Women: Their Visibility and Agency and Loss of Agency. In Early Christian Texts. Joanna Dewey. Prologue

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1 Women: Their Visibility and Agency and Loss of Agency In Early Christian Texts Joanna Dewey Prologue When I began New Testament studies in the 1960s, the women in the NT such as there are were for all practical purpose invisible. I remember one acquaintance, in her fifties, coming home from church furious, because she had just discovered that women were the first at the empty tomb. No one had bothered to mention this, although she had attended church all her life. In the 1970s, with the second wave of feminism, the situation changed, and changed rapidly. 1 In 1976, at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Norman Perrin called the women at the empty tomb in the Gospel of Mark surrogate disciples. And today it is quite common to hear scholars refer to these women simply as disciples. I became involved with feminist NT criticism early on. In 1974, in her living room at Union Seminary in New York, Letty Russell gathered Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Sharon Ringe, and me, and we wrote a short feminist book. She had secured support from the National Council of Churches and in 1976 The Liberating Word: A Guide to Nonsexist Interpretation of the Bible was published. 2 It was a beginning. A major milestone was the publication in 1983 of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza s In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins. 3 Finally in the early 1990s, there were enough academically trained feminist scholars to publish both the Women s Bible 1 An important early book was Rosemary Radford Ruether, Religion & Sexism: Images of Woman in Jewish and Christian Traditions (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974). 2 Ed. Letty M. Russell, In cooperation with the Task Force on Sexism in the Bible, Division of Education and Ministry, National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976). 3 (New York: Crossroad, 1983). 31

2 Westar Fall 2018 Dewey, Loss of Women s Agency 32 Commentary 4 on the entire Bible and Searching the Scriptures: A Feminist Commentary on the NT edited by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. 5 Feminist criticism of the NT had come of age. While many scholars, including feminist ones, question Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza s argument that there was a full discipleship of equals at the start, 6 scholars generally agree that women were considerably more prominent in the Jesus movements and in the early churches than the evidence of the NT suggests. Indeed, we have only the tip of the iceberg. In this paper, I am primarily concerned for women s visibility and agency, and corresponding attempts to restrict their agency. First, I will explore women s visibility and agency in the various Pauline traditions. I will look at the authentic letters of Paul, then the deutero-pauline epistles (Colossians, Ephesians), the Book of Acts, and the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, and finally, the Pastoral Epistles (1,2 Timothy, Titus). In Paul s own letters we can see the extensive activity of women and teachings supporting women s equality but also a few teachings limiting their freedom. Traditions of women s active ministry and statements attempting to restrict them continue. In the second century we find both the continuing visibility and agency of women and increasing efforts to silence them. The Pauline traditions provide us with abundant evidence of both women s visibility and agency and of attempts to silence and control women. Already in the second century, and continuing in the third and fourth, forces were gathering and reinforcing each other to limit women s agency. In the fourth and fifth centuries, with the inclusion in the NT canon of the Pauline writings limiting women, and Christianity becoming a legal, indeed favored, religion, the hierarchical patriarchal form of Christianity consolidated its victory. So next I will discuss the various factors contributing to patriarchal Christianity s success. 4 Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe eds. (Louisville: Westminster John Know, 1992). 5 (New York: Crossroad, 1994). 6 In Memory of Her,

