No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
‘For pagans laugh to hear women teach’: Gender Stereotypes in the Didascalia Apostolorum1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
The broader theme of gender and Christian religion presupposes three definitions: of Christianity, of religion, and of gender. Probably none of these is as simple as it might first appear, but that of gender is perhaps the most critical for our theme. Although there are still some who would use the terms ‘gender’ and ‘sex’ interchangeably, there is a growing tendency to recognize an important distinction between gender – that is, femininity and masculinity, regarded as largely socially constructed – and sex, the biological distinction between male and female human beings. Gender is best considered as born out of interactions between men and women. This means that the gender roles which make up what we experience as masculinity and femininity cannot be defined by looking only at men or at women, although ideas about both can be gained from looking at one group or the other. That is why gender history is different from women’s history, and that is why both women’s history and gender history are essential enterprises. We need women’s history because we need to know where women were as well as where they were not.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1998
Footnotes
1
Paraphrased from Didascalia Apostolorum [hereafter Did. Ap], ch. 15, R. Hugh Connolly, Didascalia Apostolorum (Oxford, 1929), pp. 132–3. The standard English translations of the text are R. Hugh Connolly, Didascalia Apostolorum (Oxford, 1929) and Arthur Vööbus, The Didascalia in Syriac (Louvain, 1979), Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium [hereafter CSCO]: text vols 401, 407, translation vols 402, 408. This article will hereafter refer to the translation by Vööbus.
References
2 I recognize that there is a serious discussion about the extent to which both gender and sex are constructed, and also a historiographical debate about the ability of historians to analyse these constructs. A detailed discussion of these questions cannot be offered here, but see for instance King, Ursula, ‘Gender and the Study of Religion’, in King, Ursula, ed., Religion and Gender (Oxford, 1995), pp. 1–38 Google Scholar, Roper, , Oedipus and the Devil (London, 1994), pp. 1–34 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (discussing the early modern period, but nevertheless important for the wider historical debate), Davies, Natalie Zemon, ‘“Women’s history” in transition: the European case’, and Scott, Joan Wallach, ‘Gender: a useful category of historical analysis’, both in Scott, Joan Wallach, ed., Feminism and History (Oxford, 1996), pp. 79–104 Google Scholar and 152–80 respectively.
3 For a discussion of the philosophical and medical understanding of sex and gender, see Laqueur, Thomas, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge, MA, 1990)Google Scholar; for the changing understanding of marriage, see Boswell, John, The Marriage of Likeness: Same Sex Unions in Pre-modern Europe (London, 1995), pp. 3–52 Google Scholar and 162–198.
4 Miles, Margaret R., ‘Patriarchy as political theology: the establishment of North African Christianity’, in Rouner, Leroy S., ed., Civil Religion and Political Theology (Notre Dame, IL, 1986), pp. 169–86 Google Scholar, here p. 184.
5 Wagener, Ulrike, Die Ordnung des ‘Hauses Cottes’. Der Ort von Frauen in der Ekklesiologie und Ethik der Pastoralbriefe (Tubingen, 1994), pp. 92–104 Google Scholar, also p. 237.
6 Methuen, Charlotte, ‘Widows, bishops and the struggle for authority in the Didascalia Apostolorum ’, JEH, 46 (1995), pp. 197–213 Google Scholar. For the role of the bishop, see Georg Schöllgen, ‘Die Anfànge der Professionalisierung des Klerus und das kirchliche Amt in der Syrischen Didaskalie’ (University of Bonn, Habilitation thesis, 1991).
7 For the functions of deaconesses, see Did. Ap., Vööbus, 408, pp. 156–8.
8 Did. Ap., Vööbus, 402, p. 100. In view of the undoubted importance of the widows in his congregation and the author’s later use of the altar metaphor to restrict the movement of the widows, I think it is correct to view the orphans as of minor importance here, included only to emphasise the picture of widows as the receivers of charity, especially since the older recension speaks only of widows (Vööbus, 402, p. 48*).
9 See Methuen, , ‘Widows, bishops and the struggle for authority’, p. 202 Google Scholar, and, for the widow as altar in other early Christian texts, Osiek, Carolyn, ‘The widow as altar: the rise and fall of a symbol’, Second Century, 3 (1983), pp. 159–69 Google Scholar.
10 Did. Ap., Vööbus, 408, p. 203 and see also p. 160, recommending that the fathers of sons should adopt girl orphans as suitable future wives for their sons. The insistence that men should marry as early as possible probably means that the terms ‘husband’ and ‘man’ cannot really be distinguished, although this is a difficult conclusion since the terms ‘wife’ and ‘widow’ – and hence ‘wife’ and ‘woman’ – clearly can be.
11 Did. Ap., Vööbus, 402, pp. 12 and 20. Here the author of the Didascalia seems to be opposing the ascetic trend which is generally associated with Syriac Christianity. See Murray, Robert, Symbols of Church and Kingdom: Early Syriac Tradition (Cambridge, 1975), pp. 11–15 Google Scholar, and, for a detailed discussion of asceticism in the Syrian Church, Vööbus, Arthur, A History of Asceticism in the Syrian Orient, 2vols, CSCO 184, 197 (Louvain, 1958–60)Google Scholar.
