Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-tsvsl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-26T05:56:06.773Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Milk of Salvation: Redemption by the Mother in Late Antiquity and Early Christianity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Gail Paterson Corrington
Gail Paterson Corrington
Affiliation:
Rhodes College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In their recovery and interpretation of the evidence for women's religious involvement in antiquity, feminist historians of religion employ terms like “image,” “reflection,” and “symbol” as constants in their vocabulary. This terminology indicates the importance feminist scholars attach to the ways in which women's activities are presented and the ways in which they are interpreted. Interpretation becomes the more difficult as one approaches the religions of the ancient Mediterranean world, not only because of the relative paucity and elusive nature of the evidence for women's participation in these religions, but also because the two great bodies of canon in the West—the literary artifacts of the Greco-Roman world and the canon of biblical literature—reflect a dual process of “canonization.” Certain cultural constructs and dominant metaphors have become embodied in the text themselves, while a tradition of “canonized conventions” has been modeled by these metaphors to “evaluate a priori what we see.” The interaction of conceptualization, representation, and interpretation of appearance, moreover, is such that there cannot be an “innocent eye.” Nelson Goodman observes: “The eye always comes ancient to its work. …Not only how but what it sees is regulated by need and perspective. …It does not so much mirror as take and make.” Moreover, the use of the term “image” itself reflects a process by which a particular representation is shaped and subsequently held up as the way in which something is conceptually “seen” or meant to be “seen,” and which is not necessarily or even possibly a “true” reflection.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 82 , Issue 4 , October 1989 , pp. 393 - 420
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See, e.g., Foley, Helene P., ed., Reflections of Women in Antiquity (New York: Gordon & Breach, 1981)Google Scholar; Cameron, Averil and Kuhrt, Amelie, eds., Images of Women in Antiquity (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Atkinson, Clarissa W., Buchanan, Constance H., and Miles, Margaret R., eds., Immaculate and Powerful: The Female in Sacred Image and Social Reality (Boston: Beacon, 1985)Google Scholar; Banta, Martha L., Imaging American Woman: Idea and Ideals in Cultural History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987); andGoogle ScholarKing, Karen L., ed., Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism (Studies in Antiquity and Christianity; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988),Google Scholar to name some of the more recent studies.

2 , Banta, Imaging American Woman, xxxGoogle Scholar.

3 Goodman, Nelson, Languages of Art (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968) 7–8, cited byGoogle ScholarMcFague, Sallie, Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981) 55Google Scholar.

4 Black, Max, Models and Metaphors: Studies in Language and Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962) 28, cited byGoogle ScholarCamp, Claudia V., Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs (Bible and Literature Series 11; Sheffield: JSOT/Almond Press, 1985) 72Google Scholar.

5 Geertz, Clifford, “Religion as a Cultural System,” in Banton, Michael, ed., Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion (London/New York: Tavistock, 1966) 1–46, cited inGoogle ScholarBynum, Caroline Walker, Harrell, Stevan, and Richman, Paula, eds., Gender and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols (Boston: Beacon, 1986) 9Google Scholar.

6 , McFague, Metaphorical Theology, 74Google Scholar.

7 Nelson, Janet L., “Society, Theodicy, and the Origins of Medieval Heresy,” in Baker, Derek, ed., Schism, Heresy, and Religious Protest (Studies in Church History 9; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), cited byGoogle ScholarGager, John G., “Body-Symbols and Social Reality: Resurrection, Incarnation, and Asceticism in Early Christianity,” Religion 12 (1982) 345Google Scholar.

8 Owens, Craig, “The Discourse of Others: Feminists and Post-Modemism,” in Foster, Hal, ed., The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays in Post-Modern Culture (Port Townsend, WA: Bag Press, 1983) 57–77Google Scholar.

9 , Miles, Immaculate and Powerful, 2.Google Scholar Although, in a personal communication, Professor Miles has said that this statement no longer represents her thinking on the subject, I believe that it remains valid for the present discussion.