3 Westar Fall 2018 Dewey, Loss of Women s Agency 33 Traditions by and about Paul What follows is a brief survey of women s visibility and agency in writings by and about Paul. Scholars have written books and articles about every aspect of what follows. I am illustrating the different portrayals of and teachings about women found in these writing. What follows is a descriptive account of my interpretations developed over the decades since 1974, not a detailed academic argument for my positions. Paul s Authentic Writings. 7 Portrayals of Women: Paul worked to found churches in the predominately Gentile Eastern Mediterranean. 8 He was working in a Greco-Roman environment that expected women to be involved with religion and at times take leadership roles. Ross Kraemer writes, It was a commonplace in Greco-Roman antiquity that religion was women s business, and it was not a compliment. 9 Not surprisingly, therefore, we find abundant evidence of women leaders in Paul s writings. Romans 16 with its long list of names lists eight women by name and two more by relationship and 18 men by name: in all, nearly forty per-cent are women. Considering names in all Paul s letters, the same percentage obtains. Clearly there were women with agency visible in Paul s world. Furthermore, there is no title that Paul applies to a male leader that he does not also apply to a woman leader. We have Junia, the apostle (Rom 16:7), Phoebe, a minister (Rom 16:1) and the term Paul may use most, co-worker(s) (e.g. Prisca and her husband Aquila (Rom 16:3). There is also one title used only of a woman, prostatis, used of Phoebe 7 Scholars generally agree that the following seven letters were composed by Paul: 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, 1, 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Philemon, Romans. Paul composed them primarily in the 50 s of the first century CE. 8 Whether Paul was appealing primarily to Jews, Godfearers, Gentiles or all three does not matter for this paper. Furthermore, there is sufficient evidence of women s leadership among Jews as well. 9 Ross Shepard Kraemer, Her Share of the Blessings: Women s Religions among Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Roman World. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 3.

4 Westar Fall 2018 Dewey, Loss of Women s Agency 34 (Rom 16:2). Nina Livesey makes a convincing argument that prostatis should be translated leader. 10 How then have we gotten the impression that there were no women leaders around Paul and independent of Paul? Instead of bringing first century assumptions that women are relatively common as leaders in religious groups, we bring our assumptions through at least the mid twentieth century that women are not religious leaders. And text editors and translators have done their best to make this seem the case. Some medieval monk could not believe that Paul had called a woman an apostle and changed the name Junia to Junius a name not attested in antiquity. 11 Through the RSV translation, Phoebe was called a deaconess of the church at Cenchreae, implying she was an assistant there rather than the church s minister. 12 In Philippians 4:2, Paul exhorts Euodia and Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Paul describes them as women who had worked with him for the gospel (co-workers). Nonetheless, a (male) student explained to me that his pastor said they were probably gossiping together in a corner, disrupting the meeting. Interpreters found it easy enough to minimize the women. In conclusion, however, Paul presents women as fully visible and acting with full agency as traveling missionaries and house church leaders. He takes women s leadership for granted. Paul s Teachings about Women: In Galatians 3:28, Paul quotes a pre-pauline baptismal formula: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus. The different structure for male and female echoes the creation story of Genesis 1:27, Male and female created he them. Here we have the three major divisions of society defined: Us and them (for Paul: Jew and Greek; for the Greeks: Greek and barbarian); slave and free status, and among free people, male and female; that is, the triad of race, class (slave or free) and gender. This 10 Women in the Authentic Letters of Paul, Forum 4 (2015) On the textual history of Junia/Junius see Eldon Jay Epp, Junia: The First Woman Apostle (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005). 12 In Greek the specific feminine form of the word deacon had not yet been invented.

5 Westar Fall 2018 Dewey, Loss of Women s Agency 35 formula represents a major overturning of basic norms of society. Throughout much of Christian history, Galatians 3:28 has been thoroughly tamed: women may be equal before God in heaven, but they are subordinate to men on earth. The other teachings specifically dealing with women all occur in 1 st Corinthians. The first passage provides Paul s views on marriage and celibacy and suggests that Paul took seriously the gender equality of Galatians 3:28 on earth (1 Cor 7). Paul makes clear that he prefers celibacy, but that marriage is acceptable. The passage throughout alternates the perspective of the man and the perspective of the woman. Verse 4 reads: For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. So far this is the normal understanding in antiquity. Paul, however, continues, likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, the wife does. This stating of rights for both genders is remarkable in the first century Mediterranean world. The passage continues paralleling the husband and the wife. On the whole, the passage is an amazing statement of gender equality around issues of marriage, divorce, and singleness. Given the patriarchal culture, however, situations for men and women were not equal. For example, if a man stays married to an unbelieving woman, he still has male privilege. If the woman stays married to a pagan man, she is under his authority, for the man determines the religion of the family and the wife is to obey. Nonetheless, 1 st Corinthian 7 is an astounding statement of gender equality. The other two passages, 1 Corinthians 11:2-11 on behavior of women in worship and 1 Corinthians 14:33b-36, an instruction to women to keep silent and be subordinate, raise the issue: are they by Paul s hand or are they later interpolations? Westar s Scholars Version of Paul s letters treats both passages as interpolations. 13 On the other hand, two major feminist interpreters of 1 st Corinthians, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and 13 Arthur J. Dewey et al, The Authentic Letters of Paul: A New Reading of Paul s Rhetoric and Meaning (Salem, OR: Polebridge, 2010), 75-76, For arguments in favor of interpolation, see Livesey, Women, and the literature cited there. My position accepting the verses in chapter 11 but not in 14 is probably the most common.

