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Widows, Bishops and the Struggle for Authority in the Didascalia Apostolorum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

Extract

Recent interest in the position of women in the early Church has stimulated new investigations of texts and documents which consider or define the roles of women. A number of surveys have appeared which consider a spectrum of early sources, and most of these refer to the rules laid down for widows and deaconesses in the Didascalia apostolorum. A simple reading of the Didascalia interprets it as a description of contemporary church practice which reveals a Church that allowed women a certain amount of involvement in restricted spheres: widows are to pray for the Church and deaconesses to assist at the baptism of women and to visit Christian women in their homes. Since the Didascalia does not empower women it is generally regarded with a certain amount of suspicion by those postulating a more positive role for women in early Christianity. However, a closer examination suggests that such a reading is not the whole story. Rather than having a purely descriptive function, it is more likely that the Didascalia represents an attempt to change the structure of ministry in the Churches in Syria, opposing some practices and supporting others. This article will argue that the internal evidence of the Didascalia reveals it to be an attempt to impose an episcopal structure on the Church and to restrict the activity and authority of women. Seen against a background of other sources this suggests that there were groups of Christians in second- and third-century Syria and Asia Minor which recognised women's authority, and that the Didascalia was written partly in opposition to such groups.

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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

This article is a thoroughly reworked version of an honours dissertation submitted to the University of Edinburgh at Easter 1991. I am grateful for the guidance of my supervisor, David Wright, and for the encouragement of Professor Klaus Berger and Dr Anne Jensen.

1 See for example Gryson, Roger, The ministry of women in the early Church, Collegeville 1976Google Scholar; Jensen, Anne, Gottes selbstbewusste Töchter, Freiburg-Basel-Wien 1992Google Scholar; Lang, Judith, Ministers of grace, Slough 1989Google Scholar; LaPorte, Jean, The role of women in early Christianity, New York-Toronto 1982Google Scholar; Thurston, Bonnie Bowman, The widows: a woman's ministry in the early Church, Minneapolis 1989Google Scholar.

2 The standard English translation is that by Connolly, R. Hugh, Didascalia apostolorum, Oxford 1929Google Scholar. References give the chapter of the Didascalia (Did. Ap.), followed by the page number in the Connolly edition. A more recent translation by Vööbus, Arthur is The Didascalia in Syriac (Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium ccccii, ccccviii) Louvain 1979Google Scholar. Discussions of the Didascalia's date and place of origin are offered by Connolly, , by Vööbus, and by Achelis, Hans and Flemming, Joh., Die syrische Didaskalia, Leipzig, 1904Google Scholar.

3 Ibid. 366; Connolly, , Didascalia apostolorum, pp. xxxiv–xxxvGoogle Scholar; Strecker, Georg, ‘On the problem of Jewish Christianity’, in Bauer, Walter, Orthodoxy and heresy in earliest Christianity, Philadelphia 1971, 254ffGoogle Scholar. Strecker highlights the Jewish nature of the Didascalia itself. The question of Jewish Christianity in Syria and its influence on the Didascalia is central to any full consideration of that document, but is beyond the scope of this article.

4 Eight of the Didascalia's twenty-seven chapters are devoted to a discussion of the office, responsibilities and behaviour of the bishop. For a discussion of a bishop as author see Gibson, Margaret Dunlop, The Didascalia apostolorum in English London 1903, p. vi–viGoogle Scholar; Connolly, , Didascalia apostolorum, p. xciGoogle Scholar; Achelis, and Flemming, , Die syrische Didaskalia, 378Google Scholar.

5 Did. Ap. 14–15, pp. 130ff.

6 Ibid. 16, pp. 146ff.

7 Ibid. 14, p. 130.

8 Ibid. 14, p. 132.

9 Ibid. 15, p. 136.

10 Ibid. 15, pp. 132, 138.

11 Ibid. 15, p. 138. The phrase ‘offering an answer’ is my translation. Connolly has ‘making an answer’; Vööbus has ‘by way of reply’. The context implies that the widows may not offer answers to religious and doctrinal questions without the guidance and permission of the bishop or deacon.

12 Did. Ap. 15, p. 133.

13 Ibid.15, p. 136

14 Ibid.15, pp. 132, 143.

15 Ibid.15, p. 134. ‘widows but wallets’ is a play on words Greek: ‘me chras, alia phras’. This list of complaints against the widows in the Didascalia is similar to, although much longer than, that found in Polycarp's letter to the Philippians 4, Early Christian writings, ed. Louth, Andrew, Harmondsworth 1987, 120Google Scholar.