10 Ochshorn, Judith, The Female Experience and the Nature of the Divine (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1981) 136–40Google Scholar.

11 , McFague, Metaphorical Theology, 38Google Scholar.

12 Daly, Mary, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation (Boston: Beacon, 1973) 78–79Google Scholar.

13 Ruether, Rosemary R., Woman-Church: Theology and Practice of Feminist Liturgical Communities (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985) 70Google Scholar.

14 Layton, Bentley, ed. and trans., The Gnostic Scriptures (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1987) 399Google Scholar.

15 See Baer, Richard A., “Philo' s Use of the Categories Male and Female” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1965) 84Google Scholar.

16 , McFague, Metaphorical Theology, 27Google Scholar.

17 Michie, Helena, The Flesh Made Word: Female Figures and Women's Bodies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987) 10Google Scholar.

18 Eliade, Mircea, A History of Religious Ideas, vol. 2: From Gautama Buddha to the Triumph of Christianity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982) 277CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Tinh, V. Tran Tam, Isis lactans: Corpus des monuments grēco-romains d'Isis allaitant Har-pocrate (EPRO 37; Leiden: Brill, 1971) 1Google Scholar.

20 Sechat-Hor (Hat-hor) is also the appellation of the goddess Hathor, and perhaps a source of the conflation of Isis and Hathor; see ibid., 2.

21 Frankfort, Henri, Ancient Egyptian Religion: An Interpretation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1948) 6; cf.Google Scholaridem, Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948) 41, 229-301.

22 Ibid.,6-7.

23 Dunand, Françoise, Le culte d'Isis dans le bassin oriental de la Mediterranée (3 vols.; EPRO 26; Leiden: Brill, 1973) 1. 8–9Google Scholar.

24 Tinh, Tran Tam, Isis lactans, 4Google Scholar; Leclant, Jean, “Le rôle du lait et d'allaitement d'après les textes desPyramides,”. JNES 10 (1951) 123 n. 14Google Scholar.

25 Tinh, Tran Tam, Isis lactans, 6–7Google Scholar.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid., 7; see also , PlutarchAnt. 50, 54.6Google Scholar; Dio Cassius 53.2.4 - 5; , JosephusAnt. 18.65-80Google Scholar.

28 Corsu, France Le, Isis: Mythe et mystères (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1977) 31Google Scholar; Tinh, Tran Tarn, Isis lactans, 6–7Google Scholar.

29 Corsu, Le, Isis, 8Google Scholar; , Dunand, Le culte d'Isis, 10Google Scholar; Moret, A., “La legende d'Osiris à l'époque thébaine,” B1FAO (1931) 725–50Google Scholar.

30 Inscription from Philae, era of Ptolemy VI, from , Dunand, Le culte d'Isis, 1. 25–26Google Scholar.

31 Tinh, Tran Tarn, Isis lactans, 10–12;Google ScholarPrice, Theodora Kadzisteliou, Kourotrophos: Cults and Representations of Greek Nursing Deities (Studies of the Dutch Archeological and Historical Society 8; Leiden: Brill, 1978) 8Google Scholar.

32 , Price, Kourotrophos, 199Google Scholar.

33 Ibid., 201.

34 Ibid., 202; cf. Tinh, Tran Tarn, Isis lactans, 28Google Scholar; Reitzenstein, Richard, ARW 7 (1904) 402.Google Scholar Although Price does point out that male deities (e.g., Hermes) may be kourotrophoi, their representation is much rarer, and never includes figures actually “nursing” at their breasts.

35 , Price, Kourotrophos, 175Google Scholar.

36 Schlier, Heinrich, “γάλα” TDNT 1 (1964) 647Google Scholar.

37 Heyob, Sharon Kelly, The Cult of his among Women in the Greco-Roman World (EPRO 51; Leiden: Brill, 1975) 79Google Scholar.

