the author’s favored cultural values and social structures.

Mary Rose D’Angelo and James A. Kelhoffer examine the Gospel of Mark. D’Angelo (“Roman Imperial Family Values and the Gospel of Mark: The Divorce Sayings [Mark 10:2-12]”) shows how Roman divorce laws and ‘family values’ illuminate Mark 10:2-12. She argues that Roman social legislation created an ideal of “original, indissoluble marriage com­parable to the vision of origins articulated in Mark 10:2-9.” As a result, Mark 10:2-9 and 10:13-16 should be understood as “a defense against too radical an understanding of the call to discipleship in 10:17-31,” perhaps made even more unusual by the participation of women in the early Jesus movement. Kelhoffer (“A Tale of Two Markan Characterizations: The Ex­emplary Woman Who Anointed Jesus’ Body for Burial (14:3-9) and the Silent Trio Who Fled the Empty Tomb [16:1-8]”) examines two con­trasting characterizations of women in Mark. First, he argues that the woman who anoints Jesus’ body for burial in 14:3-9 is an exemplary char­acter in Mark, one to be emulated. Yet contrary to many feminist scholars, he argues that the three women at the empty tomb in 16:1-8 offer a nega­tive example of discipleship not unlike that of the hapless Markan disci­ples.

Turid Karlsen Seim and Clare K. Rothschild examine the birthing meta­phor and fatherhood in the Gospel of John. Seim (“Motherhood and the Making of Fathers in Antiquity: Contextualizing Genetics in the Gospel of John”) argues that John, following ancient ideas of paternity, sees Jesus’ “only-begotten” (μονογενής) status as representing the birth of a child in the absence of a mother through the process of “epigenesis.” This process includes the notions that only the male is able generate seed and that this seed provides the active principle of movement and life, whereas the fe­male role is to provide the passive material.

Four more essays round out Part I. Using a careful narratological ap­proach to Josephus’s Antiquities, Jan Willem van Henten (“Blaming the Women: Women at Herod’s Court in Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities 15.23­231”) argues that Josephus depicts negatively Alexandra and Salome, in order to portray Herod more favorably, even tragically, for Herod’s loss of Mariamme at the hands of Salome. Robert Doran (“To Bear or Not to Bear: The Argument for Abstinence in the Greek Gospel of the Egyp­tians”) presents the four sayings in the Greek Gospel of the Egyptians as Christian testimonia used by Julius Cassianus and reinterpreted by Clem­ent of Alexandria. The sayings originate from an encratite group that advo­cates sexual continence but does not completely reject marriage. Doran goes on to argue for the way that the sayings present the status of women in contrast to prevailing cultural mores: “What is interesting is that the ar­gument in the Greek Gospel of the Egyptians completely overturns the sense of subordination of women, and rather places them on an equal foot­ing with men Such a...

argument for the equal status and function of women in early Christianity.” Candida R. Moss (“Blood Ties: Martyrdom, Motherhood, and Family in the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas”) examines the presentation of fami­ly rejection in the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas. She argues (a) that when placed in their larger martyrological context, Perpetua’s actions are quite commensurate with attitudes towards the family in martyrologies fo­cusing on men; and (b) the martyrs’ acts do not “promote the rejection of the idea of family so much as they promote its reconfiguration.” Finally, Jeremy F. Hultin (“A New Web for Arachne and a New Veil for the Tem­ple: Women and Weaving from Athena to the Virgin Mary”) notes the in­sights on weaving in ancient Greece as articulated in Sarah Iles Johnston’s analysis of the myth of Arachne, and he highlights narratives in early Christianity where weaving functions similarly. Hultin demonstrates that the presence of the main concerns of weaving in ancient Greece (“weaving as an activity connected to the transition from girlhood to womanhood; a skill showing female readiness for marriage and childbirth; a craft repre­senting the joining together of disparate bodies so as to produce something new”) are also present in the depiction of Mary in the Protevangelium of James, symbolizing the new life built in weaving the chaste person asexu- ally to Christ.

Part II, “Ritual,” contains four essays on ancient magic and one on a little known Roman festival that involved women and goddesses in the protection of the city. Fritz Graf’s essay, “Victimology: Or, How to Blame Someone for an Untimely Death,” examines grave inscriptions that attrib­ute untimely death to sorcery, which is a neglected category of evidence regarding magical practices in the ancient Mediterranean world. He finds that relatively few (about 1000) grave inscriptions describe the death of the deceased, but of these under 5% attribute the death to some sort of phar- makeia.

Stephen J. Davis (“Forget Me Not: Memory and the Female Subject in Ancient Binding Spells”) finds in the Greek Magical Papyri a group of spells related to memory and the manipulation of memory. He argues for the connection between memory and the spells’ ritual manipulations of the female body. Responding to Davis, Matt Jackson-McCabe questions the posited connection between memory and the female body. Instead, he sug­gests that “Greek love spells’ interest in the anatomy of their victims may be better understood in connection with their eroticism than with their ref­erences to memory.” He goes on to examine the common charge of magic in early Christian devotion and suggests a connection with the eroticism of magic as a possible reason for the accusation.