16 Did. Ap. 15, p. 141.

17 Ibid. 15, pp. 132–3.

18 Ibid. 15, p. 132.

19 Ibid. 15, p. 142.

20 Ibid. ‘Beyond the law of the Gospel’ follows Vööbus's translation; Connolly has ‘beside’.

21 Leipoldt, Johannes, Die Frau in der antiken Welt und im Urchristentum, Gütersloh 1962, 138Google Scholar.

22 Lang, , Ministers of grace, 67Google Scholar.

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24 Bartlet, James Vernon, Church-life and Church-order Oxford 1943, 121–2Google Scholar; Gryson, , Ministry of women, 38Google ScholarThurston, , Widows, 99Google Scholar.

25 Did. Ap. 15, p. 132.

26 Ibid. 6, pp. 42–3.

27 Ibid. 5, p. 40.

28 Ibid. 15, p. 142.

29 Ibid. 16, p. 146. A question of interpretation arises here, for it is not clear whether this instruction implies that women were so strictly segregated that they were seen only by men of their own family. Since the instruction implies that the bishop, a man, performed the baptism, such a strict degree of segregation is unlikely. It is more probable that baptism involved the anointing of the whole body. A ban on a man's seeing a woman naked does not necessarily imply a situation of strict segregation. Further evidence is offered by the discussion of bathing habits: it is preferable that women should not bathe with men, but recognised that this is sometimes unavoidable: Did. Ap. 3, p. 25.

30 Ibid. 16, p. 146.

31 Ibid. 16, pp. 147–8.

32 LaPorte, , The role of women, 114–15Google Scholar.

33 Achelis, and Fleming, , Die syrische Didaskalia, 268281Google Scholar.

34 Ibid. 276.

35 Ibid. 277–8.

36 This motif appears in various early Christian documents, including the letter of Polycarp to the Philippians, the most likely source of it for the Didascalia. Its use is discussed in Osiek, Carolyn, ‘The widow as altar: the rise and fall of a symbol’, Second Century iii (1983), 159–69Google Scholar.

37 Although the image is only developed with specific reference to widows' behaviour in three passages, two passing allusions suggest that it remained in the author's mind and was a motivating factor in what he wrote: Did. Ap. 15, p. 143, and 18, p. 156.

38 Ibid. 15, p. 133.

39 Ibid. 15, p. 134.

40 Remaining pure includes not doing business or having contact with those frowned upon by the bishop: ibid. 15, pp. 138–40.

41 Ibid. 15, p. 156.

42 Ibid. 9, p. 88.

43 Ignatius, , Magnesians 6Google Scholar, Early Christian writings, 72; Ignatius, Trallians 3, ibid. 79.

44 It also demonstrates that the Didascalia was written at a time when the Holy Spirit was still thought of as feminine in Syria. The word used in Syriac to refer to the Holy Spirit, ‘ruha’, was originally feminine in Syriac, as it is in Hebrew. In the course of the fifth century it began to be treated as a masculine noun by Syriac writers: Sebastian Brock, ‘The Holy Spirit as feminine in early Syriac literature’, in Soskice, Janet Martin (ed.), After Eve: women, theology and tradition in the Christian tradition, London 1990, 74–5Google Scholar. The Syriac text of the Didascalia contains examples of both usages.

45 Did. Ap. 9, p. 88.

46 Ibid. 9, pp. 88–90. This argument is not applied to orphans, who are seen simply as the deserving recipients of the congregation's support and are likened only in this sense to the altar of God: ibid. 17, p. 154.

47 See Pagels, Elaine, The gnostic Gospels, Harmondsworth 1982Google Scholar, and von Campenhausen, Hans, Ecclesiastical authority and spiritual power, London 1969Google Scholar, for more detailed discussions of this development. The earliest examples of the attempt to impose a hierarchy of bishops, deacons and presbyters seem to be the letters of Ignatius and the pastoral epistles.

48 Did. Ap. 12, p. 116.

49 Osiek, , ‘The widow as altar’, 168–168Google Scholar.

50 Achelis, and Flemming, , Die syrische Didaskalia, 275Google Scholar: ‘Die Witwen, die der Verfasser in Auge hat, sind nicht schwache Weiblein, sondern geistesmächtige Prophetinnen’. They comment: ‘Sollte jemanden dies Urteil überraschen, so verweise ich vorläufig auf die Apost. Kirchenordnung c. 21 (24): “Drei Witwen sollen eingesetzt werden, zwei um im Gebet zu verharren fur alle, die in Anfechtung sind, und um die Offenbarung zu empfangen über alles, was not tut, eine aber, um bei den Frauen zu sitzen, die von Krankheit geplagt werden”’: ibid. 275 n. 2.