38 Tinh, Tran Tam, Isis lactans, 7, 20Google Scholar; , Heyob, Cult of Isis, 52, 74-76Google Scholar; Dunand, Françoise, Religion populaire en Égypte romaine (EPRO 66; Leiden; Brill, 1979) 3–4;Google Scholaridem, Le culte a'Isis, 781; Corsu, Le, Isis, 15Google Scholar.

39 Egyptian Museum, Berlin, Inv. no. 14078; see PI. 3.

40 Tinh, Tran Tam, Isis lactans, 8Google Scholar; , Dunand, Le culte a'Isis, 1. 97Google Scholar.

41 , Dunand, Le culte a'Isis, 1. 97Google Scholar.

42 , Dunand, Religion populaire, 31Google Scholar; Tinh, Tran Tam, Isis lactans, 8, 29–30;Google Scholaridem, Le culte des divinites orientates en Campanie (EPRO 27; Leiden: Brill, 1972) 30-31.

43 Tinh, Tran Tan, Isis lactans, 18; cf.Google Scholar, Leclant, “Le rôle du lait,” 123Google Scholar.

44 Perdrizet, Paul, Terres cuites grecques d'Egypte de la collection Fouquet (Paris, 1921) xxGoogle Scholar, cited by Tinh, Tran Tarn, Isis lactans, 18Google Scholar; cf. Daumas, François, Les mammisis des temples égyptiens (Paris, 1958) 339–47Google Scholar.

45 Totti, Maria, Ausgewählte Texte der Isis-und Sarapis-Religion (Subsidia epigraphica 12; Hil-desheim: 01ms, 1985) no. 21 (76)Google Scholar; Tinh, Tran Tam, Isis lactans, 19Google Scholar.

46 , Heyob, Cult of Isis, 16–17;Google ScholarWitt, R. E., Isis in the Graeco-Roman World (London: Thames & Hudson, 1971) 136–37Google Scholar.

47 , Heyob, Cult of Isis, 52Google Scholar; , Witt, Isis, 137Google Scholar; Tinh, Tran Tam, Campanie, 30–31Google Scholar.

48 , Totti, Ausgewählte Texte, no. 1 (1-4)Google Scholar; Grant, ET Frederick C., ed., Hellenistic Religions: The Age of Syncretism (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1953) 131–33Google Scholar.

49 , Heyob, Cult of Isis, 60Google Scholar.

50 Tinh, Tran Tam, Isis lactans, 29–30Google Scholar(SEG 8.2, 147 no. 804).

51 Ibid., 30.

52 Berlin, Early Christian collection, Inv. 14726 (Tinh, Tran Tam, Isis lactans, PI. 77, fig. 202)Google Scholar; , Price, Kourotrophos, fig. 26Google Scholar; Kraemer, Ross S., ed., Maenads, Martyrs, Matrons, Monastics: A Sourcebook on Women's Religions in the Greco-Roman World (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988) frontispieceGoogle Scholar.

53 Tinh, Tran Tarn, Isis lactans, 45Google Scholar.

54 , Price, Kourotrophos, 46Google Scholar(fig. 436), cites the grave-stele of Apollonia from Icaria, sixth to fourth century BCE, from which it is difficult to determine whether the woman represented is a kourotrophos deity or Apollonia herself. The “unusual width” of the stele, in Price's opinion, may indicate its “votive character” as a “heroization” of the dead Apollonia.

55 Kloppenborg, John, “Isis and Sophia in the Book of Wisdom,” HTR 75 (1982) 78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 Mack, Burton, Logos und Sophia: Untersuchungen zur Weisheitstheologie im hellenistischen Judentum (SUNT 10; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973) 41, 65Google Scholar; Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler, “Wisdom Mythology and the Christological Hymns of the NT,” in Wilken, Robert L., ed., Aspects of Wisdom in Judaism and Early Christianity (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975) 17–41; cf.Google ScholarMack, Burton, “Wisdom Myth and Myth-ology,” Int 24 (1970) 46–60;Google Scholar, Kloppen-borg, “Isis and Sophia,” 62, 76Google Scholar.