6 Westar Fall 2018 Dewey, Loss of Women s Agency 36 Antoinette Clark Wire, attribute both passages to Paul. 14 I concur with the Scholars Version that 14:33b-36 is an interpolation probably from the second century. The evidence is very strong. Furthermore, given the prominence of women in the Corinthian community, I do not think that Paul would have risked trying to silence them altogether. I am inclined, however, to argue that 1 Corinthians 11 is from Paul. The passage has abundant problems of interpretation, and its sequence of arguments is less than lucid. What is clear is that women were praying and prophesying publicly in worship and Paul (or whoever composed it) is distressed about it. The charismatic description of worship fits the situation of Paul s time. Paul seems to end the passage trying to limit the women. As I understand it as part of Paul s larger argument, Paul would say in effect, Yes, women, you have freedom, but please don t use it so much. Paul is rather freaked by what women behaving freely looks like and wants the women to be more subdued. He approves of the theory of gender equality but is not fully comfortable with its practice. In summary, then, Paul s authentic letters composed in the middle of the first century provide abundant evidence for women s visibility and agency in the Pauline and other churches. Paul affirms women s freedom from the patriarchal household in his use of the baptismal formula, in Christ there is no male or female. He affirms women s equality in matters of marriage and celibacy. He may at times be disturbed by the way women use their freedom. So Paul s writings also include hints of restrictions on women s agency, hints that are made explicit in the interpolation in chapter 14, and that are developed strongly in later writings in Paul s name. Of course, Paul s letters to the churches did not become authoritative at the time of their composition. The only writings with that status in the first century were Jewish scriptures. It was still primarily an oral world, and the letters were occasional letters to particular communities used to communicate at a distance when oral communication 14 Schüssler-Fiorenza, In Memory of Her (She is not sure about 1 Cor 14); Antoinette Clark Wire, The Corinthian Women Prophets: A Reconstruction through Paul s Rhetoric (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990).

7 Westar Fall 2018 Dewey, Loss of Women s Agency 37 was not possible. The churches were free to disagree with Paul and it would seem they sometimes did. Yet a written tradition was begun; first steps were taken towards authoritative Christian texts. Colossians and Ephesians: Continuation of a Letter-Writing Tradition. Paul s letters were composed in the middle decades of the first century. We have no further information by or about Paul until the last years of that century. Two pseudonymous letters have survived written in the name of Paul. 15 It is impossible to date these writings with any certainly. Colossians is probably not earlier than 80CE; 16 Ephesians may well be early second century. Both are modelled on Paul s letters. Colossians appears to address a particular situation. Ephesians is more general. It is based on Colossians, quoting much of it and also citing other Pauline letters. Ephesians is our first evidence that Paul s letters were being collected. These two letters contain the first Christian household codes. 17 Household codes were common in Greco-Roman culture. They stated the respective duties of husband/wife, parents or father/child, and master/slave. They are reciprocal but they are not mutual: the dominant party is to love, treat fairly, live considerately; the inferior party is to obey, often in fear and trembling. 18 Paul appears to have been familiar with the household code pattern but rejected it. Galatians 3:28 affirms the equality of male and female and free and slave. First Corinthians 7 also suggests Paul s awareness and rejection of this reciprocal structure: in the middle of the discussion on marriage/celibacy Paul has a section on circumcision (race) and on slavery(class) before returning to issues around marriage (gender). below. 15 Also 2 Thessalonians, which does not address gender. The Pastorals will be discussed 16 So Bart D. Ehrman, TheNew Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. 4 th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008) xxxi. 17 See also the household code in 1 Peter 2: phobeō. 18 Translations generally say for respect for wives, not fear, but it is the same Greek word,