51 Ibid. 279.

52 Did. Ap. 23, pp. 194ff.

53 Connolly, , Didascalia apostolorum, p. xxxiiiGoogle Scholar.

54 Did. Ap. 23, p. 200.

55 Ibid. 23, p. 202.

57 Cf. Fox, Lane, Pagans and Christians, 558Google Scholar.

58 Did. Ap. 26, pp. 216ff.

59 Ibid. 26, pp. 216–40. The Second Legislation, or Deuterosis, is the ceremonial legislation of the Old Testament: Connolly, , Didascalia apostolorum, p. xxxivGoogle Scholar.

60 Did. Ap. 26, p. 240.

61 Ibid. 26, pp. 242–56.

62 See n. 3 above.

63 Schenk, W., ‘Die Briefe an Timotheus I und II und an Titus (Pastoralbriefe) in der neueren Forschung (1945–1985)’, in Aufstieg und Niederlage der römischen Welt II 25.4, Berlin-New York 1987, 3426Google Scholar.

64 Tertullian, , Ad uxorem i.6, Tertullian: treatises on marriage and remarriage, ed. LeSaint, William P., Westminster, Md 1956, 19Google Scholar.

65 Stählin, Gustav, χηρα, Theologisches WSrterbuch zum Neuen Testament, ix. 431Google Scholar; Leclercq, Henri, ‘Veuvage, Veuve’, Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrélienne el de liturgie, xv. 2Google Scholar, 3008.

66 1 Tim. v. 9–10. There has been much discussion of the dating of the pastoral letters: I follow the consensus opinion as summarised by Schenk, , ‘Die Briefe an Timotheus I und II und an Titus’, 3407Google Scholar.

67 Tertullian, , De virginibus velandis 9, Tertullian: writings, trans. Thelwall, S. and Holmes, P., iii, Edinburgh 1884, 33Google Scholar.

68 For example Ignatius, , Smyrna 13Google Scholar, Early Christian writings, 104; Tertullian, , De virginibus velandis 9Google Scholar, Tertullian: writings, iii. 33; Acts of Peter 29, New Testament Apocrypha, 6th edn, ed. Hennecke, E., revSchneemelcher, Wilhelm, trans. Wilson, Robert McLachlan, Cambridge-Louisville 1991 (hereinafter cited as NTAp 1991), ii. 311Google Scholar.

69 Gryson, , Ministry of women, 20Google Scholar.

70 Tertullian, , De virginibus velandis 9, Tertullian: writings iii. 33Google Scholar.

71 Idem, De monogamia 11, Tertullian: treatises 93.

72 Idem,Ad uxorem i. 4, ibid. 16.

73 Jensen, , Gottes selbstbewusste Töchter?, 76–9Google Scholar. Jensen argues (p. 79) that Hippolytus is not describing a reality but attempting to impose a norm.

74 Thurston, , Widows, 72–3Google Scholar.

75 MacDonald, Dennis Ronald, The legend and the Apostle, Philadelphia 1983Google Scholar.

76 Blatz, Beate, ‘The Coptic Gospel of Thomas’, in NTAp 1991, i. 95Google Scholar.

77 Meyer, Marvin W., ‘Making Mary male: the categories “male” and “female” in the Gospel of Thomas’, New Testament Studies xxxi (1985), 554CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

78 ‘The Gospel of Thomas’, in Robinson, J. M. (ed.), The Nag Hammadi Library, New York 1977, 130Google Scholar.

79 See for example Buckley, Jorunn Jacobsen, ‘An interpretation of logion 114 in The Gospel of Thomas’, Novum Testamentum xxvii (1985), 245–72Google Scholar; Meyer, , ‘Making Mary male’, 554–70Google Scholar.

80 Ibid. 567.

81 Buckley, , ‘An interpretation of logion 114’, 271–2Google Scholar.

82 This may reflect a conflict between a ‘Peter’ community, which does not allow women authority, and a ‘Mary’ community which does: Schüngel-Straumann, Helen, ‘Maria von Magdala - Apostolin und erste Verkiinderin der Osterbotschaft’, in Bader, Dietmar (ed.), Maria Magdalena - Zu einem Bild der Frau in der christlichen Verkiindigung, Munich-Zurich 1990, 28–9Google Scholar.