57 , Kloppenborg, “Isis and Sophia,” 62Google Scholar.

58 , Mack, Logos und Sophia, 32Google Scholar.

59 , Kloppenborg, “Isis and Sophia,#x201C; 72, 81Google Scholar.

60 , Camp, Wisdom and the Feminine, 80–90Google Scholar.

61 , McFague, Metaphorical Theology, 27Google Scholar

62 Lefkowitz, Mary R. and Fant, Maureen B., eds., Women's Life in Greece and Rome (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982) no. 111Google Scholar(from Thesleff, Holger, ed., The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period Abo: Åbo Åkademi, 1965] 123–24)Google Scholar.

63 , SoranusGynaecologia 1.19–20 inGoogle Scholar, Lefkowitz and , Fant, Women's Life, no. 178Google Scholar.

64 Malherbe, Abraham J., “Gentle as a Nurse: The Cynic Background to I Thess. ii,” NovT 12 (1970) 203–17.Google Scholar Τροφε⋯ς in Greek is also used as a synonym for παιδαγωγóς: see, e.g., Ephesius, XenophonEphesiaca 1.14.4.Google Scholar See also Price, Kourotrophos.

65 Bynum, “Introduction,” in idem, et al., eds., Gender and Religion, 13.

66 Harvey, Susan Ashbrook, “Women in Early Syrian Christianity,” in Cameron, and Kuhrt, , eds., Images of Women, 289Google Scholar.

67 Ibid.

68 J. Rendel Harris, in idem and Mingana, A., The Odes and Psalms of Solomon (Manchester, 1916-1920) 2. 340–41Google Scholar; Chadwick, Henry, “Some Reflections on the Character and Theology of the Odes of Solomon,” in Granfield, Patrick and Jungmann, Josef A., eds., Kyriakon: Festschrift Johannes Quasten (2 vols.; Münster: Aschendorff, 1970) 1. 269Google Scholar; Drijvers, H. J. W., “The 19th Ode of Solomon: Its Interpretation and Place in Syrian Christianity,” JTS n.s. 31 (1980) 341Google Scholar.

69 translation of Ode 19 by Charlesworth, James H., The Odes of Solomon (Oxford: 1973) 81–82Google Scholar.

70 , Drijvers, “19th Ode,” 341Google Scholar.

71 , Harvey, “Syrian Christianity,” 289Google Scholar.

72 , GosTruth 24.9Google Scholar(, Layton, Gnostic Scriptures, 250)Google Scholar.

73 , Drijvers, “19th Ode,” 341Google Scholar.

74 Ibid., 349.

75 Lagrande, Jean, “How Was the Virgin Mary ‘Like a Man’?” NovT 22 (1980) 97–107Google Scholar.

76 , Baer, “Philo's Use,” 84Google Scholar.

77 Carolin Walker Bynum, “And Woman His Humanity: Female Imagery in the Religious Writing of the Later Middle Ages,” in idem, et al., eds., Gender and Religion, 261.

78 Wellen, G. A., Theokotos: Eine ikonographische Abhandtung über das Gottesmutterbild in frühchristliche Zeit (Antwerp: Spectrum 1961) 14–16Google Scholar.

79 Javelet, Robert, “Marie la femme médiatrice,” RSR 58 (1984) 165CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

80 Tinh, Tran Tam, Isis lactans, 43Google Scholar; , Wellen, Theotokos, 14–90Google Scholar.

81 Tinh, Tran Tam, Isis lactans, 45–47Google Scholar; see above, n. 51.

82 Bunt, Anneweis van de (Hoek, van den), “Milk and Honey in the Theology of Clement of Alexandria,” in Maur, Hans Jörg auf der, ed., Fides Sacramenti, Sacramentum Fidei: Studies in Honour of Pieter Smulders (Assen: VanGorcum, 1981) 32–33; cf.Google Scholar, Drijvers, “19th Ode,” 344Google Scholar.

83 Bunt, Van de, “Milk and Honey,” 37–38Google Scholar.