This section’s final essay deals with an ancient Roman ritual designed to guard and secure the boundaries of the city. Carin M. C. Green (“Hold­ing the Line: Women, Ritual, and the Protection of Rome”) investigates the Roman goddesses Sessia, Messia, and Tutilina, highlighting their role in protecting the sacred boundary (pomerium) of the city. She also looks at the link between Tutilina and the Festival of the Handmaidens, arguing that the festival, in part, honors the three goddesses who protect the boundaries of the city. She further argues that the festival can be character­ized as a Roman combat myth, thus connecting the study of this ritual with Adela Yarbro Collins’s work on Revelation 12.2 If one thinks of the festi­val as a combat myth, “the women are warriors for the city. It is about en­emies and possible disaster, and women as the champions who save Rome.”

Part III, “Logos,” contains discursive presentations on a variety of is­sues around gender and women in ancient thinkers with respect to religion. Paul A. Holloway considers two of Seneca’s consolatory essays to women, Ad Marciam and Ad Helviam matrem, where Seneca “is forced to work out in practice the Stoic theory that woman are by nature equal to men in their capacity for virtue, although by training they are much their inferiors.” De­spite the philosopher’s best efforts to present women as by nature equal to men in their capacity for virtue, “Seneca powerfully attests to elite Roman gender prejudice.”

Next are two essays dealing with Paul and his legacy. First, Christopher N. Mount (“Religious Experience, the Religion of Paul, and Women in Pauline Churches”) discusses Paul’s letters with respect to the slippery category of religious experience. He argues that the criterion for ecclesial authority in the undisputed writings of Paul is based upon a person’s pos­session by the spirit of the crucified Jesus. Ecclesial authority is thus not based upon gender but upon one’s status as possessed by Christ crucified.

² See Adela Yarbro Collins, The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation (HDR 9; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1976).

Focusing on the social dimensions of this phenomenon, he argues, “‘Reli­gious experience’ is an apologetic category for the essence of religion, a category that depends entirely on the mythology of those who believe.” Instead of focusing on religious experience, scholars of ancient religion should examine the discourses constructed about how deities interact with humans, including women. Second, Outi Lehtipuu (“The Example of Thecla and the Example(s) of Paul: Disputing Women’s Roles in Early Christianity”) examines the “competing views of how the legacy of Paul was understood and used in the second Christian century to justify the role and place of women.” In particular, Lehtipuu argues for a multiplicity of second-century perspectives regarding how Paul’s views of women are tied to arguments about marriage, opportunities for teaching and leadership, celibacy, and submission to male church leaders.

In an essay entitled, “Sophrosyne for Women in Pythagorean Texts,” Annette B. Huizenga builds on the work of Abraham Malherbe and Helen North with regard to how women were to embody sophrosyne in the an­cient world. She analyzes two neo-Pythagorean texts, On the Sophrosyne of a Woman and a short letter written by a certain Melissa to another wom­an named Kleareta. The most essential way women can embody sophrosyne is through sexual fidelity to her husband, but this is not just one quality among many that characterize a woman’s sophrosyne. Instead, “all other prescribed female displays of the virtue (in adornment, speech and silence, child-bearing and child-rearing, household management, and activities outside the house itself) manifest this one primary achievement: a woman’s uninterrupted practice of marital fidelity.” Judith L. Kovacs (“Becoming the Perfect Man: Clement of Alexandria on the Philosophical Life of Women”) studies in detail the fourth book of the Stromateis, par­ticularly chapters 8 and 19-21, to flesh out precisely what he means when he advocates, “Women should philosophize the same as men” (Strom. 4.8.62.4). At first glance, this statement may seem straightforward enough, but in the context of the Stromateis, in dialogue with other philosophical writings, and as an integral part of Stromateis 4 as a piece of biblical inter­pretation, the statement shows Clement to be an even more complex think­er on the subject of women than previously acknowledged. Finally, Susan E. Myers (“The Spirit as Mother in Early Syriac-Speaking Christianity”) surveys the textual evidence for early Christian mother imagery in northern Mesopotamia. After reviewing the current state of scholarship, Myers fo­cuses on the use of feminine imagery for the Spirit in the Acts of Thomas. In particular, she looks at how the Acts develops certain elements from its regional heritage and how Ephrem and Aphrahat develop this imagery fur­ther, even while some elements of the tradition simultaneously are con­demned.

The editors and contributors hope that this collection of essays ade­quately reflects the type of scholarship most valued and emulated by Adela Yarbro Collins, Buckingham Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale Divinity School and one of only three women presi­dents of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas. Inasmuch as Collins’s intellectual impact has reached far beyond that of her original training in New Testament studies, she offers an admirable model of interdisciplinary scholarship to this volume’s editors, who are all her Doktorkinder, and, indeed, to all its contributors. May this book honor her as an expression of what is possible with careful attention to detail and reasonable examination of the evidence - two qualities particularly valued by Prof. Collins.

Stephen P. Ahearne-Kroll, on behalf of the editors, August 2010