83 Two English translations of the Acts of Judas Thomas are available, ‘The Acts of Thomas’, NTAp 1991, ii. 322–411, and that by Klijn, A. F. J., The Acts of Thomas, Leiden 1962Google Scholar. References are to the former and give the section of the Acts of Judas Thomas (AJT), followed by the page reference in NTAp 1991. For a summary of the discussion of dating and origin of the Acts see Davies, Stevan L., The revolt of the widows: the social world of the Apocryphal Acts, Carbondale-Edwardsville 1980, 510Google Scholar, and Drijvers, Hans J. W., ‘The Acts of Thomas’, in NTAp 1991, ii. 323Google Scholar. The origins of the Acts of Judas Thomas are close in time and place to those of the Didascalia. The two documents also offer marked similarities in their descriptions of the baptism of women, which may imply that they originated from communities which had certain practices in common: Connolly, , Didascalia apostolorum, p. 1Google Scholar. The baptisms referred to are those of Mygdonia (AJT, p. 121, NTAp ii. 388), and of Tertia, Vazan and Vazan's wife (AJT 157, NTAp ii. 401). The latter follows almost exactly the procedure laid down for the involvement of deaconesses in baptism in the Didascalia apostolorum Did. Ap. 16, p. 146), with Mygdonia anointing the women who have been baptised by the apostle, while the apostle himself anoints the man Vazan.

84 The various Apocryphal Acts have been compared to Greek romantic novels. Virginia Burrus argues that they also contain elements of folklore: Chastity as autonomy: women in the stories of Apocryphal Acts, Lewiston-Queenston 1987, 25–6Google Scholar. MacDonald believes them to have arisen from an oral tradition: Legend and the apostle, 18. Wilhelm Schneemelcher concludes that the different Acts can be summed up as ‘fictional prose narrative’: ‘Second and third century Acts of Apostles: introduction’, in NTAp 1991, ii. 83.

85 The distinctive features of the communities giving rise to the Apocryphal Acts have been much discussed in recent scholarship. Davies believes that they originated in communities of sexually continent women who were known as widows, and that they were stories written by women for a readership consisting primarily of women, both within these communities and in the wider Church: Revolt of the widows, 92–4, 106–9. Support is offered to this thesis by Burrus, who believes that the written versions of the acts have their origins in stories told among women: Chastity as autonomy, 76–7. The work of both is rejected by Schneemelcher, who maintains that ‘sociology, psychoanalysis and feminist ideology… are scarcely helpful’ in the consideration of these documents: ‘Introduction’, 82. Their methodology has also been criticised by Bovon, François and Junod, Eric, ‘Reading the Acts of the Apostles’, Semeia xxxviii (1986), 161–71Google Scholar, and by Kaestli, Jean-Daniel, ‘Fiction littéraire et réalité sociale’, La fable apocryphe I (Le Champ des Apocryphes 1, 1990), 279302Google Scholar. Kaestli, however, recognises that the study of the Apocryphal Acts as historical documents is ‘quite legitimate and full of promise’: Response to Virginia Burrus’, Semeia xxxviii (1986), 119Google Scholar.

86 Cf. Drijwers, , ‘Acts of Thomas’, 327–8Google Scholar; Klijn, , Acts of Thomas, 35ffGoogle Scholar.

87 See Puech, Henri-Charles, ‘Gnostic gospels and related documents’, in New Testament Apocrypha 3rd edn, ed. Hennecke, E., revSchneemelcher, Wilhelm, trans. Wilson, Robert McLachlan, London 1963, i. 286–7Google Scholar.

88 Did. Ap. 26, pp. 240, 242. AbouZayd argues that the Acts of Judas Thomas condemns only corrupt marriage, that is, marriage outside the new order, so that ‘married people who are both converted to the Lord and baptised into his name do not need to divorce each other’: AbouZayd, Shafiq, Ihidayutha: a study of the life of singleness in the Syrian Orient: from Ignatius of Antioch to Chalcedon 451 A.D., Oxford 1993, 44Google Scholar However, although it could be said that in the Acts of Judas Thomas ‘God's marriage is defined as the right of a man to take one wife legally and for a woman to take one husband’, ibid., this marriage is chaste. The story of the conversion of the king's daughter and her bridegroom (AJT 11–13, NTAp ii. 343–4) and the subsequent declarations of the bridal couple to the king (AJT 14–16, NTAp ii. 344–5), make it clear that they have resolved not to have sexual intercourse with one another. Similarly, Vazan recounts that his marriage has been sexually continent, and is, therefore, acceptable for a newly converted Christian: AJT 110, NTAp ii. 398–9. Such a definition of marriage does not preclude the possibility that outsiders regarded those who practised it as opposed to marriage.