8 Westar Fall 2018 Dewey, Loss of Women s Agency 38 In contrast, these two letters affirm the household codes as the proper social order (Col 3:18-4:1; Eph 5:21-6:9). They are prescriptive texts. Prescriptive texts tell groups of people how they ought to behave; they do not tell us how people are actually behaving. In fact, they provide evidence that the opposite behavior is occurring. One does not need to instruct women to be silent if they are keeping silence. In the code in Colossians, the instruction on wives/husbands is short: Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly (Col 3:18-19). The section on slaves/masters is three times as long, exhorting the slaves to work wholeheartedly, as done for the Lord not for your masters (Col 3:22-4:1). The author of Colossians seems far more concerned about the behavior of slaves. As a guide to opposite behavior occurring, it seems likely that slaves in the Colossian community may see their participation in the Lord as entailing earthly freedom as well. Perhaps the passage is also evidence that wives are not submitting to their husbands, or the two verses may be present in the letter largely to fill out the standard formula of the household code. Women s visibility and agency is still noticed in this letter. While many more men are mentioned, there is one woman greeted: Nympha and the church in her house (Col 4:15). Nympha is presumably the leader or minister of this house church. Ephesians, the later letter, presents a different picture. No women are visible at all, and indeed only one man besides Paul himself. Further, the household code contains a full theological rational for the submission of wives. For the husband is head of the wife just as Christ is head of the church Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands (Eph 5:22-24). The role of the husband is also theologized: as Christ gave himself for the church, so husband should love and give himself up for his wife (Eph 5:25-33). Unlike the self-giving of the husband, the analogy of the church and Christ only reinforces the wife s duty to obey. Only this portion on husbands and wives is given a developed theological rational, suggesting that the behavior of wives may well be the primary issue for the author of Ephesians.

9 Westar Fall 2018 Dewey, Loss of Women s Agency 39 Thus, Colossians and Ephesians have moved from Paul s there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, no male and female, in Christ. Their view of the social structure of the ideal church conforms to that of the dominant culture. How far actual women and slaves were conforming to this pattern cannot be determined from the letter. The fact that the code is prescriptive suggests they were not. Why bother to develop a theological rationale if women already accepted their subordination in Christ? Acts of the Apostles, Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, and the Pastoral Epistles In the first half of the second century, we find various writings and traditions concerning Paul and three short letters called the Pastorals claiming to be from Paul (1, 2 Timothy, Titus). (The stories of the Apocryphal Acts may well have been put in writing later but some at least of the stories were circulating orally during this time since the Pastoral Epistles appear to be a response to them.) These represent competing views in the debate over Paul s memory. The canonical and Apocryphal Acts are narratives about Paul. Neither makes any reference to Paul as a letter writer nor any quotations or allusions to the content of Paul s letters. The theologies of all of these writings do not echo Paul s thought and differ from each other. Ephesians shows early use of Paul s letters and in the second half of the second century, both orthodox and heterodox writings start using materials from Paul s letters. But in the first half of the second century, Paul s letters seem to be of no importance. What we do have are various portraits of Paul. Acts of the Apostles. The canonical Acts of the Apostles presents us with a travelling missionary continually moving around the Eastern Mediterranean preaching first to Jews and then moving out to Gentiles. Paul keeps proving from Jewish scripture that Jesus is the Messiah and was raised from the dead. He himself is law-abiding as the Roman governors attest but Jews in each place oppose him and he repeatedly lands in prison. He is a great miracle worker, healing the sick and miraculously getting out of