12 The author repeats – and clearly accepts – Paul’s statement that the man is the head of the woman, so that although he instructs husbands that they are to care for their wives (Did. Ap., Vööbus, 402, p. 12), he reminds wives that they are subject to their husbands, ‘because the head of the woman is the man and the head of the man that walks in the way of righteousness is Christ’ (p. 20). In the marital relationship it is, theoretically at least, the man who takes the initiative: ‘A husband shall not condemn or despise his wife, and shall not be lifted up against her, but let him be merciful and let his hand be open to give. And let him court his wife alone, and please her with honour’ (p. 12). Wives are particularly enjoined not to quarrel, ‘especially with your husband, lest your husband, if he is a heathen, because of you be offended and blaspheme against God … Or again, if your husband is a believer, that he be constrained as one who knows the scriptures, and shall say to you the saying from Wisdom: “It is better to sit upon a corner of the roof than to dwell with a talkative and contentious woman within the house”’ (pp. 26–7).
13 Did. Ap., Vööbus, 402, pp. 13 (concerning husbands) and 24 (concerning wives).
14 Ibid., p. 24.
15 Ibid., p. 26
16 Ibid., p. 24.
17 Ibid., pp. 13–14.
18 Ibid., p. 14.
19 Ibid., p. 13.
20 Miles bas suggested that sucb concern about clothing reveals ‘a disagreement over the issue of acculturation versus separation’, with the supporters of a separatist theology promoting ‘a distinguishing drabness of dress’: Miles, , ‘Patriarchy as political theology’, p. 174 Google Scholar. Although the Didascalia is unusual in discussing men’s clothing and appearance in such detail, there is no doubt that its author is promoting a separatist theology.
21 Did. Ap., Vööbus, 402, p. 21.
22 Ibid., pp. 16 (men bathing), 26 (women bathing); Did. Ap., Vööbus, 408, pp. 131–3 (seating in the church).
23 See Cotter, Wendy, ‘Women’s authority roles in Paul’s churches: countercultural or conventional?’, Novum Testamentum, 36 (1994), pp. 350–72 Google Scholar, esp. 358–66, for the architecture of the women’s quarters in classical Greek houses, Susan Walker, “Women and housing in classical Greece: the archaeological evidence’, in Cameron, Averil and Kuhn, Amélie, eds, Images of Women in Antiquity (London and Canberra, 1983), pp. 81–91 Google Scholar. Cotter recommends that caution be exercised in describing the role of women in ‘Graeco-Roman’ culture, since there were important differences in the role of women in Greek and Roman households. Roman women were accorded a good deal more freedom than Greek women in interacting with men in household and society. Roman houses were not divided into men’s quarters and women’s quarters, while Greek houses were; Roman women accompanied their husbands to private functions, while the Greek women were expected to remain secluded in the house and dinner parties were for men only.
24 Did. Ap., Vööbus, 408, pp. 144–5, 151.
25 Ibid., pp. 144–5.
26 Did. Ap., Vööbus, 402, p. 14.
27 Ibid., pp. 14–15. The expectation seems to be that only men will be literate, and that not all of them will be (the bishop should, if possible, be a man of learning: Ibid, p. 44). There is no suggestion that women are literate, although it is of course possible that those who had been teaching were.
28 Ibid., p. 17.
29 Did. Ap., Vööbus, 408, pp. 137–8.
30 Did. Ap., Vööbus, 402, pp. 137–9. These latter instructions are addressed to ‘the people’ but the references to handicrafts and work suggest that they are actually addressed to the men of the Church.
31 Did. Ap., Vööbus, 408, pp. 146, 148.
32 Did. Ap., Vööbus, 402, pp. 144–5.
33 Did. Ap., Vööbus, 408, p. 145. A similar argument is offered against baptizing by women: if women could lawfully baptize, Jesus would have been baptized by his mother (p. 151).
34 Did. Ap., Vööbus, 402, p. 99.
35 For the Bride of Christ as an ecclesiological motif, see Murray, , Symbols of Church and Kingdom, pp. 131–3 Google Scholar. For this motif as a liberation for women, see Methuen, , ‘Widows, bishops and the struggle for authority’, pp. 208–9 Google Scholar.
36 The bishop also takes over perhaps the only feminine authority role recognized by the author, for he is not only father but also mother of the congregation: Did. Ap., Vööbus, 402, p. 104, and see Schöllgen, , ‘Die Anfange der Professionalisierung des Klerus’, pp. 261–2 Google Scholar.
37 The author may be seeking to counteract a social structure in which women had more freedom. Susan Ashbrook Harvey believes that ‘Syrian society before its Christianisation provided for its upper-class women a relative degree of freedom and respect, resulting from and dependent upon the advantages of an affluent society.’ See Harvey, Susan Ashbrook, ‘Women in early Syrian Christianity’, in Cameron and Kuhrt, Images of Women, pp. 288–98 Google Scholar, especially pp. 293–4.
38 Torjesen, Karen Jo, When Women were Priests: Women’s Leadership in the Church and the Scandal of their Subordination in the Rise of Christianity (San Francisco, 1995), pp. 164–5 Google Scholar.