89 AJT 124, NTAp ii. 389.

90 The central narrative tells the story of Mygdonia's conversion, but she is not the only important woman. It is a woman, the flute player, who is the first to recognise Thomas as an apostle: AJT 9, NTAp ii. 343.

91 AJT 130, NTAp ii. 391.

92 AJT 136–8, NTAp ii. 392–4.

93 AJT 139, NTAp ii. 394.

94 AJT 157, NTAp ii. 403.

95 For example, Charisius' plea to Mygdonia to return to him (AJT 116, NTAp ii. 386), or Misdaeus' lack of breakfast (AJT 136, NTAp ii. 397).

96 Brooten, Bernadette J., Women leaders in the ancient synagogue Chico 1982, 149–50Google Scholar. Brooten's study considers (p. 1) the evidence of nineteen Greek and Latin synagogue inscriptions in which women bear various titles. She argues (p. 149) that, while these titles have been seen as honorific, this view ‘is based less on evidence from the inscriptions themselves or from other ancient sources than on current presuppositions concerning the nature of ancient Judaism’. In fact, there is no reason to believe that such titles did not reflect actual functions of women, although the cases of women holding such positions may have been rare.

97 Ibid. 57–72. The inscriptions which Brooten considers all come from Italy, and she gives no instances of this title in Syria.

98 The other is that of the bishop as compassionate physician: Did. Ap. 10, pp. 104–5.

99 Ibid. 9, pp. 93–4. Cf. Isaiah lxvi. 10, 11, which refers to Jerusalem as a mother suckling her. children.

100 Achelis, and Flemming, , Die syrische Didaskalia, 362Google Scholar.

101 Robert Murray points out that ‘the place of Mother is occupied by the Holy Spirit’ in the writings of Aphrahat, in the Odes of Solomon, and in the Acts of Judas Thomas: Symbols of Church and kingdom: studies in early Syriac tradition, Cambridge 1975, 143Google Scholar. This, combined with the Didascalia's comparison of the deaconess and the Holy Spirit, may lend further weight to the suggestion that the author of the Didascalia knew ‘mother of the congregation’ as a title for women holding authority. It should, however, be noted that the Holy Spirit is also spoken of as mother in non-semitic traditions of early Christianity: Brock, , ‘The Holy Spirit as feminine’, 81Google Scholar. Gabriele Winkler warns against the assumption that such ‘feminine’ terminology automatically refers to women: ‘Überlegungen zum Gottesgeist als mütterlichem Prinzip und zur Bedeutung der Androgynie in einigen friihchristlichen Quellen’, in Berger, Teresa and Gerhards, Albert (eds), Liturgie und Frauenfrage: ein Beitrag zur Frauenforschung aus liturgiewissenschqftlicher Sicht, St Otillien 1990, 24–6Google Scholar. However, although maternal metaphors do indeed sometimes refer to men, as does Paul's assertion that ‘I feed you with milk, not solid food’ (1 Cor. iii. 2), it is important not to be blind to the possibility that these and other similar, ‘feminine’, metaphors may in other contexts refer to the roles of women.

102 Jensen, , Gottes selbstbewusste Töchter?, 273–4Google Scholar. The movement is often known as Montanism, but this name first appears around 350 CE: ibid. 272.

103 Ibid. 326.

104 Tertullian, , De praescriptione haereticorum, 51Google Scholar, Tertullian: writings, ii, Edinburgh 1870, 50Google Scholar.

105 Idem, De baptismo i. 17, Tertullian: writings, i, Edinburgh 1869, 251–2.

106 Cyprian, ep. lxxv. 10–11, Letters of Cyprian, ed. Clarke, G. W., New York 1989, 84–7Google Scholar. For the date of the letter see ibid. 248–9.

107 Cf. Thraede, Klaus, ‘Ärger mit der Freiheit, Die Bedeutung von Frauen in Theorie und Praxis der alten Kirche’, in Scharffenorth, Gerta and Thraede, Klaus (eds), Freunde in Christus werden, Gelnhausen-Berlin 1977, 136Google ScholarJensen, , Gottes selbstbewusste Tochter?, 356Google Scholar.

108 Ibid. 358. Other sources from the Churches of the eastern Mediterranean in the late fourth century also refer to women who were presbyters and bishops: ibid. 356.