10 Westar Fall 2018 Dewey, Loss of Women s Agency 40 prison. Paul is presented as a culture hero, a law-abiding, miracle-working founder of churches. 19 Luke, the author of Acts, presents an ambiguous picture of women around Paul. Women are explicitly visible as members of the communities. Paul when persecuting Christians prior to his conversion explicitly drags off men and women (Acts 8:3; 9:2; 22:4). Woman appear in the narrative, named (Lydia, Damaris, etc.) and unnamed (a few Greek women and men of high standing, four unmarried daughters of Philip with the gift of prophecy). Women are clearly visible. They are not, however, shown as ministering: Prisca/Priscilla and Aquila are present in Paul s letters as travelling missionaries independent of Paul. They appear in Acts but with no public ministry they take Apollos aside to explain things better (Acts 18:2,24). Public missionary activity is reserved for men. In Acts, women are visible but have restricted agency. 20 Apocryphal Acts. The Apocryphal Acts contain a series of stories of various apostles preaching. In the Acts of Paul, Paul is presented not as law-abiding but rather as an antistate, anti-marriage, wandering charismatic ascetic. The heart of his message is continence. Celibacy for women offered a way out of the patriarchal household and out of childbearing. Thecla sitting at her window hears Paul preaching and escapes to find Paul and refuses to marry her fiancé. Her mother and fiancé cannot change her mind and so turn her over to the state. The state persecutes her (fire, wild beasts) but she is miraculously rescued and baptizes herself. She then travels, enlightening many with the word of God. The story with its many miraculous features probably does not take written shape until late in the second century, but likely circulates orally much earlier. By the end of the century Tertullian attests that women are claiming the authority of Thecla to 19 Throughout this section, there are verbal echoes of Joanna Dewey, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus Pp in Women s Bible Commentary: Revised and Updated. Eds Carol A. Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe and Jacqueline E. Lapsley (Louisville: Westminster/John Know, 2012). 20 So Turid Karlsen Seim, The Double Message: Patterns of Gender in Luke & Acts (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994).

11 Westar Fall 2018 Dewey, Loss of Women s Agency 41 baptize and teach, evidence that there were ascetic preaching women. Thecla was popular in the early centuries. A sixth century triptych has Christ in the middle, Peter on one side and Thecla on the other, with a small Paul at her feet. Furthermore, the story of Thecla does not stand alone in the Apocryphal Acts: there are twelve named women in various Apocryphal Acts who hear an apostle preaching, reject sex and marriage, and get persecuted. And yet, they always get their way and thrive. These women were ancient Christian heroines. Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy, Titus). First and Second Timothy and Titus are called the Pastoral Epistles because they contain instructions for pastors of congregations. They claim to be from Paul to two younger colleagues, Timothy and Titus, who are imagined to be pastors of local congregations. They were composed during the first half of the second century. They represent perhaps the most total capitulation of all the writings that were eventually included in the New Testament to the patriarchal, hierarchical and male-dominated culture of the ancient world. The pastoral Epistles are an attempt to use the authority of Paul to influence or control church order and individual behavior in second-century churches. Women are occasionally named in these writings. Paul is reminded of Timothy s faith, a faith that was first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice (2 Tim 1:5). The mention of female forbears only attests to the important role women played in the spread of Christianity. Greetings are to be sent to Prisca and Aquila and also to Claudia, an otherwise unknown woman. Women are still pictured as important in the movement. The Pastorals, however, are prescriptive texts. The author gives general instructions to particular groups of people on how they ought to behave. He is prescribing what he thinks a Christian congregation should be like, not what congregations actually were like. As we shall see, it is likely that the author of the Pastorals was countering the ascetic celibate women celebrated in the Apocryphal Acts This was first suggested by Dennis Ronald MacDonald, The Legend and the Apostle: The Battle for Paul in Story and Canon (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983).

12 Westar Fall 2018 Dewey, Loss of Women s Agency 42 In 1 Timothy 2:8-15, women are to be subordinate to men; they are not to have authority over men; they are to remain silent. The vocabulary and content are similar to the interpolation silencing women in 1 Corinthians 14. Then the author appeals to the creation stories as justification for women s subordination: For Adam was formed first, then Eve and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. The author continues, but (de) she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty. Thus, women are to achieve salvation by becoming mothers, embedded in the patriarchal households under male authority not by being a celibate ascetic. All other New Testament writings are unanimous in making no distinction by gender for salvation. So it looks very much like the author is opposing the celibate independent women of the Apocryphal Acts. In Titus 2:3-5, the author further divides women by age. Older women are to behave respectably and to teach young women to love their husbands and children, to fulfill their household duties, and to submit to their husbands. The author wants to employ women to teach other women to internalize their subordinate status. Perhaps most informative for the actual practices of women is the passage on widows (1 Tim 5:3-16). The office of widow is found in other writings and inscriptions. It appears to be an early title for a woman devoted to Christian ministry not dependent on a man (her husband, father or other male relative). These instructions for widows suggest that, in the churches the author knew, there were groups of celibate women living together and engaged in ministry. The author wants to eliminate these groups of women as far as possible, incorporating them back into patriarchal households. What the women probably understood as ministry, he describes as follows: They [Widows] learn to be idle, gadding about from house to house, and they are not merely idle, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not say. So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, and manage their households (1Tim 5:13-14). The stories of the Apocryphal Acts and the veneration of Thecla suggest that he was not successful in re-embedding women in patriarchal families.

13 Westar Fall 2018 Dewey, Loss of Women s Agency 43 The Pastorals represent only one voice in the debate among Christians about the legacy of Paul. In the early centuries the Pastorals probably had little or no impact on congregational behavior. They were not widely known; probably few people ever read them or heard them read. They may well have been added to some codex of Pauline material to supplement or correct other writings contained in the codex. 22 They were not considered authoritative until the fourth century. They did, however, eventually become part of the New Testament canon, a canon selected by literate male bishops. They have had considerable impact in modern times. The household codes of Colossians and Ephesians and the strictures from the Pastorals were used heavily to defend slavery in the nineteenth century and to exclude women from church leadership in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The household codes were never the reality in the ancient churches, but they have had considerable impact in modern times. Factors Contributing to the Triumph of Patriarchy Five factors converged to enable and solidify patriarchal Christianity. The five are 1) the typical process of institutionalization; 2) the move from house churches into public space; 3) the gradual shift from oral to written authority; 4) the reintroduction and increasing importance of sacrificial understandings of Jesus death and of the Eucharist; and last, 5) the trump card, Constantine s conversion. Some of these can be dealt with quite briefly; two, the shift from oral to written authority and the reintroduction of sacrifice need more development. The typical process of institutionalization. It is hard for groups that do not conform to dominant cultural patterns to continue to survive. 23 Life on the margins is difficult. In the sixteenth century, the new Quaker movement in England was very egalitarian, including women s leadership. In the 17 th century, Quakers reverted to male-only 22 So David E. Aune, The New Testament in its Literary Environment (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987), That many early Christian groups were counter-cultural, see discussions of Pauline traditions above, and the discussion under sacrifice below.

14 Westar Fall 2018 Dewey, Loss of Women s Agency 44 leadership. The Communist revolution in Russia began as a liberation movement. It became Stalin s totalitarian regime. Marginal groups such as the early church gatherings tend either to die out or to become more and more conformed to the values and social structures of the dominant culture. The typical process of institutionalization happened in Christianity, perhaps to the point of betraying the original visions of Jesus and Paul. The move from house churches into public space. Space was strongly gendered among Greeks, Romans, and Jews. Philo, an elite first-century Greek-speaking Jew, expressed the ideal as follows: Market places, and council chambers, and courts of justice, and large companies and assemblies of numerous crowds, and a life in the open air full of arguments and actions relating to war and peace, are suited to men; but taking care of the house and remaining at home are the proper duties of women. 24 For the first couple of centuries, Christian groups met primarily in people s homes around meals where women s leadership was expected and fully appropriate. The locations of church gatherings in homes facilitated both the participation of and leadership by women. However, starting in the mid-third century, we find the beginning of archeological evidence of buildings constructed specifically for Christian worship. Christianity was moving from private to public space. Women s leadership in public space was problematic and was increasingly excluded. The gradual shift from oral to written authority. 25 The media world of antiquity was a manuscript world with high residual orality. 26 But to define it that way is to define it from the perspective of the elite, those few who could read and write, and who ruled the 24 Philo, The Special Laws, III, Joanna Dewey, From Storytelling to Written Text: The Loss of Early Christian Women s Voices, BTB 26 (1996) 71-78, Dewey, Textuality in an Oral Culture: a Survey of the Pauline Traditions, in Orality and Textuality in Early Christian Literature. Ed. Joanna Dewey. Semeia 65 (1994) Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (London/New York: Methuen, 1982).

15 Westar Fall 2018 Dewey, Loss of Women s Agency 45 Empire. Literacy rates were low among both pagans and Jews, perhaps a maximum of five per cent. 27 It was higher in urban than rural areas, and higher among men than women. Perhaps as many as fifteen per cent of urban males had some literacy. 28 Only the elite and high-level retainers of the elite routinely had the ability to read and write easily. Individuals in these groups did not begin to embrace Christianity until well into the second century. Thus, I would suggest that early Christianity was an oral phenomenon in a predominately oral culture. Authority was based in oral communication not yet in manuscripts. As indicated above, manuscripts did not become authoritative at the time of their composition. As long as authority was oral, as it was in the early urban churches, full participation and leadership were open to all regardless of class and gender. Slaves, freedpeople, and women of all classes were able to become leaders; lack of literacy was not a hindrance. In the second half of the second century we find greatly increased use of texts by groups later deemed heterodox or orthodox. It is not until the third century that we begin to find use of gospel and letter passages in worship; it is not until the fourth century that the New Testament Canon begins to be determined. Like the typical process of institutionalization and the move from private to public space, the gradual move to manuscript rather than oral authority facilitated more hierarchical male leadership, since they were the ones who could read. And it was this hierarchical literate male leadership that determined what was to be included or excluded from the NT canon: they chose the writings that restricted women s behavior to be canonical. As literacy rates increased in the sixteenth and following centuries and as printed bibles became readily available, it is those writings that limit women s agency that form our picture of the early churches. It was not the actual reality in the first and early second centuries. 27 William V. Harris, Ancient Literacy. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989); Catherine Hetzer, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001). Sociological estimates are even lower, suggesting two to four per cent overall. 28 Harris, Literacy, 267.

16 Westar Fall 2018 Dewey, Loss of Women s Agency 46 The reintroduction and increasing importance of sacrificial understandings of Jesus death and of the Eucharist. 29 For most of us, sacrifice may not seem obviously related to gender. Yet animal or blood sacrifice functioned to structure hierarchical male-dominated society in antiquity; with only the symbolic sacrifice of the Eucharist, it continues some of the same work in churches today. Cross-culturally, blood sacrifice was a means of constructing society so that power and property descend from father to son or adopted son, and women contribute children but do not hold power. The practice of blood sacrifice was not universal but very common in societies with lands or herds to pass on to the next generation. In antiquity, among pagans and Jews, blood sacrifice was the dominant religious practice. In the sacrificial ritual, an animal would be killed, giving its life to the deity; the priest would spread its blood on the altar, in exchange for some benefit to humanity, be it victory in war, the removal of the pollution of childbirth, or the forgiveness of sins. This taking of life is essential symbolically. For ritual slaughter is opposed to women s giving birth. Nancy Jay writes, what is needed to provide clear evidence of jural paternity is an act as powerful, definite, and available to the senses as birth. 30 Stanley Stowers writes, The most fundamental problem in these patriarchal societies is how to eliminate, subordinate, or bypass the claims that women might represent [over their children] with the dramatic and bloody rite of childbirth. Thus, men have employed an equally dramatic and bloody rite of their own, animal sacrifice. 31 Blood sacrifice opposes men s intentional killing to women s giving birth. Deliberate controlled death is opposed to giving of life. For in sacrificial cultures, it is not all blood 29 Much of this section is taken from my article, Sacrifice No More, BTB 41 (2011) 1-8. The cross-cultural work on sacrifice and gender was done by Nancy Jay (Throughout Your Generations Forever: Sacrifice, Religion, and Paternity [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992]; See also Sacrifice as Remedy for Having Been Born of Woman, Pp in Clarissa W. Atkinson, Constance H. Buchanan, and Margaret R. Miles, eds. Immaculate and Powerful: The Female in Sacred Image and Social Reality (Boston: Beacon, 1985). 30 Jay, Sacrifice as Remedy, Stanley K. Stowers, Greeks Who Sacrifice and Those Who Do Not: Towards an Anthropology of Greek Religion, in The Social World of the First Christians: Essays in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks (ed. L. Michael White and O. Larry Yarbrough; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995) 330.

17 Westar Fall 2018 Dewey, Loss of Women s Agency 47 that is pleasing to the gods. In animal sacrifice, the blood drained from the animal victims is valued as holy and atoning, while blood connected with women s giving birth (and sometimes menstruation) is considering polluting and offensive to the gods. Blood sacrifices are not merely rituals affirming and legitimating social structures created by other means. 32 They actually create the lines of patrilineal descent. Among the Greeks and Romans, a child became a member of the family not by birth but several days later when the father offers a sacrifice at the purified household hearth. Stowers writes: Sacrifices... actually caused membership in an all male line of descent... Pollution and expiatory sacrifices actually caused a separation of women from men. Communion sacrifice actually effected membership and bonds of community in hierarchically ranked groups, both identifying and constituting the group. 33 Court cases over inheritance entailed arguments about who ate at which sacrifices. In the Greco-Roman world, sacrifice was the means for constituting all of society. It was fundamental for kinship and for politics, for membership in a household, a city, a kingdom, and the empire. To opt out of sacrificial rites in the ancient world was exceedingly difficult, involving far more than a refusal to worship the emperor. Yet this is what the early Christians did. The Christians were known to the pagans of the Roman Empire as those who rejected sacrifice. Richard Gordon, an historian of Rome, writes of ascetic cults, including early Christianity: The basis of their life is rejection of the ordinary world, above all rejection of the family and private property, the two institutions at the centre of the Greco-Roman sacrificial system... The refusal of sacrifice was, in fact, the most uncompromising possible rejection of the civic model, and it marks off Christianity from all other 32 Olivier Herrenschmidt, Sacrifice: Symbolic or Effective? in Between Belief and Transgression: Structuralist Essays in Religion, History, and Myth. Ed. Michel Izard and Pierre Smith; trans. John Leavitt (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), Stowers, Greeks who Sacrifice, 328.

18 Westar Fall 2018 Dewey, Loss of Women s Agency 48 organized sects of the empire, as the only one to take this stand. 34 Thus, the Christian rejection of sacrifice was not just a religious act proclaiming loyalty to the one God, but also an act of resistance to the whole hierarchically ordered social structure of the Empire. In their proclamation, There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus, early Christians affirmed the end of the sacrificial social order (Gal 3:28). Just as the household codes came into Christian writings, so also sacrifice crept into Christian religious practice with all its ability to order society hierarchically and to marginalize women. There are hints in later NT writings such as 1 Peter and Revelation. The solid beginnings can be seen clearly in the mid-third century in the writings of Cyprian. He is the first to refer to the body and blood of Christ as the object of sacrifice by Christian priests... the first to call the bishop sacerdos, priest, and the first to make a fully explicit transition from a universal apostolic heritage to a single line of apostolic descent attached to the episcopate. 35 By the fourth century, orthodox Christianity had metaphorically fully incorporated blood sacrifice. We find 1) the understanding of the eucharist as a real blood sacrifice, 2) the common naming of Christian leaders as priests, that is, those who offer sacrifice, 3) the restriction of priests to males in the proper line of descent, that of apostolic succession, 4) the superiority of priests to the laity, and 5) the separation of women from the holy. Orthodox Christianity had thoroughly abandoned its earlier egalitarian convictions and practice. The trump card, Constantine s conversion. In the early fourth century after becoming emperor, Constantine declared Christianity a licit religion. While there were undoubtedly still a great variety of Christian groups, not all of which had capitulated to the dominant social structure, Constantine needed a religion that could unify and justify the empire. It was this orthodox Christianity which he embraced. He and succeeding 34 Religion in the Roman Empire: The Civic Compromise and its Limits, in Pagan Priests: Religion and Power in the Ancient World, eds. by Mary Beard and John North (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), 248, Cyprian, Letter 63, quoted in Jay, Throughout Your Generations, 116.

19 Westar Fall 2018 Dewey, Loss of Women s Agency 49 emperors threw the power of the state behind hierarchical male-dominated, sociallyconservative forms of Christianity. There was no longer no slave or free, no male and female. Women s agency within Christianity was largely silenced.